Tapscott's Copy Desk

Tapscott's Copy Desk Has Moved to Examiner.com!

2006-12-03T14:45:00.000-05:00

Tapscott's Copy Desk bowed in the Blogosphere to somewhat less than unanimous and thundering acclaim Nov. 16, 2004. Many posts later, what might be called the "Blogger phase" of Tapscott's Copy Desk - because I've stayed with the Google program despite much frustration - ends tomorrow, Dec. 4, 2006, with a move to Examiner.com.

Go here to see the new digs.

Examiner.com is the web site of Clarity Media, which publishes The Washington Examiner where I toil happily as editorial page editor, as well as editions in Baltimore and San Francisco. More editions will be coming online in various cities across the nation in years to come.

The three hard-copy editions collectively reach more than a million readers six days a week, while Examiner.com is drawing more than a million visitors a month. Numbers like those should make it clear why I am so enthusiastic about moving from an independent blog to a publishing platform with vastly more circulation and immense potential for awesome growth.

This original incarnation of Tapscott's Copy Desk will remain here as an archive. Thank you so much to everybody who has spent time at this site, posted comments, emailed suggestions or otherwise contributed to the modest success I enjoyed with this humble site.

See ya at Examiner.com.

A Most Important and Impressive Fifth Blogiversary

2006-12-01T12:20:00.000-05:00

No, not for Tapscott's Copy Desk but for Bill Hobbs of Tennessee who has a great story because he's one of the earlier Right bloggers. And still one of the best. Here's how he describes it:

Fifth Blogiversary

It passed yesterday without me noting it here on the blog, but yesterday is the fifth anniversary of my blog's creation. I first posted these two items on Nov. 30, 2001, at my blog's original website. The blog was created as a way to provide additional material for readers of my weekly column that I was writing for the Nashville City Paper. (You can see a full list of links to all my NCP columns here.) I moved the blog to this site on January 1, 2004. Since then, according to SiteMeter, it has been visited more than 1.46 million times. According to AwStats, my blog gets about 22,000 unique visitors per month. If half of them dropped a dollar in the tip jar once a month, I could do this full time...

And now, on to year six.

ProfBainbridge.com Unveils Redesigned and Much Expanded Site as Portal to a Blog Magazine

2006-11-27T07:39:00.000-05:00

Prof. Stephen Bainbridge of UCLA is among the most widely read law profs due in no small part to the fact he covers a wide variety of topics ranging from business and law issues to politics, wine and cars. He's also a member of The Examiner Blog Board of Contributors.

Bainbridge has now unveiled a massive redesign of his blog, but the overhaul is not simply to how profbainbridge.com looks. Bainbridge has changed the underlying concept of how he uses his blog. It is now actually a portal to a blog-based online magazine divided into three distinct sections, or blogs.

ProfBainbridge.com is now "the front page of a blog magazine in three sections." His Prof Bainbridge's Journal, for example, is where he covers politics, cars, non-business law, political incorrectness, dogs or whatever else strikes his fancy. Check out this post on a new study that indicates those sky-high CEO compensation packages may also result in higher pay for the folks back down the management line.

His Prof. Bainbridge's Business Associations Blog is where you will find his scholarly work, as well as posts concerning the work of others in business law that he finds worthy of comment. Check out this post on investor activism in, of all places, China.

The third section is Prof. Bainbridge on Wine. You will find much more than the results of the UCLA prof's most recent wine-tasting tour. Betcha didn't know there were First Amendment issues involved here. Check this out.

Congratulations to the good professor and let it be noted here that I expect ProfBainbridge.com could quite possibly be followed by a bunch of smart bloggers intent on directing the highest form of flattery in his direction.

Alaska "Seafood Waste" Earmark Shows Lengths to Which Advocates Go to Conceal Their Handiwork

2006-11-22T15:00:00.000-05:00

A congressional insider provided the following account of an earmark contained in the proposed 2007 Agriculture Appropriations bill. Are not the senators and staffers who practice the following legislative concealment gulity of some form of fraud?

Here is just one example of the trickery that goes into hiding earmarks in appropriations bills and the hours of detective work necessary to find basic information about how tax dollars are being spent by Congress:

The Fiscal Year (FY) 2007 Agriculture Appropriations bill contains a $2,009,878 earmark for a "seafood waste" project in Fairbanks, Alaska. Neither the bill nor its accompanying report contains a description of the purpose of this project, its intended goals or the actual amount of the earmark.

The purpose and actual amount of this earmark is a "hide and seek" exercise that requires extensive detective work.

The earmark is contained within a list of "Program Continuations" in the bill report, which states "the Committee directs the Agricultural Research Service to continue to fund the following areas of research in fiscal year 2007 at the same funding level recommended in fiscal year 2006."

The FY 2006 Agriculture appropriations conference report states that "The conference agreement includes increased funding in fiscal year 2006 to expand" the seafood waste earmark project by $75,000. The report again does not state what the purpose of the research is or what the total amount of the earmark is.

The Joint Explanatory Statement for the FY 2005 Consolidated Appropriations Act published in the Congressional Record states a “further increase” is provided for "Seafood Waste, Fairbanks, AK (U of AK), $160,000 (of which $50,000 goes to the State of Alaska)."[1] Again, the actual amount and purpose are not provided.

Going back a year earlier, a "further increase" of $180,000 is provided for "Seafood Waste, Fairbanks, AK (U of AK)" in the FY 2004 Consolidated Omnibus Appropriations bill.[2]

The FY 2003 Consolidated appropriations bill report states,"The conferees have agreed to increased funding for… Seafood Waste, Fairbanks, AK" by $200,000.[3]

The term "seafood waste" does not appear in the FY 2002 Agriculture appropriations conference report. The conference report does, however, state:

"The statement of the managers remains silent on provisions that were in both the House and Senate bills that remain unchanged by this conference agreement, except as noted in this statement of the managers. … The House and Senate report language that is not changed by the conference is approved by the committee of conference. The statement of the managers, while repeating some report language for emphasis, does not intend to negate the language referred to above unless expressly provided herein."[4]

There is no reference to "seafood waste" in the report for the FY 2002 House-passed Agriculture appropriations bill.

The FY 2002 Senate Agriculture appropriations bill, however, states:

"Seafood waste - While seafood is attractive now as an alternate food source, the disposal of seafood waste continues to be a national and international problem. Discarded fish waste and its other uses could potentially provide an additional source of revenue for seafood processors. The Committee provides an increase of $900,000 for fiscal year 2002 for ARS to develop a program with the University of Alaska on feedstuffs generated from materials usually wasted during processing of seafoods."[5]

There is no reference to "seafood waste" in the FY 2001 Agriculture appropriations bills or reports passed by both the House and Senate.

Anyone interested in knowing the purpose of this earmark would have to search back through five years of appropriations bills. Finding the amount of the earmark is even more complicated since the base amount is never provided, only the amount that the project is to increase each year.

A clerk from the Senate Appropriations Committee disclosed that the actual amount that the Alaska "seafood waste" earmark is to receive under the FY 2007 Agriculture appropriations bill is $2,009,878.

[1] CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - HOUSE, November 19, 2004, H10413.

[2] CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - HOUSE, November 25, 2003, H12448.

[3] "MAKING FURTHER CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE FISCAL

YEAR 2003, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES CONFERENCE REPORT TO ACCOMPANY H.J. Res. 2," House Report 108-10, Page 556.

[4] "MAKING APPROPRIATIONS FOR AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES PROGRAMS FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING SEPTEMBER 30, 2002, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES," House Report 107-275, page 47.

[5] Senate Report 107-41 to accompany S. 1191, page 35.

Would It Be Different Among U.S. Journalists?

2006-11-18T11:17:00.000-05:00

Normblog describes a recent event in Wales that captures the sorry state of affairs visavis freedom of speech in the United Kingdom. Aussie journo Andrew Bolt isn't surprised. What is significant about this occurrence for those of us in the former North American colonies, however, is that it could easily be duplicated here in America.

HT: Instapundit

Whither the GOP? Now the Debate Gets Serious

2006-11-17T10:42:00.000-05:00

Rep. John Boehner, R-OH, and Rep. Roy Blunt, R-MO, have been elected House Minority Leader and House Minority Whip, respectively, and both by wide margins of the House GOP caucus.

Thus, both the Senate GOP, which earlier this week elevated Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-KY, and Sen. Trent Lott, R-MS, and the House GOP have opted for familiarity and continuity instead of radical change in the wake of last Tuesday's massive election defeat.

As always happens when a majority party is thrust into the minority, a great debate is now gathering momentum within the GOP and the Right side of the Blogosphere about what to do next, especially whether or not to stay within the party or seek greener electoral pastures elsewhere.

The key issue here is whether the GOP can ever be a reliable tool for advancing the principles and programs that America's moderate conservative majority have supported for decades. I remain open to persuasion otherwise, but my view is the leadership decisions made by the Senate and House GOP provide abundant evidence that conservatives, libertarians and faith-based traditionalists should look elsewhere.

Mine is a minority view, at least for now. Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters has been especially pondering these questions since the election and is beginning to arrive at some conclusions.

Today Ed focuses on the need to find and recruit top quality conservative candidates:

"Given that our choices of leadership have become so constrained that Trent Lott represents the lesser of two evils to some, then it is incumbent on conservatives to start finding better choices for these offices.

"Over the next few weeks, I'll be dusting off my Not One Dime More domain and developing some initiatives designed to do just that. I'm tentatively calling this the First Principles Project, and I'll eventually need plenty of help from the CQ community."

Go here for more from Ed.

DO NOT MISS HAM NATION!

2006-11-16T20:58:00.000-05:00

One of the great things about the Internet is how it is giving voice to so many young conservative stars-in-the-making. Like Mary Katharine Ham. With each succeeding edition of "Ham Nation," you can see her confidence growing and an influential, entertaining, thoughtful personae emerging.

If you doubt me, just watch the latest edition and MKH will explain why Democrats are the "psycho ex-girlfriend of American politics" and the GOP is the porkrind-gorging ex in denial "sitting on the couch eating Ho-Hos."

I'll bet Chris Matthews and Tim Russert had no idea Ho-Hos could have political implications!

Go here. Enjoy.

Milton Friedman, RIP

2006-11-16T17:41:00.000-05:00

Economist and Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman has passed away today in San Francisco at age 94. Cause of death was heart failure, according to a Bloomberg report quoting his daughter.

His "Capitalism and Freedom" was one of the first handful of serious books I read as a young campus conservative way back in 1969 and from then on he has been a dependable fixture of a giant in the intellectual universe.

May he rest in peace from labors that bore fruit we will all enjoy for generations to come.

Milton Friedman
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Seven Wise Suggestions for House GOPers from Gingrich

2006-11-15T10:29:00.000-05:00

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gringrich has an excellent memo to the House GOP at Online Human Events today in which he offers seven very wise suggestions about how to regain majority status, as well as how to deal with the Bush White House, Blue Dog Democrats and incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Here are just two of Gingrich's points:

"To regain majority status, we have to focus on the country first and on Washington and the Congress second. If we are responsive to the country, they will support us and return us to power. If we are focused on action in Washington (whether White House action, legislative action or lobbyist and PAC action), we are probably entering a long period in minority status.
"Are House Republicans electing leaders to represent House Republican values and strategies to the White House or leaders to represent the White House to House Republicans? Over the next two years, House Republicans and the White House will have very different institutional interests and very different time horizons. If we want to regain majority status, we have to focus on the building of a grassroots coalition which supports real change in Washington."

Gingrich may be a presidential candidate in 2008, but his memo bears close study by all concerned. He doesn't say it explicitly, but it seems Gingrich is of the view that there is no rush to choose the new House GOP leadership.

Also, it's significant that the Gingrich piece is at OHE. Lots of good things are happening these days at America's oldest conservative journal and much of the credit goes to Rob Bluey, a very sharp young conservative journalist who understands online. Keep an eye on him and OHE.

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Did Conservatives Get Bushquacked Last Tuesday?

2006-11-14T18:20:00.000-05:00

The headline above was suggested as a caption for this cartoon by Nate Beeler, which appeared today on the editorial page of The Washington Examiner.

From the Have-They-Learned-Nothing? Department: House GOPers Return From Thumpin,' Set to Approve New Federal Programs

2006-11-13T18:31:00.000-05:00

It's probably a mistake to put much hope in the outcome of the GOP congressional leadership races. Just check out this description from the Republican Study Committee of a proposal on the House calendar tomorrow.

The bill in question concerns underage drinking. Now there is a problem the Founders clearly intended to be covered as a federal responsibility under the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution. Why else would there be no committee report accompanying the proposal concerning its constitutionality?

Note, too, that the bill is coming to the House floor as a result of a vote by the outgoing House GOP leadership - including Rep. John Boehner and Rep. Roy Blunt - to suspend House rules that prevent consideration of proposals that create at least three new federal programs without allowing debate and amendments.

In other words, the leading guys who just got booted out are suspending the rules to create a "fast track" for approving even more spending and more new federal programs. And Boehner wants to be the new House Minority Leader and Blount wants to be the Minority Whip!

If this passes ...

H.R. 864 - Sober Truth on Preventing Underage Drinking Act - as amended (Roybal-Allard, D-CA)

Order of Business: The bill is scheduled for consideration on Tuesday, November 14, 2006, under a motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill, as amended

Note: Under House Republican Conference Rules, legislation which creates at least three new programs may not be considered by the House on the Suspension Calendar. This rule may be waived by a vote of the elected Leadership. H.R. 864 received such a waiver from the elected Leadership.

Summary: H.R. 864 codifies the interagency coordinating committee focusing on underage drinking that had been operating informally since 2004 and directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to enhance the efforts of the committee. The committee's purpose is to coordinate federal policy and program development with respect to underage drinking. The committee is to report annually to Congress. Additionally, HHS is to report annually to Congress on the states efforts to prevent underage drinking. H.R. 864 authorizes $4 million over four years for the committee.

H.R. 864 directs HHS to continue the Ad Council's national media public service announcements against underage drinking, and authorizes $4 million for the campaign. The Secretary must also report annually on the Ad Council's efforts.

The bill authorizes $20 million over four years for the establishment of a new grant program, which would award grants to entities eligible to receive grants under the Drug-Free Communities Act of 1997, "to design, test, evaluate and disseminate effective strategies to maximize the effectiveness of community-wide approaches to preventing and reducing underage drinking."

H.R. 864 authorizes $20 million over four years for a new grant program, which would directs award grants to states, institutions of higher education, and nonprofit entities to prevent and reduce the rate of underage alcohol consumption and binge drinking among students at institutes of higher learning.

The bill authorizes $24 million over four years for a new research initiative and directs HHS to research and compile data on underage drinking including the scope of the phenomena, and the involvement of alcohol in unnatural deaths of persons aged 12 to 20 years. HHS would be required to collect data and surveys on the identification of alcohol use and attitudes about alcohol use during pre- and early adolescence, and the development and identification successful clinical treatments for youth with alcohol problems.

Committee Action: H.R. 864 was introduced on February 16, 2005, and referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce's Subcommittee on Health, which took no official action.

Cost to Taxpayers: A CBO score of H.R. 864 is unavailable. However, the bill authorizes appropriations of $72 million over the 2007-2010 period.

Does the Bill Expand the Size and Scope of the Federal Government?: Yes. The bill creates at least three new federal programs.

Does the Bill Contain Any New State-Government, Local-Government, or Private-Sector Mandates?: No.

Constitutional Authority: A committee report citing constitutional authority is unavailable.

RSC Staff Contact: Marcus Kelley; marcus.kelley@mail.house.gov; (202) 226-9717

UPDATE: Captain For Pence, Shadegg

Ed Morrissey says Rep. Mike Pence, R-IN, and Rep. John Shadegg, R-AZ, are his choices for House Minority Leader and House GOP Whip, respectively. He also likes either Rep. Jack Kingston, R-GA, and Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-TN, for GOP Conference Chairman.

UPDATE II: Cool video for Pence, Shadegg

The Jawa Report's Ragnar Danneskjold has created a superb video that puts the current House leadership races in the proper perspective. It's got some great music and images, too.

UPDATE III: Spending-drunk House OKs new federal underage drinking programs

Approval came on a 373-23 vote. Here are the Members who voted no:

Barrett (SC)
Campbell (CA)
Cantor
Feeney
Flake
Foxx
Gutknecht
Hensarling

Herger
Hostettler
Inglis (SC)
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
King (IA)
Kolbe
Manzullo

Myrick
Otter
Paul
Pence
Rohrabacher
Taylor (MS)
Westmoreland

There's Another Election This Week

2006-11-13T14:29:00.000-05:00

This is posted on RedState.com. I would only add that I believe Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, is the obvious choice for Senate Minority Leader.

See also this important piece in Human Events regarding the House races.

A Tapscottian View of the Elections

2006-11-08T17:16:00.000-05:00

When Republicans worry more about staying in government than about limiting government, they get thrown out of government. That's the lesson of Nov. 7, 2006.

Conservatives have been warning the Washington Republican Establishment for years that a day of reckoning would come sooner or later if they continued to talk the talk of conservative reform such as the Contract with America without walking it as well. The day of reckoning arrived Tuesday. I am not confident that the GOP will ever again wield the power it held during the past 12 years.

All evening as I watched the returns Tuesday night and throughout the day today as I've read others' comments, I've found myself going back to the debate that ensued across the Right side of the Blogosphere in May. The debate was sparked by a Bruce Kesler post at Democracy Project entitled "Conservative Battle Fatigue."

Hugh Hewitt, the Blogfather of so many of us, christened that debate "Tapscottians versus Geraghtyites," with National Review Online's Jim Geraghty being the principal voice for those opposing the miscreants, malcontents and lone rangers who lined up with yours truly.

The fulcrum of that debate, of course, was what should be the proper attitude of conservatives and libertarians towards the GOP in the 2006 campaign. Should we stay home in protest or save the GOP's bacon yet again?

As told by Hugh, the Tapscottians advocated staying home on election day to punish the GOP for deviating from the limited government gospel no matter the consequences, even to the extent of a Democratic congressional majority being elected, while the Geraghtyites took the much more pragmatic approach of holding their noses and voting for the GOP, if only to assure sufficient support for the President on the war and in appointing conservative judges.

My purpose here, however, is not to refight that battle, but rather to review one of my concluding posts in light of Tuesday's results, the May 18 number entitled "Conservative Battle Fatique? What About the SCOTUS?"

That post opened by noting a Washington Post/ABC News survey that found 55 percent of those surveyed saying they wanted an alternative to Democrats and Republicans, then moved to comments by White House political maestro Karl Rove.

I believed Rove's comments confirmed that there was little hope of the GOP maintaining its congressional majority precisely because the response of the Bush White House and the GOP Establishment to the steadily worsening outlook would assure an election day disaster:

"Today it is doubtful the GOP can credibly offer another [Contract with America] unless it prefaces that offer with significant and concrete action toward enactment of long-promised conservative policies accomplished in a dramatic manner - 'emergency session' - that nationalizes the election on our terms rather than the Democrats' terms. Do Bill Frist and Dennis Hastert have the political acumen and courage to do this?"

The answer, of course, was no, they didn't, which meant the essential framing of the GOP congressional campaign would be left to Rove. Rove's strategy was built on the tried-and-true GOP Establishment axiom that "conservatives have no place to go," and therefore the biggest challenge was getting them to turnout on election day in sufficient numbers to overcome the Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media.

It was essential for the Rove strategy to create the appearance of sufficient progress on key issues in order to "get the GOP base stirred up." But the "progress" was little more than smoke and mirrors and everybody in Washington knew it, as did millions of conservative voters who had heard the same broken record over and over again in the past.

Thus, the Rove strategy was doomed months before it was implemented:

"Karl Rove's idea that conservatives can be lured back in sufficient numbers to protect the GOP majority by focusing on four critical issues to create the appearance of such genuine progress reminds me of the last desperate effort of the Bush I re-election campaign to portray W's father as a conservative advocate. It wasn't credible then thanks to the broken 'read my lips' promise and it isn't credible now because Bush hasn't vetoed irresponsible spending and seems determined to grant amnesty to most of the 11 million illegal immigrants."

As predicted in May, the Rove strategy fell apart by election day. As the prospect of Speaker Pelosi loomed larger, there was a small surge in GOP support, but it started far too late to change the outcome and in any case couldn't achieve the needed intensity, thanks to the years of broken promises from the GOP Establishment.

But I wasn't completely pessimistic in May:

"The good news is the opportunity thereby created for conservatives to provide the credible alternative being sought by that 55 percent who are looking around for somebody else to support in November.

"So in my view the most likely scenario is this: The GOP Establishment won't/can't seize this opportunity and so will lose in November, but the Moonbat extremism that afflicts the Democrats will quickly squander their gains.

"With Bush finally using the veto, the period leading to the 2008 presidential race will be stalemate in Congress and continued opportunity for the creation and articulation of a credible new conservative alternative. The Democrats only hope will be a triangulating Hillary, but even that won't work if her negatives remain at their typical level."

What happens in the GOP in the next 90 days will determine whether the party ever again has a realistic chance of regaining majority status in Congress and the White House. If there is not a top-to-bottom housecleaning in the congressional leadership and the national and state party structures, nothing much will change.

Frankly, I doubt that the GOP can change enough to avoid a long slide into a political oblivion not unlike that suffered by the Whigs for their inability to confront the issue of slavery.

The GOP has talked about Big Government for decades, but, with the exception of the Reagan years, has done little to change Washington. Indeed, during Bush II, the GOP has expanded Big Government even faster than the Democrats.

So what about the presidential aspirants for 2008? That's a topic for another time and frankly right now, I don't see much reason to be hopeful there either. As Scarlet said, I'll think about that tomorrow.

UPDATE: The Bums Give Us the Rush

Hugh Hewitt is surprised and angry that the House GOP leadership is calling the caucus back to D.C. next week to elect a Minority leader and other new leadership, noting that "the rush to engineer a succession communicates an unwillingness to recognize the significance of the set-back yesterday."

Oh, it communicates that and so much more, Hugh.

UPDATE II: Voters Didn't Leave Conservatism, the GOP Did - Coburn

Here's the heart of Sen. Tom Coburn's statement on the election:

"Many factors contributed to these election results. The American people obviously are concerned about the conduct of the war in

Iraq

. Members of both parties have an obligation to work together to offer creative and constructive solutions that will help our troops accomplish their mission.

"The overriding theme of this election, however, is that voters are more interested in changing the culture in Washington than changing course in Washington, D.C. This election was not a rejection of conservative principles per se, but a rejection of corrupt, complacent and incompetent government.

"A recent CNN poll found that 54 percent of Americans believe government is doing too much while only 37 percent want government to do more. The results of this election reflect that attitude. Among the Republicans who lost their re-election bids a surprising number were political moderates who advocated a more activist government.

"Several Republican members of the appropriations committees, which have been on a spending binge, also were not re-elected. On the other hand, the two Republican senators who pulled off the most impressive victories were unapologetic conservatives, Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and John Ensign (R-NV). It is also notable that the Democrats who won or who ran competitive races sounded more like Ronald Reagan than Lyndon Johnson.

"This election does not show that voters have abandoned their belief in limited government; it shows that the Republican Party has abandoned them. In fact, these results represent the total failure of big government Republicanism."

UPDATE III: Conservatives voted for Democrats

That may seem like a shocking headline, but Mike Franc of The Heritage Foundation has an excellent column in today's edition of The Baltimore Sun in which he lays it out in stark numbers:

"In every competitive Senate election save Rhode Island's, the Democrat won the votes of substantially more self-identified conservatives than the Republican did of liberals. One-fifth of all conservative voters in Pennsylvania, for example, voted for Democrat Bob Casey.

"Ohio's senator-elect, Sherrod Brown, who voted the conservative position only 8 percent of the time during his 14 years in the House (according to the American Conservative Union's scorecard), nevertheless won the votes of 23 percent of Ohio's conservatives.

"But even the support of all self-identified conservatives in those states would not have been enough to pull Sens. Rick Santorum and Mike DeWine over the finish line. Significantly, in at least three of the closest races - in Missouri, Montana and Virginia - the net cost of losing these conservatives was greater than the Republican margin of defeat."

GOP Establishment-types will argue that such voting is like cutting off one's nose to spite one's face, but Franc's data is yet another indication of just how hollow was the argument that "conservatives have no place to go" except to vote for the party of Ted Stevens, Trent Lott and Jerry Lewis.

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Here's the News Photo Your Local Newspaper Hasn't Published

2006-11-03T14:41:00.000-05:00

It's all over the Internet, but few daily newspapers are publishing it. And then they wonder why they are losing circulation?

Hugh Hewitt and Dean Barnett have much, much more starting here.

Coburn, Obama Show Freshmen Lone Rangers Can Impact Senate Big-Time

2006-11-01T13:41:00.000-05:00

Remember the old saw that freshmen senators and representatives are best advised to sit quiety on the back benches of Congress and wait years for their turn to have any genuine say or influence?

It was true back in the day of Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun, but not now and certainly not for Oklahoma's Republican Sen. Tom Coburn and Illinois' Democrat Sen. Barack Obama, at least if the latest rankings of senatorial influence and power compiled by Knowlegis for Congress.org are to be believed.

The duo rank first and second in Senate influence among the senators elected in 2004, with the Illinois Democrat first with a score of 32.56 and the Oklahoma GOPer second at 25.06. The two rank 51st and 70th respectively overall in the Senate.

Ridenour Takes Apart Bloomberg's Carlson, Demonstrates Need for Footnoted Journalism

2006-10-31T07:58:00.000-05:00

Bloomberg.com columnist Margaret Carlson wrote a column this week in which she bewailed the passing of a kindler, gentler politics and lamented the descent of the American public debate to the new low of Rush Limbaugh accusing Michael J. Fox of being a fraud.

It's a typical Carlson column, long on assertion but short on documented facts. And it serves as exactly the kind of column Amy Ridenour thinks demonstrates the need for footnotes in contemporary journalism. In the course of systematically taking apart Carlson's column, Amy also responds to my assessment of her suggestion regarding footnotes.

Here's just one point on which Amy uses Carlson to make her case for footnotes:

"Carlson says: 'One ad ran in Missouri, where Republican Senator Jim Talent is locked in an unexpectedly close race with challenger Claire McCaskill...' Unexpectedly close? The St. Louis Post-Dispatch on January 22, 2006, said: 'With the election 10 months away, state Auditor Claire McCaskill is in a statistical dead heat with the man she hopes to replace in the U.S. Senate, incumbent Jim Talent.'"

Sort of reminds me of a cat toying with its prey.

Obviously, I do think Amy's footnote suggestion is a good one, but applying the idea to an opinion column is one thing, doing it with a news story is a different sort of challenge.

Blogs Are Reviving Entrepreneurial Journalism, So Where are the News Tycoons of the Right?

2006-10-30T06:56:00.000-05:00

Excellent interview today in the Online Journalism Review with Debbie Galant, the former reporter for The New York Times who is the chief force behind Barista of Bloomfield Avenue, one of the more successful illustrations of how blogs can be platforms for what is often called "hyperlocal journalism."

Galant has gone from a one-woman operation two years ago to now having a couple of paid staffers, as well as a growing readership, regular advertisers and an increasing need for band-width. During the OJR interview, she provides a bunch of interesting insights into how to build a mere blog into a genuine news site.

Along the way, I think Galant points to one of the key aspects of the Blogosphere as it develops New Media forms and processes. Essentially, the blog encourages a revival of an independent, entrepreneurial form of journalism to rival the dominant corporate model of the old media.

And that raises a question of particular relevance to the Right side of the Blogosphere: Where are the news tycoons of the Right who recognize that "hyperlocal" can mean covering a neighborhood, or it can just as easily mean covering Congress, the White House, the political scene, or carefully defined parts thereof?

That the independence is especially evident on the editorial side comes as no surprise to veteran bloggers. Even so, it's interesting to see a former MSMer like Galant so positively acknowledge the independence in the OJR interview:

"I'd say I'm also much more courageous now. I remember one of the first posts I wrote was about a fundraiser in 2004 for Kerry in the backyard of some very wealthy liberal. I wrote a teasing post and I remember really struggling over it, afraid people would be mad at me.

"And they were but that's the kind of thing I can do now in an instant. I'm much more likely to just press the button and be decisive and not worry about who's going to like this and who isn't going to like this."

The entrepreneurial spirit is seen in the recognition that it's not enough just to be able to write well and stir up controversy. To grow a viable economic tool, Galant notes, the people with a blog-based publication have to learn some business skills as well:

"It was like claiming the territory of being almost like a newspaper single-handedly. It's not very glamorous from the viewpoint of new media as a business and nobody talks about that. But it's absolutely important for Liz and I to rationalize it as a business and to make it work as an organism, so that we have procedures, we are allowed to have vacations and go out of town.

"So that when somebody has agreed to be an advertiser, somebody is making sure that the bill is sent, and the money is collected and all those things. Writing is natural since that's what we have done professionally, but it's a whole different set of skills that has to be learned to run a business."

Now, here's question I want to pose for those on the Right side of the Blogosphere: Why aren't more of us moving to develop economically viable blog-based news sites? Yes, some of our blogs are generating sufficient advertising income to become attractive economic propositions, but the editorial model remains essentially opinion-based. And there are efforts among us - notably Wizbang, Powerline and a few others - to incorporate news functions into established opinion blogs.

But why is nobody on the Right side of the Blogosphere building news-focused blogs? We've complained for decades about how the Left-dominated MSM slants the news, but now we have the ideal tool for creating and growing a whole new crop of news sites to replace the MSM, yet how many such sites are there?

Robert Cox, president and founder of the Media Bloggers Association, published an oped in The Washington Examiner earlier this month that comes at these issues from a related perspective. I strongly encourage you to read the Cox piece and the OJR interview, then come back here and let the rest of us know your thoughts via the comments.

UPDATE: Latest daily circ figures show more declines

Only the moderately populist/conservative New York Post shows significant circulation gains, while rest of the nation's top dozen dailies continue to lose readers. Go here for Editor & Publisher's story.

Would Footnoting Improve MSM Reporting?

2006-10-28T07:29:00.002-04:00

Amy Ridenour thinks so. It would depend upon what was footnoted, of course, which means reporting assertions of the "most right-thinking people are liberals on this issue" sort would likely continue unless the regimen included all assertions subject to verification.

Footnoting would also present a problem when sources insist on anonymity. Yes, there has been vastly too much anonymous sourcing in the MSM for decades, but the fact is there are some stories that cannot be done without such sources.

Possible alternative - Instead of an identifying footnote, the reporter could describe the grounds for granting the source anonymity, as a means of reassuring readers of the veracity of the information provided.

Another alternative: Require that the email address of the reporter be published at the end of every story posted on the media organization's web site and reporters be required to respond credibly to all inquiries seeking regarding the grounds upon which a story is based.

To be sure, the Internet removes entirely the argument that there isn't sufficient room to footnote a daily news story. And the movement to make some newsrooms and the news-gathering process itself more transparent with measures like live web-casting news meetings and editorial board meetings indicates at least some recognition of the problem.

But while I'm not holding my breath, it would be a worthwhile exercise for bloggers to begin campaigning for MSM footnoting - and practicing it themselves as well.

What do you think?

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Google Announces New Custom Search Engine and It's 1984 All Over Again

2006-10-25T08:13:00.000-04:00

Google's stock price hit another new high earlier this week and the digital giant also announced a new custom search tool that can be easily placed on a web site. The tool allows the host to tailor the results that will appear and the priorities assigned to each.

The good news here is that the new Google search tool allows the host to control the results of searches. The bad news here is that the new Google search tool allows the host to control the results of searches.

Dale "Okie on the Lam" Baker explains everything here.

Why Accommodating Terrorism Encourages a New Holocaust

2006-10-20T08:17:00.000-04:00

Do you understand the "war within the war on terror?" Ruth King of Americans for a Safe Israel does, as does Democracy Project's Bruce Kesler. This is a must-read. If only every journalist in the MSM understood these facts.

We're All Part of Ham Nation Now

2006-10-18T22:29:00.000-04:00

Mary Katharine Ham is the next media sensation from the Right. How do I know this? Because I have seen her debut "Ham Nation" videoblog. This woman's informed, understated, cool, bemused attitude could add mountains of credibility and hipness to any mainstream media organization's presentation.

Am I biased in this assessment of Ham's talent? Possibly. She is, after all, a member of The Washington Examiner's Blog Board of Contributors and a former colleague at The Heritage Foundation.

Regardless, you heard it here first - Ham is headed for stardom in front of the camera!

Coburn, Dutcher Call for Oklahoma Legislature to Approve State-Level Internet Spending Database

2006-10-18T21:42:00.000-04:00

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, and Brandon Dutcher, Vice-President for Policy at the Oklahoma Council for Public Affairs, have an excellent piece in The Daily Oklahoman calling for the state legislature in the Sooner State to create a google-like Internet database of state spending.

Sound familiar? It should because Coburn and Dutcher are talking about the same kind of database for Oklahomans as federal taxpayers will have in a few years as a result of Coburn-Obama, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006.

Said Coburn and Dutcher:

"In applauding the bill's passage, The Oklahoman editorialized that 'Sunshine and accountability are wonderful things in the hands of voters.' Indeed, as Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., observed, 'It was a bill that just made so much intuitive sense that no one could understand how Congress could not pass it.' And thanks to an army of bloggers, editorial writers and concerned citizens, Congress did pass it.

"Now it's time to take the idea to NE 23 and Lincoln. Oklahoma taxpayers should be empowered to Google their state tax dollars.

"Many taxpayers are frustrated that the state budget is now $7.1 billion, an all-time high. They may be aware that their tax dollars have paid for things like rooster shows and ghost employees and $100 car washes, but these things are just the tip of the iceberg.

"The Legislature should pass a law requiring the Office of State Finance to set up a searchable Web site modeled after the federal version. Taxpayers deserve to know the name of every recipient of state dollars, as well as the amount received in each of the past 10 years, and an itemized breakdown of each transaction, including the state agency dispensing the money and a description of the purpose of the funding."

I think this qualifies as the beginning of a prairie fire.

Armey Letter on Dobson Draws Line in the Sand

2006-10-13T12:43:00.000-04:00

Ryan Sager at Miscellaneous Objections reprints a public letter from former House Majority Leader Dick Armey that focuses on the growing rift between social conservatives and libertarians. The boldfaced section was highlighted by Ryan.
This may well be the first volley in the post-November debacle debate within the GOP on who is responsible for the disaster and which direction the party should take for the future.
Christians and Big Government
Why faith requires freedom

There was a day when social conservatives were united with economic conservatives in the belief that small, limited government was not only good for our economy and the prosperity of American families, but essential to protect traditional family values. We all fought for a limited federal government - a government that had the decency to respect the American people by staying out of their lives. Small government meant that all Christians could practice their faith as they saw fit. Big government violates those rights by meddling in our lives, misusing our hard-earned money, and dictating cultural norms to us. We were and are rightly outraged when government imposes wrong-headed values through its monopoly of schools, government-funded "art," and taxpayer funded "family planning."

As a united conservative movement, we win when we defend traditional values against big government pretensions to impose its brand of "morality" on the American people. We lose when we attempt to use government power to impose our values on others.

I am a devout Christian. I am a so-called "values voter." As a member of Congress and as Majority Leader, I believe I faithfully served our values. One of my proudest moments in Congress was beating the Democrats' attempts to meddle in the affairs of families that had chosen to opt out of secular government education by home-schooling their children. I took on the entire political establishment, but we only won because thousands of Christian home-schoolers demanded that Congress keep its nose out of their decision to raise and educate their children as they saw fit.

I am also a free market economist by training, and I believe that economic freedom is vitally important in the defense of the American family. Big issues like retirement security, tax reform, school choice and spending restraint will determine whether or not families will be dependent and subservient to government. Who owns your retirement? Who decides how you provide for your family's future. Can you leave your estate to your grandchildren, or is it the government's? Will the government socially engineer your life through the tax code? Will liberal education bureaucrats determine your child's education? These are all issues that used to matter to the political leadership of Christian conservative voters.

And while for most in the Christian conservative movement these issues still resonate, the same cannot be said for some of our Washington, D.C.-based religious leaders. Right after I had left Congress and joined FreedomWorks, we found ourselves embroiled in a major tax fight in Alabama. Oddly, an old friend, Bob Riley, had been elected governor only to immediately reverse course, cut a deal with the teachers union, and advocate a massive tax increase to prop up the failing government school system. It was "what Jesus would do," he said. I took personal offense to that, as did many of the voters who had just worked so hard to elect him Governor. Our activists had joined forces with local Christian conservatives, including the Alabama Christian Coalition, to fight both bad policy and a sense of personal betrayal.

We were blindsided when the national leadership of the Christian Coalition endorsed the Governor's proposed tax increase, joining forces with liberal interests in the state that had actively worked against our values for a generation. In the end we won, thanks in no small part to the fact that members of the local Christian Coalition chapter parted ways with the national organization and stood with Alabama FreedomWorks, the Alabama Policy Institute, local taxpayer organizations, and a host of other small government advocates all united in the effort to stop a big government tax-hike scheme.

Today, the national Christian Coalition has joined forces with MoveOn.org in another government grab of private property dealing specifically with ownership of the Internet. They are wrong on the specifics of the issue, and they are wrong to associate with and comfort radical liberals who have demonstrated nothing but disdain for conservative values. Armey's Axiom: Make a deal with the Devil, and you are the junior partner.

Another Armey's Axiom says that if it is about power, you lose. And unfortunately when it comes to James Dobson, my personal experience has been that the man is most interested in political power.

As Majority Leader, I remember vividly a meeting with the House leadership where Dobson scolded us for having failed to "deliver" for Christian conservatives, that we owed our majority to him, and that he had the power to take our jobs back. This offended me, and I told him so.

In a later meeting Dobson and a colleague came into my office to lobby against a trade bill, asking me to stop the legislation from going to the House floor. They were wrong on the issue, and I told them no. Would you at least postpone the vote, they asked? We have a direct mail fundraising letter about to go out to our membership, they said.

I wondered then if their opposition to the bill was driven less by their moral compass and more by the need to rile their membership and increase revenue. I wondered then, if these self-appointed Christian leaders, like many politicians, had come to Washington to do good, but had instead done well for themselves.

Dobson later ran an orchestrated campaign against me in my race to retain the Majority Leader post, telling my colleagues that I was not a good Christian. I prefer to leave that decision to Lord God Almighty on Judgment Day.

Maybe you can understand why I have recently been quoted referring to this person as a "bully."

And it continues today, as Focus on the Family deliberately perpetuates the lie that I am a consultant to the ACLU. I have never had any relationship with the ACLU and oppose most of that organization’s work. The ACLU has twisted "civil liberty" to mean something quite the opposite.

Nowhere was it more wrong, with more disastrous policy ends, than in the Terri Schiavo intervention. While her case was heartbreaking, our Founders created a government built on checks and balances, not a nation run by an arbitrary and imperial Congress. Congress cannot simply override our entire state and federal legal system to intervene in one person's situation. It was truly a chilling act.

Imagine the precedent-setting nature of such an action when a different House of Representatives, one with "Speaker Nancy Pelosi" wielding the gavel, holds power.

Freedom works. Freedom is a gift from God Almighty, and we have a responsibility to protect it. Christians face a temptation to power when we are fortunate enough to have a majority of support in Congress. But government can never advance a faith that is freely given, and it is corrosive to even try. Just look at Europe, where decades of nanny-state activism - including taxpayer support for churches and for religious political parties - have severely eroded the faith. In America today, too many of our Christian leaders fail to recognize the temptation to power and the danger it holds for our society and our faith.

And so America's Christian conservative movement is confronted with this divide: small government advocates who want to practice their faith independent of heavy-handed government versus big government sympathizers who want to impose their version of "righteousness" on others through the hammer of law.

We must avoid the temptation to use the power of government to perfect our society and its citizens. That is the same urge that drives the Left and the socialists, and I can assure you that every program or power we give government today in the name of our values can be turned against us when the day comes where a majority of Congress is hostile to us.

Instead, we need to limit the sphere of government and create civil space where private institutions, individual responsibility and religious faith can flourish. By reducing the size of the welfare state, we increase the importance of the works of Christian charities and our church communities. By reducing the tax burden on families, we make it easier for Christian households to tithe or for young mothers to stay home to raise their children. The same is true for retirement security based on ownership. Reducing the ever-growing reach of the federal government means local communities, and more important, parents, are free to establish the standards and values for the education of their children.

Consider the welfare reform we passed in 1996. By reducing bureaucracy and dependency and emphasizing work and responsibility, we changed conditions for an entire segment of our society. Since welfare reform passed, teen pregnancy, welfare caseloads, and the number of abortions in America have all declined. That is the kind of policy change that values voters need to support, and it is the result of limiting government's power over our lives.

Our movement must avoid the temptations of power and those who would twist the good intentions of Christian voters to support policies that undermine freedom and grow government. Freedom is what gives America its unique place in the world, and protecting and expanding our freedom is what creates the space necessary to keep our faith strong and growing.

Sincerely,
Dick Armey
Chairman
FreedomWorks
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Proud Powerline Papa Touts Daughter's Journalism Debut

2006-10-05T17:50:00.000-04:00

Powerline's Paul Mirengoff is one proud father, thanks to his daughter Emily's first published story in the Dartmouth Review. It's an excellent piece focusing on the controversy surrounding the Dartmouth administration's attempt to insulate itself from even the most rudimentary of accountability.

Coburn-Obama Inside Story Told at Heritage Panel

2006-10-04T17:03:00.000-04:00

"This is a big deal," said Tim Chapman, blogger and Director of The Heritage Foundation's Center for Media and Public Policy, in hosting a panel earlier today at the Washington think tank that focused on how a bipartisan coalition of bloggers won passage of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act.

"This is a big deal for the Blogosphere. The Blogosphere in the past has had victories in a lot of high profile confrontations, but they've never enacted a law. And they've never coalesced around an issue like this with leftie bloggers and rightie bloggers," Chapman added.

The whole story has yet to be written on the role played by bloggers in this campaign but the panel at Heritage today marked a milestone in the public discussion of those events. You can view the entire panel here on the Heritage web site.

Panelists included Bill Allison of the Sunlight Foundation, N.Z. Bear of Porkbusters. org, Rebecca Carr of Cox Newspapers Washington Bureau, Justin Rood of TPM Muckrakers and yours truly.

Every person on the panel - well, at least the other four - had lots of insightful and useful comments, but pay particular attention to Carr's initial remarks, beginning at the 9:27 mark. Here's one of her most interesting statements:

"As a traditional print journalist, I have to say I was amazed at the power of the bloggers. I couldn‘t get over how effective they were at holding this government accountable. And what you see oftentimes in Washington is this caste system. And if it’s not in The New York Times or The Washington Post, it doesn’t matter.

"But suddenly I was seeing that it didn’t matter that I wasn’t in the Times or the Post, my stories were being posted on their [Porkbusters.org and TPM Muckrakers] web sites or being mentioned on their web sites and they were actually carrying the ball further. I think in tandem we exposed a questionable practice of holding up legislation at the 11^th hour for reasons I still don’t know. "

This is the definitive discussion by some of the major players on the role of bloggers in gaining passage of the measure co-sponsored by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, and Barack Obama, D-IL, which requires the U.S. Office of Management and Budget to create a Google-like Internet database of most federal spending.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE
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