Now That's Odd

The lead editorial in today's Commercial Appeal, entitled, "Stick to original lottery plan" doesn't show up online! Instead, the smaller, secondary editorial is there.

Hiding something, maybe? The editorial is the usual have-it-both-ways, covering-bases mush, so that may be it after all. The editors keep bouncing back and forth between events and failed expectations, plans and other plans. Maybe Dave Kushma wrote this? It has his stamp.

It's not worth quoting, to be honest. Though in closing I'll note that they once more repeat Senator Steve Cohen's late-campaign lie that the lottery will bring in "net profits of more than $300 million." The report from which this number is drawn predicted a range between $180 and $300 million. Cohen stuck to the $300 side until the very end, when he to took to inflating even that. Lottery planners in the Legislature are more sensibly predicting around $220 million. Given the first report dates to the boom years of the middle '90s, this seems wise.