David Sirota hysterically blasts Ritter over labor issues

This is worth reading. For those who don't know David Sirota is a Democratic campaign consultant and commentator. He worked on Capitol Hill for quite some time. He moved to Montana several years ago and was a key player in Democratic gubernatorial nominee Brian Schweitzer's campaign. Schweitzer is now a very popular incumbent in Montana. Sirota appeared frequently on Al Franken's radio show on Air America and writes for various left leaning publications and is now a syndicated newspaper columnist. He moved to Colorado with his wife in 2007. He is currently "a fellow at The Campaign For America's Future and a board member of the Progeessive State's Network." If I've left anything out of his bio/resume I aplogize but I think, for my readers who are unfamiliar with Sirota, this is a good thumbnail sketch of who the man is.

I personally find Sirota to be over-bearing, arrogant, snobbish and an ideological puritan. His crusading against good Democrats for being insufficiently doctrinaire is noxious and short-sighted. He's an intelligent guy for sure and he has done some good work for the party. I just get turned off by dogmatists who are convinced of their own infallibility. As they say though, your my mileage may vary.

Sirota has written the second part of a two part series commemorating the April 20th anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre. I'd like to commend him for bringing attention to the Ludlow Massacre, it is an important piece of Colorado history, labor history and American history.

His piece today though is hyperbolic in the extreme and his overall point is, once again, lost in his over-heated rhetoric. He states:

Today, the Bush administration has abandoned American workers. While not sending militias to execute labor organizers, the feds now look away as corporations kill unions before they are ever born. And today many states are replicating that anti-union model.

Okay, I'm with you there David. Please continue,

Here in Colorado, the persecution is most pronounced. Just as racism still exists in the post-Jim Crow South, elected officials here still rough up workers - and lately that includes Democrats such as Gov. Bill Ritter...

Like so many politicians, Ritter is choosing the anti-union path of Elias Ammons, Colorado's Democratic governor during the Ludlow Massacre.

As recounted in Scott Martelle's book "Blood Passion," Ammons was elected with union support, then became obsessed with finding an imaginary middle ground between business and labor, and ended up "aligning with neither." His Colorado militia initiated the Ludlow Massacre to stop unions from forcing corporations to improve wages and working conditions

Okay now, come off it. This is patently ridiculous. Bill Ritter is not "roughing up workers" in anywhere near the same sense that Governor Ammons did. Let's be clear, Ammons militia marched on peacefully striking miners and murdered them in cold blood.

I will be the first to admit that Governor Ritter has a mixed record on labor issues but to compare him to Governor Ammons is irresponsible and reckless in the extreme. I come from a a strong labor family. I believe strongly in the union model and in the labor movement. This column though is really beyond the pale. Sirota should be embarrassed for drawing such comparisons. Sirota's personal agenda of self-aggrandizement is apparently not bound by any sense of decency or perspective.

UPDATE: Let me just add that Sirota is doing nothing at all to advance the cause of labor in Colorado or to help the average Colorado worker when he viciously attacks Ritter. He offers no solutions, no ideas - just vitriol. He is engaging in nothing more than character assassination. Sirota doesn't seem to grasp the political realities of being the elected leader of the state and demands purity from all. There is a point to be made about the governor's actions on labor issues but Sirota doesn't bother to lay out a logical, intelligent and constructive critique. This isn't just bad journalism it's shoddy activism. Again, this column will do nothing to advance the cause of Colorado's workers, a group that Sirota purports to be speaking for.

UPDATE II: Sirota is more reasoned and rationale in his blog post promoting his column than in the column itself. I wish he had bothered to make his arguments in his column in the same manner that he does on Pols.

Interesting that he opts for over-hyped rhetoric in his more widely read column. It's almost as if he's less concerned with making his point than in making a sensationalist splash.