Let's look at some of the coverage.
Yesterday, the Boston Herald ran an article which also appeared on the Brookline TAB website and is still there: "Brookline votes to impeach president". What irked me about the article was the lede: "The town that voted last year to outlaw spanking voted last night to send President Bush to the woodshed over the Iraq War."
This sentence is factually incorrect. Brookline did in fact pass a resolution last year urging parents and caregivers of children not to use corporal punishment. But it was a non-binding resolution. It had absolutely no effect on the town bylaws, and in no way should be construed as Town Meeting outlawing anything.
I called Lesley Mahoney, the editor of the TAB, yesterday, leaving a message explaining their mistake. To her credit, she left me a message acknowledging the error, and on the Herald website the word "outlaw" was changed to "condemn." However, as of this morning it still isn't changed on the TAB website's version of the article. I also sent an email to the Herald yesterday pointing out their error (which of course they couldn't change in the print copies already distributed), and I can't find either my letter or a correction in today's issue. Finally, the last sentence of the article, "Closer to home, it remains unclear whether the spanking ban has been effective within Brookline's borders," continues to maintain the fiction that Town Meeting actually banned spanking.
Getting to today's coverage, the Boston Globe ran a fairly even-handed piece today, "A call to impeach from Brookline". The only mention of my attempted amendment is in the sentence, "Margolis successfully opposed an effort Tuesday night to change his resolution to seek merely a censure of the president."
The Brookline TAB's lead story in the paper edition is "Bush gets whacked." It is a much better article than the one they shared with the Herald yesterday. As for my proposed amendment, all they say is, "Voters rejected an amendment to censure, or officially reprimand, the president. Instead, they opted for the harder line -- impeachment."
Finally, in response to the Boston Herald's editorial "Next up for Brookline: Iran", in which they criticize Town Meeting for passing the resolution and ask, "Don't these people have a town budget to balance?" I say to them: We did. On the first night of Town Meeting.
