Ted Stevens gets comeuppance; "We're All Journalists Now"

Meant to post this yesterday, but again had some problems with my Bell South Internet connection.

Just wanted to give you a head's-up on this unusually unbiased essay in the LA Times on shifting definitions of "reporter" in a changing environment for purposes of a shield law, which I'm against.
The definition at the heart of the Scott Gantt essay is actually the same one that the Justice Dept. has been using for a while, since I've gotten emails to this effect from different people on different issues.

Also wanted to share some thoughts with you regarding the jerk who finally got his long overdue comeuppance (and arrested), Sen. Ted Stevens.
I suspect everyone outside of The Beltway who didn't know anything about him other than "The Bridge to Nowhere," are about to find out more than they ever wanted to know about this career pol with the five-finger di$count policy for Ala$ka.

To wit, now that he is walking the plank, and also faces a tough election, lots of people who've crossed paths with him in the past may finally have the moral backbone to tell anecdotes that explain why he is something I've known for quite some time: easily one of the five most detested pols in all of Washington.


(His Democratic opponent is popular Anchorage mayor, Mark Begich,

see http://www.muni.org/mayor/mayor.cfm and http://begich.com/

One of my uncles was a school teacher in Nome during the 1960's before returning to Bandera.)


Based on my own 15 years in DC, thousands and thousands of hours on the Hill, being friends with staffers who were both very conservative YAF-type Republicans and way-out Cali liberals, and based on actually seeing him in action, in person at hearings, as well as away from the Hill,
frequently lashing out at people where nobody could see, I'd say that Stevens is going to find that the people he went out of his way to be unkind to, to screw with, on a personal level, will relish the opportunity to see him squirm like a bug as DOJ goes for the career kill-shot.
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/s000888/

In part, this is because just like a 'big-for-his-age' fourteen-year old, who's constantly "acting up," he's also got the knack down for always looking to provoke a fight with people, regardless of the issue or who they are. He just likes to have his anger fed.

That's just a part part of why he is so loathed, regardless of the phony photo ops he's staged with his colleagues. It's a facade!

If he hadn't been around when Alaska first became a state, it's hard to imagine someone with his personality getting elected, since he'd never have been able to sustain the normal equality-based relationships you need to move up to the U.S. Senate.
Instead, Stevens simply started at the top and stayed there by hook -or by crook!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f99PcP0aFNE

People who deal with Sen. Thad Cochran might think he's a bit of an effete phony, or that former Sen. Connie Mack (and his staff) weren't exactly known for being the hardest workers in the world, but they don't necessarily think they're personally a jerk because of it.
Frankly, they just think it's Mississippi and Florida's problem!

They just are what they are, and if you want to be effective, you don't let his personality interfere with your becoming a co-sponsor of his bill if you actually support what it aims to do -or prevent.
The same can't be said of Ted Stevens.

Stevens was known by lots of people I knew in D.C. as a guy who, sadly, always seemed to be looking to screw with people who didn't do what he wanted, now or in the distant past.
To settle old scores or perceived slights.
You'd think that by the time someone has been in power as long as Stevens has been, that he'd have come to accept that on some issues, people are just going to vote their conscience, you know, no matter how effectively he wheedles, threatens or cajoles.
His 'good old days,' where he could put the screws to people, is about to turn upside down on Stevens.

When I first moved to the Washington, D.C. area twenty years ago, I became a big admirer of the late Sen. John Heinz III.
I got to know him and his staff pretty well because of the issues that I was working on at the time, which necessitated lots of time in and around the Senate Banking Committee and its various subcommittees.
(See http://www.library.cmu.edu/Research/Archives/Heinz/HJH_Bio.html and
http://banking.senate.gov/public/ )

Back when Donald Riegel of Michigan was the committee chairman, the Banking Committee's coed softball team nickname was The Bank Robbers, and Riegel would actually come to their games on The Mall, not just his own office's softball games.
People really notice little things like that, you know?
I know I certainly did.

(See http://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/rev_summary.php?id=15869 and
http://www.apcoworldwide.com/content/locations/keystaffbio.cfm?ksid=140&cid=1&ofid=5&iac_ks_id=18 )

The Sen. Heinz I saw and spent time with was personable, funny and thoughtful in a way that very few folks on the Hill were, esp. Members of the House or Senate.
In particular, I recall that he didn't like to see people taken advantage of, regardless of whether it was by Senate staffers, other Senators or agency bureaucrats defying people to call their bluff.
I could tell you a few stories about some things he did anonymously for people in real trouble,
including non-constituents, both because he cared and because he could.

Hard as it may be to believe, when I was actually around him and his staff, I'd often forget how absurdly rich he was, because his personality was, from my experiences, so selfless in ways that were just so damn admirable, almost like a throwback to an era that only exists in Frank Capra's great films, but which we want to believe really did once exist.

Though it sounds odd, I know, since he was like 25 years older than me, I sometimes thought to myself as I watched him, 'Boy, his parents really did a great job raising him.'
But it was true.

One of my first housemates in Arlington was a student protege of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone
when he'd been a prof at Carleton College, and used to talk about him quite a bit before Wellstone decided to run for the Senate as the ultimate underdog candidate in 1990, traveling around the state in his campaign's school bus.
He shocked everyone when he defeated multi-millionaire incumbent Rudy Boschwitz.

I mention this anecdote only because even more so than was the case with the Paul Wellstone aviation accident in 2002 -made all the worse because his wife and daughter also perished- the air accident that claimed Sen. Heinz in 1991 really hit people on the Hill very hard, me included, because he'd been around for so much longer.

I honestly thought that at some point in the future, he was probably going to be the first Republican I ever cast a presidential vote for. Instead, that was Bush 43 in 2004.

For most of the first five years I was up in DC, I always got my hair cut over in the Senate Barber Shop, in part for the great atmosphere and in part for the amazing level of gossip one could hear there when Members weren't around.

Then as now, it attracted not just Senate staffers, but also the sort of blue collar (for D.C.) folks who always felt some sense of class alienation when they were on The Hill, despite working there.
That included lots of employees from the huge Capitol Architect's office, the craftsmen and trade professionals, Capitol Police, et al, who make everything work smoothly at the Capitol and in the Senate buildings. In other words, the institutional memory of The Hill!
Despite his immense wealth, most of these guys felt Sen. Heinz was a 'regular guy,' just as they did our own Sen. Lawton Chiles.

(Sen. Chiles was a man I first met and campaigned with while walking door-to-door with in my hometown of North Miami Beach in 1976, his first re-election bid, trailed by a Channel 7 cameraman, just waiting for a great shot of some voter being shocked to open their door and See Sen. Chiles going door-to-door.
I'll have a lot to say about Sen. Chiles in future posts.)

Some people are just likable, even if they're politicians.
The opposite end of the emotional spectrum was where you'd find their feelings toward cocky and embittered Ted Stevens.

To me, Stevens always seemed like one of those stock character actors in a late '40's Western, who get themself killed about half-way thru a film, largely because they simply couldn't follow the rules or keep their nasty disposition in check.
So, they die a stupid or painful death because someone in charge decided they can't put up with it anymore, and need to "send a message" to everyone else on the trip west.

In the sad days and weeks after Sen. Heinz's death, more than a few well-informed folks I spoke to said, sotto voce, variations of the following:
"Why couldn't it have been that prick Stevens who died?"


I'll never forget that the first time this sentiment was expressed to me was over breakfast at a wonderful restaurant, Au Pied De Cochon in Georgetown, one of my favorite places to relax and unwind in D.C., esp, on Spring and Fall Sundays.
If you're ever up in Washington when the weather is nice, grab a seat halfway between the front door and the bar, you'll know exactly what I mean.
It's located at 1335 Wisconsin Avenue, and is open 24 hours a day, which is very handy when you have writer's block at 2 a.m., as has happened to yours truly a time or two.

(Also on the list of detested D.C. pols, esp. by their former staffers: Leon Panetta, Joe Lieberman and John Kerry, who as everyone knows, married Sen Heinz's widow, Teresa.)

When you (finally) start hearing negative personal stories about Ted Stevens bubbling up thru the media, disregard your usual caution and remember this post of mine, and consider them almost 100% likely true.

The worm is definitely turning on Senator Ted Stevens.
Few deserve it more.
Mieux tard que jamais!
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Los Angeles Times
Who's a journalist?
The proposed federal law to protect reporters and their sources draws a tenuous line between bloggers and professionals.
By Scott Gant
July 28, 2008

As the August recess for Congress fast approaches, supporters of a federal shield law for journalists are pressing for a vote on the Senate floor. A version of the bill, called the Free Flow of Information Act, passed in the House 398 to 21 in October, and now Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has promised to take it up before lawmakers leave Washington for the rest of the summer.

Shield laws protect journalists from having to turn over certain information to courts -- such as the identity of a source, story notes or documents. Advocates contend that safeguarding journalists and their sources ensures that the public has access to the information it needs to watch over the government, powerful corporations and other important social institutions. Forty-nine states and the District of Columbia protect some journalists through such laws or court rulings.

For the rest of the story, see
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-oe-gant28-2008jul28,0,5230339.story

Scott Gant is a Partner in Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP's Washington office, whose practice includes constitutional law, wrote "We're All Journalists Now: The Transformation of the Press and Reshaping of the Law in the Internet Age."
Also see http://www.bsfllp.com/lawyers/data/0055