Monthly Archives: August 2008

Did Obama’s position on Iraq just change?

Michelle Obama just said* something that made me say, "huh?" She was listing all the wonderful things that would happen if her husband were elected — the arrival of the millennium, dogs and cats living together in peace, the usual hyperbole you hear from people on such occasions, nothing remarkable — when she said:

"… See, that’s why Barack’s running: to end the war in Iraq responsibly…"

Say what? The Obama position, I thought, was an end, without modifiers, to our involvement in Iraq. Not and end to the war, of course. Democrats to whom Obama’s Iraq position (my one beef with him) appeals just want the U.S. to leave, never mind what happens in Iraq (at least Obama wants to leave "carefully" and "responsibly"), even though they use the phrase, "end the war." (Some of them, if you can fathom it, actually imagine that there will only be violence while Americans are there — I suppose they would also answer "no" to the Zen question about the tree in the forest.)

Well, we have been ending the war, quite responsibly and honorably, under the leadership of Gen. Petraeus over the past year. But I thought Obama was against that. I thought he just wanted us to leave.

When did that change? Or did it not change, and his wife is laboring under a misconception?

* Continuity note: I wrote this last night a minute or two after she said it, but didn’t post until now because I couldn’t find a transcript to confirm that I’d heard the quote right. It was one of those things where you hear something, and don’t right it down, but over the next few minutes you think, "Wait a minute… what did she just say?"

Mobile Ariail

As you know, Robert Ariail recently launched a Web site where you can get his latest cartoon, as well as archives.

Now, Robert has gone mobile. If you want to see his last few cartoons on your PDA, here’s the address:

http://m.thestate.com/state/db_7612_index.htm

Just don’t do it while driving, OK?

Looking ahead, his cartoon for Tuesday will be about … let’s see… what Joe Biden does for the Democratic ticket…

What I wrote about SPDs in 1991

Things don’t change in South Carolina; they just don’t. If you doubt me, read this piece I wrote in 1991. It was in connection with the 13th installment of the Power Failure project that I directed that year, when I was still in The State‘s newsroom. I quoted from it in my Sunday column.

For those of you who don’t remember, I spent that whole year (except for brief stints when I pulled away to help with our national desk with coverage of the Gulf War and the Soviet coup) running this project that delved very deeply into the fundamental, structural problems with government on the state and local levels in South Carolina. Before that, I had been The State’s governmental affairs editor. After, I took on other, temporary editing assignments as I awaited my chance to join the editorial board. Power Failure had pretty much ruined me for news work.

The piece I refer you to was a little invention of mine that I called the "thread." After the first installment or so of the series (there were 17), I realized that each installment threw an awful lot at people. I wanted to make sure that there was some consistent feature, from installment to installment, that linked that day’s installment with all the previous ones, making sure readers saw the themes that ran through them all. The threads were very short columns by me — about 11 inches long — that essentially answered the questions, What do I need to get out of this installment? How is it related to the rest of the series?

Anyway, I call your attention in particular to this passage. As I noted in my Sunday column, we always have to deal with supporters of SPDs acting like we’re after them personally when we criticized the continued existence of these anachronistic little governments. One of their favorite defenses is to cite the fine work they do providing needed services — as though the same services couldn’t be provided under more sensible governing arrangements. And yet, from the very start, I had anticipated and moved past such objections on their part:

Now before we go further, let’s get one thing straight: There are no bad guys here. Or rather, there might be a few bad guys here and there, but they’re not the problem.

There’s nothing sinister about special-purpose districts per se. They were all established with good intentions. They were set up to provide essential services to people who otherwise would have had to do without. Generally, they continue to perform those services.

The problem is that many — although not all — of them have outlived their usefulness, and their very existence means that government on the local level is more fragmented and less accountable than necessary.

That ran in our paper on Oct. 10, 1991.

Come to think of it, I’ll just make this easy for you and reproduce the whole "thread" for that day here, in case you’re at all interested:

THE STATE
HOW MANY GOVERNMENTS DO WE NEED?
Published on: 10/20/1991
Section: IMPACT
Edition: FINAL
Page: 1D
By Brad Warthen
Memo: POWER FAILURE: The Government That Answers to No One Thirteenth in a series

Do we really need this much government?
    Apart from the mess at the state level — such as an executive branch split into 133 completely independent entities — South Carolina has 46 counties, 271 towns and 91 school districts.
    And about 500 special-purpose districts.
    Maybe we do need this much government. But do we need this many governments, separate and frequently competing?
    Now before we go further, let’s get one thing straight: There are no bad guys here. Or rather, there might be a few bad guys here and there, but they’re not the problem.
    There’s nothing sinister about special-purpose districts per se. They were all established with good intentions. They were set up to provide essential services to people who otherwise would have had to do without. Generally, they continue to perform those services.
    The problem is that many — although not all — of them have outlived their usefulness, and their very existence means that government on the local level is more fragmented and less accountable than necessary.
    These districts are part of the legacy of the Legislative State, and point to some key characteristics of that odd system:

  • Legislative dominance. Until "Home Rule" was passed in 1975, only legislators had the power to solve local problems, such as providing services to unincorporated areas. Rather than empower local governments, legislators did what they always did — set up separate entities that drew their power from the lawmakers, not from voters.
  • Our rural past. Once, most people lived in the country. Now, most people live in or around towns. In many areas, more conventional elected local governments can provide the services SPDs provide — if allowed to. Special- purpose districts deny the urban present and affirm the rural past, as does legislative government itself.
  • That "personal" touch. Government by personal political connection is a hallmark of the Legislative State, and it finds expression here. Individual legislators protect and support special-purpose districts, and those interested in preserving the districts support the legislators.

    The bottom line is that, on the local level as well as on the state, policymaking and service delivery are fragmented, and we’re paying for more administration than we need. No one is in charge.
    Only the Legislature can solve this problem. It can start by setting up a procedure for dissolving SPDs, when and where warranted.
    Then, if it can stop listening to the interests who profit from fragmentation, it can do what voters said 19 years they wanted it to do — allow local government to be consolidated and simplified.
    According to the main lobbyist for the SPDs, "It appears that proponents of consolidation just want power." He’s right; they do. And so do the opponents.
    And so do the people, who have waited for it long enough.
All content © THE STATE and may not be republished without permission.
All archives are stored on a SAVE™ newspaper library system from NewsBank, inc.

Oh, one thing that has changed, slightly. The Legislature did, after this series, finally pass enabling legislation to allow for consolidation of governments. Not that we’ve seen that happen much since.

And we still have more than 500 SPDs. And still, no one knows the exact number.

The ‘Clean’ Team

Of course, the very best reason for Obama to have made the veep selection he did is that in Joe Biden, he has someone "who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."

No, wait — that’s what Biden said about Obama.

It speaks well of Obama that he didn’t let that remark, which cast a shadow on Biden’s candidacy from the day he announced, get in his way. Evidently, Obama understood perfectly well what Joe meant — rather than more nefarious, paranoid interpretations that some may have chosen to apply — and agreed with me that Joe was absolutely right. From my column of July 29, 2007:

    Poor Joe Biden, who’s even older than I am, got into all sorts of trouble for calling Obama “clean,” but that’s just what he is. And for those who are focusing on details of the latest 24/7 news cycle’s scandal or whatever, it’s easy to forget how appealing “clean” can be to the fresh-faced.

Up-close and personal Biden videos


Maybe now that Obama has pulled Joe Biden back into the spotlight, some of you may want to look at some of the video clips of our editorial board interview with him back in October, when he was still trying against all odds to be at the top of the ticket.

If so, here they are:

Over the next few days, I’ll try to find time to mine the rest of my video to see if there was anything that didn’t seem interesting then that is more interesting now that he’s the running mate.

Oh, and I also have some older video of Joe. Here he is at the Galivants Ferry Stump Meeting (being introduced by Fritz Hollings), and here is some poor-quality phone video of him really getting worked up talking to the Columbia Rotary about immigration.

Oh, and in case you want to see video of the other guy on the Democratic ticket, here’s a post I did with a bunch of clips from our January interview with Obama.

Forget business. In S.C., it’s always personal

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
    “Forget about business; it’s personal.”
— what Michael Corleone would have said in “The Godfather,” had he been a South Carolinian

EVERY WORD of the following paragraph, which I wrote in 1991 about our state government, remains true today:
    Government by personal political connection is a hallmark of the Legislative State, and it finds expression here. Individual legislators protect and support special-purpose districts, and those interested in preserving the districts support the legislators.
    Special purpose districts are difficult to talk about to anyone who is not personally involved with them. A quick primer:
    Until 1975, county councils did not exist in South Carolina. State legislators ran everything; lawmakers from a given county made all the local decisions that in most other parts of the country would be made by local government. They provided local services such as recreation, sewerage and fire protection with tiny, ad hoc mini-governments called “special purpose districts.” The districts generally did not follow county lines; often there were several for the same purpose within a county.
    Even after county councils were formed in the ’70s, lawmakers refused to do away with SPDs, leading in many cases to conflict and duplication, and to confused lines of responsibility (confusing to the average voter, that is; insiders knew how things worked). There are more than 500 SPDs in the state today. No one knows the exact number, not even the S.C. Association of Special Purpose Districts.
    The continued existence of these extra little governments, which derive their power from the Legislature, is one of the ways that state lawmakers keep county government weak and ineffective.
    If SPDs ceased to exist today (not likely, by the way), some would and should quickly be reconstituted because they address purposes that go beyond the reach of a single county — such as the body that governs the Columbia airport, or Riverbanks Zoo. But most need to be eliminated, and their duties absorbed by elected city and county governments.
    Whenever we on this editorial board say this, folks who work for or derive some measure of power from SPDs get very upset with us. They take it very personally. But for us, it’s not personal; it’s strictly business — the business of good government.
    In America, we like to say that we have a government of laws and not of men (or of women, either, if you want to be pedantic about it). But our small state’s Byzantine governing arrangements militate in the opposite direction.
    I was reminded of this when the head of the state association of SPDs, Mike Hancock, came to visit us last week. His purpose was to let us know that the folks who run SPDs weren’t monsters; his goal was easily achievable because we’ve never thought anything of the kind — we just disagree with them. But while he knew he wasn’t a monster — in point of fact, he seems a very nice man — he apparently wasn’t so sure about us. He admitted to being uneasy, apparently because he did not have a personal relationship with us. To address that, he had brought along his attorney, Jay Bender, who just happens to be this newspaper’s longtime attorney. Personal.
    Mr. Hancock did try to establish something of a bond at the start of our conversation, reminding us that several years back when my colleague Cindi Scoppe and I spoke to the SPD association, he moderated, and did his best to prevent us from being ridden on a rail. I had not remembered his being there. The only person I clearly remember by name from that confab was a lady who asked us to do that gig — an old and dear friend of my longtime friend and colleague Lee Bandy. Personal.
    At one point in the conversation, we were talking about the fact that under current law, it’s impossible to eliminate one SPD; you’d have to disband them all (which, once again, isn’t about to happen). Cindi noted that this will continue to be the case unless Chief Justice Jean Toal gets another ally on the Supreme Court who believes the state constitution allows the SPDs’ individual dissolution. Personal.
    A moment later, Mr. Hancock was expressing uncertainty about his association’s legislative strategy (chief goal: protecting SPDs), noting that with Bill Cotty retiring, he didn’t even know who his own state representative was going to be, which put him at a disadvantage. Personal.
    But in South Carolina, Mr. Hancock and his association truly have the advantage in their campaign to preserve SPDs.
    It’s like with the adjutant general. Every other state in the union holds to the principle that military officers should be apolitical. But in South Carolina, we elect the head of our National Guard. That is unlikely to change because lawmakers defer to the preferences of Guard members, and Guard members generally tend to be closely tied to their current commanding officer (which is how it works in banana republics; the U.S. military avoids this by transferring officers frequently), who is always totally invested in the system “that brung him” — popular election. Personal.
    Similarly, with more than 500 SPDs, there are thousands of people personally invested in their continued existence. This makes for a huge constituency for the status quo. There are, after all, only 46 counties.
    Mr. Hancock has nothing to worry about, no matter what we busybodies on the editorial page may say about SPDs. He seems to be a very nice guy, and he’s allied with a lot of other nice folks. And over at our State House, it’s always personal.

Welcome back, Joe

Biden1

    All right, let’s try one more time — I wrote this post twice this afternoon and had it crash both times right when I stored it for the last time, and the whole thing disappeared, despite the fact that I had saved drafts along the way. You’d think with the subject being an Irishman, a bit of luck would rub off on me. Here goes…

So Obama picked the one guy he needed to pick, the one running mate with all the strengths that perfectly match his weaknesses. And so we welcome Joe Biden back to the limelight.

Well, not "back" exactly, since my man Joe didn’t get any of the light that was his due the first time around. Despite all that time spent paying dues here in South Carolina — starring at the Galivants Ferry Stump Meeting in 2006, and doing the rubber-chicken circuit with great regularity, he couldn’t get any attention, and no love from S.C. Democrats. Why? Because the Beltway media had decided it would be about Obama and Hillary, and apparently S.C. Democrats were spending all their time staring at 24/7 TV "news" instead of looking around them, and they mistook what they saw on the Tube for reality, until it became reality.

Never mind that Joe Biden was easily the best-qualified candidate in the field. By the time January rolled around, he was down, out and forgotten.

That made things at tad easier for us on The State‘s editorial board in the end. By the time Obama came in and dazzled us in his endorsement interview — and Hillary had refused to come in and try to give us a reason not to endorse Obama — the choice was easy. But if Joe had still been in it, I suspect I would still have been pulling for him, and who knows where we would have ended up? It might have been like 2004 all over again, when I persuaded a very divided board to go along with me (talked them into exhaustion is what I did, in a three-hour marathon after which I lost my voice for about a week) and endorse my other man Joe.

As it was, though, we reached a very quick consensus, much as we had done earlier in the month with John McCain.

Joe Biden, of course, had been in to see us months before, just as McCain had done. And those were not the first visits we’d had from either of those veterans.

So now Joe’s back in it. Good. This will be interesting.

Biden2

Peggy gets in some good ones

First, a confession — I’m backdating this. I meant to post it on Saturday, but ran into technical difficulties, and when I was finally back to where I could do something, the Biden stuff was a higher priority. But I just saw yesterday’s WSJ on the table, and it reminded me that I wanted to call attention to Peggy Noonan’s piece yesterday.

The thrust of it was why McCain had suddenly pulled even with, or ahead of, Obama in polls. She posited that it was because the American people had just started paying attention, and what they saw was:

The Rick Warren debate mattered. Why? It took place at exactly the moment America was starting to pay attention. This is what it looked like by the end of the night: Mr. McCain, normal. Mr. Obama, not normal….

She, like some others, thought Obama really backed himself into a corner on abortion, to wit:

As to the question when human life begins, the answer to which is above Mr. Obama’s pay grade, oh, let’s go on a little tear. You know why they call it birth control? Because it’s meant to stop a birth from happening nine months later. We know when life begins. Everyone who ever bought a pack of condoms knows when life begins.

To put it another way, with conception something begins. What do you think it is? A car? A 1948 Buick?

Then there was her little shot at W. As a former speechwriter for his Dad, she’s always been sort of amiably disapproving toward the current POTUS:

(The number of men who’ve made it to the top of the GOP who don’t particularly like making speeches, both Bushes and Mr. McCain, is astonishing, and at odds with the presumed requirements of the media age. The first Bush saw speeches as show biz, part of the weary requirement of leadership, and the second’s approach reflects a sense that words, though interesting, were not his friend.)

Her way of doing that provokes a thought: Don’t you think the Bush-haters would get a lot farther if they could tamp down the virulence enough to be able to criticize the kinder, gentler way she does?

But while the piece had some good bits, I had to disagree with her conclusion, which was that McCain should make the one-term pledge:

A move that would help him win doubtful voters, win disaffected Democrats, allow some Republicans to not have to get drunk to vote for him, and that could possibly yield real results for his country. This seems to me such a potentially electrifying idea that he’d likely walk out of his convention as the future president.

In other words, she’s saying, it would be a great gimmick for winning the election. She said his political ambition prevents him from making the pledge. But wouldn’t the ultimate evidence of political ambition, of desire to win this election at all costs, be pulling just such a stunt as she suggests?

Charlie Stenholm on the past and future of Blue Dogs


Last week, ex-Rep. Charlie Stenholm came to see me on behalf of Big Oil, pushing new drilling. Since he accepts the Energy Party principle of Doing Everything — increased production AND conservation AND alternative fuels AND anything else that will move us toward energy independence — he found a receptive audience.

But that’s not what I remember a week later. I was more intrigued by what he had to say about Blue Dogs. Mr. Stenholm, in case you didn’t know, was on of the Democrats tossed out of office by Tom DeLay’s gerrymandering of Texas. Anyway, he made three interesting points:

  1. Moderate Democrats are likely to have more influence over their party and the nation, not less, after the upcoming election.
  2. Blue Dogs today face a very different situation from the Boll Weevils he helped lead in his early days in Congress, largely because…
  3. George W. Bush has been an impossible man to work with, Blue Dog or not — a fact that surprised him, since he had worked well with Mr. Bush when he was governor of Texas.

Had you heard McCain had taken the lead (according to Zogby)?

Well, I had seen the WSJ/NBC poll showing a dead heat, and the Winthrop/ETV poll showing McCain with a big lead in the South (big surprise, huh?), but having fallen behind in my e-mail, I had missed this until Kathleen Parker’s latest column brought it to my attention:

Reuters/Zogby Poll: McCain Makes a Move, Takes 5-Point Lead Over Obama – Video Commentary By John Zogby Available Now

Obama loses ground among Dems, women, Catholics & even younger voters

UTICA, New York – As Russian tanks rolled into the Republic of Georgia and the presidential candidates met over the weekend in the first joint issues forum of the fall campaign, the latest polling includes drama almost as compelling – Republican John McCain has taken a five-point lead over Democrat Barack Obama in the race for President, the latest Reuters/Zogby telephone survey shows.

McCain leads Obama by a 46% to 41% margin.

And McCain not only enjoys a five-point edge in a two-way race against Obama, but also in a four-way contest including liberal independent candidate Ralph Nader and Libertarian Bob Barr, the poll reveals. In the four-way contest, McCain wins 44% support, Obama 39%, Barr 3% and Nader 2%.

This latest Reuters/Zogby poll is a dramatic reversal from the identical survey taken last month – in the July 9-13 Reuters/Zogby survey, Obama led McCain, 47% to 40%. In the four-way race last month, Obama held a 10-point lead over McCain.

That’s according to Zogby.

Do you find this surprising? I did.

Condi the Barbarian?

Condi

This wasn’t quite what I was looking for as I sought artwork to go on the op-ed page Sunday, but it certainly caught my eye. Here’s the AP caption:

Ossetian protesters demonstrate outside NATO headquarters in Brussels, Tuesday Aug. 19, 2008. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her NATO counterparts are reviewing relations with Moscow and are expected to curtail high level meetings and military cooperation with Russia if it does not abandon crucial positions across Georgia. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

So not only do the Russians have the advantage in tanks and missiles, they’ve also got somebody who’s real mean hand with PhotoShop.

Which reminds me — aren’t we way overdue for a Conan sequel? And don’t try to tell me Ah-nold’s got better things to do…

‘Are you going to the American side?’

This was a fascinating, highly illuminating little anecdote in the WSJ today. I recommend reading the whole piece, but at least this part:

    Lia’s husband had remained behind and arrived in Tbilisi shortly before I did. "He was trying to keep the house and the fields," she explained. "Afterward, he wanted to leave, but he was circled by soldiers. It was impossible. He was in the orchards hiding from the Russians in case they lit the house. He was walking and met the Russian soldiers and he made up his mind that he couldn’t stay any more. The Russian soldiers called him and asked where he was going, if he was going to the American side."
    "The Russians said this to him?" I said.
    "My husband said he was going to see his family," she said. "And the Russians said again, ‘Are you going to the American side?’"
    "So the Russians view you as the American side, even though there are no Americans here."
    "Yes," she said. "Because our way is for democracy."

Sort of clarifies things, doesn’t it?

Obama has a secret, and he’s not telling

Robertwagner3

Barack Obama is playing very coy with his veep selection, saying "I’ve made the selection, and that’s all you’re going to get." At least until Saturday. Unless you’ve joined the secret club.

That Obama, he’s such a tease.

On a serious note, I’m hoping for my man Joe. No, not that man Joe, my other man Joe. No, and not that man Joe, either! I mean the one from Delaware. Sheesh. (Y’all know I like Joes.)

He is the perfect complement, just chock full o’ experience, thereby compensating for Obama’s greatest weakness. Yeah, Joe can talk you to death, but he’s a smart and thoughtful guy, and about the only Democrat who was putting forth a real plan for Iraq back when it was the thing to talk about. (You’ll notice that now that the surge has succeeded, and we actually can talk about timetables for withdrawal, they’re a lot quieter on the subject.)

Kathleen Sebelius is cool — very UnParty — but he really doesn’t need another fresh new face on his ticket.

Unfortunately, I have reason to believe that it will be neither Biden nor Sebelius. Apparently, the folks at the WashPost know something, and they’re giving us a hint with their headline: "Obama Says He Has Chosen His No. 2."

Obviously, that means he has chosen veteran actor Robert Wagner.

Remember, you read it here first.

Private clubs in Columbia TODAY

Remember that I told you last week that Clif LeBlanc was going to have a follow-up story on the Cap City Club anniversary, a piece that would tell us to what extent local private clubs have become less "exclusive" in the bad old sense over the past 20 years?

Well, he did, and I meant to ask y’all for your thoughts on it. Here’s a link to his story. Short version — most clubs are more open. At least one still has no black members.

If you go read Clif’s piece, and you’re so inclined, please come back here to discuss it.

One column or the other? Choosing between the day’s best for op-ed

When I choose syndicated columns for op-ed, I’m usually a stickler about one thing — it has to have just arrived. If it didn’t come in within the 24 hours since I last looked, I don’t consider it. Once passed over, permanently passed over.

For tomorrow’s paper, I broke my own rule ("Actually," as Dr. Venkman said, "it’s more of a guideline than a rule."), choosing a Kathleen Parker column I had passed on the day before.

Today broke a week-long pattern. Today, there was nothing new that stood out as worth publishing. But on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, I had trouble choosing between two columns each day that stood out well above the rest, but for different reasons were equally appealing. Practically coin-toss decisions. Ms. Parker’s piece on the Saddleback Church "debate" was the one I almost chose on Wednesday for today, but didn’t. So I’m using it Friday instead of something newer.

Anyway, in keeping with my practice of using the blog to better explain how we do things around here (and one of the most common questions I get from the reading public is "How do you choose what you run on the op-ed page?"), let me tell you about the picks I agonized over. First, I should note that the process is about as selective as you can get, since we only have room for one syndicated and one local piece a day. (For that reason, I just have to shake my head over people who submit columns for selection, are not selected, and go about in the community complaining loudly that we "refused to run" their piece. What they fail to recognize, either intentionally or unintentionally, is that NOT being chosen is the norm. The one piece we choose out of many is the exception, not the rule.) Because we only have that one national or international piece a day, the only way to achieve any "balance" or diversity of opinion is over time, considering many days together.

Here were my three dilemmas, and how I resolved them:

  • Monday (for Tuesday’s paper) — Mondays tend to be a bit warmed-over, since even the "fresh" pieces were usually written the week before. One exception to that was Bill Kristol’s piece on the Saddleback Church event Saturday night. He had written it for Monday’s NYT (one of the drawbacks of using NYT columns is that they ALWAYS, even during the week, move long after our deadline — the NYT moves according to its own convenience, not that of paying subscribers — so the earliest we get to run them is a day after they were in the NYT), but it was still out ahead of any other columns I would see on the subject (Ms. Parker’s moved late Tuesday). Seeing the topic as fresh, and having missed the event myself, I leaned strongly toward using the Kristol piece. But I didn’t. Instead, I chose a column by Nicholas Kristof that did something I regarded as more important — reminded people dazzled by the glitz of the Olympics just how reflexively oppressive the Chinese government is. I was a little put off by Mr. Kristof’s gimmicky approach — pretending he wanted a license to protest, and having a videographer follow him through the process, a la early Geraldo Rivera — but his point was important. So I went with it, and put Mr. Kristol (with an L) in the queue for our Saturday online edition. (Also-rans from that day’s bounty, columns that didn’t make the initial cut, included ones from Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd, Tom Friedman, Kathleen Parker, Bob Herbert, Gail Collins and Derrick Jackson.)
  • Tuesday (for Wednesday’s paper) — The piece I almost ran was one by Robert Samuelson headlined "The Real China Threat," which was embargoed for Wednesday publication (unlike the NYT, the WashPost Writers Group moves its columnists in advance, so we can run them at the same time as their home paper itself). An excerpt: "Will China overtake the United States as the world’s biggest economy? Well, stop worrying. It almost certainly will." He went on, in typical thorough Samuelson fashion, to explain exactly why and how. But I saved that one for Saturday (the theme would be just as fresh, and just as true, then), and chose instead a David Brooks column that made an observation about John McCain I had not yet seen — that not only was his approach to campaigning becoming less "maverick" and more conventional, but that it was working for him in the polls (an assertion that would be backed up in a WSJ/NBC News poll today). Aside from that, I just loved the lead anecdote expressing McCain’s usual approach to the hyperidiotic world of partisan politics:

        On Tuesdays, Senate Republicans hold a weekly policy lunch. The party leaders often hand out a Message of the Week that the senators are supposed to repeat at every opportunity. Sometimes there will be a pollster offering data that supposedly demonstrates the brilliance of the message and why it will lead to political nirvana.
        John McCain generally spends the lunches at a table with a gang of fellow ne’er-do-wells. He cracks jokes, razzes the speaker and generally ridicules the whole proceeding. Then he takes the paper with the Message of the Week back to his office. He tosses it on the desk of some staffer with a sarcastic comment like: “Here’s your message. Learn it. Love it. Live it.”
        This sort of behavior has been part of McCain’s long-running rebellion against the stupidity of modern partisanship. In a thousand ways, he has tried to preserve some sense of self-respect in a sea of pandering pomposity….

    (Also-rans from Tuesday: Cal Thomas, Tom Teepen, David Broder, Leonard Pitts.)

  • Wednesday (for Thursday’s paper) — This was the toughest choice of all. First, there was Kathleen’s piece, which I loved because of the way it ran against the pigeonhole that readers try to put her in. Rather than gushing about McCain’s (and Rick Warren’s) performance the way other "conservatives" had done, she criticized the whole affair as telling her more than she wanted to know about the respective candidates’ religious beliefs. It’s columns such as that one that move us forward, by making us think different thoughts (even though I don’t necessarily agree with her point). But in the end I went with the Tom Friedman column from that morning. It was just way too important, and he had accomplished something that was very difficult to do within the space of a single column. He explained very clearly why the U.S. and Saakashvili share blame for stupid courses of action leading up to the Georgia invasion, while making it VERY clear that Putin is the main bad guy and must be opposed with all the West can muster. Both Kathleen’s and Friedman’s pieces were of the sort that made you feel smarter for having read them. But no one had summed up the Georgia invasion as well as Friedman did. And besides, it had been awhile since I had picked a Friedman piece, leaving a palpable vacuum that only he could fill. (Also-rans: George Will, Maureen Dowd.)

So initially I had slotted Kathleen’s column to join the others on the Saturday list. But now I’ve pulled it back to run Friday.

One more point — you may have noticed that the way I use the Saturday online page is to run the very best pieces that didn’t quite make it — each of them better than everything else that moved that day (except for the one I did pick). That makes the Saturday Opinion Extra worth reading, which not enough people do. That’s my opinion, anyway.

Lieberman Agonistes

Mccainjoe

Let me admit straight up that that headline wasn’t my idea. It’s lifted straight from a Wall Street Journal editorial today, which chides both left and right — especially the right — for their antagonism toward my man Joe.

The specific occasion is the chatter about Lieberman as running mate for John McCain. While justly dismissing the hysterical reaction such talk generates on the right, the WSJ agrees with me that veep candidate would not be the best role for the independent from Connecticut. More coincidentally, the newspaper suggests a role that I had been thinking of in connection with Mr. Lieberman not an hour before I read the editorial:

    Our own view is that Mr. Lieberman would make a fine Secretary of
State, and that, given the political risks, making him vice president
would probably be too great an election gamble. But Mr. Lieberman’s
national security credentials are first-rate…

Good thought, there. Perhaps Mr. McCain should talk it up.

Austin on right track: Tap private sector for lights

First, I am no Scrooge, any more than is our friend James D. McCallister. While I might be some decades removed from the time of life when Christmas was pure joy, unalloyed by stress and hassle, I am not one to call the season a "humbug." I need no spirit from the past to startle me into remembering the excitement I felt as a child when downtown decorations went up.

But as I think back to the various cities and towns in which my memory’s eye sees those simple wreaths and lights hung from lampposts, I associate those things with local merchants. And so it is that I praise City Manager Charles Austin for suggesting that perhaps it is NOT the job of the city’s taxpayers to come up with $140,800 to put up holiday lights and decorations in downtown Columbia.

"There are other ways to do this besides the city," says Mr. Austin. Indeed.

Of course, the sorts of merchants with whom you might expect to collaborate on such a thing — the kind that most clearly benefit from the Christmas season (say, Macy’s or Belk) — are rather thin on the ground these days, and in some cases perhaps for the same reason that new lights are needed (the disruption caused by streetscaping).

But before the city government coughs up even such a small amount for decorations, it needs to figure out how to pay for an improved bus system, and deal properly with homelessness. What good are festive lights if they illuminate a human being sleeping on a grate?

Aw, that’s OK; I can wait a few minutes

Just got this come-on from the Democrats :

Dear Brad [they always call me "Brad"],
    Barack Obama is about to choose his running mate, and you can find out who it is before the press, the pundits, or his opponents.
    Sign up to be the first to know and you’ll receive an email the moment Barack makes his decision.
    Or you can text VP to 62262 to receive a text message on your mobile phone.
    Thanks to the energy and efforts of Democrats like you, we are in a great position to elect a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
    And if we stand together behind Barack and his nominee for Vice President, we won’t have to worry about another Dick Cheney playing the role of tie-breaker in the Senate.
    No campaign or political party has made a VP announcement like this before, and you can be part of this important moment.

Click here to be the first to know who Barack picks.

    After you’ve signed up, forward this message to your friends and family and tell them about this special opportunity.
    Barack’s campaign is transforming politics in this country and helping Democrats up and down the ballot in all 50 states.
    Thanks for everything you’re doing to bring the change this country needs,
J.B. Poersch
Executive Director
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

Hey, at least I forwarded it to my friends, right?

I wonder which of the following is true:

  • People are so wired now to know things right this second that they’ll subject themselves to future fund-raising come-ons to be among the first few million to know.
  • People think it’s cheesy, but will sign up anyway to be part of the Inner Circle.
  • This is way off base, and won’t get a single bite.

As for me — I can wait; thanks. I’m sure someone will tell me soon enough.

What would we do without those wonderful media watchdogs?

Speaking of self-absorbed… Just got this e-mail from Romenesko with PoynterOnline — a site about media on the subject of media — with a link to a media site reporting on what media watchdog groups say about the media.

Did you follow that? You could leave out a couple of the "medias," and you’d still probably get the idea.

Anyway, Romenesko somewhat whimsically reported on both of the following at the same time:

  • The conservative Media Research Center claims that not only do the media obsess about Obama, but "34 percent of the stories about Obama were positive and 5 percent negative. The rest were characterized as neutral."
  • Set that alongside this report from the liberal Media Matters, telling us that "for more than a decade, John McCain has been the media’s favorite
    politician. Even conservatives have long acknowledged that McCain
    enjoys a special place in the hearts of the Washington press corps."

Yadda-yadda.

People see what they want to see, hear what they want to hear. I’ve had fun with these "media watchdog" groups on the blog before.

Want to know the truth? The "media" — to the extent that you can talk about anything so diverse and numerous — like Obama. They also, to the same extent, like McCain. The "favorite" of most media types won both parties’ nominating contests.

Hey, even I like ’em both — and I am very seldom in tune with the "collective wisdom" of the MSM.

WOW but we’re self-absorbed

The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in
Journalism sends out a weekly tracking report on news coverage of the presidential election, which I generally glance at. This week’s floored me:

    Last week, for the first time in nine months, another event generated more media attention than the presidential campaign. The conflict in Georgia filled 26% of the newshole from August 11-17 while campaign coverage registered at 21%, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.
    The election generated its lowest level of coverage since December 2007….

"…for the first time in nine months!"

Folks, the presidential election IS very important. But that’s not ALL that’s important. Sheesh. I guess I should take some comfort from the fact that for one week at least, we acknowledged it.