Public Comments

Friday Update -- 2-6-09

2009-02-06T08:50:00.000-05:00

Please note that this is the last email like this that I will be sending. I am switching servers and the mail list cannot be transferred. (Long story.)

To keep reading my work, please bookmark http://blog.bradrourke.com.

Friend--

Here are some recent posts from my daily blog that I thought might interest you.

How High Profile People Can Benefit From Using Twitter. A friend asked me about Twitter. Here are my reasons why.
Tweet Guy Jason DeRusha, A Co-Creator. Here's a piece about a reporter following a new model of journalism.
Another thing: I recently started a new "micronews" source for information on Philanthropy. It is called In Foundations and is beginning to gain notice. It's designed to be a continuing stream of links to articles on philanthropy, giving, and foundations. No commentary, just links. Take a peek here.

Friday Update -- 1-30-09

2009-01-30T11:00:00.003-05:00

Friend--

Here are two recent posts from my daily blog that I thought might interest you.

Can Process Trump Execution? -- I recently saw how important it is not only to have a good process . . . but to have good execution too.
Experts -- Speaking of which, who counts as an "expert" when it comes to social media?

Please consider subscribing in your feed reader, or following me on Twitter for the most recent updates to my blog.

If you are feeling old-school, you might consider joining the email list for my daily blog. You can do that by replying to this email. This would mean that you get a note each time I publish -- about once per day, certainly no more.

(My plan is to send you a recap like this each Friday at 11 am. This is a test to see how it goes. I may change that schedule.)

Friday Update -- 1-23-09

2009-01-23T13:00:00.000-05:00

Friend--

Here are two recent posts from my daily blog that I thought might interest you. (I am writing this in the middle of an amazing candidate training session at the Constitutional Village on the grounds of Montpelier, President Madison's home. I just wanted to share that.)

On his first full day on the job, President Obama issued an important memmo on transparency and civic participation -- one of just three memos. More here: President Obama On Civic Participation
My friend John Creighton and I have been thinking together about the civic effects of some of the changes coming down the pike for education. We think something akin to a revolution is coming and people who care about public life ought to prepare. More here: The Civic Implications Of Student-Centered Education

If you are interested, consider joining the email list for my daily blog. This would mean that you get a note each time I publish -- about once per day, certainly no more. If you would like that, just reply and let me know.

(My plan is to send you a recap like this each Friday at 11 am. This is a test to see how it goes. I may change that schedule.)

Friday Update -- 1-16-09

2009-01-16T11:00:00.002-05:00

Friend--

Here are two recent posts from my daily blog that I thought might interest you.

I republished an essay from 1983 by my old high school friend Charlie Burleigh, called Gas Stations And Whalesongs." I think it is one of the best essays I've ever read. I have fallen out of touch with Charlie. He doesn't know it, but in large part his piece inspired me to be an essayist. We were high school seniors when he wrote it. I urge you to read his insightful work. More here: Gas Stations And Whalesongs
After reading an interview with the new chairman of DeVry, Inc., Howard T. Shapiro (who was previously president of the University of Michigan), I got to thinking differently about schools and profit. While they don't replace existing institutions, there is definitely a place for them and not just as the poor stepchildren of "real" schools. In fact, they do some things better than traditional schools. More here: College For Profit: Its Time Has Come

Friday Update -- 1-9-09

2009-01-09T11:00:00.004-05:00

Friend--

Here are a couple of recent posts from my daily blog that I thought might interest you.

I used to be in an "entourage." It wasn't a star's coterie, but a charismatic business person leading a startup. The time has stuck with me over many years. Very strange. More here: In The Entourage
I work on the periphery of the world of philanthropy. I notice that, with the tough times, the trend of risk aversion from philanthropies has increased exponentially. But who else can take risks in the independent sector, if not endowed organizations? More here: Philanthropy's Unique Advantage

Friday Update -- 1-2-09

2009-01-02T11:00:00.004-05:00

Friend--

Here are three recent posts from my daily blog that I thought might interest you.

There's a move afoot among many civic engagement organizations to capitalize on President-Elect Obama's grassroots connections and attitude. I'm torn on this. To the extent that civic engagement efforts are mandated -- I worry that they work against the very spirit of citizen participation. More here: Should The Government Be Involved In Civic Engagement?
I also worry that politics and journalism do not "get" what civic engagement is about -- and this could pose a problem. More on that here: Does Politics Understand Engagement?
Finally, on the lighter side, a recent story about a local den of iniquity got me to thinking about my own hair-raising hotel tale. More here: Watch Where You Stay.

Two New Items From Me

2008-12-10T10:41:00.003-05:00

Friends--

Since many of you who read my occasional commentary are, in fact, friends, I wanted to just let you know of two things that are new in my world.

My Band's New CD Is Complete And Available For Purchase

As you probably know, I am in a rock band called The West End. We have been working very hard all summer and fall to complete a CD filled with new, original material and now it's done. We couldn't be happier with how it sounds. We released it at a very successful show just last Saturday.

The CD is called This Ride Could Be My Last and it is being sold here.

It's already gotten radio airplay and one review has called it "foot stomping, not tapping."

As you might imagine, I encourage you to buy one! Just click the link and order it from CD Baby, the largest seller of independent music on the Web. At the link, you can hear snippets of every tune.

If you feel so moved, I would be thankful if you would review it at the CD Baby site (you need to register but it is easy.) Listener reviews are one of the chief ways that other people decide whether or not to buy a CD.

This is just in time for the holiday season, and they make great stocking stuffers!

I Have A New Daily Blog

I have been writing and publishing occasional commentary pieces since 2003, typically when the spirit moves me. There isn't a set schedule and I try to make them into "essays" as opposed to "blog posts." (Here's an index.)

I wanted to let you know I have also set up a new, daily (or thereabouts) blog called Brad Rourke's Blog. My plan is to write briefly on some topic about once per weekday.

If you are interested, I encourage you to take a peek.

I also encourage you to sign up for an email subscription. This would mean that you get a note each time I publish -- about once per day, certainly no more. If you would like that, just reply and let me know, or enter your email address in the box at the upper right of my blog.

I promise not to distribute or share your email address in any way ever.

Thanks so much for your ongoing support.

"Hyperlocal" Journalism And Community

2008-11-11T10:18:00.004-05:00

Many of my friends and readers of my national commentary know that I am also the founder of a web site called Rockville Central, which is an example of what the Knight Citizen News Network would call "hyperlocal journalism." Rockville Central is a citizen-produced, all-volunteer local blog that is intentionally designed to embody the kinds of participatory-democratic civic ideas that many of my readers share with me.

I am happy (and proud) to report that the National Civic Review, a well-respected journal on public issues published by the National Civic League, has an article about Rockville Central in the latest (Fall 2008) issue. While copyright restrictions forbid me from making the original available freely, if you simply email me (by responding to this note) I can send you the final draft version without restriction.

In any case, I thought you might be interested to read an excerpt from the conclusion:

I set out with Rockville Central to engage in a kind of civic experiment. I wanted to see what would happen when an online space popped up that had a very particular set of sensibilities. In essence, I wanted to try to embody many of the approaches and ideas espoused by the civic sector.

I learned that, with just a small amount of care, such an enterprise can be successful in a small way. I doubt the ability of something like this to be commercially viable on a large scale. Indeed, insofar as Rockville Central has provided a new space for people, it needs to remain on a human scale; growing too big would kill it.

However, I can honestly say that I hope for the model to proliferate. I've pursued Rockville Central specifically with the idea in mind that others could replicate it. Whenever there was a free way to do something, as opposed to an expensive way, I chose the free way.

While it is not necessarily everyone's cup of tea to be a civic blogger, literally anyone could create something like Rockville Central. There are no special skills required and no training. It does not require access to capital or to fancy foundations.

So, for those who may have had their interest piqued by the story of Rockville Central, I offer this handful of lessons learned. They are things to keep in mind, if you choose to move forward.

Impact and Scale are very different things. Based on grateful emails I get, the fact that almost the entire senior staff and governing officials of the City reads it, and from anecdotal stories of ordinary people choosing to take actions they would not otherwise take because of something they read in the blog, I am certain Rockville Central is having an impact. However, its "scale" is relatively small and I have no plans for it to grow simply for growth's sake. Scale does not interest me. Impact does.
Try little things, if you fail so what? The history of Rockville Central is littered with ideas that did not pan out. Our year of existence (so far) has been marked by quick attempts to try new things, followed by equally quick admissions of failure where they occurred. . . . There was the time I thought I would adopt an informal approach to a series of video interviews with City Council members. It was 100 days into the term and I wanted to follow up on campaign promises. My first interview featured me in a ripped pair of jeans. It caused such an uproar that I publicly apologized. People demanded a bit more decorum of me. Lesson learned! This was not the first, nor the only, time I have publicly apologized for a mistake on the blog. After each of these episodes, messages came in praising the change in course. People appreciate experimentation, and understand that mistakes may be made -- and they appreciate forthrightness about it.
You don't need an organization to have an institution. Rockville Central is literally two people who just spend time volunteering. There is nothing official about it, no phone number to call, no office to visit. Its only real expense is its domain name -- about $6 per year. Yet, it is enough of an institution that some members of the Mayor and City Council have chosen to release statements through it. In City Council meetings, office holders as well as citizens have spoken about something they have read in Rockville Central. While it is unorganized, it is still a community institution.
People want fun -- it draws them in and gives them a reason to return. Rockville Central's most popular pages are shopping and restaurant reviews. This troubles me not at all. It's important for us civic junkies to remember that we are oddballs: most people are just trying to live their lives, not "be better citizens" or "become more engaged." I firmly believe that one of the most important aspects of Rockville Central is that it is not a drag. For instance, every weekday morning's "Photo Of The Day" is sometimes dramatic, other times silly. I am very idiosyncratic about my choices with it. More than one reader has told me that it is the POTD's that keep them coming back.
People need reminding about the rules of the road. Every few months, someone begins posting anonymous, vitriolic comments. I typically delete them and post an article about what I have done. I welcome such episodes, because each one is a chance to reinforce the norms that Rockville Central is trying to promote.
"Politics As Usual" will try to use anything it can. Prepare for candidates and community organizations to seek to use the blog as a way to gain advantage. . . . [S]ome office holders have begun to try to feed tips and ideas in order to generate articles that will further their objectives. None of this is really a problem -- it is how politics unfolds in most places. However, a blog like Rockville Central is trying to stay aloof from such things while still being relevant. It is a fine line to walk and it takes a willingness to resist flattery, threat, and cajoling.
You must earn trust. Shortly after I sent an initial email to all candidates for City Council, asking for an interview, I got a call from one. She was very skeptical of my motives. I explained I was just trying to be helpful. She didn't buy it, and said she did not believe someone would put the time in that it takes to do this work for simply an altruistic motive (I am paraphrasing). She agreed to the interview reluctantly. Over time, through being dedicated about being transparent and fair, this person has come to trust Rockville Central and is one of its best friends. Her initial reaction, though, was completely correct. There is no reason anyone ought to trust my neutrality simply because I claimed it -- I had to demonstrate it over time.

Come visit Rockville Central! And -- more important -- if you feel so moved, start something like it yourself in your own community. I would love to hear about it.

Deranged

2008-11-03T07:13:00.001-05:00

I had know about it for some time, but I was first confronted with The Syndrome in 2004. I had penned a column -- which in most respects was carefully balanced -- that included critical statements of Democratic candidate John Kerry and praised President Bush on some point. The piece did not include any contact information and it was not a publication that included a space for reader comments. The morning it appeared, I received an email from someone I did not know. "You disgust me," it began, and went on to describe what an idiot I was. I can't go into greater detail because I did not save the note. Suffice to say, the writer, who had gone to some trouble to find my email address, was incensed that I had anything positive to say about president Bush whatsoever. Indeed, the reader's ire was driven more by that, than by any criticism I might have leveled at Kerry.

Conservative commentators have for some years now observed a general "Bush Derangement Syndrome," in which the mere mention of President Bush's name generates such irrational vitriol that it's almost funny (until you get to be its target). More recently, we've seen a bit of "Palin Derangement Syndrome" and even a smattering of "McCain Derangement Syndrome." Ordinarily rational friends and acquaintances will simply lose it at the mention of one of these odious figures, and say the most amazing things.

However, these derangement syndromes are not at all the sole province of liberals and Democrats. My conservative friends are just as prone to bouts of insanity. In one generally conservative outlet in which I occasionally run columns, I have observed that if I merely mention Sen. Obama's name, I am guaranteed to see comments that just go right off the deep end. And, if I want readers to tell me I'm an idiot and to question my motives and patriotism, I need only praise Obama in some slight way -- or, just as bad, fail to criticize him sufficiently.

These episodes point to a broad, troubling trend in American politics. We are losing, ever more with each election, the ability to differentiate an opponent from an enemy. The stakes seem to be ratcheted up ever higher and the "grassroots" seem to go from being an electorate to a mob.

I place the lion's share of the blame for this on the political professional class. These are the people who make their living at manipulating public opinion -- political consultants, "party strategists," and a number of media personalities who trade in invective, ridicule, and fear. Both sides of the aisle are just filthy with them. These folks are good at what they do. They move people -- spur them to give, spur them to rallies, spur them to vote. They do it by villifying the other side until they go from "opponent" to "enemy."

What's the difference? An opponent is someone I hope to beat -- but the integrity of the game is ultimately more important than the outcome. One of us will win and, we will each go our ways.

An enemy, though, is someone who must be vanquished. Facing an "enemy," it's kill or be killed.

As this year's campaign has drawn on, positions have hardened and now most citizens feel it is "very important" that their candidate win. The share of citizens who say this has increased tremendously over just six months ago.

Just about half of the nation will wind up disappointed. What will they do? Will they be able to carry on honorably? Or will they stick "not my president" decals on their bumpers and do a slow burn?

Looking at the aftermath of the last three or four presidential elections, it's a fair bet that we'll see the latter. What will it take for us to take the outcome just a little less seriously, so that we can take democracy itself a little more seriously?

What If It Were More Than An Infomercial?

2008-11-01T03:00:00.002-05:00

This article by me first appeared in Pajamas Media.

If you are reading this, you are not the target of Senator Obama's 30-minute media buy. Which surely means, since I am writing, that neither am I the target. Good thing, too -- I was disappointed.

Oh, sure, my eyes teared up at the right moments, and I enjoyed the homespun blues guitar. As commercials go, it was fine. And as infomercials go, it was a knockout. What I am disappointed by, on behalf of the civic life of America, is the squandered opportunity.

Set aside, for the moment, whom you prefer to vote for (or have already voted for) in the upcoming "historic presidential election." The fact remains that one candidate is so dominating the current electoral scene that he is able to insert a 30-minute unfiltered message into almost all of prime time. He is a candidate who looks and talks differently than most other political figures cluttering the landscape. His charisma is undeniable, recalling orators of yore. He's smart.

At his best, this candidate preaches (and it is preaching) a kind of politics that rests on a partnership between the leaders and the led, where citizens aren't customers of government but are citizens, who hold responsibilities as well as rights. This at times seems a revolutionary idea, coming as it does at a time when politics itself seems exhausted, the rhetoric ground down by the accretion of promise after promise.

Americans know that they themselves can do better, that they can be better citizens. I hear it as I talk to people throughout the nation. Most would grade themselves a "B" in terms of citizenship, if that. They're waiting for an invitation to step up, and many observers see Obama's candidacy as just such an opportunity.

But he played it safe, sticking to the well-worn talking points and really, it seems, just hoping to make his points through repetition. I guess it is hard to fault someone in Sen. Obama's position for steering a course that minimizes mistakes. After all, he's trying to close the deal, and that's a job not yet done.

But imagine if Sen. Obama's campaign had instead seen these thirty minutes as an opportunity -- not for his own campaign, but for the American people. He might have taken a different tack.

He might have gathered ten Americans from different walks of life -- including, especially, people with whom he disagrees -- and had a conversation with them. During this conversation he might not have spent the time trying to sell his candidacy, but instead to give voice to ordinary people, to probe what they want the public square to look and feel like. He could have even asked them: What will you do, to make this a better nation? This could have been a moment in which to make manifest the very deal Obama seems to want between government and citizens, an equal partnership.

Or, maybe, he might have spent the time weighing the relative merits of his and his opponent's world views. He might have asked a co-host to present opposing views not in a demonic way, but with their best feet forward. After all, Sen. McCain is a serious person and his proposals are worth taking seriously. Why not examine them at their best, and explain why notwithstanding their good points, Obama would go in another direction? And why not point out the downsides of Obama's own proposals – for everyone knows that there are upsides and downsides. This would just be leveling with the American people and telling them what they already know in their gut: there is no silver bullet and no one answer is undeniably the right one. This could have been a moment when the American electorate were finally being treated as the grown-ups they are.

Instead, Sen. Obama's campaign chose to sell us a grill and a set of knives. It probably did his campaign good and it's unlikely that it hurt.

But it could have been so much more.

Baylor: A Mulligan For New Students

2008-10-27T06:53:00.008-05:00

This article by me first appeared in Pajamas Media.

Competition between colleges is as tough as it ever was and will definitely get tougher. But this seems ridiculous. My friends at Ethics Newsline brought to my attention that turns out that Baylor University has been paying students who are already admitted and attending the school -- to retake the SAT. Just sitting for the exam can win $300 textbook credit and raising your score by 50 points wins you $1,000 in scholarship money. Considering that SAT scores can easily vary by 50 points from sitting to sitting, this is a good bet for any incoming student.

Why would Baylor want its already-admitted kids to retake the SAT? Easy: The SAT is a major part of the US News & World Report's college ranking system. Baylor's got a strategic plan called Baylor 2012 that evidently includes a cornerstone goal that it will do better on the US News rankings. They're on their way, according to The Lariat, the student newspaper. Baylor's average score SAT went from 1,200 to 1,210.

Baylor's vice president for marketing, John Barry, first told The New York Times that there's no problem because any other college could have done it too: “Every university wants to have great SAT scores. Every university wants to be perceived as having a high-quality class. We all wanted that. Were we happy our SAT scores went up? Yes. Did our students earn their scores? Yes they did.”

Some critics of standardized testing in general are pouncing on this because they say it reveals how evil they are. I don't see it that way. The SAT is just a tool. So are the US News rankings. Baylor was misusing one tool to game the other – that doesn't make the tools wrong, it makes Baylor wrong. Indeed, according to the influential Inside Higher Ed, Robert Morse (the US News "ranking czar") made clear that the magazine "disapproves of any educational policy designed solely to manipulate the ranking."

This episode shows how careful leaders have to be when they set goals -- because staff throughout the organization might think that reaching the goal is the most important thing, not how you get there. In some areas, that can work. Schools? Not so much.

This is also a great example of gaming a system without breaking the rules. In other words, it's a great example of the difference between what's legal and what's right.

While Baylor's Barry at first said the university was "very happy with the way [the program] turned out," they must not have been too happy about being caught. They've promised to cut the program, saying it was a "goof."

The story first broke in Baylor's student paper, The Lariat. It didn't die with that one piece, either. In a recent editorial, The Lariat points out that:

Ultimately, the decision about SAT scores is really just a symptom of a larger problem. As Baylor progresses towards its 2012 goal, it's seems more and more intent on fulfilling as many of the imperatives [in the strategic plan] as possible. There is a serious problem with this mentality, though. We seem so anxious to reach these goals that we aren't considering whether we're actually improving as a university. In this case, we're trying to improve the appearance of our student's scores without actually attracting higher-scoring students.

Many business schools now make ethics courses a central requirement to get that MBA, in an effort to improve things. According to Fox News religion correspondent, Lauren Green:

In the wake of the Enron collapse there’s been a bumper crop of ethics courses added to the business curriculum. The nation’s number one business school, Harvard began its much heralded and mandatory Leadership and Corporate Accountability course five years ago. . . . And Johns Hopkins University’s Carey Business School was established last year . . . for the express purpose of turning out business school graduates who’ll work to the corporate culture of greed to a culture favoring more socially responsible leadership.

But this assumes the problem is that people somehow need more knowledge in order to make ethical decisions. No: they need a moral compass coupled with some backbone. The Lariat's insightful analysis shows it doesn't take smarts and a degree to make the right decisions -- it takes guts.

Someone, somewhere along the line, should have been able to stand up and say, "Um, boss? This SAT plan is wrong." Maybe a memo to that effect will come to light, which would restore my faith in humanity.

Meanwhile, seemingly the last line of defense for Baylor's reputation, the student editors of the paper hold out hope that should also be coming from the halls of the administrative offices: "With any luck, the damage done is not irreversible, and we can reaffirm our university as fair and ethical."

My PJTV Segment: It's Like The Sopranos!

2008-10-21T03:00:00.000-05:00

These are my notes from yesterday's Pajamas TV segment, which was live yesterday. If you check this page, you can see the video. I'm slated to be on again this Friday, October 24, at 6:00 pm Eastern.

It's easy to pick on the Garden State of New Jersey, almost too easy. Like shooting fish in a barrel. Former Democratic state senator Wayne Bryant, who is embroiled in a corruption trial, has asked the state elections authority for permission to use his $640,000 campaign war chest for his legal bills. The authority said no and yesterday a state appeals court heard arguments on the issue.

Bryant is accused of conspiring with the dean of a medical school to steer state money to the university in return for a no-show job that would boost his pension from $36,000 to $81,000. I'm telling you, it's like The Sopranos! Only there's more. Stay tuned . . . .

* * * * *

Bryant is not the only New Jersey state official using campaign money to pay for corruption defense. Former state Sen. and Newark Mayor Sharpe James (D-Essex) and former Sen. Joseph Coniglio (D-Bergen) used their campaign money for their legal fights – only they didn't ask permission first.

Coniglio used $90,000 leftover in his war chest when Feds were looking into whether he took money from Hackensack University Medical Center in return for steering money to the hospital. He was indicted on that in in February. And former mayor James spent $50,000 of campaign money for his defense against conspiracy and fraud charges. He was convicted in April and is serving 27 months in prison and had to pay a $100,000 fine.

What's incredible is that, in fact, New Jersey's rules are stricter than the federal election commission's when it comes to using campaign money – on the federal level, battling corruption charges is deemed to be an expense "relating to the duties of a federal office holder."

So there's something to think about next time you whip out your check book to support a candidate – might this guy end up using the money to defend against being a crook?

Pakistan, Take My Data, Please

2008-10-20T09:35:00.002-05:00

These are my notes from my latest Pajamas TV segment, which was live yesterday. I don't yet have a link to the Flash (free) version, but if you check this page, you can see the video as soon as they have posted the free version. (I am not sure they are going to keep on posting free versions; it is meant to be a paid service.)

I'm slated to be on again today and this Friday, October 24, at 6:00 pm Eastern.

Personal identity crisis continues. What will it take for companies to take this as seriously as they should? First, there's a report from Georgia Tech that with cell phones getting more complicated and more connected, it turns out they are perfect targets for hackers. Just imagine a horde of cell phones being programmed to periodically dial toll numbers. They've even got a name: "zombie phones."

But even more scary, officials have found small devices in European point of sale card swipe machines that send selected transaction information to Pakistan. These are the card machines you use at the grocery store -- totally plain vanilla. The devices appear to be untraceable and are inserted in some made-in-China MasterCard boxes. The best way to find out if a store has been infected is to literally weigh their card swipe machines. Bad machines weigh four ounces more than good ones.

This is affecting large, chain stores, including a British unit of Wal*Mart and Tesco.

It is not isolated or off the beaten path. And it really is diabolical. The machines can be set, evidently, to just send a few transactions, say like every tenth Visa Platinum transaction, once a day. They can also get new instructions when they send their take -- so their work is quite hidden. Add that up over time.

What happens to the information once it goes to Pakistan? It gets used, of course. Bank withdrawals are made, plane tickets and other merchandise get purchased. So far, the estimates are between $50 and $100 million. The motivation appears not to be a espionage, but plain old theft. Authorities are watching, though, in case there is a terrorism link, the destination being in Pakistan and all.

What can companies do? That's a tough question and it may be one of those things where the bad guys are always one step ahead of the good guys. But the good guys can get a little more serious about this. Yes, they will say they have security experts and yes, they will say that such piracy hurts them as much as it hurts, say, Joe The Plumber. "Security is our top priority."

Nevada has instituted new rules that companies must encrypt the information they keep. But this may not be enough. The whole data chain needs to be protected, just like the food chain.

I think I am going to start paying cash for everything I can!

My PJTV Segment: McCain Getting Slimed

2008-10-14T09:30:00.010-05:00

Even as he unveils a new stump speech in which he pointedly avoids personal attacks on his opponent, John McCain is getting slimed in cyberspace by a chain email that is making the rounds. This should not be a surprise; there are a number of similar emails out in the wild about Barack Obama and, more recently, Governor Sarah Palin. But this appears to be the first chain email about McCain. (There have been a few spurious emails, but they are nowhere near the level of vitriol that is aimed at Obama.)

(And see here for my friend Richard Harwood's take on when hate wins.)

The person who appears to be the author claims that the Washington Post is working on a story about this. About a week ago, she said to expect it in about a week.

The email has the left-leaning blogosphere in a bit of a tizzy. To their credit, they are trying to fact check it.

This new email about McCain purports to be a description of one writer's vacation encounter with the Senator in Turtle Island in Fiji, shortly before the 2000 election season. The writer says that she spent a week sharing meals and conversation with the Senator, and came away disgusted.

The McCain in the email comes across as a hilarious caricature, obsessively quoting from Faulkner night after night, referring to his adopted Bangladeshi child as a "black thing," telling a fellow guest named Amy that she needs to lose weight, and saying that if he was in charge he would "nuke Iraq to teach them a lesson."

Originally there was a name attached to the email, a professor at University of California Santa Cruz, but this professor has categorically denied writing the email. She says she received it and forwarded it on September 16, but not under her name.

But some left-wing bloggers have been pushing to find out who wrote the original email and the name that's come up is Anasuya Dubey, who in 2005 was a bay-area psychology student. An Australian blogger has spoken to someone who says she is Ana and has published an email from her that claims that Michael Leahy of the Washington Post is working on a story.

My PJTV Segment: Chinese Skype May Spy On Users

2008-10-09T06:30:00.001-05:00

Friends, I was on yesterday's "The Whip" segment of PJTV, which is a segment where they invite their guests to talk about what the "mainstream media" is not covering, is missing, or is just not paying enough attention to. While PJTV is a subscription-based service, this link ought to take you to my segment for free (I am the second guest).

I am slated to be on PJTV on Monday and Friday next week, October 13 and October 17, at about 6pm Eastern.

Here are my notes from yesterday's segment:

The Chinese version of Skype evidently spies on users. This was discovered by a University of Toronto researcher in relatively simple fashion -- by checking out what happened when he used the f-word in a message.

(To be clear, this is a joint venture between a Chinese communications company, TOM, and Skype.)

It turns out that not only are messages being filtered, and not only are they being logged, but it was being kept on an insecure server that was easily accessed through the cyber version of guessing that someone might keep their housekey in the flowerpot.

Skype says they are very concerned about the fact that these messages were insecurely stored -- which is sort of like an adulterer saying he's sorry he got caught. As for the whole message-interception thing, they say that's just the requirement of the Chinese government and they don't have any say. And their past public statements about the issue have been contradictory.

This is not at all the first time there have been well-founded worries about what happens when US companies bump up against China -- Google has had to promise they won't house personal info on Chinese soil. Yahoo's CEO had to publicly apologize to the family of someone who was jailed as a result of their disclosures to the government.

This sounds like it's all far away -- but it matters close to home too.

In the first place, the monitoring is possible not only for users of the TOM/Skype -- but also domestic users who interact with the people on the Chinese system.

Secondly, it brings up the issue of what large -- and rightly trusted -- organizations do about their partners. This affects anyone who has ever purchased anything -- point of sale data is typically handled by a contractor, for example. You might trust, say, Best Buy -- but you also need to know you can trust their contractors not to lose your personal data. The untold story of the last couple of years has been the rise in inadevertent data breaches. Many millions of records have been divulged, and it's not just because government workers accidentally take home laptops -- according to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, since January 2005 there have been more than 245,000,000 individual records divulged accidentally or as a result of malicious hacking.

Yes, 245 million.

I am not saying there ought to be a law -- but I am saying that large companies need to get ahead of this issue. Yes it will cost money. It is money well spent.

I'm On TV

2008-10-03T09:27:00.007-05:00

In case you are interested, I've got two TV-on-the-Internet segments coming up that you can check out. Not a big deal, just wanted you to know.

First of all, I am scheduled to be a guest on Pajamas TV (the new Internet video venture of Pajamas Media, where I publish commentary occasionally and where my role appears to be to infuriate people). They've asked me to talk about stories the mainstream media has been giving short shrift to. (Please email me if you have ideas you think I should consider.) The PJTV segment is slated for Wednesday, October 8 at 6pm Eastern. To watch, just go to this link.

Secondly, some of my readers know that I have long been involved (at least, until recently) with the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia. I helped them design a unique training program for first-time political candidates (the program is centered on ethics but also has a lot of hard-hitting and useful advice). I also have led sessions for their flagship leadership program, which is one of the better ones in the nation. The 2007 Sorensen class is the subject of a recent PBS documentary called "Across The Aisle," and (while I have not seen it yet) I am told one can see yours truly in the show.

The documentary is airing in various markets around the country. But people everywhere have a chance to see it in its entirety coming up, October 5 through October 11, at 9pm each night. On those days it will be running on Norfolk's Channel 48 -- watch live here (click the button to launch).

Here's a bit from an article on the documentary from the Charlottesville Daily Progress:

The Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia will be the focus of a new public television documentary set to air at the end of May.

The documentary, "Across the Aisle: Returning Trust, Civility and Respect to Politics," follows civic leaders enrolled in the institute's political leader training program.

Over the years, numerous Sorensen graduates have been elected to public office. Sixteen alumni currently serve in the Virginia General Assembly.

In the documentary, the institute is held up as a national model for returning civility to America's increasingly bitter political landscape.

The film focuses on seven of the 35 students in the Sorensen Institute's class of 2007. The cameras tag along as the students debate and discuss politics with ideological opponents, tour state government facilities and confront their political biases.

Over the course of the 90-minute film, one of the Democratic subjects opts to run for a seat on her local school board in a heavily Republican district.

The documentary also focuses on how several of the subjects with entrenched political beliefs begin to see issues from a different perspective after they spend time with people from the other end of the political spectrum.

WHTJ, Charlottesville's local PBS member station, produced the documentary.

If you tune in, I hope you enjoy!

The Financial Crisis: Rocks And Water?

2008-10-01T04:00:00.000-05:00

This article by me first appeared in Pajamas Media.

There is a parable I learned long ago from the continuous improvement management philosophy. It's called "rocks and water."

Imagine you want to row your boat along a full, gently flowing river. No sweat. Imagine the water level drops significantly, exposing the jagged rocks along the riverbed. Now try rowing. Can't do it; too many rocks.

In the parable, the water is any enabling resource of which having lots can obscure problems. In many businesses, the water is cash. Too much cash makes it easy to ignore the rocks underwater. Only when the water is drained can we see – and remove – the rocks. Many of the best organizations keep their water level low on purpose so that when rocks begin to appear they can be seen and dealt with.

Now with a panicking New York-DC axis, I can't help but think about rocks and water. We've let the water level rise for decades, hoping it would keep everyone floating along. The so-called "predatory lending" that some point to is just a sliver of the problem. The real problem, as I understand it is that, driven by well-intentioned policies, some smart pencil-pushers figured out how to create a mechanism for avoiding risk altogether. Make the loans, sell the risk to someone else. This opened the floodgates as it became easy to invest with little apparent downside. With the system set up this way, no one feels the pain – until everyone feels the pain.

The river's drying up now.

The main story being told is that those idiot "back bench" House members scuttled the imperfect-yet-necessary rescue boat for the American economy. In the howls from the editorial columns you can hear the derision. Almost the entire elite of America was unified behind the need to take the rescue deal on offer. How dare these rebels place mere "politics" ahead of the needs of the "market?" Don't they understand the stakes? To read the coverage, you'd think some small minority had sunk the rescue dinghy because they did not like the color it was painted. Idiots. Cowards.

But take a step away from the panic for just a moment. It was not a small slice of the house of Representatives who voted against the bailout – it was most members of the People's House. Some were reacting to what appeared to them to be too large a giveaway to the same Wall Street fat cats who had built the house of cards in the first place. Others saw the bailout as a grave rejection of the principles of responsibility, and freedom to fail, that our economy, at its best, is built upon.

But others, most perhaps, saw another problem. They just could not sell a "yes" vote to their constituents. One congressional staffer reported calls flooding in, verifiably from the district, at "a thousand to one" against. Ordinary people are up in arms.

The wise cluck their tongues and say the politicians should have some backbone. But why? It's one thing to make a judgment call on the margins, but it's yet another to jettison the clear will of the people one represents. No rational person can believe the "no" voters did not understand the stakes. They knew the stakes. They'd been briefed. They voted no anyway.

Sometimes the things that seem the worst possible turn out for the best. Maybe that will happen now.

If there is one piece of advice my older self wishes it could give my younger self, it is: Do not make decisions under duress and in haste. Looking back, I think of the many times I have been saved from bonehead moves by something that, at the time, thwarted my desire and seemed a setback. And I think of the times I was not saved, of the times that I forged ahead in panic – only to regret the move later.

Public life feels very much the same way these days.

I know from listening to ordinary Americans all through the country that there is a pervasive sense that, at some point, we're going to have to pay the piper. The people I hear almost lament that nothing seems able to shake us from our collective consumption and obsession with more. When that time comes, companies will fail. Our lifestyle will drastically simplify. We will feel pain, all of us.

Maybe that time is now. Maybe, with the water receding, we can set to work removing the rocks.

Main Street: Already Lost

2008-09-22T16:42:00.004-05:00

I am not sure who is going to win this year's presidential election campaign, but I already know who the loser will be. It's the same sap who's come out on the short end for the last two decades and more: the person on Main Street.

Wait, you say. Hasn't this election begun to turn on "populism?" Isn't Joe Biden the Working Man? Isn't Sarah Palin the Hockey Mom?

Well, sure they are, but populism is not Main Street. Populism -- the way it's being practiced today -- is all about anger and cultural warfare. Washington, Wall Street, bad. Wal Mart, Target, good.

A recent column by Bob Beckel and Cal Thomas in USA Today has them taking a stab at finding common ground. "The idea of a culture war seems so 1990s, doesn't it?" says one. The other frets, "We're in danger of heading down that pothole-filled road once again." Having expressed their preference for reasonableness, the two spend the rest of the column bickering about whether Americans want more health care or less same-sex marriages. They argue over who started the "culture wars" and who is to blame for continuing them. Finally, almost an afterthought, they find something they seem to be able to agree on, and that is that a presidential election is not the place to find "quieter moments of reflection . . . with honest give and take."

That, in a nutshell, is where we are at. Even people who are trying to find common ground can't quite do so. We talk past one another, our rhetoric filled with anger and finger pointing, until finally we come upon a dispirited realization: that presidential campaigns are no longer designed around the idea of helping citizens make a choice as to who should lead, but instead are built on a foundation of warfare. I win, you lose. Just as war has evolved from arranged battles to guerrilla asymmetries, so too have campaigns shifted from debates to shin-kicks.

Where candidates used to "stand" for election, they now "run." Where they used to seek to "govern," they now say the seek office in order to "fight."

Even within the campaigns (and, more stridently, the supporters) of Senators MccCain and Obama -- of which each man can be made a strong case that they are willing and able to work across divides, placing results ahead of party interest -- neither can seem to refrain from phony outrage and disgusting taunts.

Twenty years ago the political world laid hold of the power of organized fear in the image of Willie Horton which in part sunk Michael Dukakis' candidacy for president. While not the first campaign ad to play on base emotion, it is widely regarded as the archetype. Since then, it's gotten worse each year. Scare tactics are now the norm, not just in commercials but in almost every campaign communication. And they are not limited to one political party.

This leaves the folks on Main Street in the lurch. It literally perverts them by, playing on their base instincts of fear, hatred, and their urge to support their team at all costs. They see higher stakes, more dire consequences, more reason for outrage, than reality would dictate -- all because the machinery of politics cynically eggs them on. My side is attacked – I must hit back and hard. People, under such pressure, tend to lose their equanimity and act more like face-painted sports fans at the Big Game. They've been ginned up, whipped into a frenzy.

I recently had the opportunity to eavesdrop on a political conversation between adolescent children. Depending on who was talking, each candidate by turns would "stop terrorists," "end global warming," "lower gas prices," or "stop the war." Neither candidate can actually do any of these things. Yet these comments are exactly in line with what we hear daily out on the street, as we circulate through life.

Gone is the sense that we are making a decision, weighing options. In its stead is the building-up of our team and the eviscerating of their team.

People on Main Street, meanwhile, are left with little else to do but go along with the mob, or check out of public life.

Little wonder so many pick the latter option.

Coping With The Cost Of Health Care

2008-09-05T13:00:00.003-05:00

I wanted to share a project that I have been working on with my friends at the Kettering Foundation and the National Issues Forums. I'm quite excited about it.

It's a new issue book I've written called Coping With the Cost of Health Care: How Do We Pay for What We Need? The "issue brief" is available for free download here, and the larger "issue book" can be ordered here.

(This is a slight revision of a health care issue brief developed back in March.)

Like all National Issues Forums issue guides, this one looks at a difficult public problem from three different perspectives, or "approaches." The guide is meant to be the core of a small-group discussion where participants wrestle with the choices and trade-offs embedded in the issue, and come to their own view of how we ought to proceed as a nation. The book does not advocate for any one choice.

Here are the approaches it outlines:

Approach #1: Reduce the Threat of Financial Ruin

Proponents of this approach say we need to make health insurance that covers major medical expenses available to everyone.

Approach #2: Restrain Out-of-Control Costs

Health-care costs are too high for too many people. This approach holds that they should be reduced directly through price controls and other means.

Approach #3: Provide Coverage as a Right

Proponents of this approach say that health care coverage is something every citizen is entitled to.

Thank you to the Kettering Foundation for the opportunity to work on this important issue.

Google Me.

2008-06-16T06:00:00.000-05:00

This article by me first appeared in Pajamas Media.

Senator John McCain's campaign has "abruptly canceled" a fundraiser that had been set to take place at the home of a Texas oilman. The host, Clayton Williams, had run for governor against Ann Richards back in 1990 and, during the campaign, unfortunately at one point compared the weather to a rape -- "as long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it." He was trying to be funny. It wasn't. These words were picked up by the media and by Richards' campaign and Williams lost.

In canceling their fundraiser, McCain's campaign spokesman said, "These were obviously incredibly offensive remarks that the campaign was unaware of at the time this event was scheduled."

Now the questions begin: Should he give back the money? How will this affect the campaign? What will Obama do? Shouldn't he have known?

That last question is, perhaps, worth thinking about.

There's a long and proud American tradition of political figures getting torpedoed by words and deeds from the past. Often it is some sort of nominee whose inane or insane remarks from their youth get unearthed. Or weird academic writings that had been read by maybe seven Ph.D.s come to light. Or the figure has a vulgar sense of humor (like our man Williams). Or a family member has a checkered past.

Opponents pounce on such things, and that's understandable. But in the past, the test in people's living rooms has been: how does the principal deal with the revelations? For some high-profile nominees, such as for positions that require Senate confirmation, we are dumbfounded that the offense had not come up in the background checks, but for less weighty things there's this sense of sympathy. You can't know everything about everybody.

But now that's changed. Really, it's hard not to know more about most people than they would like to have known.

Take that fellow who ran for Texas governor and tripped up the Senator from Arizona. One Google search yields his Wikipedia entry as the #2 hit. Wikipedia (and this was current as of March 27), highlights the offending remark. OK, some purists say Wikpedia is prone to manipulation, so follow one more link to the source article. There it is, the remark and the ensuing controversy. That "research" took sixty seconds, including reading time.

Yet, the McCain campaign treats the remark as if it was some obscure thing they could not have possibly known. The only way the campaign could have been "unaware of" the remark "at the time the event was scheduled" would be if no one actually looked into who this guy was. Probably a better response from the Straight Talk Express would have been: "We were moving too fast and just didn't do our homework."

This isn't just McCain's problem. Senator Barack Obama's campaign has been plagued by similar Google-blindness and tin-ear moves. James Johnson, the consummate insider, reviewing the Running Mates of Change? Please. Tony Rezko, radioactive fundraiser and neighbor selling a strip of vacant land to the senator from Illinois? He was "glowing" at the time of the sale, under investigation by Federal prosecutors. And for intemperate, embarrassing remarks, see the entry under Rev. Wright.

Senator Obama's response to criticism that he should have known about Johnson's sweetheart mortgage deals was: "[E]verybody . . . who is tangentially related to our campaign, I think, is going to have a whole host of relationships. I would have to hire the vetter to vet the vetters." This is a classic line. If there is justice, "vetter to vet the vetters" will enter pop culture and get screened onto American Apparel basic T's. At least it deserves something on the Colbert Report.

But he does have a point. Johnson's apparently too-cozy Countrywide mortgages came to light (through an article in the Wall Street Journal) only after he was named Chief Vetter.

While there are many things that a campaign ought to know, there are just as many things about supporters that campaigns can't know. And the means for many of these things to come to the fore are firmly entrenched in the landscape. Look no further than sites like Pajamas Media. The only certainty, then, is that things will come to light.

Candidates need to both up their game and prepare for the mistakes they will definitely make. It won't pass muster to say you didn't know something anyone can find out in less than a minute.

But, as former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld pointed out (and for which wisdom he was unfairly ridiculed), there are known unknowns. That is to say, candidates can bet on embarrassing revelations about their supporters, even if they do not yet know, and cannot yet know, what they are.

How will the campaigns respond? Circle the wagons? Or -- perhaps too much to ask from the Candidate of Believable Change or from Camp Straight Talk -- with straightforward candor?

What I Would Say To Eliot

2008-03-24T06:32:00.006-05:00

This article by me first appeared in Pajamas Media.

I wonder what I would say to Eliot Spitzer if he were my neighbor.

Watching his wife, Silda Wall Spitzer, in that first hastily-called press conference, I thought to myself, That's a deep wound he's left. Eliot Spitzer apparently took extraordinary actions to get what he wanted, jumping through hoop after hoop after hoop put in his way by his contact at Emperor's Club VIP. The payments they requested ratcheted up and up with each telephone call, if the affidavits from the wiretaps are to be believed. It seems clear this is not the only time he's been a customer at such an establishment. It's hard to argue that it was a momentary weakness. The facts are quite damning. They get worse the more we learn.

Preamble aside, here's what he said he planned to do in his initial announcement: "I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family."

That seemed a tall order to me then, and it still does. It is likely to take a bit more than "some" time.

Many say Spitzer's troubles are quite pleasing because of their irony. Spitzer was known as a crusader, with a carefully cultivated squeaky clean image, and with few friends, so this episode goes beyond a simple john-caught-in-a-sting story. Indeed, even the admissions of marriage on-on-the-rocks dalliances years ago by his successor, and even racier ones emerging from the neighboring Garden State somehow don't carry the same weight. Roger L. Simon called it correctly when he pointed out: "The outcry against Spitzer was not because he was some man seeing a prostitute, but because he was a guy who puts prostitutes in jail seeing a prostitute."

But, I'm putting aside for a moment the laws, his political career, and his storied lack of allies. I neither despise his policies nor particularly applaud his successes.

Instead, at a distance, it is possible to think of him as a man who is a husband and a father, whom I have to believe will want to try to make amends to his wife. At least, that's what he says.

A measure of compassion -- not for him, but for the spot he is in -- emerged as I heard the line about his plans to "dedicate some time" to regain his family's trust. As if it is a project to be tackled over the weekend, or a gardening holiday. It sounded like the desperate hope of any male who thinks he can just focus in and fix things. But anyone with close relations to any other human being, and especially people who have hurt, or been hurt, knows that such pain does not go away quickly. Breached trust is not regained after just "some time." It takes much longer. And it takes a much different attitude.

Watching, I placed myself in his shoes, listening to that press conference. What must it be like to be caught so very publicly and red-handed, to have to ask your wife of twenty-one years to accompany you to the dais, to desperately want the clock to turn back? A living nightmare.

Hate the sin, love the sinner. What would I want to say to my pretend neighbor, perhaps while we met one another on the way down the street to pick up the dry cleaning? At a time, in other words, when he was not a governor but just another person? Like he is now?

I'd want to say: "Don't think it's all going to get better right away. But if you have true remorse, and truly want to change, it often can turn out OK. It can take years, decades, and the outcome is not always assured. If I were your wife, I would want to ask you how I can be assured you are really trying to change."

I would want to talk about the difference between an apology -- that really just amounts to regret at being caught -- and truly making amends. When you make amends, you recognize your own wrongdoing and set out to put it right. "Sorry" gets you a do-over. Making amends begins to address the problem.

You get the sense, watching public figures do their public business, that people begin to believe their own press after a time. Celebrities "become" their personae, as do politicians. This is Spitzer's domestic challenge now, to take himself down a peg and do more than "dedicate some time."

He hasn't been seen much lately so maybe that's what he's up to.

We've all hurt people and we've all wanted to make it right. And we have all experienced the feeling of remorse over not having truly made it right. How many of us mutter an apology and move on -- when far more is required?

And so I would want, finally, to say this to my neighbor: "It's time to devote your life to deserving the trust of your family. You can do it, but only if you want it deeply enough."

Paying For Health Care In America

2008-03-05T09:15:00.005-05:00

I wanted to share a project that I have been working on with my friends at the Kettering Foundation and the National Issues Forums. I'm quite excited about it.

It's a new issue book called Paying For Health Care in America: How Can We Make It More Affordable? I've finished the "issue brief" and am now working on a larger "issue book." The 12-page brief is available for free download here. The issue book (which will be slightly larger and have more research and quotes and such) will be sold for a nominal fee.

Like all National Issues Forums issue guides, this one looks at a difficult public problem from three different perspectives, or "approaches." The guide is meant to be the core of a small-group discussion where participants wrestle with the choices and trade-offs embedded in the issue, and come to their own view of how we ought to proceed as a nation. The book does not advocate for any one choice.

Here's a recap of this particular guide:

Forty-seven million Americans lack health insurance while costs continue to spiral out of control for those who do have coverage. The nation spends more than any other country on health care, but many are still dissatisfied with what we have to show for it. Now it is time to face the difficult choices needed to make the U.S. health-care system function properly.

Approach #1: Focus on Personal Choice and Responsibility

There is neither enough individual choice nor enough personal responsibility when it comes to health-care coverage. The real costs are hidden because it always looks like someone else is paying. We need to place individuals more in charge of their health-spending decisions; this will create incentives to reduce spending and improve service.

Approach #2: Provide Coverage as a Right for all Americans

It is an outrage that, in the wealthiest nation on the planet, more than 15 percent of us lack health insurance. We are all in this together, as a society. We rely on government to protect us from fire and crime and to provide education; it should ensure our health too. We need to provide health-care coverage as a right to all Americans, not just those who can afford it.

Approach #3: Build on What is Working

The U.S. health-care system is facing real problems right now-- and there are real solutions available right now. Holding out for a "perfect" answer is not reasonable. We can institute a modest set of reforms right away, which will bring real strides in increasing health insurance coverage and reducing costs.

Watch for an announcement of the full issue book, which should be available later in the spring.

Change, The Real Thing

2008-02-20T16:17:00.008-05:00

There is another race that Senator Barack Obama has won hands-down.

He's the only one with a decent logo. The Obama campaign has developed a contained, clear graphic that conveys just about everything most folks feel they need to know.

People know Obama's got good design on his side, too. Next time there's news of an Obama speech, take a look at the photo: often, it'll be a stark image of the Senator against a dark background, so he stands out. Hovering, a bit out of focus, behind the Senator, will be that logo.

The fact of this logo's existence says more than you might think about his candidacy. No other candidate has one. Sure, other candidates may say they have a logo -- but it's all just little wavy flags or bold stars surrounding their names. That Obama logo marks that the campaign, in part, has been about building a "brand."

But we are not in an ad campaign; we are in an election campaign. The competition is far different than that between soft drinks. If I buy The Real Thing today, I can turn around and Do The Dew tomorrow. But the act of voting is more than simply stating a preference.

We go to a special place in order to vote, having in most cases waited in a line with others who are about to do the same thing. Tension mounts; we see our neighbors. The American flags and officious posters on the walls, the intent poll-watchers skulking about, the earnest volunteer election judges -- it all adds to the seriousness. Even if I was not really focusing last night, or the week before, I sure am now, in line.

As I enter the booth, the import of my task strikes me. (I hear a similar thing happens among juries.)

On some level, I begin to realize I am not just saying who I "like" more, or who I would more rather go to Applebee's with. Nor am I "hiring" someone for a "job." I am, instead, making a choice that I believe ought to be binding on my fellow citizens. I am choosing for them as much as I am choosing for me.

Veteran political consultants know that the rules of the commercial world do not fully apply in election campaigns. While the two worlds use many of the same tools, they are different in important respects. Candidates who consciously proclaim "a different kind of message" run a risk when it comes to be crunch time. Because, for all of our complaining that campaigns have become a beauty contest -- it's not exactly so. Buzz, as we saw during Howard Dean's candidacy, does not necessarily translate into votes.

But, from observing the Obama campaign's mien over the last weeks, it seems the Senator or his strategists do indeed know the difference between ads and elections -- you see that logo less and less these days.

The Clinton campaign now has a slim reed on which to hang, which is that the hard work that has gone before will pay dividends and allow her to hang on into the spring. But it is not a foregone conclusion that the slogging work of politics can overtake the undeniable allure of a powerful message and a charismatic messenger -- which has now begun to focus like a laser on closing the deal.

I am a bit hopeful that the primary season will wear on, tiresome as it can be. I do know it may well be over soon. But the fight does the candidates good, and pays dividends to us citizens at home: Watching the repeated primaries, I am invited to check my own opinions -- Who would I have voted for last Tuesday? How about the Tuesday a few weeks before? My thoughts become clearer week by week and, eventually, along with my neighbor's and fellow citizens across the country, they build up to a collective judgment of who ought to be the nominee. Such judgments are improved by age.

I may be old-fashioned, but I am glad there is still an area of public life that we continue to keep closed off from the marketers. When we draw the curtain in the voting booth, even if we may not articulate this to ourselves, each of us stakes our own tiny claim for the seriousness of the task before us.

(Images from campaign websites.)

Being Wrong

2008-02-11T08:11:00.000-05:00

One recent week, I had occasion to say publicly I'd been wrong -- not once but twice. I like to think, each time, that it'll be the last time I have to do that. But, if past performance is the best predictor of future behavior, then the likelihood is that I will need to publicly admit to being wrong again in the not-too-distant future.

I used to think such admissions were momentous occasions to be avoided, that they reflected some fundamental problem that could have been avoided. Better planning, more precision, be more careful, those were the answers. Sure, that will all help improve things. But more recently, I see public apologies differently, as an increasing part of public life. I believe this is for the best.

The conventional wisdom, which still holds sway with many, is that an admission of error is to be shunned. Even if forced to retract something, or (worse yet) apologize, it's always "mistakes were made," or there was an "appearance of impropriety." Why is it so hard to just 'fess up and get on with things? While it can be very painful, it's not the end of the world; just try harder next time.

My good friend Rich Harwood likes to say that leading in public life takes courage and humility -- courage to place a stake in the ground, and humility to know that, later, you will more than likely have to publicly pick it up and move it.

The Internet, and the transparency it has driven, has accelerated this. Statements get made, articles get published, and responses appear immediately. Things that are far off the mark increasingly stand out, and the original speakers will often need to make corrections, issue retractions. The ability -- the imperative -- to do this is one of the chief differences between the "old" guard of journalism and the "new." Think of CBS's response to what is now known as "Rathergate": lengthy refusal to admit that key documents in one of its high-profile stories were likely forged. Digging their heels into the ground, they increasingly opened themselves to criticism. By contrast, in one of my recent episodes of contrition, my article was updated based on feedback received the same day it was originally published. I don't hold this up to point out how groovy I am personally, but instead to show this as an example of what a different approach to public life might look like.

But, maybe it's ingrained in people not to admit mistakes. When hiring someone, I have a favorite interview question. I ask them to describe something that was a failure. I make sure to say the word, "failure," too. People have a hard time with that one; they typically don't want to point to anything they did that might have been a mistake.

My subjects will squirm and then discuss situations that went awry due to others' idiocy, or due to circumstances beyond anyone's control. They will almost never say, "I did such-and-so, and later saw that this was a bonehead move, so instead I did this-and-that. Here's what I learned." Maybe it's too much to ask for someone to admit error in an interview situation. No one has ever asked me that in an interview; maybe I couldn't answer. But if someone ever gives me a straight answer to that question, I am hiring them on the spot.

I like to believe that, as communications technologies continue to erode the barriers between the opiners and the opined-to, and between the leaders and the led, that we will see more and more instances of public correction. It is already expected in many quarters, and the holdouts are slowly becoming fewer in number. It may be a bitter pill, but it is also strong medicine in public life. It erases many divisions, so that people can hear one another better.

Since we are all likely to be wrong not once but many times, we all will have a chance to be part of the movement away from the bunker mentality and towards a more productive way of relating in public life.

The question is whether we will find the guts to follow it. I fall short more than I would like to admit. How about you?

White Men Can't Talk

2008-02-10T07:10:00.000-05:00

The article by me first appeared in Pajamas Media.

There is a priceless moment in Oliver Stone's unfairly maligned The Doors, when our heroes are prepping to go on the Ed Sullivan Show. They are met by a stage assistant, a real twerp, who informs them that, "The network guys have a problem with one of your lyrics. 'Girl, we couldn't get much higher.'" He goes on: " You can't say 'higher' on the network, so they asked if you could say instead: 'Girl, we couldn't get much better.'"

The band looks at him, bemused. He finishes with: "Could you dig that?"

That dork's use of the word "dig" in this context perfectly illustrates what often happens when mainstream folks try to appropriate street talk: they get it wrong, either by not understanding proper usage, or just plain sounding silly. While we play such things for laughs, they ring true because we see the same thing every day.

I remember a song by a milquetoast rapper named Vanilla Ice, called "Ice Ice Baby." You probably remember it too. It's your standard 1990's fare, filled with braggadocio about the protagonist's many fine exploits. I can't help laughing when I hear some of the lines in the tune. Vanilla says he is "Rollin' in my 5.0" at one point. We all remember the angular 5.0 liter Mustang that was popular then. Vanilla spends three couplets on his "5.0," with evident pride not just in its fanciness but also in his street cred for knowing such slang. Thing is, that's not what the term "5-0" meant at the time -- it meant "police," as in "Hawaii 5-0." (Vanilla, whose real name is Rob Van Winkle, is a far more mature person now and a new crowd has come to enjoy his music.)

All this came back to me as the David Shuster saga unfolded. In an intemperate moment, our chalk-stripe-suited host says that Chelsea Clinton is being "pimped out" by her mom's campaign.

This has generated a firestorm and Shuster is now suspended for uttering such a derogatory remark. For my part, I would have wanted to suspend him for not understanding the language he was trying to use. He pulled a Vanilla Ice.

Dig: "Pimped out" means "made very fancy," as a stereotypical pimp might decorate something. There are overtones of exploitation, too, as in when something is "tricked out" -- that is, made alluring enough for a trick.

What Shuster probably meant to say was that he felt Chelsea was being "pimped," as in "exploited." It's a small slip, like Vanilla Ice's slip when it comes to his car, but it matters. On its face, Shuster's remark meant the campaign was dressing Chelsea up. In context, it was incoherent. In trying to appropriate so-called street lingo, he botched the job and made the same mistakes any foreign speaker makes when idiomatically out of their depth, with similarly hilarious results.

When I was in high school, I hosted an exchange student from Belgium. He fancied himself quite the Casanova, but most of my friends thought him the opposite. We taught him that the term "doughbrain" was our slang expression for "ladies' man." I regret it, now, as it was just mean -- but, man was it funny at the time.

If I were advising my exchange brother now, I would say to watch out and double check what idiomatic expressions mean, because you might just wind up sounding like a real Newman.

I guess David Shuster could use the same advice.

ADDENDUM: Looks like I made a mistake, and relied on my recollection and the lyric sheet when it came to Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby” — instead of re-listening to the song itself. He doesn’t say “five-oh” (which is what I remembered) but says “five point oh.” Commenters at Pajamas Media who have pointed that out are right. Kicking myself. You should, too!

They’re also right that it knocks a big leg out from under my point, but not entirely: Shuster sounded really silly saying “pimped out,” like a suit trying to talk street, and (this much I still maintain) misusing the term in that way.