All too often, the source of a public relations disaster is nothing more than poor timing and a dash of forgetfulness. This week, the Army Corps of Engineers is learning that lesson. Every year, the corps sends out letters to landowners in flood-prone areas. But this year, those letters are rubbing farmers the wrong way.
The idea in the letters, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports, is to allow land near rivers to return to nature and "to reduce future floods by
reducing floodplain development." Seems innocent enough. Unless your farm is currently under several feet of water. Then, farmers have complained, the corps' letters are just plain rude. And now Sen. Claire McCaskill is doing what she does best: calling out the guilty party.
The corps says the letters were scheduled
to come out anyway; it's just sucky timing that they arrived in
mailboxes while the farms were swampy. Farmers are saying it was poor
form, and McCaskill sent her own letter to the corps admonishing them for
the unpleasant mail.
As we've learned previously, Clairbear is not the senator you want to piss off by doing something stupid, sleazy or both. St. Louis radio station KMOX reports that McCaskill's missive to the corps reads in part:
I write today to bring your attention to what I, and many of myconstituents, find to be a poorly-timed, ill-considered Corps decision
to issue letters to landowners along the Missouri River gauging their
interest in selling all or part of their land to the United States for the purposes of fish and wildlife habitat restoration. For reference, I have attached such a letter, dated June 6.
In light of the potentially devastating floods along the river, Irespectfully request that your division cease issuance of these letters
until the flooding has subsided.
The letter doesn't seem particularly pushy, but anger seems understandable. From the Post-Dispatch's website, here's the letter:
Showing 1-5 of 5
It's a weekly paper. And the blog is something they do in their spare time, not their raison d'etre. If you're looking for Drudge-like dedication to continually fresh content, people who have real jobs probably aren't your best choice.
It's a daily blog. If week-old news on a daily blog, which really rarely does much but copy the stories from others news stories, is the best they can do, it is pretty dismal.
Not defending journalistic standards at the Pitch - just feel compelled to point out that we're less than a week removed from June. It's not like they dug up some story from 2010, or even a few months ago. For a publication that only comes out once a week, this is about as "fresh" as it gets.
i remember when the channel 9 broke this story.....in June. Way to keep it fresh Ben!
And now Sen. Claire McCaskill is doing what she does best
What's that? Getting her name in the paper?
Personally, I'm sick and tired of watching this self-promoting harridan run her mouth. Hopefully she'll be defeated in next year's elections and you guys will cease finding everything she does newsworthy.
like
dislike
