Category Archives: Leadership

What did you think of Sarah Palin’s speech?

For my part, not knowing what to expect,
I was impressed. She fought her corner Palinstand_3
well, if you’ll permit the sports metaphor. If nothing else, she showed she could use a teleprompter more naturally and with greater poise than the guy at the head of the ticket.

She sort of turned my sitcom analogy around. Rather than whipping off her glasses and letting down her hair to reveal the beauty queen, she kept the specs on and unveiled a smart woman, an Earth Mother type from the small-town frontier who is a tough cookie, unintimidated by the condescension of the cosmopolitan types Rudy had mocked so earlier in the evening.

But write in and tell us what y’all thought. I’ll read it in the morning; gotta hit the sack.

Lieberman Agonistes

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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.

Tom Davis on the Jasper Port deal

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Tom Davis dropped by to see Cindi and me Tuesday morning — his first visit since the one I wrote about back here and here — and we talked about a number of things.

Tom, you will recall, is the governor’s former chief of staff who is now the GOP nominee for what is for the moment Catherine Ceips’ Senate seat.

Anyway, one thing Tom talked about was progress that’s been made on the Jasper Port deal. Tom continues to believe that his ex-boss, Mark Sanford, doesn’t get enough credit for bringing the deal with Georgia along to this point (even though my former colleague Mike Fitts did a column awhile back pretty much covering Tom’s talking points on the subject).

But Tom expects that years from now, when some of the more southern Corridor of Shame counties have benefited greatly from the economic development the projected port will bring, Mr. Sanford will get the credit, and deservedly so. This, he says, will be Mark Sanford’s legacy.

It will also be, if it turns out as hoped, Tom Davis’ legacy. He was, near as I could tell, the most ardent advocate for the Jasper Port in the Sanford administration, and the one who worked hardest to make it happen. I think you can probably see some of Tom’s passion about the subject in the above video.

What the Capital City Club did for Columbia (column version)

Today’s editorial about Georgia

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With Mike gone, I’ve taken up the task of occasionally writing editorials on national and international issues (I say "occasionally" because our editorial emphasis remains as always on South Carolina). So it is that I offer for your discussion the one I wrote for today about Russian aggression in Georgia. Here’s the link, and here’s an excerpt…

… Aw, it was all so good that I couldn’t pick an excerpt. Here’s the whole thing:

Russian aggression
turns U.S. focus
to true global stakes

THERE IS A STRAIN of naive isolationism that has been woven tightly into the American character since the birth of the nation. Insulated by oceans from Europe and Asia, occupied with our own pursuits of happiness, we have through most of our history wished the rest of the world would just take care of itself.

This has been true on the political right as well as on the left. George W. Bush promised as a candidate not to engage in “nation-building” (and his frequent bungling of that task post-9/11 might be seen as a backhanded way of keeping that promise), while Democrats still repeat the post-Cold War mantra, “It’s the economy, stupid!” We prefer to view the rest of the world in simple terms, from the rare need to respond to naked aggression (think the 1991 Gulf War, World War II) to the occasional opportunity to show charity (think the Somalia relief effort, before that day in Mogadishu), or as spectacle (the Olympics).

But the world is more complicated than that, and demands our full attention, and our complete engagement on all fronts — economic, military, humanitarian, cultural and diplomatic. The world was more interconnected than George Washington wanted to face even in his day (as we quickly learned from the Quasi-War with France, and the War of 1812). And since 1945, the United States has been not only the world’s mightiest power, but its most interconnected — whether we want it to be or not.

Last week, a Russia still dominated by an ex-KGB man yanked us back to that mode. Russia’s swift and remorseless move to crush a U.S. ally that had tried to assert control over two disaffected provinces was a direct challenge to U.S. complacency, and a stark warning to other former Soviet republics and satellite states that they had better reconsider their steady drift toward the West, or else.

A resurgent, oil-rich Russia has for some time moved resentfully from emulation of the democratic West toward pursuit of its lost superpower status. Add to that China’s determination to go far beyond dominance in Olympic gold medals, toward an economic and military hegemony that is within the reach of its phenomenally dynamic economy and vast supply of human capital. Both countries have the potential, and apparently the will, to pose challenges to the United States and other liberal democracies that will make Iraq and Afghanistan seem like minor irritations.

America’s first response to the Georgia incursion was to realize just how little it was prepared to do about it. The second response was to send in U.S. troops to provide humanitarian aid, an assertion of soft power that nevertheless drew a line in the sand, evoking the Berlin Airlift.

But this is not the Cold War. This is not Czechoslovakia in 1968, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asserted. Nor was it either of the other U.S. presidential election years in which Russia used force against its neighbors, in Hungary in 1956 or Afghanistan in 1980. (Today, for instance, oil wealth and control of natural gas supplies are the new “nuclear deterrent.”)

But in this election year, what is at stake goes so far beyond our internal obsessions about celebrity or even such serious domestic concerns as health care. And yes, it goes far beyond Iraq. And it will go beyond Georgia. The selection of the next president of the United States should be about who will lead us more wisely through the global challenges we have not even yet foreseen.

Sen. McCain, Sen. Obama — we’re listening.

Don’t test the cranky old guy

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Did you read Kathleen Parker’s column today, which I recommended yesterday? Well, go read it now before the rest of this, because it’s good, and I’m about to give away the punch line.

Basically, she imagined three missives to Putin, the first one from Bush — an excerpt:

Hey, which reminds me. What’s up with Georgia? This is not good,
Vlad. You and I have had our moments. And, OK, fine, your dog’s bigger
than mine. A lot bigger. Stronger and faster, too. We got it. But you
can’t just go invading democratically elected countries that are U.S.
allies. You can’t have everything, Vlad. If you don’t stop, I’m going
to have to do something, and you know I don’t want that. What I want is
for you to not make me look like a fool.

Look, Vlad. Seven years
ago, it was you and me in Crawford. We had a blast. You loved my truck!
We bonded. I went out on a very big limb and told the whole dadgum
world that we were soul mates….

Then, she imagined one from Obama. An excerpt from THAT:

I’m sorry to be writing this e-mail instead of meeting you in person, preferably in the Oval Office, where I belong. Soon, soon.

Nevertheless,
and notwithstanding the foregoing, I felt it imperative that I express
my deep concern about Russia’s invasion of the tiny, democratically
elected sovereign nation of Georgia. It would appear that you are not
familiar with my platform for change and hope. War does not fit into
this template, and I am quite frankly at a loss for words to express my
deep, deep distress.

As the chosen leader of a new generation of
Americans who speak a global language of peace, hope, harmony and
change, this is simply unacceptable. Quite frankly, your actions pose
potentially severe, long-term consequences. I’m not sure what those
might be, but they won’t be nice or fun.

Then, finally, the message from McCain, which you should be able to enjoy whether you like him or not. The following is NOT an excerpt, but the entire message:

Hey, Putin.

Don’t make me come over there.

McCain

Actually, I’m not certain she made that last one up. Maybe she’s tapped into his e-mail.

Working around the governor

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At first glance, when I saw this story this morning, and my eye fell on the word "governor," I thought, "Hey, that’s new — Sanford working with others to grow the knowledge economy in South Carolina."

Then I actually read the story. An excerpt:

Legislative, business and education leaders Tuesday announced a new
partnership designed to draw high-paying technology and research jobs
to South Carolina — the types of jobs, lawmakers said, Gov. Mark
Sanford and the Department of Commerce have failed to bring to the
state.

The
new effort was the brainchild of House Speaker Bobby Harrell,
R-Charleston; Rep. Dan Cooper, R-Anderson; Senate President Pro Tem
Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston; and Senate Finance Chairman Hugh
Leatherman, R-Florence — arguably the state’s four most influential
lawmakers. The idea was also endorsed by new University of South
Carolina president Harris Pastides and others in the business community….

So it was, of course, the work of every state leader except the governor. The governor, of course, maintains through those who work for him that he and his Commerce Dept. are getting the job done. But they are the only ones in state government, or apparently in academia, who think so.

It’s really unfortunate for Gov. Sanford that the state is run by Republicans. He would be much more at home with a Democratic Legislature, so that his dismissals of criticism as "political" would be more readily accepted. For instance, I might be able to dismiss the complaints of my friend Samuel. Samuel, as you probably know, was the guy who came up with the idea of the endowed chairs. He served on the governing board of that until the gov replaced him. But he’s a Democrat who’s been dumped on by the gov, so you take his complaints about the gov not caring about economic development with a grain of salt, right?

But as things are, the governor doesn’t work well with others, period, regardless of party.

And that’s why others work around him.

Michael on the Confederate flag

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Michael Rodgers, longtime correspondent here and founder of the Take Down The Flag blog, wrote this to me today, and I share it with you:

Dear Brad,
I am writing for two reasons: to point out some common things people often say that are wrong and to describe the stunning lack of leadership from our state government on this issue.

First, the things that are wrong:

1) Our issue in SC is just like the issue in Mississippi or Georgia. Wrong, because our issue in South Carolina is about the third flag we fly, not about our state flag.
2) The 2/3 vote requirement for this issue is insurmountable. Wrong for two reasons:

a. The 2/3 requirement is a legislative hurdle can be taken out of the way with a simple majority (1/2). Then a simple majority would be able to change rest of the law.
b. Our state government votes 2/3 all the time when they override Gov. Sanford’s veto, so in fact 2/3 routinely occurs.

3) No one in our state legislature is interested in resolving this issue. Wrong, because H-3588, a bill to resolve this issue, has seven sponsors. (And as a personal opinion, I think H-3588 completes the compromise).
4) This issue is between flag supporters, who are happy, and flag opponents, who are unhappy. Wrong for four reasons:

a. The issue is the FLYING of a third flag from Statehouse grounds, so the camps are flag flying supporters and flag flying opponents.
b. Flag supporters are unhappy – why else would they get so worked up all the time about this issue?
c. This issue is between the leaders of our state government, who are happy, and South Carolinians, who are unhappy.
d. The issue is actually the story (the why!) we tell when we fly or when we don’t fly the flag. (And as a personal opinion, H-3588 provides a completely consistent clarification of the story of the compromise of 2000).

5) This issue is not worth our time to resolve. Wrong because this issue is

a. a defining issue for our state,
b. tearing our state apart, and
c. diminishing our state’s stature.

Second, the stunning lack of leadership.

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/

Gov. Mark Sanford said, "Everybody has a different perspective. It is a deeply dividing and complex issue that we’re not going to try and open and re-examine. Somebody is going to have to place a tremendous amount of political capital to pry open a compromise. This administration is not going to be doing that."

Our state government is flying the Confederate flag, and this action causes people to react viscerally. And when I say people, I am concurring with Gov. Sanford’s grouping: It’s a deeply dividing issue that affects everybody.

Our state government is flying the Confederate flag, and this action causes people to have enormous confusion as to the reason for this action. And when I say people, I am concurring with Gov. Sanford’s grouping: Everybody has a different perspective.

Our state government is causing deep division that confuses everybody, and what does Gov. Sanford propose to do about it? Nothing.

Gov. Sanford says that this simple issue is too complex for him to re-examine. He says what he always says, which is if we’re going to do anything, we’ve got to throw out everything we’ve been given and start fresh — new constitution, new government structure, new approach to property taxes, new approach to education, etc. No wonder he doesn’t have the political capital to spare for this issue!

I say that we can solve this issue by respecting the compromise and by clarifying the confusion. Our state government made a compromise in 2000, where they decided a lot of things under a lot of pressure. By and large, they did a fantastic job, under the circumstances.

One part of this compromise, the flying of the Confederate flag from Statehouse grounds, is deeply dividing everybody because everybody has a different perspective on this action. We can focus on solving this last remaining issue because the complex parts of this issue have already been solved.

We can solve this last remaining issue, the simple one, with H-3588. This bill says that confusions about racism and sovereignty can be resolved by flying our state flag in place of the Confederate flag. This bill says that confusions about respect for heritage can be resolved by commemorating Confederate Memorial Day every year by flying the Confederate flag at the flagpole where it is now.

H-3588 respects the compromise of 2000 by honoring the Confederate Soldier Monument, Confederate Memorial Day, and the Confederate flag. H-3588 clarifies the message about why our state honors the Confederate flag: because we respect the service and sacrifice of the Confederate soldiers and not for any other reason.

Because H-3588 respects the compromise and clarifies the confusion, H-3588 completes the compromise. A leader can easily solve this problem. Who’s going to step up to the plate? The governor’s mansion awaits.

Regards,
Michael Rodgers
Columbia, SC

Mayor Bob defends his apartment security plan

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Mayor Bob came by the office this morning to try to sell us on his proposed ordinance to require security measures at apartment complexes. We talked for about 45 minutes. As you know, we have criticized the city in the past for trying to get the federal government to do the city’s job with regard to crime in poor North Columbia neighborhoods. Here’s what we said March 9:

THE STATE
POLICE OBLIGATED TO PROTECT ALL CITY NEIGHBORHOODS
Published on: 03/09/2008
Section: EDITORIAL
Edition: FINAL
Page: A22
IT MAKES GOOD sense for the owner of troubled Gable Oaks apartments to beef up security, but that doesn’t relieve Columbia police of their duty to adequately patrol and enforce the law at the omplex.
City officials seem to believe it’s largely up to the owner of the apartment complex to provide what amounts to basic police protection.
They say the onus is on Transom Development, a subsidiary of Atlanta-based SunTrust Banks, to ensure residents’ safety. Some council members want the federal government to require — and help pay for — security at apartment complexes, such as Gable Oaks, that accept federal housing vouchers. Last week, some S.C. House members got into they act by filing legislation that would offer income tax credits in exchange for providing security at low-income, multifamily housing complexes.
Considering the fact that three people have been killed in or near Gable Oaks since December, it’s understandable that residents and city officials are very concerned. It’s perfectly appropriate for Transom to do all it can to provide extra security for its residents. And it should pay for that higher level of service. Transom plans to do just that; it has agreed to hire security guards and to issue residents parking decals.
But make no mistake about it, the primary responsibility for protecting residents of Gable Oaks or any other part of the city lies with the city. Gable Oaks is in the city limits, and its tenants are city residents. City residents should be able to expect a certain level and quality of service from the police department.
We can’t help but believe that if there was a spike in crime in Shandon or Wales Garden — no matter how minor — the city would aggressively patrol the area, get matters under control and pay more attention going forward. Gable Oaks deserves no less.
But the tone and tack city officials have used when discussing Gable Oaks make it seem as if residents are on their own if the owner doesn’t provide maximum protection. That would be unfair and discriminatory.
While Gable Oaks is in the spotlight, north Columbia residents have taken this opportunity to express concern that the city neglects their area of town. During a meeting last Monday night, about 50 residents complained of poor police presence, indifferent landlords and a City Council focused more on downtown than north Columbia. There’s no doubt that over the years, the city has paid inadequate attention to certain areas of town, and north Columbia is one of them.
While city officials say the owner should police Gable Oaks, some acknowledge that tenants from the complex aren’t necessarily the troublemakers. Visitors and people passing through cause some of the problems. That means those people are passing through — or even coming from — other city neighborhoods. And it’s the city’s responsibility to police all its neighborhoods and ensure people’s safety.
By all means, Gable Oaks’ owner should improve security. But city police shouldn’t take that as a sign they don’t have to be vigilant in policing the area.
Ultimately, the quality of law enforcement residents in Gable Oaks, or other parts of Columbia, receive will be determined by how committed the city is to help make it safe.

Here are some of the main points that the mayor made to us this morning:

The federal government, since it provides subsidies for housing in these complexes, should require security just as it has architectural requirements.
The feds have refused twice to ge involved, but suggested the city would be within its rights to require lighting, fencing, private security guards and other measures by ordinance — if the rules applied to ALL apartment complexes in the city.
There is some chance the federal position might change with a new administration, but crime-beleaguered residents can’t wait for that.
Whatever the philosophical objections (such as our objection that if the crime were in Shandon, the police would deal with it), there is the very real problem of people being exposed to crime. The city has had real-life success stopping crime in Gable Oaks using the approach he is now proposing to apply to ALL apartments in the city, and there is no good reason not to implement something that works.
One difference between this and crime involving single-family residences is that an apartment complex is a large business being conducted within the city, and is thereby subject to regulation.
Requiring the complexes to provide security is no different from requiring USC to come up with off-duty cops to handle traffic for Williams-Brice Stadium events: If you’re running an enterprise that causes a problem, you deal with the problem.
It’s not appropriate for city police to stay in one such business 24 hours a day, at the neglect of nearby areas.
Private security guards can enforce rules that city police can’t — such as a complex’s own covenants or lease provisions.

Near as I can recall, those were his main points. Maybe I’ll post video from the interview on Saturday Extra this week. (In fact, I’m sure I will unless something better comes up.)

Oh, and by the way — the mayor shrugged off the friction between him and Kirkman Finlay III (below, from a previous edit board meeting) over the issue. When Warren kidded him that "I thought you were about to rip your tie off," from Adam Beam’s report this a.m. "No," said the mayor, "we were hugging and kissing by the time the day was over."

Finlaykirkman

SOMEBODY doesn’t like being in the sunshine

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Ooh, somebody is a little upset now that the world knows who is behind his blog. Mayor Bob — you know, the one who was hassled by these folks for months as they adamantly and childishly refused to identify themselves (while all along it was run by folks allied with actual members of City Council who could have openly asked the mayor all of these questions at any time) — called this to my attention this morning.

But the mayor got something wrong. He thought, when he saw the ripped-off graphic, that this blog had gone active again. Wrong. It’s still a slacker blog, without a post since June 2007. Or — and here’s another way to look at it — was the graphic not ripped off at all? Is there a connection between the individuals involved in both? I probably should know that. Someone told me once who was behind this site, but I guess it wasn’t important enough to me to remember. Maybe y’all can refresh me.

So for now, I’ll keep that moribund blog at the bottom of the blogroll, where I tend to put the inactives. I suppose I should bump up "Barbecue and Politics," since that former slacker has sprung to new life. And for now, the Pulse will remain where it is. It will be interesting to see how it acts going forward, stripped of its cheesy anonymity.

The vanity of John Adams

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As I’ve mentioned before, my favorite Founder was John Adams. This attachment on my part dates from my college days in the early 70s, when I more or less inadvertently earned a second major in history (I had not planned it thus; I suddenly realized, with one semester to go, that I was within six credit hours of such a major, so I took two more courses. Up until then, I had merely taken as many history courses as I could as electives.)

The last week or two, I’ve been watching — gradually — the HBO series based on the Pulitzer-winning McCullough book. I was reminded by the book, and am reminded again by the excellent series, that one of the things that endeared Mr. Adams to me was his all-too-human frailty. It brings him down to a level where I am able to identify with him. The airy aloofness of Jefferson is not my way; nor is the lofty unattainability of Washington, with his natural leadership ability.

But almost every time I read of, or see portrayed so well by Paul Giamatti, the crabby vanity of Adams, I have to laugh, because I see myself. Tonight, my wife and eldest daughter joined me in recognizing his touchiness as he complained mightily of having come in second to Washington in the first presidential election.

Adams was of course right to feel that he had done much — perhaps more than any man — to earn the affection and electoral support of his countrymen. After all, HE had put Washington’s name forward to become commander of the Continental Army so that he could rise to greatness, and HE was the one who insisted that Jefferson write the Declaration, after HE, Adams, had nagged and argued and fought independence into being adopted by Congress. And then there was the matter of being the first ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, etc….

But even the lamest modern political consultant could have explained how much more attractive as a candidate Washington was. And Adams’ protests that he should have done better in the election, when you see them portrayed by the brilliant Mr. Giamatti, are comically unbecoming. He was SO vain, so quick to be affronted. And when I noted I would have been the same, my wife and daughter nodded. (You know, they COULD have argued with me just a little, but they didn’t.)

As explained in the series (by way of Abigail reading a letter aloud), Washington got 69 electoral votes, and Mr. Adams only 34, which wounded him deeply. But the guy who came in third (John Jay, no slouch himself) received only nine. Adams received as many as all the rest put together (a field of 8 or 10), and yet he is so put out at getting fewer than half as many as Washington that he pouts to Abigail, "I consider such a showing a stain upon my character!"

This is why I could never offer for public office — I’d be just as petulant, were I to lose, which I probably would, being the way I am.

Far better to suffer such mortification vicariously, through studying (and seeing portrayals of) the life of Adams — and joining Laura Linney’s Abigail in being affectionately amused at his humanity. Far less painful than living it.

Of course, Abigail gets him over his tantrum by calling him "Mr. Vice President," thereby puffing him up a bit. The office had not yet been compared unfavorably to "A warm bucket of spit."

And yes, I realize that seeing myself in John Adams, a great man, is also very vain. See what I mean?

Mayor Bob on Town, Gown, Sorensen, Pastides

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Making my way back through my public e-mail account, I just got to this one that Mayor Bob sent me Sunday:

Brad, your editorial today about Dr. Harris Pastides was excellent. The City of Columbia and the University of South Carolina have one of the best, if not the best, town-gown relationships in the nation. Dr. Pastides has been an integral part of that success and will continue to strengthen our partnership. Under Dr. Sorensen’s leadership the University and the local community have achieved more than we could have dreamed. The research campus in Downtown Columbia was announced in 2003. In April of 2006, USC, the Guignard family and the City unveiled a master plan for the 500 acres in Downtown from Innovista to the waterfront. The first phase of Innovista with two buildings at the Horizon Center and the Discovery Center are nearly complete, as are the two parking garages financed by the City of Columbia and Richland County, representing an investment of over $140 million. Innovista will be the driving force in building a strong new economy with more jobs and an increase in our per capita income.
Another important strategy for transforming our economy is our Fuel Cell Collaborative. In 2008, we will build on our Fuel Cell District with the construction of one of the first hydrogen fueling stations in the Southeast. Next year, Columbia will host the National Hydrogen Association’s annual convention. Neither would be possible without the fuel cell expertise at USC. The University has been critical in developing a decade long regional strategy of increasing the number of our conventions and visitors. The Convention Center and the Colonial Center have both exceeded expectations, and could only have been done with all governments working together. Mike McGee deserves great credit for the Colonial Center of course. USC Sports play a tremendous role in our economy. Carolina football games under Coach Spurrier are regularly broadcast nationally and our new USC Baseball Stadium is coming out of the ground on the Congaree River.
The University and the community have collaborated on a host of other issues including hosting our friends from New Orleans after the flooding of Hurricane Katrina; together with Benedict College doing our gang assessment; working together on our homelessness effort, Housing First; and collaborating on improving Richland District One schools with Together We Can. We look forward to continuing that great work with Dr. Pastides.

I told him thanks. As it happened, that was one of the few editorials I actually wrote myself.

Well, I got two out of three

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As some of y’all already noted, I got two of my three wild guesses right on the finalist list for USC president: Harris Pastides, and a woman. (Do I get extra points because there are two women?)

Andy Card* was apparently no one the trustees ever wanted. Apparently, the talk about him was generated by the wishful thinking of politicos — or somebody.

Of course, the fact that wild guesses were in order reflects the failure of USC trustees to conduct an open process that would allow stakeholders (i.e., the people of South Carolina) to vet the candidates before the decision is made.

But that’s par for the course, isn’t it?

Of course, if Pastides is the winner of the contest, we’ll have had plenty of opportunity to assess the new guy. And the impression I’ve formed over the years has been quite good. He’s been at the forefront of the most critical initiatives the university — indeed, all three of the state’s research universities — has been engaged in, and is well-positioned to continue the push.

At this point — thanks to the trustees’ secrecy — going forward with either of the other two candidates will seem like stepping off blindfolded into a void. Maybe they’re great, but we haven’t had the opportunity to decide that.

One worry I have if it is Pastides (and if it isn’t, he sure made the wrong call putting all his eggs in this basket), what will he be able to accomplish that Andrew Sorensen could not? I’ve never been satisfied with the official explanation, that Dr. Sorensen and the board suddenly realized he was about to turn 70, and there’s this multi-year fund-raising push coming up, yadda-yadda… Didn’t he ALWAYS have a future full of fund-raising? What was new?

My worry takes this form? If for some other reason the board had become disenchanted with the charismatic Sorensen, how will a quieter member of the same administration succeed? Or is "low-key" what trustees are looking for?

Who knows? I don’t. I just want the next president to be successful, because so much is riding on this for South Carolina. I think Harris Pastides can do the job, if the string-pullers will let him. As for the two ladies? I have no idea…

* Did I ever mention my almost-connection to Andy Card? I’ve never met him or anything, but he was supposed to be my uncle’s roommate at USC. They had been randomly matched up, but at the last minute my Uncle Woody roomed with someone else. Yes, Andy Card is of my uncle’s generation. I’m that young — haven’t you seen my picture at left? … Actually, Woody is my Mama’s way-younger brother — he’s only six years older than I am.

Neither Obama nor McCain meets Energy Party standard

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By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
JOHN McCAIN and Barack Obama are lucky there’s such a thing as Republicans and Democrats in this country, because neither would be able to get the Energy Party nomination.
They’re also lucky that the Energy Party exists only in my head, because I believe its nominee could tap into a longing, among the very independent voters Messrs. McCain and Obama need to court for victory, for a pragmatic, nonideological, comprehensive national energy policy. This independent voter longs for it, anyway.
What is the greatest failure of George W. Bush as president? If you answered “Iraq,” you lose. His greatest failure was summed up well by Sen. Joe Biden, who said at the 2006 Galivants Ferry Stump Meeting, “History will judge George Bush harshly not for the mistakes he has made… but because of the opportunities that he has squandered.”
The biggest wasted opportunity was when he failed, on Sept. 12, 2001, to ask Americans to sacrifice, to work together to shake off “the grip of foreign oil oligarchs,” and “plan the demise of Islamic fundamentalism.”
Gasoline was between about $1.40 and $1.50 a gallon then. If we had applied a federal tax increase then of $1 or $2 — as voices as varied as Tom Friedman, Charles Krauthammer, Jim Hoagland and Robert Samuelson have urged for years — we’d still have been paying less per gallon than we are now, and the money would have stayed in this country, in our hands, rather than in those of Mahmoud Ahmajinedad, or Hugo Chavez, or our “friends” the Saudis (you know, the ones who underwrite the Wahhabist madrassas).
And who, on the day after the terrorist attacks, would have refused? Most Americans would have been glad to be asked to do something to fight back.
We could have used that money for a lot of things, from funding the War on Terror (rather than passing the debt to our grandchildren) to accelerating the development of hydrogen, solar, wind, clean coal, methanol-from-coal, electric cars, mass transit — on something useful. We would have started conserving a lot more a lot faster, reducing demand enough to deliver a shock to world oil prices. Demand would have resumed its rise because of such irresistible forces as Chinese growth, but we would have had a salutary effect.
But we didn’t. We didn’t do anything to defund the terrorists or the petrodictators, or to reduce upward pressure on the national debt, or to respond to rising world energy demands, or to save the planet. We didn’t do it because we can’t do it individually and have an appreciable effect — it would take a national effort, and that takes leadership. And no one in a position of political leadership — not the president, not his fellow Republicans, and not their Democratic opposition — has stood up and said, Let’s get our act together, and here’s how….
Getting our act together would require leaders who are no longer interested in playing the Party Game. In Messrs. McCain and Obama, we had an opportunity. No major Republican is less into party than John McCain, which is why so many Republicans wanted to deny him the nomination. And in Barack Obama, Democrats have finally settled on the far-less-partisan alternative.
But in the energy realm, what have we gotten? Sen. Obama generally sticks to the liberal/Democratic playbook: No drilling offshore or in ANWR. Play down nuclear, play up solar and wind.
Sen. McCain, at least, is not doctrinaire Republican on energy. For that, you have to look to someone like Jim DeMint, whose op-ed piece on our pages a week ago extolled drilling, but excoriated “cap and trade.”
Sen. McCain will at least take some items from the left (cap and trade, CAFE standards) and some from the right (let states decide whether to drill offshore), but he’s mushy about it. And any credit he gets for ideological flexibility is overshadowed by his being the author of the biggest pander on energy this year — the proposal for a “gas tax holiday.”
An Energy Party nominee wouldn’t propose to lower the price of gasoline at the pump, so if that’s what you want — and a lot of you do want that — you can just stop reading now. Making it temporarily easier to buy more foreign oil is in no way in the national interest, and a leader would have the guts to explain that.
The Energy nominee would increase domestic production in the short term and lead a no-holds-barred national effort to take us beyond major dependence on anybody’s oil. He (or she) would put America at the forefront of both energy innovation and environmental stewardship, and would not let any sort of ideology stand in the way. (We must distinguish, for instance, between an environmental goal that matters, such as global climate change, and the inconvenience of a few caribou.) The Energy nominee would, given the chance:

Drill off our coast, something we’ve seen can be done with minimal environmental risk.
Drill in the ANWR (which, as detractors note, would not solve the problem, but it would help, and would demonstrate that we’re serious).
Prohibitively tax the ownership of SUVs, and any other unconscionable, antisocial behavior.
Lower speed limits, and enforce them (use the fines to pay for more traffic cops).
Take money away from highway construction, and devote it to mass transit.
Build nuclear plants with the urgency of the Manhattan Project.
Develop electric cars at Apollo speed.

We need leadership that respects no one’s sacred ideological cows, left or right — leadership that will take risks to do what works, both for the nation and ultimately for the planet.
Is that really so much to ask?

DeMint helps clarify things

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This has happened twice now, and it was helpful both times.

As is my usual pattern with these either-way-I’m-unhappy endorsements, I came in on the morning of June 4, the day the original Jake Knotts endorsement ran, with my usual now-it’s-too-late sense of buyer’s remorse. Not that I wished we’d endorsed Katrina Shealy (or Mike Sturkie), it was just one of those that I wasn’t going to be happy any way you looked at it.

Fortunately, Gov. Mark Sanford came to the rescue, making me feel so much better, so much more confident that we did the right thing — or as confident as I could be. We had said the governor was too fixated on getting rid of this guy — meaning that if he succeeded, it would intimidate the whole Legislature — that it was best to re-elect him. And right on cue, the governor stops everything, on the day before the end of the legislative session, to write an op-ed about why Jake’s got to go. It was highly vindicating.

Then this morning, after we’ve gone through Round Two of the Jake wars here on the editorial board, and endorsed him again in the runoff (not doing so was actually on the table, yes), and I pick up my paper today wondering whether that really was necessary, and along comes Jim DeMint to the rescue.

Things are so much clearer now. Let’s see:

Jim DeMint is for Katrina Shealy. Jim DeMint was for Mitt Romney, right to the bitter end.
Lindsey Graham is (by logical extension, at least) for Jake Knotts. Lindsey was for John McCain, all along, even in the darkest days. So was Jake Knotts.
Mark Sanford, for whom there is no greater priority apparently than defeating Jake Knotts, was never for anybody but himself and the Club for Growth, his cheerleaders — that is, not until John McCain had it sewn up, at which point he weighed in with an insulting, desultory, offhand "me, too."

This makes everything so much clearer. Oh yeah, in case you didn’t know: We endorsed McCain in the GOP primary. That’s one we were utterly sure of. And unlike the governor, we actually did so when the outcome was in doubt.

Demise of the Executive Institute

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Here’s a veto that I missed last week. I guess I should have noticed it, since it was one of those rare ones that the Legislature actually sustained:

I am very sorry to have to report to you that funding for the Executive Institute was vetoed by the Governor and the veto was sustained by the House of Representatives. Therefore the Institute will not begin it’s 19th year in August as planned and we will shut down the operation at the end of this fiscal year.

I would like to thank all of you for the friendship, enthusiasm and support you have shown us over the years. You are the major reason for the success we have had. Thanks so much for 18 great years.

Tina

Tina Joseph Hatchell
Director
Executive Institute

Alongside such biggies as the SCHIP program and indigent defense, this one was easy to overlook. But now that I know, I’m sorry to hear it.

I’m an alumnus of the Executive Institute , class of ’94. Back then, the director of the program was Phil Grose. That was thee year that I was getting ready to come up to the editorial department from news (end of ’93, beginning of ’94). My predecessor Tom McLean paid for me to do the program, because back in those days, we had money for such professional development. Primarily, the Institute existed to train up-and-coming managers in state government, although there was always a smattering of private sector folks for leavening — which helped give the government types exposure to the private sector, and vice versa. The interaction itself was educational.

It was particularly useful because of the Institute’s teaching method. It was run in conjunction with the Kennedy School at Harvard, and the instructors led the class through real-life case studies, in which we were asked to put ourselves in the places of the public administrators who had navigated their way through a variety of crises and challenges.

Being the newspaper guy, I had to overcome a great deal of distrust and wariness on the part of my classmates, which was essential to the kind of interaction that the classes called for. Middle managers in government see press types as natural enemies, for a simple reason: Newspapers don’t write about what they do except when there is a problem, consequently we help create the phenomenon we see in the comments on this blog — a lot of folks in the electorate who only see them in terms of the worst mistakes that anyone like them has ever made, because that’s what gets written about.

But we managed to get a good enough rapport going to have some pretty good discussions going. Frequently, my role was to try to convince people that having the problem (in the case study) get into the newspapers was not the end of the world. It was interesting, and I think helpful to having a better-run state government.

Does that mean I think lawmakers should have overridden the veto. No, not if they were going to leave the prisons, mental health, our roads and 4K all underfunded. But if they were going to override either this or their pet "Competitive" Grants Program, they should have overridden this.

So guess which one they overrode — "overwhelmingly"?

McCain-Obama: America at its best

42 Replies

Now is a time to savor the way the nominating process has come out. Before the usual polarizing interests do their worst to try to make you HATE THE OTHER GUY, it’s time to reflect upon the fact that the best candidate won each of the major parties’ nominations. And that has not happened in a lifetime.

You’ll recall, from what I have written and from this hastily produced video I did on the day we endorsed Barack Obama (10 days after endorsing John McCain) in the S.C. primaries, that this is the outcome I had hoped for, the win-win for our nation.

If you — and unfortunately, I’ve noticed that some of my readers have already toed their respective party lines and starting spewing venom toward the other side’s candidate, like so obedient little soldiers in what they imagine to be a war — can’t see how blessed we are this year (as opposed to the lousy choice we had, say, four years ago), maybe you need to step back for a moment. If you step back, say, as far as London, maybe you can see what The Economist sees.

That British publication’s cover this week celebrates both John McCain and Barack Obama, with the headline, "America at its best." Indeed. An excerpt from the main leader (that’s Brit jargon for "editorial"):

… In John McCain, the Republicans chose a man whose political courage has led him constantly to attempt to forge bipartisan deals and to speak out against the Bush administration when it went wrong. Conservatives may hate him, but even they can see that he offers the party its only realistic hope in November.
Mr Obama has demonstrated charisma, coolness under fire and an impressive understanding of the transforming power of technology in modern politics. Beating the mighty Clinton machine is an astonishing achievement. Even greater though, is his achievement in becoming the first black presidential nominee of either political party. For a country whose past is disfigured by slavery, segregation and unequal voting rights, this is a moment to celebrate. America’s history of reinventing and perfecting itself has acquired another page.

Note that The Economist can see that these are mortal men, and each has his weaknesses. But in the end, these choices are good news for America, and about America:

Both candidates have their flaws and their admirable points; the doughty but sometimes cranky old warrior makes a fine contrast with the inspirational but sometimes vaporous young visionary. Voters now have those five months to study them before making up their minds (and The Economist will be doing the same). But, on the face of it, this is the most impressive choice America has had for a very long time.

The Energy Party Manifesto: Feb. 4, 2007

39 Replies

Since, I’m on my Energy Party kick again, it occurs to me to provide you with something never previously published on the blog: My original Energy Party column from the paper. Since it was based on a blog post to start with, I didn’t post it here. Consequently, when I do my obligatory "Energy Party" link, it’s always to the incomplete, rough draft version of the party manifesto.

So, if only to give myself something more complete to link to in the future, is the full column version, published in The State on Feb. 4, 2007. Here’s a PDF of the original page, and here’s the column itself:

THE STATE
JOIN MY PARTY, AND YOUR WILDEST DREAMS WILL COME TRUE. REALLY.
By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
EVERYBODY talks about the weather, which is as boring and pointless as the cliche suggests. So let’s do something about it.
And while we’re at it, let’s win the war on terror, undermine tyrants around the globe, repair our trade imbalance, make our air more breathable, drastically reduce highway deaths and just generally make the whole world a safer, cleaner place.
It’ll be easy, once we make up our minds to do it. But first, you Democrats and Republicans must throw off the ideological chains that bind you, and we independents must get off the sidelines and into the game.
In other words, join my new party. No, not the Unparty I’ve written about in the past. You might say that one lacked focus.
This one will be the Energy Party. Or the "Responsible Party," "Pragmatic Party" or "Grownup Party." Any will do as far as I’m concerned, but for the sake of convenience, I’m going with "Energy" for now.
Like weather, everybody talks about Energy, but nobody proposes a comprehensive, hardnosed plan to git ‘er done. So let’s change that, go all the way, get real, make like we actually know there’s a war going on. Do the stuff that neither the GOP nor the Dems would ever do.
I’ve made a start on the plan (and mind, I’m not speaking for the editorial board here). Join me, and we’ll refine it as we go along:
— * Jack up CAFE standards. No messing around with Detroit on this one. It’s possible to make cars that go 50 miles to the gallon. OK, so maybe your family won’t fit in a Prius. Let’s play nice and compromise: Set a fleet average of 40 mph within five years.
— * Raise the price of gasoline permanently to $4. When the price of gas is $2, slap on a $2 tax. When demand slacks off and forces the price down to $1.50, jack the tax up to $2.50. If somebody nukes some oil fields we depend upon, raising the price to $3, the tax drops to $1. Sure, you’ll be paying more, but only as long as you keep consuming as much of it as you have been. Which you won’t. Or if you do, we’ll go to $5.
— * You say the poor will have trouble with the tax? So will I. Good thing we’re going to have public transportation for a change (including my favorite, light rail). That’s one thing we’ll spend that new tax money on.
— * Another is a Manhattan project (or Apollo Project, or insert your favorite 20th century Herculean national initiative name) to develop clean, alternative energy. South Carolina can do hydrogen, Iowa can do bio, and the politicians who will freak out about all this can supply the wind power.
— * Reduce speed limits everywhere to no more than 55 mph. (This must be credited to Samuel Tenenbaum, who bends my ear about it almost daily. He apparently does the same to every presidential wannabe who calls his house looking for him or Inez, bless him.) This will drastically reduce our transportation-related fuel consumption, and have the happy side benefit of saving thousands of lives on our highways. And yes, you can drive 55.
— * Enforce the blasted speed limits. If states say they can’t (and right now, given our shortage of troopers, South Carolina can’t), give them the resources out of the gas tax money. No excuses.
— * Build nuclear power plants as fast as we can (safely, of course). It makes me tired to hear people who are stuck in the 1970s talk about all the dangerous waste from nuke plants. Nuclear waste is compact and containable. Coal waste (just to cite one "safe" alternative) disperses into the atmosphere, contaminates all our lungs and melts the polar ice caps. Yeah, I know; it would be keen if everyone went back to the land and stopped using electricity, but give it up — it ain’t happening.
— * Either ban SUVs for everyone who can’t demonstrate a life-ordeath need to drive one, or tax them at 100 percent of the sales price and throw that into the winthe- war kitty.
— * If we don’t ban SUVs outright, aside from taxing them, launch a huge propaganda campaign along the lines of "Loose Lips Sink Ships." Say, "Hummers are Osama’s Panzer Corps." (OK, hot shot, come to my blog and post your own slogan.) Make wasting fuel the next smoking or DUI — absolutely socially unacceptable.
— * Because it will be a few years before we can be completely free of petrol, drill the ever-lovin’ slush out of the ANWR, explore for oil off Myrtle Beach, and build refinery capacity. But to keep us focused, limit all of these activities to no more than 20 years. Put the limit into the Constitution.
You get the idea. Respect no one’s sacred cows, left or right. Yeah, I know some of this is, um, provocative. But that’s what we need. We have to wake up, go allout to win the war and, in the long run, save the Earth. Pretty soon, tyrants from Tehran to Moscow to Caracas will be tumbling down without our saying so much as "boo" to them, and global warming will slow within our lifetimes.
Then, once we’ve done all that, we can start insisting upon some common sense on entitlements, and health care. Whatever works, whatever is practical, whatever solves our problems — no matter whose ox gets gored, or how hard you think it is to do what needs doing. Stop whining and grow up. Leave the ideologues in the dust, while we solve the problems.
How’s that sound? Can any of y’all get behind that? Let me know, because we need to get going on this stuff.

Join the party at my — I mean, our– Web Headquarters: http://blogs.thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/.

Presidential resonance: One of my pet peeves

8 Replies

Today, I received this release from the Obama campaign:

Obama Statement on the
Anniversary of the Virginia Tech Tragedy

CHICAGO, IL –
Today Senator Obama issued the following statement on the anniversary of the
tragedy at Virginia Tech.

"One year after
the tragedy at Virginia Tech, families are still mourning, and our nation is
still healing. As Americans gather today in vigils and ‘lie-ins’ – or pray
silently alone – our thoughts are with those whose lives were forever changed by
the shootings. But one year later, it’s also time to reflect on how violence –
whether on campuses like Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University or on
the streets of Chicago and cities across this nation – can be prevented.
Clearly, our state and federal governments have to strengthen some laws and do a
better job enforcing others. But we all have a responsibility to do what we can
in our own lives and communities to end this kind of senseless violence. That is
still our task one year later, and it will be our ongoing task in the years to
come."

###

This statement brings to mind two objections. The first is, what is this national fascination with anniversaries? Just because something was news a year ago does not make it news now. It’s not happening now. It was happening then. Aside from the entirely artificial connection of occurring on the same date on this artificial thing we call a calendar, today and that day have nothing to do with each other.

But that’s just a minor peeve. Here’s the major one: Why do we expect presidents to make statements about things that have nothing to do with the job of being president — even to the extent that people applying for the job think that they have to make such statements?

This peeve is a very old peeve for me. Or maybe not all that old. I think it reached its peak during the Clinton years. Bill Clinton was really, really into resonating to the news, the more emotional the news the better.

Mind you, I’m not blaming Mr. Clinton himself for this. He just happened to be very good at it, and to come along at the moment in history when 24/7 TV "news" was coming into its own. Remember that the 1991 Gulf War was the first CNN war (as I recall, Saddam Hussein was a big fan of the network). That’s when Wolf Blitzer became a household name. The next year, Mr. Clinton was elected, and the man matched the moment.

By the end of the decade, the assumption that the president would resonate with news that had nothing to do with him had become so assumed that by the start of the next decade, serious political observers upbraided Mr. Clinton’s successor for failing to play along. That brings me to an interesting historical artifact — a column I wrote in April 2001, at the very start of the current Bush administration.

It may for that reason seem anachronistic — particularly where I speculate that Mr. Bush is "too isolationist for my taste." This was, of course, before 9/11, and before the Iraq invasion — although I would submit that perhaps one reason Mr. Bush botched the Iraq intervention in so many ways is that he remains at heart an isolationist rather than an interventionist. (In other words, if he actually believed in nation-building, perhaps he’d be better at it.) But that’s not my point here today.

My point is that this piece reminds me of one thing I did like about Mr. Bush (sometimes it can be hard to remember such things): The fact that he doesn’t do the presidential resonance thing. Of course, this may be due to something in his character that is exactly what so many others hate about him — and remember (in spite of current political commentary militating against your remembering it), Bush-haters hated him way before Iraq.

Anyway, here’s the column:

The State

April 25, 2001, Wednesday

The president should do his own job, not everybody else’s

BYLINE: By Brad Warthen

SECTION: COMMENTARY

LENGTH: 1133 words

Exactly two years ago as I write this, I found myself a
captive audience for CNN’s breaking coverage of the shootings at Columbine High
School. I was on the stair-climber in the workout room, and somebody else had
the remote. So I got a larger dose of television news than I would normally
subject myself to.

At the time, I did a column on the nature of the coverage,
which was appallingly inaccurate and careless in the rush to tell everyone
right now what had happened, even though no one really knew at the time.

I left out of that column one of the things that bothered me
most: Every few minutes, the announcer would cut in to say that the White House
would have a statement from the president on the incident shortly. The tone and
context implied that this was something everyone was anxiously awaiting. I got
the impression that everyone involved thought the president would be derelict
in his duty if he didn’t hurry up and say something.

And all I could think was: Why? Why would the president say
anything about this, especially at this moment? The people on the scene, the
people who know more than anybody, don’t even know how many victims there are
yet, much less how or why this happened. What in the world is the president
going to be able to add that will be relevant or helpful? I wouldn’t presume to
say anything about it. Why would the president? It’s not his job to do so any
more than it’s mine. More importantly, why does anyone expect him to say
anything?

The last part was what really got me. This was, after all,
happening in Littleton, Colo., and was the responsibility of the local
authorities there. No one had suggested that there was anything about this that
bore upon the powers and duties of the federal government.

Yet the nation was presumably breathless to hear what the
president had to say about it. And you know what? Those announcers were
probably right. The truth is, the nation has increasingly come to expect the
president to weigh in on such things.

If something happens somewhere in the nation that makes
headlines, we expect the president to do something about it _ or at least to
say something. If there’s a flood or an earthquake, there’s a demand for the
president to drop everything and go fly over it, to let us know he cares.

This makes no sense, but then, it’s not supposed to. It’s
about emotion, not reason. But for my money, there are far too many actions and
decisions taken in the public sphere on the basis of emotion already. We don’t
need any more of it.

What provoked this rant? A David Broder column in The
Washington Post. Mr. Broder doesn’t usually set me off like this. He is, in
fact, the columnist I admire most. He’s calm, rational and knowledgeable. But
when he argues that George W. Bush is falling short as president because he
doesn’t have something eloquent to say about every major news development
across the nation, I just have to break with him.

Dubya has a lot of faults. He’s a mushmouth. He lacks what I
consider to be an adequate respect for the environment. To the extent that he
has an overarching foreign policy vision _ and I’m not sure yet whether he does
_ I suspect that it is too isolationist for my taste. For these and other
reasons, he was not my first choice to be president.

But he has his virtues as well. He seems to be a pretty fair
manager. He knows how to assemble a team and let it do its job. Vision or no, he
seems to deal effectively with specific foreign policy issues as they arise _
the confrontation with China over our surveillance aircraft being an instance
that Mr. Broder rightly cites.

But my very favorite thing about President Bush is that he
seems content to be the chief executive of the federal government, and feel
absolutely no obligation to be the nation’s Chief Empathizer. No urge at all to
go on television every day and bite his lip, give a thumbs-up, shed a tear and
let us know he feels our pain.

I really, really appreciate that.

And I’m not just saying this to put down Mr. Bush’s
predecessor. The greater problem lies with us _ the press and the public. We
simply expect things of a president that are not a legitimate function of the
job. After Hugo hit South Carolina in 1989, many complained indignantly that
Bush pere failed to rush right down here. Mind you, he had immediately declared
the state a disaster area.

"This other stuff, like flying over the damaged area,
is largely PR, although I admit good PR. But what does that accomplish?"
one politico said in defending him. "What you’re asking me is, why didn’t
Bush have a photo op?" Exactly. Bill Clinton’s weakness in that regard was
that he enjoyed the photo ops too much.

If it weren’t David Broder complaining about it, I’d say
this was a case of a Washington journalist feeling a loss of his own power
because the president refuses to use his bully pulpit to make everything that
happens anywhere a federal case, thereby making Washington _ and its vast media
army _ the center of attention. With the Cold War over, Washington has had to
look in previously unexamined boxes to find issues to justify its continued
paramount importance.

But this is David Broder, and I know he seriously believes
that these matters should be on the president’s priority list. I just think
he’s wrong.

Sure, there are national, non-Washington stories that are
very much the president’s business, and demand that he exercise leadership
before the nation _ the Oklahoma City bombing, for instance. But that was a
deliberate attack, not only upon a federal building and the people in it but
upon the entire notion of the federal government. The Colorado shootings, as
tragic and horrific as they were, lacked that feature.

Similarly, the president’s failure to step to the fore
regarding the riots in Cincinnati is by no means a serious "leadership
omission," as Mr. Broder characterized it. As he further writes, "The
incident was local." He goes on to say that "the problem of police-minority
relations is national and important."

Indeed. But it is national mainly in the sense that it is a
problem in local jurisdictions all over the country. If the riots were about
what the FBI or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had done, we’d be
talking federal interest. But we’re not in this case.

At some point, there will be an issue that I, too, will want
Mr. Bush to care about more than he does. But for now, I find his reticence a
welcome relief.

Oh, and back to where I started — I don’t blame Mr. Obama for trying to resonate on the anniversary of the slaughter at Blacksburg. That’s what presidential candidates are expected to do these days, especially if they are Democrats, and most especially if they are falling behind among women (yes, I think there’s a gender gap in this issue somewhere). Maybe Hillary Clinton and even John McCain have put out similar releases, and I just haven’t seen them yet.

I just don’t think they should be expected to do it.

bradwarthen.com

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