This Type of Mistake Gives Self-Important Mainstream Editors More Fodder Against Bloggers

A couple of days ago a commenter to V-Squared wondered in print:

Don’t you wonder if Briley had voted differently on the numerous unmaintained newstands littering certain sidewalks in Nashville that the Tennessean endorsement [for Karl Dean instead of David Briley] might have gone a different way? Somehow I have to think the two are connected.

The only way that comment makes any sense to me is if the commenter assumes that David Briley voted for the news rack regulation bill (that Mayor Purcell vetoed), and if he or she assumes that the Tennessean was using Mr. Briley's supposed support of newsrack regulation against him.

If such is what the commenter (and, in his re-posting, V-Squared Captain AC Kleinheider) intended, then the comment is in error. Here is the roll call vote on the passage of the news rack regulation bill:


David Briley clearly voted against the news rack bill and his own campaign manager, Mike Jameson, who was the bill's primary sponsor. So, if Mr. Briley would have voted differently, then he would have voted against the Tennessean, which opposed the regulation. How would that have gained him an endorsement?

We can criticize the Tennessean for a lot of things, but their endorsements so far do not necessarily suggest that they are using the news rack regulation as a litmus test for endorsements. While they endorsed Diane Neighbors (who abstained from voting without an explanation) against Carolyn Baldwin Tucker (who voted for the bill), they endorsed John Summers (who voted "yes") for at-Large and they did not endorse Buck Dozier (even though he abstained from voting without an explanation).