Request Professional Opinions on How Gov's Family Tie was "missed"?

Quite the opposite of any "political axe to grind", actually. I was attempting to find out all that I could about the history of the tiny community (pop. 642.... swelling to 1,000, during the winter months...) of Jupiter Island, FL. This led me to fine out what I could about Samuel F. Pryor, then about his son, Sam F. Pryor Jr. His dealings with William Rhodes Davis triggered a check of Davis's descendants...I've been studying my own family genealogy at ancestry.com ....but there was no info on Davis there. I then found the NY Times article about his son's marriage announcements, and I came up with and searched the name, Joseph Graham Davis. I also found that Joseph Graham Davis Jr., aka "Gray", even took the unusual step of having his mother's nickname for him, "Gray", appear on his Califfornia driver's license.

There is no "partisan" motivation in this, in fact, this situation reinforces my hunch that there is only one major US party, with two right wings. Pelosi just signed off on Porter Goss to help "manage" House ethics. Obama reversed himself and voted for telecomm amnesty and anti 4th amendment electronic surveillance, and he mouths Bush's phrase, "frontline of the war in terror", last week, in reference to Afghanistan.

My "hunch" is reinforced by the curious situation I have described in the thread OP. Both parties silent about Davis's background, with the corporate owned media completely incurious. IMO, Obama is about "as little change as possible", just as patrician FDR was. The "powers that be".... in the last century, they were the Dillons, Mellons, of Juptier Island, and the Fords, Duponts, Rockefellers. They were extremely concerned that the masses would rally behind Huey P. Long, Social Security was a concession to address that concern.

Approving Obama is a sign that these "powers" are concerned again...wealth inequity....GINI coefficient of 45, compared to 28 in France, 70 percent of total US private wealth owned by the top ten percent, 2-1/2 percent owned by the bottom 50 percent....the worst wealth disparity since 1929....yes, it's time for someone we can control....a center right candidate portrayed as a "liberal change agent".

I think all of it is a distraction, and I think part of the reason for growing wealth inequity and the choice of Obama or McBush in november, as the choice between Skull and Bones Bush, or Skull and Bones Kerry was, in 2004, is that it is really a matter of "no cboice". The "one party" system and elections of two competing candidates so similar in background and in agenda is politics of distraction.

Dare we ask, why can't we live like the French? Big government is supposed to be "bad". France has big government, a strong currency, exports within ten percent of the value of it's imports. Five weeks vacation at entry level, half of the US 12 percent poverty rate, model national health care, early retirement , generous pension packages, a living minimum wage. Higher unemployment, but better living conditions and benefits for the unemployed than for the minimum wage worker in the US.

All of "this" partisan political facade, seems to be about not asking, if the French can acccomplish all of this, why can;t we, in our politics?
Even the "brown people" living in France and portrayed as a "big problem", are not only documented, they are mostly citizens.

The other "story" the press could have covered, was why the Davis family hired the ex-democratic party chairman, Boyle....to negotiate their grandpa's estate tax liability down to three cents on the dollar. That story is linked near the bottom of my last post.

Review all of the posts in the thread....most "go after" shortcomings gleaned about me. Convenient, but "the story" is still about how Californians were able to elect a governor with a "mystery" family background, not once, but three times.

I came here to ask you pros how you think that could happen. It did happen, there are enough supported facts presented to confirm that. If you disagree, challenge a specific supporting point, and no.....I didn't rely on Wikipedia for any of the supporting info, I simply reported what I learned about Gray Davis, in his own, highly flattering and extremely large, Wikipedia bio.

 

Oy.

 

host, your question is answered with the following two-sentence reply: It's not relevant. Period.

 

Look, Rudy Giuliani's father did time for armed robbery. No one with more than one working brain cell would hold that against Rudy Giuliani. I don't like him at all, but he can't be held accountable for his ancestors. Neither should Gray Davis be held accountable for his ancestors. Your "gotcha" is insane.

 

I only have one question.

Is it safe?

 

The press corps didn't it's job, the press corps smears a layperson who makes a decent case to illustrate that the press corps didn't do it's job....and still, beside one early comment of "interesting", not an inkling of curiosity posted in reaction to this example of how the press missed Davis's family background; the source of his family's hugely outsized. compared to the average household, wealth....while they covered similar ties ...support for Nazis, in Schwarzenegger's family.....they even missed the fact that Gray Davis even had a grandfather....let alone one who may have left Davis's father at least several million dollars....a lot of money in the 1940's.....

Giuliani hid his family background, and the press never checked....only an author of a book belatedly brought it out. William Rhodes Davis was controversial at the same time as Joseph p. Kennedy was. The difference was that republican opposition research fed the dirt it dug up to the press, and the press ran with it. WR Davis's story is one of feeding Nazi money to the campaign of the 1940 republican presidential challenger, and the GOP didn't want to lead the press there. Part of my question is whether the GOP persuaded the press corps not to report what it knew about Davis's grandfather.

The press in NYC forgot it had the lexis-nexis service, too, I guess:

I'll offer a compromise....stop bashing me in your posts and the question in the thread title. How, in your opinion, did the press miss that Gray Davis even had a grandfather, let alone a very wealthy and controversial one. Isn't a fully vetted executive of a state with 35 million residents, a less likely to be compromised governor? If the opposition won't reveal it's background research on the other party's candidate, wouldn't it fall to the press, to do that....it's only "job"? If there is no independent investigation undertaklen by the press, wouldn't stenographers be cheaper hires for news outlets, than reporters?

 

First, look up the difference between it's and its.

Then, ask yourself: Do you really think we're this stupid? What did you hope to gain by posting this?

 

Host, you asked our opinion and the consensus is that you are off your rocker. If you wanted our validation rather than our opinions, say so. But I don't think many people here are likely to accommodate you.

 

My dad voted for Nixon. Twice. Does that make me a raging right-winger who believes white-collar crime is no big deal?

 

I'm hoping to "gain" some thoughtful, professional, straight answers....why do news organizations not even heavily research archived news reports in their own files? Why do they not independently check the backgrounds of major party candidates for US president and for governor, of states as large as California, and cities as large as NYC? Is it about not wanting to jeopardize access to the powerful?

My ex-wife couldn't get a second interview for a job with a major defense contractor....the HR dept, told her she was disqualified because, at the time, she answered the question on the job application as to whether she had any relatives living in certain countries. She had a grandmother living (trapped) in East Germany. Her parents lived in the US, and were naturalized citizens.

I want to know why you think the "job" of checking out Gray Davis wasn't done. Do you think it was the job of the press?

 

Again, what does his grandfather, who died before Gray Davis was even born, have to do with anything? You still haven't adequately answered that one.

 

Sorry to say, you have not "made a decent case" that any of these conspiracy theories against the political press have any basis in reality. So far, we've heard about your "assumptions" and a half-baked idea that somebody in gov't asked the press not to pry into this. ... So far, we've got a couple preview pages off Google Books and an unsourced 1946 column to damn this guy, plus a few obits and geneaology links to relate him to an ex-gov. ... The historical research is suspect, and the conclusions have NO evidence to support them. What exactly do you expect from us?