Sam Hoyt Blames The Messenger, Media Blames Blogs
by Matt at Aug 21st, 2008
WBEN reported this morning that the “Assembly Ethics Committee has apparently begun it’s probe” of Assemblyman Sam Hoyt.
Hoyt’s primary opponent, Barbra Kavanaugh, refused to comment on the scandal, telling WBEN, ”The assembly itself has a process to deal with that, and it has been sent there and that’s where it belongs, not in the middle of this campaign.”
The Buffalo News, as I noted yesterday, says that women in question were not interns, as Illuzzi has claimed.
What amuses me most about this is how Sam Hoyt took the “attack the messenger” approach in his statement yesterday. He stated:
It’s sad that my political opponents have chosen to resort to the lowest tactics by dredging up a private matter from years ago just 21 days before an election. The timing is no accident. They would rather wallow in this type of politics than debate the challenges that face our community.
Leaking damaging information close to an election is hardly anything new in politics. Al Gore did it to George W. Bush in 2000. In 2006, Democrats, well aware of Mark Foley’s inappropriate behaviors with congressional pages, sat on the information until close to the midterm election in order to gain the most politically from it. Of course, despite their advanced knowledge, they blamed Republicans, particularly Tom Reynolds, of trying to cover it up, and not “protecting the children.”
What really gets me about this story is how the media is trashing, not just Joe Illuzzi, but all blogs. Now, to clear, I don’t see Illuzzi’s PoliticsNY.net as a blog. Nor does he. He wrote earlier today “We are not a blog or a gossip column!!!” But that’s not stopping Sandy Beach from not only trashing Illuzzi for his tactics, but bashing blogs in general.
I’ll be the first to admit there are a lot of blogs that publish a lot of crap. But the negative generalizing of blogs, in my opinion, is out of resentment that blogs occasionally scoop the media… and the media doesn’t like it when that happens.
I think it was 2000 when Gore ran against Bush…I mean, I’m pretty sure…
Sorry about the typo, Adam.
How much of the “laziness” is attributed the mainstream media local for information that fits a desired narrative? Regardless of the agenda. In my opinion, places like SpeakupWNY and Illuzzi’s IQ impaired site are great places to cobble said narrative together. If memory serves me correctly, it’s been an open secret in political circles - which invariably leak to media ones - that Hoyt had a problem “keeping it in his pants.” So maybe the media doesn’t go looking for the story, they go looking for the “big story.” A 100% pure political opportunist/hack and a community message board that runs the gamut from quiet contemplative discussion to loud, drunken bar room dick-waving would seem like great places to find the “big story” (read: most sensational story).
Either way, excellent post.