When I saw the original AP story previewing yesterday's Republican dinner back on July 7, I knew it would be a front page story. I tried to find someone to bet that it would make the front page but, alas, I could find no takers. Yes, Robert Murray was in Wheeling yesterday to address the Ohio County Republican Party's Lincoln Day Dinner along with two other Intelligencer favorites - WV Supreme Court Justice Brent Benjamin and Attorney General Patrick Morrisey. And yes, it not only made the front page, it also got the largest font.

If you are a regular reader of the Intelligencer or this blog, you know the near-monthly routine: Murray talks about coal and electricity to a Wheeling-area organization, he blames the president and EPA for everything that has gone wrong in the coal industry and America, the Intelligencer dutifully writes it all down, and then he and his speech appear on the front page of the Intelligencer the next day. Usually his audience is a Wheeling area service club but this time Murray got to speak to state Republicans. This special occasion apparently prompted a return to a phrase he was using earlier in year -- the war on coal was a "political power grab."

Was there any new information in the front-page article? No. Are you better informed if you took a minute to read the article? I doubt it. Why then was this article on the front page? Robert Murray spoke.