Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Where’s the beef?

- —Beto O’Rourke

“We are making a stand for truth against lies and hate and ignorance and intoleranc­e. We are going to show the country who we are. We’re going to make a stand to ensure that we live up to our promise, to our potential, to our purpose as a country.”

WITH SOME interest, we watched the coverage of Beto O’Rourke’s entry into the presidenti­al sweepstake­s last Thursday evening. NBC News dedicated a chunk of its national evening news to the event, and what an event it was. But we noticed that throughout the entire televised story, the reporter didn’t mention any of Mr. O’Rourke’s stands on the issues.

We didn’t blame Beto O’Rourke. We blamed NBC.

Then we went to NPR’s coverage. And got pretty much the same thing: There was a lot of talk about his unconventi­onal Texas campaign for U.S. Senate, and how he visited every county in the state, and didn’t go negative, and gave Ted Cruz what-fer. But there was

little there there.

So we linked on over to betoorourk­e. com, to see from the candidate himself. After all, if a person is going to run for president, we’d like to know where he stands . . . on anything.

“We’re all in this together,” announces the website.

You can donate at the website. You can buy T-shirts at the website. What you can’t do is find any policy positions at the website.

After a little research, you can find some of his opinions on certain matters. After all, he did run for Senate. The papers say that he’s against any wall at the southern border. He’s for universal health care, but doesn’t share details about how to pay for it. He’s also for the Green New Deal, which would cost trillions.

We look forward to hearing more of Beto O’Rourke’s opinions on important matters. It’s one thing to say you stand against ignorance and intoleranc­e—and stand for our potential as a country— but it’s quite another to answer real questions about real issues.

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