Who wrote it: Kansas City Star or Bollier Campaign?
Now that the general election is in full swing, the media is in hyperdrive defending Barbara Bollier’s campaign from legitimate critique and refusing to challenge her on even basic positions and votes.
This morning, the Kansas City Star published an article that should more appropriately be titled “In Defense of Barbara Bollier.”
Here are the most glaring problems with today’s article:
1. Somehow, it goes the entire “pandemic politics” section without mentioning that Roger Marshall was well out ahead of anyone in the political world warning Americans about the threat of COVID-19 in a January editorial. It also fails to mention Marshall left the campaign trail to treat COVID-19 patients throughout the spring and summer.
2. Further, the article goes the entire “pandemic politics” section without mentioning Bollier’s vote against the state’s bipartisan COVID-19 relief package. It also fails to mention Marshall’s vote for the federal CARES Act. How are those two points not relevant for readers? What is more relevant to how these two would respond to COVID-19 than the way they’ve already voted on relief bills?
3. Instead of these salient points, the Star uses column inches to print a factually inaccurate quote from a political consultant. Roger Marshall, like President Trump, has never called COVID-19 a “hoax.”
4. Strangely, Bollier’s vote against COVID-19 relief is mentioned later in the article under the section titled “GOP attacks Bollier’s moderate credentials.” No justification from the Bollier campaign on her “no” vote appears quoted in response. However, the article’s author notes that conservative members of the Kansas senate voted no. Why is that relevant to whether Bollier is a moderate or how she would vote on a future COVID-19 relief bill, and why is this justification coming from the authors, not the campaign?
5. The article also notes Senator Jim Denning’s commentary on Bollier’s vote against the 2019 budget, omitting any mention of Denning’s entire point – that Bollier voted against the landmark bipartisan school funding deal that ended the Gannon case. Why does Bollier continue to go unchallenged on this vote as she touts herself as a defender of our public schools? Why does the article provide such a friendly framing for Bollier?
6. Further, when mentioning Denning’s column, the article entirely omits his points regarding abortion. Namely that Bollier has voted against every single abortion restriction that came before her over 10 years, and that she is in the very small minority of Kansans and Americans who support late-term abortion.
7. It’s not as if abortion never comes up in the piece. The article later summarizes Senate Leadership Fund’s advertisement…on late-term abortion…as a discussion around “reproductive rights.” Why not mention Denning or the SLF ad discuss Bollier’s far more controversial and unpopular position on late-term abortion? Again, the Star opts for the friendly framing for Bollier.
8. Finally, the article concludes with an entire section on nonsensical numerical values from a study no one has ever heard of to justify Bollier’s moderate credentials. It provides no context on how these numbers are derived and no link to the study itself.
The reader is left wondering, did the Bollier campaign write this?
