Monthly Archives: July 2010

Remember when MTV showed VIDEOS?

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This item this morning made me think of something:

NEW YORK – MTV held a solid lead among 15 networks for its representation of gay characters last season, according to a report released Friday.

In its fourth annual Network Responsibility Index, the Gay & LesbianAlliance Against Defamation found that of MTV’s 207.5 hours of original prime-time programming, 42 percent included content reflecting the lives of gay, bisexual and transgender people. This earned MTV the first-ever “Excellent” rating from GLAAD.

“MTV programs like ‘The Real World’ and ‘America’s Best Dance Crew’ have offered richly diverse portrayals of gay and transgender peoplethat help Americans better understand and accept our community,” said GLAAD president Jarrett Barrios.

And the something it made me think of was this: Remember when MTV showed … music videos? As in, that was its entire point?

I loved music videos. Back at the start of the 80s, when I didn’t get MTV on my cable in Jackson, TN, I would stay up late on Friday night (I think it was Friday — or was it Saturday?) and watch a program on TBS that was nothing but an hour or so of videos.

As a new art form, it was awesome. They combined the appeal of popular music with cinema in a way that stimulated pleasure centers in my brain that no other form had yet discovered. It was startling the way those fleeting images filled out and magnified the impact of the music. There was a popular music renaissance based entirely on the fact that new bands were well suited to this form. I found it entrancing. Before music videos, I would tell people that if I could wave a wand and do anything other than be a newspaper editor, it would be to direct movies. In the early 80s, I switched that idle wish to making music videos.

(And yes, I realize that something like music videos existed previously, such as the music sequences in “A Hard Day’s Night,” which spawned a new device in loads of other movies. And then there was the occasional free-standing video — film, actually, in those days, I suppose — with two impressive examples being Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and John Lennon’s “Imagine.” But MTV launched an explosion of the form, and innovated the concept of continuous videos like listening continuously to songs on the radio, with VeeJays instead of DeeJays.)

Of course, once I had access to MTV I could watch music videos any time. My favorite time was when I was working out. I used to go down into the basement gym at The State, get on the treadmill and crank up MTV or VH1, and the time just sped by as I sweated and got healthy.

But even then — the late 80s and early 90s — MTV itself started to betray the new medium, by polluting its schedule with such unmitigated trash as “The Real World.” And look at the harm that has done to the world. Now, we have hundreds of TV channels to choose from, but at any given moment, it seems that more than half of them are showing this putrid garbage that involves appallingly stupid narcissists obsessing about their mock-private lives. It astounds me that even one person on the planet would ever watch this junk for two seconds, much less support it to this extent.

MTV started it all, to its everlasting shame. And it started with such a wonderful product…

Eat your heart out, George Costanza

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Sorry I haven’t posted today, but I’ve been busy.

I’m just branching out into all sorts of new fields of endeavor since becoming a Mad Man and joining ADCO — exploiting latent talents I didn’t even know I had.

Here’s the latest: Hand model. Soon, you might be seeing my hand on a billboard down in the Lowcountry. That’s because we needed background art — of anonymous hands operating office equipment — for a board we were doing for a client. Karen and I ran over to the client’s showroom to shoot it earlier this week, and she shot a bunch of exposures of my hands pretending to push buttons. I shot some of her doing the same, but it was Karen’s camera (a very nice Nikon SLR) and she’ll be picking the image we use, and in my experience, when given a choice, photographers prefer their own work.

So this is my big shot. A number of years ago I pressed The State to include in a billboard campaign several boards highlighting the faces of my associates Cindi Scoppe, Warren Bolton and Claudia Brinson. I thought then that someone in Marketing (The State actually had a marketing department back then) would say, “We need one of Brad, too!” But they didn’t, drat the luck. So my colleagues got famouser and I didn’t.

But this is my big break. And I’m going to be really careful with my hands. I’m not going to mess them up the way George Costanza did his. (Yes, now I, too, have “hand,” George!)

And in a way, this kind of notoriety is sweeter than having people know your face. I won’t be pestered for autographs. I’ll be able to sit in a restaurant, for instance, undisturbed and overhear women at an adjoining table:

FIRST WOMAN: Have you seen that wonderful new office equipment ad?

SECOND WOMAN: Those hands! They’re so… so hot!

FIRST WOMAN: Yes! They make me all quivery…

… while I smile enigmatically, perusing the menu.

Just please — don’t hate me because my hands are beautiful.

Here's pointing at YOU, kid...

Virtual Front Page, Wednesday, July 21, 2010

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This morning, reading the paper, I was kicking myself because I missed a couple of late-breaking local stories (the full-time mayor recommendation and Sheheen releasing his tax records — both of which, to my shame, I had to read for the first time in the paper this morning) for yesterday’s front. But hey, I’ve got a reporting staff of one, so cut me a break.

The hard thing today is coming up with a lede. Here’s what I have at this hour:

  1. Obama Signs Sweeping Financial Overhaul Into Law (NPR) — Since this is anticlimactic, since we knew it was going to happen, this is a very low-key lede — one column, and maybe not quite at the top of the page. But it actually happened, unlike other things competing with it (Bernanke speculating; oil companies promising to do something), so lede it is.
  2. Bernanke Sees No Quick End to High Rate of Joblessness (NYT) — In testimony before Congress today.
  3. Oil Majors Building Disaster-Response System (WSJ) — The companies would pool resources to be able to respond properly next time — if there is a next time. There won’t be if drilling isn’t allowed, and this proposal is aimed to help persuade Washington to allow it.
  4. White House Apologizes to Fired Official (NYT) — Wow. It’s pretty amazing how easily the White House let itself get railroaded by a smear from a right-wing blogger.
  5. Sheheen Challenges Haley to be Transparent (The State) — This one’s old now because I failed to hear about it yesterday, but it’s significant as sort of the opening shot in the fall campaign.
  6. Panel urges full-time mayor (The State) — With the election of a mayor who actually ran on the issues, we seem poised to finally act on two long-overdue reforms that have never gotten anywhere: A strong-mayor system for Columbia, and consolidation of city and county services. Big stuff for Columbia’s future.

Alvin Greene not really anything new for SC

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At lunch today, I said something about “Mad Men,” and a lady friend mentioned that one of the actresses from the show was on the cover of Playboy. This grabbed my attention, although I calmed down a bit when she told me it was NOT Christina Hendricks, who plays Joan Holloway. Yes. I was disappointed, too. But I wanted to know who it was, and was already trying to think whether an actress from “Mad Men” being on the cover would be a good enough excuse to buy a copy, the way I justified to my wife buying the Jimmy Carter interview edition (think, honey — all those interesting articles!), while the lady did some hunting on her iPhone — and came up with the picture.

And as I looked, and admitted I didn’t recognize her, but might if given the opportunity to study additional photos more closely, she said, “You know, this is what Alvin Greene got arrested for.”

Which is true. And in fact, the more I think about it, that arrest is perhaps the one thing that explains why we’re so flabbergasted that he is the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate. There are other things. His unemployment, for instance. But I was unemployed for a year, and I’d vote for me. The fact that he lives with his Dad? Why wouldn’t a single, unemployed guy, recently out of the Army, stay with his aged father? As for being out of the Army: Sure, we don’t know why he was involuntarily released, but is it all that unusual to have unanswered questions about a candidate’s military service, if he even has any? Do we really know where W. was when he was supposed to be on Guard duty? Has anyone yet learned exactly where and how John Kerry was wounded to get those Purple Hearts that were his early ticket home? Mr. Greene was honorably discharged, and how much else to we need to know.

OK, so he’s no public speaker, and his grasp of the issues is unimpressive. Whoop-te-doo.

Allow me to remind you that this state’s last Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate was no great bargain either. Remember Bob Conley? He, too, was a bit on the flaky side. Sure, he actually had some campaign materials, but they reflected a set of values that seemed oddly out of place in a Democrat, and would make a reasonable person wonder how in the world he won the nomination.

Here’s what I wrote about him in The State’s endorsement of Lindsey Graham:

Bob Conley is one of those anomalous candidates who occasionally step into political vacuums — a nominal Democrat who takes the position of the angry right wing on immigration and would abolish the Federal Reserve. His Web site touts words of support from Ron Paul and the wife of Patrick Buchanan.

Bob Conley

In fact, he sounded for all the world like he was running under the Tea Party banner, before we’d even heard of the Tea Party. For more about Bob and his views, check this campaign flier.

He was fringe. He was out there. He was nobody’s concept of a Democrat. In fact, the few views that Alvin Greene has expressed are a far better fit for the party. So how did this guy win the nomination? The same way Alvin Greene did. Zero attention was paid to the race beforehand because Lindsey Graham, like Jim DeMint today, seemed like a sure bet (once he got past the extremists in his own party in the primary). So voters went into the booth without crucial information — and inexplicably, inexcusably voted for someone they knew nothing about. Sound familiar?

It could just as easily have been Alvin Greene — and this time, it was.

There is very little new in this situation. So the guy faces charges from showing pictures to a co-ed? Hey, he could have been an ax murderer for all the voters knew.

So why are we so worked up about Alvin Greene, as though nothing like this has ever happened before? Here’s my theory: The national media had their eyes on SC because of the craziness surrounding Nikki Haley, and just before they turned away, they went “Hey wait — and these nuts also elected some guy they’d never heard of…?” And from that, another star was born.

Silly national media. They didn’t realize we do this all the time.

… but no pledges, please, Vincent

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Having praised Vincent Sheheen for challenging Nikki Haley to actually be transparent for a change (since that’s, you know, her platform), I’ve gotta say I’m with Nikki on this:

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Vincent Sheheen has signed a pledge, promising to make an effort to appoint qualified women to senior level positions on state boards and commissions if he is elected.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley declined to sign the pledge.

Like Nikki, I wouldn’t sign the pledge, either.

Now settle down, ladies. (If you’re OK with me calling you ladies.) Nothing against hiring women.

The problem is the pledge.

My objection may seem a bit wonkish and technical, but please attend:

I believe candidates should not sign pledges about what they will do or not do in office. The cause doesn’t matter; the problem is the pledge itself. It undermines the integrity of the political process. Candidates may speak of general intentions, but specific promises — particularly when taken to the extreme of putting them in writing — are a bad idea.

It is essential to self-government, and particularly to our system of representative democracy, that once in office a public servant should study the actual situation that he faces in office (which can never be accurately, fully anticipated before the election), and engage as an honest, unencumbered agent in deliberation with others to reach a decision about what to do.

You think this is just a fine point, a mere ephemeral abstraction? Well, you liberals applauding Vincent for this stand should take a moment and contemplate the severe damage done to South Carolina by the fact that Grover Norquist got so many GOP lawmakers to sign his anti-tax pledge. It has made comprehensive tax reform impossible, and led to a downward ratcheting of tax revenues that had nothing to do with the state’s actual spending needs, and everything to do with Norquist’s aim of shrinking government to the point that he can drown it in a bathtub.

But whether you like the aim of the pledge or not, they are a bad idea — that includes the pledge that Democrats were passing around awhile back to promise to spend more on education — because they shackle an officeholder from dealing in the future with the actual, practical situation that lies before him.

So Vincent — please do express your desire to see more qualified women serve in your administration. That’s great. But no pledges, please.

“How to Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom”

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Within the past week, I read two headlines in the same day that made me laugh out loud. For the life of me I can’t remember now what the other one was, but I remember this one. I read it in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece (headlined “Al Qaeda Goes Viral“) about al Qaeda’s new English language Internet magazine, Inspire.

Of course, as I laughed, I also worried. It’s one thing is this is just another instance of unintentional comedy on the part of the terrorist organization (like the guy who set his underpants on fire). But if al Qaeda has now advanced to the point that they’ve developed a sense of irony — if they were intentionally engaging in self-mocking wordplay — then we’re really in trouble. One of bin Laden’s great weaknesses is that his people seem either culturally or pathologically incapable of thinking like us. This would indicate a great leap forward in propaganda capabilities.

If they HAVE learned more about us, it could be for the same reason that I happened to remember this headline several days later. It seems that the editor of Inspire is from Charlotte. Or sorta kinda from Charlotte:

CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) – A Charlotte man who used to run a pro-Jihad blog from his parent’s home is now reportedly in Yemen, authoring the first al-Qaeda online magazine in English.

Samir Khan, 25, shut down his website in 2007 under local media scrutiny. According to national news reports, Khan is now running a website called “Inspire.”

The magazine has a flashy and slick appearance. One of the articles shows readers how to construct a bomb using kitchen items.

There are also articles included in the publication reportedly written by Osama Bin Laden. Anti-American sentiments are a constant theme throughout 60-page publication.

Yes, the guy who wrote “How to Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom” once ran a terrorist blog from the home of his mom, right up the road in the U.S. of A.

Yet another reason for South Carolinians to eye Charlotte warily.

Good move, Vincent. Now release your e-mails, too

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Finally, after a couple of weeks hiatus, there’s a sign of life from the Sheheen campaign, and it’s a good one. Vincent released his last 10 years of tax records, and challenged Nikki Haley to do the same.

Normally, this kind of gesture wouldn’t mean much to me. But it means a lot in the context of this particular contest. As you may recall, refusing to release the last 10 years of her tax records is one of several rather glaring ways in which the Republican running on a “transparency” platform has refused to be transparent. Only after Gresham Barrett pressured her into releasing the last three years (saying, when asked by The State, that releasing 10 years would be an “excessive” amount of transparency) did we learn that she had previously failed to disclose that Wilbur Smith had paid her$42,500 for her influence.

So laying his tax records out and challenging Ms. Transparency 2010 to do the same is perfectly appropriate, and a service to the voters.

Now I’d like to see him release his publicly-issued e-mail records. That is, if he hasn’t done so already (I didn’t get a release on the tax records and had to read it in the paper of all things, so for all I know I missed one on the e-mail records, too). There is no way that a candidate running entirely on trying to tear the veil of secrecy from the Legislature should be hiding her e-mail records behind a special exemption to FOI law that lawmakers carved out for themselves. No way at all.

I did think this was of note:

The couple’s charitable giving has risen as they earned more money. The couple reported charitable donations of $1,025 in 2000, or 1.4 percent of their income. In 2009, the couple reported $7,301 in charitable donations on $372,509 in income, or 2 percent of their total earnings.

Haley and her husband, Michael, earned a combined $196,282 in 2009 and gave $971 to charity, or one half of one percent of total earnings.

Yeah, OK, so he’s giving more than Nikki, but 2 percent is pretty sad. Maybe this doesn’t include giving to the church. I mean, we Catholics are notorious for not tithing but come on, Vincent.

At least he’s not hiding the fact, though.

But first, Graham gets cheap shot from the left

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Today everybody and his brother in the national media is writing about how Lindsey Graham can expect attacks from the right wing of his own party for voting to confirm Elena Kagan.

But they reckoned without him getting hit by a cheap shot from the left — from the S.C. Democratic Party, specifically:

DeMint and Graham Place Partisanship Over SC

COLUMBIA-Today South Carolina Senators Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint held tight to their Republican Party principles by voting against legislation to restore unemployment benefits to workers who have been out of work for more than six months. Despite the senators’ efforts to continue a Republican filibuster of the bill, the measure passed 60-40.

South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Carol Fowler called Graham and DeMint’s votes shortsighted and wrong.

“It’s shameful that Senator Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint would ignore the needs of thousands of hardworking South Carolina families for the sake of partisanship. We can’t afford to play politics in a state where the unemployment rate continues to be well above the national average. Our senators should have stood with their fellow Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and done the right thing for South Carolina,” said Fowler.

Really. Not a word about his courage in voting for Kagan — nothing about the actual news that he made today. No, the Democratic Party — being a political party, and therefore incapable of mastering anything more complex than “him Republican; them all alike” — attacks him with the slur of saying he’s no less a knee-jerk ideologue than Jim DeMint.

And that’s outrageous.

Virtual Front Page, Tuesday, July 20, 2010

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Yesterday was sufficiently newsless that I saw little point in compiling this page (isn’t it liberating? none of that “gotta-put-out-the-paper-anyway” tyranny I lived with for 35 years), but today there’s more happening:

  1. Senate advances jobless benefits legislation (WashPost) — After all that Obama drama, the job gets done.
  2. S.C. jobless rate shrinks to 10.7% (CRBG) — But only because 8,000 of us gave up and quit looking for a job…
  3. Graham is panel’s lone GOP vote for Kagan (WSJ) — Which made him the only senator on the committee of either party not voting slavishly along partisan lines. If the Republicans don’t want him any more, can the UnParty have him?
  4. Sidebar on Graham political risk (NPR) — Pretty much all the national media are watching to see how Lindsey weathers the risky experience of thinking for himself. They’ve seen, with Bob Inglis, how risky that can be in SC. Actually, a better sidebar might be the WashPost one I cited on a previous post.
  5. Cameron: Don’t blame BP for Lockerbie bomber release (BBC) — The new Tory PM, visiting this country, sticks up for the oil giant back home.
  6. E-Books Top Hardcovers at Amazon (NYT) — I thought that was kind of an interesting take-note-of sort of thing. As the NYT said in its lede, “Monday was a day for the history books — if those will even exist in the future.”

Graham’s vote for Kagan, in his own words

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To follow up on the previous, here’s how Lindsey Graham explained his vote for Elena Kagan for the court.

I have defended, and will defend, our senior senator for his thoughtfulness, while at the same time being mortified that it is necessary to defend someone for acting with intellectual honesty and not acting like a partisan automaton. What has our country come to that this sort of thought-based action has to be defended? What happened to us that such principle has become so rare?

In any case, he defends himself better than I could.

I like in particular that he gave a Federalist explanation for his decision. It harks back to a time when intelligence and principle were not rare at all in this country:

Graham Supports Kagan Nomination

WASHINGTON – Citing the Constitutional and historical role the Senate has played in Supreme Court nominations, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today said he would support the nomination of Elena Kagan.

“No one, outside of maybe John McCain, spent more time trying to beat President Obama than I did,” said Graham.  “But we lost and President Obama won.”

Graham cited Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist Number 76 in listing the reasons he would vote for Kagan.  Graham noted Hamilton wrote, “To what purpose then require the cooperation of the Senate?  I answer that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though in general a silent operation.  It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the president, would tend generally to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from family connection, from personal attachment, and from a view to popularity.”

“The Constitution puts a requirement on me, as a senator, to not replace my judgment for the President’s,” said Graham.  “I’m not supposed to think of the 100 reasons I would pick somebody different.  It puts upon me a standard that stood the test of time: Is the person qualified?  Is it a person of good character?  Are they someone that understands the difference between being a judge and a politician?  And, quite frankly, I think she’s passed all those tests.”

“Are we taking the language of the Constitution that stood the test of time and putting a political standard in the place of a constitutional standard?” asked Graham.  “Objectively speaking, things are changing, and they’re unnerving to me.  The court is the most fragile of the three branches.  So while it is our responsibility to challenge and scrutinize the court, it is also our obligation to honor elections, respect elections, and protect the court.”

“I view my role as a United States Senator in part by protecting the independence of the judiciary, and by making sure that hard-fought elections have meaning in terms of their results within our Constitution,” said Graham.  “At the end of the day, Ms. Kagan is not someone I would have chosen, but I think she will serve honorably.”

#####

I, too, demand that the Senate vote on… Dang, they already did…

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Dang it! Like the president, I, too meant to demand that the Senate vote on extending job benefits — knowing, as did the president, that they were going to — so that when they did, I could revel in my power.

But they went ahead and did it before I could set out my ultimatum. I was gonna do it in no uncertain terms, too.

But now I just look foolish. That’s OK, I’ve had lots of practice.

Hey, the president looked pretty silly, too, with his faux partisan showdown talk. From this morning’s AP story:

WASHINGTON – With a new face and a 60th vote for breaking a Republican filibuster, Senate Democrats are preparing to restore jobless checks for 2.5 million people whose benefits ran out during a congressional standoff over deficit spending.

But first, President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies are pressing for maximum political advantage, blaming Republicans for an impasse that halted unemployment checks averaging $309 a week for those whose eligibility had expired.

Obama launched a fresh salvo yesterday, demanding that the Senate act on the legislation – after a vote already had been scheduled for today – and blasting Republicans for the holdup.

“The same people who didn’t have any problem spending hundreds of billions of dollars on tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans are now saying we shouldn’t offer relief to middle-class Americans,” Obama said….

Hey, I agree with President Obama on this. We needed to extend those benefits. But that partisan showboating was beneath him — and ridiculous, given that it was so transparently unnecessary.

Sanford Redux? Let’s pray not. But the long knives ARE likely to come out for Lindsey

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First, the good news: As the one most thoughtful and principled Republican in the United States Senate — a guy who will fairly consider Democratic court nominees, just as he demands the same intellectual honesty from Democrats with Republican nominees — Lindsey Graham today became the only GOP senator to vote Elena Kagan out of committee.

Sure, some of the Republicans who voted against her and Democrats were voting for were voting their convictions, too, but the only person you KNOW was doing so was Lindsey Graham, because there was nothing in it for him politically. Except for the respect of us UnPartisans, and we’re not that powerful a lobby.

So, for the sin of being thoughtful and intellectually honest and really meaning it when he says elections have consequences and presidents’ choices, if qualified, should be given respect by the opposition, back home the yahoos are lining up to run against Lindsey Graham in the 2014 primary.

Really. Because this is South Carolina, where we don’t wait around for crazy; we grab it by the throat and ride it to death.

And of course the national media, from the MSM to Jon Stewart, have come to expect crazy from us, and have even started trying to anticipate it.

Which is why today, on the very day of the Kagan vote, we already have The Washington Post’s Chris Cilizza speculating about which Republicans will line up to run against Lindsay.

Frankly, I think it’s an overreaction. I suspect that when all is said and done and four years have passed Lindsey will — if he still wants the seat — face only marginal opposition from within his own party. But given what the nation has seen from the GOP within SC in recent months, who can blame Cilizza for compiling this list?

* Katon Dawson: The former chairman of the state Republican party would have the financial network and connections in the state to make a serious run at Graham. And, he may be looking for a next act after losing out on the Republican National Committee chairmanship in 2009.

* Jeff Duncan: Duncan, a state representative, is the odds-on favorite to replace Rep. Gresham Barrett in the 3rd district this fall. (Graham held that same Upstate seat before being elected to the Senate in 2002.) That would provide a real geographic base from which to run in four years time.

* Mark Sanford: Yes, that Mark Sanford. The soon-to-be-former governor has made clear to political insiders that he is interested in a return to politics and targeting Graham in 2014 might give Sanford enough time to rehab his badly damaged image.

* Trey Gowdy: Gowdy is a heavy favorite to come to Congress this fall after he crushed Rep. Bob Inglis (R) in a primary in the strongly Republican 4th district. He gets rave reviews from smart political people in the state but it remains unclear whether the Senate is an office he covets.

* Mick Mulvaney: Mulvaney, a state senator, is currently running against Rep. John Spratt (D) in the 5th district. Win — or even lose — and he’s likely to be in the Graham primary mix.

* Tom Davis: Davis is a state Senator from Beaufort (in the Lowcountry). He’s also a close ally of GOP gubernatorial nominee Nikki Haley. If Haley is elected governor this fall, her allies will be in the catbird’s seat for offices down the line.

“Yes, THAT Mark Sanford.” Just sends chills down the spine, doesn’t it? It that man’s political career is not over, then there is no justice in the political world. And between the kind of insanity that has some Republicans who would actually vote for him again (and you know there are a lot of them), and enough people on the Democratic side who would and did vote for Alvin Greene, it would pretty much end my faith in democracy as a positive force in South Carolina.

But you know what’s really awful about this? With Lindsey Graham, South Carolina has the best representation in the U.S. Senate that it’s had in my lifetime. Representation that, for once, we can truly be proud of. And the very idea that anyone would want to take that away from us is appalling.

But that they would be motivated to do so by his acting like a rational human being is what really provokes despair.

Here’s hoping that when all is said and done, this kind of doomsday thinking about SC is wrong. But recent history is not reassuring.

Let’s just say it over and over:

This is nothing but wild speculation from an outsider… This is nothing but wild speculation from an outsider…This is nothing but wild speculation from an outsider…This is nothing but wild speculation from an outsider…This is nothing but…

Leon Lott’s just saving the world, isn’t he?

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First, my twin, Sheriff Leon Lott, magnanimously agrees to solve one of the city of Columbia’s knottiest problems by taking over its police department.

Now this:

Lott heads to Iraq to train police forces

Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott has been invited to travel to Iraq to train Iraqi police forces.
The sheriff traveled to Iraq at the invitation of the U.S. Army and the S.C. State Guard where he is a provost marshal, said sheriff’s department spokeswoman Monique Mack. Lott will be at the Iraq Police College for two to three weeks.
While in Iraq, Lott will teach courses in community policing and will talk about the importance of having women on a police force, Mack said.
– Noelle Phillips

Ol’ Leon’s just saving the world, isn’t he? He’s pretty much got my endorsement for his next election sewn up.

Next: Mideast Peace!…

SC GOP having absolute cow over Pelosi’s $2k

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You may have noticed something about South Carolina Republicans this year — even the ones who have good sense, like Henry McMaster: They’re all about national politics, and not at all about South Carolina.

So it is that you have Henry’s ridiculous “Vultures” ad. And with Nikki Haley, it pretty much seeps into everything she does. For instance, a routine release from her campaign yesterday began:

Friends,
Across this country, we’re seeing people waking up and taking their government back.  We certainly saw it in South Carolina last month …

Now let’s set aside the ridiculous demagogic “taking their government back” construction, which makes zero sense. I mean, really — give us some examples of these instances you refer to, because I’d like to see what this business of “taking back government” looks like, how it plays out in the actual world, what sorts of results it produces.

No, my point is that the frame of reference, the point from which the release begins, is national politics — specifically, a national ideological movement. From this point of view, what happens in and to South Carolina only makes sense within the framework of the latest national ideological fad.

But things like that actually almost make sense set against the paroxysms that have been engendered by a campaign contribution made to a South Carolina congressional candidate by Nancy Pelosi. Various Republicans have today gone wild over this. They just can’t believe their good fortune. Instead of having to play their usual game of pretending that South Carolinians like Vincent Sheheen and John Spratt are liberals in the modern meaning of the term, they actually have an actual liberal touching South Carolina politics. So of course they are jumping up and down with joy and making mighty mountains out of Nancy’s molehill. They are ecstatic, and like many people who are beside themselves with happiness, they have gotten rather silly about it. For instance:

  • Under the headline, “MATCH PELOSI: Let Her Know She Can’t Buy America,” Joe Wilson says, “Nancy Pelosi gave $2,000 to Rob Miller, so we’re asking you to help Joe raise $2,000 today and every day until August 1. Send a strong message to Nancy Pelosi that we’re going to protect conservative leaders and TAKE BACK CONGRESS!” There’s that “take back” construction again (which sort of makes you want to ask, “What did you do with it when you had it last, Joe?”). Then there’s the utter overkill of it. Nancy gives 2 Gs, so the natural response is to raise that much every single day! Somebody needs to take a chill pill.
  • On a special, rather comical-looking Web page called “Washington Liberals” and in a related release, State GOP Chair Karen Floyd exults: “Nancy Pelosi is building a team of like-minded liberals and pouring millions of dollars into South Carolina,” continuing, “You’re next up to bat. Will you let Nancy Pelosi buy South Carolina or will you knock her plan out of the park?”
  • Then, on Twitter, the Blogosphere’s own Wesley Donehue put out Tweet after Tweet pumping the Wilson effort, with items such as “Will you help us raise $2,000 today to match Nancy Pelosi’s donation to Rob Miller?” followed by “Dang! Already half way there after just 20 minutes. Help us hit just $2k for @congjoewilson.”

Which means people are actually giving actual dollars in response to this utter nonsense. What kind of a sap do you have to be to fall for this flapdoodle?

Now as y’all know, I have no truck with folks interfering in the politics of other people’s states. When folks from here get worked up about elections elsewhere that are none of their business, I call them on it. So for the record, I’d greatly prefer that Nancy Pelosi stay the hell out of our South Carolina elections. Of course, there are levels of egregiousness in outside interference. Speaker Pelosi acting in a fairly modest way upon her desire to keep a majority so that she can keep her job is unseemly. Howard Rich pouring a fortune into South Carolina, not for a national issue, but in an effort to impose his ideology upon the South Carolina Legislature, is an outrage. That distinction made, we can do without your involvement, Nancy.

But the really interesting thing here is the way Republicans overreact when they finally, finally get the smallest excuse to make a South Carolina contest about national politics. Since they have no ideas for helping South Carolina move forward, they invariably fall back on the Washington boogey man. And when a prominent Democrat actually plays along with their narrative, they are absolutely thrilled.

Cindi’s column on Lost Trust, 20 years on

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I missed Cindi Scoppe’s column over the weekend reminiscing about Lost Trust (which broke 20 years ago Sunday) until a reader mentioned Cindi’s “shout-out” to me:

If anything happened in the next year that wasn’t related to the sting, I can’t remember it. While I dissected the ethics proposals, my editor Brad Warthen led the newsroom on a yearlong examination of how the Legislative State produced not only corruption but a hapless government that answered to no one — laying the groundwork for one of the primary focuses of our later work on this editorial board.

Pushed along by Lost Trust, Gov. Carroll Campbell and Brad’s “Power Failure” series, the Legislature voted two years later to hand a third of the government over to the governor. Lawmakers unleashed the powerful State Grand Jury to investigate political corruption cases. They passed a reporter shield law after a judge ordered me and three other reporters held in federal custody for two days for refusing to testify in a corruption trial.

It was interesting to read Cindi’s memory of that from her perspective. I had forgotten a lot of the intrigue that my reporters — particularly Cindi — had to go through to find out what was going on. But then, I was mostly experiencing it second-hand, being the desk man that I was. Cindi and the others would come in with this stuff they had garnered in encounters reminiscent of Bob Woodward’s meetings with Deep Throat in the parking garage, and we’d figure out which outrageous items were worth pursuing to try to confirm immediately and which ones to set aside. And then, how in the world to nail down the relevant ones.

For me, at the epicenter of The State‘s coverage, it was a time for keeping a couple of dozen plates spinning, and was a daily challenge to an editor managing finite resources in the midst of stories that seemed to have an infinite number of branches, each one of which was a hot story in itself.

Mind you, Lost Trust wasn’t the only government scandal breaking that summer. We had the final act of the Jim Holderman collapse, a purchasing scandal involving a major agency (I don’t even remember which one now), the head of the Highway Patrol directly personally interfering with the DUI of the head of the local FBI office, and those are just the things that I remember sitting here. There was more. Fortunately, the governmental affairs staff in those days amounted to something (I may have been slightly down from my 1988 high of 10 reporters, but not by much), but there’s only so much that even that many people can do when so much is popping at the same time — and during the time of year when things are usually quiet.

And Lost Trust itself, alone, without those other scandals, would have totally consumed us days, nights and weekends. A full 10 percent of the Legislature indicted? Heady stuff.

We were well out ahead of the competition most days, and I felt proud of my team — Cindi and the others. Then the executive editor, who was new in the job (Gil Thelen), one busy day stopped by my desk to say it was all very well and good that we were staying ahead of the story and beating everybody on it, but what about the future? What, out of all this mess, might we be able to offer readers to give them the sense that something could be done about the dysfunction of SC government? I probably stared at him like he was a lunatic for wanting me to think about anything ELSE on top of the mad juggling I was doing at the moment, but I did think about it. And the result was the Power Failure series. I spent a year on it, supervising reporters from across the newsroom in producing a 17-installment opus that explained just how SC government was designed to fail.

And as Cindi notes, the themes developed at that time resonated through my work, and hers, for my entire 15 years on the editorial board.

“We Coloreds,” or, How do you get kicked out of the Tea Party?

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By now, you’ve probably heard that Mark Williams, the Tea Party guy I quoted back here, has been kicked out of the National Tea Party Federation for the satirical letter he wrote, which I will provide here in its entirety when I can find a link. Until then, here’s what several news organizations have reported of it:

In the voice of slaves, Williams wrote: “Mr. Lincoln, you were the greatest racist ever. We had a great gig. Three squares, room and board, all our decisions made by the massa in the house.
“We Coloreds have taken a vote and decided that we don’t cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!”
He went on to say blacks don’t want taxes cut because “how will we Colored People ever get a wide screen TV in every room if non-coloreds get to keep what they earn?”

This, of course, raises a number of questions, beginning with “What? You can get kicked out of the Tea Party? How does that work?” I didn’t know there was anybody in Tea Party who had authority over anybody else in the Tea Party. And indeed, this seems to be a battle between different factions in the movement, which seems to have as many iterations as the competing bands of communists in the Russian revolution.

Interesting how, in the four days since a letter writer in The State said that the “millions” of Tea Partiers “never have been documented to have said or done anything racist,” one Tea Partier alone has provided us with two instances that might seem to call that assertion into just a tad of doubt.

Alvin Greene’s speech — full video, via CNN

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Back on an earlier post Bud asked:

Did anyone see the Alvin Greene speech? I missed it but the accounts I’ve read suggest it was pretty disturbing.

This prompted me to go find the video for you. I first watched The State‘s version, which had a slightly better angle, but which did not offer the imbedding option (which is short-sighted, if you ask me, but hey, sometimes newspapers are short-sighted; ahem). So you’re getting the CNN version, and you’re grateful for it, aren’t you?

And yes, Bud. It is indeed disturbing.

Way to crack down, Arizona!

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Just thought I’d start off your Monday with a funny.

Stan Dubinsky shared this with me this morning. It’s just the above picture with the headline:

Arizona High Schools To Now Teach Spanish Entirely In English

Here’s hoping The Onion regards this reproduction as “fair use.” After all, I’m just trying to get across the eminently worthwhile message: READ THE ONION!

Virtual Front Page, Friday, July 16, 2010

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And as we draw to the close of a slow news week in SC but a decent one elsewhere (considering it’s the dead of summer), here are the headlines:

  1. Stocks Tumble on Weak Earnings, Data (WSJ) — That’s the market for you. And yes, Virginia, it’s going to be a long, mixed recovery.
  2. Obama cautious as tests continue on BP oil stoppage (BBC) — And well he should be, cap or no cap.
  3. iPhone 4 Buyers To Get Free Cases To Fix Signal Woes (NPR) — As a PC guy, I gotta admit to a certain rush of Schadenfreude seeing Steve Jobs on the hot seat. But he’ll be OK. And Apple will continue to have the coolest new gadgets. Just as Toyota will continue to have the most reliable cars.
  4. Geithner to inherit sweeping influence (WashPost) — Something for you finance fans.
  5. Boeing picks fixtures plant site (P&C) — Yeah, I know this is a day old, but I missed it yesterday, and it’s local.
  6. S.C. tax receipts jump in quarter (thestate) — Ditto with this. If the trend holds, that billion-dollar cliff the governor keeps warning about when the stimulus funds (which he didn’t want anyway) run out is going to be whittled down considerably by the time the next budget has to be written.

‘Finish Him Off’: Things getting rough in the 2nd District

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Whoa! Not to be outdone by the “You Lie!” guy, his opponent in the 2nd Congressional District is getting a bit overwrought in his rhetoric. I just got a fund-raising release from the Rob Miller campaign urging supporters to help “finish him off” — referring to Joe Wilson. In fact, that was the headline on the e-mail: “Finish Him Off.”

Totally aside from the implied violence of the phrase, there’s the additional problem of inaccuracy. It invokes a picture of Joe lying on the ground at death’s door awaiting the coup de grace. But near as I can tell, Mr. Wilson is poised to do what he usually does — get re-elected.