Speaker Tobin - what kind of cheese would you like with that whine?

Nearly every Sunday morning at 8 a.m., Channel 12 in Phoenix airs Sunday Square Off, a weekly political discussion show.  When discussing issues and matters where there is a partisan divide, host Brahm Resnick will bring in a lineup of guests that crosses that partisan divide; when discussing issues and matters that are less partisan and more observational, a panel of journalists and Capitol observers are brought in.

This week's episode was primarily focused on the wrap-up of the legislative session, so the panel was less political and more neutral.

The neutral panel was critical/skeptical of a few things - the lack of transparency surrounding the budget, the no notice passage of a huge tax cut for the wealthy, the move to remove oversight of private prisons - but overall, they were pretty gentle with the lege and its shenanigans, but that wasn't good enough for Andy Tobin, speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives. 

When Resnick linked to the video archive of the episode on his Facebook page, Tobin chimed in -

This was a follow-up to a post that Tobin put up on his own FB page where he complained about the Arizona Republic declined to publish an "op-ed" that he wrote.

He might have left it at that, taking advantage of the benefit of the doubt to maintain at least a vestige of credibility.

Of course, he didn't.  He posted his "op-ed" and removed all doubt.

His piece was less "op-ed" suitable for a newspaper and more "hit piece" suitable for a mailer.  Apparently, Tobin was interested in saving some postage and is upset that the Republic isn't giving him an in-kind contribution for his Congressional/legislative campaign.

Not quite sure which he is going for, at least based on the hit piece op-ed, but he spent the entire piece blaming Arizona Democrats, President Obama, national Democrats, and the federal government for all that ails AZ, while blithely ignoring the fact that he and his Republican associates have controlled the Arizona Capitol for generations, and even had a supermajority in both chambers for the last two sessions.  They were able to push through absolutely anything they wanted in Arizona.  In addition, he ignored the fact that his associates have controlled the US House of Representatives for the last two years, and have done everything to attempt to block an effective economic recovery.

Note: I saved a copy of his hit piece in the event he pulls it down, but I don't expect him to do that.  He's too proud of his contempt for reality to ever do something like that.