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FLORIDA POLITICS
Since 2002, daily Florida political news and commentary

 

UPDATE: Every morning we review and individually digest Florida political news articles, editorials and punditry. Our sister site, FLA Politics was selected by Campaigns & Elections as one of only ten state blogs in the nation
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Welcome To Florida Politics

Thanks for visiting. On a semi-daily basis we scan Florida's major daily newspapers for significant Florida political news and punditry. We also review the editorial pages and political columnists/pundits for Florida political commentary. The papers we review include: the Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel, Palm Beach Post, Naples News, Sarasota Herald Tribune, St Pete Times, Tampa Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, the Daytona Beach News-Journal, Tallahassee Democrat, and, occasionally, the Florida Times Union; we also review the political news blogs associated with these newspapers.

For each story, column, article or editorial we deem significant, we post at least the headline and link to the piece; the linked headline always appears in quotes. We quote the headline for two reasons: first, to allow researchers looking for the cited piece to find it (if the link has expired) by searching for the original title/headline via a commercial research service. Second, quotation of the original headline permits readers to appreciate the spin from the original piece, as opposed to our spin.

Not that we don't provide spin; we do, and plenty of it. Our perspective appears in post headlines, the subtitles within the post (in bold), and the excerpts from the linked stories we select to quote; we also occasionally provide other links and commentary about certain stories. While our bias should be immediately apparent to any reader, we nevertheless attempt to link to every article, column or editorial about Florida politics in every major online Florida newspaper.

 

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The Blog for Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Martinez, Big Oil's Guy In Florida

    What a plan: "The Bush administration and a Louisiana senator have devised a plan to get past the drilling moratorium off Florida's Gulf coast: Redraw state lines." And the Cellophane Man is in the hotseat again. The "we love Mel" crowd at the Orlando Sentinel is at it again, soft pedaling his most recent hypocrisy on the oil drilling issue:
    Mel Martinez, who sits on the energy committee, unsuccessfully challenged Mrs. Landrieu's proposal. He did, however, vote in favor of the larger energy bill, which included the provision.

    That raises an obvious question: If Mr. Martinez really opposes drilling operations off Florida's shores, as do most Floridians, why would he vote in favor of something that would encourage just the opposite?

    Even Mr. Martinez acknowledged in a news release that he expects even more egregious offshore-drilling amendments to be introduced when the full Senate takes up the energy bill. How will he vote then?
    Fortunately, the St Pete Times is blunter:
    Hypocrisy and trickery are nothing new to Congress or the Bush administration. And Florida's other senator, Republican Mel Martinez, has made it even easier to pull off this chicanery. Martinez says he cut a deal with Norton to keep oil rigs 100 miles off Florida in exchange for his vote to drill in the arctic. Tract 181 lies beyond the 100-mile line, so Martinez saved nothing except his reputation for being an easy dupe for the Bush administration.
    "Imaginary lines". It seems our Mel is turning out to be big oil's guy in Florida.

6:08 AM

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