PROPAGANDA, FAKE CRUSADING & THE PEE DEE

When the Pee Dee editorial board gets Dan Gilbert, Mayor Frank Jackson, Council President Marty Sweeney, Greater Cleveland Partnership boss Joe Roman and Squire-Sanders managing partner Fred Nance in one room you know the bullshit is knee high or higher.

 

The result of the meeting: a free Page One ad for Gilbert’s desired casino and a lot of pap about he’s not going to build a hotel immediately and the Cleveland police therefore favor the casino issue.

 

Please!

 

The cops are in favor because they’ll have lucrative second security jobs, much preferable to the jobs they’re hired to do for the people of Cleveland. But who cares about them. Nice also to put cops and gamblers closer together. A civic favor, huh? Thank you Pee Dee for helping.

 

Billionaire Gilbert isn’t going to build a hotel so he won’t compete with other hotels, even though he says that other downtown hotels are only half filled. Likely, he’ll wait until the Medical Mart and Convention Center are built then ask for public funds because downtown NEEDS a hotel to satisfy a great need for Cleveland. Not my pocketbook, you understand but for the betterment of Cleveland. Have we heard these lies before? The Pee Dee prints them by the ton.

 

The Pee Dee headline reads: “Gilbert unveils casino drawing, agrees not to include hotel yet.” A two-bit drawing rates the front page? And the “agrees” sounds as if Gilbert is doing someone a favor. Gilbert does no favors except for those that help him. How else do you become a billionaire?

 

I didn’t think the Pee Dee could become a more pathetic rag but under Susan Goldberg it even surprises me how low it’s gotten.

 

Big headlines. Lots of wasted space.  Little real content. Big play for developments that never happen. Publicity mush as with the reform front page the other day. Propaganda atop propaganda.

 

This isn’t a newspaper. It just sorta looks like one.

 

Even the reports of the County corruption mess have taken on the flavor a Pee Dee crusade, pushing politicians to make statements – Resign Russo.

 

If the Pee Dee wanted to do something for the community it should be putting the heat on the FBI to indict Jimmy Dimora and Frank Russo and stop bleeding this community with these dribbled out indictments of underlings.

 

The FBI and the Pee Dee are absolutely damaging us more than Dimora and Russo have. They are driving community spirit into the ground by crusade playacting.

 

They aren’t reporting the story; they are the story.

 

End the charade and give us some justice, not a phony crusade to make it seem as though the Pee Dee, which has allowed these same politicians – and other pols – to turn the city into … what… a casino where they never have to pay and only win.