Branch Rookies

I've often contended that the accuracy and analysis in the blogosphere is--on the whole--more accurate than the mainstream media.  Some of the commenters have taken significant umbrage at my assertion.   After finals, I'll probably put together a long post to demonstrate my point.  Until then, I'll show you funny little examples.  Like this one by Matthew Benson in today's Republic.

Her departure would send ripples through Arizona politics. Republican Secretary of State Jan Brewer, next-in-line to the governorship, would serve the remaining two years of Napolitano's term - putting all three branches of state government under GOP control.

I'm assuming that Governor Brewer isn't going to try to impeach a large swath of the Judiciary--you know, the third branch of Government.  So Matt Benson was obviously thinking about the Governor's office, the Senate and the House.  But like Jack Nicholson said in Mars Attacks. 

I want the people to know that they still have 2 out of 3 branches of the government working for them, and that ain't bad.

(As you can tell by the first comment to this post, Matt takes my post in the spirit of fun that it was intended.)

Comments

[Matthew Benson]

Yeah yeah. Some of us can't use a keystroke to erase a mistake made on deadline.
"Branch" was an ill-chosen word, obviously.
MATT

[Walter]

It's great that Matt acknowledged his error here. It's a shame it hasn't been corrected on the Republic's website....

[Sam]

So Gannett has laid off all the editors? I mean, there's deadlines and all, but that doesn't excuse a complete lack of checking.

[Dewey]

Wouldn't it useful at this point in our history to update our terminology? After all, we now in effect do have only two branches of government: the Executive branch and the Legislative branch (the two legislative houses being the Elected house and the Judicial house).

We could vote on it, but our vote would just be overturned by the Judicial house.

[Name:]

No. The legislative branch was split into two to weaken it, according the 18th century advocates of the US Constitution. The Arizona bicameral legislature could be interpreted in the same way.

Actually Benson is correct if in fact the executive branch is actually sort of part of the legislative. So, technically in a 4 branch government there are three branches that would be under GOP "control".

Now, let's look at what "control" means in legislative terminology because that's a pretty loaded term. He really is oversimplifying, which is the real sin of the mainstream media.

[Hound]

Government in Arizona has more branches than a mesquite tree.

Alongside the usual three of which Matt Benson lost track on deadline (by the way, what word substituted for "branch" whould have made his sentence hold up?),we also have the Corporation Commission, Clean Elections and the Redistricting Commission, the former having just sustained a most curious and as-yet-utterly-unexamined-by-the-media attempt by a Soros-Sperling, name-changed Democrat operative to buy a majority-swinging seat with more than $500 K of "his own money," and the latter two having been conceived and promoted by Democrats who found them convenient for tilting the political playing field in their direction.

That gives us six branches of government here, but who's counting? Certainly not the Republic.

[John Kavanagh]

Maybe Matt was referring to the Corporation Commission. After all, it has unconstitutionally assumed policy making duties.

[Scoop Brady]

I'm not as hard on the Republic as ye, but here's another maddeningly inadequate piece of analysis:

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/11/29/20081129newpoll1201.html

Three out of five people didn't know enough about Brewer to rate her and one out of three people didn't know enough about Goddard to rate him. Yet we're treated to a report of sky-high marks for both.