Stefanik last person who should preach about`moral clarity’

Congresswoman should also explain why she voted to investigate president

By Ken Tingley

My mouth hung open in disbelief.

I could not believe what I was reading.

“This is not a partisan issue, but a question of moral clarity,” the post on X read.

It was not so much the words as the author that was stunning.

Our congresswoman, Elise Stefanik, wrote those words in an attempt to portray her as the moral authority on antisemitism.

But after all her lies, after endorsing the worst impulses of Donald Trump, it was impossible to seriously consider Elise Stefanik as the righteous arbiter of moral authority, especially after all we had seen locally.

Rep. Stefanik has made her bones in the 21st Congressional District playing a type of dirty politics we had never seen before.

Not even from John Sweeney.

I devote a good chunk of Chapter 27 in “The Last American Newspaper” to Elise Stefanik’s rise in politics in the 21st Congressional District and her failure to have any “moral clarity.”

As Stefanik’s 2018 re-election campaign began to heat up against Democrat Tedra Cobb, we on the newspaper editorial board could see that it was going to be an ugly campaign. The Stefanik campaign had started the attacks ads hours after Cobb had won the Democratic primary.

It became a daily chore to fact check the lies and distortions she was advertising.

So I proposed this to the editorial board: What if we ask them not to lie?

Both candidates.

We did that in an editorial on July 1, 2018. Here is the gist of that editorial:

Congressional politics is the big leagues, where it gets ugly early and evil often.

The professional operatives and consultants craft messages of destruction without regard for morality or accuracy, and we wonder how they sleep at night.

To survive, you need the hide of a dinosaur.

To win, you have to be willing to go for the jugular, because all that matters in the mud-slinging, tweet-shaming world of professional politics these days is getting one more vote than the other person, and it doesn’t matter who you hurt along the way.

If that means ruining their reputation, so be it.

If that means staring straight into the eyes of every man, woman and child in the district and telling an occasional bald-faced lie, that’s in the job description.

This is a blood sport, and like it or not, the 21st Congressional District is no different.

Honestly, I thought it was a brilliant idea to bring a sense of decency back into our own local politics. I had been editor for 19 years at that point, but I suppose I was still way too naive.

We had been spared much of the mud-slinging we saw on the national stage until Stefanik traded in her moderate credentials and jumped on the Trump train.

Cobb, the Democratic challenger, immediately agreed not to lie and wrote a letter to the editor telling our readers. We never heard from Stefanik. And when one of our reporters asked if she would not lie, we got a non-answer from a spokesperson: “Of course Congresswoman Stefanik has overwhelmingly earned the trust of her constituents who re-elect her with a record margin. Congresswoman Stefanik is proud of her record of real results for her district.”

There was no pledge to be truthful.

There never would be.

There still isn’t.

We weren’t asking for her to change a position on any issue, we were just asking her to tell the truth.

We thought voters would want that, too.

Weeks later, a video surfaced on the website “Democrat Tracking” showing a recording from a “Teens for Tedra” event at a private residence. Cobb was shown saying she could not come out publicly for banning certain types of assault weapons because it would cost her votes in the conservative district.

The video soon appeared in a television ad from Stefanik claiming Cobb was against Second Amendment rights, a death knell in the rural North Country of upstate New York.

The Stefanik campaign had hired a 17-year-old  to secretly tape the conversation on his phone while posing as a Cobb supporter. He was paid $970.57 for his efforts. During an editorial board meeting with The Post-Star editorial board, Rep. Stefanik not only admitted the teen was an intern in her office, but she said she did not see anything wrong with what he did.

So much for her “moral clarity.”

The hypocrisy is appalling.

I’m sure they teach morals at Harvard, but the Ivy League can’t make you live your life by them.

Stefanik found nothing wrong hiring and impressionable teen to secretly record an opponent.

She found nothing wrong with using a 17-year-old to do political espionage.

That makes her a little broken.

When it came time to endorsing a candidate in the 2018 race, our editorial board expressed disgust at Stefanik’s dirty politics. The editorial board characterized it as “dirty and unseemly.”

“We find that disturbing, and fear our congresswoman has spent too much time in Washington, D.C. and lost any sense of what is right and what is wrong when it comes to the political wars,” the editorial said. “Earlier this year, we asked the candidates in the congressional campaign not to lie. It turns out lying is the least of the problems.”

It would only get worse.

During the summer of 2019, Stefanik’s downtown Glens Falls office was ground zero for regular protests and counter protests between a group of liberals and several other local pro-Trump groups.

There were repeated confrontations between the two groups.

In September, the Albany Times Union described the protests this way: “Two mundane political demonstrations devolved into a tense, profanity-laced powder keg when they literally went face to face Friday outside U.S. Rep Elise Stefanik’s Glens Falls office.”

In October, it got even uglier when a man with a toy gun, a Stefanik supporter,  pointed it at our 65-year-old reporter and screamed through a bullhorn:

We’ve got one coming for you Post-Star.

We’ve got one coming for you Post-Star.

We’ve got one coming for you Post-Star.

It was a call for violence.

There were people in our newspaper building, people who had nothing to do with reporting the news, who were worried.

Later that week, we heard that the man who had threatened our newspaper had been invited to be a guest at Rep. Stefanik’s town hall meeting later that week.

After hearing the news, I sent an email to Stefanik that read:

I am shocked that Rep. Stefanik would join forces and give legitimacy to Mike Kibling after his widely reported threats against The Post-Star and one of our female reporters this past weekend.

Those threats have made many of the men and women who work at our newspaper - from receptionist to obit clerks to those in our advertising department - nervous about their safety. Considering the times we live in and the Capital Gazette shooting from a year ago, we are appalled that the congresswoman has given this bully credibility and support.

I hope she will denounce the actions of her campaign manager and renounce any affiliation with this man.

I would also urge her to make a visit to our newspaper to explain to the regular workers with families why she has put them in danger.

She may not agree with the criticisms we have made about her stands on the issues but this has put people at our newspaper in danger and is not right.

Ken Tingley

Editor

The Post-Star

We never heard from Rep. Stefanik.

She did not visit the newsroom that day.

She ignored the threat of violence from her supporters.

Not long after that, someone left a copy of our newspaper on the front step wrapped in feces.

That’s why I found her call for “moral clarity” so cringeworthy.

Her past actions speak otherwise to her recent statements.

This is who Elise Stefanik is.

God help us all.

Gas prices

Couldn’t help but notice that economic conditions continue to improve locally.

The price of gas was down to $3.39 when I filled up this week. Inflation was up just a tenth of a point nationally and the stock market hit record highs.

But here is the thing. I don’t credit Joe Biden for the economy, just as I didn’t credit President Trump when he was in office.

Presidents can’t turn around economies like that.

It’s supply and demand.

Impeachment inquiry

All the Republicans in the House of Representatives voted for an official impeachment inquiry into President Biden on Wednesday while all the Democrats voted against one.

The Democrats voted for an impeachment inquiry on President Trump after he attempted to get the Ukraine president to find dirt on his eventual foe, Biden, before the presidential election.

Democrats voted for another impeachment inquiry after Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 at the urging of Trump.

Rep. Stefanik owes her constituents an explanation why she believes an impeachment inquiry is necessary.

What is the impetus?

It was clear with Trump.

It is unclear with Biden.

There must be nearly a hundred Christmas trees on display in Crandall Park. The “Spirits in the Trees” is sponsored by the Kiwanis Club and allows people and organizations to remember loved ones.

Crandall Christmas trees

If you get a chance, check out the Kiwanis Club’s “Spirits in the Trees” in Crandall Park where people and organizations can remember loved ones.

It is a moving experience.