Pretend for a moment you are an editor at USA Today.
You have two scandal-tinted stories, one about Brett McDonnell (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2015/09/08/gop-consultant-guilty-ethics-broun-mcmorris-rodgers-odonnell/71883628/) and one about Hillary Clinton’s newest apology for lying about her email server (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/09/08/hillary-clinton-m-sorry-personal-email-state-department/71913792/).
Your task:
How do you play them on a page?
Which piece will draw more attention when you strip it across the top of A-5?
Which is of secondary interest that you will play into a much lesser one-column opening down near mid-page?
Cinch call for anyone who has been to school – except at hard left newspapers such as Today where the everyday game is Hammer Republicans Regardless.
So much untruth, hyperbole and outright lies pours out of left-wing newspapers daily, it is a miracle a Republican ever is elected in this republic.
The Brett McDonnell scandal was played across the top in USA Today, and Hillary’s latest burbling was buried.
If you are not his wife, you may ask, who is Brett McDonnell?
After digesting the 11-paragraph story this morning over breakfast, I am unable to summarize his monstrous, execution-worthy crime. What did he do? Hillary I can condense into a single opprobrium.
The McDonnell headline, “GOP consultant admits to lying in ethics probe,” lures you inside, but reporter Paul Singer bungled his chore, to convey what Mr. McDonnell did wrong.
Not surprisingly, this is the first time a politician has been charged with such a heinous mistake. You could have wagered six months’ rent that the first sucker would be a Republican.
Mr. McDonnell is characterized variously as a “debate coach” and a “communications consultant” for (hold your breath) “top” Republicans. Mitt Romney is the only “top” GOP’er ID’d. The other two named are more obscure than your alcoholic brother-in-law.
The opening paragraph says the gentleman fibbed about how much campaign work he did while being paid from lawmakers’ office accounts.
Please Beat Him up
That sounds like cause for 50 lashes, hourly, for five years, life in prison, and Grandma Noonan’s rocky mashed potatoes every Sunday.
We are left with a single query, which is more obscure, the previously unknown Mr. McDonnell or his sin against humanity?
Only someone who lives in the weeds will appreciate the coolness of this:
We are told, by USA Today, that House of Representatives’ rules and federal law prohibit members of Congress in most cases from mixing campaign funds and office accounts. Political duties and office accounts are to be paid for separately.
“Most cases,” writes Mr. Singer. Does that mean Democrats are excused?
I have been praying all day that an ace marksman draws Mr. McDonnell into his sights and shoots the cad before he further filthifies the Western world. Afterward, he should be hanged, right side up and then upside down. The nerve of him.
The dirty dog sank to his bony, guilt-ridden knees and confessed last Thursday that during a 21-month period he was paid $43,000 from the taxpayer-funded office accounts of a since-defeated Georgia pol while “routinely provid(ing) assistance” to the Congressman’s doomed campaign.
Mr. O’Donnell’s family members held up posters at the hearing: “Even Republican Lives Matter.”
His potential sentence: Live for five years in a majority Democrat community.