Call It A Comeback
Heras Win!Heras Win!Heras Win!Heras Win!Heras Win!
Okay, enough, but he pulls out the victory in the second to last day of the Vuelta a Espana in what had to be one of the most hellacious time trial stages I’ve ever seen.
The good news, he’ll be back with Postal for Lance’s attempt at 6. He is targeting 2005 as his year.
Get your Max Speak Dead Pool Bets Placed
Who are the Dead Men Walking?
Normally, I agree with Joe Conason on many issues, but today I think he is shifting the blame to the wrong group concerning the leadk of Valerie Plame’s status as a CIA operative.
Now that we know the CIA has asked the Justice Department to investigate the "outing" of Valerie Plame — aka Mrs. Wilson — as an agency operative, this scandal has broken onto the front pages. Sooner or later, John Ashcroft may be forced to appoint a special counsel, as both Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and John Kerry, D-Mass., have demanded. (One reason to name a special counsel, or independent counsel, is that a key suspect named Karl Rove used to work as a political consultant for Ashcroft — and played a part in his appointment as attorney general.)
While the president’s press secretary insists that Rove was not involved in this outrage, I can’t help wondering how reporters, editors and bureau chiefs in the capital justify their silence. Tim Russert of NBC and Robin Sproul of ABC both said they wouldn’t discuss any matter involving sources. That’s an ironclad rule of journalism, up to a point. But what should a journalist do when a source commits a serious crime in his or her presence? What if that crime not only threatens to jeopardize human lives, but also harms U.S. national security in the most profound way?
The real question is why isn’t the President at a podium pounding on a lectern calling for someone’s head?
I question Novak’s judgement, but his sources are his sources.
This is a despicable act by a despicable person. We don’t know who did it yet, but when it comes out, and it will, one can only hope the President accepts some responsibility for this. If the person acted without his knowledge, and I’m guessing the leakers did, he damn well better have a major mea culpa. If the leaker acted with the President’s knowledge—well, let’s hope that something that ugly didn’t happen.
For continuing excellent coverage on the issue see,
Calpundit
Dan Drezner
Mark Kleinman
and of course, Josh Marshall
Noticeably absent from the news were tales of St. Clair County corruption, but today, Sauget comes through for those of us titilated by the Metro East mess.
SAUGET — Lingerie. Home appliances. Weight loss products. Dinner parties at St. Louis steakhouses.
Those are just some of the scores of purchases Mayor Paul Sauget has charged to village taxpayers on village credit cards, according to a Belleville News-Democrat review of credit card statements.
Between December 2001 and August 2003, Sauget racked up $38,407 in expenses, according to billing statement copies obtained under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.
The statements for the village-issued American Express and Citi Platinum cards show that Sauget’s expenses have spanned a wide gamut.
They include: $57 for a People magazine subscription in December 2001; $5,010 for medical services at the Midwest Head and Neck Center in St. Louis in May 2002; $25 for mail order vitamins in October 2002; and $35 for coins from the Franklin Mint in New York, the receipts show.
Also included were scores of items bought from vendors catering to a female clientele.
They include: $117 for cosmetics from a Bloomingdales catalog in December 2001; $165 for women’s clothing from Victoria’s Secret in February 2002; $228 for women’s underwear from Dillard’s department store in Fairview Heights in October 2002; $275 for the L.A. Weight Loss Center in O’Fallon; and $45 for a trip to USA Nails in Cahokia in August 2002, the receipts show.
Sauget, 78, has served as mayor of the village — population 249 — that bears his family name for more than three decades.
If the village is known for anything, it’s for the hulking chemical plants and popular bars and strip clubs planted along Illinois 3. The internal workings of village government usually keep a low profile.
Sauget was incorporated to avoid East St. Louis incorporating the area and imposing controls on Monsanto’s chemical plants. East St. Louis is now rewarded with heavy metals in their soil killing off the old trees.
It along with Brooklyn and Washington Park are essentially dens of corruption that the rest of Illinois has treated like law free zones.
Hynes’ camp made public a poll last week that shows their candidate in the lead. Hynes had support from 26 percent of likely Democratic primary voters. Other totals were 15 percent for MARIA PAPPAS, the Cook County treasurer, who has not yet announced a bid; 12 percent for Obama; 4 percent for GERY CHICO, 3 percent for BLAIR HULL, 1 percent for JOYCE WASHINGTON and 1 percent for NANCY SKINNER. Global Strategy Group Inc. of New York took that poll of 1,000 likely Democratic primary voters Aug. 14-20 – more than a month ago. Hynes spokeswoman CHRIS MATHER said the campaign decided to let Hynes formally launch his campaign before releasing the poll numbers. The numbers include those leaning to a candidate – amounting to 4 percentage points for Hynes, 1 for Obama and 2 for Pappas.
Another poll commissioned by Fox News and reported Thursday in Chicago is more recent. The poll of 400 Democrats and 400 Republicans done by KRC Communications Research of Newton, Mass., from Monday through Wednesday, found 50 percent of Democrats undecided, with 10 percent for Hynes, 9 percent for Hull, 8 percent for Obama, 7 percent for Chico and 5 percent for Washington.
2 key points. First, don’t trust polls by the candidate too much. Second, the larger the sample size the better. I have to wonder if the Fox News poll doesn’t suffer from only having 400 respondents. All of the major candidates are within the margin of error anyway, but given Hynes has some name recognition before starting, he should be higher than 9 percent. IOW, don’t always trust media polls either.
The big problem is that this early in a race, most voters aren’t paying attention and they want to give an answer to pollsters. The important thing is that when they do that, if things don’t intervene to create interest, that might be how they vote too.
The article also contains some interesting Rauschenberger details concerning his views on Democrats in the Lege and his background.
Eric Zorn has a lengthy discussion of how news organizations should approach journalists’ blogs and I think it is an excellent take on the issue.
The thing left out is that journalism is changing and changing very fast. Blogs aren’t the future of news reporting, but they may well become the future of news analysis and perhaps most importantly for news organizations, the future of tying readers to your paper or web site.
Having distinctive voices showcased is the way to tie in readers to newspapers especially. The reader letter/calls columns sort of did that in the past, but now there is a far more direct and efficient way of communicating. This is the huge mistake with the Red Eye. Instead of tieing it into the on-line version with a reciprocal relationship, the Red Eye is primarily a paper only.
The oddest thing is the Trib now has a columnist with a reciprocal relationship between print and electronic versions, but he is a part of the flagship. The Red Eye should have all of its columnists blogging and the entertainment reporting should be tied into on-line extras with every story.
That said, I’m a bit less optimistic about most reporters blogging. First, it takes time and many probably have families and the like. Second, it won’t work for everyone. Some people don’t have a writing voice that is distinctive and easy to connect with for the reader. Columnists naturally have this–or at least many do. Reading Eric Zorn’s work is like reading conversation with a friend. Royko was certainly like that and Kass is like that. Mary Schmich has that quality too. Steve Chapman does in a very different way–he’s a wonky friend. Don Wycliff certainly is conversational as Bruce Dold was before him. John McCarron and Carol Marin are more wonky friends. At the Sun-Times Debra Pickett is the most obvious personal voice along with Mark Brown.
In contrast, Novak, Steve Neal and Clarence Page are more traditional writers who offer up arguments and not the same personal relationship. Blogging wouldn’t work for them. Hell, television doesn’t work for Novak.
The point being that for a blog to work, it has to be a conversation and too much editing would get in the way of that. However, a trusted reporter/columnist already knows the rules of what they can easily say and what they can’t. If they aren’t sure, they can hold that back. I do that even on this tiny blog.
Phil Kadner seems to be the only way taking up the issue substantively in the press. He has had three recent columns that deal with it including one that addresses a new effort by State Senator Maggie Crotty and Lt. Governor Pat Quinn. It could be that the press just ignores Quinn’s missives, but my guess is that the topic is too confusing to write simple pieces about.
State Sen. Maggie Crotty (D-Oak Forest) and Lt. Gov. Patrick Quinn plan to barnstorm the state this fall to gain support for a plan that would increase the Illinois income tax on people earning more than $250,000 a year.
Money raised from the tax would be divided equally, with half going to public schools and half into a property tax rebate fund that would be distributed equally to every homeowner in the state.
As a political necessity, this might be needed. Attempts to funnel the money to only poor districts is unlikely to pass, but passing the money around might help. More important, is that the state doesn’t live up to its obligations to be the primary source of funds for schools
The Chicago mayor, joined by some of his suburban counterparts, demanded Wednesday that the state fulfill its obligation under the Illinois Constitution as "the primary" source of public school funding.
The state currently supplies only 33 percent of the money used to fund public education
As Kadner puts it,
If he was serious about this school funding business, he wouldn’t be holding news conferences, he’d be talking to the governor.
There are some tough choices to make for politicians in Illinois concerning how to fund Illinois schools and everyone is ignoring it. This is nothing new, but sooner or later it will have to change. A comprehensive school reform package that encourages consolidation in some districts and property tax relief.
Senator Meeks is suggesting everything, but the school consolidation bit, which is off the radar other than in rural areas.
Kristen McQueary reports that Mel Reynolds is contemplating a comeback by challenging Jackson Jr. for his Congressional seat.
Reynolds is still angry that he was mistreated and held to a higher standard because he is black when he was investigated and convicted for sleeping with a teenage campaign worker.
He is right, he was treated far worse because he wasn’t uber-connected as Rostenkowski was, but that only means that Rosty shouldn’t be showered with praise, not that Reynolds deserves better treatment. He slept with a teenage campaign worker. Regardless of whether prosecutors snicker about such crimes or not, it was wrong.
The Trib has released their full coverage.
Gee, you mean a bunch of white guys don’t qualify for minority participation?
ArchPundit