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February 29, 2008

Heat Wave In Two Acts

In the summer of 1995, 739 Chicagoans died of heat-related causes. If you remember the heat wave at all, you probably have only a dim recollection of the scale of the tragedy. Why is that? Well, most of the dead were poor, elderly, and African American. Most lived in fractured communities where neighborliness gave way long ago to fear and isolation as crime rates soared and city and community services dwindled. Most media outlets covered the tragedy using the press releases issued by the office of Mayor Richard M. Daley, a practice still in full swing today, only belatedly trying to cover the facts well after the death toll made this event the single worst heat-related disaster in U.S. history. And finally, to this day, the Chicago City Council has never held hearings to investigate the causes of this gigantic stain on the city's municipal effectiveness and civic mindedness.

Fortunately, Eric Klinenberg, a former Chicagoan and now associate professor of sociology at New York University, performed a very thorough investigation of the 1995 heat wave. In 2003, he published his findings in a book, Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago. To read this book is to be alternately saddened, enraged, and dumbfounded not only at the mismanagement of the event itself, but at the sociological conditions existing for years that converged to make the heat wave a perfect storm. It is to the credit of playwright Steven Simoncic, Pegasus Players, and Live Bait Theatre that they took on the formidable task of dramatizing this highly readable, but still scholarly and detailed work. Heat Wave had its world premiere this week at the O'Rourke Center of Truman College, in a neighborhood not so very different from those where the disaster hit hardest. The characters are fictionalized versions of real players in the disaster - only the names of the guiltiest were not changed.

The first act opens with a cacophony of poetry spoken by the cast members as they populate the two-tiered set from all directions. Eventually, the action settles in a morgue, with three full gurneys and a couple of stretchers on the floor. The morgue workers try to figure out where they will put all the bodies that are coming in. "Put them in the hall," suggests one. "The halls are already full," replies another. From this eye opener, we are woven through the early responses to a disaster in the making as we are taken to the mayor's office, a TV news station, the poor Near West Side community of Lawndale, and the offices of the Chicago Tribune.

City press officials Sandy (Joseph Garlock) and Cass (Barbara Myers) confer about their personal lives, the reports coming in from the coroner's office, and the advisability of calling Mayor Daley, who is vacationing at his Michigan home. Later they will wonder whether emergency response teams should be mobilized without higher authorization. A staffer for "Eyewitness News" brings the burgeoning death tolls to his producer and unsuccessfully urges her to lead off the evening news with it. "We lead into Saturday Night Live," the producer says. "Nobody wants to hear about this." Then she tells her female anchor that there will be no close-ups of her until she does something about her hairy upper lip. In Lawndale, a cop (Ron Quade) stops a young man nicknamed Vanish (Ali Carter) from opening a fire hydrant. In an attempt to follow the community policing manual, he chats up Vanish. The two men compare their lives. The young man's anger spills over: "You can go home. I live here!" A reporter who just wants to get off his suburban beat in Schaumburg tries to persuade the Tribune's weekend metro editor to let him pursue the heat wave story. Afraid to make a decision himself, the editor finally relents. Pauline (the wonderful Tay Lar), an old woman in Lawndale, applies lipstick to try to recapture her "sensuality" her "need to attract." In words of pure poetry, she recounts the fading of her womanhood, her transformation into a ghost. She becomes a real ghost by the end of the scene, as she rises from her chair and lays down on a gurney in the morgue. The groundwork has been set.

Act 2 is a mirror image of the first act, but on a highly escalated scale. Panic has set in at the mayor's press office as Cass and Sandy stumble through various explanations (those people would have died anyway; the medical examiner is mistaken). The story the Tribune finally runs has all racial and socioeconomic content removed. Top officials won't pull the trigger on an emergency plan because they don't want to go over budget in deference to the mayor's new business-model management plan for the city. TV crews finally cover the event when a mass burial of unclaimed bodies takes place. Significantly, the anchors mutter exactly the same script, clashing only when they give the cause of the tragedy - one says the city failed while the other says that the people themselves are to blame for isolating themselves.

It is near-miraculous that Simoncic was able to cover every significant finding in Klinenberg's book in the space of a two-hour play, painting a vivid picture of the disaster that anyone can follow. Unfortunately, he has to spend the first act setting up the characters in this multifaceted story and sketching the outlines of the tragedy. This narrative necessity leads to a fairly undramatic "talking heads" presentation, though the actors work hard to inject urgency into their segments. The exchange between the cop and Vanish comes off particularly polemical.

However, all is forgiven in the second act, which moves briskly, urgently, and with a great deal of poignancy. For example, as a CHA property manager tries to get an old man to open his door to receive a fan, the old man argues with his younger self (Ali Carter, in a second role) about what happened to him in his life. Earl Alphonso Fox, who plays the old man, as well as Lester, a morgue worker, is the perfect picture of a soul who is heat-exhausted and exhausted with life.

I was most impressed with Victoria Caciopoli, who plays Hopper, a young, pink-haired parolee who has volunteered in the morgue to reduce the length of her parole. She and Lester clash constantly over moving bodies through the system as fast as they can or properly identifying them and treating them like people. Lester says, "They're not people anymore" as he slides a body into a wall. "Why do you care so much?" he asks. "Because I'm afraid I'm going to end up like one of them," Hopper cries. Hopper forms the moral center of the play as we watch the other characters with other concerns flesh out the aspects of a divided city in which the haves were mildly inconvenienced by the heat as the have-nots were dying.

Director Ilesa Duncan gets a lot out of her actors, who have the difficult task of acting exposition in duos. Her blocking leaves something to be desired, as the acoustically imperfect O'Rourke Center swallows lines while her actors loudly crisscross the stage dropping plastic packages of personal effects at Hopper's feet at the first act's closing. The set, which I think was meant to suggest tombstones, was serviceable but uninspired. Kudos to lighting designer Sean Mallory for his sensitive, evocative choices, particularly in depicting the mass grave. Sound designer Victoria Delorio cleverly weaves music from the zombie flick 28 Days Later to create an aura of death throughout.

Heat Wave is a very impressive work of theatre that does justice to Klinenberg's work and provides the victims of the heat wave a level of dignity they weren't accorded by the city at their premature deaths. I urge all Chicagoans to view this important retelling of a shameful part of our city's history. Also watch for the film documentary of Heat Wave in the works now.

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Heat Wave runs Thursdays-Sundays through April 6 at the O'Rourke Center, Truman College, 1145 W. Wilson Avenue. Call (773) 878-9761 for more information.

Posted by Lou at 02:51 PM | Permalink

The [Friday] Papers

"The phrase 'natural born' was in early drafts of the Constitution," the New York Times reports in "McCain's Canal Zone Birth Prompts Queries About Whether That Rules Him Out."

Q. Would a President McCain appoint strict constructionist judges who would then rule he is not eligible to be president?

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"The anti-McCain litany is the list of bills he has co-sponsored with Democrats: McCain-Feingold (campaign finance restrictions), McCain-Lieberman (greenhouse gas restrictions), and McCain-Kennedy (illegal immigration)."

Jeez, McCain's passed more Democratic legislation than Obama.

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"Spending nights without her husband has been the most difficult adjustment, Lura Lynn Ryan said," the Sun-Times reports. "She has kept a strong faith, praying every night, even though 'the Lord is a little slow in getting here sometimes.'"

Hey, give the Lord a break. He's a little busy deciding the outcome of sporting events all over the world.

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Alternate punch line: Hey, give the Lord a break. He's a little busy trying to nail down the nomination in Texas.

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George Ryan has been transferred to a federal facility in Indiana, where he was immediately named a superdelegate. He said he will vote his conscience.

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"Stroger's not dumping his old $100,000 PR director - Andre Garner. He's shuffling Garner into a vacant job in the county planning department," the Sun-Times reports in a story about Todd Stroger hiring childhood friend Gene Mullins as his new propaganda minister.

"Mullins would supervise another former Stroger PR chief, Chinta Strausberg - who is now paid $99,807 a year as Stroger's liaison to churches - as well as $85,000-a-year hospital spokesman Sean Howard, who was fired from Stroger's political campaign after he was arrested on charges of stalking a woman.

Wow, I want to be a former Stroger spokesman. Can I apply online?

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"Mullins has a solid reputation at the [Chicago] police department, but his hiring comes on the heels of Stroger hiring another childhood friend, his cousin, his best friend's wife and even his floor leader's girlfriend for high-level county jobs."

The scary thing is that genealogy research shows that Dick Cheney is a distant cousin of Stroger's . . . and he'll be looking for a new job soon.

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"For the first time in U.S. history, more than one of every 100 adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report documenting America's rank as the world's No. 1 incarcerator."

The Illinois political caucus put us over the top in a close race with China.

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Voter turnout from inside America's prisons is unusually high this year.

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Maybe the Wrigley Co. could offer Sam Zell a swap and rename its downtown headquarters Tribune Field.

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If Sam Zell gets his way and sells Wrigley Field to the state, "There'd be no more talk of moving the team to Schaumburg, like the rumblings that accompanied the Trib's 1981 acquisition of the Cubs for $21 million," the Sun-Times reports.

In other news of exploiting lame threats more than 20 years old, former East German officials announced that for the right price they will not rebuild the Berlin Wall.

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Why doesn't Sam Zell sell naming rights to the Tribune?

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"It's not the same as 20 years ago, when I kept the White Sox in Chicago by passing a tax on out-of-towners," says former Gov. Jim Thompson.

And that concluded the reading of his new book, Self-Aggrandizing Fairy Tales, out soon on Combine Press.

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Apparently Patti Blagojevich is in line for the commission if Wrigley Field is sold to the state.

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If Wrigley Field becomes McDonald's Field, will the neighborhood become McDonaldville?

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At least Sam Zell provides us with an identifiable villain instead of a cast of faceless corporate bureaucrats. Now bring me his head on a stake.

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What if Wrigley was renamed Marshall's Field?

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"I do not believe that anybody can grow a business by reducing the number of employees," Sam Zell said upon taking over Tribune. "It is not our game plan to, in effect, try and figure out how few people we can have run this business."

Maybe Zell should coach the Bears, because he's proving more adept at changing the game plan than Lovie Smith.

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"The focus of everything that we're going to do is directed at one thing: generating more revenue," he added.

Apparently that means figuring out how few people can run the business.

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In response to a campaign being waged against him by the Sun-Times, Zell said "We'll see you in Bankruptcy Court!"

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A Beachwood reader writes: "I'm surprised you didn't mention the the S-T printing the word "asshole" more than once in Mariotti's column.

"Maybe it's part of some brilliant new marketing campaign to reverse their fortunes: "The Chicago Sun-Times: Beating the Tribune one asshole at a time."

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"[The Wire's David] Simon is highly amused by an irony he perceives in the press's reaction to corporations' slashing of newsrooms: that newspaper editors are now making speeches about the same economic forces - the triumph of capital over labor - that the press has been ignoring in their own cities for years. 'What they should have been covering is now biting them in the ass,' Simon said. 'We'll see it in season five: Guys, you're a little late. It happened to you, and it happened to the entire working class.'"

It's not news 'til it happens to the Tribune.

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If the Straight Talk Express is rockin', don't come knockin'.

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The Clinton campaign is facing charges today that it leaked a photo to The Drudge Report of Barack Obama dressed in a blue shirt and khakis from the Gap.

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Gov. Rod Blagojevich insists he's not Public Official A, he just pretends to be when he's having governmental relations with Patti.

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Conrad Black reports to prison on Monday and as part of his punishment the only visitor he's allowed to receive is Neil Steinberg.

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Barack Obama raised $50 million in February and said he would use the funds to take the money out of politics.

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"Bernardo Rangel and Juan Verra were dressed in camouflage and tending as many as 40,000 marijuana plants when they were arrested last summer in a Cook County forest preserve near Barrington Hills," the Tribune reports.

"On Thursday, Rangel and Verra, 23-year-old Mexican immigrants, were both sentenced to 2 years in prison after pleading guilty to their roles in what authorities said was an elaborate operation."

Wait a minute. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

The Beachwood Tip Line: The next best thing to being there.

Posted by Lou at 07:52 AM | Permalink

24 Hours With The Military Channel

War, what is it good for? Surprisingly limited programming.

5 a.m.: Revolutionary War

6 a.m.: First World War

7 a.m.: Weaponology

8 a,.m.: Weaponology

9 a.m.: 20th Century Battlefields

10 a.m.: 20th Century Battlefields

11 a.m.: Weapons Races

Noon: Weaponology

1 p.m.: Weaponology

2 p.m.: Wings of the Luftwaffe

3 p.m.: Around the Services

3:30 p.m.: World War II Battlefront

4 p.m.: Warlords

5 p.m.: War Detectives

6 p.m.: Weaponology

7 p.m.: Hell in the Pacific

8 p.m.: Hell in the Pacific

9 p.m.: In Search of USS Indianapolis

10 p.m.: Hell in the Pacific

11 p.m.: Hell in the Pacific

Midnight: In Search of USS Indianapolis

1 a.m.: Weaponology

2 a.m.: Hell in the Pacific

3 a.m.: Hell in the Pacific

4 a.m.: In Search of USS Indianapolis

5 a.m.: Revolutionary War

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See also:

* 24 Hours With QVC
* 24 Hours With Tru TV
* 24 Hours With Current TV

Posted by Lou at 05:33 AM | Permalink

February 28, 2008

The [Thursday] Papers

1. Jim DeRogatis names the top 10 Chicago bands to watch in 2008, including some psychedelic shoegazers from Bridgeport and a group he says has the "spiffiest suits since the Mighty Mighty Bosstones."

2. "In its campaign to revive the intimate, friendly feel of a neighborhood coffee shop, Starbucks orchestrated the closing [Tuesday] of 7,100 of its American stores at precisely 5:30 p.m. for a three-hour retraining session for employees," the New York Times reports.

You mean to revive the friendly feel of neighborhood coffee shops that Starbucks drove out of business?

"Howard D. Schultz, the company's recently reappointed chief executive, has spoken of regaining the 'soul of the past'", the Times notes.

It's hard to remember a time when Starbucks had soul, but it's actually true. I'm using a Starbucks coffee mug right now that I bought from a Starbucks in Evanston, which I believe was the first in the Chicago area. The mug art is a reprise of Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, with the name of the diner changed from Phillie's to Starbucks Coffee.

At the time - 1991 or 1992 - Starbucks was new and even exotic. How quickly things changed. Not only did the burgeoning chain capture the yuppie imagination with overpriced, highly-caloric, burnt and bitter coffee, but it transformed itself into McDonald's in its rapacious hunger for market share, cheapening its brand and alienating large swaths of its potential customer base.

Now it's (rightly) a symbol of corporate evil that invokes the kind of ire usually reserved for oil companies.

My suggestion: Pull back on locations and become a supplier to local shops to grow the industry for everyone instead of suffocating it.

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More fun at Starbucks Gossip.

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UPDATE 9:54 A.M.: "Starbucks To Begin Sinister 'Phase Two' Of Operation."

- via Steve Johnson's Hypertext

3. Gov. Rod Blagojevich says he's too busy to pay attention to the upcoming Tony Rezko trial, which is essentially a trial about the governor's administration and could be a preview for the day when Public Official A sits in the dock.

"I am not involved in this court case," he said on Wednesday. "I don't know much about it. I have a job to do as governor. It's a full-time job."

Not according to Mike Flannery.

4. The governor wants $40 million to demolish Cole Hall - the site of the recent Northern Illinois University shooting tragedy - and replace it with a new building to be called Memorial Hall.

"[H]old on a minute, governor," the Tribune says in an editorial this morning.

Beachwood contributor Tim Howe seconds that emotion.

"Take the money and endow a scholarship for students interested in entering the mental health field," Howe writes on our Politics page today. "Maybe that will keep future students at Cole Hall safe. A new building certainly will not."

5. "Immigrants in California are far less likely to land in prison than their U.S.-born counterparts, a finding that defies the perception that immigration and crime are connected, according to a study released Monday," the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

Maybe we should build a fence to keep them in.

6. In "Just Stupid Enough To Be True," the Reader's Ben Joravsky catches up with the story of Election Night's magic pens with invisible ink.

7. "Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll, the deputy chief of public affairs in Baghdad, encourages Iraqi journalists to more courageously question government policy and become advocates for a free-thinking society," the Tribune reports.

Irony alert: If American journalists practiced what Driscoll preaches, we wouldn't be in Iraq in the first place.

Bonus quote: "I grew up reading Mike Royko and how he was always giving Mayor Daley a hard time," Driscoll said. "That, to me, was the way journalism was supposed to be. That was it at its best."

8. "We don't see much to this story," the Tribune editorial page said about the now-infamous John McCain story in the New York Times about his close relationships with the same lobbyists he so often declares his independence from.

You didn't see that story? You know, the one about McCain having an affair? I thought so!

Am I the only one who thinks the story was solid? I don't know if the press corps is sex-starved, because they're awfully eighth-grade when it comes to the subject, but whether McCain actually had intercourse with Vicki Iseman is beside the point. (And why they let the Times become the story at McCain's behest is beyond me.) Iseman, a lobbyist with interests before McCain's commerce committee, was such an ubiquitous presence during McCain's 2000 presidential campaign that some of his top advisors thought his candidacy could be doomed.

And even that wasn't the point of the story; it was just the best, most egregious example of how McCain's actions vis a vis lobbyists is at odds with his rhetoric.

The Tribune, however, doesn't want to believe it.

"Though he twice wrote letters to the Federal Communications Commission urging it to act on a case that involved one of Iseman's clients, McCain says he was trying to get the FCC moving not influence its decision," the paper says. "The wording of his letters bears that out."

First of all, even accepting that at face value is doing Iseman's client a favor; a negative ruling still helps them move along.

But, predictably, there's more to the story than the Trib acknowledges.

"While the campaign said Thursday that Mr. McCain never spoke to anyone from Paxson [the Iseman client in question] or Ms. Iseman's lobbying firm before sending those letters to the commission, an article posted on Newsweek's Web site on Friday said that Mr. McCain had previously acknowledged first speaking to Mr. Paxson," the New York Times reported over the weekend.

"Recounting that conversation, Mr. McCain testified in [a] deposition, 'I said I would be glad to write a letter asking them to act.'"

And act he did.

"The two letters he wrote to the FCC in 1999 while he was chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee produced a rash of criticism and a written rebuke from the then-FCC chairman, who called McCain's intervention 'highly unusual,'" the Washington Post reports. " McCain had repeatedly used Paxson's corporate jet for his campaign and accepted campaign contributions from the broadcaster and his law firm.

Back to the Times: "In three interviews with The New York Times, Mr. Paxson has provided varying accounts about the letters. In the first, he said Ms. Iseman was involved in the drafting of them and had lobbied Mr. McCain. He later said he could not recall who had been involved."

Other aspects of McCain's story are crumbling too.

It actually isn't about the sex - if there was any.

But then, the Tribune editorial page has its hands full still prosecuting Whitewater.

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By the way, if you click on the Trib editorial, you'll see that newspapers still don't understand the basics of linking. I'm pretty sure anyone reading a Tribune editorial on John McCain knows who he - and Barack Obama - is. You don't need to link on proper nouns. On the other hand, linking to the New York Times that is the basis of the editorial might have been a nice service to readers.

Memo to the Trib et. al.: Links = evidence, context, and punch lines. It's time to start writing in 3-D.

9. Oh, I'll get to Sam Zell. Be patient.

10." A long-serving reporter on the Guardian, a British daily, Mr. Davies turns his investigative skills on his own profession," the Economist writes. "The picture he paints of journalism (almost entirely British despite the 'global' in his subtitle) is of a debased trade in which rumor and unchecked speculation often masquerade as fact, where staff cuts mean that vast swaths of national life simply go unreported and where overstressed and underfunded reporters are easy prey for influence-peddlers, liars and con men."

It gets worse. In Reviewing the Reviews.

The Beachwood Tip Line: Zell bent.

Posted by Lou at 08:33 AM | Permalink

Save Cole Hall

Well, Blago and the president of NIU have hit a new low. They're planning on tearing down Cole Hall to build something called Memorial Hall in its place, because - in the words of NIU President John Peters - students couldn't be expected to return to Cole.

Pardon my insensitivity, but hogwash! They're talking $3 million "upfront money" just to get the bonds issued. (Total project cost: $40 million.)

I'm surprised Mayor Daley's missed the boat on this all these years. Why not tear down every Chicago public school that's had a shooting at or near it, and build a new one? Surely elementary- and high-school kids are much more sensitive than college kids. How can we expect them to keep showing up in class?

And why not tear up and repave every road that's seen a fatal crash? We can't expect motorists to drive by the site of such horrors every day! Why, that might have been them pulverized by that truck.

Don't get me wrong. I have a world of sympathy for the victims of that horrible Valentine's Day massacre at Northern. But even if we did have the money for this plan, I hope I've pointed out the absurdity of the whole thing. Bad things happen in the world, and it's up the the survivors to carry on. Everything can't be turned into a shrine.

Put a plaque on the wall, and move on. To do otherwise perpetuates the notion of a "victim society" where everyone believes they're entitled to some redress or special treatment to soothe their soul. Where do you draw the line? How many dead before you have to tear down an entire building? Is five the number? What if it's only four but the killing was really horrible? What if nobody was killed but there were twenty people wounded?

The best way to honor the victims is to continue to use Cole Hall as a place of learning. And if the killer were trying to gain some notoriety by his actions (and we may never know why he went on his rampage that day), the best way to negate that effort is certainly not to turn the whole site into sacred ground.

Take the money and endow a scholarship for students interested in entering the mental health field. Maybe that will keep future students at Cole Hall safe. A new building certainly will not.

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Comments welcome. As always, include a real name if you wish to be considered for publication.

Posted by Lou at 06:47 AM | Permalink

Reviewing the Reviews

"Journalists have a pleasantly heroic self-image of down-at-heel crusaders dedicated to exposing falsehood, promoting justice and speaking truth to power," the Economist notes. "But that image is shared by few others: hacks routinely come near the bottom of surveys of public trust, sharing that honor with other perpetual hate-figures such as politicians or estate agents. Nick Davies's latest book will only stoke such contempt."

"A long-serving reporter on the Guardian, a British daily, Mr. Davies turns his investigative skills on his own profession. The picture he paints of journalism (almost entirely British despite the 'global' in his subtitle) is of a debased trade in which rumor and unchecked speculation often masquerade as fact, where staff cuts mean that vast swaths of national life simply go unreported and where overstressed and underfunded reporters are easy prey for influence-peddlers, liars and con men.

"As a British poet called Humbert Wolfe once wrote,

You cannot hope to bribe or twist,
Thank God, the British journalist.
But seeing what the man will do
Unbribed, there's no occasion to!

Of course, the picture Davies presents is entirely apropos to American journalists as well. One point Davies makes that the Economist notes is the vulnerability of journalists to "hidden persuaders - PR firms, press offices, and advertisers - who now seem to have more power and influence than the journalism they ostensibly serve."

The Hidden Persuaders was also the name of a book published in 1957 by Vance Packard that "exposed the secret world of advertising and brands," Mark Greif wrote in the New York Times Book Review recently.

"The bete noire of The Hidden Persuaders was 'motivational research,'" Greif wrote. "Rather than focusing on products, this 'depth' research dug into the psychological weaknesses and needs of consumers. Packard wanted brands to certify purity or quality, to make an old-fashioned fact-based appeal to citizens who had price and effectiveness in mind.

"Scientists of motivation, on the other hand, were trying to puzzle out the reasons for impulsive and even self-destructive purchasing, then tailor images and packaging accordingly."

I think you can see where this is going . . .

"But Packard saw nothing benign when the same techniques were applied to the 1956 presidential election. Presidents would be elected on 'personality.' Messages would be short and focus-grouped. Conventions would be choreographed by emissaries from Hollywood," writes Greif. "[I]t's disturbing to see how the novelties Packard deplored have become accepted fundamentals.

"For 1956, professional advertisers were hired to 'swing crucial voters' in 'the undecided or listless mass,' trolling for weaknesses in candidates' images. The 'switch voter,' an advertising expert explained after much study, is not a thoughtful 'independent' but someone who 'switches for some snotty litlte reason such as not liking the candidate's wife.'"

Dismal Science
"The real mystery, it could be argued, isn't why we make so many poor economic choices but why we persist in accepting economic theory," Elizabeth Kolbert writes her New Yorker review of Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions.

Among the examples:

"People aren't just loss-averse, they are also effort-averse," Kolbert writes. "They hate having to go to the benefits office, pick up a bunch of forms, fill them out, and bring them all the way back. As a consequence, many eligible employees fail to enroll in their companies' retirement plans, or delay doing so for years . . .

"The same basic argument holds whenever a so-called default option is provided. For instance, most states in the U.S. require that those who want to become organ donors register their consent; in this way, many potential donors are lost.

"As an alternative - used, for example, in Austria - is to make consent the default option, and put the burden of registering on those who do not wish to be donors."

Some might suggest there is a lesson here for health insurance coverage . . .

And, of course, there are larger implications for democracy. Combined with the forces of the hidden persuaders, we end up with large segments of the electorate who are uninformed, misinformed and, yes, irrational.

An example cited by Kolbert that we are quite familiar with here in Chicago:

"Voters, it has been demonstrated, are influenced by factors ranging from how names are placed on a ballot to the jut of a politician's jaw."

(In the case of the latter, journalistic hacks are quite influenced too.)

"A 2004 study of New York City primary-election results put the advantage of being listed first on the ballot for a local office at more than three percent - enough of a boost to turn many races."

Imagine explaining to your kids that you lost an election because of where your name was placed on a ballot.

"Like neoclassical economics, much democratic theory rests on the assumption that people are rational," Kolbert writes. "[E]mpirical evidence suggests otherwise."

Blog Fog
"Blogs are often mean-spirited, self-indulgent and sophomoric," Tribune "literary editor" Elizabeth Taylor writes.

As opposed to newspapers.

"Cleverly written, maybe."

Compared to . . . this?

"Brilliant insight and analysis, not so much."

Really? Not so much?

Compare and contrast.

Quarterlife
Dwight Garner of the New York Times reprises the paper's best-seller lists from 1983 - 25 years ago - when advice and how-to books commingled with the rest of the non-fiction list. The result? Jane Fonda was the country's most popular author . . .

Posted by Lou at 05:53 AM | Permalink

Parents, Are You Listening Or Lecturing To Your Kids?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Five Tips to Help You Listen
Seattle, WA - The knowledge that our children are safe, happy and emotionally sound is one of our greatest concerns. If they were being traumatized by something at school or, even worse, the attentions of a predator, we would want to be the first to know.

The only way we can truly be sure that they are alright, or if something is troubling them, is if they feel they can confide in us on a person-to-person basis. But are we actually listening to them as equals, or are we listening to them with condescending ears and, in the process, inadvertently breaking these lines of communication between parent and child - leaving them unwilling to come to us for help?

"Children don't seem to get as much respect as other members of society," says Julie Scandora, teacher and author of the book Rules Are Rules. "They experience the same emotional obstacles as adults, but this is often overlooked by grown-ups. Parents need to treat children with respect and ensure a trusting relationship."

Here are five of Julie's tips to help you communicate more effectively with your children:

1. Listen. It sounds obvious, but if your children don't think they will be heard, they won't go to you with the hard questions or problems.

2. Create opportunities for interaction with your kids. Families spend so much time apart these days. Use "car time" - such as the 20-minute drive to school - as a time to communicate with your children.

3. Lead by example. Far too many parents opt for the "do as I say not as I do" method. But this sends mixed messages to children regarding important situations.

4. Respect the child's intuition. We all have "gut feelings," and if kids are encouraged to trust theirs, they will be able to heed their intuition in dicey situations when we aren't around to help.

5. Don't confuse "respect" with "giving in." It is important that the parental role is not usurped. Don't give in to kids just to diffuse a problematic situation. Instead communicate with them and let them know why rules are rules.

By showing our children that we are receptive to what they have to say and that we are willing to talk with them, not just at them, we can help them gain confidence and maturity, but we need to make sure we are practicing what we preach.

"Perhaps we need to start with ourselves, don't we!" laughs Julie. "But if we give our children the respect we give our peers, they will be better prepared to deal with whatever life throws at them. And when they encounter something for which they are still too young to deal with by themselves, they'll naturally come to us for advice."

About Julie Scandora
Julie Scandora is a teacher, editor, author and mother of three. She holds a BA from Smith and an MBA from the University of Washington and has taught children in schools and delivered lectures and workshops to adults. Julie has been an editor and assistant publisher for numerous publications. She is also a professional artist specializing in watercolors and is represented in several distinguished galleries. Julie lives in Seattle.

To interview Julie Scandora contact Rachel Friedman at (727) 443-7115 ext. 206 or e-mail rachel@newsandexperts.com

*

Rachel Friedman
Print Campaign Manager
News and Experts
1127 Grove Street
Clearwater, Florida 33755
www.newsandexperts.com

Posted by Lou at 04:33 AM | Permalink

February 27, 2008

The [Wednesday] Papers

I'm sorry, I know I missed a couple columns last week but I'm really behind today on a bunch of other matters so I'm not going to make it today either. I will be back on my regular daily schedule starting tomorrow, I swear. In the meantime, we have a terrific new installment of Mystery Debate Theater 2008. There's no way you can convince me that anyone covers debates better than we do. And there's plenty to read elsewhere on the site. New material all the way around tomorrow. Bless you, my readers!

*

The [Tuesday] Papers
Our very own Tim Willette reports that sequels to Oscar-nominated films are already in the works:

- There Will Be More Blood

- An Even Worse Country For Considerably Older Men

- Much Further Away From Her

- Elizabeth: The Metal Years

*

Rejected titles:There Will Be Transfusions; See? I Told You There Would Be Blood; There Will Be Sweat, Tears; Hemophilia.

*

More Beachwood Oscar coverage!

Our illustrious TV alum Scott Buckner returns with witty observations and wonderment.

And Mystery Oscar Theater 2008! is updated with more red carpet snark (did you know that John Travolta, GI Joe, Curious George, and the Seinfeld Bee all have the same barber?) from Bethany Lankin.

Mary Drudge
The Clinton campaign denies it is circulating a photo of Barack Obama in Somali garb, but Obama spokesperson Mary Mitchell doesn't buy it. Why? Just because.

"Why would a 2006 photograph of Sen. Barack Obama wearing African tribal garments suddenly show up on the Internet?" Mitchell asks. "Think about it. What is the point of circulating a photograph of Obama wearing a white turban days before critical primaries, if not to inflame an anti-Muslim sentiment?"

Well, considering the photo showed up on Drudge, where a (meaningless) photo of the Clintons with Tony Rezko showed up just as questions were being raised about Obama's self-described political godfather . . . I tend to have a different set of suspicions than Mitchell.

Even Obama-supporter and liberal blogosphere grandaddy Markos Moulitsas - aka Kos - has his doubts.

"Now the screaming headline on Drudge this morning is that, well, Obama respected another culture, and that's apparently a firing offense these days. Worse than that, Drudge claims it's the Clinton campaign that's trying to score points off Obama's tolerance," Kos writes.

"Now I don't know when we started taking anything Drudge says at face value, but that hysteria could use a little calming down. In fact, I tend to believe the Clinton campaign when it claims that there hasn't been a campaign decision to push the, er, accusations."

The Clinton campaign is unequivocal in its denial, though the Sun-Times saw fit to use that in a backhanded way on its front page today.

"[Clinton communications chief Howard] Wolfson also grew exasperated with a reporter who pressed the issue," Greg Sargent reports at Talking Points Memo, "saying: 'If you have any original reporting to suggest that this campaign was circulating this e-mail, please let me know. We've been very clear that we're not aware of it. Obviously the campaign didn't sanction it, and don't know anything about it.'"

(In a second post, Sargent writes: "Just to review what happened today: Matt Drudge, a proven and repeated inventor of facts and serial slimer of Dems, reported that unnamed Hillary 'staffers' had 'circulated' this email and photo. He didn't say who the staffers were or at what level they exist in the campaign. He didn't say who the photo was circulated to. Based on what Drudge reported and nothing more, the Obama campaign attacked the Hillary camp for engaging in dirty politics." And the Sun-Times put it on its front page.

(Sargent does gently poke the Clinton campaign for not issuing an immediate denial, but that's easily explained: Don't you think they were trying like hell to find out if anyone in the campaign had anything do to with it?)

Mitchell, though, channeling her inner Drudge, uses the photo flap as an excuse to blame the Clinton campaign for, among other things, Internet rumors that Obama refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance.

Please.

But then, Mitchell has now joined the Obama campaign in believing that Rush Limbaugh was right about Whitewater after all - a conclusion even Ken Starr couldn't support.

Maybe Mitchell and her Chicago suck-up cohort could spend some time instead explaining how the phrases "fairy tale" and "rolling the dice" are racial code and who fed that narrative to the media.

And anytime someone else wants to pick up fact-checking duties, I'd be obliged.

Math Narrative
Eric Zorn writes today that the math is Huckabeean - nearly impossible - when it comes to Clinton prevailing in the delegate hunt, no matter what happens in the final primaries.

True, but also a narrative the Obama campaign has successfully pushed to obscure another reality: Obama isn't likely to reach the delegate total to put him over the top either. And when that happens, it gets settled at the convention.

The Obama camp, however, already has the media in overdrive trying to pressure Clinton out of the race.

Rate Bait
"Commonwealth Edison Co. wants electricity customers to foot the bill for nearly $9 million in long-term incentive payments to senior executives and another $9 million in bonuses to all employees," Crain's reports.

"Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and the staff of the Illinois Commerce Commission argue that such payments shouldn't be included in electric rates. They're urging the ICC, which regulates utilities, to deny the request, part of ComEd's proposed $361-million rate hike."

So . . . senior executives aren't properly incentivized? Maybe shocking them every few hours would help.

Taking Stock
"Shares of Sun-Times Media Group Inc. stopped trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday after triggering a rule that halts transactions when a stock falls below $1.05," the Tribune reported on Monday.

"Trading halted on the floor of the NYSE when the stock opened at $1, down 11 cents from Thursday's close. It continued trading on electronic platforms and other exchanges."

There's also a rule halting trading when a newspaper stock is projected to fall below the cost of a single-copy off the rack.

*

Wall Street has given up on the Sun-Times, Bob Reed writes.

The paper is heading toward penny stock territory, or possibly bankruptcy.

Maybe Obama should buy it. But then, why buy the cow when you're getting the milk for free?

Simon Says
"Cook County hospital chief Dr. Robert Simon said Monday morning he would not reimburse taxpayers for gas costs he incurs driving a county vehicle to see his family in Michigan each weekend unless he was ordered to do it," the Sun-Times reports.

A few hours after making that statement, Todd Stroger ordered him to pay up. But Simon isn't going down without a fight.

"Simon defended his actions, saying he's actually saving money, as previous hospital chiefs have had drivers - a perk he says he never used."

Simon makes his case further in a letter to the paper that demonstrates he's also saving taxpayers from the overuse of common sense and integrity, though he is taking advantage of a perk allowing cheap self-regard.

The Beachwood Tip Line: Incentivized.

Posted by Lou at 09:39 AM | Permalink

Mystery Debate Theater 2008

Once again the Mystery Debate Theater team of Andrew Kingsford, Tim Willette and Steve Rhodes gathered to add value to a presidential candidates' debate in order to bring citizens a deeper understanding of our political system and the people inside it.

Well, Tim and Steve watched separately as each was felled by sniffles, congestion and ennui, while Andrew was . . . probably at Rainbo. Nonetheless, we have produced the most comprehensive and meaningful debate coverage on the face of the Earth. Remember, Texas and Ohio, you can take this with you into the voting booth.

As always, this transcript has been edited for space, clarity, sanity and comedy.

*

CLINTON: As I have said many times, I have a great deal of respect for Senator Obama, but we have differences. And in the last several days, some of those differences in tactics and the choices that Senator Obama's campaign has made regarding flyers and mailers and other information that has been put out about my health care plan and my position on NAFTA have been very disturbing to me.

You know, for example, it's been unfortunate that Senator Obama has consistently said that I would force people to have health care whether they could afford it or not.

TIM: My plan forces people to pay for health insurance whether they can afford it or not.

*

BRIAN WILLIAMS: On the topic of accurate information, one of the things that has happened over the past 36 hours - a photo went out the website The Drudge Report, showing Senator Obama in the native garb of a nation he was visiting, as you have done in a host country on a trip overseas.

STEVE: Lindsay Lohan has agreed to reprise the photo session here tonight.

WILLIAMS: Matt Drudge on his website said it came from a source inside the Clinton campaign . . .

STEVE: Senator Clinton, will you take Matt Drudge out of your top eight?

WILLIAMS: . . . Can you say unequivocally here tonight it did not?

CLINTON: Well, so far as I know, it did not. And I certainly know nothing about it and have made clear that that's not the kind of behavior that I condone or expect from the people working in my campaign. But we have no evidence where it came from.

STEVE: We can still detain you at Guantanamo without access to a lawyer.

WILLIAMS: Senator Obama, your response.

OBAMA: Well, first of all, I take Senator Clinton at her word that she knew nothing about the photo. So I think that's something that we can set aside.

I do want to focus on the issue of health care because Senator Clinton has suggested that the flyer that we put out, the mailing that we put out, was inaccurate.

I have endured over the course of this campaign repeatedly negative mailing from Senator Clinton in Iowa, in Nevada and other places suggesting that I want to leave 15 million people out.

According to Senator Clinton, that is accurate. I dispute it.

The reason she thinks that there are more people covered under her plan than mine is because of a mandate. That is not a mandate for the government to provide coverage to everybody; it is a mandate that every individual purchase health care.

Now, Senator Clinton has not indicated how she would enforce this mandate.

STEVE: I think she would force you to watch this debate if you don't comply.

CLINTON: Senator Obama has a mandate in his plan. It's a mandate on parents to provide health insurance for their children. That's about 150 million people who would be required to do that. The difference between Senator Obama and myself is that I know, from the work I've done on health care for many years, that if everyone's not in the system we will continue to let the insurance companies do what's called cherry-picking - pick those who get insurance and leave others out.

We will continue to have a hidden tax, so that when someone goes to the emergency room without insurance - 15 million or however many - that amount of money that will be used to take care of that person will be then spread among all the rest of us.

And most importantly, you know, the kind of attack on my health care plan, which the University of Pennsylvania and others have said is misleading that attack goes right to the heart of whether or not we will be able to achieve universal health care.

And what I find regrettable is that in Senator Obama's mailing that he has sent out across Ohio, it is almost as though the health insurance companies and the Republicans wrote it.

OBAMA: Every expert has said that anybody who wants health care under my plan will be able to obtain it.

STEVE: Hardly!

CLINTON: You know, Senator Obama has a mandate. He would enforce the mandate by requiring parents to buy insurance for their children.

OBAMA: This is true.

CLINTON: If you have a mandate, it has to be enforceable. So there's no difference here.

OBAMA: No, there is a difference.

CLINTON: It would be as though Franklin Roosevelt said let's make Social Security voluntary - that's - you know, that's - let's let everybody get in it if they can afford it - or if President Johnson said let's make Medicare voluntary.

What we have said is that at the point of employment, at the point of contact with various government agencies, we would have people signed up. It's like when you get a 401(k), it's your employer. The employer automatically enrolls you. You would be enrolled.

And under my plan, it is affordable because, number one, we have enough money in our plan. A comparison of the plans like the ones we're proposing found that actually I would cover nearly everybody at a much lower cost than Senator Obama's plan because we would not only provide these health care tax credits, but I would limit the amount of money that anyone ever has to pay for a premium to a low percentage of your income. So it will be affordable.

OBAMA: I do provide a mandate for children, because, number one, we have created a number of programs in which we can have greater assurance that those children will be covered at an affordable price. On the point of many adults, we don't want to put in a situation in which, on the front end, we are mandating them, we are forcing them to purchase insurance, and if the subsidies are inadequate, the burden is on them, and they will be penalized. And that is what Senator Clinton's plan does.

In fact, Medicare Part B is not mandated, it is voluntary. And yet people over 65 choose to purchase it, Hillary, and the reason they choose to purchase it is because it's a good deal. And if people in Cleveland or anywhere in Ohio end up seeing a plan that is affordable for them, I promise you they are snatching it up because they are desperate to get health care. And that's what I intend to provide as president of the United States.

WILLIAMS: Senator, I'm going to change the subject.

STEVE: Because you lost me at Medicare Part B.

*

CLINTON: About 20 percent of the people who are uninsured have the means to buy insurance. They're often young people -

WILLIAMS: Senator -

CLINTON: - who think they're immortal -

OBAMA: Which is why I cover them.

CLINTON: - except when the illness or the accident strikes. And what Senator Obama has said, that then, once you get to the hospital, you'll be forced to buy insurance, I don't think that's a good idea. We ought to plan for it -

OBAMA: With respect -

CLINTON: - and we ought to make sure we cover everyone.

That is the only way to get to universal health care coverage.

OBAMA: With respect -

CLINTON: That is what I've worked for for 15 years -

OBAMA: With respect -

CLINTON: - and I believe that we can achieve it. But if we don't even have a plan to get there, and we start out by leaving people, you'll never ever control costs, improve quality, and cover everyone.

MR. WILLIAMS: Well, a 16-minute discussion on health care is certainly a start. I'd like to change up -

TIM: A 16-minute discussion on health care is certainly a start. Now let's get back to who sent that picture to Drudge.

*

WILLIAMS: I - well, here's another important topic . . .

STEVE: I was reading Perez Hilton the other day . . .

WILLIAMS: . . . and that's NAFTA, especially where we're sitting here tonight. And this is a tough one depending on who you ask. The Houston Chronicle has called it a big win for Texas, but Ohio Democratic Senator Brown, your colleague in the Senate, has called it a job-killing trade agreement. Senator Clinton, you've campaigned in south Texas. You've campaigned here in Ohio. Who's right?

STEVE: They both are. But she'll get killed if she says that.

CLINTON: Well, can I just point out that in the last several debates, I seem to get the first question all the time. And I don't mind. I - you know, I'll be happy to field them, but I do find it curious, and if anybody saw Saturday Night Live, you know, maybe we should ask Barack if he's comfortable and needs another pillow. I just find it kind of curious that I keep getting the first question on all of these issues. But I'm happy to answer it.

You know, I have been a critic of NAFTA from the very beginning. I didn't have a public position on it, because I was part of the administration, but when I started running for the Senate, I have been a critic. I've said it was flawed. I said that it worked in some parts of our country, and I've seen the results in Texas. I was in Laredo in the last couple of days. It's the largest inland port in America now. So clearly, some parts of our country have been benefited.

But what I have seen, where I represent upstate New York, I've seen the factories closed and moved. I've had to negotiate to try to keep factories open, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, because the companies got tax benefits to actually move to another country.

So what I have said is that we need to have a plan to fix NAFTA. I would immediately have a trade timeout, and I would take that time to try to fix NAFTA by making it clear that we'll have core labor and environmental standards in the agreement.

I have received a lot of incoming criticism from Senator Obama. And the Cleveland Plain Dealer examined Senator Obama's attacks on me regarding NAFTA and said they were erroneous.

So I would hope that, again, we can get to a debate about what the real issues are and where we stand because we do need to fix NAFTA. It is not working. It was, unfortunately, heavily disadvantaging many of our industries, particularly manufacturing. I have a record of standing up for that, of chairing the Manufacturing Caucus in the Senate, and I will take a tough position on these trade agreements.

STEVE: The manufacturing caucus? I thought that was outsourced years ago . . .

OBAMA: Well, I think that it is inaccurate for Senator Clinton to say that she's always opposed NAFTA. In her campaign for Senate, she said that NAFTA, on balance, had been good for New York and good for America. I disagree with that

Now, I think that Senator Clinton has shifted positions on this and believes that we should have strong environmental standards and labor standards, and I think that's a good thing. But you know, when I first moved to Chicago in the early '80s and I saw steelworkers who had been laid off of their plants - black, white, and Hispanic - and I worked on the streets of Chicago to try to help them find jobs, I saw then that the net costs of many of these trade agreements, if they're not properly structured, can be devastating.

STEVE: Um, he moved to Chicago in 1985. NAFTA was passed in 1993. Do you need another pillow, Barack?

RUSSERT: I want to ask you both about NAFTA because the record, I think, is clear. And I want to - Senator Clinton. Senator Obama said that you did say in 2004 that on balance NAFTA has been good for New York and America. You did say that. When President Clinton signed this bill - and this was after he negotiated two new side agreements, for labor and environment - President Clinton said it would be a force for economic growth and social progress. You said in '96 it was proving its worth as free and fair trade. You said that - in 2000 - it was a good idea that took political courage. So your record is pretty clear.

In the debate that Al Gore had with Ross Perot, Al Gore said the following: "If you don't like NAFTA and what it's done, we can get out of it in six months.

The president can say to Canada and Mexico, we are out. This has not been a good agreement. Will you as president say we are out of NAFTA in six months?

CLINTON: I have said that I will renegotiate NAFTA, so obviously, you'd have to say to Canada and Mexico that that's exactly what we're going to do. But you know, in fairness -

RUSSERT: You will get out. You will notify Mexico and Canada, NAFTA is gone in six months.

CLINTON: No, I will say we will opt out of NAFTA unless we renegotiate it, and we renegotiate on terms that are favorable to all of America.

But let's be fair here, Tim. There are lots of parts of New York that have benefitted, just like there are lots of parts of Texas that have benefitted. The problem is in places like upstate New York, places like Youngstown, Toledo, and others throughout Ohio that have not benefitted. And if you look at what I have been saying, it has been consistent.

You know, Senator Obama told the farmers of Illinois a couple of years ago that he wanted more trade agreements.

RUSSERT: We're going to get to Senator Obama . . .

STEVE: After we grill you first again and give him time to prepare a judicious response . . .

RUSSERT: . . . but I want to stay on your terms because this was something that you wrote about as a real success for your husband. You said it was good on balance for New York and America in 2004, and now you're in Ohio and your words are much different, Senator. The record is very clear.

SEN. CLINTON: Well, I - I - you don't have all the record because you can go back and look at what I've said consistently.

TIM: "You don't have the complete record, Tim."

"Yes, I do."

"I'll bet you don't have the CD bonus tracks, though - eh, young voters?"

CLINTON: And I haven't just said things; I have actually voted to toughen trade agreements, to try to put more teeth into our enforcement mechanisms.

But you know, Tim, when you look at what the Cleveland Plain Dealer said when they examined the kind of criticism that Senator Obama was making of me - it's not me saying it - they said it was erroneous.

I would also say that you can go back and look at from the very beginning - I think David Gergen was on TV today remembering that I was very skeptical about it.

RUSSERT: But let me button this up. Absent the change that you're suggesting, you are willing to opt out of NAFTA in six months?

STEVE: Hasn't he been listening? Or is he too busy reading Drudge?

CLINTON: I'm confident that as president, when I say we will opt out unless we renegotiate, we will be able to renegotiate.

RUSSERT: Senator Obama, you did in 2004 talk to farmers and suggest that NAFTA had been helpful. The Associated Press today ran a story about NAFTA, saying that you have been consistently ambivalent towards the issue. Simple question: Will you, as president, say to Canada and Mexico, This has not worked for us; we are out?

OBAMA: I will make sure that we renegotiate, in the same way that Senator Clinton talked about. And I think actually Senator Clinton's answer on this one is right.

STEVE: Thank you for letting me listen to her first. Now, can someone get me a pillow?

OBAMA: I have to say, Tim, with respect to my position on this, when I ran for the United States Senate, the Chicago Tribune, which was adamantly pro-NAFTA, noted that, in their endorsement of me, they were endorsing me despite my strong opposition to NAFTA.

STEVE: From the Tribune now: "Obama has been consistently ambivalent.

"In his 2004 Senate campaign, he said the U.S. should pursue more deals such as NAFTA, and argued more broadly that his opponent's call for tariffs would spark a trade war. AP reported then that Obama had spoken of enormous benefits having accrued to his state from NAFTA, while adding that he also called for more aggressive trade protections for U.S. workers.

"Obama is correct that Clinton has praised NAFTA in various ways, but he leaves out the qualifications she's expressed along the way.

"And she did not say NAFTA was a 'boon,' as [an Obama] mailer states on its ominous cover, depicting a locked factory gate. 'Boon' was a newspaper's characterization of her position, which is reprinted inside the mailer [and has since been retracted by the newspaper, Newsday, as misleading]."

OBAMA: And that conversation that I had with the Farm Bureau, I was not ambivalent at all. What I said was that NAFTA and other trade deals can be beneficial to the United States because I believe every U.S. worker is as productive as any worker around the world, and we can compete with anybody. And we can't shy away from globalization. We can't draw a moat around us. But what I did say, in that same quote, if you look at it, was that the problem is we've been negotiating just looking at corporate profits and what's good for multinationals, and we haven't been looking at what's good for communities here in Ohio, in my home state of Illinois, and across the country.

STEVE: So I was very firm in my waffling.

*

RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, on the issue of jobs, I watched you the other day with your economic blueprint in Wisconsin saying, this is my plan; hold me accountable. And I've had a chance to read it very carefully. It does say that you pledge to create 5 million new jobs over 10 years.

And I was reminded of your campaign in 2000 in Buffalo, my hometown, just three hours down Route 90, where you pledged 200,000 new jobs for upstate New York. There's been a net loss of 30,000 jobs. And when you were asked about your pledge, your commitment, you told The Buffalo News, "I might have been a little exuberant." Tonight will you say that the pledge of 5 million jobs might be a little exuberant?

CLINTON: No, Tim, because what happened in 2000 is that I thought Al Gore was going to be president.

*

CLINTON: And the reason why we can create at least 5 million new jobs - I mean, this is not a big leap. Twenty-two point seven million new jobs were created during the eight years of the Clinton administration under my husband. We can create at least 5 million new jobs.

STEVE: None of them in journalism, of course, but still . . .

*

WILLIAMS: Senator Obama, yesterday Senator Clinton gave a speech on foreign policy and I'm going to read you a quote from it. Quote, "We've seen the tragic result of having a president who had neither the experience nor the wisdom to manage our foreign policy and safeguard our national security. We cannot let that happen again. America has already taken that chance one time too many."

The senator has compared your foreign policy expertise to that of George W. Bush at the same period. Provided you could be going into a general election against a Republican with vast foreign policy expertise and credibility on national security, how were her comments about you unfair?

TIM: In the general election, you could be up against a Republican with vast foreign policy expertise. For instance, on the need to bomb Iran.

OBAMA: Well, Senator Clinton I think equates experience with longevity in Washington.

STEVE: I associate it with longevity in Springfield.

WILLIAMS: Senator Clinton, in the last debate you seemed to take a pass on the question of whether or not Senator Obama was qualified to be commander in chief. Is your contention in this latest speech that America would somehow be taking a chance on Senator Obama as commander in chief?

STEVE: Pass.

*

CLINTON: Well, I have put forth my extensive experience in foreign policy, you know, helping to support the peace process in Northern Ireland, negotiating to open borders so that refugees fleeing ethnic cleansing would be safe, going to Beijing and standing up for women's rights as human rights and so much else. And every time the question about qualifications and credentials for commander in chief are raised, Senator Obama rightly points to the speech he gave in 2002. He's to be commended for having given the speech. Many people gave speeches against the war then, and the fair comparison is he didn't have responsibility, he didn't have to vote; by 2004 he was saying that he basically agreed with the way George Bush was conducting the war. And when he came to the Senate, he and I have voted exactly the same. We have voted for the money to fund the war until relatively recently. So the fair comparison was when we both had responsibility, when it wasn't just a speech but it was actually action, where is the difference? Where is the comparison that would in some way give a real credibility to the speech that he gave against the war?

And on a number of other issues, I just believe that, you know, as Senator Obama said, yes, last summer he basically threatened to bomb Pakistan, which I don't think was a particularly wise position to take. I have long advocated a much tougher approach to Musharraf and to Pakistan, and have pushed the White House to do that.

And I disagree with his continuing to say that he would meet with some of the worst dictators in the world without preconditions and without the real, you know, understanding of what we would get from it.

So I think you've got to look at, you know, what I have done over a number of years, traveling on behalf of our country to more than 80 countries, meeting and working out a lot of different issues that are important to our national security and our foreign policy and our values, serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee for now five years.

TIM: I've traveled to 80 countries. For instance, I once had a layover in Lesotho.

OBAMA: My objections to the war in Iraq were not simply a speech. I was in the midst of a U.S. Senate campaign. It was a high-stakes campaign. I was one of the most vocal opponents of the war, and I was very specific as to why.

STEVE: Not exactly.

OBAMA: With respect to Pakistan, I never said I would bomb Pakistan. What I said was that if we have actionable intelligence against bin Laden or other key al Qaeda officials, and we - and Pakistan is unwilling or unable to strike against them, we should. And just several days ago, in fact, this administration did exactly that and took out the third-ranking al Qaeda official.

STEVE: So he is just like Bush!

*

OBAMA: And so my claim is not simply based on a speech. It is based on the judgments that I've displayed during the course of my service on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

STEVE: All three years of service. Er, well, I've been running for president for a year, so two years. And the first year I was still trying to find the men's room, so one year. But still. I am on the committee. I have my own chair.

RUSSERT: Let me talk about the future . . .

STEVE: There's a photo that will appear on Drudge tomorrow . . .

RUSSERT: . . . If the Iraqi government said, President Clinton or President Obama, you're pulling out your troops this quickly? You're going to be gone in a year, but you're going to leave a residual force behind? No. Get out. Get out now. If you don't want to stay and protect us, we're a sovereign nation. Go home now. Will you leave?

OBAMA: Well, if the Iraqi government says that we shouldn't be there, then we cannot be there. This is a sovereign government, as George Bush continually reminds us.

STEVE: It was sovereign when we invaded it, too.

CLINTON: I believe that there is no military solution that the Americans who have been valiant in doing everything they were asked to do can really achieve in the absence of full cooperation from the Iraqi government.

RUSSERT: If this scenario plays out and the Americans get out in total and al Qaeda resurges and Iraq goes to hell, do you hold the right, in your mind as American president, to re-invade, to go back into Iraq to stabilize it?

STEVE: Is Russert on crack?

CLINTON: You know, Tim, you ask a lot of hypotheticals.

STEVE: For example, if I move more of my armies into Irkutsk . . .

RUSSERT: But this is reality.

CLINTON: No, well, it isn't reality.

STEVE: Ah, but it is: New on NBC this fall!

*

CLINTON: I also have heard Senator Obama refer continually to Afghanistan, and he references being on the Foreign Relations Committee. He chairs the Subcommittee on Europe. It has jurisdiction over NATO. NATO is critical to our mission in Afghanistan.

STEVE: I can connect NATO to Afghanistan in four steps. Make that connection!

OBAMA: He's held not one substantive hearing to do oversight, to figure out what we can do to actually have a stronger presence with NATO in Afghanistan.

OBAMA: Well, first of all, I became chairman of this committee at the beginning of this campaign, at the beginning of 2007. So it is true that we haven't had oversight hearings on Afghanistan.

STEVE: So, really, I've only been in the Senate for two years. And the first year I was still trying to find my way to the men's room . . . But I was in the majority in the Illinois Senate for two years!

*

WILLIAMS: And Senator, I need to reserve -

CLINTON: Well, but I have - I just have to add -

WILLIAMS: I'm sorry, Senator, I've got to -

CLINTON: Now wait a minute, I have to add -

WILLIAMS: I've got to get us to a break because television doesn't stop.

CLINTON: - because the question - the question was about invading - invading - Iraq.

WILLIAMS: Can you hold that thought until we come back from a break? We have limited commercial interruptions tonight, and we have to get to one of them now.

TIM: I'm sorry, Sen. Clinton, but we really need to get to this commercial about cell phones.

*

WILLIAMS: Senator Obama, we started tonight talking about what could be construed as a little hyperbole. Happens from time to time on the campaign trail. You have recently been called out on some yourself. I urge you to look at your monitor and we'll take a look.

CLINTON: (From videotape.) Now I could stand up here and say: Let's just get everybody together. Let's get unified. The sky will open - (laughter) - the light will come down - (laughter) - celestial choirs will be singing - (laughter) - and everyone will know we should do the right thing, and the world will be perfect!

OBAMA: Sounds good! (Laughter.)

WILLIAMS: Of all the charges - (laughter, applause) - of all the charges and countercharges made tonight, we can confirm that is not you, Senator Obama.

OBAMA: (Chuckles.)

WILLIAMS: That was Senator Clinton. But since we played that tape, albeit in error, for this segment, how did you take that?

STEVE: Would you like a pillow?

OBAMA: Look, I understand the broader point that Senator Clinton's been trying to make over the last several weeks. You know, she characterizes it typically as speeches, not solutions, or talk versus action. And as I said in the last debate, I've spent 20 years devoted to working on behalf of families who are having a tough time and they're seeking out the American dream. That's how I started my career in public service, that's how I brought Democrats and Republicans together to provide health care to people who needed it, that's how I helped to reform a welfare system that wasn't working in Illinois, that's how I've provided tax breaks to people who really needed them as opposed to just the wealthy, and so I'm very proud of that track record.

STEVE: I'd especially like to thank Emil Jones tonight, who made it all possible.

OBAMA: And if Senator Clinton thinks that it's all talk, you know, you got to tell that to the wounded warriors at Walter Reed who had to pay for their food and pay for their phone calls before I got to the Senate.

STEVE: Again with Walter Reed.

OBAMA: And so I am not interested in talk. I am not interested in speeches.

STEVE: From now on, I won't talk!

CLINTON: The larger point is that I know trying to get health insurance for every American that's affordable will not be easy. It's not going to come about just because we hope it will or we tell everybody it's the right thing to do. You know, 15 years ago I tangled with the health insurance industry and the drug companies, and I know it takes a fighter. It takes somebody who will go toe-to-toe with the special interests.

You know, I have put forth very specific ideas about how we can get back $55 billion from the special interests - the giveaways to the oil companies, the credit card companies, the student loan companies, the health insurance companies. These have all been basically pushed on to these special interests not just because of what the White House did, but because members of Congress went along. And I want to get that money back and invest it in the American middle class - health care, college affordability, the kinds of needs that people talk to me about throughout Ohio, because what I hear as I go from Toledo to Parma to Cleveland to, you know, Dayton is the same litany that people are working harder than ever, but they're not getting ahead. They feel like they're invisible to their government. So when it came time to vote on Dick Cheney's energy bill, I voted no, and Senator Obama voted yes. When it came time to try to cap interest rates for credit cards at 30 percent - which I think is way too high, but it was the best we could present - I voted yes and Senator Obama voted no.

WILLIAMS: What I was attempting to do here is to show something Senator Obama said about you, and I'm told it's ready. Let's try it. Hang on. Watch your monitor.

OBAMA: (From videotape.) - herself as co-president during the Clinton years. Every good thing that happened she says she was a part of. And so the notion that you can selectively pick what you take credit for and then run away from what isn't politically convenient, that doesn't make sense.

WILLIAMS: Now, Senator Obama, you can react to it and whatever you wanted to react to from earlier, but I've been wanting to ask you about this assertion that Senator Clinton has somehow cast herself as co-president.

SEN. OBAMA: Well, I think what is absolutely true is, is that when Senator Clinton continually talks about her experience, she is including the eight years that she served as first lady, and you know, often says, you know, "Here's what I did."

"Here's what we did." "Here's what we accomplished" - which is fine.

And I have not - I have not in any way said that that experience is not relevant, and I don't begrudge her claiming that as experience. What I've said, and what I would continue to maintain, is you can't take credit for all the good things that happened but then, when it comes to issues like NAFTA, you say, well, I - behind the scenes, I was disagreeing. That doesn't work.

STEVE: Why not?

OBAMA: Now there are several points that I think Senator Clinton made that I - we need to discuss here. First of all, she talked about me objecting to caps on credit cards. Keep in mind, I objected to the entire bill - a bill that Senator Clinton, in its previous version, in 2001 had voted for. And in one of the debates with you guys said, well, I voted for it, but I hoped it wouldn't pass - which, as a general rule, doesn't work. If you don't want it to pass, you vote against it.

STEVE: Or you vote present.

OBAMA: You know, she mentioned that she is a fighter on health care. And look - I do not in any way doubt that Senator Clinton genuinely wants to provide health care to all Americans.

What I have said is that the way she approached it back in '93, I think, was wrong in part because she had the view that what's required is simply to fight. And Senator Clinton ended up fighting not just the insurance companies and the drug companies, but also members of her own party.

STEVE: And that's where I got the idea to bring Harry and Louise back.

OBAMA: But what I also believe is that the only way we are going to actually get this stuff done is, number one, we're going to have to mobilize and inspire the American people so that they're paying attention to what their government is doing. And there's nothing romantic or silly about that. If the American people are activated, that's how change is going to happen.

STEVE: And then what, storm Congress?

*

RUSSERT: Senator Obama, let me ask you about motivating, inspiring, keeping your word. Nothing more important.

STEVE: Well, in The Wild Bunch the point was that honor wasn't about keeping your word, but who you give your word to.

RUSSERT: Last year you said if you were the nominee you would opt for public financing in the general election of the campaign; try to get some of the money out. You checked "Yes" on a questionnaire. And now Senator McCain has said, calling your bluff, let's do it. You seem to be waffling, saying, well, if we can work on an arrangement here.

Why won't you keep your word in writing that you made to abide by public financing of the fall election?

OBAMA: Tim, I am not yet the nominee. Now, what I've said is, if I am the nominee, then I will sit down with John McCain and make sure that we have a system that is fair for both sides, because Tim, as you know, there are all sorts of ways of getting around these loopholes.

STEVE: I guess it depends on what the meaning of "Yes" is.

RUSSERT: So you may opt out of public financing. You may break your word.

OBAMA: What I have said is, at the point where I'm the nominee, at the point where it's appropriate, I will sit down with John McCain and make sure that we have a system that works for everybody.

STEVE: Don't you want to button that one up, Tim?

*

RUSSERT: Senator Obama, one of the things in a campaign is that you have to react to unexpected developments. On Sunday, the headline in your hometown paper, Chicago Tribune: "Louis Farrakhan Backs Obama for President at Nation of Islam Convention in Chicago." Do you accept the support of Louis Farrakhan?

STEVE: Oh Lord, what a waste of time. Wasn't there a Rezko headline that day?

OBAMA: You know, I have been very clear in my denunciation of Minister Farrakhan's anti-Semitic comments. I think that they are unacceptable and reprehensible. I did not solicit this support. He expressed pride in an African-American who seems to be bringing the country together. I obviously can't censor him, but it is not support that I sought. And we're not doing anything, I assure you, formally or informally with Minister Farrakhan.

RUSSERT: Do you reject his support?

OBAMA: Well, Tim, you know, I can't say to somebody that he can't say that he thinks I'm a good guy. You know, I - you know, I - I have been very clear in my denunciations of him and his past statements, and I think that indicates to the American people what my stance is on those comments.

STEVE: But do you reject his support? Say it! Say it!

OBAMA: I've been very clear, in terms of me believing that what he has said is reprehensible and inappropriate. And I have consistently distanced myself from him.

RUSSERT: The title of one of your books, Audacity of Hope, you acknowledge you got from a sermon from Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the head of the Trinity United Church. He said that Louis Farrakhan "epitomizes greatness."

He said that he went to Libya in 1984 with Louis Farrakhan to visit with Moammar Gadhafi and that, when your political opponents found out about that, quote, "your Jewish support would dry up quicker than a snowball in Hell."

What do you do to assure Jewish-Americans that, whether it's Farrakhan's support or the activities of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, your pastor, you are consistent with issues regarding Israel and not in any way suggesting that Farrakhan epitomizes greatness?

OBAMA: [blah blah blah]

CLINTON: There's a difference between denouncing and rejecting.

OBAMA: Tim, I have to say I don't see a difference between denouncing and rejecting. There's no formal offer of help from Minister Farrakhan that would involve me rejecting it. But if the word "reject" Senator Clinton feels is stronger than the word "denounce," then I'm happy to concede the point, and I would reject and denounce.

STEVE: The motion to reject and denounce passes.

*

WILLIAMS: The question beginning this segment is for you, Senator Obama. The National Journal rates your voting record as more liberal than that of Ted Kennedy.

STEVE: Oh God, here we go . . .

WILLIAMS: How can you run with a more liberal voting record than Ted Kennedy?

OBAMA: Well, first of all, let's take a look at what the National Journal rated us on.

It turned out that Senator Clinton and I had differences on two votes. The first was on an immigration issue, where the question was whether guest workers could come here, work for two years, go back for a year, and then come back and work for another two years, which meant essentially that you were going to have illegal immigrants for a year, because they wouldn't go back, and I thought it was bad policy.

The second - and this, I think, is telling in terms of how silly these ratings are - I supported an office of public integrity, an independent office that would be able to monitor ethics investigations in the Senate, because I thought it was important for the public to know that if there were any ethical violations in the Senate, that they weren't being investigated by the Senators themselves, but there was somebody independent who would do it.

It was rejected. And according to the National Journal, that position is a liberal position.

Now, I don't think that's a liberal position. I think there are a lot of Republicans and a lot of independents who would like to make sure that ethic investigations are not conducted by the people who are potentially being investigated. So the categories don't make sense.

*

RUSSERT: Before the primary on Tuesday, on Sunday, March 2, there's an election in Russia for the successor to President Putin. What can you tell me about the man who's going to be Mr. Putin's successor?

CLINTON: Well, I can tell you that he's a hand-picked successor, that he is someone who is obviously being installed by Putin, who Putin can control, who has very little independence, the best we know.

STEVE: Do you need a pillow, Barack? If you're going to play foreign policy gotcha, why don't you direct this question to Obama?

CLINTON: You know, there's a lot of information still to be acquired. That the so-called opposition was basically run out of the political opportunity to wage a campaign against Putin's hand-picked successor, and the so-called leading opposition figure spends most of his time praising Putin. So this is a clever but transparent way for Putin to hold on to power, and it raises serious issues about how we're going to deal with Russia going forward.

I have been very critical of the Bush administration for what I believe to have been an incoherent policy toward Russia. And with the reassertion of Russia's role in Europe, with some of the mischief that they seem to be causing in supporting Iran's nuclear ambitions, for example, it's imperative that we begin to have a more realistic and effective strategy toward Russia. But I have no doubt, as president, even though technically the meetings may be with the man who is labeled as president, the decisions will be made by Putin.

RUSSERT: Who will it be? Do you know his name?

CLINTON: Medvedev - whatever.

RUSSERT: Yes.

CLINTON: Yes.

RUSSERT: Senator Obama, do you know anything about him?

STEVE: Now I do!

OBAMA: Well, I think Senator Clinton speaks accurately about him.

STEVE: Clockwork!

OBAMA: He is somebody who was hand-picked by Putin.

STEVE: Apparently. I mean, I'm just going by what I've heard.

RUSSERT: He's 42 years old, he's a former law professor.

STEVE: And he's pals with Tony Rezko. Eerie!

RUSSERT: He is Mr. Putin's campaign manager. He is going to be the new president of Russia. And if he says to the Russian troops, you know what, why don't you go help Serbia retake Kosovo, what does President Obama do?

STEVE: Russert played a lot of Risk as a kid. Probably still in a league.

OBAMA: We have recognized the country of Kosovo as an independent, sovereign nation, as has Great Britain and many other countries in the region. And I think that that carries with it, then, certain obligations to ensure that they are not invaded.

STEVE: Unless it's by us.

*

RUSSERT: Before you go, each of you have talked about your careers in public service. Looking back through them, is there any words or vote that you'd like to take back? Senator Clinton?

STEVE: Senator Clinton? Elbow, elbow. Hint, hint. Wink, wink.

CLINTON: Well, obviously, I've said many times that, although my vote on the 2002 authorization regarding Iraq was a sincere vote, I would not have voted that way again.

RUSSERT: To be clear, you'd like to have your vote back?

CLINTON: Absolutely. I've said that many times.

RUSSERT: Senator Obama, any statements or vote you'd like to take back?

STEVE: Perhaps a deal you made with a certain real estate partner?

OBAMA: Well, you know, when I first arrived in the Senate that first year, we had a situation surrounding Terri Schiavo. And I remember how we adjourned with a unanimous agreement that eventually allowed Congress to interject itself into that decision-making process of the families.

It wasn't something I was comfortable with, but it was not something that I stood on the floor and stopped. And I think that was a mistake, and I think the American people understood that that was a mistake. And as a constitutional law professor, I knew better.

And I think that's an example of inaction, and sometimes that can be as costly as action.

STEVE: And I promise to never let Congress intercede with a brain dead woman on a feeding tube without a fight again.

OBAMA: But let me say this, since we're wrapping up this debate. We have gone through 20 debates now.

TIM: And there are three dorks in Chicago who quite frankly have had enough.

Beachwood Analysis
Same as it ever was. Clinton wins on substance, Obama wins on tone. But it would be nice if someone fact-checked the guy. More than that, though, is that Tim Russert, Brian Williams and much of their cohort are perhaps the biggest threat to democracy going. I'm not sure they could have been more clueless. Can they be impeached?

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Catch up with the entire scintilliating series!

Posted by Lou at 08:52 AM | Permalink

February 26, 2008

The [Tuesday] Papers

Our very own Tim Willette reports that sequels to Oscar-nominated films are already in the works:

- There Will Be More Blood

- An Even Worse Country For Considerably Older Men

- Much Further Away From Her

- Elizabeth: The Metal Years

*

Rejected titles:There Will Be Transfusions; See? I Told You There Would Be Blood; There Will Be Sweat, Tears; Hemophilia.

*

More Beachwood Oscar coverage!

Our illustrious TV alum Scott Buckner returns with witty observations and wonderment.

And Mystery Oscar Theater 2008! is updated with more red carpet snark (did you know that John Travolta, GI Joe, Curious George, and the Seinfeld Bee all have the s