THE PRESS IS SWEET ON DICK JR.

In the Sunday edition of the Grand Rapids Press a couple of weeks ago, a news article on Dick DeVos's campaign for governor begins ...

"He stood there, on the dusty floor of a show barn, for three hours, look directly in the people's eyes, talking, laughing at jokes, but mostly listening."

Finished gagging?  It gets worse from there.  I don't think I O.D.'ed on such sugary sweetness since I was a kid devouring my Halloween treats.  But this is what passes for objective news reporting on the DeVos family in the Press under publisher Danny Gaydou.  You'll never get in his paper the inside scoop on how the DeVoses suck our local institutions dry, like we tell give you in "The Fixer" series.  Hell will freeze over before one of his reporters takes time away from playing their rotisserie league games to look under a rock to find out what these pyramid-builders are doing.

Then again, maybe Danny just has a taste for leather.  That might explain why licking the boots of Dick's old man, Amway founder Rich DeVos, isn't enough for him.  But do the puff pieces of the hype machine really have to kick in so early?  The election isn't until November 2006, and no one else, including Guv Jen, can be bothered to get out on the campaign trail.  Then again, maybe Danny is publishing such passionate prose because he is getting into the big buck business of romance novels.