HorsesAss.Org

Speaking of denial, I’ve always found this familiar journalistic defense to be particularly stupid…

“Criticism of CNBC is way out of line,” NBC head Jeff Zucker said at the BusinessWeek media summit at McGraw-Hill’s headquarters just now. … The press didn’t cause us to go to war in Iraq, he said; a general did. The press missing the financial crisis didn’t cause it. “Both are absurd,” he said.

What’s absurd is the notion that the press merely observes current events without influencing them, especially when it comes to politics, and especially especially when it comes to economics, both areas where public perception is at least as important as the “facts” on the ground.

With a head up his ass response like that, I’d argue that Zucker shouldn’t have any influence.  But unfortunately, he does.  And yes, his networks do hold some responsibility for helping President Bush cheerlead us into a war in Iraq and an economic bubble at home.  I mean, if his argument is that missing the financial crisis had absolutely no impact on the severity of the crisis itself, does that mean uncovering and predicting the crisis early on would have had no impact too?  And if so, what exactly is the point of journalism?

As Gov. Chris Gregoire prepares to enter the gravest budget battle of her career, it is instructive to look back with admiration on the actions of former President Bush during a similar crisis.

Oh… not George W. Bush… he was a total moron and dickwad whose irresponsible domestic and foreign policies largely left us in our current economic shithole, and who history will rightly remember as one of our worst presidents ever.  No, I’m talking about his father, George H.W. Bush, a rather middling president, but one who was at least well-trained and prepared for the position, and who when push came to shove ultimately sacrificed a huge chunk of political capital (and perhaps his reelection) by abandoning his famous campaign pledge and agreeing to substantial tax increases in the 1990 budget.

Throughout 1988, then Vice-President Bush consistently campaigned on a no-new-tax pledge, and it is safe to say that the most memorable and oft-quoted moment of his Republican nomination speech came in the form of the Peggy Noonan scribed line, “Read my lips:  no new taxes!”  It was a profoundly irresponsible promise, but it no doubt helped him win the election against an opponent Republicans smeared as “the Governor from Taxachusetts.”

The pledge had been made under the rosy assumption that the fast growth of the late 198o’s would continue indefinitely, but when the economy stumbled and tax revenues fell far short of projections, the nation was faced with a yawning budget deficit… the largest in peacetime history.  So in 1990 President Bush did what had to be done; he went back on his word and agreed to a budget that amongst other things, levied a 10% surtax on the income of the wealthiest Americans.  The New York Post mocked President Bush for making a mockery of his convention pledge, printing the headline, “Read my Lips:  I Lied.”

But it was the pledge that had proven foolish and irresponsible, not the breaking of it, and Bush 41 has always deserved credit for putting governance ahead of politics, at least in that particular situation.  The 1990 budget agreement was the first step toward getting our ballooning federal deficits under control, laying the groundwork for a Clinton budget that ultimately led to surpluses by the end of the decade.  Given the economic circumstances, raising taxes was the right thing to do, however unpopular and at whatever the political cost.

Gov. Gregoire faces a similar situation, a recent no-new-tax pledge coming back to haunt her as she struggles with a revenue shortfall more than twice as large as even the most pessimistic projections only a few months back.  And like Bush 41 before, the press is already preparing to mock her should she ultimately go back on her word.

But unlike Bush, Gregoire’s no-new-tax pledge was never the centerpiece of her campaign, and she never used it to draw a stark ideological distinction with her opponent.  Besides, voters simply don’t elect Democrats to hold the line on taxes—it goes against type—so if this really was a top issue for the majority of voters last November, the vocally anti-tax Dino Rossi wouldn’t have lost by 6.5 percentage points.

Gov. Gregoire’s unfortunate acquiescence in ruling out tax increases was ill-advised and ultimately unnecessary, but it was not nearly as forceful or irresponsible as H.W’s signature soundbite.  So if a Republican president, facing a revolt from within the ranks of his own party, could swallow his famous words for the good of the nation, then Gregoire, with a Democratic legislature at her back, could certainly do similar for the good of our state.

Facing a record $9 billion projected shortfall and demand for public services at an all time high, the only responsible course is to use all the budgetary tools at our disposal:  cuts, deficit spending and tax increases.  As President George H.W. Bush proved in 1990, going back on your word can sometimes constitute an extraordinary act of political courage.  Here’s hoping Gov. Gregoire proves just as courageous.

From the Albany (Ga.) Herald, in regards to the “Proud Peanut Expo” being held in Blakely, Ga., home of the Peanut Corporation of America. Here’s a nice quote from a local Chamber spokesperson.

“Our purpose is to show peanut butter is trustworthy,” Halford said. “There is a lot of misleading information. The Peanut Corporation of America (in Blakely) was a very small drop in the bucket that seems to be spoiling a whole bunch. We don’t want to focus on the bad; we want to focus on the good.”

Well, at least “spoiling” is the correct word to use. I haven’t touched one bite of peanut butter or peanuts since this case broke, even though I have a nearly full jar of name brand peanut butter I had already made sandwiches from. Clearly it’s not contaminated. However, sitting down to lunch and thinking about salmonella is rather off-putting, to say the least.

The outrageous case of PCA should be a lesson to all industries. Consumers will steer clear of products in a certain category in the wake of mass injury, even products from reputable companies. Ask tomato growers. Or the beef industry. You’d think people would finally figure out that it’s in everyone’s interest to sanely and properly regulate consumer items. Until corporate America gets this message, it’s not only consumers who lose, it’s also businesses whose sales plummet in the wake of these incidents. The cost of sensible regulation is surely less than than the hundreds of millions in lost sales every time this happens.

Props to Marler Blog.

It starts right before the 2000’s with Blowjobgate. American Journalism balanced its coverage between a third Way neo-liberal who was horny and the anguished cries of Republicans who insisted horniness will destroy the Republic.

Neo-liberalism won in extra innings, although batshit had a good game.

Then American Journalism made fun of Love Story as seen on the Internet, balancing coverage precisely halfway between neo-liberalism and batshit insane.

Batshit won in exra innings, with the help of the home plate umpire. American Journalism decided to go see what the sharks were eating.

Then came a Pearl Harbor of our Lifetimes. To deal with the Evil Empire of our Lifetimes, we needed Saddam to Suck On Something. Coverage was balanced between Third-Way hawk viewpoints and those who argued that French Fries were the problem. American Journalism sort of missed the millions of people marching around going “this is a big mistake,” although they did occasionally find time to make fun of them.

Completely batshit won in a blowout, and in an exhibition match, a brain dead woman smiled at everyone. American Journalism was content.

After the Big Mistake, there were even bigger mistakes and shocking brutality. American Journalism started to look into it all, but then a Federalist Society member who just happened to be familiar with late 20th-Century typewriter font kerning was watching TV one night. American Journalism cowered before the power of kerning, fearing for itself.

Coverage of shocking brutality was balanced between a few gasps and calls for more shocking brutality, including against American Journalists.

Batshit won again.

Meanwhile, the Great Recession was happening. American Journalism did not balance its coverage about this because it missed the story altogether.

American Journalism gnashed her teeth and smiled at everyone who was still around. She would get the story right this time, by packaging it better and using Twitter.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY6k50qB4Ys[/youtube]

At a Tuesday rally marking the demise of the print edition of the Seattle P-I (and the bulk of its newsroom) Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat showed solidarity with his fellow journalists, telling them “It’s not your fault.”  You didn’t create the Internet, Westneat assured his fallen colleagues, and you didn’t destroy the business model that had long supported print media.

And on one level, Danny’s absolutely right.  The P-I’s staff isn’t out on the street due to anything they did wrong, and they certainly didn’t lose their long struggle with the Times because they produced an inferior product.  Hearst blinked first; had they not, it could have been Danny being consoled by friends Tuesday evening rather than the other way around.

“The Seattle P-I may be going out of business, but the Times is an equally troubled company, and possibly even more troubled,” said Alan Mutter, a former newspaper editor and Silicon Valley chief executive who writes the Reflections of a Newsosaur blog.

But on another level, Westneat’s elegy is consistent with a profound sense of denial that seems to afflict the entire news industry, and is crippling its efforts to effectively respond to dramatic changes in technology, economics and consumer tastes.  Yeah, sure… the P-I’s collapse isn’t the fault of its former staffers, any more than the dedicated, industrious craftsmen of the buggy whip industry can be blamed for their own economic displacement a century before, but to merely fault the Internet or a broken business model misses a larger point:  newspapers are losing subscribers and advertisers because they have not been giving customers what they want… at least, not something for which they are willing to pay a high enough price to sustain current operations.

And I hate to get all Adam Smith-y on my friends in the newspaper biz, but isn’t that the way the market is supposed to work?

I’m sure it is comforting to blame Google and Craig’s List or even the woeful mismanagement of your corporate overlords (the Times’ own finances would not be nearly as precarious if Frank Blethen had not over-leveraged the family business to finance his ill-advised invasion of their ancestral homeland), but for all the chatter about business models, I’ve seen very little self-examination amongst working journalists about reimagining the product itself.  I’m not talking about layout or redesigns or ink versus electrons, but actual, you know, words.  I just don’t hear much talk from journalists about reevaluating their devotion to the sort of flat, objective, personalityless, dispassionate prose that has long made the news pages of the Times and the P-I virtually indistinguishable from one another… and nearly every other major daily.

Don’t get me wrong; I love newspapers.  As a child of Watergate I grew up worshipping journalists as heros.  But by golly, much of what we read in the papers has always been godawful boring, even when the subject matter is not.  Forget for a moment all the brainstorming about new ways to present, distribute and monetize journalism, and focus instead on the reporting itself.  Surely there’s more than one way to cover an event, and more than a little room for even the best reporters to grow as writers, but there’s been almost zero innovation in terms of the craft of reporting since the beginning of the J-school era.  Tastes have changed, but the daily newspaper most definitely has not.

Let the business model brainstorming continue, but in the meanwhile editors need to give, and reporters need to embrace, the freedom and encouragement to innovate both in substance and style.  For if you simply keep pushing the same-old, same-old in the face of market rejection, at some level, at least partially, it really will be your fault after all.

I hope everyone finds a way to enjoy breaking the law over the next three weekends.

Labor wants the worker privacy bill to be voted upon. Rep. Geoff Simpson asks why a handful of Democrats can tell corporate lobbyists one thing while intending to vote a different way.

It’s all there from Joe Turner, the hardest working man left in Olympia and who refers to this thing as the “Neverending Saga.” Understandable.

Yeah, I’m sure many folks are sick and tired of the whole thing, but labor has a right to ask for a vote since the purported reason for killing the bill has now been revealed to be a pretext. And Simpson and others are well within their rights to raise questions about how the process seems to be geared toward thwarting majority rule.

It’s not that majority rule is always right about everything, but officials get elected by the people to pass laws and decide stuff. That’s why we have elections!

When leadership, corporate lobbyists and a handful of mini-Liebermans decide important issues can’t be voted upon at all in the Legislature, that’s not democracy. You could argue it’s just the way the process works, if it ever ever ever worked in the other direction, ie business and corporate interests sometimes get the same treatment, but they don’t and it’s not. Basically an economic and political elite has seized control of the levers of power and is only giving lip service to progressive values. The continued economic crisis only places this in stark relief, it’s been going on for a very long time.

It’s always the DFH that gets the shaft, usually in the name of “protecting jobs,” which is Third Way-speak for giving tax breaks and other preferential treatment to business interests at the expense of regular folks, environmental and consumer protections. You know any Republicans who fight that hard for unions? I wonder how they would fare if 5-10 of their members regularly took the side of the AFL-CIO.

It’s good to see some folks fighting the good fight, however. There are some pretty fundamental issues at stake here, both for the well-being of the state and, more peripherally, the Democratic Party.

Tomorrow is another one of those ridiculous stealth elections for King County Conservation District Board, and thus yet another golden opportunity for an anti-conservation conservative to grab a seat he could never otherwise win.  Paper Noose has the details over at Blogging Georgetown, and… well… it’s just plain depressing.

I’ve received a bunch of emails urging me to write in Mark Sollitto, and that’s exactly what I plan to do, assuming that is, I manage to vote at all.  Voting is conducted in person at only 13 polling places set up throughout the county; the nearest ones to me are at the main branch of the Seattle Public Library or at the Renton Community Center.  Neither is very convenient, which helps explain why so few people actually vote in these bullshit elections.

If local Republicans had their way, this is how all our elections would be run.  So let’s try not to let them have their way on this one:  get out there and vote tomorrow for Mark Sollitto.

Man, those righties sure are obsessed with Darcy Burner’s resume… obsessed with getting it wrong.

Yesterday, (u)SP’s Eric Earling “reported” that Darcy would be taking the Executive Director position at the Congressional Progressive Caucus, prompting the usual wingnut mirth about Darcy being some sort of hard left socialist or something.  His reliable source?  A Facebook update from former Reichert Chief of Staff Mike Shields, a man who made a career out of lying about Darcy and her accomplishments.

In fact, Darcy is taking an ED job in the other Washington, but it most definitely is not with the Progressive Caucus.  I know this because I actually bothered to ask Darcy, who sounded very excited about the opportunity to head up a new not-for-profit policy foundation; details will be forthcoming she promised, once it is officially announced.

In the meanwhile, I wouldn’t count on (u)SP to fill the news void left by the collapse of the P-I.

Do any families balance their budgets anywhere other than the kitchen table?

Get this– it seems the PDC wants no part of the flimsy faux-controversy “email-gate” involving the state labor council and um, well, the governor, house and senate leadership killing a labor bill.

Josh Feit at Publicola, again weighs in with some of that reporting stuff:

Well, check this out. According to a statement clearing the labor council today, the Washington State Patrol simultaneously said it was forwarding its investigation on to the Public Disclosure Commission. The State Patrol said the Commission had asked to review the emails. But the PDC just issued this statement, denying the State Patrol’s account:

The Public Disclosure Commission today said it did not request materials from the Washington State Patrol concerning e-mail correspondence sent to legislative leaders last week from an employee of the Washington State Labor Council.

And therein lies the problem with criminalizing politics. Nobody in their right mind at the PDC would touch this thing, because there’s nothing there.

Governor Chris Gregoire, Speaker of the House Frank Chopp and Majority Leader Sen. Lisa Brown have some ‘splaining to do.

People are very, very mad about lots of stuff, but especially the latest AIG bailout. The American people are losing patience and tolerance with politicians and corrupt corporate lackeys. (Is that completely redundant?)

Lobbyists should send me twelve (12) five ounce (5 oz.) USDA “Grade A” beef tenderloin steaks, frozen and individually wrapped, or I will kill their legislation.

I’m not freaking kidding. Try me. Flowers too.

It’s Saint Patrick’s Day, so there is a special green edition of Drinking Liberally tonight.

Join us tonight at Seattle’s Town Hall (Seneca between 7th and 8th ave, downstairs) from 7:30pm-9pm, for an evening with political pollster, insider, consultant, and author Stanley Greenberg.

Drawing from his book Dispatches from the War Room, Greenberg will recount his experiences working for five world leaders during their campaigns and governance. He’ll offer a candid look at Bill Clinton’s 1992 successful run for the presidency, his work for Nelson Mandela’s presidential run, Tony Blair as he unveiled “New Labour,” and Ehud Barak’s attempts at peacemaking. Greenberg will offer his assessment of why some politicians succeed, while other fail to bring their governing vision to fruition.

Tickets are $5 at the door. An ad hoc drinking get-together will follow the event.

Rumor has it that some hard-core drinkers and anti-reading types will gather at the usual spot—the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E—for dinner, a Guinness or two, and the oral transmission of political culture.

Not in Seattle? The Drinking Liberally web site has dates and times for 327 chapters of Drinking Liberally scattered across the earth. So put on your best caubeen, grab your favorite shillelagh, and stroll on down to a location near you.

The Stranger’s Eli Sanders asks “How Did the Seattle Times Become a Local Media Villain?” and then does a pretty thorough job answering the question.  In short, the Times has long catered to the fast growing suburban market, while the more urban P-I has better matched and served the interests of the city named in its masthead.  Not a bad business strategy for the Times, I suppose, but hardly endearing to us city folk.

The Seattle Times also clearly became the more Republican/conservative of the two papers exactly at a time when Democrats were cementing their hold on Seattle and its close-in suburbs, with the Times editorial board reflecting (and at times, regurgitating) the increasingly anti-labor, anti-tax, anti-government ideology of its publisher.  As former political reporter Neil Modie once explained to me, his Hearst-owned P-I actually had more editorial independence than the locally-owned Times because its absentee owners couldn’t care less about our state and local politics.

But Sanders is also dead-on in describing the print death of the P-I as a chance for the Times to recast its public image:

In a way, there’s an opportunity here for the Times. Right now, whatever the merits of the sentiment, the Seattle Times—the SEATTLE Times—is not seen by enough people as a true voice of this city. It wouldn’t take much, though, to start turning that around.

Sanders suggests the Times should start by leafing through the archives of their former rival, but I’ve got a more dramatic and immediate recommendation for Times publisher Frank Blethen:  if you really want to send a message to P-I loyalists that your paper can credibly represent all the voices in our public debate, you should go out and hire yourself a bona fide, liberal shitkicker like… well… me.

That’s right Frank, give me a regular column… hell, give me a seat on your editorial board, and with it, your personal assurance that I have the freedom to passionately refute the opinions of you and my new colleagues, without fear of reprisal or the need to constantly look over my shoulders.  Send a message to readers and the community at large, that the Times not only welcomes debate, it invites it, especially when it challenges the styles and orthodoxies of our media/political/business establishment.  Send a message that you’re actually learning something from the Internet other than fear.

(And yes, after all I’ve said and written, I’d happily go to work for Frank Blethen; if I could cash a paycheck from the Church of Latter Day Saints, I’d certainly have no qualms cashing one of his.)

Yeah, I know, that’s not much of a cover letter, which I suppose partially explains my current employment status, so if you really can’t bring yourself to swallow your pride and hire me, then you should hire somebody like Sandeep Kaushik, who’d be just as interesting a read, but I’m guessing a tad more acceptable to your current staff after years of brown-nosing them on behalf of his political clients.  But whatever.  You get the point.

The Times does have an opportunity to woo former P-I subscribers, but that window won’t remain open forever, so now, Frank, is the time to send a clear, persuasive and loud message that you are willing to represent the views and sensibilities of all Seattleites, not just those of our stodgy ruling class.  It is time to send the message that the Times is willing to embrace change.

And who better to send that message than your paper’s loudest critic?