Category Archives: South Carolina

How the economy looks from where I sit

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One reason that I asked y'all to tell me how the economy was looking in your own lives is that if you work in the news biz, it helps to check with people who are not looking at what WE are looking at every day. When I talk about the economy, I'm perfectly aware that my own perception is colored by the situation that newspapers — and TV stations, and other media — find themselves in these days.

As you know, since I've told you in the past, I've lost just over half the staff I had at the start of this decade, due to cost cutbacks. And that was just because of long-term problems in the newspaper business model, the thing that caused Knight Ridder (which used to own The State) to suddenly disappear. (The short explanation: We have no trouble making the transition to online with our content, except for one thing — online advertising won't pay for the kind of news-and-commentary staffing that print advertising traditionally has. The money to pay reporters et al. has to come from somewhere; we just haven't figured out where yet.)

But take this long-term problem we already had, and add in this monster recession, and the effect on our business is huge. Think about it: Classified advertising has always made up a huge portion of the revenue that enables us to publish newspapers. OK, now ask yourself, what are the three main categories of classified advertising? They are 1) employment; 2) auto and 3) real estate. How many people are hiring these days? How are car and home sales? Get the picture?

Of course, you don't need me to tell you this. You've probably seen one or more of the following:

  • This TIME magazine cover story, currently on the shelves, headlined "How to Save Your Newspaper." (Spoiler: The author has no new, magic-beans idea; he just says we should charge for our content online.)
  • The New York Times, which obviously has a lot at stake in the question, ran a front-page feature last week called "Battle Plans for Newspapers," which offered the thoughts of various deep thinkers on the subject.
  • Then, you might have seen this headline in Editor & Publisher, "With Q4 Loss of $20 Million, McClatchy Vows to Cut Expenses $100 Million in '09." This should be relevant to you (it certainly is to me) because McClatchy is the company that now owns The State. (You could have read about it in The State as well, but I thought I'd also give you the third-party source.
  • Then, just so you think it's not all about newspapers, check out this story from the WSJ, "Local TV Stations Face a Fuzzy Future." You've seen some of the effects of the squeeze on TV, such as when WIS recently got rid of veteran anchorman David Stanton and six others. Since then, WACH-57 has laid off several people.

Some people think news people live in an ivory tower and aren't exposed to the vicissitudes of real life. Hardly. I'm hear to tell you that we are extremely susceptible to whether our community is doing well or not. If it isn't, we're sort of like the canary in the coal mine — we feel the effects right away.

I try to set that aside and perceive truly what is being experienced out there by people who DON'T work for newspapers, which is why I enlisted y'all to give me feedback on this earlier post. I hope y'all will continue to do that. In the meantime, I wanted to make sure you knew how things are looking from where I sit. In case you wondered.

Notice how this hasn’t helped with SC jobs

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Tomorrow's op-ed page features this Trudy Rubin column about how, in tough economic times, xenophobia and scapegoating of "the other" tends to rise. She speaks of the synagogue trashed in Caracas, similar incidents in Argentina, the Vatican's recent mess with the reinstated archbishop, etc.

And just in passing, there is a mention of a type of scapegoating we have seen in this country:

    Of course, it won't just be Jews who will be scapegoated. It can be Chechens or dark-skinned people from the Caucuses in Russia, or migrant workers in Chinese cities, or illegal immigrants in the United States.

Well, yes and no, in terms of the direct correlation to the economy. We saw the rise of resentment of illegals peak BEFORE the economy's recent southward trend. And in fact, one has heard a lot less about it recently than one heard back before John McCain became the GOP nominee (except, of course, from the kind of GOP voter who said they would not vote for him, not no way, not nohow).

Of course, there are some here in SC who would attribute the quieting of the anti-illegal lobby to the terrific job they say they're doing. I just got this release today from S.C. Senate Republicans:

South Carolina’s Immigration Laws Could Be Severely Weakened

Federal Government May Not Reauthorize E-Verify Program

Columbia, SC – February 17, 2009 – South Carolina’s State Senators are taking action and asking the United States Congress to reauthorize a federal program that is presently allowing the state to crack down on illegal immigration.  State Senator Larry Martin (R-Pickens) today introduced a resolution urging Congress to reauthorize the E-Verify program.
    E-Verify is an Internet based program run by the Department of Homeland Security, which allows for the instantaneous verification of an employee’s residency status.
    After an outcry from businesses, workers, and taxpayers across the state, the South Carolina General Assembly last year passed the nation’s toughest illegal immigration laws. Using the federal government’s E-Verify program, South Carolina’s new laws give the state the ability to punish those who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.  Unfortunately, South Carolina’s laws could lose their teeth and be severely weakened if Congress does not reauthorize E-Verify.
    Senator Larry Martin says the affect on South Carolina’s economy could be devastating.  “We now have the third highest unemployment rate in the nation due to this harsh economic environment. Our new law has stopped the influx of undocumented workers in South Carolina. We need to ensure that every available job in the state is being filled by a legal United States resident.”
    Martin continued, “E-Verify is the most cost-effective, secure, and reliable tool for businesses to verify the residency status of their employees. I can not urge Congress enough to reauthorize this vital program.”
            ###

So basically, he's saying we've got to keep out the illegals to protect our jobs. To which I say, what jobs? The period during which he's saying SC's done a great job of keeping out illegals (which remains to be seen, but let's play along) is a period in which unemployment in SC has soared.

Here's a clue, folks: You know what's more likely than anything else to keep out illegals? The continued decline of our economy, that's what. When there aren't jobs to be had, they're going to stay away. But is that what we want?

Think about it: Would you rather have high unemployment and keep the illegals out, or low unemployment but with illegals here? I'm sure the choice before us is not a pure question of either-or, but a basic understanding of supply and demand would suggest that there is a high correlation…

Links about S.C. and the stimulus

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Something I forgot to do with my column Sunday about Midlands efforts to steer stimulus funds this way was to link to these two items that also ran on our pages Sunday:

  1. Our editorial on what we think about Sanford's efforts against the stimulus (which you might I wrote, but I didn't). As we said in part, "Mr. Sanford has made his point about his disdain for federal borrowing
    and federal intervention. It’s time for him to return to reality and
    start acting like a governor."
  2. The governor's own arguments about the stimulus, which he wrote for the op-ed page in response to a piece we'd run earlier in the week from two Democrats, Boyd Brown and Ted Vick, headlined, "Our occasional governor."

Anyway, I think it helps to have those additional reference points.

Lott won’t charge Phelps

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Just thought I'd provide y'all with a place to comment on the latest on this local story that's made international waves. An excerpt:

    Michael Phelps will not be charged with marijuana possession, though
the Olympic champion swimmer admitted to being pictured holding a
marijuana pipe at a Columbia house party in November, Richland County
Sheriff Leon Lott announced today.

Me, I think the sheriff did the right thing. You?

The slowdown: What are YOU seeing?

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Peggy Noonan had an intriguing column Saturday, about what she was seeing in Manhattan in terms of real, street-level effects of the recession. Here's an excerpt:

    This is New York five months into hard times.
    One senses it, for the first time: a shift in energy. Something new has taken hold, a new air of peace, perhaps, or tentativeness. The old hustle and bustle, the wild and daily assertion of dynamism, is calmed.
    And now Washington becomes the financial capital of the country, of the world. Oh, what a status shift. Oh, what a fact.

Here's what struck me about that: She implies that — because of the stimulus, the TARP, etc. (I guess) –  the hustle-and-bustle that's missing from the not-so-mean streets near Central Park has somehow been transferred to Washington.

And yet, weirdly enough, I had been talking to someone else last week who had made a similar observation about a loss of activity in Washington. It was USC President Harris Pastides. When he came to see us with Mayor Bob and the gang last Monday, he had just stepped off the plane coming back from D.C., and his impression was that it felt dead, deserted. Of course, he acknowledged that the contrast was particularly sharp because he had last been there for the Obama inauguration just weeks earlier, but he seemed to be suggesting that he was seeing was a loss of activity from the norm, not just from the inaugural excitement.

(I heard that with particular interest because one thing that had always struck me when I visited D.C. — and mind you, I haven't been there in years and years — was something that my libertarian friends can identify with. I thought, crowded onto a metro platform with well-dressed commuters, or walking past swanky shops, "There's too much money in this town." Of course, part of that is the sheer size of the gummint, a good bit of which should be devolved. But part of it is the amount that the private sector freely spends on lobbying. I have no idea how to separate it out. But I know that in my limited experience, the lobbyists are snappier dressers.)

I haven't been to New York in almost a year, and I last went to D.C. in 1998 (yes, more than a decade). I don't know what impression I'd have if I visited either today (although I'm pretty sure NYC won't be as busy as when I made this video). Come to think of it, I don't know what impression I have of right here in the Midlands. For instance:

About three weeks ago, I went to the Lowe's out on Garners Ferry for the first time since before Christmas. It was late on a Sunday afternoon. And I was shocked, because when I walked in, there were about a dozen or more of those carts you use to stack your lumber on — the kind that when it's busy, you've got to hunt around for — lined up in a neat row in the lumber aisle before me. So there were at least that many carts free, and an employee had had time to gather them and make that neat row. Then after I left and got to thinking about it, I thought I had seen about as many employees as customers.

I've mentioned that several times since then, and sometimes people nod their heads and sometimes they dispute it. For instance, Cindi said she's been to Lowe's (including that particular store) maybe six times in the last few weeks, and it's always been busy.

Then when she said that, I suddenly remembered that I went out to Harbison Saturday, and the traffic was the worst I'd seen in several years. I thought I'd never get there, or get home. And the stores I went into were at LEAST as busy as the norm, if not more so, so I don't think it was just a matter of my having hit the traffic at a bad time.

From where I sit, there's plenty of evidence of our economy tanking in the aggregate, from the state unemployment figures to the horrific effect that reduction in advertising has on newspapers and TV. We can quantify the cuts that have occurred already and are coming in state government, or local school districts. And I know of quite a few specific cases of people close to me — personally and professionally — who have lost their jobs or are facing the high probability of such losses.

But then we still see the anomalous things, such as all that activity out at Harbison. And not just there. Over the weekend I thought, not for the first time, that the Vista is just TOO successful. Yes, I'm being ironic, but it's frustrating when that district has become so popular that you can't park within a block of Starbuck's.

So I'm wondering — what are YOU seeing out there, as a worker, as a businessperson, as a consumer? What's the true picture of what's happening thus far in the Midlands? Maybe we can get a snapshot — or better yet, a panorama — of that right here on the blog. So how about it? What are you seeing?

Going after the stimulus

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By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR

WOLF BLITZER: Should South Carolina take the money?
GRAHAM: I think that, yes, from my point of view, I — you don’t want to be crazy here. I mean, if there’s going to be money on the table that will help my state….
                — CNN, Wednesday

LINDSEY Graham said that in spite of his strong opposition to the stimulus bill as passed. His aide Kevin Bishop explained the senator’s position this way: “South Carolina accepts the money, future generations of South Carolinians are responsible for paying it back. South Carolina refuses the money, future generations of South Carolinians are still responsible for paying it back.”
    Good point. And now it’s time to think about how South Carolina gets its share.
    A number of local leaders were already thinking about, and working on, that issue while debate raged in Washington. Columbia Mayor Bob Coble and University of South Carolina President Harris Pastides led a group of local leaders who came to see us about that last week. (It included Paul Livingston of Richland County Council; Neil McLean of EngenuitySC; John Lumpkin of NAI Avant; Tameika Isaac Devine of Columbia City Council; John Parks of USC Innovista; Bill Boyd of the Waterfront Steering Committee; Judith Davis of BlueCross BlueShield; Ike McLeese of the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce; and attorney Kyle Michel.)
    The group, dubbed the “Sustainability and Green Jobs Initiative,” sees the stimulus as a chance to get funding for projects they have been promoting for the advancement of the Columbia area, from Innovista to riverfront development, from streetscaping to hydrogen power research.
    The idea is to make sure these local initiatives, which the group sees as synching perfectly with such national priorities as green energy and job creation, are included in the stimulus spending.
    Mayor Coble, who had already set up a “war room” in his office (President Pastides said he was setting up a similar operation at USC, concentrating on grant-writing) to track potential local projects and likely stimulus funding streams, saw little point in waiting around for the final version of the bill, saying we already knew what “90 percent” of it would be, whatever the conference committee came up with.
    Some specifics: Mayor Coble first mentions the North Main streetscaping project, which is already under way. President Obama wants shovel-ready projects? Well, says Mayor Bob, “The shovel’s already out there” on North Main. Stimulus funding would ensure the project could be completed without interruption.
    He said other city efforts that could be eligible for stimulus funds included fighting homelessness, extending broadband access to areas that don’t have it, hiring more police officers and helping them buy homes in the neighborhoods they serve.
    But the biggest potential seems to lie in the areas where the city and the university are trying to put our community on the cutting edge of new energy sources and green technology. With the city about to host the 2009 National Hydrogen Association Conference and Hydrogen Expo, Columbia couldn’t be in a better position to attract stimulus resources related to that priority.
    The group was asked to what extent Gov. Mark Sanford’s opposition to stimulus funds flowing to our state created an obstacle to their efforts. “There’s no use arguing with the governor,” the mayor said. But the local group’s efforts will be focused on being ready when an opportunity for funding does come — whether via Rep. James Clyburn’s legislative end-run, or through federal agencies, or by whatever means.
President Pastides says, “The governor has deeply held beliefs and philosophies and I respect him not only for having them,” but for being straight about it and not just telling people what they want to hear. At the same time, with the university looking at cutting 300 jobs and holding open almost every vacancy, “there are almost no lifelines for me to turn to” to sustain the university’s missions. An opportunity such as the stimulus must be seized. He sees opportunities in energy, basic science and biomedical research.
    As big as the stakes are for the Midlands regarding the stimulus itself, there are larger implications.
    A successful local effort within the stimulus context could be just the beginning of a highly rewarding partnership with Washington, suggested attorney Kyle Michel, who handles governmental relations for EngenuitySC. He noted that many provisions in the stimulus are the thin end of the wedge on broader Obama goals. This is particularly true of the effort toward “transitioning us away from… getting our energy from the people who are shooting at us,” which he describes as the administration’s highest goal. “What are we going to do over the next four years to play our part in that goal of the Obama administration? Because this 43 or 49 billion is just the start.”
    He also said what should be obvious by now: “If we don’t draw that money down… it doesn’t go back to the taxpayer. It goes to other states.”
    President Pastides said, “This is almost like someone has announced a race with a really big prize at the end,” and you don’t win the prize just for entering; you have to compete. That appeals to him, and he’s eager for the university and the community to show what they can do.
    This group is focused less on the ideological battle in which our governor is engaged, and more on the practical benefits for this part of South Carolina. It’s good to know that someone is.

For links and more, please go to thestate.com/bradsblog/.

Clyburn says SC to get $8 billion

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No sooner had I posted that last post than another e-mail came in from Jim Clyburn's office, and I think y'all might find this one more interesting:

South Carolina will receive nearly $8 billion in federal investments to get people back to work and help turn the economic crisis around.  Below is a list of specific program funding included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which passed the House this afternoon.  NOTE: The $8 billion figure doesn't include some tax breaks or FMAP funding. 
 
Here is a link to an interactive map http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/02/compromise_map.html

Hope E. Derrick
Communications Director
Office of Congressman James E. Clyburn

Differing views on the stimulus

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Just to share with you some of the e-mail that I ran through just before leaving the office for the night, here are three views on the stimulus bill that passed the House today.

First, Jim Clyburn really LIKED it:

February 13, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CLYBURN HAILS PASSAGE OF AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT

WASHINGTON, DC – House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn today released the following statement praising House passage of HR 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
    “Our economy is shedding 20,000 jobs a day.  Just last month nearly 600,000 jobs were slashed, marking the deepest cut in payrolls in 34 years.  The unemployment rate in January reached 7.6 percent, the highest level in more than 16 years. Of the top 20 highest months of job loss in America’s history, five occurred in the last seven months.  It’s time to turn those statistics around.
     “The American Recovery and Reinvestment plan is the bold action that President Obama called for.  It will create and save 3.5 million jobs, cut taxes for 95 percent of American workers, and strategically transform our economy for years to come.
     “Yesterday we marked the bicentennial anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln and the centennial anniversary of the NAACP.  It’s not coincidental the NAACP founded its organization on Lincoln’s birthday.  Yesterday, to mark their anniversary, the NAACP celebrated the breaking of glass ceilings, but also admonished us to uplift the grass roots by focusing on economic issues.
     “The last time our country faced an economic crisis of this magnitude, the government’s response in large measure omitted the communities that I represent and for which the NAACP advocates.  As we crafted the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, we targeted our efforts on traditionally underserved communities and rural communities using census tracks and poverty levels to direct the greatest need. I believe we met the challenge put forward by the NAACP for equity and fairness, and I expect this recovery package to deliver the hand-up that Americans so desperately need.
     “The American Recovery and Reinvestment act makes targeted investments so the children in Sumter, South Carolina will have clean-water, so that children at J.V. Martin Junior High School in Dillon, South Carolina will not have to learn in a 150 year old school, so that the mother in Charleston, South Carolina will not be homeless, so that kids Columbia, South Carolina will have a summer job,  so that a teacher in Anderson Primary School in Williamsburg, South Carolina will not lose their job, and so that families in Florence, South Carolina looking for a way-out out this economic recession will not suffer under a Governor’s political ideology.”

                         -30-

Lindsey Graham really DIDN'T like it:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:     
          

February 13,
2009                                         

Graham to
Vote Against Stimulus Package

WASHINGTON


– U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today made these statements on
the stimulus package the Senate will vote on later today. 

    “The stimulus package creates more government than jobs.
The original goal was to work together to create jobs and stimulate our
economy.  It’s clear we have failed miserably in that
endeavor.”

Lack of
Bipartisanship:

“There was never a real effort to find common ground. 
We’re spending $1.1 trillion over the next ten years and we never had a
thoughtful discussion to figure out how we could come together on something with
bipartisan support.  The idea that this is bipartisanship does not meet any
realistic test of bipartisanship.

Lack of Job Creation
Provisions:

“About seventy percent of the jobs in our nation are
created by small business.  If our goal was to crate jobs and stimulate the
economy, one of the tests should be how much did we do for small business?  Not
much.  Less than $3 billion in the entire package is directed to small
business.  It’s one of the areas of the bill where the focus missed the target
by a country mile. 

Untimely Spending to Create Jobs and
Stimulate the Economy:

“There are so many things in the package completely
unrelated to creating a job in the next 18 months.  Only 11 percent of the
appropriated spending will be spent in the first year.  In fact, over half of
the money will not be spent until two years from now.  We waste money in this
bill that could have gone to shoring up the financial sector and fixing our
housing problems.”

                #####

And Columbia Mayor Bob Coble sent out this spreadsheet
with the message:

Here is the final version. Very good for cities!

Sheriff Lott back in the day

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This previous post got me to thinking that some of you might be interested in traveling down memory lane a bit with regard to Sheriff Leon Lott, since he's recently become nationally famous.

As y'all know, I feel a certain kinship for the sheriff (whom we endorsed in the last election). We call each other "twin" because we were both born on the same day in the same year in South Carolina. Also, he has been named "Toughest Cop"
twice, and if there were such a thing as a "Toughest Editorial Geek" contest, y'all know I would have won it at least twice by now. (He's also won the Miss Vista Queen drag pageant, but there I can draw no parallels to myself. It seems we are not identical twins.)

As for the controversy in which he is currently engaged, I'm not as stirred up as a lot of folks one way or the other. I sort of go back and forth on it. I think the law should be enforced equitably — but I also wonder how many people who were not white and famous have been prosecuted when they weren't at the very least caught holding. I most emphatically do NOT agree with the folks who see this as evidence that the War on Drugs is stupid or useless or whatever. I think it's a good thing this stuff is illegal. But I also doubt that this particular case is really worth the resources devoted to it thus far.

Anyway, wherever you stand on all of this, I thought I'd provide this reminder that Leon has never been shy about going after people who break our drug laws. He's devoted a career to it, done it with a great deal of dash, panache and personal courage, and has often been controversial.

Here is a profile Clif LeBlanc wrote for The State when Leon was on the way to unseating his ex-boss as sheriff. I pulled and scanned some photos from our pre-electronic files by way of illustration.

THE STATE
LEON LOTT: UP FROM 'MIAMI VICE'
Published on: 10/30/1996
Section: FRONT
Edition: FINAL
Page: A1
By CLIF LeBLANC, Staff Writer
Illustration: PHOTO: color & bw

Editor's note: This is the second of two articles examining the candidates for Richland County sheriff.

Leon Lott lives to catch the bad guys. He revels in the nitty-gritty and the glitz of being a cop. He may like it a little too much.

The 43-year-old Democratic challenger in Tuesday's election for Richland County sheriff believes in working hard and getting his hands dirty.

The way he went about busting pushers and users earned him a reputation and awards. But his boss, the incumbent sheriff, said it cost Lott the job he loves.

The long hours he put in as a narcotics detective for nine years also claimed his marriage and hurt his relationships with his daughters.

Nearly four years after reaching the depths of his personal and professional life, Lott feels he is a better officer who has grown enough to become the forward-looking "sheriff for the 21st century."

Dirty Harry and Sonny Crockett were personas Lott once wore with relish during high-flying days when he drove seized Porsches, sported an 18-carat Rolex, worked choice undercover cases with federal agents in Florida and postured for cameras.

Now he blames the Hollywood image on the media, though his best friend admits Lott enjoyed playing the role to his advantage. Lott still wears the $2,650 watch.

Citizens or celluloid? Lott has been chief of the tiny St. Matthews Police Department for three years. That has helped him appreciate real-life role models.

"I see myself as a combination of Frank Powell, Chief Austin as far as PR, and Sheriff Wells as far
as being involved in investigations."

Powell is the former five-term sheriff of Richland County who hired Lott in 1973 and has come to epitomize, for Lott, the lawman unswayed by political influence.

Chief Charles P. Austin is known for his ability to sell the community policing philosophy that has brought him and the city of Columbia success.

Union County Sheriff Howard Wells won national recognition for his handling of the Susan Smith case.

But Lott's critics don't buy that he is anything but the hot-dog narc who fashioned himself after make-believe cops and tried to live by rules that work only on the screen.

"He actually thinks he's Don Johnson. He actually thinks this is 'Miami Vice,' " said GOP opponent Allen Sloan, refering to the freewheeling fictional narcotics officer from the TV police drama that ended in 1989.

"That still exists today," Sloan said of Lott. "All the rules apply, except to Leon."

Two law enforcement officials who worked years with Lott in Richland County share a similar concern.

"He has an ends-justify-the-means mentality," one said, requesting anonymity because he would have to collaborate with Lott if he wins the election. "That's frightening in any law enforcement officer and especially in the top person."

Lott says he is a college-educated professional who can breathe new life into a tradition-bound agency.

"I never considered myself a hot dog," Lott said, wearing a tie and chatting from an easy chair in his modest living room. "The Sonny Crockett thing … I think I fed off what the news media created. I turned it around and tried to use it to our advantage."

Lott's best friend, Jon Fins, said the brash label comes from people who don't know him.

"To me, Leon is a guy in sweats who works out real hard to stay in shape, grabs a sandwich at McDonald's and goes right back to work," said Fins, co-owner of an Assembly Street pawn shop where Lott bought his Rolex.

Fierce or fair? Lott's detractors say his zeal often overrides good judgment.

Just before Christmas 1987, for example, his aggresiveness got the best of him, said Jim Anders, then-5th Circuit solicitor and now a strong supporter of Sloan.

Anders produced a blistering order from a federal judge over the seizure of a new, black BMW convertible during a drug bust.

Judge Clyde Hamilton ordered the car returned to its owner and blasted the U.S. Attorney's office, the FBI and then-Capt. Lott of the sheriff's office. The judge cited "many irregularities" and "questionable motivations" for taking the BMW.

"Captain Lott's testimony raised the possibility that he had sought forfeiture … for an improper purpose, specifically to serve as his private vehicle," the judge's ruling said. It appeared, Hamilton said, that Lott wanted to drive the care to the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va.

Lott was scheduled to leave for coveted training at the prestigious academy in about the time the BMW was seized.

The car had only the remains of a marijuana joint, Anders said, adding he refused to seize the car because state law required a minimum of 10 pounds of pot before government could move to confiscate a vehicle used in the drug business.

"That's the kind of reckless behavior that I'm concerned about," Anders said. "It's less character than ability. A smart police officer doesn't get himself involved in cases like that."

Lott's explanation? "That's not pointing any finger at me. It's pointing fingers at the Richland County Sheriff's Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Attorney's office. They made the decisions to move forward. I didn't force them to do that."

But Lott initiated the seizure and pressured the young woman who owned the car to voluntarily turn it over for forfeiture.

Caught in middle? Lott's most publicized criticism as a narcotics agent occurred in 1991. A circuit court judge threatened him with contempt for changing agreements with drug suspects, for ignoring a court order to arrest a father- and-son drug-dealing team from Miami and especially for not adequately supervising drug peddlers who were out on bond so they could help police make cases.

Enrique and Fabian Valencia were busted at Owens Field in February 1990 with 11 pounds of cocaine. In exchange for reduced sentences laid out in written agreements, they pledged to help Lott lure bigger dealers into South Carolina.

Judge Carol Connor stung Lott for his actions, but didn't punish the pushers because they met their terms.

Anders said he doesn't remember the agreement and Sloan publicly backed Lott when the deal made news in March 1991.

Lott produced his records of the case, which show that Anders' chief narcotics prosecutor signed the agreement. A Feb. 19, 1991, memo from Lott to then-5th Circuit Solicitor Dick Harpootlian, who disavowed the deal after suceeding Anders, indicates that Sloan "had been advised of the situation."

Lott maintains he was caught in the middle between officials who made an agreement in writing and a new prosecutor and judge who took a different view after the fact.

"If I did violate it," Lott said of Connor's order. "It was with the approval of the sheriff."

Harpootlian was so concerned about Lott's judgment at the time that he announced he would review all his drug deals and recommended to Sloan that Lott be taken out of narcotics enforcement.

Sloan moved him to what Lott calls a do-nothing administrative position, where he stayed until he was fired in December 1992.

The demotion and dismissal was the bleakest time in Lott's life. His marriage fell apart during that time and he had to try to explain to his three daughters why he was out of the profession he loved.

It took Lott six months to land the chief's job with the seven-member St. Matthews department.

Harpootlian and Lott have made peace and the prosecutor-turned-defense-lawyer is backing Lott's campaign.

"I think Leon had a life-changing experience," Harpootlian said. "He lost his wife. He lost his job. He's somebody who realizes he's screwed up. He's matured. The guy's real talented. He gets up every morning wanting to be a cop."

Lott doesn't agree with all of that. "I don't think I made immature or bad decisions," he said.

But asked if he would OK the BMW and Valencia decisions if he were sheriff, Lott responded, "I would approve."

Lott conceded that he has changed and plans to continue his professional growth. "I guess age matures you. I feel like I'm a more rounded law enforcement officer now."

But controversy has followed Lott to St. Matthews.

Before the June primary, Lott ran afoul of the federal Hatch Act, which limits political activity by employees whose agencies get money from Washington. Federal officials said Lott should not run for office because as chief of the Calhoun County town he administered nearly $59,000 in federal grants.

The dispute was settled this month after Lott agreed to drop the title of chief and sever any ties to supervision of the grants. But Lott remains chief in every other way after the town named him police "administrator."

Lott has built his campaign on the theme of higher standards. He said he will be fairer, he has the energy to be an administrator as well as a street cop, and he has fresher ideas.

He promises a network of 24-hour, full-service substations, a lower crime rate and all without a tax increase

The making of a cop. Lott fell into a career in law enforcement. More accurately, he threw himself into the job.

It was a boring summer evening just before his senior year at Aiken High School. Lott and some friends decided to egg cars from an overpass on I-20, which was under construction.

"I think the first car we egged stopped. We had egged the chief investigator for the sheriff's department," Lott recalled. "Me, being a (baseball) player … I had been the only one to hit the car."

The teen-agers tried to get away, but the detective pulled them over. He didn't rough them up or charge them, but he did behave professionally as he called their parents.

"It made such an impression on me … it just grabbed a hold of me," Lott said. The job appealed to his sense of rooting for the underdog (crime victims), to his interest in untangling things that are puzzling and to his restlessness with monotony.

The work also served as an outlet for his competitiveness.

Lott is media savvy and at ease before cameras, having appeared dozens of times in local newspapers and TV as well as nationally on "America's Most Wanted." But that self-assured image clashes with the quiet, reserved teen-ager Lott said he was.

He finds it odd that he's called a hot dog now when that was the kind of athlete he disliked in high school. "I thought actions spoke louder than words," Lott said.

The words have been loud and harsh in the Sloan-Lott race.

"There's been a lot of talk that this is about revenge," Lott said. "It's not. When he fired me … he gave me a chance to go out and show – prove to myself – that I could be more than just a narcotics officer. I got my revenge by being successful, by showing I could be a chief.

"I want to come back to Richland County, personally, so I can see my kids everyday and, professionally, because I can do a better job."

In case you're wondering, here's a key to the five photos on this post:

  1. Top: The original cutline from August 1986 said, "Columbia's version of 'Miami Vice'…Narcotic investigator Lt. Leon Lott shows off his sports car, a Porsche 944"
  2. Mug shot: The notation on the back of the print, dated May 24, 1984, says "Richland Sheriff's investigator Lt. Leon Lott (chief narcotics deputy)"
  3. On a bust: The July 2, 1986, cutline said, "Leon Lott before entering trailer of suspected grower."
  4. In coat and tie: Dated Nov. 11, 1988, the cutline says "Capt. Leon Lott displays some seized equipment."
  5. Below: Photo taken by me during the sheriff's endorsement interview in May 2008.

Bad blood between Leon, Harpo?

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Looking for something else, I happened to run into this old story from 1991. It's from Leon Lott's Miami Vice days as head of the narcotics squad of the sheriff's department. As many of you will remember, back then Leon had a rep as a bit of a cowboy (in addition to Sonny Crockett, Dirty Harry was invoked) who liked to kick down doors and drive hot, confiscated cars.

But what I had forgotten was that Dick Harpootlian — who was quoted in today's story being critical of Leon on behalf of his client, busted in connection with the Michael Phelps investigation — had such a beef with Leon back then, when Dick was the solicitor. Interesting back story. Don't miss the classic quote at the end from Leon: "I love narcotics." (OK, so maybe that's a little out of context.):

          THE STATE

NARCOTICS CHIEF SAYS
POLITICS COST HIM JOB
Published on: 03/09/1991
Section: METRO/REGION
Edition: FINAL
Page: 1B
By TWILA DECKER and JOHN ALLARD, Staff Writers
Illustration: Photo, bw

Caption: Lott to be reassigned

Richland County's vice Capt. Leon Lott, often compared to "Miami Vice" character Sonny Crockett, will be transferred out of the job he loves after criticism by 5th Circuit Solicitor Dick Harpootlian.

Harpootlian asked a circuit judge last week to void a deal made by Lott a year ago that dismissed charges against a father-and-son drug-dealing team, Fabian and Enrique Valencia, in exchange for information about drug deals in South Carolina.

Harpootlian said the deal, which hasn't resulted in any arrests in this state, never should have been made. Judge Carol Connor is still considering whether she'll void the agreement.

"I think the conduct of Capt. Lott in the Valencia case . . . gave rise to serious questions about his judgment," Harpootlian said. "He let two of the county's biggest drug dealers go free."

Surprisingly, Sheriff Allen Sloan, who had strained relations with Lott last year and threatened to move him to the burglary division, has come to Lott's defense and says the move has nothing to do with the Valencia case.

"That deal was sanctioned by (former 5th Circuit) Solicitor Jim Anders," Sloan said. "Leon thought it was a good idea, and he still thinks it was a good deal. I back the boy 100 percent."

Sloan said Lott has expressed enthusiasm about his new responsibilities as captain of administration and believes that it's time to move on after nine years of heading the narcotics division.

But a somber Lott, who said he had no choice but to accept the new job because he has three children and a wife to support, gave a different account of the move late Thursday night.

Lott said Harpootlian gave Sloan an ultimatum: Get rid of Lott or there would be "major problems" between the Sheriff's Department and the solicitor's office.

Harpootlian denies pressuring Sloan.

"It's unfortunate that Leon views everything in this sinister way," Harpootlian said. "That might be the way it works in the world of narcotics, but this is the world of professionals.

"It's the sheriff's prerogative to organize his office in a way that's going to be most conducive to a good working relationship."

Sloan said Lott will be in charge of training, the DARE program, drug testing of applicants and officers and recruiting and hiring. He also will be in charge of seeking grants.

Deputy Chief Fred Riddle, who, unlike Lott, dresses conservatively in a suit and tie each day, will have the narcotics division added to his responsibilities.

"This will assure a daily account of everything they do," Sloan said. "But I am not in the least bit discouraged or unpleased with Leon's performance."

Riddle, who will be Lott's supervisor, will continue to be in charge of investigations and administration.

Lott also was criticized by Harpootlian and several defense lawyers for failing to monitor his drug agents' deals, spending $18,000 on a Mustang chase car and requiring his officers to meet quotas.

"This constant pressure to meet quotas means quantity takes precedence over quality, which means you arrest someone in whatever way you can," said Leigh Leventis, a Columbia attorney.

"Unless you have assets to turn over or agree to work for them as a snitch, they say you're going to prison. The system has allowed all kinds of abuses," Leventis said.

But Lott denies enforcing a quota, saying the number of arrests varies from month to month. He also said in a recent interview that he keeps close watch on his 26 narcotics agents to make sure they're following the law.

"I control narcotics with an iron fist over my guys. I try to be aware of everything that goes on. They have high intensity to work and perform," Lott said. "We're out there working our butts off to do something about the drug problem."

Lott, who was voted South Carolina Law Enforcement Association officer of the year in 1989, said work has been the focus of his life.

"I love narcotics. I don't know what I would do if I was transferred," Lott said last month.

Obviously, he hasn’t met OUR governor

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Seeking a column for tomorrow's page, I took a look at a writer I haven't run before (near as I can recall), Dick Polman of The Philadelphia Inquirer, who had written a column headlined, "Governing in the Real World."

It was pretty standard stuff, noting a tendency that usually holds true: The more local the level of government, the more pragmatic the people who serve in it. Governors are almost always more practical and less ideological than members of Congress, and mayors even more so. To cite the cliche, there's nothing Republican or Democratic about filling potholes or picking up the garbage.

But reading this column at this moment, with our own governor on my mind, I was struck by the fact that if Mr. Polman only knew Mark Sanford, he'd rethink his premise. An excerpt from the piece:

One big difference between governors and congressmen is that governors are out there on the front lines, dealing with the real everyday needs of their citizens. Whereas members of Congress can afford to retreat into ideology, governors have no such luxury.

Which brings us to Charlie Crist, the popular Republican governor of Florida, who today may well be known nationwide for two things: (a) the deepest tan since George Hamilton, and (b) the man-hug that he shared on Tuesday with President Obama.

Crist epitomizes the gap that separates Republican governors (who are trying desperately to safeguard the welfare of their citizens), and Republican members of Congress (who are opposing the Obama stimulus package that would help the governors safeguard the welfare of their citizens). Many of the Republican governors face huge budget deficits, thanks to the recession; they would welcome the infusion of federal money, which would allow them to keep paying (among others) the teachers and the firefighters and the unemployment checks of the jobless.

In other words, governors have to be practical. They can't take refuge in right-wing talking points that play well on the cable network talkfests, where ideological conflict makes for good TV.

That last sentence sounds as though Mr. Polman were describing Mark Sanford, which reminds us that 
at heart, our governor is still that congressional hermit who slept on his futon in Washington and advanced no significant legislation. Most people who leave that environment to become governor realize, even if they didn't before, that NOW they have responsibility to run things, to lead, to make sure government does what voters expect it to do. Not this guy. I've never seen anyone so unaffected in that way. You'd think he never left the futon.

Every move he makes — from lashing out at an Employment Security Commission that is embarrassing him by serving way to many unemployed people to jumping up and down and demanding look at me; I'm a governor who doesn't want stimulus money — is about a national audience of like-minded people, not about South Carolina and the challenges that face it. It's about the Club for Growth and the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal. The only logical explanation for his behavior would be national ambitions that make me shudder even to contemplate, so I'm not even going to mention them.

Even when he steps out on an issue that would seem to be about something else, we return to that same concern with ideology and a national audience. Environmentalists applauded his coming out yesterday against the coal-fired plant to the Pee Dee. But he didn't do it for their reasons (even though the environment is one of the few areas where he sometimes makes common cause with folks who might call themselves progressives). He was careful to make the point that no, this was more about the cost. He didn't want this state entity, Santee Cooper, spending the money. Which sort of makes you say, huh? Until you realize, oh yeah, he's not talking to US. He's talking to like-minded Republicans outside of South Carolina who will be thinking about whom to contribute money to in a year or two…

I just shuddered again.

Troubles in the private college sector

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You know about all the budget cuts that have hit USC and other state institutions, but I was just talking to Caroline Whitson, president of Columbia College, and trying to operation a private college is no bed of roses these days, either. She had called me earlier in the day, and I got her back on her cell while she was walking the dog…

Most of the college's funds come from tuition (I had guessed it was from gifts, but I guessed wrong), and that's not exactly the most dependable funding stream at the moment. With so many families hurting, and student loans harder than ever to get, she said she's "not sure what enrollment is going to look like in the fall." So the college is looking at all sorts of contingencies.

As for gifts, well… whether your name is Pastides or Whitson, you tend to hear from a lot of people that their portfolios are down, and this just isn't the best time…

Me, I find it hard to imagine being in that situation, because I've never had a flippin' portfolio.

Real life anecdote follows: As I was getting off the phone with Caroline, my wife called on my cell to remind me that she'll be home late, so I might want to stop at the grocery on my way home if I want to eat. And I should remember that there is $15 in the checking account until I get paid, so don't go over that. Of course, as I recall she told me the day after I got paid LAST time — after she'd paid the bills — that there was only $11 in the account. I guess the additional $4 is all that's left from her pay after we paid some MORE bills.

You know how they say you should always have two months salary in an accessible account in case you lose your job? That always makes me laugh maniacally, because the only time I ever have two WEEKS pay is for about five seconds after I get paid every two weeks (and of course I never have two weeks gross, just net). And no, I'm not complaining. I know I'm well off. All I have to do is look around me — at work, in the community, among friends and family — to see how well off we are. But how other people build up portfolios, I don't know. Somehow, the world always knows EXACTLY how much is in my paycheck, and all the bills add up to that amount — give or take $15. I don't know how they coordinate it. Actually, I don't think they do. You know what I really think it is?
God doesn't want me to have money — he knows me too well, and doesn't trust me with it or something. I'm not being facetious. I'll explain my theological view on that another time.

Oh, and when they call from our alma mater — Memphis State, which has changed its name — seeking contributions, I do not laugh maniacally, but only because I'm polite.

If you want to be a hero, then just follow me…

Capt. Smith sits this one out

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Ran into James Smith this morning at breakfast, and expressed my surprise that Vincent Sheheen was running for governor and he was not.

He said he just couldn't afford the time away from his family. As you'll recall, he was separated from the wife and four kids for about a year and a half, most of it fighting those folks President Obama calls the Tolly-bon. He said his wife was supportive, but he couldn't stand to miss the time with his kids. He said a Soapbox Derby event over the weekend (or was in Pinewood Derby? I get those mixed up) underlined that for him; if he were to run for gov, he'd miss such events.

On other matters, I mentioned I had thought of him and the other guys of Team Swamp Fox last night, because I've been watching (via Netflix) the HBO series "Generation Kill," based on the book by the same name by a Rolling Stone correspondent embedded with Force Recon Marines on the tip of the spear in the Iraq invasion in '03. The Marines, who were veterans of Afghanistan, talk about that experience a lot, and are sometimes nostalgic because the way they had fought on that front made more sense to them.

Anyway, I need to get together with Rep. Smith sometime and talk at greater length; I haven't had a chance to do that since he got back.

Midlands leaders band together to take advantage of stimulus

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This afternoon we were visited by a rather distinguished and diverse group of business, academic and political leaders who have been putting their heads together to see how our various interlocking existing community ecodevo initiatives — Innovista, the 3 rivers greenway, hydrogen and fuel cell efforts, and so forth — can position our community to take advantage of the stimulus funds once they start flowing to achieve some of our existing goals.

As Lee Bussell said when he asked for the meeting:

With the first mention of the stimulus bill we pulled together a working group of about 25 people representing business leaders, USC, the city, counties, Midlands Tech, Central Midlands, The Chamber, Good to Great Foundation, SCRA, Columbia USC Fuel Cell Collaborative and a number of others .
Our purpose was not just to make sure Columbia participated in the creation of jobs through this special program. We identified that for the last 5 years we have been working toward building a sustainable and green community with the creation of an economy based on alternative energy solutions. Sustainability and green jobs have become a central part of our community development strategy.
I am asking on behalf of all of these groups that you consider pulling together a group at the State that we could come meet with next week. We think it’s critical that you understand what we are attempting to accomplish. It could truly enable our regions to find opportunity to not only create jobs, but also to create an everlasting impact on the sustainability of our community and a whole new economic approach.

Lee didn't actually make today's meeting (he's out of the country, I understand) but the following folks did come (starting with left to right in the photo above, from my phone):

  • Paul Livingston of Richland County Council
  • Neil McLean of EngenuitySC
  • John Lumpkin of NAI Avant
  • Columbia Mayor Bob Coble
  • Tameika Isaac Devine, Cola city council
  • USC President Harris Pastides
  • John Parks, USC Innovista
  • Bill Boyd, Waterfront Steering Committee
  • Judith M. Davis of BlueCross BlueShield
  • Jim Gambrell, city of Columbia
  • Ike McLeese, Cola Chamber of Commerce
  • Kyle Michel, Kyle Michel law firm

… and several other folks who I know I must be forgetting as I try to reconstruct who was sitting around the table (or whose names I missed).

Basically these folks represent a lot of different efforts that will be combined and coordinated as the situation warrants to seek funding for things they were going to do anyway, with the goal of long-term economic transformation for the community. As Harris Pastides said, the test of success will be whether, after the construction workers are gone, we still have jobs here that put us on the cutting edge of the nation's move toward a greener economy and greater energy independence.

Toward that end — and with Congress not yet decided toward the final shape of the stimulus — Mayor Bob has set up a War Room in his office at City Hall. Pres. Pastides says he'll be doing the same at USC. The watchwords, says Coble, will be nimbleness, persistence and resources as opportunities are seen to match local projects with stimulus funding streams.

The group was very optimistic that the sorts of things they're working on here in the Midlands are a good match, and at a good point in the pipeline, for matching up with priorities they're seeing in the stimulus, and also with longer-term priorities of the Obama administration.

That's what I recall off the top of my head; I haven't gone back through the recording I made. (Sorry, no video; I took out my camera last night for a family birthday party, and forgot to put it back in my briefcase.) I expect some of the news folks who were there will have something in the paper that will flesh this out a little. I just wanted to go ahead and get my contact report filed…

(And no, in case you're wondering, neither the governor nor any representative of his was there. As Coble said, our governor is seen as an obstacle in this process; whether that obstacle will be surmountable or not remains to be seen, but the folks in the room seemed determined to try…)

Joe sez it’s all that dope we’re doing

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The Sanford administration keeps looking for explanations for the fact that we have too much unemployment in South Carolina. First, when the Employment Security Commission ran out of money for jobless benefits (the function of the tax being cut awhile back, combined with — duh — dramatically rising unemployment), he said it's gotta be the ESC's fault; they must be inefficient or something.

Now, his Commerce Secretary's come up with an alternative explanation: It's all that dope. From the AP:

South Carolina Commerce Secretary Joe Taylor has added a new wrinkle to the nation's third-highest unemployment rate by saying drug use is keeping people from getting jobs.

Taylor briefed Gov. Mark Sanford and his Cabinet on today about why he pushed the Employment Security Commission to document why people are out of work and how frequently they claim jobless benefits.

Taylor says the state needs to teach people that failed drug tests will keep them out of work for months. He says recruiting businesses to places with high drug test failure rates doesn't help.

The commission's three members face a Monday deadline to turn over information to Sanford or risk being fired. Sanford says his office will review the data before he decides their fate.

South Carolina's jobless rate was 9.5 percent in December.

Call it the Michael Phelps theory…

Of course, this has the state spin cycle up at full throttle. I first heard of the Taylor comment when I got this response from the S.C. Democrats:

Fowler Calls for Apology from Sanford for Commerce Secretary Slurs

COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Carol Fowler on Monday called upon Gov. Mark Sanford to apologize for Secretary of Commerce Joe Taylor's slurs against South Carolina’s unemployed workers.

According to The Associated Press, Taylor who Sanford appointed as Secretary of Commerce in 2006, told the governor and others attending his cabinet meeting Monday that South Carolina workers are having trouble finding jobs because of their drug use.

“Instead of looking for real solutions to our state’s unemployment crisis, the governor and his cabinet are flailing around desperately, looking for any excuse that will divert blame during this time of crisis. The Secretary of Commerce is supposed to be the state’s ambassador for recruiting new businesses, but Sanford’s pick has been a failure.  Taylor’s comments reflect Gov. Sanford’s desperation to distract attention from South Carolina’s deep unemployment problems, and demonstrate his own poor management skills in supervising the Department of Commerce, which is part of his cabinet,” said Fowler.

“Sanford would rather slur the reputation of South Carolina workers than own up to his own failings and risk his ambition to be president. He and Taylor seem to have no evidence backing up the accusations of drug abuse, they just throw it out there in hopes it will stick.”

South Carolina’s unemployment rate was lower than the nation’s almost every year from 1975 through 2000. But the state’s average yearly jobless rate has been significantly higher than the nation’s since Sanford took office. In December it stood at 9.5 percent – the nation’s third highest, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

I can't wait to hear the rest of this story…

(And no, that's not a photo of Joe demonstrating, a la Ross Perot, how drug use and unemployment converge on a chart. It just looks like it. That's a file photo.)

Worrying about the stimulus

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By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor

    “This is your bill; it needs to be America’s bill.”

            — Sen. Lindsey Graham,
         addressing Senate Democrats

What
worries me, after all the rhetoric, exhortation, accusations,
counter-accusations, fault-finding and blame-laying, is that the
stimulus bill that spent the week staggering its way through the U.S.
Senate might not work anyway.

     There was always
that very good chance. Several weeks back, Paul Krugman — who as a
Princeton economist is a Nobel Prize-winner, but as a political
columnist is a partisan automaton — said as much. He said it wouldn’t
be enough to give the economy the jolt it needs to overcome the lack of
activity in the private sector. He made a persuasive case.

    Then,
last week, Mr. Krugman wrote that this bill just had to pass, that
those blasted Republicans opposing it were “putting the nation’s future
at risk.” Obama’s mistake, he now said, was trying “to transcend
partisanship” and work with the Republicans at all.

    I believe the
exact opposite to be true. I believe the chances of the bill doing any
good declined with each step into the thicket of partisanship.

    I
never won so much as a Cracker Jack prize for economics, much less a
Nobel, but there’s one thing I think I understand: Whatever Washington
does in the way of stimulus — and it needs to do something (with the
private sector in paralysis, this is a job for the Keynesians) — it
won’t work unless America can believe in it.

    Just as Mr. Krugman
is right about some things, so is Phil Gramm. Remember how indignant
the Democrats got when the McCain adviser said, in mid-campaign, that
we were experiencing a “mental recession”? Well, he had a point. While
it doesn’t make the real-life pain any less, the mechanisms that get us
into a predicament like this have an awful lot to do with what’s going
on in our heads.

    When businesses think they have a chance to
grow, they invest and create jobs. When they’re scared, they freeze up.
When buyers and sellers believe home values will keep appreciating, the
real estate market is hot. When they start to doubt values, buying and
selling stop. When everyone believes a stock’s value will keep rising,
it does keep rising; when they don’t, it crashes. When you think the
lousy economy is threatening your job, you stop spending and stuff your
earnings, literally or figuratively, into a mattress, and the workers
who depended on you to buy what they produce lose their jobs, which of
course increases everyone’s pessimism.

    No, it’s not all in our
heads. At some point, certain things have real value. But we’re not
going to start buying and selling and hiring and investing and taking
risks at the levels needed to pull ourselves out of this tail-spin
until we reach a consensus that things are getting better, or about to
get better.

    You can argue about the specific provisions in the
stimulus all you want, and Democrats and Republicans have been doing so
enthusiastically. But I don’t think I’ve seen a specific idea yet that
couldn’t be argued both ways. Even the worst idea pumps some juice into
the economy; even the best one is no silver bullet.

    With private
sector leadership — especially on Wall Street — having failed us so
spectacularly, we need something intangible from our political
leadership every bit as much as we need infrastructure spending and/or
tax cuts: We need to look at what Washington is producing and believe
that it actually is for the good of the country, and not for the good
of the Democrats or the Republicans or this or that politician.

    As
he entered office, I thought Barack Obama had what it took to lead us
in that direction — to pull us together and help us believe that we can
solve our problems. To persuade us, as FDR did, that we had nothing to
fear, that we were going to get through this, together.

    I still
think he can. But last week, I saw him stumble. I’m not talking about
the Tom Daschle business. As the stimulus package faltered, he reverted
to campaign mode, blaming Republicans who wanted to cling to those
failed policies of the past eight years we heard so much about in 2008.

    Helping
him in this counterproductive effort were such Republicans as our own
Jim DeMint, who most certainly was clinging to the ideologies that have
failed his party and the nation — such as the stubborn idea that tax
cuts are the only kind of stimulus anyone needs.

    A far more
sensible position was taken by our other senator late Thursday. Lindsey
Graham grabbed headlines by saying “this bill stinks,” but he had
smarter things to say than that:

    You know, my problem is that I
think we need a stimulus bill. I think we need to do more than cut
taxes. But the process has been terrible. The House passed this bill
without one Republican vote, lost 11 Democrats. Nancy Pelosi said, We
won, we write the bill…. (W)e’re not being smart and we’re not
working together, and people want us to be smart and work together, and
this has been a miserable failure on both fronts.

    As I wrote this
column, much remained unsettled. By the time you read it, something may
have passed. But as I wrote, I was sure of this: If the Congress gave
the president a bill that was pleasing only to the Harry Reids and
Nancy Pelosis, it wouldn’t help the president inspire the kind of
confidence that the whole nation needs to recover. (The same would be
true if Jim DeMint got all he wanted, but there was no danger of that.)

    But
if the president has a bill that Lindsey Graham and John McCain and Ben
Nelson of Nebraska and Susan Collins of Maine all voted for, the nation
would have a chance of moving forward together. And together is the
only way we can recover.

For more, please go to thestate.com/bradsblog/.

Caterpillar view of ‘Buy American’

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Just now got to this e-mail of a letter from two officials with Caterpillar up in Greenville about the "Buy American" provision in Nancy Pelosi's version of the stimulus. All of our pages through Monday are now done, so on the off chance that the letter might get outdated before we could run it, and since the subject has been on my mind, I'll go ahead and run their missive here:

“Buy American” provisions could kill American jobs

Caterpillar is a proud American company. We were born in California, made our home in Illinois and maintained a strong U.S. manufacturing base that serves the global marketplace. Caterpillar laid roots in the Greenville area in 1994, beginning with the Greenville Engine Center (GEC). Our operations now include the GEC, Caterpillar Logistics Services, Inc., and the Marine Center of Excellence.  We are also proud of our global footprint that allows us to compete and support Cat equipment throughout the world. Today more than half of what we produce in the U.S. is exported to markets outside the United States.

We are also a company that will benefit from the infrastructure component of the proposed $825 billion U.S. stimulus package.  But there is one element of the stimulus proposal that greatly concerns us — it's the “Buy American” provisions.  Why would an American company be against a provision that forces the U.S. government to only buy American products?  Our reasons go beyond our confidence that we can compete and win business because of the value of the products we produce.

Today, countries from Asia to Europe are pursuing similar infrastructure packages to stimulate their economies.  In some cases, like China, these proposed projects are more ambitious than those in the United States.

This is our concern.  Caterpillar would like to sell U.S.-made products to infrastructure projects at home and abroad.  But if the U.S. sends the message that regardless of value, countries should only buy locally produced products, Caterpillar's exports, as well as the U.S. jobs they support, will be hurt. In some of our Illinois factories, as much as 70 percent of what we make is sold overseas. Over half of the engines produced in Greenville are for export use including those most recently “in-sourced” from our European factories.  That’s not surprising given that 95 percent of the world’s consumers live outside our borders, and most infrastructure growth is occurring in the developing world.

It's hard to be against something that sounds as patriotic as "Buying American."  But turning inward and embracing protectionism is what turned a bad recession in the 1930s into the Great Depression. Let’s show some political courage and learn lessons from the past. Our country doesn’t need to isolate itself from the international economy. Rather, we need policies that will help us improve competitiveness and grow.  For starters we need a "National Export Strategy” that keeps U.S.-made goods in demand globally, U.S.-based companies competitive and U.S. workers employed—including tens of thousands of Caterpillar and supplier employees.  The approval of these “provisions”, as they are written, could have a devastating impact on the operations of the Greenville Engine Center, Cat Logistics and the Marine Center of Excellence, as well as the lives of our employees and their families.

John Downey
Facility Manager
Large Power Systems Division
Caterpillar Inc.

Josh Frey
Facility Manager
Caterpillar Logistics Services, Inc.
Caterpillar Inc.

The sheriff’s dilemma

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Hey, y'all leave my twin Leon alone. The sheriff's got enough problems without folks giving him a hard time for saying he wants to apply the law equally. (And no, y'all haven't been piling on so much here on the blog, but I keep reading the letters and so forth…)

That said, I find myself wondering: Is there a case here to prosecute? I mean, are there precedents that lead one to think this is a case worth pursuing?

The theory in favor of the sheriff going after Michael Phelps goes like this: A rich, white, international celebrity shouldn't skate for doing something that poor, obscure, black kids do time for. That sounds good. Equality before the law and all that.

But I wonder: How many of those poor, obscure, black kids were put away on the basis of the sheriff having heard that they smoked dope at some time in the past, accompanied by a photo that in and of itself is vague. If the alleged perp weren't admitting it, we wouldn't know that was him, or that he was actually smoking dope through that bong. (Before you scoff, I had a good friend in college — a boy from Clio, as it happens — who had shoulder-length hair, and who liked to use Zig-Zags to roll himself a joint made of pure pipe tobacco. If not for the sweet smell, no one would have believed that wasn't dope. But it wasn't. It takes all kinds to make a world, you know.)

If you make me pick a number, I'd say the number of guys doing time at the Alvin Glenn center, or in the state pen, who were put away on that sort of evidence would be approximately zero. Generally speaking, if you're not holding at the time of arrest, the cops don't bother, right? So how is this equality of the law, speaking in terms of way things actually work in the world?

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the prisons are full of people who were nailed when somebody posted a picture of them apparently toking on MySpace. I'd be quite interested to hear evidence to that effect.

Graham helps me make my mind up about stimulus (It’s bad.)

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First you might want to watch the above video, but if you can't be bothered, at least read what Lindsey Graham had to say to Democrats yesterday:

You can blame George Bush all you want to, but he didn't write this bill, y'all did. This is your bill. It needs to be America's bill. And we may get three or four Republicans to vote with you, but let me tell you what the country is going to inherit if we pass this bill in terms of substance and process. We're going to lose the ability as members of Congress to go to the public and say, Give us some money, let us borrow more of your money to fix housing, because this bill stinks.

The process that's led to this bill stinks. There is no negotiating going on here! Nobody is negotiating! We're making this up as we go! The polling numbers are scaring the hell out of everybody, and they're in a panic. They're running from one corner of the Capitol to the other to try to cobble votes together to lower the cost of the bill to say we solved the problem. This is not the way you spend a trillion dollars!

Here's the thing about this that makes up my mind on the bill he was commenting on: As he said in the interview that followed that clip at the start of the above video, Lindsey Graham believes we need a stimulus. He's not one of these GOP ideologues who opposes all spending and supports all tax cuts. And he, a very smart guy who speaks authoritatively from the sensible center — you know he'll work with the Democrats when they make sense, and stand with the rest of the GOP against them when they don't — indicts the legislation most persuasively.

Before, I was just worried about the legislation. Now, I believe that passing nothing (for now; before long something needs to pass) is better than passing the bill the House and Senate Democrats have been pushing.

DeMint gets face time

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Here's an irony for you:

The story today on the stimulus bill is about how such Senate moderates as Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Republican Susan Collins of Maine are reshaping the legislation. And yet who's getting his picture in the papers? Jim DeMint, who is nobody's notion of a moderate.

He appeared, looming large, on Page 3 of The Wall Street Journal with a story headlined "GOP Wields More Influence Over the Stimulus Bill." That's the picture above. Which sort of makes you think Jim DeMint is one of those "wielding more influence." In fact, his image is being used on the promo for "top stories" on the paper's Web site. But… he's not mentioned in the story. So the picture, apparently, gives a false impression.

I haven't looked at the print version of The New York Times today, but I saw this story on the Web, headlined "Centrists in Senate Push to Cut Billions From Stimulus." Guess whose picture adorns it (along with others; it's a group shot)? Yep — non-centrist Jim DeMint. Then guess who is NOT mentioned in the story? You got it.

Hey, fellas — you want to try coordinating with the guys in photo next time, so that your art actually GOES WITH the story?

In case you wondered how this happened: Well, it's a story with a lot of moving parts, and different media folk are following different parts of it. Those photos are from The Associated Press. The running AP story on the stimulus DOES mention DeMint — as having played a leading role in an unsuccessful effort…

Despite bipartisan concerns about the cost, Republicans failed in a series of attempts on Wednesday to cut back the bill's size.

The most sweeping proposal, advanced by Sen. Jim DeMint, a Republican, would have eliminated all the spending and replaced it with a series of tax cuts. It was defeated 61-36.

… which means he's no longer a part of the story of the developing bill. But the picture remains.

This marks one of those rare occasions when our junior senator steals a march on our senior one, mediawise. Our senior senator was at the same press conference as DeMint (see below). But he wasn't in either of the pictures chosen by the two aforementioned papers. Nor was he mentioned in either of their stories, or the AP story.

So much for Lindsey Graham, media hog extraordinaire.

Just an interesting little irony that I noticed in all my reading on the subject, and thought I'd share…