Seven Days, Oregon public broadcasting’s answer to Politically Incorrect, the most incorrectly titled program on television, this week offered a rational mind on the panel.  David Reinhard of the Oregonian.  The problem with Reinhard is his delivery.  He is pleasant, at times even deferential.  .

Not that his demeanor is difficult to understand.  When you're talking about even a semi-rational man spending most of his working life surrounded by Oregon liberals, a barely perturbable hide is an asset akin to a knight's suit of armor.  Under those conditions if a man wasn't born a stoic, he'd have to become one or perish.  Only "nice" conservative journalists in this state get to make payments on a new car.. 

Can you imagine anybody in Oregon watching a mean show like the O'Reilly Factor?  My goodness!  The next thing you know some horrible reporter will do a special that says our children are being fed environmental lies in our schools, that the air and water are getting better instead of worse, that the North Slope Caribou herds have quadrupled since the exploratory oil rigs arrived, that the global warming disaster crap the press dishes out is a farce and that genetic manipulation of food plants and food animals is the only reason we don't still live in caves and crack tiger-kill bones for the marrow!

That sort of awful thing is what you get when you encourage conservatives, particularly the ones who aren't nice.  Here's a Seven Days example of local mainstream press silliness Reinhard by Oregon law and custom must suffer moderately gladly.  One of the topics on the program was the homeless tent city in Portland.

The other panelists, including representatives from OPB and (I am sad to learn) The Tribune, reacted with civilized horror at Reinhard’s suggestion that homeless people had no business camping in public places when public shelters and housing were available within a few blocks.  The liberal assemblage said, "But they don't want to go to places like that!"

These are people who have missed their calling.  Instead of journalism, they should have gone into pre-school day care.

Reinhard just shook his head and said nothing.  He's seen all this many times before.  These are sensitive, caring people, and always support the compassion of those who want to spend other people's money on a pack of shiftless bums.

And, when the discussion turned to one of the specific residents of this tent city, a woman who apparently has been diagnosed as having multiple-personality disorder, Reinhard suggested she probably would be better off elsewhere, under the care of professionals.  The OPB “journalist” led the panel in amused disbelief by saying, in effect, “Do you think she should be locked up in an asylum?” 

After One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?  Of course not.  The day of the insane asylum is over.   Now, we treat the mentally disturbed much better.  We give them anti-psychotic drugs, allow them to live anywhere they like and help them drown their children in the bathtub. 

Pity Reinhard, my friends.  He is a token human in the Forum of the Apes   The day he stiffens his spine and tells these daisy lefties exactly what they ought to hear is the last day he will be seen or heard from.