By now most of you are familiar with the dust up over John Kavanagh’s use of as few ethnically based jokes to roast Sheriff Joe Arpaio at the Western Conservatives Conference. 
For some reason the Southern Poverty Law Center felt it necessary to send a ‘monitor’ there and secretly record the event, even though the event was live-streamed. Afterwards the SPLC sent out a breathless account of how offensive Kavanagh’s remarks were. The Republic then dutifully parroted the SPLC’s claim and rounded up a left leaning attorney to wag his finger. You can read the report here.
Nowhere in the story was the question posed why was the SPLC spending time and resources on ‘monitoring’ a harmless conservative gathering or why the group was flailing its arms in moral outrage over fairly tame, but pretty funny material.
Enter Steve Lemons, the leftwing columnist from the leftwing New Times. Steve is liberal and proud of it. His politics put him to the left of Che Guevara. He doesn’t pretend to be an impartial purveyor of prose. Yet Lemons was the only reporter to defend Kavanagh. KFYI’s talk show hosts also did a fine job of pointing out the SPLC’s silliness. You can read Lemons’ article here. While Steve’s opinionated ramblings are Kryptonite to any right thinking conservative, he deserves credit for scolding a liberal icon and telling the left to chill out. It’s refreshing and it does him credit for challenging the faithful in his leftwing world.
What is pathetic is that the message had to come from Lemons and the New Times? Did the craziness of the Kavanagh kerfuffle elude the mainstream media which loves to brand itself as impartial? Here is a typical headline from CNN which was repeated on ABC 15, “At roast for Sheriff Joe Arpaio, did Arizona legislator go too far?”
Why didn’t anyone question whether the Southern Poverty Law Center went too far. The SPlC has done some great things but it seems this organization has put left leaning politics ahead of its true and noble mission.
One could say the same statement applies to the members of the local 4th estate.