Trending Positive

It seems Mark Yost, the new member of the Pioneer Press editorial board (and formerly of the Wall Street Journal) may be starting to have a positive influence on the formerly sacred liberal ground of the Pioneer Press editorial page.

This from John, who's a long time subscriber and close scrutinizer of the Pioneer Press:

Just this past week, in the print edition, the words "free market" appear in headlines in a positive light twice on the page! If the Martians land today, they'll put the PiPress squarely in the conservative camp.

More interesting is the notion of "balance" at the PiPress that's driving the pretense of a more conservative view. For example, today's editorial touts free market principles in support of prescription drug reimportation, but previously the PiPress endorsed the Senate Bill on drug importation that calls for restrictions on drug companies that limit retaliation against countries that reimport drugs to the United States. Of course, that action would undercut all the economic principles touted in today's editorial. It will be interesting to see how the paper works that out. Ultimately, institutional balance (contrasted with op-ed balance) has to crumble on itself -- "flip-flop" comes to mind.

And check out the little Hillary dig:

We wonder what Hillary Clinton's opinion is of American health care following her husband's successful quadruple bypass surgery over the weekend.

Readers may recall that Sen. Clinton's 1993 Health Care Task Force vilified the health care industry and argued for nationalizing it. We suspect she doesn't see the irony in the fact that if she'd been successful, many companies - like Minnesota's own Medtronic and Guidant - would have been discouraged from developing the cutting-edge medical devices and drugs that have made surgeries like her husband's so routine.

Highly encouraging, I must say. Advocating for the free market and zinging Hillary Clinton for hypocrisy - all in an unsigned "institutional voice" editorial. In the Pioneer Press! I never thought I'd see the day. Since their editorial board only has four or five members, it's reasonable to conclude this is Yost's influence and we pass along our congratulations and encouragement to him.

On Wednesday, there was also a great piece from new Pioneer Press contributor Craig Westover on education. Excerpt:

Government's education monopoly limits diversity of curriculum, teaching methods and the invisible hand of innovation that ultimately evolves more effective ways of educating children - evaluated by their parents, not some arbitrarily defined measurement ritual.

Perhaps it's time for Minnesota to stop trying to improve the doll and take a good hard look at the ritual belief that only the high priests of government education can create a viable school system. Perhaps it's time to take a good hard look at providing parents the opportunity to send their children to schools of their choice without financial penalty.

Perhaps it's time to liberate the taboo topic of free-market education.

Yost and Westover, a nice one-two conservative punch, the likes of which this town has never seen before in a local paper. They keep this up and we may just have to start the campaign for conservatives to abandon their Star Tribune subscriptions for the Pioneer Press.