ProgressOhio

Maybe it's because they continue to get punked on the Noe Coingate scandal by The Blade.
Maybe it's because they endorsed Betty Montgomery and don't want to taint that.
Or maybe it's because they are simply shilling for Bennett and the GOP.

Whatever the motivation, this article on the Noe Roast Film is...well...unbelievable really. I mean, I'm just a lowly blogger, but even I understand it's bad journalism.

How do you write a story about meetings (called by Bernadette Noe's attorney) that detail a video in which Betty Montgomery speaks of watching Tom grow up after recently trying to create distance after his downfall and recent trial and not mention her name? Especially since this is a pretty big update to a story you wrote back in August of 2005 in which you only say:

Among those roasting Noe that night were Taft, Petro, Auditor Betty D. Montgomery and U.S. Sen. George V. Voinovich.

That seems pretty significant to me. This seems like a pretty major update to the original Ludlow/Niquette story:

The Auditor and former Attorney General began with a beaming smile making legal jokes about Noe. She then told childhood stories including one about him getting in trouble with the nuns in school and suspended but to this day no-one knows why. She told a few other lighthearted family type stories about Noe getting into bad-boy type scrapes - ironic considering the trouble he is in now and the fact that Montgomery acts as though she hardly knew Noe. Montgomery talked about her sorority sister and friend, Noe's sister and referred to stories about watching Tom grow up and his importance to Ohio, and Northwest Ohio. There was clearly a genial banter between a seated Noe and Montgomery.

...but I'm just a lowly blogger, so...

Hell, at least back in '05 you MENTION Betty's name. Today, we only get this:

Rothenberg said there was discussion about a video that Mrs. Noe had of a 2004 roast of her husband during which several prominent Ohio Republicans -- including Gov. Bob Taft, U.S. Sen. George V. Voinovich and others -- are seen praising Noe.

"and others"? Are you kidding me? Shill, baby. Shill!

Everyone is in full-on Betty protection mode, including Bob Bennett who claims the Noe's were conning the video viewers. The only ones who got duped were the readers of the Dispatch - because they rely on Niquette and company to tell them the whole story - and the people of Ohio who were seriously betrayed by Bennett and the GOP, who set up a scheme to bilk them of millions of dollars.

So Bob Bennett wants an investigation? Into what? Does he want the prosecutor to stand up and walk the 3 feet necessary to get to their file cabinet to view the notes they already had? Smells like shill to me.

It sure reads like a mob tale, doesn't it?