Publisher’s Positions
Burchett Responds To Ashe
By Steve Hunley
Last week, Congressman Tim Burchett dropped the equivalent of a political atomic bomb on Victor Ashe. The former mayor writes a column for the Shopper, which appears online in the Knoxville News-Sentinel. For years, Ashe identified as a Republican, but his column is highly critical of fellow Republicans and remarkably free of any criticisms of Democrats. Congressman Burchett has been a particular target, or as Burchett put it in a video post on X, formerly Twitter, Ashe’s “weekly obsession with me.” The link to the video is posted on our website’s Daily Focus.
A recent column by Ashe with reference to Burchett’s late father, Charlie, finally drew a response from the congressman who said the former mayor was bitter over no longer being relevant. Burchett took pains to correct Ashe about his father having been in China just after the Second World War and told a story about a woman who brought her young son to attend Charlie Burchett’s funeral because she wanted her son’s first funeral to be that of “a hero.” The congressman said that was something that wouldn’t happen to Ashe and said he felt sorry for the former mayor who Burchett said was unhappy with the way his life hasturned out.
During the last election cycle Ashe was constantly sniping at two GOP candidates for the Knox County Commission, Andy Fox and Garrett Holt, along with bad mouthing Tim Burchett in print just about every week. Ashe also bashed Donald Trump every chance he got. In fact, just about every individual targeted for criticism by Victor Ashe just happened to be a Republican.
I will be the first to admit no human being is perfect, nor should any candidate or officeholder be free from legitimate criticism, however, disagreeing with a candidate or incumbent’s stand on a particular issue, or even set of issues is not quite the same as running down someone’s family.
This newspaper supports Republicans, but we can recognize good things about our political opponents and be critical of those Republicans who we feel have failed to live up to what we believe are the ideals of the Grand Old Party.
Andy Fox is a newcomer to politics and is enthused about serving the community. Fox is an intelligent man who is able and affable. Andy Fox is from here, his father is a brilliant man and was a longtime professor at the University of Tennessee.
Matthew Park came here and has undergone some sort of political metamorphosis. When Park first ran for office as a Democrat for the Tennessee State House of Representatives against Rick Staples and Sam McKenzie, he was clearly the candidate of the far left and intensely partisan. Park made a real race of the contest. When Matthew Park ran for the county commission, he was an entirely different candidate. Park repeatedly stressed nonpartisanship and seemingly moderated his political views considerably. Perhaps Park had learned a lesson or he had undergone a legitimate change of opinion, or maybe it was what he thought he needed to do to get elected. There were any number of questions to be answered and they weren’t going to be asked by the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
That was also true of Shane Jackson’s successful campaign for the county commission in the Fourth District. Point is, there was plenty to write about locally in sorting out the various campaigns. Disagreements about issues or even political parties are always fair game, but picking at someone’s family just seems not only petty, but just wrong.
And let’s be honest, it has nothing to do with being a “Howard Baker Republican.” Senator Baker was the majority leader of the U.S. Senate while the most conservative president in our country’s history, Ronald Reagan, was in office. Baker was defender-in-chief of the Reagan administration.
What most Americans dislike about politics in this country now is the fact people don’t work together. Unfortunately, that is less because of political parties than it is an unfair and biased mainstream media that seems to like the idea of dishonest reporting in order to push an agenda.
Will The Real Kamala Please Stand Up?
If you really think Kamala the Chameleon is serious about fixing the border crisis, then consider the fact there is a bill in California’s general assembly to give illegal immigrants up to 20% or $150,000 toward purchasing a home.
Kamala the Chameleon is proposing $5 TRILLION in tax increases. That will include the likely ending of family farms and businesses because of the massive tax burden most heirs will have to sell the property or business to pay the death taxes.
The Kamala campaign is the most pre-packaged in the history of the country and might as well have “Tide” stamped on her forehead. Just about every position she has taken throughout her long career – – – and she is a professional career politician – – – is changing. The bias of the mainstream media has never been more evident and they are trying to make Kamala into Cinderella.
Holding Hands With Tim Walz
Kamala the Chameleon has finally sat down for her first interview since becoming the presumptive and actual nominee of her party. Nobody with a functioning brain believes for a moment that the mainstream media would have allowed a Republican candidate to go along without speaking to the press for 40 days with no carping or sniping. It is yet another example of the media’s bias.
But give Kamala credit, she did do a media interview with a friendly interviewer, Dana Bash, at a pro-Kamala media outlet, CNN, with Tim Walz holding her hand throughout. Bash even suggested an answer for Kamala as to why she had flip-flopped on many issues important to American voters. “Is it because you have more experience now, and you’ve learned more about the information?” Bash suggested. Kamala said her values haven’t changed. Naturally, Bash didn’t press Kamala by pursuing such an explanation. So, Kamala is pretending to be moderate to win the election.
Or as journalist Glenn Greenwald said, Kamala did not even pretend to explain the difference between her pretended beliefs when she was running for president in 2020 to the things she pretends to no longer believe in now.
