I was looking around the internet on Wednesday after President Obama's visit to Amazon's facility in Chattanooga TN, for more information on his 'grand bargain' tax proposal and happened upon this editorial in the Chattanooga Times Free Press. The original headline, "Take Your Jobs Plan and Shove it Mr. President" has now been changed to "President Obama's Policies Have Harmed Chattannooga Enough".
I was shocked by this headline appearing in a newspaper's Op-Ed page even by today's standards of how people are allowed to disrespect this President and I stopped reading when the writer started making a case for the stimulus harming Chattanooga's employment picture.
That’s because your jobs creation plans so far have included a ridiculous government spending spree and punitive tax increase on job creators that were passed, as well as a minimum wage increase that, thankfully, was not. Economists — and regular folks with a basic understanding of math — understand that these are three of the most damaging policies imaginable when a country is mired in unemployment and starving for job growth.
Even though 64 percent of Chattanooga respondents said they would rather you hadn’t chosen to visit our fair city, according to a survey on the Times Free Press website, it’s probably good that you’re here. It will give you an opportunity to see the failure of your most comprehensive jobs plan to date, the disastrous stimulus scheme, up close and personal.
So it was heartening to learn that Drew Johnson, the writer of this Op-Ed, was
fired today.
Free Press editor Drew Johnson has been terminated after placing a headline on an editorial outside of normal editing procedures.
Johnson’s headline, “Take your jobs plan and shove it, Mr. President: Your policies have harmed Chattanooga enough,” appeared on the Free Press page Tuesday, the day President Barack Obama visited the city.
The headline was inappropriate for this newspaper. It was not the original headline approved for publication, and Johnson violated the normal editing process when he changed the headline. The newspaper’s decision to terminate Johnson had nothing to do with the content of the editorial, which criticized the president’s job creation ideas and Chattanooga’s Smart Grid. The Free Press page has often printed editorials critical of the president and his policies.
The paper is saying it's not for the headline itself, but how the writer circumvented procedure to get it printed. Johnson must have a real bee in his bonnet about President Obama's jobs plan, to know he was risking his job by doing this yet going ahead anyway.
The paper goes on to say that it has a conservative side (Free Press), and a liberal side (Times), which is an interesting way to run a paper.
The liberal side did publish this (including a rebuttal to Johnson's complaints about the electrical grid, "Gig City infrastructure":
Just when we think Republicans can sink no lower, they surprise us with a deep dive.
They run a misleading ad on TV to welcome President Barack Obama to Chattanooga and Tennessee, and then claim the new jobs at VW and Amazon are here “in spite” of “liberal policies” and are here “thanks to Republican leadership.”
Hardly. But then honesty and accuracy have not been recent Republican virtues.
And then there’s also the Gig City infrastructure, as well as Chattanooga’s smart and money-saving streetlights — all largely made possible by Obama’s stimulus package, the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. Pretty much no Republicans voted for the stimulus, by the way.
So good on them.