Excuse me while I trip over my ideology

I have a few friends and intellectual adversaries upon whom I try to impress the pitfalls of trying to frame everything as an ideological issue. More often than not, it dumbs down an argument, limits its appeal to only the like-minded and supplants sound logic. Yes! Weekly's Jordan Green rightly faults the Rhinoceros Times' editor John Hammer for falling into this trap.

Hammer tries to make the case for a conservative city council by using the tumult surrounding the firing of former Greensboro Police Chief David Wray as an example of government gone awry when conservatives are missing from the panel. Hammer blames the fiasco on the fact that only one conservative, Tom Phillips, was on the council when things went to pieces with Wray. But wait a minute, as Jordon points out, Phillips actually supported former City Manager Mitch Johnson in his firing of Wray -- just blows Hammers "argument" out of the water.

So thank you John Hammer for a flawed argument advocating for partisan considerations in the council race and thank you (sincerely) Jordan for pointing out the ideological wheel-spinning to us.