Which side are you on?
I like Wonkette; they’re scrupulously accurate political news, with a lefty rhetorical bias but without scrimping on the dick jokes.
What’s not to like?
Well.
Something that creeps into their reporting occasionally (and is much more common in less scrupulous outlets) showed up recently in No Lawmakin’ Today, Oregon Republicans Are HIDING! Yes, Again; it’s also showed up in their reporting on Oregon Republican’s earlier flights to deny the legislature quorum:
They do tend to excoriate Republicans for parliamentary tactics that, were the situations reversed, I suspect that they’d find laudable in a Democrat.
(I may be wrong about that; if I am then everything that follows doesn’t apply to Wonkette either. It all still applies to a bunch of other media outlets, though.)
Mocking Republicans for their views is fine.
Really; these Oregon Republicans are certainly not folks I’d want anywhere near government, and certainly I’d never vote for any of them.
But.
They are using a legitimate tactic; they’re following the rules.
The Oregon Senate rules do require a quorum be present.
If Republicans controlled that chamber and Democrats left town to deny quorum over, say, an attempt to rollback abortion protections then I suspect that Wonkette would be cheering them on.
And that’s not OK.
The same thing applies to discussing McConnell and Obama’s Supreme Court nomination: yes, McConnell is a loathesome turtle-faced buffoon but if the Senate were controlled by Democrats when Kegs Kavanaugh was nominated last fall and a Democratic Speaker had somehow managed to get it together to block that nomination then I suspect they’d be treated as a hero.
And that’s not OK either.
You need to judge everyone by the same standards whether they’re on your “team” or not.
Judge McConnell and the Oregon Republicans to be reprehesible sellouts to a racist propertied class, sure; that’s fair (and true, by the way).
But they’re not wrong to use parliamentary trickery to achieve their goals.
If you don’t like the system, change the system.
But stop complaining that they’re using it as it is.
Hate the game.
The Wonketteers rightly pointed out on Twitter that they _had_ mentioned this issue in earlier coverage of Oregons right-wing-flight (Oregon Republican Knows How To Protect Environment, And That Is ARMED STANDOFF, at https://www.wonkette.com/oregon-republicans-ready-to-shoot-cops-to-protect-precious-precious-polluters): “Yr Wonkette remembers being pretty inspired back in 2003, when Texas Democrats holed up in a motel in Oklahoma, killing a Republican redistricting bill that would have gerrymandered the state.”
They are not un-aware of this issue. 😉