What the Butler Saw

Posted on November 20, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

Federal district court nominee Louis Butler of Wisconsin is the latest GOP litmus test for the Obama administration.

Here’s the lede to the Wall Street Journal editorial headlined “The White House Butler”:

As consolation prizes go, Louis Butler can’t complain. After being twice rejected by Wisconsin voters for a place on the state Supreme Court, the former judge has instead been nominated by President Obama to a lifetime seat on the federal district court. If he is confirmed, Wisconsin voters will have years to contend with the decisions of a judge they made clear they would rather live without.

And here’s the lede to the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel op-ed headlined “Butler critics don’t know him”:

Anyone who has spent any amount of time with Louis Butler knows that he is a man of upstanding character. He is meticulous about gathering relevant facts and thoughtful in respect to considering opposing views. I have personally encountered this thoughtfulness on more than one occasion. Often – at a community meeting, for example – he has demonstrated the ability to take on a boisterous group of people with an uninformed viewpoint and respectfully help them understand the reality of the issue at hand.

Discuss among yourselves . . .

Meanwhile, there was the entirely predictable racial backlash over the attacks on Butler, who is black. From Journal Sentinel political reporter Patrick Marley’s piece headlined “Racism alleged in Wall Street Journal editorial on Butler”:

A state senator, a former state Supreme Court justice and a Wisconsin lawyer accused The Wall Street Journal of racism Thursday for referring to an African-American judicial nominee as “the White House Butler.”

God forbid there’s ever a discussion based on what politicians like to call “true facts” – as opposed to the bogus facts that currently constitute political discourse.

Discuss among yourselves . . .

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The Axis of Ego

Posted on November 19, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

Say, that was some Jerkathon Tom Ashbrook hosted this morning on WBUR’s On Point. It featured the parasitic Michael Wolff of Newser, the insufferable Jeff Javis of Buzz Machine, and the intractable Stephen Brill of Journalism Online.

Listener discretion is advised.

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Robert Frankapalooza, Updated

Posted on November 19, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

More on New York’s love affair with legendary photographer Robert Frank:

The Wall Street Journal has a review of Frank’s “The Americans” retrospective at the Met here.

A WSJ review of two gallery shows (Robert Mann, Pace/MacGill) of works by Robert Frank is here.

Do yourself a favor. Look at these photographs.

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Healthcare Deform

Posted on November 19, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

These days you can’t spit without hitting a healthcare reform ad ($600 million spent and counting).

Take this full-page New York Times advertisement from an outfit called the “Employment Policies Institute,” which describes itself as “a non-profit research organization dedicated to studying public policy issues surrounding employment growth. In particular, EPI focuses on issues that affect entry-level employment.”

The Times ad shows a guy in a hospital johnny –

[Wait a second – why does it have to be a “johnny”? Why couldn’t it be a joey? For that matter, why is a john (according to the American Heritage Dictionary) 1. A toilet. 2. A man who is a prostitute’s customer?

[And – come to think of it – why is a barfight called a Who Struck John? Who Struck Joe would do just fine.]

Anyway, the guy in the hospital, er, gown is bending over while a Doc pulls on a latex glove.

“You may feel some slight discomfort,” the headline says.

Body copy:

Current health reform plans increase insurance premiums for millions of Americans. Seniors suffer cuts in Medicare. Comfortable?

The ad directs readers to rethinkreform.com, which in its About Us section reveals absolutely nothing about who’s funding this media campaign.

Suffice it to say, the funders have a financial interest in the final disposition of healthcare reform.

Comfortable?

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Ad o’ the Day

Posted on November 18, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

From the distinguished – not to mention virtual – University of Phoenix, Damage Control Division:

A full-page New York Times ad with the headline, “Dear Students, Alumni, Faculty, and Counselors of University of Phoenix.”

Sample copy:

Let’s defy our critics together. You deserve better. So does America.

The crux of the matter: An investigative report by ProPublica and APM’s Marketplace, that absolutely undressed the University of Phoen(y)ix as a high-promising, low-deliveriung institution.

Problem is, the ProPubica/Marketplace piece ran once. University of Phoenix ads run forever.

 

 

 

 

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Memo to Pagliuca: Never Do That Again

Posted on November 18, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

U.S. Senate hopeful and human ATM Steve Pagliuca has been sending out a direct-mail piece that features a pair of outstretched palms waiting to be greased , along with the headline: “15 MILLION JOBLESS. OVER $1 TRILLION IN HANDOUTS. NEVER AGAIN.”

Hey, Steve:

“Never again” belongs to the Holocaust. Choose your words more carefully next time.

 

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Crawl, Baby, Crawl

Posted on November 18, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

Parents, start your rug rats.

Today is National Crawl to Action Day, at least according to the folks at Seventh Generation, the self-described “maker of naturally safe and effective household products.”

And it’s not just a consumer-goods company you’ve never heard of running full-page ads in the New York Times promoting the entirely manufactured National Crawl to Etc.

It’s also Erin Brokovich, professional whistle blower, who is “demanding chemical policy reform that will help keep our kids safe and healthy.”

By which Brokovich means, ask for Seventh Generation by name.

Liz Galst at the New York Times Green Inc. blog did a nice job last week decoding Seventh Generation’s National Crawl to Prosperity initiative.

In an effort to reform federal regulation governing toxic substances — and no doubt gain some marketing exposure in the process — Seventh Generation, the green household cleaning products manufacturer, recently started an ambitious campaign dubbed the Million Baby Crawl.

Through a series of Web advertisements, YouTube videos, and in-person promotions, the company invites supporters to post messages attached to virtual “crawlers” — essentially animated baby-avatars carrying personalized messages — on the campaign Web site, and to contact their representatives in Congress about soon-to-be introduced legislation that would amend the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976.

(Full disclosure: Galst interviewed me for the post, but I didn’t make the cut.)

So . . . a virtual march on Washington. That could virtually work.

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What I Caught

Posted on November 17, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

Well the Missus and I went to The Big Town for the weekend and here’s what we saw (some of which may or may not be around by the time you read this):

• A fabulous art exhibit – “Mercedes Matter: A Retrospective Exhibition” – at Baruch College. Neither the Missus nor I had ever encountered Matter, “an important participant in the American avant-garde of the 1940s and ’50s.”  Matter mingled with European and American modernists of the period from Hans Hofmann and Jackson Pollock to Philip Guston and Alberto Giacometti. It shows. (through December 14)

• The Georgia O’Keeffe blockbuster “Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstractions” at the Whitney.  Too much pink and green for my taste. Looked like a Pappagallo catalog on acid. (through January 17)

• Great gallery exhibits (sorry for the paucity of links -Google ’em if you like ’em):

Philip Guston small oils at Tibor de Nagy

“The Platonic Ideal” (with the excellent Paul Suttman bronze “Jacques’ Braque“) at the Forum Gallery. Also at the Forum Gallery: the delightful Cybèle Young’s “unique sculptural works inspired by the fleeting day-to-day minutiae that comprise [they meant “constitute”] everyday life.”

Rachel Hovnanian‘s hoot of an exhibit “The Power and Burden of Beauty” at   which included a series of photos depicting Texas Beauty Queen Cream (“Fix your face for good” . . . “OMG, the next day after”)

Yasuo Kuniyoshi’s works on paper at the Zabriskie Gallery

Gerda Wegener: La Vie Parisienne at Leonard Fox. Wegener’s husband dressed in drag for her paintings, then had a sex-change operation, then died from the sex-change operation.  (through November 25)

The great photographer Robert Frank’s The Americans contact sheets at Pace MacGill (See also Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, through January 3)

• After that there was the Modernism + Art 20 show at the Park Avenue Armory, which featured lots of stuff the Missus and I wanted to buy but didn’t

• The Missus and I also worked our way through MOMA’s fascinating if slightly overwhelming Bauhaus exhibit. (through January 25)

• Topping it all off was the rollicking Broadway revival of The Royal Family, the venerable farce by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber about the Cavendish family, a multigenerational acting troupe modeled loosely on the Olympian Barrymores. Rosemary Harris as Fanny Cavendish and Jan Maxwell as Julie Cavendish stole the show, while Reg Rogers delivered an entirely over-the-top turn as Tony Cavendish.

(Fun fact to know and tell: In the 1976 revival of The Royal Family, Rosemary Harris performed the role of Julie.  Talk about coming full circle.)

 

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Fort Hoodwink?

Posted on November 13, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

From our Late to the Party bureau:

Interesting split on Pres. Obama’s Fort Hood memorial speech on Tuesday.

Here’s Tom Ricks in Foreign Policy magazine (via MSNBC’s First Note):

I think President Obama missed a major opportunity at Fort Hood on Tuesday. His speech was fine was far as it went — but that wasn’t very far. It felt very conventional, a bit rote and obligational, like Reagan on an off day, doing a state fair stopoff on the way to the Western White House.

What I had hoped for was a passionate, engaged address that tackled political correctness in the same was as did his race speech during the campaign, which I think was his high point during that time. It was a terrific speech that I think moved both him and the country forward. (Look inside the Army, Mr. President, and  you will find “Ashleys” everywhere.)

Didn’t happen. This was a treading water speech. “We must pay tribute to their stories?” That feels to me more like the work of a desperate speechwriter than an inspired, transformational president.

Yikes. Then again, here’s Slate reporter John Dickerson:

President Obama’s speech at Fort Hood, Texas, was a small masterpiece—less than 15 minutes—in part because it was so modest. The president had great material and he knew not to get in its way.

Full disclosure: The hardworking staff has yet to actually see the speech.

But we’re already conflicted about how good it was.

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