Stage 4: Blog Critique

There was an interesting post from the conservative blog, EMPOWERTEXANS, called Worthless Wentworth, by Michael Quinn Sullivan. Sullivan accuses State Senator Jeff Wentworth of lieing to keep his chair. According to the post, Wentworth has accused his opponent, Donna Campbell, of supporting higher taxes. Sullivan completely disagrees and even calls the accusations crazy. "That’s crazy on its face," writes Sullivan. The author reports that Campbell is known as a staunch, common sense conservative who has signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge with her constituents. Unlike Campbell, Wentworth has not signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge. Sullivan also calls Wentworth one of the worst rated GOP legislators on fiscal responsibilities. Sullivan reports that Wentworth got his accusation on Campbell from lobbyist Bryan Eppstein and that the reason why Campbell is for higher taxes is because of her support. "They allege nonsensically that we’re pushing for higher taxes because we support reducing/eliminating the property tax, writes Sullivan. This is indeed confusing and has many loose ends. Sullivan's conclusion of the whole confusing manner is that Wentworth and his lobbyists are lying as a way to support their previous lies. Sullivan then reports that now-defeated State Representative Vicki Truitt made outlandish lies when he lost his reelectuion. There is also State Representative Chuck Hopson who is using the same lie to fend off his conservative opponent. The one thing that all these officials have besides the same lie is that they all have the same consultant as Wentworth, Bryan Eppstein. Sullivan also reports that Wentworth has used his office to seek high paying positions at Texas A&M and Texas State. Sullivan ends the post by calling Wentworth a "Big-Government shill" who is desperate to evade his record in the Texas Senate and is again here trying to hide his own record. The author's purpose in this post is to inform conservative readers of Wentworth's history and the trends of the lies connected to Bryan Epstein. The post does contain a lot of dirt only on Wentworth but the ultimate goal here is not to support Campbell, but to get reader's attention and throw Wentworth out of office. The evidence provided here is note worthy because of Epstein's history with losing politicians who made last ditch efforts to hold on to their chairs. Although the post will make me more aware of Wentworth and take a deeper look into these accusations, I am not completely sold and will have to get a second opinion on the matter. Overall the article was very good and the interpretations were logical with valid support provided.