Salon Mis-Speaks on Sen. Orrin Hatch

A Good Political Site Gets It Wrong

Salon has a Post on its website in which it castigates Sen. Orrin Hatch (R, UT)

“Utah's senior senator says "it doesn't make sense" to help workers displaced by trade”

The only problem is that when one reads the post, this is not what it seems to say at all.  Sen. Hatch is pushing for passage of some free trade agreements. He is unhappy with the fact that the Obama Administration wants the bill providing Trade Adjustment (pay and benefits to workers who lose their jobs from the new agreements) to be passed as a requirement for passing the trade deals.  He goes on to to say that there are not sufficient votes to pass the Trade Adjustment benefits, and apparently what he says “doesn’t make sense” is to for that to hold up passage of the Agreements. 

This is substantially different from saying the Trade Adjustment benefits themselves do not make sense.  Sen. Hatch may feel that way, but that is not what comes from the Salon article.

Unlike Conservatives, it is important for Progressives to get it right.