Megan McArdle's remarkable new book proves what we all know inherently about the U.S. identity -and which Michael Barone conveniently reminds us of: Americans learn to succeed by learning from failure; perseverance and motivation matters; @MichaelBarone, @asymmetricinfo

Megan McArdle's remarkable new book proves what we all know inherently about the U.S. identity -and which Michael Barone conveniently reminds us of: Americans learn to succeed by learning from failure; perseverance and motivation matters; @MichaelBarone, @asymmetricinfo

My mother sent me an interesting email this morning from Central Florida about author Megan McArdle's new book because she heard her interviewed today on the Diane Rehm Show, which as I've mentioned many times here previously, I listened to every weekday for 15 years when I lived and worked in the Washington D.C. area from 1988-2003, but less so since returning to South Florida 10 years ago.
When I read her email, I recalled that Michael Barone had written something positive about it recently, below.

Many years ago, probably the late '90's, there was a huge storefront window display on the ground floor of a large office bldg. on K Street & 15th in Washington where a client I did work for frequently had an office.
It's the Southern Railway Building in the Federal Triangle area of D.C. 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/5176785130/ 

It featured some red, white and blue bunting and had numerous photos of Abraham Lincoln -whom I'm distantly related to via the Holmes family- and consisted of a list of the number of times that Lincoln ran for elective office -and lost.
Lost over-and-over and then some.
But he kept persevering -and he learned from his mistakes.

Wish I'd had both a top-quality camera and a blog back then, so I could share the photos of that display with you here!

You can hear Megan McArdle discuss her book here:
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2014-02-17/megan-mcardle-side-down

Americans learn to succeed by learning from failure http://t.co/ihAxHaqGk8
— Michael Barone (@MichaelBarone) February 5, 2014

Washington Examiner
POLICY: ECONOMY
Americans learn to succeed by learning from failure
BY MICHAEL BARONE 
FEBRUARY 5, 2014 AT 5:00 PM

America succeeds because Americans fail and forgive. That's the intriguing message -- or part of it -- of Megan McArdle's new book The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success.

McArdle, a Bloomberg blogger and columnist, stands out among economic writers, and not just because she’s the only woman among them who is 6-foot-2. She combines a shrewd knowledge of economics and practical experience with a writing style that every so often segues into comedy monologue.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/americans-learn-to-succeed-by-learning-from-failure/article/2543527

More from Megan McArdle at @asymmetricinfo:
https://twitter.com/asymmetricinfo

You also might want to check out one of my all-time favorite books, The Corporate Steeplechase: Predictable Crises in a Business Career by Srully Blotnick, from 1984.
More insight into business, human behavior and personality types than you'll read just about anywhere.
http://www.amazon.com/Corporate-Steeplechase-Predictable-Crises-Business/dp/0871968401/ref=la_B001HOF9T0_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1392663618&sr=1-4

Liberty's Kids: A sub-tropical Fourth of July spent reminiscing on how our country came to be

Through My Own Eyes (Liberty's Kid's opening theme)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBF9XEsnvJI

Aaron Carter & Kayla Hinkle - Through My Own Eyes (Liberty's Kid's opening theme)

Performed July 4th, 2002 on the West lawn of the U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C. for PBS-TV's

annual broadcast of "A Capitol Fourth" concert, featuring The National Symphony Orchestra. Introduced By Barry Bostwick

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT0gB7hIwrs

These concerts on The Mall are one of the things that I miss most about no longer living in the Washington area, besides my friends, of course, not to mention, riding the Metro, visiting the Smithsonian museums, the Orioles, riding my bike along the Potomac, the four seasons and the sense of being somewhere where things are always happening.
(Teaser Alert: things are NOT always happening in Hallandale Beach, Florida.)

Tonight's concert, hosted by actor Jimmy Smits, begins at 8 p.m. with a repeat on most PBS stations at 9:30. http://www.pbs.org/capitolfourth/

In my blog post three months ago ago about the the rather lighthearted graphic novel comic book on Prince William and Kate Middleton that aimed to explain their back-story, the very first thing that hit me as I looked at the illustrations was how much they reminded me EXACTLY of the way the characters in Liberty's Kids were depicted, the children's TV series on Revolutionary America that ran on the PBS affiliate in Washington, D.C.

http://www.markosia.com/wordpress/

One of my neighbor's kids in Arlington County used to watch Liberty's Kids all the time when I was over at her house visiting her folks,

She was surprised to learn that her cool neighbor who had so many magazines delivered to his house and who was the resident Orioles expert on the block, ALSO knew a lot about about American history, and I lent her some copies of some good history books, including a comparison of the American, French and Russian revolutions.

Years later, she got into UVA, the University of Virgina, Mr. Jefferson's school, where the second-oldest of my three niece has just finished her freshman year.

Plus, up there, as opposed to South Florida, they used to run Liberty's Kids marathons from alpha-to-omega.

The best episode I saw was the one on Ceasar Rodney, someone I've mentioned here in the blog a time or two, since though he's almost completely forgotten today, even among otherwise intelligent people, the truth is, without Rodney, there's no American Constitution.

Period.

http://www.libertyskids.com/

Above, Hallandale Beach, Florida, U.S.A. June 20, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

If you are going to be around the house or driving around this morning, might I suggest that you give a listen to someone whom I used to listen to every weekday for over 20 years?

This morning, from 10-Noon, NPR's Diane Rehm Show will be airing encrore performances of two of my favorite American historians, both Pulitzer Prize winners.

At 10:06 am. Gordon Wood will discuss his collected essays on the primacy of the American Revolution in American history, "The Idea of America."

I've read many of his books in the past and even given one as a gift to a friend while up in D.C.

At 11:06 a.m., David McCullough, whom I've discussed here before, speaks on his book about 19th Century Americans with a yen for travel in la France in "The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris."

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-07-04/gordon-wood-idea-america-rebroadcast

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-07-04/david-mccullough-greater-journey-americans-paris-rebroadcast

United We Stand

1993 ELVIS PRESLEY STAMP -WATERCOLOR OF ELVIS BY MARK STUTZMAMN

Below, a wonderful song my great friend (and gifted singer) Shannon and I used to love to sing together in her apt. in D.C.

But, of course, nobody could sing it quite like Elvis...

Elvis Presley - An American Trilogy (from ELVIS Aloha from Hawaii, January,1973)

http://youtu.be/m9saX9cF248

The predicate for Obama's foreign policy in Libya of multi-lateral 'Meals on wheels -with guns' - President Reticent

The Daily Show - Odyssey Dawn - Unconstitutional War
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Comedy Central video: Daily Show host Jon Stewart discusses the bombing in Libya with Aasif Mandvi and muse over President Obama's efforts to proceed without Sen. Richard Lugar's say-so.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-march-21-2011/odyssey-dawn---unconstitutional-war


Stanley Kurtz recounts the role of present-day National Security Council advisor Samantha Power on Candidate Obama in the National Review Online, and how we now have gotten to the present point where our foreign policy seems to include what I can only call "Meals on wheels -with guns."
But it's likely that the Irish-born Power, given her own background, probably doesn't know too many of the delivery drivers -the instruments of that policy she has helped formulate.

My guess is that Power probably doesn't care that many of the military personnel involved there DON'T KNOW why they are there, how long they'll be there, or even how they'll even know whether or not they are successful in their mission.
Seems like I recall someone once saying THAT sort of situation would never ever exist if he were in charge.

I guess Power will just email them the details later, after she's gotten a bite to eat after work, since she's clearly a 'Big Picture' woman who doesn't want to get bogged down in the minutia.

And when are we going to hear what George Clooney thinks after Obama has ignored what's taken place in The Sudan?



ABC News video: George Clooney Hopes Satellites Will Shed Light on Sudan, January 2, 2011.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/george-clooney-hopes-satellites-shed-light-sudan/story?id=12523421

Stanley Kurtz's closer is classic:

As with health care, Obama’s talk isn’t working because he cannot afford to specify broader ideological motivations he knows the public won’t buy.

Precisely!


National Review Online
President Reticent
By Stanley Kurtz
March 22, 2011 10:26 A.M.

Obama doesn’t tell you what he’s thinking. He keeps his motives to himself. Cherished long-term ideological goals are advanced as pragmatic fixes to concrete problems in the present. Now we’re seeing the familiar domestic pattern in foreign policy as well.

Few Americans realize that Obama has had a longstanding interest in multilateral efforts to combat war crimes and genocide. Obama would like to see a more constraining international legal regime on war crimes, even at the cost of national sovereignty, not to mention the blood and treasure of the countries doing the enforcing.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/262725/president-reticent-stanley-kurtz

Meanwhile, almost nine years ago...
Audio of Samantha Power discussing her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "A Problem From Hell" on NPR/WAMU-FM's Diane Rehm Show, March 27, 2002
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2002-03-27/samantha-power-problem-hell-basic

Audio of Power on NPR's Fresh Air, which I heard at the time, June 5, 2003, when I was still living up in the Washington area:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1287149

Fort Wayne Journal Gazette
Lugar calls for debate on U.S. role in Libya

Brian Francisco, Washington editor

March 22, 2011 3:00 a.m.
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20110322/NEWS04/303229937

re 6/6/10 MondayNote.com: Mediocrity is king; Katharine Weymouth and the Future of Newspapers on NPR's Diane Rehm Show at 11 a.m.

Came across this excellent piece of analysis at MondayNote.com while looking for something else. Isn't that the way it always goes late on Sunday nights?

http://www.mondaynote.com/2010/06/06/mediocrity-is-king/

Mediocrity is king

June 6, 2010 - 9:37 pm |
Edited by Frédéric Filloux

My favorite excerpt from above: By allowing such a degradation in its premium advertising space (a home page is supposed to be just that), the HuffPo acknowledges that its content is, in fact, cheap. It therefore admits that volume, rather than targeting or relevance, drives the value of its content.

Of course, I like that because it tends to correspond to my intuition about the HuffPo, but... on the other hand, I actually read Arianna's book on Picasso when it first came out over 20 years ago, when she had a very different persona.

FYI: On NPR's Diane Rehm Show on Monday at 11 a.m.
Katharine Weymouth and the Future of Newspapers

Her great-grandfather bought the Washington Post during the Great Depression. Her grandmother brought it to prominence during Watergate. Katharine Weymouth on the challenges she faces as publisher of the paper in the digital age.

You also may want to check out this Aspen Institute event at FORA.tv/
Washington Post CEO Katharine Weymouth on Future of News
http://fora.tv/2008/11/24/Washington_Post_CEO_Katharine_Weymouth_on_Future_of_News#chapter_02

Debbie Wasserman Schultz puts politics above public safety? Yes.

I've watched with curious fascination the last week or so,

as South Florida's print and electronic media have actually

had to report some negative news about someone they're

usually so starstruck of and quick to praise, whether it's

deserved or not, whom I personally find loathsome in the

extreme.

No, not Rep. Kendrick Meek, though he's on that list,

but Pembroke Pines-based U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman

Schultz, a.k.a. DWS.

You know, the strident know-it-all who actually represents

the nice parts of Hallandale Beach east of U.S.-1,

the expensive condo towers on A1A -so many of which

are empty- and the water-side homes with boats,

while poor ol' Liberty City-based Kendrick Meek gets

the rest of the city, the part that falls into the Hallandale

Beach CRA district.

The part that the city officially considers the blighted part,

which includes HB City Hall, which is more ironic than you

know.

You could almost hear the disbelief dripping from the

TV anchors words lips as they actually say that

well-respected national medical experts actually think

her latest attempt to make the personal political,

is a foolish and poorly-thought out exercise, which also

has the bad luck to be a huge waste of money that will

only encourage fear among those with less to fear than

fear itself.

Not that DWS really cares, since the South Florida

media is so easily cowed and manipulated, and fearful

of her office putting them on their Do Not Call list.

Lee Francis of the BPB New Times' The Juice

blog wrote a good piece on Wednesday about this,

for a moment at least, upside-down world, where

she doesn't get the last word.

And yes, I felt the need to add my well-informed

two cents, as you can see for yourself, though this

latest fandango of hers is but the tip-of-the-iceberg

on my list reasons for viscerally disliking and

objecting to DWS and what she represents.

More below.

Wasserman Schultz Pummeled in Press

http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/juice/2009/04/wasserman_schultz_bad_press.php#comments

In his story, he links to the following:

Weston lawmaker's cancer legislation faces criticism

by Lesley Clark

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/southflorida/story/994926.html

Those wanting some much-needed critical perspective on South Florida media darling DWS, please see Pennsylvania Avenue: Profiles in Backroom Power: Making Washington Work Again by John Harwood, chief Washington correspondent for CNBC; reporter, The New York Times, and Jerry Seib, Washington bureau chief, The Wall Street Journal.

See Chapter 6 titled The Fundraising-Phenom Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
You can also do a Look Inside at www.amazon.com/ and find lots of interesting items, too.

It's telling that in the year 2009, a real nobody from a non-competitive CD, someone with little positive impact on important national public policy issues, can be so important in Congress -a Cardinal- and SO popular on cable TV, esp. MSNBC, which is in love with her.

And yet this power comes almost entirely from her ability to generate campaign funds from well-heeled Jewish donors in South Florida, and around the country, where she's flown around as part of 'dog and pony' fundraisers to get Jewish donors in those CDs to give to their local Dem incumbent or nominee.

After I moved down here from the Washington area, friends of mine, many of whom had been Capitol Hill staffers or media folks who also moved across the country, often sent me emails about or with copies of the very sorts of fundraiser invites I just described, which they or their freinds had received or heard about.

Since they are largely moderate, fair-minded DLC-types, which is to say, more interested in actual solutions to problems instead of exploiting an issue largely for campaign purposes -along the lines of the DWS, Rahm Emauel and Robert Wexler School of Political Management- most of them share my p.o.v. towards DWS, though to be fair, I dislike her more than any of them because she's so embarrassingly transparent.

No Democrat comforts the affluent check-writers like DWS.

Trust me, nobody in Congress bases their own decision on how to vote on an issue based on what someone like DWS thinks, the same way they once might've done with Lee Hamilton, my former Congressman in Bloomington, and the former Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee after Miami's own Dante Facell, whose CD I lived in when I'd come home for the summer from IU.

I was present and accounted for during what seemed like hundreds of full committe andEurope Subcommittee hearings they chaired over the years I was there, which is why I knew all the committee staffers and became friends with some them, as well as LAs who worked for Comm. members.

Lee Hamilton earned that broad respect because of his intelligence, collegiality and work-ethic, best exemplified by the fact that he stayed in broiling D.C., working even during the 1992 Democratic National Convention, when lots of smart and savvy people were encouraging Bill Clinton to select Hamilton as VP, not Sen. Al Gore.

(I know that because I talked to him in the Rayburn bldg. hallway that very week, surprised to run into him, given what was happening.)

This book has an entire chapter on DWS and her ethics, overwhelming personal ambition and fundraising prowess, is a book that garnered good to very good reviews, had a national media tour, and was written by two very well-respected veteran reporters from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

It was even on the front page of The New York Times Book Review!

Despite all that, though, the book itself and the stories it tells about DWS have NEVER been mentioned in The Miami Herald or the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Or mentioned in a TV newscast or on a TV public affairs program.

Not in print, not online, not even a blog post entry! (Besides my own.)

What are the odds of that?

To me, given how the local media has always bent over backwards to be pals with her even before her recent cancer revelation, this lack of context is even more troubling, and quite telling about the true low state of journalism in South Florida.

Not a single South Florida reporter, editor, columnist, producer or anchor has EVER mentioned it.

And I've checked!

I've even asked well-placed people I know at the newspapers and the local TV shows. Nope!

I particularly call your attention to page 80, re a proposed pool-safety bill she co-authored.

Well, despite having bipartisan support and President Bush's interest in signing it to make it federal law, in order to politically attack Sen. George Allen, one of the Senate co-sponsors and a Republican running for re-election, she let the bill die, rather than let something become a law that EVERYONE supported.

That's DWS -always willing to put politics above public safety!

And all these months later, South Florida media ignores the book and the troubling picture it paints of DWS.

Harwood and Seib discussed the book and called attention to her (creepy) efforts on the Diane Rehm Show on NPR from May 15, 2008, which generated some calls disgusted with the ethical antics of DWS. http://wamu.org/programs/dr/

It's available in both Real Audio and Windows Media at: http://wamu.org/programs/dr/08/05/15.php

After you listen to it, you'll really wonder how DWS generated so much disgust from well-informed national listeners, while South Florida media completely ignored what she did, or made excuses for her.

Sadly, most South Florida reporters don't really want to be adversarial or thorns to elected officials or govt. employees, they want to be their pals, which explains why they are usually so easily co-opted. (And might be their future employer!)

And it also explains why so much of what's printed and broadcast locally is such an insult to reasonable, well-informed citizens, who merely want all sides of an issue to be fairly-but-fully presented.

----------------------------------------------

Kudos to WFOR-TV's Jim DeFede for having brought up the subject of a previous version of the bill, but it's hard not to notice that Anonymous -a DWS defender?- bringing up a December 2006 video of DeFede's, hardly trumps my central point, proven by her own words, below, in a 2008 book that was the featured book in the New York Times Book Review last year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/books/review/Widmer-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Pennsylvania%20Avenue&st=cse

As the direct quotes from the book demonstrate, yes, she does put politics about public safety. And makes no apologies. That's who DWS is, so South Florida media, please stop pretending that she's anything but a partisan hack.

I guess that's why DWS is no Profile in Courage in my book, even using the dumbed-down standards of today that saw Caroline Kennedy include former New Jersey governor Jim Florio in an updated version of her father's original book of that title called Profiles in Courage for Our Time.

In case you forgot, he had the courage to raise taxes. For which Christine Whitman was eternally grateful, showing her thanks by defeating him when he ran for re-election on that record.

Quick: Try doing an archival search for the Harwood & Seib book on the Miami Herald or South Florida Sun-Sentinel's website, using whatever parameters you want: title, authors name, etc.

Knock yourself out!

It won't have ANY results because it's NEVER been mentioned, even by their D.C. bureau.

(In fact, the handful of times their names even appear in archives the past ten years, individually, it's always with someone else quoting something they wrote, never them speaking directly.)

Q.E.D.

-----------------

from Page 80 of Harwood & Seib:

But her role as a "team player" in Democratic election strategy can also impede her legislative work. Among the principal initiatives of her first term was a pool-safety bill designed to set more stringent
rules for barriers around pools, and the kinds of drains manuafacturers are permitted to install. Battling uphill in a Republican Congress, she obtained support from the swimming-pool industry and a prominent
Republican co-sponsor -Senator George Allen of Virginia.

In the run-up to the 2006 election, Senate democrats wanted to hold up progress on the bill for a singularly partisan reason. Allen was in a dead-heat race against challenger Jim Webb; with partisan control of the chamber potentially hanging in the balance, Democrats didn't want to provide ammunition favorable to Allen, which he could use with Virginia voters against Webb.

Senate Democratic leaders "didn't want to give Allen a victory before the election," Wasserman Schultz says matter-of-factly. And she was in no position to object. "I was co-chair of the 'red-to-blue' campaign. It was hard for me to say, Give one of your most targeted members a big victory." The result: a bill that had majority support in both chambers of Congress didn't become law.
Wasserman Schultz insisted she'd win passage of the bill later in any case.

Yeah, I guess that's about what you'd have to say given your choice of tactics, having already once played up your "desperately searching for Members in the hallways for votes" card.

I lived in Northern Virginia for almost 15 years and voted against George Allen when he ran against Chuck Robb in 1998, but it hardly seems likely that George Allen could claim "credit" in his race against Jim Webb for a bill passing that everyone in the Congress is in favor of and that President Bush wanted to sign.

I guess it's just a good thing that nobody stood in her way when she expended so much effort to get a bill passed for yet another dopey "Month" bill.

Like if I didn't have the link here, http://www.jewishheritage.gov/about.html you'd already know that Jewish American Heritage Month, the great political success of DWS, is in May and not June, right? Yes, that's quite a political legacy!

re Sarah Palin's appeal and Katty Kay's FINALLY being right

As to Senator McCain's selection of Sarah Palin... as a DLC Democrat who'll definitely be voting for John McCain in November, I think it's a fantastic and bold pick!
But not for the reasons I keep reading about online or in the newspapers.

One of my reasons is because I think that it will be very interesting to see the very same insider reporters who tried to sell us on the idea of narrative as resume in Obama's case, suddenly now split hairs and say but not for Palin.
But, as usual, they won't be able to help themselves as we've already seen, and that can't but help McCain and Palin.

Frankly, I'm practically giddy at the prospect of Frank Rich's first lacerating attack against her, using that big brain and vocabulary of his to attack her like she's some poor schlub understudy from Alaska who's not quite ready for the big time of Broadway. As has been his wont so often away from Broadway, he'll reach too far, be too clever by half and in the end, be hoisted on his own petard, even as liberals cheer his columns but wonder why they aren't persuasive to the rest of the country.

But history is replete with examples of people who rose to the occasion -or didn't, like John Kerry four years ago- and there's plenty of evidence to suggest that Palin is, in fact, such a person, since the consistency of her record is in marked contrast to most of what passes for serious policy analysis in Washington: she says what she means and she means what she says.

Fifteen years of being around Capitol Hill and K Street taught me that much.

How crazy is it that this is considered "maverick" behavior in the Year 2008?

The compelling narrative of Palin's track record, of personal integrity and feistiness above party, will prove especially popular and endearing in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan that
Obama has to win, but each of whom has been riven with political corruption fairly recently.

You don't have to be Michael Barone or Mickey Kaus or John Harwood to know the country is emotionally fatigued after years and years of the same Washington insiders and career politicians
forever fighting the last political war and trying to get even.
Though I personally like Joe Biden, let's not forget that he is yet another career senator with a son who's a Washington lobbyist, and while I think it's commendable that his son is an Amtrak Board member, let's not kid ourselves that he is there but for the influence of... whom?

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0207/2672.html
For the most part, as Gilbert and Sullivan might have put it, R. Hunter Biden is the very model of a modern major lobbyist. He has an office near K Street, a blue-ribbon roster of clients, and his firm, Oldaker Biden & Belair, made $1.76 million in lobbying revenue in the first half of 2006...

I think that there are plenty of people who are tired of having to pretend that alternating party crews in Washington have been getting the kind of positive tangible results that are necessary, when it's perfectly clear they're really just running in place.

And given Palin's clear distaste for GOP royalty and familial over-reaching -Murkowski family-it's one of the reasons she was elected governor in the first place. Voters could see it was a visceral dislike, not a come-on.

Why do you suppose Teddy Roosevelt had such maverick appeal when he ran for president as an independent?

You can see the evidence all around you of what putting off hard choices has gotten this country, where Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is actually afraid to schedule a vote on the House floor on off-shore oil drilling because she knows that it will actually pass now, with moderate Democrats from competitive congressional districts abandoning Pelosi in a heartbeat.

Unfortunately for the country, as she has with so many other issues, Pelosi much prefers to have an issue she can manage and strangle, than she wants practical results and solutions that will result in more energy production for the country.

Naturally, here in the Sunshine State, there is no solar, wind or tidal energy facilities to speak of that anyone can point to with anything resembling pride or hope. It's so embarrassing in the year 2008!

One of my next posts will give a good example of this sort of political gamesmanship, writ large, where the interests of the country and people's safety and welfare are clearly placed second to party loyalty, and the offender is none other than local South Florida pol for life, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

And you know how I loathe her!

------------------------

Do you suppose this is the kind of Obama 'change' or leadership we can come to expect in the future, when he can't even prevent the Illinois Demcratic Party from engaging in the very activities he continually decries?

It sounds like old-school corporate influence-peddling to me

ABC News Reporter Arrested in Denver Aug. 27, 2008
DNC Money Trail Aug. 25, 2008 PHOTOS: On the Money Trail at the DNC http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=5670682

ABC News Chief Investigator Brian Ross is on the job!
DNC Money Trail Aug. 25, 2008
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=5652779

You can tell how much the political axis moved with this selection of Sarah Palin because of how intensely the media people and pols who are always wrong -aka the usual drive-bys- are saying that it's a bad choice, or, condescendingly poo-poohing it.

Case in point: E.J Dionne and his crazy belief that Biden's Catholicism will somehow prove stronger in Pennsylvania than his actual voting record and reputation.

Now as I've stated here before, for many different reasons, I personally like Biden, as I wrote last Saturday, August 23rd,
2 Hillary Visits in South Florida, 3 Different Media Views; Biden anecdotes
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/2-hillary-visits-in-south-florida-3.html but there are PLENTY of people who live there who'll tell you that rather than the blue-collar brother-in-law you love spending time with on weekends, barbecuing and watching Eagles games with, he's the know-it-all boss who never stops talking.

The sort of person in your life whose voice you hear when you can't go to sleep and who causes you to grind your teeth.

For the next few months I'm afraid we'll be hearing more than we ever wanted to from MSNBC's Chris Matthews about the subject of Catholicism and PA voting trends.
Except for the fact that as much as Matthews says he admires Jack Murtha, he's a chip-off-the-old-block, etc., Matthews would never ever want to live in a small town in Murtha's congressional district.
------------------------------
Did you happen to hear the condescending NPR coverage of the Sarah Palin announcement?

Even for them it was amazing. I turned to NPR while watching a muted FOX News, just to hear how elitist they'd be, and as usual, they didn't disappoint.

Condescending and patronizing now, yet within weeks, I strongly suspect that she'll be catnip to voters in Pennsylvania, Ohio, WV and Michigan, and the NPR reporters will act like their remarks were never uttered.

And they'll do that as they describe the enthusiastic family crowds that turn out for Palin, and get interview after interview with ex-Hillary voters who say they're going to give Obama the big thumbs down.

It just reminded me all over again how tinny NPR's internal vibes have been for years, given that the night the U.S. invaded Iraq, and I was listening to WAMU-FM in Washington, D.C., NPR's first story on All Things Considered was about a teenage murderer who was imprisoned in the Midwest -who used poetry to cope with his unique situation.

They never spoke about the victim's family.

Some things never change.

When I was living and working in D.C., partly because of being in an office downtown so much, I listened to NPR for about 6-9 hours a day, but now that I'm in South Florida, just Diane Rehm, and only if she has a good guest, plus the Friday round-ups of domestic and international news. http://wamu.org/programs/dr/

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot, that Obama's campaign people immediately and rather foolishly thought to downplay and mock Palin's small-town roots, only plays into the lingering suspicion among many Americans that regardless of what he says, Obama and his crowd are thoroughly elitist and phony to a fair-thee-well.

In America, but not of it.

It only makes one recall Obama's much earlier and much-maligned comments at a San Francisco fund raiser, when he launched his full-throated attack on people who used to be the backbone of the Democratic Party, saying that Pennsylvania voters "cling to guns or religion or antipathy" out of political frustration." http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/04/11/Obama_Some_Pennsylvania_voters_bitter/UPI-66831207967499/

All these pieces of the puzzle begin to add up after a while.

Sometimes I can't help but wonder if among the most passionate of the Obama campaign staffers, the ones who really thought that attacking small-town America was the route to go in their initial public stink bomb attack against Palin, that their favorite part of It's a Wonderful Life was actually when Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey character tried desperately to leave the small town of Bedford Falls behind, and instead become a sophisticated person who traveled the world.

Not the part when he stayed and helped the town survive. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038650/
Seriously, I really wouldn't doubt it.

Frankly, I was hoping McCain would pick Palin a few weeks ago, but felt that he might succumb to pressure from some of his trusted aides, like South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham to pick Joe Lieberman, or select a more conventional pick like Minn. Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

I'm VERY pleased and think this show of political courage and faith by McCain in what he thinks he's hearing from American voters, will help cement McCain's victory in November, even though I disagree with him on a whole host of issues.

Most notable among those issues, of course, was his strong support for the ridiculously lenient illegal immigration policy -amnesty- proposed by President Bush, Sen. Kennedy and himself, which nearly ended his political career prematurely after it proved so unpopular with American voters.
He says he learned his lesson.
We'll see.

In case you're late coming to the Hallandale Beach Blog/South Beach Hoosier party, I voted for McCain in 2000 when there was no Democratic primary in Virginia, and as a matter of fact, much to my surprise, sat next to and spoke with McCain's sister-in-law for just under an hour at a McCain Straight Talk Express rally in Old Town (Alexandria) while we waited for the bus to show up.

I'll definitely be voting for him again in November.
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Future headlines: Oprah to be dispatched by Dems for cross-country trip to explain Obama loss to disheartened minorities and Lib Dems.
Maybe she'd boil it all down to this: tough love.

"I guess when people were saying that they simply didn't think Obama was experienced enough to be president, and some of you said that they were just being racist, you were wrong, huh?
Those voters told you exactly what they thought and why they were voting the way they were -and you chose not to believe them.
That's on you, not them."

Which is my oblique way of bringing up the fact that despite my longtime antipathy to her over the years, well-known to my friends in D.C., as I've commented here before, it's time for me to give the devil her due. In this case, the devil being the BBC's Washington correspondent, Katty Kay.
She's FINALLY right about something!

She's someone whom I've rightfully disparaged in the past for good reason -her chronic lack of knowledge about facts, concepts, phrases and theories which someone in her position ought to know. But -quite maddeningly- doesn't!

That, of course, hasn't prevented her from trying to be the authoritative voice of U.K. sophisticated sobriety when she's spoken on myriad American public policy programs, most notably, the Diane Rehm Show on NPR, as both guest and guest host.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/biographies/biogs/bbc_world/kattykay.shtml

Eventually, over time, my friends finally caught on that I was right about what I said about Kay, because of the mounting amount of evidence.

It became sort of a parlor game among us to catch her on radio or TV saying something perfectly absurdly with her customary serious voice.
I'm not joking.

We actually got to the point where at parties or get-togethers, like the Oscars, Super Bowl or Final Four Weekend, 4-5 of us could, upon request, actually recite a favorite Kay declaration.

When we were in public somewhere together, like a ballgame or outside at a park, whenever we'd
hear someone say something factually wrong but doggedly insistent on their righteousness, we'd look each other in the eye and mouth the words, "Katty Kay."

More recently, thru plain old American persistence, I've come close to converting two Herald reporters into believers of the Katty Kay Syndrome.
But it wasn't easy.

Now by wrong, I'm not talking about personal opinions, since Kay is free to be as dopey or mis-informed in her personal opinions or private life as anyone who's a chronic caller to radio talk shows.
Or, the sad folks who, like obsessive compulsive serial criminals, return over and over to the same newspaper website comments sections to share their invective, rants and nonsense, like so many people in Broward County who seem to practically live on the Herald and Sun-Sentinel reader comment forums, a matter which is readily apparent when you read them.

No, here I'm talking about rather concrete things Kay's said in the past that were directly contradicted by reality or the BBC's own news reports and website. Like, well, to choose but one subject off the top-of-my-head, the actual background of the British prime minister, Gordon Brown.

How about this letter to the Editors of the BBC blog that I found?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/06/audience_off_the_mark.html
on 29 Jun 2007:
I am suspect when Katy Kay gets her facts absolutely wrong. In her report last night she said that a small minority did not approve of the immigration bill. The Gallup Poll reported 47 Against and 30 In Favor. To make matters worse the only guest she had on discussing the matter was a far left immigration activist. I don't know if I should chalk it up to bias or ignorance, probably both are to blame. Why not give fact based journalism a try and an even handed discussion?

More recently, there was this comment to the Newsnight blog: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/fromthewebteam/2008/08/thursday_21_august_2008.html
on 21 Aug 2008:
Katy Kay's piece tonight was shockingly lopsided and well below my usual expectations for a Newsnight segment. Having just spent two and a half months in America, it was quite clear to me that the 'smear' campaigns were not exclusive to conservatives, as Kay's piece strongly implied. Both sides have been thoroughly engaged in back-channel internet attacks. The obligatory mention of liberal smear tactics does not in itself create a balanced report when one spends roughly 90% of the segment obsessing over conservative e-mails and cartoons. Surely Katy Kay is cognizant of that? It was a good choice (on several levels) to place it last, but, unfortunately, a few of us do enjoy staying up for the entire programme. I adore Newsnight, but this was one of the most imbalanced reports I've seen from one of your contributors. Deeply disappointing.

That sort of makes her, what, the poor man's U.K. Andrea Mitchell, to name but another D.C. insider justly infamous around town among colleagues of mine for her faux pas, faux facts and big-footing.
Plus, there's Mitchell's whole reluctance to always report news she knows, like the way she avoided naming the U.S. senators whom she said never read the pre-war NIE report.
She loved to talk about the story on the NBC family of outlets, esp. MSNBC -up to the point where she'd actually have to name the members she claimed never read it.
Is that journalism?

But I'm getting off on a tangent, and I should confine my comments here to momentarily praising Kay.

On the BBC-TV this past Thursday night, immediately prior to Obama's acceptance speech, Kay alone among the army of big-footing campaign reporters in Denver made a point that I've long suspected would prove to be true, much as some will try to ignore it.

Trust me, when Katy Kay and I both agree on something, that's what noted New York philosopher George Costanza meant when he said 'worlds collide!'

For my purposes, it means that it must be true!

Kay said -and I'm paraphrasing here, because I didn't have a videotape running at the time and have not been able to find a recording of her comments yet- that based on what she's seen and heard for herself, among both the Obama campaign staff (and assorted hangers-on) and ordinary Democratic voters she's dealt with in various states throughout the country, especially Hillary Clinton supporters, there was ample evidence of a growing party cleavage that would prove very difficult to heal in the future.

Per my hypothetical words above in Oprah's mouth, a sharp divide that the Obama supporters
were ignoring, perhaps because they can't quite imagine that their own personal narrative and that of Obama's will be one where he actually loses the race, when it may well have been within his grasp.

So, on the one hand you have Obama supporters who think that any white Democrat who votes for McCain is doing so almost entirely because of core racism.
They won't accept any other explanation but that one, because that one neatly fits their world view.

On the other hand, of course, were those moderate and conservative Dems who said that regardless of Obama's soaring oratory or charisma, he still lacked the kind of tangible political abilities or experience they wanted in a potential president: someone who had a track record of
actually accomplishing something in Washington that the average person has heard of or could point to as proof, much less, constructively worked across the aisle to get results.
Obama has done neither.

There's a reason that The National Journal rated Obama as the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate -he was.
There are a lot of voters in this country who don't want the "Most" anything senator to be in The White House, and I'm one of them.

And as someone who was actually around Washington at the time to attend the Foreign Relations hearings, enough of the Obama supporters' name-dropping of Hoosier Richard Lugar.
It's embarrassing, already!
Lugar was already doing the Nunn-Lugar shuffle with the Russians when Obama was just out of Harvard Law School.

For once, momentarily, Katy Kay is 100% right

See the BBC's US Election 2008 webpage -http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/usa/default.stm
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Though I'll still be voting for McCain, I wanted to draw your attention to this web site as it's what led me to originally watching the U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Trials online a few weeks before the Olympics.
I was mesmerized!

Well, I received a phone call on Friday from another DLC friend up in D.C. telling me that the Barack Obama acceptance speech would be on Microsoft Silverlight, and that I should watch it at some point after first seeing the speech on TV. He's right.

I did that late Friday night and it's absolutely amazing to see the way everything looks!
It looks better than life-like!

I suppose it'd be too much to think that they'll also be doing that for the RNC in St. Paul, where Hallandale Beach resident and former Rudy Giuliani supporter Ed Napolitano will be this week.
http://gallery1.demconvention.com/
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Microsoft Silverlight homepage is at http://silverlight.net/

Microsoft Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-device plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. By using Expression Studio and Visual Studio, designers and developers can collaborate more effectively using the skills they have today to light up the Web of tomorrow.