The Gang of Deep-Six

Posted on September 9, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

So the Obama administration’s healthcare reform/overhaul/government takeover rests to a large degree in the hands of the obstructionist Senate Finance Committee, or “Gang of Six:” Sens. Max Baucus, Kent Conrad, Jeff Bingaman, Charles Grassley, Olympia Snowe, and Mike Enzi.

As we watch the meanderings of this Gang That Can’t Legislate Straight, let’s not forget what New York Times columnist Gail Collins noted last month:

The senators on this special committee hail from Montana, North Dakota, New Mexico, Iowa, Maine and Wyoming. This was quite a coup on Baucus’s part, since you have to work really hard to put together six states that represent only 2.77 percent of the population.

Representative democracy, indeed.

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Labashed

Posted on September 9, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

Matt Labash, unarguably one of the best magazine writers of his generation, has the cover of the current Weekly Standard with his piece on former D.C. mayor Marion Barry.

I’ve just started reading it, but the lede is Labash-as-usual, in this case illustrating “Barry Time:”

This translates into many minutes, even hours, of waiting for Barry to appear. So after being slated to hang out with Barry for several days, I am surprised to receive a call from his spokesperson, Natalie Williams, two days before we’re supposed to meet.

“Mr. Barry wants to start early,” Natalie informs. “He wants you to come to church with him tomorrow.”

“Great,” I say. “What time does church start?”

“Eleven A.M.,” she says.

“Okay. And what time should I meet him before church?” I ask.

“Eleven-thirty,” she responds with complete seriousness.

During the past few years Labash has filed fly-fishing with Dick Cheney, drive-by profiles of Detroit, and Katrina postmortems in New Orleans.

This guy is the real thing.

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Labor’s Day

Posted on September 8, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

I come from a disorganized-labor family: Teamsters, New York Printers’ Union, Police Benevolent Association and etc. So I think Labor Day should mean something more than one-day sales and automobile  clearances.

But it doesn’t. Sadly, it’s just the unofficial end of summer. (See Joan Wickersham’s fine op-ed piece in Monday’s Boston Globe)

Before you start barking at me, there’s no question that labor unions have been their own worst enemy over the past few decades. Featherbedding, logrolling, extortion, intransigence, corruption – pick your accusation, unions have cut themselves to fit it.

And yet . . .

Let’s not forget it was labor unions that brought us the 40-hour workweek (hello, weekend) and unemployment insurance and OSHA and disability insurance.

So even if you’re not a fan of organized labor currently, you should be a fan of labor unions historically.

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Swag for Squirtguns

Posted on September 7, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

To its ongoing dismay, the Boston Herald suffers from a rare newspaper affliction: Its Sunday circulation is lower than its daily.

So as a public service:

Herald reporter Marie Szaniszlo filed a doozy of a good ol’ shoe-leather story in Sunday’s Herald, chronicling her one-woman, one-time-only (we’re guessing) gun-buyback program in Dorchester.

Szaniszlo was covering a “non-fatal stabbing” when, after attracting a cadre of youthful neighborhood sleuths, she stopped to watch a few kids wrestling with each other.

I sat on the steps, next to an older boy of about 16, who assured me they were just playing, when one of them pulled out a black, plastic handgun.

“Grab it,” I whispered to the older boy.

He waited for the right moment and snatched it.

“Hey, give me back my gun!” the younger boy yelled. But I’d already stuck it into my bag.

“Some day, someone’s gonna think that’s the real thing and blow your head off,” I said. “Trust me. It happens.”

Szaniszlo eventually collected three more plastic guns in exchange for pizza and sodas all around. Her piece ended this way:

Over the years, I had read and reported a slew of stories of toy guns leading to tragedy. If a pizza-gun buyback program could stop one on a beautiful September day in Dorchester – well, that was a good assignment.

Hey, Marie – that was a good newspaper story, too.

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Times v. Globe Paper View?

Posted on September 6, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

Saturday’s New York Times reported that the Wall Street Journal and the Times itself are looking to capitalize on the slow-motion death of local newspapers by launching regional editions, starting with San Francisco.

First, the WSJ:

The Journal expects to start its San Francisco edition in November or December, adding a page or two of general-interest news from California, probably once a week, produced by the large staff it already has in the Bay Area. This is different from previous efforts by The Journal to publish regional editions, which had focused on local business news. The paper, based in New York, is also looking into creating a New York edition, with emphasis on adding coverage of the arts, but that plan is not as fully developed.

Not surprisingly, the Times Co. also has wide eyes:

In addition to planning a San Francisco edition, The Times is exploring the prospects for regional editions based in other cities.

Hey – if the New York Times Co. sells the Boston Globe, what are the odds it would beef up its New England edition to seriously compete with the Globe?

Better question: How pissed would the ten-million-dollars-lighter Boston Newspaper Guild be then?

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Peggy Noonan Has Jumped the Shark

Posted on September 6, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

I know what many of you splendid readers are thinking: Hey, Campaign Outsider! Where you been the past few years – a Pacific island? Peggy Noonan jumped the shark like the Jets in “West Side Story” years ago.

Well, if not a Pacific island, I’ve certainly been on the fringes the past few years. For my money Noonan did a solid job chewing over the 2008 presidential election. (Brian Williams thought she should get a Pulitzer, and – full disclosure – I agreed).

But Noonan became boring and predictable after Barack Obama won, and now that things have heated up, she’s become boring and ridiculous.

Exhibit A: Saturday’s Wall Street Journal column, in which she dismisses the Obama administration’s “flakes” and handwrings over the rest of his personnel decisions.

A greater concern about President Obama’s staffers and appointees is that so many of them are so young and relatively untried. And not only young and untried, but triumphant.

But wait. It gets worse.

Now nothing can stop them, Let’s do big things, let’s be consequential. Consequentialism has been the blight of America’s political life for a decade. Because of it, America’s nerves have been rubbed raw.

Translation: George W. Bush was a crappy president.

But here’s where Noonan not only jumps, but pole-vaults, the shark:

Why be concerned about the young in the White House? Because they’ve never been beaten up by life, never been defeated. They haven’t learned from failure because they haven’t experienced it. They don’t know what the warning signs of trouble are. They haven’t spent time on the losing side.

Let’s make one thing clear: Peggy Noonan doesn’t know a goddam thing about the lives of the White House personnel. They’ve never been beaten up by life, never been defeated? How the hell would Noonan know? She lives in PeggyWorld, where everything fits into neat PeggyHoles.

Not to mention the parallels between the Obamachiks and – wait for it –  Noonan herself.

According to one Noonan bio:

Born Margaret Ellen Noonan on September 7, 1950 in Brooklyn, New York. After graduating from Fairleigh Dickinson University, Peggy Noonan got her start in journalism as a newswriter for the graveyard shift at WEEI-AM Radio in Boston. She was promoted to editorial and public affairs director and won the Tom Phillips Award for broadcast commentary. She then worked for Dan Rather at CBS News in New York, writing and producing daily commentary for CBS Radio.

And then, at the ripe old age of 34, Noonan went to work as a speechwriter in for Ronald Reagan, who’d just won a second term in the landslide 1984 presidential election.

Think Noonan was “young and relatively untried?” Think the Reagan White House was “triumphant?’

Yeah, me too.

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Ads ‘n’ Ends

Posted on September 5, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

Item: One No Trump

I always thought Donald Trump ably provided his own parody, but he declines to stay within himself (as sports-speak has it) in this new TV spot for Double-Stuffed Oreos. It features Trump and his doppelganger , SNL’s Darrell Hammond, challenging the brothers Manning (Eli and Peyton) to a “lick race” in the Double Stuf Racing League.

The spot is amusing in an idiotic sort of way, but any ad that includes Donald Trump and the word “lick” gives me the willies.

Actually, I’m not so comfortable with that choice of words either.

Item: GOP Reaches Whole New Level of Crazy.

The rumpus over Barack Obama’s back-to-school speech scheduled for next week is nothing short of remarkable. Republicans could conceivably make a reasonable case against it (Obama is getting a disproportionate amount of free airtime), but instead they’ve chosen to swing for the fences, thereby rendering their objections, well, disproportionate.

Witness this Boston Globe report (via the Associated Press):

President Obama’s back-to-school address next week was supposed to be a feel-good story, but Republican critics are calling it an effort to foist a political agenda on children, creating yet another confrontation with the White House.

And here’s how Republican lawmakers depict that “political agenda:”

“As far as I am concerned, this is not civics education – it gives the appearance of creating a cult of personality,’’ said Oklahoma state Senator Steve Russell. “This is something you’d expect to see in North Korea or in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.’’

Talk about shooting a fly with an elephant gun – is anyone this side of the lunatic fringe supposed to find that credible?

Here’s another overcaffeinated response:

In Florida, GOP chairman Jim Greer released a statement that he was “absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology.’’

C’mon, people – you wouldn’t know a socialist if he walked up to you and picked your pocket. Obama’s about as much of a socialist as Glenn Beck is a comedian.

Again: the GOP has a legitimate beef with Obama’s free ride in the media. But they turn it into Spam with their wee-wee’d up reactions.

Item: It’s Most Valuable Player, Not Most Productive

Allen Barra had a nice column in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal making the case for New York Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter as American League MVP this year.

For one thing, Barra writes, it could represent MLB’s equivalent of the Oscar’s Lifetime Achievement Award for actors (Paul Newman in 1987’s “Color of Money”) or directors (Martin Scorsese for “The Departed” in 2007).

But Barra doesn’t stop there. While he stipulates that Jeter doesn’t have the best numbers among AL batters this year,  he turns to more nuanced Jeter supporters for support.

The case for Mr. Jeter as American League MVP is being made by more subjective arguments. “How do you measure the value of inspiration and professionalism?” asks Marty Appel, author of “Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain.” “Some people will argue that intangibles don’t exist, but in the ninth inning of close games, everybody believes in them.”

And some, like Allen Barra, believe in Derek Jeter as this year’s AL MVP.

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ABC’s “Worst News Tonight”

Posted on September 4, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

The ABC News anchor-away action around its nightly newscast has not exactly been good news. As Thursday’s New York Times front-page story reported, Charlie Gibson is vacating the “World News” anchor chair and “Good Morning America” empath Diane Sawyer is parachuting into it.

But it’s not a happy landing for Sawyer, thanks to David Westin, the president of ABC News. Here’s the drive-Diane-nuts-graf from the Times story:

Mr. Westin said in an interview that if he had had his way, none of this would be happening. He said he had tried to talk Mr. Gibson out of the decision and to give him some time to think it over.

“This was not a result I wanted,” Mr. Westin said.

All the gauze-cam shots in the world can’t make Sawyer look good in this scene.

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Song o’ the Day®

Posted on September 4, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

Just heard Keith Jarrett’s rendition of “It’s All in the Game” on WGBH-FM, always an excellent after-midnight companion. Lovely as Jarrett’s solo piano was, I really missed the lyrics of that beautifully bittersweet song.

Many a tear has to fall but it’s all in the game
All in the wonderful game that we know as love
You have words with him and your future’s looking dim
But these things your hearts can rise above

Once in a while he won’t call but it’s all in the game
Soon he’ll be there at your side with a sweet bouquet
And he’ll kiss your lips and caress your waiting fingertips
And your heart will fly away

“And he’ll kiss your lips and caress your waiting fingertips . . . ”

That just makes your heart ache.

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De Bait

Posted on September 3, 2009 by Campaign Outsider

The hardworking staff at Campaign Journal swung by WBZ-TV tonight for the inaugural  2009 Boston mayoral debate. Throughout the hourlong bakeoff, WBZ’s Jon Keller did a good job of what was essentially herding cats and one Big Dog. Regardless, the four candidates delivered a compact, if not exactly lively, introduction to the race.

From the first question – is Boston better or worse now than it was four years ago – each challenger to incumbent Tom Menino staked out his particular strategic turf. For Boston City Councilor Michael Flaherty, the future of Boston is not political, “it’s personal.” For fellow City Councilor Sam Yoon, the problem in Boston is its “strong mayor system” that puts excessive power in the hands of “a single person.” Real-estate developer Kevin McCrea simply assailed the “corrupt City Hall.”

Menino, for his part, adopted the death-by-a-thousand-facts strategy. He spent much of the night responding to the challengers’ criticism by lobbing back numbers gleaned from extensive notes he had at his rostrum.  Menino’s reliance on statistics – by turn relevant and irrelevant – finally goaded Yoon into quoting Mark Twain ( or Benjamin Disraeli) to the effect that there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

That didn’t do either Menino or Yoon very much good.

Overall, the first half of the debate was very much Hop on Pop, with the challengers jumping on Menino like kids trying to wrestle Dad to the ground.

But in the second half Menino got frustrated or flusterated or just plain weary, and from that point on he took the bait and played defense.

Problem was, all three challengers were more articulate than Menino, more forward-looking, and more energetic. Menino came across as old, tired, and – all too often – tongue-tied. (Perhaps the next debate can be close-captioned for the Menino-impaired.)

Bottom line: There was no clear winner of the WBZ debate. But there certainly seemed to be a clear loser.

UPDATE: Most of the debate postmortems (see here and here) thought it went swimmingly for Menino, but this Boston Globe editorial landed on my side of the ledger. (Yikes. Should I be worried about that?)

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