Portland's own "Deliverance"

I suppose it shouldn't come as a surprise that there's a certain amount of incestuous gobbledegook when it comes to the local media-osphere, but being a relative newbie to blogging more exclusively on Oregon politics, I was a bit caught off guard when reading OlsonOlson today:

Just look at the other story in today's Tribune for corroboration. There we learn that Matt Wingard, "director of Cascade's school choice project", is organizing a big shindig to bring real choice to the Jefferson Cluster, something he says the district plan fails to do. His featured guest is "Howard Fuller, chairman of the Black Alliance for Educational Options". Fuller believes that black students should be free to choose any school to their liking.

Maybe Betsy isn't a libertarian. Maybe she just plays one in the ongoing Tribune advocacy of libertarian ideas. She's the focus of the feature on the debate over district policy, not Ruth Adkins or Rich Watson of the Neighborhood Schools Alliance. It probably helps that Betsy is pals with the Trib's other favorite blogger, Jack Bogdanski, who in turn is pals with Tribune columnist Phil Stanford, who not so coincidentally, in his column this morning, managed to mention Jack's choice for city council, libertarian Dave Lister, and libertarian charter school advocate, Rob Kremer, both regular columnists for the libertarian Brainstorm Northwest.

Egads. Its like reading a casting call for the local version of Deliverance.

I suppose we should look forward to the day when someone hooks our names up with a set of local media luminaries who will slip bits and pieces of our advocacy into their print. That is certainly what most political bloggers hope for: an opportunity to get their ideas and issues more widely read. But if/when it happens to us, I hope its not so blatantly backscratching.