New York (Times) Confidential

Posted on December 12, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

From the Grey Lady’s Friday edition:

“Annie Leibovitz Tries to Regain Financial Footing”

The piece detailed the phamous photographer’s scrambling efforts to retain “the rights to her photos and her real estate.”

Seems Leibovitz pawned both to Art Capital Group, “an art world lender.” In return, she received $24 million. But faced with a payback deadline a few months ago, Leibovitz restructured the deal.

NYT:

As part of that deal, Ms. Leibovitz agreed to pay Art Capital an undisclosed sum to regain control of her homes and the copyrights to her work, which she had previously ceded to the lender for an increase in the loan amount. That caused Ms. Leibovitz’s debt to Art Capital to grow to about $30 million, said a financial industry source who has consulted with Ms. Leibovitz about her debt, and who spoke anonymously because of a confidentiality agreement.

So, what – confidentiality agreements now only apply to identity? Not to content?

Get me Merriam-Webster on the phone.

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From Our Late to the Party® Bureau . . .

Posted on December 11, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

Centre of the Universe

After this Boston Globe piece, the fine folks of Newton Centre couldn’t look more idiotic if they changed their name to Newton Upper Lower.

Seems the Panera Bread cafe and bakery chain wants to set up shop in that tony town, but the Centre-niks want none of it.

[S]ome residents and businesses say Newton Centre, already struggling with traffic and parking issues, can’t afford the additional strain that would follow the 111-seat Panera. Some also object to a fast-food establishment in what they see as a quaint New England village – despite the fact that Subway, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Starbucks all operate there.

Wait . . . it gets worse.

Ellen Kaplansky, co-owner of Pie Bakery and Café in Newton Centre, opposes Panera because she said customers already can’t find parking. Regulars have called asking her to run something out to their car when they can’t find a spot, she said.

But it’s not just parking – it’s about the very “identity” of Newton Centre.

“Newton Centre is based on the village philosophy,’’ said Kaplansky. Newton is “divvied up into villages so there is a community within the larger city.’’

And Newton Centre, like all the villages, has its own charm and personality, she added.

“I think it’s about independently owned businesses,’’ she said. “I just don’t think it was ever intended to have this huge chain.’’

Puh-leeze. This is about locking a direct competitor out. Spare us that pie-in-the-sky nonsense.

No Nook-y

Coincidentally, gizmo gurus Walter Mossberg (Wall Street Journal) and David Pogue (New York Times) both reviewed Barnes & Nobles’ Nook e-reader yesterday.

Mossberg:

At launch, the Nook has the feel of a product with great potential that was rushed to market before it was fully ready.

Pogue:

To use the technical term, it’s slower than an anesthetized slug in winter.

The folks at Amazon slept beautifully last night.

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C’est LaGuer

Posted on December 11, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

So the hardworking staff opened the Campaign Outsider mailbag today and what poured out but a letter from convicted rapist and serial appealist Ben LaGuer, who has a website for those of you keeping score at home.

For everyone else, LaGuer has spent 26 years in the slammer for beating and raping his 59-year-old neighbor.

(BTW, the Wikipedia entry for LaGuer never mentions the victim’s name – nor does LaGuer in his flyer/pamphlet/ précis. In fact, it’s almost impossible to dig it up – stick “LaGuer victim” into the Googletron and see for yourself.)

(BTW also,  Campaign Outsider is no expert regarding this case, but the fact that LaGuer could be free now – and isn’t – by simply copping to the crime does give us pause, as they say.)

In his missive, LaGuer sent the hardworking staff a cordial and unassuming note along with three copies of a – what to call it – flyer/pamphlet/précis headlined, “The Curious Case of Benjamin LaGuer: A Wrongful Conviction Case Study.”

(Three copies? Collect them all? Trade them with your friends? What?)

LaGuer’s case study (summary here) featured the usual suspect arguments, at least as far as the Massachusetts judicial system is concerned. Representative sample:

*   When DNA was requested in January 2000, prosecutors began a campaign to delay testing and even accused the defense of tampering with the physical evidence, instantly shifting the focus from the emerging exculpatory arguments.

Okaaay . . .

Keep us posted.

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Ad o’ the Day™

Posted on December 10, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal A7:

A full-page ad topped by a photo of Barack Obama with right hand closed into an almost-fist (can’t you hear the tea-baggers saying Ain’t that just like Barry?).

Headline:

PRESIDENT OBAMA TO SENATE DEMOCRATS:

PASS OUR HEALTH REFORM AND

“KEEP MAKING HISTORY”

Right below that is a photo of a protest in front of the Capitol along with the headline:

AMERICANS TO SENATE DEMOCRATS:

ADD TO OUR 36 TRILLION

DOLLAR MEDICARE DEBT AND

YOU WILL

BE HISTORY.

The ad comes compliments of the Committee to Rethink Reform, which helpfully tells WSJ readers, “For more facts, go to rethinkreformaction.com.

Here’s what the About Us section says:

The Employee Freedom Action Committee (EFAC) is a non-partisan, non-profit organization fighting for employees’ freedom of choice. The committee is composed of thousands of American workers, employers and others that believe that everyone deserves a right to a private, fair election when it comes to joining a labor union, and that employees should be able to choose the health insurance plan that best benifits their family.

We believe:

  • That employees deserve a wide aray of employment benifits.
  • That a private vote is the only way to ensure against intimidation, coercion, and deception;
  • That so-called “card check” unionization is fundamentally wrong;
  • And that current unionization process, which is supervised by the National Labor Relations Board, is the best way to protect employees’ freedom to make a decision free from pressure.
In other words, the Committee to Rethink Reform is an anti-union wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Similar Potemkin front groups are surfacing everywhere nowadays, occasioning this Campaign Outsider Industrial-Strength Heads-Up©:

Always check the pedigree of full-page advocacy ads in newspapers. Always.

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Rupert Murducks Disclosure

Posted on December 9, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal featured an op-ed column purportedly penned by the Dark Prince of News Corp., Rupert Murdoch.

The piece, headlined “Journalism and Freedom,” had this uplifting nut graf:

The future of journalism is more promising than ever—limited only by editors and producers unwilling to fight for their readers and viewers, or government using its heavy hand either to overregulate or subsidize us.

Speaking of subsidizing – nowhere in the op-ed is Murdoch acknowledged as the owner of said Wall Street Journal.

That’s not exactly freedom of journalism.

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Dead Blogging the Massachusetts Senate Primary

Posted on December 9, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

The hardworking staff at Campaign Outsider is always stretched thin on Election Day, and Dec. 8th was no exception.

Regardless, we started combing the streets of Brookline at the crack of 10. At Precinct 6, there were zero campaign supporters outside, and up to three voters inside. At Precinct 1, there were also zero campaign supporters outside, and we didn’t go inside.

(At 7:30 pm, there were two campaign supporters outside Precinct 1, and we didn’t go inside.)

After the polls closed, the hardworking staff stationed ourselves not at the various election-night headquarters (everybody goes there – it’s too crowded), but on the candidates’ websites, where our reporting efforts were immeasurably aided by the almost total lack of activity.

Exclusive Campaign Outsider Election-Night Webscan (pat. pending)

From the banners on the candidates’ respective websites at 1:30 Wednesday morning:

Martha Coakley – WE DID IT!

Mike Capuano – Vote on December 8th

Alan Khazei – From All of Us at Citizens for Alan Khazei: CONGRATULATIONS MARTHA COAKLEY, Democratic Nominee for U.S. Senate

Steve Pagliuca – Today Is Election Day. Please Vote for Steve Pagliuca.

And so we come to the Campaign Outsider Election-Night Final Grades®.

Alan Khazei (D-13%) looked like he wanted it too much.

Steve Pagliuca (D-12%) looked like Baby Huey too much.

Mike Capuano (D-28%) ran the gamut from grim to grumpy.

Martha Coakley (D-47%) ran the table.

(Hey, Scott Brown (R-88%): See you January 19th. Bring your snow shovel.)

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“Honest Services” to NYT Readers?

Posted on December 8, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

Once again, the New York Times has spotlighted the controversial “honest-services” law currently on the U.S. Supreme Court docket.

The honest-services law, on the federal books since 1988, broadly requires that public and corporate officials act in the best interests of their constituents or employers.

It has become an important tool for federal prosecutors, who used it successfully against the lobbyist Jack Abramoff and many of his associates. It is an element of the cases against former Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois; the former New York State Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno; and former Gov. Donald E. Siegelman of Alabama.

Hey, what about the Pride of  Boston’s North End, Salvatore F. DiMasi, who’s facing federal charges of honest-services fraud for “scheming to steer multimillion-dollar contracts to a Burlington software firm, Cognos, in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments” to himself and assorted cronies.

From a Boston Globe report last month headlined, “DiMasi, Vitale seek dismissal of charges:”

Former House speaker Salvatore DiMasi and Richard Vitale, his friend and former financial adviser, asked a federal judge yesterday to dismiss the corruption charges against them, challenging the law that US prosecutors have used to go after politicians and business leaders.

In a 17-page motion filed in US District Court, their lawyers argued that the “honest services fraud’’ law being used to prosecute DiMasi, Vitale, and two other men is “unconstitutionally vague.’’

Flash forward to this Monday, when the Times reported:

The Supreme Court will hear three cases concerning the honest-services law in this term, with two coming up for oral argument [today].

Later in the piece:

The third case, to be argued later in the term, involves Jeffrey K. Skilling, the former chief executive of Enron. He is arguing that the honest-services law is unconstitutionally vague.

Shades of Sal DiMasi!

The Times has been down this road before disrespecting DiMasi (as the hardworking staff recorded here).

Why all the hatin’ on Sal?

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Ads ‘n’ Ends

Posted on December 7, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

Item: Ex Marks the Gubernatorial Spots

The Big Two Timeses – New York and Los Angeles – ran pieces on Sunday about ex-governors running for their former offices.

NYT headline: “4 Ex-Governors,Older, Grayer And Yearning for Jobs of Yore.”

The piece noted that Roy Barnes (D-GA), Jerry Brown (D-CA), Terry Branstad (R-IO), and John Kitzhaber (D-OR) are all back in the gubernatorial game.

The LAT two-upped the NYT:

At least four, and perhaps as many as six, ex-governors may be on the ballot around the country next year, a pattern apparently without precedent or any clear-cut explanation, beyond the fact that few jobs in American politics beat the chance to run your own state, even in these difficult times.

The LAT added to the mix “former one-term Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and Tommy G. Thompson, who served 14 years as Wisconsin governor.”

Paging Michael Dukakis. Paging former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis.

Item: A Streetcar Named Desiree

White House social secretary Desiree Rogers, a made member of Barack Obama’s Chicago mafia, is about to be unmade.

New York Times Op-It Girl Maureen Dowd:

[Rogers] mistook herself for the principal, sashaying around and posing in magazines as though she were the first lady, rather than a staffer whose job is to stay behind the scenes and make her bosses look good. (Even if Barack Obama is a brand, Desiree shouldn’t talk like the First Marketer or call him a brand — and she definitely shouldn’t refer to it in a proprietary way as “we.”)

Not to mention Rogers shouldn’t have abdicated her responsibilities at the White House state dinner crashed by the unconscionable Salahis, immortalized in an inevitable SNL skit.

Don’t look now, but Rogers is very close to the end of the line.

Item: Alan Khazei’s Got Back . . . ing

From the news media, at least.

The social entrepreneur in the Massachusetts U.S. Senate race dropped a flyer at my humble home that touted endorsements from the Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, along with positive reviews from the Quincy Patriot Ledger, WBZ-TV, Newsweek, the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, and local advocates Blue Mass Group.

Nice to have friends, Alan. Make sure they turn out on Tuesday.

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White House Social Secretary Is Un-Desiree-able

Posted on December 6, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

The hardworking staff at Campaign Outsider wants to put this as tactfully as possible:

White House social secretary Desiree Rogers is GONE.

Start the countdown clock now, considering that the Obama administration has issued a vote of confidence for Rogers after the social-climbing Virginia couple Tareq  and Michaele Salahi got past White House security and “shook hands with Mr. Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden, among others.”

Via Saturday’s Wall Street Journal:

Obama administration officials are rallying behind White House social secretary Desiree Rogers, as lawmakers investigate how two uninvited guests crashed President Barack Obama’s first state dinner.

Right. It’s like major-league baseball managers – as soon as they get a vote of confidence, they’re toast.

Say au revoir, Desiree.

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Hokey Pokey Shmokey!

Posted on December 6, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

The Saturday Boston Globe (finally) re-ran Bruce Weber’s excellent New York Times obituary about Robert Degan, 104, who “had hand in ‘Hokey Pokey’.”

Offficial Campaign Outsider hokey-pokey refresher course (via the Times):

You put your right hand in,

You put your right hand out,

You put your right hand in,

And you shake it all about.

You do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around.

That’s what it’s all about.

Actually. that is what it’s all about – the back-and-forth of everyday life.

Shaken, in other words. Not stirred.

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