The Tennessee Liberal

While a number of my readers are located in Chattanooga, there are a few of you are from such far-flung destinations as Nashville, White House, and perhaps Bell Buckle. So, let me share with you what I and other Chattanoogans have to put up with each Sunday. Allow me to introduce Chattanooga Times Free Press columnist Steve Barrett.

While the whole thing is really pretty bad, let us focus on his most egregious offenses of the week. First, here's his take on the greatest evil ever to face the Earth in its 20,000 years of existence, Hillary Clinton:

THE AMBITIOUS SENATOR I can think of plenty of reasons to avoid voting for Hillary Clinton for president in 2008. But there is one that has nothing directly to do with whatever policies she might promote: She just wants it too much.

I don't pretend to know George W. Bush's mind or heart. (Do we ever fully know anybody'’s mind or heart this side of eternity?) But one thing for which I credit him is that he doesn't - to all appearances - take great pleasure in being president. Whether you like his policies or not, he seems to be a refreshingly reluctant commander in chief, putting up with the headaches of the job when he'd far rather be doing other things.

He does not apparently covet all the pomp and fancy digs and limousines and personal chefs that go with the office. To the contrary, he seems to tolerate rather than savor all that rigmarole. The time he spends clearing brush and otherwise tending to normal duties with his family at his home in Texas appears to give him immeasurably greater pleasure than the trappings of political power.

I get no similar feeling from Sen. Clinton. She seems to have a voracious desire for - and sense of entitlement to -— the Oval Office. She drips with ravenous ambition, even as she brushes off "premature" speculation about whether she will run in 2008.

Consider the breathtakingly condescending beginning to a piece she wrote in 2004 for The New York Times Magazine: "Now can we talk about health care?"

You may recall her failed effort during her husband's first term to have the federal government take over health care. Nor did the years that followed produce a health care program she deemed adequately socialistic. So in the former first lady's arrogant view, the failure to "talk about health care" in precisely the terms she dictated was a failure to talk about it at all during the intervening decade.

That's a 32-slice value pack of baloney. Hers are the words of a politician who sees vested in herself the lone hope for our nation. That is not an admirable quality.

I'd be a lot less nervous about Hillary Clinton if I thought that somewhere, somebody actually were having to coax her to run. But I don't think that's happening.

This guy is a total asshat. He seems to think that a desire to serve in elected office makes one a bad politician. This just in, Barrett: From Washington to Lincoln to FDR and even W's own daddy, our politicians have sought elected office because they enjoy it and it is what they are good at. While there is no value to be had in someone who pursues office for illicit motives and self-benefit, people without a desire to serve and to lead don't make good leaders. Frankly, I want a president who gives a damn - Bush, who admits he doesn't even read the newspaper, is not my picture of someone who gives a damn. I'll not belabor the part where he says it is impossible to know someone's mind and heart, and then proceed to diagnose Sen. Clinton's evil "ambitions". Oh, and by the way, that hokey "32-slice value pack of baloney" line is among the more contrived and hackneyed things I've ever read.

But here's the real gem from this week:

NOT MUCH TO SHOW FOR IT Today is the 60th anniversary of the signing of the founding charter of the United Nations.

Let us pause for a moment of solemn regret.

Did I mention he's an asshat? I feel sure that Afghani refugee children, Indonesian tsunami victims and children with malaria would probably disagree.

But here is the great question: Why is there no voice to conuter Steve Barrett's? Each and every week there are neoconservative diatribes about the evils of liberals or Hillary Clinton. Why is there no opposing voice? His is a partisan political column. It is every week. The Times Free Press owes it to readers to have a balanced voice in its columns to match it's editorial pages.

Perhaps you'd like to call and tell them so: 423-756-6900. Ask for Tom Griscom. Be nice, but point out that it's ridiculous that Barrett's voice (and bad writing) go unbalanced. If you feel moved to call, leave a comment.