Category Archives: Marketplace of ideas

Front-line blogging

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Remember, you don’t have to rely upon venerable correspondents such as Joe Galloway, or armchair warriors such as myself, to tell you what’s really going on in Iraq, Afghanistan and everywhere else that Americans in uniform are laying their lives on the line.

Increasingly, you can check in with the troops yourself. In "Cry Bias, and Let Slip the Blogs of War," The Wall Street Journal told how to tap into the thoughts and observations of more than 1,400 people who’ve actually been there — or are still there. For many of these bloggers in uniform, said the founder of Milblogging.com, "the sole purpose was to counteract the media."

There have always been at least some soldiers who have wanted to go to battle against Big Media. Some in the military blamed coverage of the Vietnam War for turning American public opinion against it. What’s changed? The Internet now allows frustrated soldiers and veterans to voice their opinions and be heard instantly and globally.

Not that all want to gripe about the press. The God-given right of all GIs to second-guess, mock and generally criticize higher-ups is alive and well:

An Army blogger in Iraq who calls himself "Godlesskinser," has a clock
on his Web site noting how many days, hours, minutes and seconds have
passed since President Bush vowed to capture Osama bin Laden.

Check out the opinions of people who daily risk their lives for what they believe in. I’m putting a permanent link up to the left to make that easier for us all.

Is Sanford a Galloway fan?

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This has come to me from two sources — his bureau chief, and someone with his syndicate. It’s from Joe Galloway, the author of We Were Soldiers Once, And Young, who is now military correspondent for McClatchy out of Washington.

I have no idea whether it’s for real, or someone’s scamming Joe. Neither does Sanford press aide Joel Sawyer, although he doesn’t say anything to cast doubt on it. Nobody logs the governor’s personal notes. I suspect it’s real, but the governor’s out of pocket and we may not have an answer before tomorrow. But here’s what the Galloway missive said:

gents:
am in receipt of hand written note on stationery of South
Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford with a clipping of my column from The State
newspaper. Gov Sanford writes:

"Dear Mr. Galloway:
Your writing speaks
to me. Thanks for saying things in such straight forward
fashion.
Mark."

It was initially passed on to various editors by John Walcott, McClatchy Washington Bureau Chief.

    I have no idea what, if anything to make of this, but I found it interesting because Galloway hasn’t been a fan of the current administration’s military policies, to put it mildly.

Mr. Walcott is — understandably, I suppose — under the impression that Mark Sanford is a garden-variety Republican. Actual Republicans who deal with him in South Carolina know better. The great irony here is that he will probably be re-elected because the vast majority of Republican voters in this state don’t know him any better than Mr. Walcott does.

Chalk up another one for the way partisan politics scrambles up everything in this country. Parties give everyone the false impression that the world, and issues, are far, far simpler than they are. This is very dangerous.

Oh, and for those of you who still harbor monolithic notions about "the media," I am not a fan of the current administration OR of Mr. Galloway’s work. As regular readers know, I believe in our nation’s mission in Iraq — probably more than Mr. Bush does, judging by his actions — and judging by what he writes, Mr. Galloway does not. Of course, I may have misread him.

I certainly respect the perspective from which Mr. Galloway writes. After all, someone has actually deemed it worth the money to send him to the war and write what he thinks, an opportunity I have never had (so in part, you should chalk up my lack of enchantment with his work product to envy) — probably because he has at least 40 years experience as a war correspondent, and I have zero.

And I definitely appreciate the fact that he obviously cares deeply about the troops, having shared their danger — especially in Vietnam. Did you see the Mel Gibson movie? Well, Joe Galloway was actually there, and lived it, as others died all around him. He was portrayed by Barry Pepper.

I truly stand in awe, and must say in all humility that perhaps I would see things as he does, given the same experiences. But as things stand, I don’t.

I do know Mark Sanford, though, and I look forward to hearing more about this …

Is that all it takes?

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Michael Kinsley is apparently doing well after brain surgery last week. As he wrote in his most recent column for TIME,

That’s right, brain surgery — it’s a real conversation stopper, isn’t it? There aren’t many things you can say these days that retain their shock value, but that is one of them. "So, Mike — got any summer plans?" "Why, yes, next Tuesday I’m having brain surgery. How about you?" … People don’t expect to run into someone who’s having brain surgery next week squeezing the melons at Whole Foods. (Unless, of course, he’s squeezing them and shrieking, "Why don’t you answer? Hello? Hello?") Self-indulgently, I’ve been dropping the conversational bomb of brain surgery more often than absolutely necessary just to enjoy the reaction. And why not? I deserve that treat. After all, I’m going to be having brain surgery.

Anyway, this was attached to the end of the column:

Editor’s note: Kinsley’s surgery took place on July 12 and went fine.
His first words were, "Well, of course, when you cut taxes, government
revenues go up. Why couldn’t I see that before?"

Smoking column

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Good news: We get to smoke for free.
Bad news: We have no choice

By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor

WHY IS it called "secondhand smoke"? What’’s "secondhand" about it? When I find myself gagging on it, and look around for the source, it’’s always coming straight from the cigarette. The smoker’’s not using the smoke first before sharing it with me. Most of the time, he’’s not puffing on the thing at all. He’’s just sitting there, letting the tendrils of carcinogenic particulates pollute the room.Smoking

Let’’s give smokers this much credit –— when they do take a pull on their coffin nails, they usually refrain from blowing it right in our faces.

So there’’s nothing secondhand about it. Those of us who "don’’t smoke" are getting the full, genuine, original article, fresh and straight off the rack. Face it, folks –— we’’re smoking. The good news is, we’re not even having to pay for it. The bad news is, we don’’t have any say in the matter.

Now, the term "passive smoke" makes some sense. When you consider that most people are "nonsmokers," but all of them at some time or other have to breathe the stuff anyway, it becomes clear that most who smoke aren’’t doing it on purpose.

Fortunately, the majority has in recent years become a lot less docile. As a result, fewer and fewer of us are forced to work long hours in smoke-saturated factories, stores and offices— the way I was when I first came to work at this newspaper, a fact that cost me thousands in medical bills (even with insurance).

Notice how often I’’m slipping into the first-person here. This makes me uncomfortable, which is why you’’ve probably never read an entire column from me on the subject of smoking, even though it has been for many years my bane. I’’m suspicious of other people who advocate things that would directly benefit them or some group they belong to, so I avoid it myself. When I wrote a column that dealt with my rather extreme food allergies, I spent much of the piece trying to rationalize my self-absorption.

But the subject of public smoking has been brought to the fore, and the time has come to speak out. There’’s a new surgeon general’’s report. The University of South Carolina has moved virtually to ban it. On the state and local levels, there are moves afoot to eliminate smoking from bars and restaurants –— the last broad refuges of the gray haze.

It’’s time to speak up. In fact, I wonder why the majority was so diffident for so long. I guess it was that classic American attitude, "Live and let others fill our air with deadly fumes." An anecdote:

A restaurant in Greenville. Our waiter came up and asked in a whisper whether we’’d mind if a gentleman who smokes were seated next to us. You see, he explained, the petitioner was in a wheelchair, and that was the only table available that would be accessible to him. Granted, this was the nonsmoking section, but if we could accommodate him….

Uh, well, gee. A guy in a wheelchair. Poor fella. It’s not like I can’’t smell the smoke from across the room anyway ("nonsmoking areas" are a joke). I started thinking aloud: "I suppose… I mean… if there is no alternative… I’’m allergic to it and all, but if you have to…."

At this point, the waiter began to back off, and said –— with a tone of deferential reproach that must have taken him years to perfect –— "That’s all right. I’’ll just ask the other gentleman to wait for another table."

Gosh. I felt like a heel. I pictured a hungry, forlorn, Dickensian cripple, waiting for some kind soul to let him have a bit of nourishment. Tiny Tim grown up, being dealt another cruel blow by life. As the waiter started to back away from our table, I was about to relent… when suddenly, a rather obvious point hit me: "Or," I said, "he could just not smoke."

Why did he have to smoke if he sat in the section full of people who had specifically asked not to breathe smoke while dining? Easy answer: He didn’’t. Nor did he need to spit, curse, pick his nose or break wind.

OK, I got off-message. It’s about public health, not offensiveness. As the surgeon general reported, even brief exposure to tobacco smoke "has immediate adverse effects" on the body. (I knew that before, since smoke causes my bronchial tubes to start closing the instant they make contact. I’’m lucky that way. I don’’t have to wait 30 years to get sick.)

Smoke_pipeBut you know what? Even if it were only a matter of being offensive, even if it were nothing more than putting a bad, hazy smell into the air, there would be no excuse for one person imposing it upon even one other person.

We’’re not talking about one person’’s interests being set against another’s. It’s not in anybody’’s interests for anybody to smoke –— unless you make money off that human weakness.

Take that guy in Greenville. He was already in a wheelchair! I’m supposed to waive the rules so that he can make himself sicker, and us with him? What madness.

It’’s not even in the interests of many bars or restaurants –— although, if nonsmoking establishments become the norm, I can foresee a time in which there would be a niche market for smoking dens.

And I’’d prefer for the market to sort that out. I am no libertarian, yet even I hesitate to pass laws to ban smoking in public places. But the market has not addressed the matter to the extent you would expect. Why?

Richland County Councilman Joe McEachern says a restaurateur recently told him, "Joe, I’ve got some great customers who are smoking; I can’t personally put up a sign that says ‘’no smoking.’’" But if there were a law, his business would benefit because the demand for clean-air dining is greater than he can meet now: "I can’’t get enough room for nonsmoking."

OK, so if most people don’’t smoke, and it’’s to everybody’’s benefit to clear the air, why can’’t we work something out?

Maybe this is why: I still feel kind of bad about the guy in the wheelchair. But I shouldn’’t.

It doesn’t know what I’LL do

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This was an interesting piece in the NYT yesterday. (And I would have posted it yesterday, but I kept looking for it at the WSJ site, thinking I’d read it in their print edition, and only realized my mistake today).

Headlined, "The Internet Knows What You’ll Do Next," it discussed the idea that … well, I’ll let the NYT explain:

    A FEW years back, a technology writer named John Battelle began talking about how the Internet had made it possible to predict the future. When people went to the home page of Google or Yahoo and entered a few words into a search engine, what they were really doing, he realized, was announcing their intentions.
     They typed in "Alaskan cruise" because they were thinking about taking one or "baby names" because they were planning on needing one. If somebody were to add up all this information, it would produce a pretty good notion of where the world was headed, of what was about to get hot and what was going out of style.
    Mr. Battelle, a founder of Wired magazine and the Industry Standard, wasn’t the first person to figure this out. But he did find a way to describe the digital crystal ball better than anyone else had. He called it "the database of intentions."
    The collective history of Web searches, he wrote on his blog in late 2003, was "a place holder for the intentions of humankind — a massive database of desires, needs, wants, and likes that can be discovered, subpoenaed, archived, tracked, and exploited to all sorts of ends."

Scary, huh? I mean, if you’re privacy advocate. I generally don’t worry too much about that stuff. I mean, I suppose I want to be left alone as much as the next guy, but if the government wants to include my phone records in a database that helps us catch terrorists, I figure it’s the least I can do for the war effort. Have at it.

I worry even less about what such a database of intentions would reveal about me. Of course, Battelle is talking about a collective database to track trends among millions of users (he sounds a bit like Obi Wan explaining The Force). But obviously, the same thing can apply — and already does apply, among marketers — on the micro scale to individuals.

Well, anybody who tries to read my intentions is going to get pretty confused. Any prophetic analysis based on my footprints on the Web would show that I have a greater-than-usual interest in:

Good luck predicting the future from that, Merlin.

A Decent Respect

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France
Everybody can quote from the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. You don’t often hear the first part cited.

That helps make it fresh each time I read it. This time, I was struck by the last words of the intro:

… a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

As you know, there is no greater supporter of our nation’s involvement in Iraq than I. But I’ve also been bitterly disappointed by mistakes the Bush administration makes, and continues to make, in prosecuting the war.

I do believe that ultimately, the United States and the "coalition of the willing" should go ahead and do what needs to be done, with or without the blessings of the likes of France and Germany. But I believe also that the administration could have done more to show "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind" than it has done. That’s one reason why I think Donald Rumsfeld should have been dumped a long time ago.

Too many of the president’s supporters say "to hell with the rest of the world." They shouldn’t. Yes, we must do what we must do. But we doom ourselves to ultimate failure, and loss of the leadership position that makes us effective, if we don’t show some of the humility in the face of our fellow men that came naturally to those brave souls who signed the Declaration.

They weren’t asking anybody’s permission. But they did want to be understood, and explained themselves eloquently.

We could do with a lot more such eloquence today. The two photos, both taken today, show the options. We’re much better off, and much better able to fulfill our mission in the world, if we are seen the way we are in the photo at top — a statue of Jefferson being unveiled in Paris. The picture below shows a protest in Denmark over Guantanamo. Anything we do to encourage the latter view of us if harmful to the United States, and to the rest of the world — which, whether it wants to or not, depends upon us and the choices we make.

Denmark

Thank you, Col. Marion

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The "Swamp Fox" posts this, which ends with the following:

    Freedom does not occur in a vacuum. Freedom occurs in community, and its preservation is a daily struggle.
    Hope you have a happy and healthy Fourth of July.

To which I had to respond:

Amen. And that is why I oppose those who wrongly invoke "freedom" and "choice" to defend their rejection of community, and their embrace of radical individualism, a la Ayn Rand and her "Virtue of Selfishness."

Thus endeth today’s sermon. Changing the subject slightly, does it strike anyone besides me as odd that the libertarians formed a political party, but communitarians never have? Think about it — the radical individualists organized themselves in collective action (of a sort), while the big boosters of community have never done anything but post essays and such.

Which is a shame, really. I had thought the communitarian movement had some real possibilities. I guess all we have now is the Unparty. Sigh.

Speaking of the Fourth reminds me of Ben Franklin, which reminds me of this quote. Smart guy, that Ben.

A news perspective

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Here’s another point of view regarding the WSJ‘s editorial — that of the WSJ‘s newsroom. Or at least, of one voice in the newsroom. You may have noticed that Mary Rosh referred to the existence of this exchange, in her own sweet way.

Anyway, I just got the link from Romenesko.

This may help answer kc’s question about why I was so interested to see the editorial board of that paper "wrestle" with the issue. They were the ones who published the story, kc reasoned, so what did they have to struggle about?

The thing is, they were NOT the ones to publish the story. As at The State, there is a high wall (as there should be) between news and editorial. So one commenting on the other is a pretty delicate matter. Though both represent the same overall institution, there can be considerable tension since they don’t interact on content decisions.

WSJ: ‘Fit and Unfit to Print’

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Editor’s note and mea culpa: This post has been revised to reflect
the fact that it is much easier than I had thought to gain access to
the opinion piece in question. Sorry for being so stupid. I had known
this, but I had forgotten.

There was a fascinating editorial in the WSJ Friday about the NYT‘s decision to publish info regarding our operations against terrorist financing, and the WSJ‘s decision to run a similar story the same day, and the difference between the two. A salient paragraph:

President Bush, among others, has since assailed the press for
revealing the program, and the Times has responded by wrapping itself
in the First Amendment, the public’s right to know and even The Wall
Street Journal. We published a story on the same subject on the same
day, and the Times has since claimed us as its ideological wingman. So
allow us to explain what actually happened, putting this episode within
the larger context of a newspaper’s obligations during wartime.

This editorial ran two columns wide all the way to the bottom of the edit page. Here’s a link to it. Let me know whether you have any trouble getting to it, and I’ll be glad to e-mail you a slightly different link that gets you to the same piece.

I’ve already e-mailed it to my colleagues on the editorial board, so we can discuss it at our Wednesday meeting. I just thought it would be good to have a parallel discussion on the blog.

OK, I’m smoking now…

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I suppose Kathleen would call me a Nazi or something for even bringing this up, but …

What do you regard as an appropriately cruel and unusual punishment for somebody who saturates a non-smoking hotel room with cigarette residue?

I checked into this room with the standard international nicht rauchen sign on the door, and when I opened the door, the room hit me with a reek that made me think I might be better off going down to sleep in the bar.

Mind you, this is not an esthetic thing to me. I’m very allergic to the stuff, and in fact am at this moment in the middle of a second course of prednisone to treat sinus inflammation that’s been killing me for the past couple of months.

The lady at the desk was very nice, but there wasn’t another room available tonight that met our needs. They promise to switch us ASAP tomorrow. Meanwhile, I went down to the car to get my breathing machine so I wouldn’t have to fetch it at 3 a.m., just in case. Meanwhile, I’m thinking positive thoughts.

Never mind about me, though. I’ll be fine, I think. But don’t you think whoever last occupied this room should at least have his credit card billed double or something?

Thoughts?

Reflections on letters

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Some reflections on letters in Saturday’s paper.

First, there was the one headlined, Grand Old Party is losing its way. My thoughts on it:
A person whose identity as a Republican reaches back to 1932 is bound to feel a bit lost, for a number of reasons. It is now the majority — or perhaps I should say, the plurality, party. (There are enough of us independents to keep either from being a majority, but I suppose you could say the Republicans are the majority among partisans, certainly here in South Carolina.) That means it has had to expand its membership beyond what it once encompassed. The letter mentions Glenn McConnell (unfavorably) and Mark Sanford (favorably). The two men are very different from each other, but united in two facts: They are both very libertarian, and it’s hard to imagine either of them fitting in with, say, Dwight Eisenhower or Richard Nixon. Actually, it’s a bit hard to imagine Ike and Nixon being in the same administration. Anyway, my point is that people looking for consistency and reassurance in a party large enough to win elections are almost certain to be disappointed.

Here-and-now issues should determine vote:
This letter is related to the first, in that it illustrates the way that many Democrats are determined to keep their party the minority among partisans by rejecting certain lines of thought. Take for instance the writer’s dismissal the idea that ideals, or faith, might outweigh material considerations. Or at least, that they should not do so among practical, right-thinking individuals. But that’s not the really telling bit. What really points to the main fallacy among many (but not all) Democrats is the suggestion that right-thinking (i.e., socially concerned or liberal people) cannot choose the "moral path" of their fathers. Why on earth would concern about the direction of the country or current events be inconsistent with faith or a "belief system." Why can’t a person who is concerned  about the future still embrace the faith of his fathers? This writer seems to assume that traditional morality is utterly inconsistent with moving forward. Why so closed-minded? As long as supposed liberals think this way, they are doomed to failure.

Townsend did what he thought was right:
This writer says "Ronny Townsend worked tirelessly for the people he represented, for conservative values and for bettering public education." Exactly. A person who embraces conservative values would certainly be committed to serving and improving public education. It is a fundamental institution of our society, and one that is essential to building the kind of future that those who went before us envisioned. Anyone who would dismantle it, rather than protecting, strengthening and improving it, is a radical, leaning toward anarchy — anything but conservative.

Liberators not always what they seem:
Why would this writer believe that the idea that "there has always been a thin line between ‘invader/occupier’ and ‘liberator’ … was not considered three years ago?" It was and is to be expected that there is a delicate balance to be struck between such concepts. I certainly considered it, worried about it — still do. This is a short missive. Is the writer suggesting that those of us who favored the invasion must not have seen the inherent risks? Is he suggesting further that if anyone had seen the risks, the endeavor would not/should not have been undertaken? If so, I couldn’t disagree more. Those are merely reasons to proceed wisely — which certainly hasn’t always been done in this enterprise. I believe concern over that fact underlies this letter. But if leads the writer to conclude that it should not have been undertaken to begin with, or should be abandoned now, I have to disagree.

Feting Bernanke may be premature:
Why? So we don’t know whether he is a Greenspan or not? Why wouldn’t homefolks celebrate the fact that one of their own is the Fed Chairman. Seems sort of like a big deal in and of itself to me.

Accepting differences leads to better world:
One would be puzzled why someone would be compelled to write that "I am of the belief that God doesn’t hate." I mean, who isn’t? One would be further puzzled to read, "One day, I hope to find a community of faith that believes in love,
tolerance and acceptance. Maybe that is too much to hope for…" All true communities of faith believe in those things. They welcome sinners, and invite them to be penitent. The problem is that some do not wish to be penitent, and choose to characterize any suggestion that they should be as "hate." This is an obvious fallacy for anyone seeking a community of faith. It’s astounding how many people fail — or refuse — to see that.

Finally, Tests give teachers too little to go on:
OK, if you’re going to insist on standards being taught, why would you let teachers know what questions will be on the test that will measure whether they are teaching the standards. If you let them know the test, they would be able to — as many claim they already do — "teach to the test." It’s not about you improving test scores. It’s about teaching the standards. If test scores do improve, we’ll know how successfully you’re doing that. The letter presents one real reason for concern, when it suggests that students have seen "subject matter on tests that was not included in the standards." If so, something should be done about it. Of course, if the standard were not taught properly, the student would find the measuring test unfamiliar. So it’s difficult to tell from this missive where the fault lies.

Bob McAlister on Jack Bass

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"I sense Jack’s sense is senseless," said Bob McAlister of his "good friend" Jack Bass.

In a never-ending quest for that thing they call "balance," I had called longtime self-styled GOP savant McAlister to get some perspective on what a colleague had termed Jack’s "wishful thinking."

"That’s just a Democrat seeing a passing fancy," Bob said of Jack’s "sense" at midafternoon that the governor, while winning, will not do as well as expected against Oscar Lovelace. (In an effort to define, "as expected," I called my good friend and colleague Lee Bandy, who said the figure Mr. Sanford needed to avoid embarrassment would be "70 and above." I went to Lee because he is far more schooled in the realm of political prognostication than I.)

Bob stressed again that he considers Jack to be a friend.

"I think probably he’s sensing that rarified professorial atmosphere to which he has become accustomed in recent years," added the competing blogger.

"I’ll make this prediction: I predict that Mark Sanford will win," said Bob. "Oscar-Mayer Lovelace is gonna get in the mid-twenties."

On turnout front, Bob said when he voted at the Wildewood precinct at 1 or 1:15, "I was the only one there, I think." (A disturbing sidelight on that: "Rusty DePass was watching the poll.")

Oh, one more thing: Bob wanted me to make sure I told everybody that Jack is an old friend of his. I said OK.

Primary-day column, WITH LINKS!

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Read all about it. Then go vote!

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR

AT MONDAY morning’s editorial meeting, we wearily debated how we might have done a better job on these primary elections. Should we have interviewed candidates in fewer races, opening time and space for more detail on the top contests? Did we make the best endorsements we could have? Did we give readers all the information that they need?
    The answer to that last question is, “Of course not.” Resources are limited, and at best, even when our board has been as thorough as it can be in making a recommendation, ours is but one voice in a much broader conversation. Careful voters should attend thoughtfully to all of it.
    My purpose in writing today is to refer you to additional resources, so you have more information available to you on this day of decision than we can fit onto one page.
    Start by going to my blog on the Web. The address is at the bottom of this column. If you don’t feel like typing all that in, just Google “Brad Warthen’s Blog.” Click on the first result.
    Here’s what you’ll find:

  • An electronic version of this column with one-click links to all the other information in this list.
  • The full texts of all of our endorsements. We don’t expect you to be swayed by the brief capsules at left; we provide this recap on election days because readers have requested it. Please read the full editorials.
  • Additional notes from most of the 51 candidate interviews that helped in our decisions. Please leave comments to let me know whether you find these notes helpful; it’s a new thing for me.
  • The Web sites of major candidates. These sites vary greatly in the detail they offer on issues (and in their frankness), but some can be helpful.
  • Addresses for state and local election commissions.
  • More links to last-minute news reports. The State’s news division is entirely separate from the editorial department, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help you find the news — including the Voter’s Guide from Sunday’s paper.
  • Recent columns, including an unpublished piece from teacher and former community columnist Sally Huguley, explaining why teachers should vote in the Republican primary.
  • Various explanations I’ve given in the past for why we do endorsements, and what our track record has been with them.
  • Much, much more — from the silly to the (I hope) profound.

    Please check it out, and leave comments. I want to know what you think — so would others — about the election, about our endorsements, about the blog itself. There were 138 comments left there on one day last week. I’d like to see that record broken. Broaden the conversation beyond the usual suspects (no offense to my regulars; I just want more, and you know you do, too).
    And then, go vote your conscience. Please. A number of observers have said voter interest is low this time around. It shouldn’t be. This election could help determine whether South Carolina does what it needs to do to improve public schools — and therefore improve the future for all of us — or gives up on the idea of universal education.
    I’m not just talking about the governor or superintendent of education contests. As we’ve written in detail (which you can read again on the Web), there are well-funded groups from out of state trying to stack our Legislature so that it does what they want it to do from now on. Don’t stand back and watch that happen. Exercise your birthright. Vote.
    Finally, after the votes are counted, be sure to tune in to ETV from 10 to 11 p.m. I’ll offer live commentary off and on (it won’t be just me for that whole hour, so you’re safe). You young people, ask your parents to let you stay up late. If you’re big enough to be reading the editorial page, you deserve it. You older folks, try to get a nap in the evening and rest up — after you’ve voted.

Here’s the address: http://blogs.thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/.

… and here are MY initial thoughts

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Supt_debate
While you’re making up your mind, here are my first, no-looking-at-notes impressions of the candidates from the debate tonight:

  • Karen Floyd was pretty much as "Mr. Hatfield" described her: She presented herself well — generally remembering to address the camera (which is either being real mindful of you folksFloyd_debate at home, or rude to those with whom she is conversing, but the ETV professionals say it’s the thing to do) — but very slick. As I’ve said before, she’s smart. She knows what she wants to say, and what she doesn’t want to say. What she wants to say is that she’s open to public schools, private schools, good proposals from anybody, Mom, the flag and apple pie. What she doesn’t want to say is anything that will locate her specifically and precisely on the issue of whether tax money should go to rebates to parents who send their kids to private schools. You’ll notice she did finally say "yes," which she says sent her aide into a tizzy. Anyway, overall I think anyone scoring this thing would say she did quite well.
  • Bob Staton did a good job, too. He also remembered to keep talking to the camera. But he did more than that. I think anyone watching without any other knowledge of the candidatesStaton_debate would have come away seeing him as the solid and trustworthy. The issue for him is whether that’s going to be enough. Mr. Staton was the one person in the studio with extensive experience with education reform. For the past eight years, he’s been helping lead the process begun by the Education Accountability Act of 1998. Trouble is, the governor has the bulliest pulpit in this state, and he has accomplished one thing in the education arena — he’s managed to fool a lot of people into thinking that anyone who won’t abandon accountability altogether by throwing public money at private schools is somehow a mossbacked defender of the status quo. Those who have been doing the heavy lifting of implementing accountability in spite of the education establishment’s resistance have apparently been too stunned to offer an effective rebuttal to that. I’m not sure Mr. Staton gained much ground in that regard tonight.
  • Mike Ryan was of course the only actual educator in the room. His bestRyan_debate moment was when he cut in to refute the oft-repeated canard that with the PACT, teachers are just "teaching to the test." I was glad to hear him say (for the second time; he had also shared the observation with our editorial board) what is obvious to anyone who understands what the EAA is about: The teachers are teaching to the high curriculum standards that the EAA demanded. The test — which the teachers don’t get to see ahead of time — is merely a device to find out whether the kids are learning to those standards.
  • Elizabeth Moffley is earnest and I believe sincerelyMoffley_debate concerned, but I don’t think she made any further progress in letting me — or anyone else — know exactly why she’s in the race. I blame myself for a weak answer on her part in one case, though. When I had spoken with her before, she had rather forcefully made the point that private schooling for kids with special needs can well cost upwards of $20,000, making the subsidy provided by PPIC pretty laughable, even for those lucky enough to live in a metropolitan area that would attract such schools. I launched into the question thinking to remind her of that, and then got lost trying to ask it without telling her what her answer had been (thereby negating the need for her to speak at all). Considering how screwed up the question was, she recovered quite well.Wood_debate
  • Kerry Wood continues to have much the same problem. I fail to see why he wanted to be so cautious on some of the answers. If I had as little chance as he does to get into the runoff, I’d feel free to opine agressively on every point, not worrying about what anybody else thought about my opinions.

Frankly, if candidates Ryan, Moffley and Wood had bowed out, we could have had a really pointed, detailed discussion of the critical accountability-vs.-tax credits issue between the chief spokespeople for those positions — not to mention, the two most likely candidates to get into the runoff.

No, I’m not saying people who don’t have a chance don’t have a "right" to run (so hold the huffy comments about that). I’m just saying that debates such as this would be a lot more informative if they didn’t. You can’t get very far with five candidates in an hour. You can nail down a few critical issues with two, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of both PACT and choice. (And yes, there are things to be said for and against both, things that I fear most voters haven’t had time to examine in sufficient detail to be choosing the person who will oversee a larger part of state government than the governor does.)

Thoughts on the superintendent debate?

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Feedback time.

Did you see the superintendent of education debate tonight? If you didn’t, that’s no excuse. Here’s the link to the streaming video.

If so, please sound off here. What did you think?

I’ll come back and share my thoughts, but I thought I’d give you a place to get started. I’m a little behind at the moment, as when I went to the debate, I had left our kitchen sink — faucet, pipes, etc. — in pieces on the kitchen floor. I had to finish that job before getting to this.

By the way, I got ‘er done. No leaks (so far).

W is Gilligan; Al is Mr. Howell

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I’ve gotta say, there is an interesting and (largely) thoughtful conversation going on between the political extremes via comments on this post.

I should say though, "bud," going by objective standards of comedy, Al (and I call him that because, Goretuxway back in 1984 when he was running for the Senate, he kept telling me to call him that) is doomed to be funnier than W. W may be infuriating, he may seem dumb, he may mangle the language — and the latter two are good comedy fodder, no question — but you just can’t beat a pompous smart guy. Al’s funnier just out of the block. He gets a head start, and W can’t catch up.

Let’s use the Gilligan’s Island standard (which I just made up). I never found Gilligan to be that funny — average guy, although stupider. Infuriating in the way he kept throwing away opportunities to get off the island. "Infuriating," to me, isn’t funny.

But Mr. and Mrs. Howell were a complete hoot. Why? Because they were so upper-class and pompous and impervious. You couldn’t hurt them by laughing at them; it didn’t matter. (Mr. Howell would dismiss W. with his ultimate expression of derision: "A YALE man!!!")

Al is Thurston Howell, with a good dollop of the Professor thrown in (the pedantic manner; having to be the guy who knows it all, etc.). By himself, of course, the Professor isn’t funny; but combine him with Mr. Howell and you’ve got something special.

Sure, reasonable people can disagree. Some will find Gilligan funnier. (And yes, I know W is just as blue-blooded as Al, but he doesn’t seem to know it, and he doesn’t act like it. He’s a Gilligan. And Cheney is the Skipper, as played by Brian Dennehy.) I just think they’re wrong.

Note that none of this is to be confused with the eternal argument over whether Ginger or Maryanne is hotter. (Obviously, it’s Maryanne.)

Maureen Dowd in high cotton

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To paraphrase Billy Jack, I try — I really try.

When I entered the blogosphere, I did so with a determination to give y’all links to pretty much any commentary or original sources that I was referring to. I know blog patrons like free stuff, so I linkMaureen you to as much of it as I can.

But when I look at the New York Times policy, which doesn’t even let subscribers read the op-ed columnists on-line, and I see how often those writers provoke me to want to say something back, and I can’t really give more than little tastes of that context to the readers, to my people…

I just go berSERK!

Or at least, I get mildly irritated.

Anyway, I’m going to go ahead and say what I thought when I read Maureen Dowd‘s latest, and unless you have a hard copy lying around, or unless you’re a TimesSelect subscriber (and if you are — suckerrrr!), you’re just going to have to act like big boys and girls and read The State tomorrow — the actual, dead-tree edition that your Daddy reads — instead of trying to freeload off the Web.

Anyway, this is what I thought:

Maureen Dowd’s in high cotton now. She thinks she’s going to have Al Gore to kick around again.

That’s it. I didn’t tell you I had anything special to say about it. I’m just trying to get you to read the op-ed page.

A fun game that will take longer than Monopoly

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Comments on a recent post gave me an idea for an interesting exercise for Democrats and Republicans of all ages (even Unpartisans like me can play):

Put together a list of EVERYTHING that you see as being included in the category "what the Democratic Party stands for." Then do the same for the Republican Party.

Mind you, don’t just put in the stuff that attracts you or repels you about each. Think outside yourself and your likes and dislikes, and include everything that any fair-minded person might see as identified with those parties.

And use neutral language, the kind that someone on the other side would say, "Yes, that’s what my party embraces."

We really need participation from all points on the spectrum. Our goal: to arrive at a generally agreed-upon list. I mean, if you write, "We believe in honest government, and they’re a bunch of lying bastards," you’re simply stating an area of agreement, because they’d say the same about you.

I’m thinking, to use one big litmus test, "Democratic: favor legal abortion; Republican: oppose legal abortion." Simple. Matter-of-fact. No emotional posturing about "pro-choice" or "pro-life." Just state the case.

Then, when we truly have complete, comprehensive, generally-agreed upon lists, I will still have this question: How can a thinking person completely embrace virtually everything on one list, and completely reject virtually everything on the other?

That’s what comes to mind when people say, "Maybe this person NEVER found a Republican (or Democrat) with whom he agreed on enough issues," or "Why is it that you think someone has to vote for a party that they fundamentally disagree with on almost everything…?"

I’m not saying anybody has to do anything. I am saying we have an obligation as citizens to approach every electoral decision with an open mind.

Schools dodge bullet. For now…

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You see how powerfully persuasive this blog is? I just got this note from a certain source:

house KILLED the edge amendment, although my attention had drifted for a moment and I didn’t actually catch what the vote total was.

and now they’re about to vote on the full bill, which SHOULD mean this amendment won’t come back up — unless someone notes a motion to reconsider, …but they’d do that only if the vote was close.

Good thing I was quick on the draw for once, so I could claim credit.

Seriously, though, this thing isn’t gone, and won’t be — not as long as out-of-state ideologues are determined to use our state as a guinea pig for their radicalism, and keep pumping money to S.C. advocacy groups and candidates. As long as they keep doing that, certain lawmakers who know better will be too scared to stand up to them.

The price of a good public education system — and South Carolina has made significant strides toward building one since the Education Accountability Act of 1998, although we have much farther to go — is eternal vigilance. Those of us who understand how crucial universal education is to our state can’t just stand up once for it. We have to stand up over and over, and hold our lawmakers accountable for serving South Carolina’s interests, not those of outsiders who couldn’t care less about us.

Reforming and building up our schools is hard-enough work, without constantly having to defend the very idea that we should even be trying.

Whom will we endorse?

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As both a blogger and editorial page editor, and not exactly in that order, I can run into certain conflicts: If I use the blog to share my impressions of candidates as we wade through endorsement interviews, am I not risking giving away whom we are likely to endorse?

And yet if I don’t share such information from day to day, what’s the point in an editorial page editor having a blog? Isn’t that the (admittedly theoretical) value of the Weblog — that by virtue of my job, I have access to this kind of information? Shouldn’t you get something extra for going there to read it?

Last week, it struck me for the first time: Why the big mystery about whom we might endorse? I’ve written over and over that the point in a newspaper’s endorsement is the why, not the who. If you just glance at the picture and the headline, you’ve missed the point of that kind of editorial.

The benefit for the reader lies in pondering the reasons we give for the choice. (This is a fact easily lost on many of those who read my blog, unfortunately. Judging by their comments, many remain trapped in the phony left-right, Democratic-Republican, are-you-for-this-one-or-are-you-for-that-one dichotomy — which closes their minds to reason.)

The idea is that by reading our endorsements, and reading rebuttals, and thinking about whether you agree or disagree, should add depth to your own decision-making as a voter — whether you vote in the end for the candidate we endorsed or not.

Besides, trying to guess the eventual endorsement from what I write after an interview is inadequate on two levels: First, an endorsement consists not just of what I think, but of what a consensus of the editorial board arrives at. Besides, I could change my own mind as we go along. I once pulled back an endorsement that was on the page and headed for the press. (I had last-minute qualms, did a little more digging and consulted with my colleagues. We rewrote it and went with the other candidate. Neither of  them knows that to this day.)

So, that resolved, I put my initial, rough impressions of our first three candidates (out of 55 I’ll be interviewing for the June 13 primary), on the blog last week. In each case, we were interviewing challengers. When it works out, we try to bring them in first because we tend to know less about them, and this gives us more time to get up to speed.

I also put capsules of those blog posts in my column Sunday. Here are those minimal excerpts, but if you are at all interested (and I hope you are; state legislators are more likely to have a direct impact on your life than those folks in Washington that everyone loves to shout about), I highly recommend following the links to the much-longer full blog posts:

Artie White, H89, Republican.
I didn’t ask Mr. White (challenging Rep. Kenny Bingham of Lexington County) his age, but I know the approximate answer: Quite young. The nice thing about talking to a candidate so recently (two years) out of college is that he still remembers more than most politicians have forgotten about representative democracy and how it’s supposed to work.

Mr. White sets less store by party than his former boss, Joe Wilson (which is a good thing). When asked whether he would make a point of regularly voting with the GOP caucus, he said, “I don’t really think it’s important.”

His main issue? Eminent domain. “Property rights in this country… is the basis of a free country,” he pronounced.

Greatest strengths? Sincerely good intentions and good theoretical knowledge of how government is supposed to work. Greatest weaknesses? Youth and inexperience.

Sheri Few, H79, Republican.
Sheri Few of Kershaw County, who is challenging Bill Cotty for the Republican nomination in District 79, was our first challenger armed with money from school-“choice” advocates, going up against a vocal Republican opponent of Gov. Mark Sanford’s “Put Parents in Charge” plan: “I am a proponent of school choice,” she said. “We need to start treating parents as consumers.”

But she objects to being portrayed as some sort of tool of out-of-state ideologues. She notes that she has raised $30,000 for her race, with only $8,000 of it coming from outside South Carolina.
Why should voters choose her over her opponent? “A Republican should vote for me over Bill Cotty for a couple of reasons,” she said. “I am a conservative.”

She said with tax credits, private entities would set up various schools to address special needs, such as learning disabilities. I said I could see how that might happen in Columbia, where there was enough demand. But what would be the motivation for private enterprise to set up such choices in the areas where South Carolina’s greatest educational challenges lie — poor, sparsely populated counties?

“That’s an excellent question,” she said. “I haven’t really thought about that.”

Joe McEachern, H77, Democratic.
Mr. McEachern, a member of Richland County Council who is challenging Rep. John Scott, is a straightforward sort who goes his own way, as fellow council members can attest to their delight or chagrin.

For instance, when we asked how he would get things done in the House, as a minority member of the minority party, he said, “I’m not one of those folks that carry the banner.” He said that the best course for South Carolina is likely to be something that transcends party and race. As a result, at times he will disagree with the Legislative Black Caucus.

He sees no need for voters to elect the “long ballot” of statewide officials — or for that matter, the purely magisterial offices on the county level.

When he says that, “People say, ‘Oh, no …. We’ll never get an African-American elected” to statewide office if they become appointive. “Have we ever gotten an African-American elected?” he answers.

“Elect a governor and hold him accountable” for having a diverse Cabinet, he said. “That is the best way.”

More importantly, thanks to his experience in local government, he understands the crying need to get the state government — including county legislative delegations — out of local affairs. “We need to make a clean break,” he said. “Either you’re going to have Home Rule or you’re not.”

He said Rep. Scott “thinks it’s his seat,” and “takes it very personal that I’m running against him. But it’s not personal.”

He said folks in the district complain that Mr. Scott neglects them. By contrast, he says, Bill Cotty — the Republican who represents a neighboring House district — is “more hands on.” Mr. McEachern is indeed no typical banner-carrier.