Liberal Hope on the C-J's Front Page
I don't think it qualifies as reporting so much as "wishing."
Courier-Journal reporters apparently attempted to ask every Kentucky Senator whether they would support a cigarette tax increase in 2009. We'll talk about the champions who said "no" and the liberals who said "You can't take it high enough for me" later. Right now, see if you can follow the slimy twists of the truth to turn 20 of 37 responses that avoided supporting a tax increase into the headline "Survey: Cigarette-tax backed"
Senator Tom Jensen responded "I haven't said absolutely no."
That response is simplified for accounting to Senator Tom Jensen "won't rule it out."
Adding up these responses, the C-J reports that "twenty of 37 members of the 2009 Senate said they would either vote for an increase, would consider it or would not rule it out."
From that, they "report": "a Courier-Journal survey found substantial support for an increase."
There is a serious, unsubstantiated leap from "I haven't absolutely said no" to "a Courier-Journal survey found substantial support for an increase." In fact, if you count up the responses like Senator Jensen's that are fairly obviously not inclined to raise the tax but were afraid to make an absolute statement, a majority of 20 seem disinclined towards the tax. Mark Hebert points out how little support was actually expressed in the survey, describing it as:
C-J Finds About 1/3rd Of State Senators Would Vote "Yes" On Cig Tax Hike, Most Others Non-committal
We are used to baseless liberal hope from the C-J's editorialists and political columnists. But this is front-page "reporting." Tom Loftus, Deborah Yetter and Stephenie Steitzer need to complain loudly to their editors for this serious hackery.
