| From: LindyBill | 4/29/2005 9:08:37 AM | | | | | | THE ROAR OF MSM DEMAGOGUES
By malkin
"I propose a Social Security system in the future where benefits for low-income workers will grow faster than benefits for people who are better off," President Bush said at his news conference last night. "This reform would solve most of the funding challenges facing Social Security."
Democrats claim that Bush's plan constitutes a "cut" in future benefits for upper-income workers. That claim is being uncritically echoed by most MSM outlets:
New York Times, "Bush Cites Plan That Would Cut Social Security Benefits,"
President Bush called Thursday night for cutting Social Security benefits for future retirees to put the system on sound financial footing, and he proposed doing so in a way that would demand the most sacrifice from higher-income people while insulating low-income workers.
Washington Post, "Bush Social Security Plan Would Cut Future Benefits,"
President Bush called on Congress last night to curtail future Social Security benefits for all but low-income retirees in an urgent new effort to address the popular program's shaky finances.
ABC News / Associated Press, "Bush Offers New Social Security Plan,"
After nearly 60 days on the road pitching Social Security changes, President Bush is offering a new plan to fix its finances by cutting benefits of more prosperous future retirees. Democrats still aren't buying it.
Not surprsingly, liberal blogger Josh Marshall loves this slanted coverage: "The Post pretty much nails the new Bush plan on the front page of tomorrow's paper: cut pretty much everyone's benefits a lot. The sweetener? Poor people's benefits won't be cut as much!"
If you read the New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, and liberal bloggers like Marshall you could be forgiven for thinking that, under Bush's plan, wealthy retirees will get less money in the future than they do now. That is not the case.
A few MSM outlets made this point. The Wall Street Journal reported, "Under his proposal to adjust benefit levels, low-income workers would continue, as they do under current law, to have their initial retirement benefits linked to the growth of wages in the economy. But the wealthiest seniors would have their initial benefits tied to price inflation, which generally rises more slowly than wages."
See also this USA Today analysis.
Yes, Bush's indexing plan is "cutting benefits" in the sense that upper-income beneficiaries would get less money than under the status quo. But no retiree is going to see his or her standard of living decline relative to where it stands now.
Those who oppose Bush's indexing plan are arguing, in essence, that Social Security benefits to upper-income beneficiaries should continue to grow faster than the rate of inflation. That's reckless given the program's long-term fiscal problems.
Bush's indexing plan is moderate and reasonable. Unfortunately, the combination of Democrats' demagoguery and the MSM's relentlessly negative coverage may bring the plan down before it even gets off the ground. |
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| From: LindyBill | 4/29/2005 9:11:07 AM | | | | | | Democrats Reject Compromise on Judges
powerlineblog.com
As we noted yesterday, Bill Frist's offer of a compromise on judicial nominations was a statesmanlike effort. It was scrupulously fair to both parties, constrained the majority just as it would the minority--more, really, since absent the compromise, the majority, Republican or Democrat, would always have the Constitutional option at its disposal--and effectuated the principle, endorsed by an overwhelming majority of Americans of both parties, that all judicial nominees should be voted on.
Harry Reid's response, as reported by the Washington Times, was childish and incoherent. Unable to deny the fairness or the logic or Frist's offer, Reid descended into babble:
[T]he Senate's top Democrat immediately expressed doubt about the proposal, calling it "a big wet kiss to the far right."
"I don't really like the proposal given, but I'm not going to throw it away," Mr. Reid said. "I'm going to work on it."
In his floor speech, Mr. Reid called Mr. Frist's proposal a "slow-motion nuclear option." "After 100 hours, the rights of the minority are extinguished," he said, acknowledging that the purpose of the filibusters hasn't been to continue debate on nominees, but simply to stop them.
"I say to everyone within the sound of my voice: 'Test us,' "he said. "Let's see how we can do in the future. I can't say there won't be any filibusters, but I think we're going to have a much better situation."
Reid's incoherence couldn't conceal what he didn't dare say out loud: obstruction is the heart and soul of the Democratic Party.
The Times also reads Frist's speech as confirming our prediction that Priscilla Owen will be the nominee whose case is used to break the filibuster. |
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| From: LindyBill | 4/29/2005 9:14:11 AM | | | | | | Anchors Away!
nationaljournal.com
By William Powers, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, April 29, 2005
The No. 1 pastime in the media right now is gassing off about the great anchor gap. Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, and Peter Jennings have all exited the screen recently, and the culture's having a big talk-therapy session about it.
True, life goes on in the old chair. Brokaw has a permanent successor in Brian Williams, who has the solid, student-council-president bearing of classic 20th-century anchors. Williams is very good, but he's so classic, sometimes you get the feeling you're watching That '80s Show. Rather's seat is being kept warm for a while by kindly plush-bear Bob Schieffer. And Jennings is temporarily away while he fights cancer, and may well return to his job (nice to imagine that, because for my money, he was always the best of the three).
Still, the future of anchorism is suddenly wide open. And everyone has been weighing in with ideas. So many models are floating around, it seems worthwhile to review some of the best, and to throw a few new ones into the mix:
1. The Wise-Old-Man Model
We tend to think of this as the traditional model, but it isn't. The three anchors we've just lost all got the job before they were 50. To reconceive of the job as a late-life gig is a brand-new idea, and not as odd as you might think. People want their anchors to project earned wisdom, and younger people rarely do that. ABC's attempts to turn George Stephanopoulos into a youthful wise man with national pull have been a spectacular flop. Meanwhile, the 68-year-old Schieffer, the de facto guinea pig for this model, has brought a faint crackle of excitement to the CBS Evening News (though not, so far, to the ratings). As the Baby Boomers lope into retirement, oldsterhood will inevitably become cool, in a Madison Avenue, cover-of-Time kind of way. It's already happening. If you watch Amazing Race, CBS's popular reality show, you know that Meredith and Gretchen, the underdog seniors, are thriving against the much younger competition, and they have legions of fans. This may seem a frivolous comparison, until you remember that the network news business lusts desperately after the audience numbers of the reality shows, and will tweak the product as necessary. In fact, why not have really old men -- and women -- delivering the news? Put a few hearty octogenarians with quivering wattles up there, and the Boomers will feel young for 20 more years. They'll be riveted.
2. The Youth Model
Opposite of Model No. 1, this would enliven network news with the "fresh young voices" we're always hearing about. But as you know if you've ever watched a novice reporter on the tube, TV doesn't come naturally to human beings. It's a learned skill. Turn on a camera, and those fresh young voices go all quavery and stale. There are young TV news people with experience, but most toil in local news, where the standards couldn't be lower. In short, the talent pool is much too shallow.
3. The High-Priced-Diva Model
The New York Times caused an intramural media stir this week when it published a piece by Alessandra Stanley arguing that Katie Couric's "image has grown downright scary: America's girl next door has morphed into the mercurial diva down the hall. At the first sound of her peremptory voice and clickety stiletto heels, people dart behind doors and douse the lights." The piece implied that people hate divas. But do they, really? Martha Stewart is riding higher than ever. Ditto Hillary. A zillionaire newswoman with a reputation for queenly behavior could inject some new energy into the anchor post. Imagine: Scary Katie clicks her way onto the set, all in leather, and tells America to listen up or else. We just might.
4. The Multiple-Anchor Model
This idea, which has been batted around forever, calls for the broadcast to bounce among different anchors in different cities, throwing out the old New York-centric approach. The great flaw is that this assumes that different cities imbue anchors with different qualities -- that an L.A. anchor will give the news an L.A. feeling, and that the mix will yield some kind of cosmopolitan synergy. But it won't. Network-news people are oddly placeless, global beings. They tend to have generic looks and no trace of a regional accent. Anchors blot out geography. Diane Sawyer doesn't change because she's in L.A.; L.A. changes because the Diane Sawyer celebrity cruise liner docks there briefly, with its vast crew of assistants, bookers, and makeup people. Besides, actual viewers barely notice where an anchor is speaking from. Only media people do.
5. The Opinion Model
In a recent New York Times column, 60 Minutes creator Don Hewitt argued that what the network newscasts really need is "audacious commentary." Paul Friedman, former executive producer of ABC's World News Tonight, made a similar point this week in The Wall Street Journal, arguing that CBS should add, at the end of its broadcast, an opinion piece that gives viewers "more to think about." It's great idea, but for a reason neither man mentions. It will help rid the newscasts of their greatest handicap -- their pretension of objectivity and uber-authority. Nobody buys that canard any more, and rightly so. So acknowledge it, folks, by working some blatant subjectivity into the product. The viewers will like it, and the anti-network bloggers will have even more to scream about. The latter may sound terrible, but would you rather have people screaming about your work, or ignoring it?
-- William Powers is a columnist for National Journal magazine, where "Off Message" appears. His e-mail address is bpowers@nationaljournal.com. |
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| From: LindyBill | 4/29/2005 9:17:50 AM | | | | | | On Being Disliked
The new not-so-unwelcome anti-Americanism.
— Victor Davis Hanson is a military historian and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His website is victorhanson.com.
Last year the hysteria about the hostility toward the United States reached a fevered pitch. Everyone from Jimmy Carter to our Hollywood elite lamented that America had lost its old popularity. It was a constant promise of the Kerry campaign to restore our good name and "to work with our allies." The more sensitive were going to undo the supposed damage of the last four years. Whole books have been devoted to this peculiar new anti-Americanism, but few have asked whether or not such suspicion of the United States is, in fact, a barometer of what we are doing right — and while not necessarily welcome, at least proof that we are on the correct track.
The Egyptian autocracy may have received $57 billion in aggregate American aid over the last three decades. But that largess still does not prevent the Mubarak dynasty from damning indigenous democratic reformers by dubbing them American stooges. In differing ways, the Saudi royal family exhibits about the same level of antagonism toward the U.S. as do the Islamic fascists of al Qaeda — both deeply terrified by what is going on in Iraq. Mostly this animus arises because we are distancing ourselves from corrupt grandees, even as we have become despised as incendiary democratizers by the Islamists. Is that risky and dangerous? Yes. Bad? Hardly
At the U.N. it is said that a ruling hierarchy mistrusts the United States and that a culture of anti-Americanism has become endemic within the organization. No wonder — the Americans alone push for more facts about the Oil-for-Food scandal, question Kofi Annan's breaches of ethics, and want investigations about U.N. crimes in Africa. If we are mistrusted for caring about those thousands who are inhumanely treated by a supposedly humane organization, then why in the world should we wish to be liked by such a group?
EU bureaucrats and French politicians routinely caricature Americans, whipping up public opinion against the United States, even as they fly here to profess eagerness to maintain the old NATO transatlantic ties. Is it to our discredit that what Europe has now devolved into does not like the United States?
Mexico, we are told, is furious at the United States. Mexico City newspapers routinely trash Americans. Vicente Fox usually sounds more like a belligerent than the occasional visitor at the presidential ranch. That is not so bad either.
In short, who exactly does not like the United States and why? First, almost all the 20 or so illiberal Arab governments that used to count on American realpolitik's giving them a pass on accounting for their crimes. They fear not the realist Europeans, nor the resource-mad Chinese, nor the old brutal Russians, but the Americans, who alone are prodding them to open their economies and democratize their corrupt political cultures. We must learn to expect, not lament, their hostility, and begin to worry that things would be indeed wrong if such unelected dictators praised the United States.
The United Nations has sadly become a creepy organization. Its General Assembly is full of cutthroat regimes. The Human Rights Commission has had members like Vietnam and Sudan, regimes that at recess must fight over bragging rights to which of the two killed more of their own people. The U.N. has a singular propensity to find flawed men to be secretary-general — a Kurt Waldheim, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, or Kofi Annan. Blue-helmeted peace-keepers, we learn, are as likely to commit as prevent crimes; and the only thing constant about such troops is that they will never go first into harm's way in Serbia, Kosovo, the Congo, or Dafur to stop genocide. Even worse, the U.N. has proved to be a terrible bully, an unforgivable sin for a self-proclaimed protector of the weak and innocent — loud false charges against Israel for its presence in the West Bank, not a peep about China in Tibet; tough talk about Palestinian rights, far less about offending Arabs over Darfur. So U.N. anti-Americanism is a glowing radiation badge, proof of exposure to toxicity.
The EU is well past being merely silly, as its vast complex of bureaucrats tries to control what 400 million speak, eat, and think. Its biggest concerns are three: figuring out how its nations are to keep paying billions of euros to retirees, unemployed, and assorted other entitlement recipients; how to continue to ankle-bite the United States without antagonizing it to the degree that these utopians might have to pay for their own security; and how not to depopulate itself out of existence. Europeans sold Saddam terrible arms for oil well after the first Gulf War. Democratic Israel or Taiwan means nothing to them; indeed, democracy is increasingly becoming the barometer by which to judge European hostility. Cuba, China, Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah — not all that bad; the United States, Taiwan, and Israel, not all that good. Personally, I'd rather live in a country that goes into an anguished national debate over pulling the plug on a lone woman than one that blissfully vacations on the beach oblivious to 15,000 elderly cooked to well done back in Paris.
Mexico, enjoying one of the richest landscapes in the world, can't feed its own people, so it exports its poorest to the United States. Its own borders with Central America are as brutal to cross as our own are porous. Illegal aliens send back almost $50 billion, which has the effect of propping up corrupt institutions that as a result will never change. Given its treatment of its own people, if the Mexican government praised the United States we should indeed be concerned.
Who then are America's friends? Perhaps one billion Indians, who appreciated that at a time of recession we kept our economy open, and exported jobs and expertise there that helped evolve its economy.
Millions of Japanese trust America as well. Unlike the Chinese, who on script vandalized Japanese interests abroad in anguish over right-wing Japanese textbooks, Americans — who at great cost once freed China — without such violence urge the Japanese to deal honestly with the past. After all, the Tokyo government that started the war is gone and replaced by a democracy; in contrast, the Communist dictatorship that killed 50 million of its own and many of its neighbors is still in place in China. At a time when no one in Europe seems to care that Japan is squeezed between a nuclear North Korea and a nuclear China, the United States alone proves a reliable friend. The French, on spec, conduct maneuvers with the ascendant Communist Chinese navy.
Eastern Europeans do not find the larger families, religiosity, or commitment to individualism and freedom in America disturbing. Apparently, millions in South America don't either — if their eagerness to emigrate here is any indication.
It is the wage of the superpower to be envied. Others weaker vie for its influence and attention — often when successful embarrassed by the necessary obsequiousness, when ignored equally shamed at the resulting public impotence. The Cold War is gone and former friends and neutrals no longer constrain their anti-American rhetoric in fear of a cutthroat and nuclear Soviet Union. Americans are caricatured as cocky and insular — as their popular culture sweeps the globe.
All that being said, the disdain that European utopians, Arab dictatorships, the United Nations, and Mexico exhibit toward the United Sates is not — as the Kerry campaign alleged in the last election — cause for tears, but often reason to be proud, since much of the invective arises from the growing American insistence on principles abroad.
America should not gratuitously welcome such dislike; but we should not apologize for it either. Sometimes the caliber of a nation is found not in why it is liked, but rather in why it is not. By January 1, 1941, I suppose a majority on the planet — the Soviet Union, all of Eastern Europe, France, Italy, Spain, and even many elsewhere in occupied Europe, most of Latin America, Japan and its Asian empire, the entire Arab world, many in India — would have professed a marked preference for Hitler's Germany over Churchill's England.
Think about it. When Europe orders all American troops out; when Japan claims our textbooks whitewash the Japanese forced internment or Hiroshima; when China cites unfair trade with the United States; when South Korea says get the hell off our DMZ; when India complains that we are dumping outsourced jobs on them; when Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinians refuse cash aid; when Canada complains that we are not carrying our weight in collective North American defense; when the United Nations moves to Damascus; when the Arab Street seethes that we are pushing theocrats and autocrats down its throat; when Mexico builds a fence to keep us out; when Latin America proclaims a boycott of the culturally imperialistic Major Leagues; and when the world ignores American books, films, and popular culture, then perhaps we should be worried. But something tells me none of that is going to happen in this lifetime.
nationalreview.com
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| From: LindyBill | 4/29/2005 9:23:11 AM | | | | | | Heavy taxes, a bloated state - we're marching down the road to serfdom
timesonline.co.uk
Gerard Baker
MUCH INK has been spilt in an effort to explain why this election campaign has failed to engender excitement in the streets. Allow me, as a quasioutsider, to offer a provocative thesis.
I haven’t lived in Britain for more than a decade now, having spent most of my time in the US. But back in the country for the election, I’m not surprised at the palpable sense of futility. The British people are steadily being reduced to a state of cringing dependence on an ever-more voracious and aggrandising Government and a political establishment of almost unconquerable scale that supports and sustains it.
The response of our once competitive political system has been not to offer an alternative to this long march to serfdom but, hemmed in by the tightening constraints of politically permissible debate, to produce feeble dissent around the margins of a vast consensus whose core no one dare challenge.
Take the silence on the most obvious and pressing case — the growing proportion of our national income that will be consumed by the state.
After years in which the UK actually managed to restrict the growth of government, a period not coincidentally that created the conditions for the best economic performance in a couple of generations, the tax take is set to rise sharply. Within three years, taxes will account for more than 40 per cent of gross domestic product, the highest level in 25 years, and beginning to close the gap again with the levels in sclerotic Western European countries.
It will get worse. The Government now backs a more or less open-ended commitment to pouring ever more resources into the demonstrably inefficient bureaucracy of the NHS. Pensions, welfare benefits and education will devour tens of billions more even than current projections suggest. Labour practises ambiguity on this — alternately taking pride in all that money that has been thrown on the NHS bonfire and promising “reform” through the introduction of more choice in public service provision. But does anyone really think that the party intends to reverse the slide towards Scandinavian levels of profligacy?
It is not impossible to stop this train from leaving the station. But what are the opposition up to? The Tories say the answer is — wait for it — a £4 billion tax cut. Mercy! Will the entrepreneurial instincts of the British people be liberated, and the impending socialisation of more than half the UK economy halted, by a measure that will reduce the size of the state by a whopping 0.6 per cent?
The Tories try to cover their hopeless insufficiency to the task by focusing their grubby little energies on immigration, a campaign that includes the depressingly anti-market promise that they will tell companies in search of skilled overseas workers to get lost.
As for the Liberal Democrats, has there been a more inaptly named political structure in the world since some clever North Korean came up with the Democratic People’s Republic? The liberalism that this party favours is the sort that would accelerate the confiscation of private property now in train by returning to some of the punitive tax rates of the 1970s. The democracy they favour is the sort that involves surrendering sovereignty to the EU and the United Nations as fast as possible. Didn’t there used to be something called the Trade Descriptions Act that forbade this kind of mis-selling?
The lack of serious fiscal choice on offer is only a reflection of a broader surrender to the principle that government has the answers and the people should stop worrying their little heads about it. Every conversation one has in this country seems to start from the premise that everything that ails us can be put right by government — whether it is obesity or the decline of classical music.
And what exquisite irony! The one thing in the past four years that the Government really did get right — the deposing of a dangerous dictator and the liberation of 24 million people from tyranny — is now regarded in the closed circle of serious political discussion as an act of pure evil.
Of course, underpinning, sustaining and nourishing this consensus is a new Establishment that holds the British people in thrall to its supposedly progressive ideas. Its stultifying and baleful influence is transmitted by the clammy grip of its three main tentacles: the universities; the “experts”, and, above all, the media.
Most university teachers regard their first duty of course as being to promote and nurture the principle that government has the answers. But spreading from that simple “truth” are a few others: that Israel and America are responsible for the bulk of the bad things in the world; that globalisation is impoverishing; that British history is a matter, mostly, for shame, and that we would all be better off if we would just let Europe run things for us.
Their close allies outside the academy are the ubiquitous experts — in government, in pressure groups, in think-tanks. In a complicated age of information proliferation, these have assumed a kind of sacerdotal eminence: the people listen meekly as they promote their theories — global warming as indisputable fact and that science must take precedence over ethics.
Above them all are the media, the self-selecting and self-perpetuating elite in broadcasting, newspapers, the arts (have you ever heard a novelist express an original political view?). This is the pinnacle of the Establishment that offers its highest recognition to people who make such programmes as The Power of Nightmares, the “documentary” whose tendentious bilge flowed from a manifestly false premise that the terrorist threat was all invented by neoconservatives (did the producer ever speak to a member of the Clinton Administration, which spent its last two years increasingly obsessed with the terror threat?).
As a young man of, I confess, a somewhat more leftish inclination, one of my heroes was Shelley. I can see the shortcomings now of his ideological preferences. But as the British public’s liberty is sold into the serfdom of the British Establishment, Shelley’s words have a curious resonance.
It’s useless in this final week of the election, given the paucity of choice, to expect them to echo to any effect now. But soon enough, maybe, the British people will heed them:
Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you
Ye are many. They are few.
gerard.baker@thetimes.co.uk
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| From: LindyBill | 4/29/2005 9:29:49 AM | | | | | | The Rock Star And The Rest
nationaljournal.com
By James A. Barnes, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, April 29, 2005
Glendower: "I can call spirits from the vasty deep."
Hotspur: "Why, so can I, or so can any man. But will they come when you do call for them?"
John F. Kennedy, who knew a thing or two about connecting with voters and pursuing the presidency, loved those lines from Shakespeare's Henry IV. "But will they come when you do call?" remains the vital question for anyone contemplating a run for the White House.
At this stage in a presidential election cycle, every would-be candidate is usually playing the confident "Glendower" role, at least in private. And 2008 appears to be no exception to that rule -- perhaps with good reason, especially on the Republican side, where for once the party has no obvious front-runner for the role of standard-bearer.
For the past two decades, two families have had hegemony over the GOP presidential-selection process. Now, unless Florida Gov. Jeb Bush changes his mind about not seeking the presidency in 2008, the streak of a Bush or a Dole capturing every Republican presidential nomination since 1988 is almost certain to be broken.
And at the opening gun in the 2008 presidential nominating contest -- the Iowa caucuses -- the lack of an establishment Republican favorite will break an even longer record. Ever since 1980, a Bush or Dole has won the Hawkeye State's GOP caucuses every time the race for the party's crown has been competitive. With the party's line of succession anything but fixed this time around, a dozen men, plus Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, received at least one first-place vote this week when National Journal asked Republican insiders to predict who is most likely to be their next presidential nominee.
Further blurring the outlook for the 2008 Republican race is the fact that the party's conservative wing is far from settling on its choice. Even at this early stage of the "invisible primary," the GOP's traditional-values set usually has a clear favorite or two.
Even though Iowa's caucuses and the New Hampshire primary are still 33 months away, this potential muddle has some Republicans worried about how long their lease on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue will last. "On our side, I think it's the most undefined field I've ever seen. And right now, it looks like the weakest," says Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the GOP's chief deputy whip in the House. "That may not be the case come 2008, but that's what it looks like today."
This kind of uncertainty and worry may well spur even more Republicans to take a look at running in 2008: With no heirs apparent -- establishment or conservative -- they'll figure that the race will continue to be more wide open than normal for their party.
By contrast, the upcoming Democratic presidential sweepstakes seems simple. "On our side, it's kind of Hillary and everybody else," said Democratic National Committee adviser and political consultant Tom Ochs, referring to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. "It's boring, but it is what it is."
To be sure, Clinton is the front-runner. Sixty-eight of the 90 Democrats who participated in National Journal's Insiders Poll this week rated her most likely to clinch their party's presidential nomination. A Gallup poll conducted on February 4-6 for CNN and USA Today found that 40 percent of self-identified Democrats favored Clinton; 25 percent preferred to renominate Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the party's 2004 choice; and 18 percent supported former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, Kerry's 2004 running mate. All other Democratic possibilities combined drew the support of 6 percent. The remaining 11 percent of respondents had no preference.
If Clinton ends up capturing the Democratic nomination, her success will mark the first time since Adlai Stevenson in 1956 that a Democratic front-runner who was neither an incumbent president nor an incumbent vice president has won after being identified as the leader of the pack in Gallup's first post-election poll of the cycle. Unlike the Republicans, who're in the habit of nominating their early front-runner, Democrats frequently reject theirs.
In fact, more often than not, the first Democratic front-runner doesn't even make it to the starting gate of the Democratic race. That was true of Edward Kennedy in the 1976, 1984, and 1988 election cycles. In 1992, then-Gov. Mario Cuomo of New York was the early front-runner. He didn't run either.
For the 2004 race, Gallup's first post-2000 reading found that the front-runner was former Vice President Gore, followed by Sen. Clinton and former Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey; none of them entered the race. Kerry, the eventual nominee, ran sixth in Gallup's first survey looking ahead to 2004. All of that history gives second- and third-tier Democratic wannabes reason to be hopeful about 2008, even in the face of Hillary Clinton's early dominance.
The Republicans
Usually the Republican presidential-selection machinery operates on a hierarchical model. GOP standard-bearers tend to get groomed, first failing to win the nomination in one cycle before bouncing back to take the throne (if not the presidency) the next time it becomes vacant. The process worked that way for Ronald Reagan in 1980 (after his loss in '76), George H.W. Bush in 1988 (after losing in '80), and Bob Dole in 1996 (after his losses in 1980 and 1988). And the only reason the GOP race didn't follow that pattern in 2000 was that the party establishment had a real heir -- George W. Bush -- to carry on its lineage.
The GOP's modus operandi would seem to favor four-term Sen. John McCain of Arizona for the party's 2008 nomination. After all, he is the only one in the probable field who has been around the track before, having finished second in the 2000 race. That invaluable experience has given him contacts in many key states and an enduring base of support. But it may not give McCain what usually comes to a GOP White House hopeful who has been a runner-up -- the sense among party activists that it is his turn.
That's because the outspoken McCain is a maverick who occasionally breaks with President Bush on high-profile issues and, at times, almost seems to enjoy doing so. He has bucked his party on tax cuts, on campaign finance, and on patients' rights legislation.
"He's done a lot of things that conservative Republicans love and a few they just don't like," said Richard Schwarm, a former chairman of the Iowa Republican Party. "He probably has the most status at this point, but whether that can translate the way it did for Dole or George W. [is] unclear."
And while McCain remains opposed to abortion rights, he started to stray from the GOP fold on other social issues last year, voting against the gun lobby to prohibit the sale of handguns without a safety device and to require criminal-background checks on all firearms purchasers at large gun shows. McCain also voted last July against limiting debate on a Bush-endorsed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
According to National Journal's vote ratings for 2004, McCain's composite conservative score placed him close to the ideological center of the entire Senate. He was tied with Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania as the Senate's third-most-liberal Republican, behind only Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Olympia Snowe of Maine.
It's the ideological company that McCain keeps that causes more than a few conservative Republicans to fear that, if elected president, the Arizonan would not govern from as far to the right as they would want. And some of McCain's stands against the Bush administration and the GOP Senate majority, including his recent decision to side with Democrats who are fighting to retain the filibuster for judicial appointments, have caused some Republican stalwarts to wonder whether he's really one of them.
"He's got to stop pulling the elephant's trunk every time you turn around," warned a veteran GOP strategist who requested anonymity. "That gets you on the Sunday talk shows, but I don't think it gets you many activists. He's got to pick a fight with the Democrats, and one where he's a leader. And it would be really good if [Senators] Susan Collins [of Maine], Olympia Snowe, and Lincoln Chafee were on the other side for a change."
Rick Davis, McCain's 2000 campaign manager, bristled at the suggestions that McCain, who campaigned for Bush in both 2000 and 2004, isn't a team player and that he might have to start voting "right" in order to position himself for another run for the White House. "He's been the most outspoken senator in supporting the president and defining the Republican position on the seminal issue of the last campaign, Iraq," Davis said. "The last thing he's ever going to do is gear his position on a national issue to gain political advantage; which, by the way, is one of the reasons that he's the most popular politician in America."
But before McCain could present himself to the nation at large, he would need to win the GOP nomination. Among Republicans, the edge may go to former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. In the February 4-6 CNN/USA Today poll about 2008, Giuliani ranked first, with 33 percent. He was followed by McCain, 30 percent; Florida Gov. Bush, 12 percent; and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, 7 percent. All other candidates named received a combined total of 6 percent. Twelve percent of respondents chose no one.
Much of Giuliani's popularity comes from his iconic performance on 9/11 and the days that followed. Few politicians get to be Time's "Man of the Year," and few enjoy near-universal name recognition. In this age of Internet fundraising, such assets can almost instantly translate into a huge campaign war chest. The ability to raise mountains of cash has never been more important: Nearly every top campaign operative in both parties says that to be taken seriously, White House contenders will have to opt out of federal matching funds (and their spending limits) for the primary season. (George W. Bush started the trend by opting out in 2000.)
Veteran GOP presidential campaign strategist Charlie Black says that Giuliani "is like a national hero. And on terrorism, he's been very loyal to the president. That being said, I have a hard time figuring out a scenario where he gets nominated, because he is a liberal on social issues."
Being perceived as a national hero didn't rocket Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, into the White House when he ran in 1984. And Giuliani would have to figure out how to defuse his liberal stands on abortion rights and gay rights in the South, where the Republican nomination has been decided since 1980.
Giuliani hasn't always been a staunch defender of abortion rights. Before he made his first run for mayor in 1989, he reportedly favored reversing the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. But by the end of that contest, Giuliani was supporting public funding of abortions for poor women, touting the fact that the New York chapter of the National Abortion Rights Action League had certified him as "pro-choice." He was also claiming that his stance was identical to that of David Dinkins, the liberal Democrat who defeated him.
GOP pollster Fred Steeper, who worked for Giuliani on his first run for Gracie Mansion, says, "I don't know if the Republican Party can nominate someone who cannot say, 'I am pro-life.' Maybe he can reach some sort of accommodation with the pro-life people in terms of parental notification, but it will be very difficult because they are such purists. This is not like negotiating with a labor union." As McCain looks ahead, one of his strengths is that in a contest with Giuliani, he'd likely garner most of the conservative vote.
Some Republicans have looked longingly to Florida to extend the Bush run in Washington, but Jeb Bush apparently has no interest in following his older brother into the Oval Office, at least not immediately. The governor, who cannot seek re-election in 2006 because of term limits, has said he plans to move back to Miami and has no intention of running for president in 2008.
One Republican National Committee member said, only half jokingly, that it is the "secret fantasy" of some RNC members that Jeb Bush will reconsider. The committee member added, "Too much of a good thing is still good."
Nonetheless, most party insiders take Jeb Bush at his word that he's not running this time. "He told me that, and he's told everybody that," said GOP strategist Black. "He's just not interested, and I don't know what would get him to change his mind." Former President George H.W. Bush told Newsweek last month, "My expectation is that Mrs. Clinton will run and Governor Bush won't in 2008."
Conversely, Bill Frist, who is retiring from the Senate after the 2006 election, is already working to get his next government job. He has traveled to New Hampshire twice this year. And when the Sioux City, Iowa, Chamber of Commerce made its annual trek to Washington this spring, he sought to visit with the group. "Senator Frist is, of course, very anxious to meet with us," said Debi Durham, president of the Siouxland chamber before the trip. "What does that tell you?" To most people, it means he's running hard for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.
Frist, a former surgeon, is known as being more effective one-on-one than with crowds. "He's not a great campaigner, but Bill Frist is really, really smart," commented a high-powered GOP association chief. "He's very crafty, so I don't count him out." Echoed another well-connected GOP lobbyist: "He's so smart and talented, you've got to believe that he's going to figure out how to connect with people."
Then there's what GOP pollster Steeper calls the "gratitude factor." Frist doesn't have a long history as a member of the "family values" conservative Christian movement. And he's viewed suspiciously in some of its quarters. But his recent efforts to end Democratic senators' ability to filibuster against conservative judicial nominees could pay huge dividends in the contest to become the favorite of the party's right wing.
Gratitude helped get Richard Nixon the GOP nomination in 1968, recalled Steeper, because the former vice president placed Barry Goldwater's name in nomination at the 1964 convention and was just about the only mainline Republican leader to campaign for Goldwater in 1964. Conservatives understood that Nixon was not a true conservative, but gratitude put most of them in his camp for the 1968 primary campaign.
Likewise, Reagan's rise in national Republican politics began with a half-hour television speech he gave on Goldwater's behalf in 1964. Of course, Reagan was the real McCoy for conservatives. Reagan's vice president, George H.W. Bush, was not, but his loyalty to the Gipper earned him his spurs with many rank-and-file conservatives. Their support was critical to Bush's sweep of the Southern GOP presidential primaries in 1988 and his eventual nomination.
Still, Frist won't have the conservative territory to himself. A number of GOP hopefuls are seeking to gain a foothold with that influential part of the party's base.
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., making a side trip from a scheduled speech on stem-cell research at Harvard Law School, spoke in mid-April to a breakfast gathering of nearly 150 conservative social activists in New Hampshire. Brownback, reported PoliticsNH.com, said that issues of life, the definition of marriage, and church-state relations were the coming battles of American politics. He's also recently visited Iowa and South Carolina, the states that hold the other two early critical contests in the nominating process.
In North Carolina in March, Sen. George Allen of Virginia addressed the 15th anniversary dinner of the John Locke Foundation, a conservative Raleigh think tank that aggressively promotes free markets. When Allen recruited one of the GOP's top campaign operatives to be his new Senate chief of staff -- Dick Wadhams, who last year managed John Thune's successful campaign to oust Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D. -- most Republican operatives assumed it wasn't solely to help with his 2006 re-election campaign.
In South Carolina in February, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney tested the waters with a speech to party activists in which he touted his fights back home against stem-cell cloning and gay marriage.
If Sen. Rick Santorum, an outspoken opponent of gay rights and abortion, can get past what appears to be a difficult re-election race in Pennsylvania in 2006, he can be expected to make a pitch for the Republican Right's support.
Two others who may be in the hunt on the more moderate side of the spectrum are Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, who would benefit if McCain doesn't run, and New York Gov. George Pataki, who would benefit if Giuliani stays out.
Meanwhile, even some Republicans who until recently had not signaled much interest in the presidency -- Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, for example -- are exploring the possibility of running. A former chairman of the Republican National Committee, Barbour has personal ties to state and local party leaders across the country. A close associate said that when Barbour looked at the Republican field, he wasn't intimidated.
Barbour is not the only Republican to be unimpressed. "How do you stack the lesser-knowns and charisma-challenged up against the likes of Hillary, in spite of her negatives, or John Edwards, to name a couple of Democratic potentials?" asked longtime GOP National Committeeman Steve Roberts of Iowa. "I am not saying all these folks are not capable, just that they are virtually unknown and don't tend to fire people up."
Neither of the party's two early front-runners, McCain and Giuliani, can count on the support of social conservatives, who have a disproportionate influence in the GOP primaries. So, with Jeb Bush unlikely to run and Frist scoring only in single digits in the polls, an ambitious conservative Republican might well see the road to the nomination as none too steep.
Moreover, the lack of an establishment front-runner on the Republican side is probably going to accentuate the importance of retail politics in Iowa, whose process tends to level the playing field among candidates with varying degrees of resources. A GOP establishment favorite can pick up a good many caucus votes because he looks like a winner and a safe choice. But no candidate is likely to be able to play that role in 2008. And for the first time since 1976, when the Republicans began holding Iowa caucuses, no one in the GOP field will have ever competed in the state before.
"People are going to want to see, touch, even pinch candidates before they decide," predicted veteran Iowa GOP stalwart Doug Gross, the party's 2002 gubernatorial nominee.
The Democrats
John Kerry attracted 8 million more votes than Gore had four years earlier, and he raised some $235 million in the 2004 election cycle -- an amount that amazed party leaders and approached the $270 million collected by the Republicans. But when Democrats think about 2008, their 2004 nominee is generally missing from the picture.
"I really haven't heard anybody excited about Kerry running again," said Jerry Messer, director of organizing and political affairs for Local 431 of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union in Davenport, Iowa, and one of organized labor's top operatives in the state. "The senator has got a great voting record and would have made a good president, but I just don't know if he has the personality."
It's been almost 50 years since a presidential candidate who wasn't an incumbent has won his party's nomination twice in a row. Democrat Adlai Stevenson got his party's nod in 1952 and again in 1956, only to be crushed both times by Dwight Eisenhower. The last failed nominee to even try to bounce back immediately was one of the most beloved Democrats of his generation, 1968 standard-bearer Hubert Humphrey. He was blocked by George McGovern in 1972.
These days, anyone who makes it to the fall classic of politics had better win, because, as Kerry must realize by now, party activists are reluctant to give past nominees a do-over in presidential elections. "I think there's just a general belief that [Kerry] had a shot and that the nation is looking for a different kind of leader in '08," said Sheila McGuire Riggs, a former Iowa Democratic Party chairwoman.
Similarly, in the other early battleground for the nomination, New Hampshire, enthusiasm for Kerry has largely evaporated. "Honestly, I don't think anybody has thought much about him," remarked Democratic House Minority Leader Jim Craig. "The feeling is, he had his shot, came close, but I don't think people would be inclined to do that again."
Yet Kerry has seemingly managed the post-defeat chapter of his presidential campaign far better than Gore did. Rather than going away to lick his wounds, Kerry has hosted thank-you events for supporters and called many of them. And unlike Gore, who dropped out of sight for about seven months, Kerry was back at work in the Senate days after Bush's second inauguration, interrogating Condoleezza Rice and voting against her nomination to be secretary of State. In March, Kerry helped lead the unsuccessful fight to continue barring oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. On top of that, Kerry has doled out leftover campaign cash, including more than $2.5 million to party committees and $250,000 to finance the come-from-behind recount that made Christine Gregoire governor of Washington.
Four years ago, a Gallup poll for CNN and USA Today found that by more than a 2-to-1 ratio, rank-and-file Democrats wanted Gore to run again in 2004. Many Democratic professionals, however, doubt that Kerry would get a similar green light if that question were asked today about him. Even some who worked for Kerry in 2004 aren't sure he would be able to reassemble his troops. "My sense is, beyond the Boston crowd, I don't think he's going to have a lot of support," said a former senior operative on Kerry's presidential bid. "I think he's going to be rudely surprised, but the vast majority of money and energy that went into that campaign was anti-Bush. It's going to be a vastly different dynamic in 2008."
Kerry is not without assets that he can bring to bear to try to bolster his standing in the party. For starters, he has a Web site that he branded with millions of campaign advertising dollars and that has some 3 million names on its e-mail lists. If Kerry can raise significant sums for himself and others over the Internet, he might earn new respect. He also has the experience and standing to campaign for fellow Democrats in the 2006 midterm elections. Perhaps most important, Kerry's got to preserve and nurture the political organizations he built in Iowa and New Hampshire. One early indicator of Kerry's potential 2008 strength will be whether key supporters -- especially those in the early states -- stick with him. Sen. Kennedy said recently on ABC's This Week that Kerry is "my man" if he seeks the White House again in 2008.
But former New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, Kerry's 2004 national campaign chair, was much more circumspect when asked at a recent conference on women in politics what she'd do if Kerry asked for her help in making another run. "It's a long time from now until 2008," she replied, according to The Union Leader of Manchester, N.H. Shaheen and her husband, Bill, who publicly signed on with Kerry before the ex-governor did, have a vast political network in the Granite State; the couple is as close as New Hampshire gets to having Democratic kingmakers. "An early bellwether is to see what the Shaheens will do," said Steve Marchand, a Portsmouth City Council member who is a Democratic activist. "If they think he's viable, that's a big factor other people will follow."
In Iowa, where Kerry's unexpected victory in the first-in-the-nation caucuses propelled him to the nomination, state Senate Democratic floor leader Michael Gronstal sees more signs of life in the camp of Kerry's former running mate. "John Edwards has a significant operation here," said Gronstal, who has received "two or three" post-election calls from Edwards, compared with one from Kerry. Gronstal's wife, Connie, recorded a get-out-the-vote message for Kerry last year. Michael Gronstal backed the Massachusetts senator on caucus night, but he's firmly on the sidelines now. "It's not a pretend neutral; it's a really neutral," said Gronstal.
Iowa Democratic consultant Jeff Link, assessing the mood of former Kerry supporters, said, "I don't think there is the energy for a second Kerry run. They may come back to Kerry, but I think they're going to look around first."
During the first week of May, Kerry's advisers say, Kerry will try to ignite interest in his latest cause, health care for poor children [PDF], when he takes a coast-to-coast swing through California, Washington state, Minnesota, Louisiana, Florida, and Boston. In Beantown, he will host a fundraiser for Sen. Clinton's re-election campaign, the second one he's done this year. The six-state swing is funded by Kerry's Keeping America's Promise political action committee. The PAC has set its sights on recruiting 100,000 Democratic volunteers for the 2005 off-year elections and 500,000 for the midterms. "He drew 3,000 people at a town hall meeting in Austin, and folks around the country are very excited about what John Kerry has been doing to promote Democratic values and help Democratic candidates," said Jenny Backus, an adviser to Kerry's PAC. "He is committed to helping Democrats in 2005 and 2006."
Even if Kerry can capture some attention, Sen. Clinton is undoubtedly the potential 2008 contender who is going to get the most looks in Iowa, New Hampshire, and elsewhere. She will be the front-runner unless she takes herself out of the race.
For now, even her modest trips fuel expectations of a White House run. For instance, on April 30, Sen. Clinton is scheduled to address the 100th anniversary dinner of the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland. But before that, she will also attend an election-reform forum in Cleveland with Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, to tout legislation they've introduced to amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to change the rules on provisional balloting. And Clinton will attend a Cleveland fundraiser for her Senate re-election campaign, as well as a VIP reception associated with the forum, which is a ticketed event. "The outreach around this makes one feel like it is already 2008," said Cleveland Central Labor Council Director John Ryan. "Although that's not what these events are about, a lot of the interest in the events is about that and her."
Clinton's national stature dwarfs any potential Democratic rivals, and it hurts Kerry most: As a former nominee, he ought to already loom large in the national consciousness -- but doesn't. A former nominee has name recognition, experience, and vital contacts. Clinton, although she's never personally run for national office, possesses all those advantages and more, having shared her husband's trials and triumphs in the public arena, and having benefited from his legendary networking skills.
"Kerry doesn't get the benefit of the normal assets that the former nominee would have over the next field, because there's somebody else that surpasses him in all those areas," noted Democratic consultant Bill Carrick, who managed presidential campaigns for Ted Kennedy and then-Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri.
"People would flip on a dime for her," said former New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman George Bruno, who backed Bill Clinton in 1992. "She's in a very strong position. And, given the big vacuum that exists in the national Democratic Party leadership, she looms very large."
But "dream" candidates often peak the day they declare. And while her husband can be a huge asset to her campaign -- most presidential-candidate spouses can fill a living room in New Hampshire, but he could pack a gymnasium -- Sen. Clinton can't let voters think that it's a team effort, because that would risk putting her campaign in his shadow. "To distinguish herself as a stand-alone candidate in light of his history and their marriage -- I think that's going to be complicated," a veteran Democratic strategist said.
What's more, Sen. Clinton is the quintessential national lightning rod. If she "calls for them," millions of supporters won't be the only ones who'll come. Ever since her husband stepped onto the national stage, she's been vilified by many on the Right. And her ill-fated effort as first lady to revamp the nation's health care system only added to her enemies. Many Democrats, therefore, wonder how she could possibly win enough Bush territory to recapture the White House.
After back-to-back defeats, many Democrats are fixated on nominating a presidential candidate who can put more states into play in the general election. The 2008 hopeful who seems most able to do that could well emerge from the early jockeying as the anti-Hillary candidate. The competition to be Clinton's chief rival is likely to favor moderates, although her Senate record, as National Journal's ratings show, is far more moderate than her liberal reputation would indicate.
Could the un-Hillary be Edwards? Having run last time "gives Senator Edwards an advantage -- having people who know him, know his style, know his issues, and are passionately committed to getting him elected," said New Hampshire Democratic activist Jim Demers. Edwards, who no longer has to deal with roll-call votes and committee markups, has plenty of time to nurture those troops. But one of Edwards's problems in 2004 was the perception that he lacked gravitas. It's hard to see how he closes the gravitas gap while out of office.
The Democratic contest could be a three-layer cake, with a rock-star front-runner (Sen. Clinton) at the top, followed by the two men on the party's 2004 ticket, and the rest of the field starting, literally, at the bottom. The advantage of being in the third group -- to the extent there is one -- is that Democratic primary voters seem to be drawn to fresh faces.
"There is a very strong argument to be made that the front-runner and the 2004 gang will be seen as the past, and others can argue that they are the future," said veteran Democratic media consultant Anita Dunn, an adviser to Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana. If the two-term senator seeks the presidency, expect to hear a lot about his two terms as governor of a very red state.
Govs. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois, Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, and Tom Vilsack of Iowa can also tout their executive experience. And that may be more important to rank-and-file primary voters than the fact that they govern blue states.
Democratic activists, on the other hand, are likely to be impressed by the political skills that being a red-state governor implies. Red-state Govs. Bill Richardson of New Mexico and Mark Warner of Virginia would bring vastly different resumes to the 2008 race: Richardson's highlights his time in Congress, as ambassador to the United Nations, and in the Clinton Cabinet as Energy secretary. Plus, Richardson is Hispanic, making him part of the nation's fastest-growing minority group. The experience of Warner, who would argue that he'd make the party competitive in the South, is largely in business.
After three decades in Washington, Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware might have a harder time looking fresh, but those years seem to have given him the self-assurance to speak with McCain-like candor.
Retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark might also get another look. The more experience he got on the campaign trail in 2004, the better Clark became. And his Vietnam War service is unlikely to spark the controversy that Kerry's did.
And for real experience, Gore's two terms as vice president give him unique qualifications. Just imagine a debate in which Gore turned to Hillary Clinton and said, "While you were in the family quarters -- "
But in the end, Hillary Clinton might be able to defeat any un-Hillary, Democratic or Republican. There's a growing sentiment among Republicans that their party will be up against her in 2008 and that she won't be easy to keep out of the Oval Office. "She projects strength and the capacity to run the country, to pick smart people, to know when to compromise. Those are things that the last few years have proven to me she can do," said GOP Rep. Cole. "I don't see any of our guys who could beat her -- at least not today." |
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| To: LindyBill who wrote (111716) | 4/29/2005 9:35:00 AM | | From: Lane3 | | | | >>A few MSM outlets made this point. The Wall Street Journal reported, "Under his proposal to adjust benefit levels, low-income workers would continue, as they do under current law, to have their initial retirement benefits linked to the growth ofwages in the economy. But the wealthiest seniors would have their initial benefits tied to price inflation, which generally rises more slowly than wages."<<
I wonder where they got this from. It sure wasn't in the speech. Bush didn't say how he was proposing to change projected benefits.
>>So I propose a Social Security system in the future where benefits for low-income workers will grow faster than benefits for people who are better off.<< |
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| To: Lane3 who wrote (111722) | 4/29/2005 9:36:36 AM | | From: Lane3 | | | | The President's Preemptive Strike
By Lisa de Moraes
Post
Friday, April 29, 2005; C03
One by one the broadcast networks caved yesterday and agreed to preempt the first night of the May ratings race to make way for President Bush's non-news conference, after ".'Sopranos'-style arm-twisting" by the White House, as one network suit described it.
Here's how it went down:
On Tuesday, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found President Bush's approval rating is at an all-time low of 47 percent, owing no doubt to some combination of a) still no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, b) 60-day tour pitching Social Security "privatization" a bust, c) attempt to use Terri Schiavo for political gain backfired, d) nomination of John "Yosemite Sam" Bolton for U.N. ambassador turning into long nightmare, e) key House ally under attack for alleged ethical improprieties.
What's a president to do?
Hey, here's a great idea! Call a "news" conference for the first night of the May sweeps. That way, tens of millions of hardworking people who had been looking forward to putting up their feet and watching an original episode of their favorite show will instead see the president with his concerned face on, talking about how much he cares about soaring gas prices even if there is very little he can do about it immediately.
And schedule the news conference for 8:30 p.m. so that it doesn't just preempt CBS's "Survivor" but CBS's "C.S.I." as well. And not just NBC's "Will & Grace" and "Joey" (guest-starring Carmen Electra!) but "The Apprentice." Not to mention Fox's "The O.C."
Broadcast networks got word on Wednesday around 7 p.m. that the White House planned to throw a news conference last night.
Fortunately, though Bush runs the country, wiser men run the broadcast networks men who know what it means to preempt "Survivor," "C.S.I." and "The O.C."
So early yesterday, ABC was the only broadcast network that planned to carry the president's show. Viewers could, of course, also catch Bush on CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, CNN Headline News and PBS.
You should know that ABC, as a rule, can't get arrested on Thursday nights. It already had nuked its prime-time lineup for Thursday and planned to air the flick "Sweet Home Alabama" followed by "Primetime Live."
ABC generally does so badly on Thursday nights, that being able to wipe one off its books might be seen as a sort of gift. (A presidential news conference and the post- and pre-show blather usually run without advertising, so the ratings are not included in the network's averages).
CBS and Fox, on the other hand, are locked in a death match for first place among the 18- to 49-year-olds advertisers covet. Fox has never won a TV season among that demographic in its 18-year history. CBS hasn't won a TV season in the demo since the 1980s. Thursday night is huge for CBS, and "The O.C." isn't chicken feed for Fox either.
NBC is hurting on Thursdays now that "Friends" is gone, but it's still a major night for the network.
"Solidarity" was the word of the day at the three networks.
But six networks just weren't enough for the president's program. So the White House started in with the "Sopranos" stuff, as that network suit described it.
First NBC, which, according to TV industry sources, said it would consider carrying the president's chit-chat with reporters if it started at 8 so the network didn't have to preempt both its 8-9 p.m. sitcom block and "The Apprentice."
The White House agreed, and soon the cable news networks were reporting: "Just moments ago we learned that the press conference was moved from 8:30 to 8 due to complications of network programming," as Suzanne Malveaux told Wolf Blitzer on CNN.
Thus can it be said that Donald Trump forced the president of the United States to reschedule an address to the nation. Way to go, Donald!
Fox caved around 4 p.m., leaving CBS, which went down around 6.
We called the White House press office to ask why they changed the show start to 8 p.m.
Press Secretary Scott McClellan said, "We were in touch with some networks and starting on the hour was more accommodating, so we decided to move to 8."
We told McClellan that we thought it was extremely brave of the White House to risk incurring the wrath of "Survivor," "C.S.I." and "The Apprentice" fans, not to mention "The O.C." fans," to hold a news conference that's an attempt to increase the president's approval rating. McClellan laughed and said he didn't know what shows were on, but he also said, "We want to reach the largest audience."
"We have caved," one network suit reported sorrowfully late yesterday, referring to the broadcasters collectively.
And if the White House is hoping this news conference will win Bush back some fans, don't count on fans of the preempted shows.
"Wanna know how you can get those poll numbers up, Mr. President? Don't schedule a press conference during 'Survivor,' 'CSI' and 'The Apprentice,'." wrote one skeptic on the Web site DamianPenny.com. An "O.C." fan observed on that show's Web site: "He started the war in Iraq which was totally wrong, caters to big business ..... , lets big corporations pollute our air & water, but the worst thing he could ever do is pre-empt The OC!"
But here's our favorite part of this story. The president of the United States scheduled his show during TV-Turnoff Week, the one week of the year when the well-meaning folks at the Washington-based TV-Turnoff Network ask people to turn off their sets and spend more time doing something else.
We asked TV-Turnoff Network Executive Director Frank Vespe if the timing of the president's show wasn't unfortunate for his movement.
"It sort of is, particularly because he's spoken many times, and the first lady, too, about the benefits of turning off the TV," he replied.
We asked McClellan if it wasn't unfortunate that the White House had scheduled this event during TV-Turnoff Week, when this nation of obese people was being encouraged to read a book, ride a bike or spend quality time talking to their family members instead of sitting in front of the set.
"All worthwhile endeavors, but I think listening to the president of the United States is as well," he answered.
CBS and NBC cut out about four minutes before the president stopped taking questions, to get their talking-heads commentary done in time for the start of "Survivor" and "The Apprentice" at 9. Fox cut out a couple of minutes later, but ABC stuck with the president till the bitter end.
Finally after CBS and NBC had already cut him off Bush acknowledged what was going on. He said he would take one more question, quipping, "I don't want to cut into some of the TV shows getting ready to air for the sake of the economy." The White House press corps twittered.
Thinking of the lost ad revenues, one network exec retorted to The TV Column: "He took tens of millions out of the economy tonight." |
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| From: LindyBill | 4/29/2005 9:41:54 AM | | | | | | The Vulcan Mind-Meld
belmontclub.blogspot.com
Techdirt has a story on a concept called 'Napster' for news which describes a trend in which individuals have become to reporters as bloggers were to newspaper pundits.
With bloggers getting press passes, citizen journalists creating ambitious open source news networks, and Wikimedia trying their hand at news, newspapers are running scared. Instead of trying to squeeze money from these flailing members, Scripps general manager and editorial director propose that the Associated Press reinvent itself as a digital co-op, a sort of "Napster" for news.
One example it cites is Now Public, where ordinary guys file news and video stories: click a button to "email in footage" it says: and why not you? What has made this possible is widespread Internet connectivity and the availability of cheap consumer video cameras. Readers may recall how the really spectacular footage of the tsunami which swept the Indian was provided by tourists who happened to have been at the disaster sites. That demonstrated how anyone at the site of breaking news could become an instant correspondent. Now Public emphasizes video and has a surprisingly wide collection of stories. Many of those filed from the Middle East focus on the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. And did you know that Scott Ritter predicts a US attack on Iran in June 2005?
While professional journalists may be tempted to poke fun at these early efforts the quantity of these observer-provided stories is likely to grow and its quality likely to improve. The sheer volume of information that will become available is going to make the world both more and less opaque. More opaque because the relatively simple plot lines provided by the mainstream media will be replaced by a flood of filings telling literally all sides of story. Whereas one used to be able to "understand the world" by reading the New York Times lead and grooving into the standard world view, no such simple, consolidated tales will be served up by the oncoming news avalanche. There will be no suggestive lead, no magisterial peroration, no drastic simplification. Instead there will be detail in mind-boggling abundance. The good news is that the world will become more transparent to anyone with the tools and services needed to sift through that deluge of information. The existence of so much collateral information will make it very difficult to lie on any scale. It will be possible to "know" something about an event in detail inconceivable a decade ago. There will never again be a new Walter Duranty who can foist a fraud on a reading public for any length of time from the vantage of privileged access. In short, the world threatens to become a news reader's nightmare and an intelligence analyst's paradise.
The choice of the phrase 'Napster' for news to describe the ways information will flow between these decentralized nodes is extremely apt. When individual nodes are able to transfer information in a peer-to-peer fashion to any other node perception will propagate at rates never before seen. Original presence at an event will be as definite a concept as original music CDs in this age of digital reproduction. It will make the stock phrase "you are there" almost literally true. This surfeit of raw information will overwhelm even the most avid information consumer and will probably spur a demand for aggregation and analysis services of various kinds. Perhaps readers will clamor for the return of Walter Durantys to reinterpret the world in ways that they prefer. Illusion always gave the truth a run for its money. Information, like freedom, is a burden sometimes too great to endure. |
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| From: LindyBill | 4/29/2005 9:48:40 AM | | | | | | Thousands of illegals obtained drivers licenses the old-fashioned way--they found the right person and bribed them
Feds claim thousands got licenses via bribes
No visible terrorist ties: A Florida case leads to 52 arrests; it follows similar ones this week in both Michigan and Maryland
By Lara Jakes Jordan
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Thousands of undocumented immigrants have obtained driver licenses in three states, federal authorities said Thursday, highlighting a security hole that the Sept. 11 hijackers exploited.
Three employees of Florida's motor vehicles agency were among 52 people arrested in a bribery scam that put driver licenses in the hands of at least 2,000 undocumented immigrants, officials said. The case, announced Thursday, follows similar arrests in Michigan and Maryland over the past week.
''With a valid driver's license, you establish an identity,'' said Michael Garcia, assistant secretary of the Homeland Security Department.
He said the cases do not appear to be related and there was no evidence of any terrorist connection.
''What we're looking at is the vulnerability and potential here, and we want to make sure that avenue isn't open to criminals or people posing a threat to our national security,'' he said.
Eighteen of the 19 hijackers involved in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, had valid driver licenses or state-issued identification cards. At least one of those hijackers was in the United States illegally.
Nine of the 19 had Florida driver licenses; three had ID cards issued by the state.
Obtaining driver licenses was a priority for the hijackers, said Janice Kephart, counsel to the Sept. 11 commission and an expert on immigration and border security issues. ''The object was to appear legitimate,'' Kephart said.
So far, 58 people face charges in the three license-for-cash cases. They include:
l An employee at Michigan's secretary of state office who was arrested April 20 with two accomplices from Guinea and Iraq on charges of selling hundreds of driver licenses and other ID documents to illegal immigrants in suburban Detroit. The employee, who issued the licenses, allegedly accepted as little as $25 for allowing applicants to skip a mandatory written driver test. She has been suspended without pay.
l A worker at Maryland's Motor Vehicle Administration and two partners who were arrested April 22. They allegedly charged more than $1,000 to provide driver licenses or ID cards to about 150 illegal immigrants and other applicants without requiring proof of identity or citizenship.
l In the Florida case, 23 people were charged with criminal fraud and an additional 29 people taken into custody on immigration violations. Of the more than 2,000 licenses issued, 36 were for commercial drivers to operate trucks, and about six to transport hazardous materials, officials said.
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