by Marty Trillhaase

Idahoans of substance with serious messages can't get on NBC primetime.

Former Interior Secretary Cecil Andrus or current Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne probably couldn't get the network's ear to talk about environmental policy.

NBC didn't ask former Sen. James McClure to discuss why this country's energy policy is in more trouble today than when OPEC shut off the spigot in 1973.

The network couldn't care less what potato magnate J.R. Simplot or Micron founders Ward and Joe Parkinson think about America's technological or economic competitiveness.
It couldn't find time for Greg Carr to discuss human rights abuses.

But it had an hour of prime time Tuesday for disgraced Sen. Larry Craig to continue his preposterous tale -- that he was the victim of a series of unfortunate coincidences leading to his arrest in a gay sex sting at the Minneapolis airport's men's room, compounded by a media-induced panic attack that caused him to suspend judgment and plead guilty.

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