Google defines the modern day internet term “ghosting” as “the sudden, unexplained ending of all communication by one person in a romantic relationship, friendship, or workplace, ignoring any attempts to reach out.”
A perfect example of this disturbing behavior happened when Cowboy State Daily reporter Kate Meadows broke a story on July 27 about Peabody Coal Company suddenly canceling medical benefits for their Wyoming retirees.
Meadows reached out to each member of the Wyoming congressional delegation for their reactions, and the response was…..crickets. She called again, offering our elected officials an opportunity to speak out on a development that deeply affects the lives of their constituents. Again, the response was dead silence.
Ghosted!
It makes a cowboy or cowgirl wonder what would prompt our delegation in D.C. to ignore the folks back home when a coal company shafts its retirees. A simple, “Gosh, that sucks” or a “Thoughts and prayers” would suffice, since there’s not much Congress can do about Peabody’s parsimony.
But dead silence when asked about it? That just seems a cold and distant response from elected officials in a state as small and tight-knit as Wyoming.
Maybe Senators Barrasso and Lummis, and Representative Hageman don’t read Cowboy State Daily (the most widely-read news source in Wyoming) and simply didn’t know what Peabody had done.
Maybe they’re too busy keeping Wyoming safe from commies, cartels and cross-dressers to pay much attention to what’s happening in the coal patch.
Maybe Peabody had contributed to their campaigns, and they didn’t want to piss off a major donor.
Or maybe they just don’t give a rat’s ass about the people and the press in their home state.
Mute politicians are such an anomaly these days that I did some research.
I asked an old friend who did press work for the late Sen. Al Simpson (and we’ll tip our Stetsons at the mention of the name) when Simpson, Sen. Malcolm Wallop and Rep. Dick Cheney comprised our delegation. THAT was a delegation with real power in D.C. But I digress.
I asked my source if he recalled an instance where the entire delegation refused to respond to a question from the press, or to weigh in on an important Wyoming issue.
“Never!” was his emphatic reply. Not in a million years would a Wyoming delegation of that stature “ghost” their constituents. Hell would freeze over first.
My source prefers to remain anonymous, since he maintains a high profile in the Wyoming press ecosystem, and his name appearing in one of my columns might tarnish his reputation. But I’ll give you a hint...his name rhymes with “Charles Pelkey.”
Wyoming has traditionally, with the notable exception of Liz Cheney, treated our congressional delegation with kid gloves. We consider them our varsity lettermen, our fair-haired team; and they are the politicians most insulated from our criticism.
We tend to cut them a lot of slack. We don’t hold their feet to the fire as often as we should.
So when they unanimously choose to “ghost” us, to not answer our calls or questions from our press, the reason for that is no mystery.
They do it because we let them.
Rod Miller can be reached at RodsMillerWyo@yahoo.com
