Des Moines Register Finally Acknowledges Culver's Anti-Rainforest Ad

From David Yepsen's column today:

Chet Culver, the Democratic candidate for governor, and his running mate, Patty Judge, are airing a television commercial criticizing Republican candidate Jim Nussle's support for the rain-forest project.

The two are standing under what is supposed to be a driving rain. It's an attempt to be funny, but it backfires. Culver looks foolish and certainly not very gubernatorial...

...Culver is right about one thing. The rain forest is unpopular with a lot of people. But it represents the sort of big-picture thinking that mossback Iowa needs if we're ever going to attract more people to live and visit here. Which is why it takes real leaders willing to buck public opinion instead of pandering to the naysayers for short-term political gain.

While I've bashed Culver's ads in the past, I think the anti-Rainforest ad is pretty good. It makes the big lug at least seem like a regular Iowan.

It's been six days since KCCI-TV first mentioned the Culver/Judge anti-rainforest ad and five days since Kay Henderson at Radio Iowa did a story on it. Did it really take that long for somebody at the Des Moines Register to finally acknowledge it?

Then you get this crap by Yepsen about "mossback Iowa" that just drives me bananas. Here's the definition of "mossback":

# A person who vehemently, often fanatically opposes progress and favors return to a previous condition: die-hard, reactionary, ultraconservative. See politics.

# An old-fashioned person who is reluctant to change or innovate: fogy, fossil, fuddy-duddy. Informal stick-in-the-mud. Slang square.

We're all a bunch of fuddy-duddy old farts because we look at attendance projections of 1,500,000 a year for something in Pella and dare to question it? Because David Oman hasn't been able to raise a single dime of private money over the past several years? Because, because, because...

Listen, Yepsen, you're not fooling anybody. The Register is in bed with the Omans and Bob Ray can do no wrong. Your newspaper has rarely been objective about the rainforest scam, especially in recent years. A reporter is always around whenever David Oman has a press conference, but there's never any critical analysis by your army of opinion columnists.

I suppose there was a time when newspapers looked out for the little guy and protested corrupt back-slapping by inbred politicos that helped enable the pickpocketing of taxpayers, but those days are long gone. Instead, we get a bunch of local elitist hayseeds and imported Gannettoids who think it's more important to "dream big" and "look fancy" to their Eastern Establishment friends while screwing the mossbacks who dare to criticize yet will ultimately fund this boondoggle.