George Will vs. the Neo-Cons

*** This entry has been almost a week in the making. While it reflects my personal views, many of the major political bloggers and websites have also weighed in on this issue as the election draws nearer so my thoughts might sound similar to items already published. Ned Lamont has now pulled into a statistical ‘dead heat’ with the incumbent and former President Clinton stumped for Joe Lieberman today to support a long-time ally and friend. With only two weeks to go, it could be a ‘heckuva’ race…

In my Tuesday posting last week, I presented my thoughts about conservative columnists Jonah Goldberg and David Brooks and their recent editorials concerning Joe Lieberman’s difficulties in his current senate primary race against newcomer Ned Lamont. Although neither man is a liberal or a resident of Connecticut (both live either inside or near the DC ‘beltway’), they feel obliged to enlighten their readers about the ideological battles they perceive occurring inside today’s Democratic Party (Goldberg mentions several factions, including ‘the people” versus “the establishment”; Brooks uses the labels ‘fundamentalists’ and ‘quasi-independents’ fighting it out about how politics should be conducted).

To the GOP, this Connecticut primary is politically akin to a huge piñata—a big fragile target expected to break apart when repeatedly struck. We are now witnessing every rightwing columnist worth his/her muster coming forward to take their best swings (sans blindfold), crawl around on the floor, and collect their expected treats. One of those recent ‘swingers’ turns out to be George F. Will, columnist for both the Washington Post and Newsweek.

Like his two conservative compatriots, Will is another DC-tethered journalist that can be counted upon to uphold the finest traditions of that political philosophy. In a January 2001 editorial, he came to within a few choice words of calling the departing Democratic president a rapist and ended his column with the following:

Clinton is not the worst president the republic has had, but he is the worst person ever to have been president.

Will had already established his right-wing bona fides through his alleged assistance to Ronald Reagan when he prepared for his televised debate with Jimmy Carter in 1980—an ethical ‘no-no’ for supposedly neutral journalists (at least in the pre-Fox News days). He maintained his contacts with the GOP through their ‘revolutionary’ 1990s and has sustained his op/ed support to them and the conservative movement to the present day.

Will was one of the more vocal journalists advocating for the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. His support was so fever pitched that he was given the nickname ‘war pimp’ by Baltimore columnist William Hughes; however, in the months and years since President Bush’s declaration of ‘mission accomplished’, his declining support for this military occupation has been very noticeable to many—especially those on the right. In his most recent DDN column (July 18^th), he jabs at the administration’s current miscalculations in the Middle Eastern crisis and the ‘advice’ they are getting from their neo-conservative faithful:

The administration, justly criticized for its Iraq premises and their execution, is suddenly receiving some criticism so untethered from reality as to defy caricature. The national, ethnic and religious dynamics of the Middle East are opaque to most people, but to the Weekly Standard -- voice of a spectacularly misnamed radicalism, "neo-conservatism" -- everything is crystal clear: Iran is the key to everything.

(I believe that the term ‘crystal’ was chosen specifically as a direct jab aimed at the Weekly Standard’s editor--and co-founder of the Project for a New American Strategy movement--William Kristol--DDN Op/Ed Critic)

I believe the last sentence above holds the key to his growing discontent with the Bush White House. Mr. Will is a ‘dyed-in-the-wool’ traditional Reagan conservative, who believes in such things as limited government and fiduciary constraint with the taxpayers’ resources. The current administration is buoyed by a neo-conservatism credo—somewhat akin to their ‘paleo’ cousins but one that advocates a unilateral and moralist foreign agenda, focusing less on social conservative issues, and having a weaker dedication to minimalist government policies. In an interview with the Pittsburgh Gazette’s Bill Steigerwald, George gives the following description of individuals who follow that particular political persuasion (with my reddened text for emphasis):

Neoconservatives are persons who in domestic policy often were former Democrats who felt that conservatives had erred in not accepting the post-New Deal role of the central government. They were in their early incarnation focusing on domestic policy and were distinguishing themselves from Goldwater conservatives.

Also in domestic policies, however, as the '60s unfolded into the '70s and '80s, they led the critique of overreaching in domestic social engineering, saying that we accept the post-New Deal role of the central government, but the accumulated powers thereof are being wielded in a way too confident and optimistic and hubristic, if you will.

In foreign policy, and here's where it gets interesting, they have a more ambitious, more confident approach to the use of power than regular conservatives -- if you see the symmetry here? They say that America is a nation uniquely equipped as the sole remaining superpower to order the world and spread our values, etc., etc.

Very telling…he classifies ’neo-cons’ as NOT true conservatives but as former Democrats who wanted to keep some of their New Deal-based roots but also adopted the use of force (either in a coalition or unilaterally) to push American values to the rest of the world. In a question and answer session following his February 2006 keynote address to the Conservative Political Action Committee, Will went a bit further with a back-handed critique to his audience:

They have, in my judgment, an expansive and imprudent understanding of what the United States can do in projecting force and what follows force. The neo-conservatives, it seems to me, make one basic mistake—and these are wonderful people, public-spirited, American nationalists, the kind of people we want to work together with—but they don’t ask the question “But then what?”

Insights like these let observers see how a seemingly unified party can have vastly different political 'wings' and allows them to witness their internal 'marriages of convenience' struck for the sake of the GOP. Will’s discontent with the neo-conservative movement has been rising since the wheels began coming off of the administration’s rational for a preemptive invasion of Iraq (after WMDs were not found to be where officials believed them to be but before they were officially discredited by the Duelfer Report in September 2004). His July 2003 editorial, titled ‘A Questionable Kind of Conservatism’ was one of his earliest swipes at the administration--one he had previously buoyed in the face of heated anti-war criticism—for its “identity crisis of conservatism” due to then unflattering events on the foreign and domestic fronts.

Over the course of the past three years, Mr. Will has found fault with other activities conducted by the White House. During the political turbulence caused by the President’s nomination of his personal friend Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, he stated that "there is no evidence that she is among the leading lights of American jurisprudence or that she possesses talents commensurate with the Supreme Court's tasks"— a direct swipe at the president’s judgment to nominate the best qualified conservative candidate for the post. After the stinging judicial rebuke the Dover Board of Education received for introducing the theory of intelligent design into the science classroom, he gave the following evaluation of the ‘storm tossed and rudderless Republican party’ that was still stinging from the Miers nomination debacle:

Dover's insurrection occurred as Kansas' Board of Education, which is controlled by the kind of conservatives who make conservatism repulsive to temperate people, voted 6-4 to redefine science. The board, opening the way for teaching the supernatural, deleted from the definition of science these words: ``a search for natural explanations of observable phenomena.''

Mr. Will has turned increasingly critical of the Bush White House following the disclosure of the secret NSA surveillance programs on both foreign communications and domestic calling records. In an editorial entitled “No Checks, Many Imbalances”, he analyzed Congress’ September 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF)—cited by the administration as their ‘get out of jail free card’ for these and other classified programs undertaken in the course of combating terrorists. After carefully peeling the veneer off of the numerous arguments made in defending unitary executive prerogative, Will stated the following:

The administration, in which mere obduracy sometimes serves as political philosophy, pushes the limits of assertion while disdaining collaboration. This faux toughness is folly, given that the Supreme Court, when rejecting President Harry S Truman's claim that his inherent powers as commander in chief allowed him to seize steel mills during the Korean War, held that presidential authority is weakest when it clashes with Congress.

He has also kept an eye on the upcoming Congressional elections and he criticized his own party (and his own journalistic community) for their arrogance in deeming only conservatives to be ‘values voters’:

It is odd that some conservatives are eager to promote the semantic vanity of the phrase "values voters." And it is odder still that the media are cooperating with those conservatives.

Conservatives should be wary of the idea that when they talk about, say, tax cuts and limited government -- about things other than abortion, gay marriage, religion in the public square and similar issues -- they are engaging in values-free discourse. And by ratifying the social conservatives' monopoly of the label "values voters," the media are furthering the fiction that these voters are somehow more morally awake than others.

It’s an easy task to lob grenades over a wall to attack an enemy that is safely stationed on the other side. It takes a lot more courage to aim them at someone on your own side of that protective barrier, especially when you know that you may likely suffer collateral damage due to your actions. Although I might regret saying this, Mr. Will might actually understand his party’s current political dilemmas and it would behoove the GOP to listen to his ideas. Luckily for the Democrats, today’s Republicans are too captivated by their own hubris to pay attention.

A Really Nice Night Out

Oops…I missed a day (no entry for yesterday). Since I don’t think very many people even know this blog exists, I doubt there was a huge outcry due to the lack of new content or any mild concern expressed that my absence might be health or crime related. If the truth be told, I simply had an opportunity land in my lap that (with no disrespect to Don Corleone) I simply could not refuse.

Early yesterday afternoon, one of my fellow employees (and a long-time friend) asked me what I was doing after work. Being the middle-aged guy that I am, I couldn’t bluff with some tale involving Catherine Bell and hot scented oils so I told him the truth—probably nothing besides watch some TV shows that I DVR’d during the week. After wondering what kind of commitment I might’ve stepped into (perhaps a slideshow of a boring family vacation or something else comparable to Chinese water torture), he asked me if I wanted to go to the Reds-Brewers game down in Cincinnati. It seems that he and his wife were invited by one of her former co-workers to attend the game but she had to bow out unexpectedly because their 4-month old son was under the weather. Although I’m not a Reds fan (I live and die with the Philadelphia Phillies), a night at a major league ball park is better than, well, nearly anything (if Ms. Bell is not a possibility--just kidding, dear).

After I told him I would ‘volunteer’ to accompany him on the 60+ mile trip down to the ‘Queen City’, we then started to discuss logistics (when to leave, who would drive, etc.) and that’s when I found out why this would be a really nice night. Shortly after he offered, I asked him where we would be sitting (I wanted to get an early mental image of what my spectator viewpoint would be) and he said something about ‘sky boxes’. I went to the Reds’ website but couldn’t find anything mentioning those types of seats and emailed him back to elaborate further. He sent me a response that truly stunned me.

His wife’s friend is a doctor who wanted to do something nice for his former co-workers from the Dayton area (he now lives in Michigan). Somehow he came up with the idea of renting one of the stadium’s available ‘Triple Play' party suites (accommodates upwards of 35 people). In addition to an unobstructed-view seat down along the first base line (just to the ‘foul’ side of the ‘fair’ pole), guests are treated to a pre-game buffet and a variety of beverages during the contest. When I went through the line to pick from the culinary offerings, the line ‘give me some salad and chicken breasts’ went through my head but it just didn’t fit into my pre-conceived notions of being at a baseball game; however, I was pretty hungry at that point so I wasn’t going to complain too loudly.

Eating and drinking was all we could do for our first three hours at the stadium. When we were approaching Cincinnati, we noticed that the sky was getting very dark but we weren’t ready for what we drove into. We tuned in to the pre-game show on the car radio when the host informed his audience that the ball park was suddenly getting walloped with severe thunderstorms (lots of rain and a pretty good light show—actually felt some heat on my forearms from a close lightning strike as we were exiting I-75 to the downtown area). The game was supposed to start at 7:10PM but the first pitch wasn’t thrown until 10:05—two hours and 55 minutes late.

The game itself turned out to be rather exciting. After surrendering five runs, the Reds started their comeback (two home runs by Jason LaRue and Juan Encarnacion landed just below us in the left field bleachers) and they eventually won it in the bottom of the 9^th inning (Ken Griffey Jr. singled in the tying and winning runs with a single to the gap in left-center field). Unfortunately, we weren't there to see this exciting finale (left at the end of the 7^th inning) because it was getting rather late (Griffey got his hit at 1:15AM—at a time when some of the West Coast games had already finished) and we had a long drive ahead of us (I finally rolled into my driveway at 2:15). I was hoping to see video of that play on this morning’s SportsCenter but I didn’t roll out of bed until nearly 11:30.

This was the second Reds’ game I’ve attended since moving here in the late 90’s (took my son to a game 4 years ago when they were playing at Riverfront Stadium/Cinergy Field) and I must say that I was impressed by their new facility. My ‘formative’ years were in the 70’s and I recall attending many games at Philadelphia’s Veterans’ Stadium. The ‘Vet’, Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers, St. Louis’ Busch Stadium and Riverfront/Cinergy were forever linked by the moniker ‘concrete doughnuts with Astroturf filling’—multi-purpose stadiums that allowed their budget-conscious cities to host both their baseball and football teams (plus any other large special events or minor sports events). Baseball purists complained that these generic fields took away some of the nostalgic ambiance of the game and that the trend was limiting this type of 'communion' to a dwindling number of locations, such as Chicago’s Wrigley Field or Boston’s Fenway Park. In the early 90’s, the Baltimore Orioles established baseball’s current trend of stadium renovations by building their ‘retro-feel’ Camden Yards facility. By providing plenty of luxury boxes and modern amenities, the team aimed to secure its financial future (and growing player payroll) through building a new fan base from among its more affluent followers. I’ve been to a few games there and must say it is a very nice venue for baseball. All of those ‘doughnuts’ I mentioned earlier are gone -- replaced with stadiums like Great America Ball Park and Philadelphia's Citizen's Bank Park--and are now relegated to photographs and the memories of the millions of fans who passed through their turnstiles over the years.

Going to baseball games also brings back some special personal memories. I attended ‘Mickey Mantle Day’ with my dad and uncle at Yankee Stadium in June 1969 (I remember getting a special souvenir program that had an enclosed vinyl recording of Lou Gehrig’s famous ‘luckiest man’ speech—with eBay and today’s lucrative collectors’ market, I wish I still had it!). My uncle also took me on a trip to Cooperstown, NY to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame. My dad and I saw Phillies' ace Rick Wise’s 4-0 no-hitter over the Reds in 1971 and our family witnessed Karl Wallenda’s historic tightrope walk over Veterans’ Stadium between games of a doubleheader against the Expos in August 1972. The last game my dad and I went to see together was in the late 1980s (our Phillies were playing the Houston Astros—my wife also joined us for the trip). He’s been gone now for almost 15 years but it is times like last night that make me realize that he is never really that far away from me.

Not wanting to sound ungrateful, I did have to make some sacrifices (a little sleep plus some gas and wear-and-tear on my car for the 120-mile round-trip) for my night out, but I got a free ticket, some good food, major league baseball, and an evening that I will always remember in return. I tiredly thanked my host when I dropped him off early this morning for his display of friendship and hospitality; when I see him next week, I will have to share with him the true scope of his gesture.

Was I Ahead of the Trend???

I just had to smile a little bit when I saw this cartoon earlier this evening. It looks vaguely familiar to what I talked about in my Tuesday column (conservative columnists' unsolicited opining over the Connecticut Democratic senate primary).

The grin quickly disappeared because I then imagined how much more 'outsider' advice/analysis we will have to endure before August 8th...

Taking A Night Off...

I didn't realize just how much work went into creating new entries on a daily basis (while also having a full-time job and family/home responsibilities). I now have a healthier respect for the bloggers that I rely upon to get my daily dose of news and opinion.

I'm catching up on some TV tonight. South Park is re-running its 'Out of the Closet' episode on Scientology...I guess Tom Cruise didn't get his way this time!


Some items 'on deck' for later in the week: George Will, vs. the neo-cons, 'jewel boxing', and the creation of a new award--the 'Libra'!

Self-Examination is Just Too Hard—Let’s Whack the Dems Instead!

On Sunday morning, readers of the DDN were treated (?) to the latest serving of ‘librul bashing’, served up by none other than Jonah Goldberg (the five of diamonds from internetweekly.org’s “GOP Most Wanted” deck of cards). In his latest syndicated column, (titled “Big Ideas? Feh”), Jonah decides to weigh in on the current ideological ‘angst’ inside the Democratic Party and he specifically highlights the August 8^th Connecticut primary that pits three-term senator Joe Lieberman against media millionaire Ned Lamont (this came out right on the heels of a NYT op/ed piece written by fellow conservative David Brooks, titled “The Liberal Inquisition”).

Within this invective-laced dissertation (the word ‘liberal’ is used 12 times in this 834-word piece), Mr. Goldberg provides his customary ‘spot-on’ analysis where he identifies everything he believes to be wrong with the issue or constituency he chooses to assail but then fails to mention the failings of those he personally advocates. In Sunday’s column, he homes in on the Democratic Party’s current philosophical schisms with hardly a mention of any similar Republican woes (historic low Congressional job approval, focus on ‘wedge issue’ legislation, etc.) in the run-up to the November general election.

Here are a few paragraphs to give you a ‘taste’ of his unique brand of conservative ‘wisdom’:

Exhibit A is the liberal fight over Sen. Joe Lieberman’s reelection battle in Connecticut. Lieberman, America’s favorite Jewish uncle, is in the fight of his political life because limousine liberal Ned Lamont is challenging him in the Democratic primary. Oceans of ink and pixels have been devoted to explaining the factions behind this “civil war” on the left. Some paint it as the “netroots,” or left-wing bloggers, versus the Washington establishment. Others talk of hawks versus doves, or populists against elitists, the “party line” versus independents, cats versus dogs.

Alas, Chait has it right: “Feh.” For good or ill, there are no grand “big ideas” behind the anti-Lieberman cause. It’s driven by a riot of passions, chiefly against President Bush and “his” war. Any ideas are mere afterthoughts and rationalizations used to gussy up animus as principle. Several Lamont supporters, also known as “Nedheads,” have faulted Lieberman for such obscure transgressions as criticizing President Clinton’s behavior in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Please. There was no lack of enthusiasm for Lieberman when the sainted Al Gore picked Joe as his running mate.

Wow…where should I start? After I stripped away all of the haughtiness from his assessment, I can plainly see an ‘outsider’ (GOP conservative elitist) attempting to convey an intimate understanding of a complex issue facing Democratic voters. He quickly postulates that Lamont’s supporters can only be classified as rabid ‘Bush Haters’ instead of ordinary voters voicing their increasing opposition to decisions Senator Lieberman has made while representing the citizens of Connecticut. While it is true that Iraq is at the epicenter of their discontent and it does receive the most attention in the media and ‘blogosphere’, there are other issues (healthcare, education, jobs) that have tainted that state’s Democratic voters’ faith in him during his most recent term in Washington.

In this current primary, Lieberman is having a hard time effectively rebutting the claims that he is too close to the White House (a current Democratic ‘no-no’). Time and time again, he has refused to revise his staunch support for the war or move towards a more centric position (like fellow Senators Clinton, Biden and Bayh). He currently is in the minority of Democratic lawmakers that backs the administration’s ‘stay the course’ strategy. In infamous video footage (referred to as 'The Kiss'--shown above), Lieberman can be seen in a most-compromising embrace with President Bush at the January 2005 State of the Union Address. There was press speculation last December that he would replace Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. Although such a move is not unprecedented (Clinton chose a Republican—William Cohen—to run the Pentagon from 1997-2001), making such an appointment would have doomed any political future he might have with the Democratic party faithful who celebrated his ascendancy to Vice President of the United States-elect less than six years ago—only to have that taken away by a 5-4 Supreme Court vote.

I could go on and on with picking apart Mr. Goldberg’s points, but then I would be as guilty as he is (and Mr. Brooks) by interjecting myself into a matter that really concerns only the Democratic voters of the ‘Constitution State’. They must make their own choice in a few weeks’ time about who they want to represent them in the United States Senate and I believe both candidates must agree to abide by their wishes—meaning no independent candidacy for Mr. Lieberman. If the political handwriting’s on the wall, it takes a big man to accept his fate and step aside—and stay aside!

My Most Recent DDN Rejection

This is your front-row seat to the final chain of events that led to the creation of this blog (refer to my earlier 'Why the Strange Name?' for additional information). Below is the letter that appeared in the DDN's 'Letters to the Editor' on July 5th that caught my attention:

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Dems are hypocrites on issue of war

The Democratic Party has complained for the past several years that President George W. Bush lied to them and led the United States into the war in Iraq. I have done some research and have come up with some startling facts:

Did you know that President Franklin Roosevelt led the United States into World War II with Germany? Germany did not attack the United States; Japan attacked the United States. Also, President Harry Truman led the United States into the war with Korea. Korea did not attack the United States. President Lyndon Johnson led the United States into war with Vietnam. Vietnam did not attack the United States. In addition, President Bill Clinton sent American troops to Bosnia. Bosnia never attacked the United States.

All of these presidents were Democrats. I wonder if any of them lied to the Republican Party when they led the United States into war with the above countries.

Islamic terrorists attacked the United States in 2001, and Bush responded.

Does anyone see the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party's attack against George W. Bush?

—(name and address masked)

*** The person did sign his letter and identified the city in which he lived (a DDN requirement). As a courtesy, I will not include such personal information on local submissions when I repost them in this blog. My goal here is to challenge the submitter's words, logic or bias--not the attack the submitter him/herself. I am also trying to retain my own anonymity in case someone recognizes their submission, does not care for my critique, and decides to take up a new habit--like stalking! Since the syndicated columnists are paid the 'big bucks' to put their thoughts to paper, they are fair game...

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This piece 'pegged' my internal hypocrisy meter because I immediately recognized it as an blatant attempt by a GOP partisan to deflect criticism of the administration's constantly evolving Iraq policy by a growing majority of Americans. After several hours of research, composing, and polishing, I sent in the following reply at 12:26AM on 6 July:

To the editor:

After reading his recent ‘Dems are hypocrites’ submission (5 July), I was ‘startled’ that Mr. (masked) only used the most elementary logic (Dem president in office, war declared against country X but country X did not attack the US, Dems lied to go to war) in his conclusions about US armed conflicts in the 20^th century. I believe he needed to do a more thorough review of the events he referenced in his letter to see the entire spectrum surrounding those scenarios:

- It was Germany that first declared war against the United States and that action occurred four days after the attack at Pearl Harbor and three days after FDR’s call for Congress to declare war against Japan.

- The US never declared war against North Korea but instead went to the United Nations to ask that organization—employing a 17-nation coalition—to intercede militarily in that Cold War-tinged civil conflict.

- Although disputed by historians, LBJ used two possible acts of Vietnamese aggression against US naval forces stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin to justify his escalating of our involvement in the decades-long Vietnamese civil war.

- NATO, not the United States, was the lead organization tasked during the ‘shooting’ portion of the Bosnian conflict. Neither NATO nor Clinton declared war and US troops were introduced to perform peacekeeping duties only after the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords.

- In all of the above scenarios, acts of aggression against the US (either directly or to regions/countries of national concern) provoked our responses—before Iraq, we never preemptively attacked another nation.

I do agree with one of his statements: Islamic terrorists, based in Afghanistan, did attack the US in 2001 and President Bush took the appropriate action in our subsequent military response (Operation ENDURING FREEDOM). Almost all Democrats supported this action against a nation directly linked to this unprecedented tragedy on US soil. They almost all disagree, however, with the president’s preemptive actions against Iraq in 2003—a nation that has been repeatedly proven not to have been involved with the 9/11 events.

Something Mr. (masked) chose to ignore during his search for Democrat deception and duplicity is the GOP’s own hypocrisy in terms of their habit of retreating from conflicts. It was Eisenhower who negotiated the Panmunjom cease fire agreement that has left North and South Korea at a technical state of war for the past 53 years. This act of ‘appeasement’ can be directly linked to the potential nuclear jeopardy our nation now faces. Nixon negotiated a settlement—‘peace with honor’—with the North Vietnamese in 1973. South Vietnam fell just two short years later, placing them under Communist control and reunifying this colonially divided nation. Reagan withdrew US troops from their UN-sanctioned peacekeeping mission in Lebanon four months after the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut that claimed 241 lives. This pullout helped extend the on-going Lebanese civil war for an additional six years.

When Mr. (masked) and his kind dredge up narrow interpretations of historic events or use the term ‘cut and run’ to discredit any opposition to the current ‘stay the course’ strategy in Iraq, the failure of their long-term memories (pre-Clinton) is quite evident.

Almost four hours of work went into this email. In that short span, I breathed live into those bits--535 words, 10 paragraphs, 18 sentences. According to my version of Microsoft Word, it was written at a 15.4 grade level--perhaps a little lofty for an ordinary reader. I just thought it was too good of a rebuttal to that original faulty claim and didn't want it to go to waste or be deleted forever via the DDN editor's desktop Recycle Bin.

I guess I can take solace in how this whole thing worked itself out. Although that email didn't make it to print, a new life has now risen from its digital ashes...vive l'Internet!

Sunday 'Two-Timer'

I know I’ve only been doing this blogging thing for a little less than a week, but I have a secret that I’m forced to divulge at this time (I’ve given myself permission to ‘leak’ it so I guess it’s OK to tell you). Here goes...

Every Sunday morning for the past 18 months or so, I have been ‘hooking up’ with another woman—one that sometimes goes by the name of ‘The Gray Lady’. I’ve been carving out an hour or two of my busy (?) home schedule to facilitate these weekly trysts. Although I maintain my loyalty to my local love, this out-of-town temptress has so much more to offer. When I open my door, she’s there like clockwork, waiting patiently and wearing only the sheerest of rainwear—and if the weather is nice, she might arrive sporting nothing at all! On the rare occasions when she has failed to arrive, I would immediately be on the phone pleading to know her whereabouts. If that call from me came too late in the day, I would be forced to venture out and retrieve her from one of a few local business establishments she caters to.

Now before you run to cover the eyes of any impressionable children within eyeshot of your monitor, the ‘lady’ in question is none other than The New York Times—considered by many to be America’s ‘paper of record’ but, more recently, tarred the ‘paper of treason’ by those who become infuriated when it chooses to run stories supposedly embarrassing to the current White House or GOP politicians. As you might have already guessed, I’m in the group that champions the first label. I grew up in a newspaper family back east (my dad worked as a linotype setter for a major Philadelphia daily in the early 1960s) and learned to read by practicing with the copies he brought home with him every morning. We moved to northeastern Pennsylvania when I was in kindergarten (he got a job with a paper closer to my parents’ families—one that eventually fired him when his union local took strike actions against them in 1978). That particular part of the state was nearly equidistant to both New York and Philadelphia so local newsstands offered a wide variety of what both two cities had to offer. We used to get the New York Daily News as our supplemental paper to the locally published Sunday Independent and it wasn’t until I left to join the military that the NYT became my favorite ‘broadsheet’ out of the ‘Big Apple.’

All throughout my adulthood, I’ve had the opportunity to be ‘exposed’ to a variety of papers available at the locations where I served. In San Antonio, we got both of their local newspapers delivered to our apartment (one was morning, one was evening—needless to say, we didn’t do much on Sundays besides read). When we lived in the Baltimore/Washington area, I would hear the ‘thump’ of The Washington Post hitting our front door every day. While overseas, the military-themed Stars & Stripes had to suffice when we were stationed in non-English speaking countries. During our last tour in the UK, I would regularly pick up copies of the London Times (the Brits referred to it simply as ‘the Times’) or The Daily Telegraph at the local shops (OK, I occasionally bought a copy of The Sun but it was for the articles—not for the ‘Page 3 girls’ :-) ). My last tour in Japan had me buying copies of the Japan Times to get their perspective on current affairs and US-related issues (our military presence in that country since the end of World War II, trade policies, Iraq).

While I subconsciously understood that all of these publications had biases associated with their target audiences, I read them primarily to gain a greater understanding of the countries and the populations that were hosting me and my family (S&S officially declares itself ‘neutral’ but it does feature articles from several elements of the DoD’s public affairs apparatus which has demonstrated a pro-administration slant in several controversial events occurring in Iraq and during our current ‘global war’ on terrorism). Politics really didn’t sink in with me in my selections of stateside papers—we generally subscribed to the publication that had the most features we wanted to have (specific Sunday magazines or daily comic strips, feature non-political columnists—Dave Berry, Ann Landers, Dayton’s own Erma Bombeck). Because of nation’s progression towards the 24/7 television news outlets (and most recently to a wide variety of Internet news sources), print papers now find it hard to compete with these readily available outlets. In our now highly politically tinged society, bias can be the sole ‘trump card’ when either accepting or declining your locale’s sole daily publication.

As the ‘paper of record’, the NYT is one of only a handful of papers (Wall Street Journal, USA Today) that are available at almost all major news outlets from coast-to-coast. Originally published only in the New York metropolitan area and transported out to a sprinkling of locations, the Times struck contracts with various printing facilities around the country (including Dayton) to increase its availability to over 200 US markets (its sister publication, the International Herald-Tribune, has a similar arrangement in 33 overseas sites for worldwide distribution to over 180 countries) . When I do purchase a copy during visits back to my old ‘stomping grounds’, that edition displays a pricing scheme based upon one’s distance away from New York City (we were within that radius so it didn't serve as a disincentive for purchase). I do have to scratch my head when I still have to pay $5.00 for my Sunday edition when it was printed just down the road (and get billed even more because of home delivery) but that's probably a topic for a future entry.

What is my attraction to this controversial publication? Well, I like having a big paper to sink my mental ‘teeth’ into on Sunday mornings. While comparable in size to the Sunday NYT, the DDN edition must bow to its commercial masters and make most of its bulk revenue-centric (coupons, circulars, classified ads). Dayton’s paper does have the requisite color comics, Parade magazine, and weekly television listings but it must rely on much of its national and global news from non-DDN sources (wire services and other papers, to include the NYT). The Times, on the other hand, sits within the portfolio of the New York Times Company, a world-class media conglomorate ($3.5 billion in 2005 earnings) that owns 17 other newspapers and several other television, radio and Internet outlets. Its Sunday edition consists of seven different numbered sections (we don’t get sections 6 & 7 here—not sure what they might contain) and includes two pull-outs (their weekly book review and its own magazine). With 16 operating locations in the NY region as well as 11 national and 26 foreign bureaus, many of the stories it publishes are filed by their own reporting staff.

Over its 155-year history, the NYT has earned 94 Pulitzer Prizes—the highest honor in print journalism (I believe the DDN has won just two) and has previously delved into issues that appeal to my sense of democracy and bold reporting (the publication of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 which revealed a more accurate depiction of the Vietnam War than the government was publicly admitting, the unearthing of the Tuskegee Experiment which infected African Americans with syphilis to study its effects and history). One of its latest honors was accorded earlier this year for their coverage of potential Constitutional irregularities with a previously undisclosed NSA wiretapping program.

Reporting on another US surveillance program (the screening of international financial transactions recorded in Belgium’s SWIFT database) in June has drawn the most recent conservative rage over alleged disclosures of classified information. In the right’s current outbursts, the motives of the Times’ staff—specifically of its editor, Bill Keller—have been called into question even though two other papers published similar stories on the same day about the same subject. This latest attack as well as recent internal controversies (journalistic fraud allegations against reporter Jayson Blair, Judith Miller’s jailing on contempt charges in the Valerie Plame outing case, hefty payments to underperforming executives) has caused some concern among stockholders who have seen a 50 percent decrease in its share price since 2002. This trend has been seen by many companies within the print newsmedia due to declining circulations and weak advertising, but enemies of the Times see this downturn to be directly related to their various attempts to discredit them and other ‘mainstream’ media outlets as being tainted by ‘liberal bias’.

In terms of its op/ed pages, the NYT has no rival—at least from my personal political perspective. Boasting a lineup of center-left to center-right columnists, the paper routinely attracts attention due to their particular takes on current issues, whether it is about the Darfur genocide, our government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, or the US’s policies in the Middle East. My favorite of the bunch has to be Frank Rich (only posts a Sunday column but it is well worth the 7-day wait for his next offering). Originally a theater critic for the paper in the 1980s, Mr. Rich has gravitated towards politics and popular culture, especially after the current Bush Administration took office in January 2001. His more recent columns have been aimed squarely at the NYT ‘treason’ issue. He went on sabbatical earlier this year to finish work on his new book (“The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina”—due to be released September 19th on Amazon.com) and I almost went through withdrawals awaiting his return in late April.

Paul Krugman is my next favorite NYT columnist. An economist by trade, he stayed in that field until being hired by the Times in 2000. After January 2001, his writings have focused primarily on the failings of the Bush Administration’s foreign and economic policies. Saddled with many conservative ‘supply side’ detractors, he has the real-world background to find and focus on the truly significant statistics about current US and world economic conditions that allows folks like me to ‘catapult the propaganda’ for a better insight into what is really happening. I occasionally read Tom Friedman’s and Bob Herbert’s columns and peek in on Maureen Dowd if the title sounds ‘snarky’ enough. Nicholas Kristof recently won the Pulitzer Prize for his commentary about Darfur’s on-going genocide campaign (I loved how he taunted Bill O’Reilly by offering to pay for his round-trip tickets to the Sudan to personally witness the horrible realities in that region—the Factor host declined) but I really haven’t been following that issue as closely as I should.

The two I seldom (if ever) read are David Brooks and John Tierney—the ‘token’ right-wingers of their op/ed pages. Originally a self-declared liberal, Mr. Brooks is now one of the conservative movement’s most visible spokesmen. In addition to his two columns per week in the Times, he is a regular on several of the Sunday morning talk shows. Mr. Tierney is a libertarian and has previously taken that political tack on subjects ranging from the ‘war on drugs’ to Amtrak to mandatory recycling. I have no personal animosity towards either of these gentlemen but I don’t feel their particular points of view are in step with how I would approach the issues they write about.

As someone who grew up with newsprint on his hands at a young age, I find it hard to transition to electronic versions of these ‘old friends’. I begrudgingly succumbed to the practice of viewing characters on a glowing CRT screen during my last overseas military tour. At that time, almost all of the major newspapers offered free online access to their print editions; however, today’s market realities have forced some—including the NYT—to post some or all of their content behind subscription-only barriers (coincidently, the conservative Wall Street Journal only makes its editorial materials freely available to viewers while locking out everything else). Since I take delivery of the Sunday Times, I am allowed access to their ‘Times Select’ areas for ‘free’ (non-subscribers wanting to view any of their op/ed columnists must pay an annual fee of around $50). Sadly, this appears to be the future of commercial journalism so I guess I better start learning to live with it now...

BTW, if you were worried about how my wife reacts to my weekly ‘rendezvous’, she actually doesn’t mind it at all—I’ve learned early on that I can secure her indifference by giving her the crossword puzzles…

My First DDN Rejection

Back in March, I read one of Jonah Goldberg's syndicated columns pertaining to his take on the rioting of French students over a proposed major shift to France's social and labor paradigms (hyperlinked in my response below). I aptly titled the submission "Fermez votre bouche, Johah!"...it roughly translates to "Shut Yer Yap, ya Meddling Right-Wing Blowhard!"

Is it just me or does the sight of Jonah Goldberg's smug face in the DDN op/ed section cause others to groan audibly in anticipation of more GOP talking point 'ilk'???

Like a driver drawn to the sight of a horrendous accident along the roadside, I just had to look at his latest column in yesterday’s paper (titled “Vive la sloth!”) addressing the recent French rioting over an internal economic/social issue. For a man who is one of the current poster children (and representative of the future) of a political party that routinely bashes one of this country’s staunchest allies for exhibiting the foresight to steer clear of one of history’s greatest military/geopolitical fiascos—one that we started in Iraq three years ago this week, he takes pride in introducing such salient points as Prime Minister Villepin’s hair (“the most important hair in Europe”) and resorting to name-calling (“the crapulent French Au Pair State”) to support his side’s ‘informed’ take on an issue that does not personally concern him or the American public in general.

Why does he write about such things? Isn’t there enough to attract his attention within our own borders/government? I’m guessing ridiculing the French (as he did Hollywood in a column from earlier this month) is a much easier assignment than trying to constantly defend illegal wiretapping, a pre-emptive war waged to ensure continued US access to Middle Eastern oil, or the general incompetence of the Bush administration. France does have its own problems, but it is up to the French to fix them—no ‘coalition of the willing’ necessary (unless oil is discovered in the Alps or along the Riviera). Apparently there aren’t many 'Star Trek' fans in the White House and Pentagon. That is rather obvious since there aren’t many explanations they could generate about why the lessons of that show’s ‘prime directive’ have been repeatedly ignored over the past five years.

On a personal level, why does this foreign issue concern him at all? He and his wife are living the ‘American dream’ (both have comfortable jobs/incomes, live in a nice neighborhood, have routine access to political power). Why be concerned with the plight of ‘brown-skinned and lower-class slobs’ across the Atlantic when the GOP ignores the same kind of people within our own borders (remember Katrina)?

I truly do not see any benevolence in any of his words—only sycophantic phrases posted solely for the enjoyment of his ‘enlightened’ followers and continued financial support from his political/corporate sponsors.

The wife of a guy I work with practically adores everything this guy says so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to share my opinion on this column with him as well as the DDN editor...neither one of them cared for it very much.

Why The Strange Name?

With my inspiration now identified, the next question might be: why did I name my blog ‘DDN Op/Ed Critic’? As a member of the greater Dayton, Ohio community, I subscribe to the Dayton Daily News and have it delivered to my doorstep every morning. Being an early riser, I’m usually the person in our household who retrieves the paper. After my daily intake of cereal and while simultaneously watching Headline News and the Today Show in the comfort of my Lazy Boy, I scan and skim my way through the entire thing before getting ready for work during the week. Because of my interest in politically related things, one of the first places I visit is their op-ed section.

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Before I go any further, I need to identify some history concerning the DDN as well as the political makeup of this part of southwest Ohio. I’m not native to this section of the country (a military assignment had us settling here prior to my retirement) so I will have to depend on online resources to help me in this portion of my post. There seems to be some disparity in some the facts so I will try to provide what looks to me like the most reliable data.

The Dayton Daily News was founded in August 1892 by James Cox when he purchased the existing Dayton Evening Journal and published under the new title one week later. Cox purchased two other papers (the Journal and the Herald) in 1948 and combined them the following year to create the Dayton Journal-Herald. Both the DDN (morning) and DJ-H (evening) competed head-to-head in the Dayton-area marketplace for the next 37 years but economic realities finally did in the smaller circulation J-H. In 1986, the Daily News and Journal-Herald were merged into a combined titled morning paper but the Journal-Herald portion was last used on December 31, 1987.

The significance of this information lies in the politics each of these papers purportedly backed. The DDN was considered to be a liberal publication with the DJ-H courting those of the conservative persuasion. When they merged, the new Daily News retained its Democratic-leaning editorial position. This decision may have been due in part to the lingering political views of the DDN’s founder (Cox ran as Democrat in the 1920 US presidential election) or related to the prevalence of voters within the city limits (since 1973, Democrats have been elected mayor in 7 of the 9 contests).

Speaking of politics, Ohio has recently been in the national spotlight in the wake of the 2004 presidential election. Although it sits in the ‘red’ state column today, Ohio has had a storied past in terms of political representation. After reviewing the party affiliation of statewide officeholders between 1941 and 2005, it appears that Ohio voters regularly cycled between the two major parties. In 1963, GOP candidates attained all the major state-level positions and held on to them until 1971. The Democrats had their own 8-year run between 1983 and 1990 (corresponds with the two terms of Richard Celeste--the last Democratic governor) and we are now enduring another long Republican string (started in 1995).

Although GOP politicians have held almost complete control of the state since 1995, what is more telling is the current make-up of the Ohio legislative bodies (both are overwhelmingly Republican—the senate is 22-11and the house is 62-37 in that party's favor). With the GOP also in control of the state's census-linked apportionment boards in 1991 and 2001, one can surmise that this body was used by the party in power to retain and solidify these majorities. The recent defeat of Issue 4 in the 2005 general election snuffed out any chance of such an imbalance being addressed by anyone other than elected officials anytime soon.

In geographic terms, Democratic strength tends to lie in the northeastern quadrant of the state (Cleveland, Akron, Canton, and Youngstown) where manufacturing jobs and pro-union sentiments are more prevalent. Although the state’s other major cities (Toledo, Columbus, Cincinnati and Dayton) are considered Democrat strongholds, their numbers are offset by matching--or greater--numbers of conservative voters in their surrounding suburbs. Such is the case in Greene County--where I currently live.

(click on graphic for larger view)

As one of eight south-central Ohio counties that are either partially or entirely within the state's 7th Congressional District (includes suburban areas of Columbus and Dayton--cities that are nearly 70 miles apart!), Greene County strongly supported the Bush/Cheney campaigns in 2000 and again in 2004, garnering nearly identical percentage totals (60-61 percent) of its votes in each election. Since 1984 (the earliest year I could find county-specific information on the state's website), every Republican presidential candidate has been able to put our county safely into his own column. The 7th District's current Congressman (Rep. Dave Hobson from Springfield) won his most recent (8th) term in office with nearly two-thirds of the vote. In fact, this district has been in GOP hands for 84 of the last 86 years! Greene County gained national notoriety in the aftermath of the 2004 election when an observer witnessed numerous perceived irregularities by the county's board of elections during the mandatory state-wide recount of ballots (affidavit linked here). These developments were prominently mentioned in January 2005 report published by the US House of Representatives' Democratic Staff, chaired by Rep. John Conyers (report linked here).

If you look closely at this 109th Congressional District map for southwestern Ohio above, you can see how the greater Dayton area has been 'carved' up between the 3rd, 7th and 8th districts, diluting its traditional Democratic urban majority into its surrounding conservative suburbs and outlying rural areas. Similar 'creative' mapping can also be seen around Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland due to comparable efforts to thin out their high Democratic voter concentrations. These overt 'gerrymandering' maneuvers plus the perks of incumbency (98 percent re-election rate for sitting officials) will keep my county as well as my adopted state in the 'red' column for the foreseeable future.

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With all of the above laid out for you, let me get back to the op/ed issue about the paper...

Like almost all of the major Ohio cities, Dayton is served by only one major daily newspaper (Cincinnati is expected to join them in 2008 with the anticipated demise of their afternoon-edition Post). In an attempt to retain its conservative readership brought over in the 1986 merger with the DJ-H, the DDN has routinely attempted to provide a balance on its op/ed pages. On any given day, one might see columns written by Jonah Goldberg and Paul Krugman sitting side-by-side. Mike Peters, the Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist, now routinely shares page space with competing conservative cartoonists like Michael Ramirez and Chuck Asay. The DDN offers an online 'Fairness Forum' to let readers inform them of any perceived bias in its coverage (instituted on the heels of a 'credibility' roundtable). On April 24, 2006, Ellen Belcher, the DDN's op/ed editor, solicited reader feedback on the paper's current line-up of 17 columnists and contributors (photo below) and received quite a lot (posted here--might require registration). She even provides precious print space for any rebuttals ("Another View") to the daily submissions of the DDN's editorial staff ("Our View") about the topic du jour--in what can only be viewed as pre-emptive capitulation to conservatives who might only need something tantamount to a feather drop to rationalize cancelling their subscription.

Dayton's 'Gang of 17'

After demonstrating journalistic limberness comparable to that of a Romanian gymnast, there are STILL people in this area that routinely accuse the DDN of editorial bias. I personally don't know what Ms. Belcher's political affiliation is, but her critics need to know that anyone who deals with subjective issues will demonstrate some sort of preconceived belief on those issues in the conduct of their day-to-day activities. I guess I could formulate my own opinions about her without ever reading anything she wrote based solely upon her age, gender, zip code of her residence, marital status, or the type of vehicle she drives. I doubt that such a prediction would provide a very accurate reflection of who she really is; however, for some folks, that is where their research stops and their vitriol begins.

In many responses to the paper and editorial staff, dissenting readers bring up the bias issue in the first two paragraphs of their responses. It wouldn't matter if the DDN was quoting directly from an irrefutable source or was printing a word-for-word transcript of a government official's statement--if what they read in the morning paper does not match what they perceive to be in their own version of 'reality', they are quickly putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) to correct such grievous attacks of their personal political or religious beliefs. This is where the 'critic' part comes in...

On a few occasions, certain op/ed letters or syndicated columns printed in the DDN have particularly caught my attention in terms of the writer's own bias, their sheer lack of knowledge of the issue at hand, or just the general discourteous tone of their response. On two occasions, I diligently prepared my own replies and sent them via email to the paper's staff.

One of the advantages of today's electronic communications is the speed in which you can receive a response from the recipient to your submission. No more waiting for the mail carrier to pick up or drop off correspondence. No more paying extra for or sitting by the door waiting to sign for a special delivery--Microsoft Outlook does it all for you. I always request delivery and read receipts for all email correspondence I send out from my work and home accounts. If the recipient (or their place of employment) also uses Outlook, then one can track the submission all the way up to its flashing up on their screen (you still can't determine if they actually read it).

Another feature of this widely used email tool is letting the sender know if the submission was deleted without being read. On both occasions, Outlook returned that very message to me. Here's the last 'rejection':

From: edletter [mailto:edletter@coxohio.com]

Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2006 9:44 AM
To: XXXXXX (trying to retain my anonymity)
Subject: Not read: Historical Hindsight & GOP Hypocrisy

Your message

To: edletter

Subject: Historical Hindsight & GOP Hypocrisy

Sent: Thu, 6 Jul 2006 00:26:28 -0400

was deleted without being read on Thu, 6 Jul 2006 09:43:56 -0400

Wow! What a blow to my ego--having my reply rejected sight unseen! I'll never get that after-work time used to formulate my retort--or the precious sleep I lost (I sent it out at 12:26AM!)--back again and have nothing to show for my toiling except for a server-generated message. When I started to ask myself why someone would do that to any person who takes time out of their daily life to share a little piece of their mind, it dawned on me that I was not in control in this situation. The individual at the other end of this email transaction had the ultimate say in what they would look at and what they would send to the 'bit bucket'.

It really bothered me that I had something to say but lacked an audience to read it. Instead of devising a 'Coulter-esque' plot of exacting my revenge upon the DDN, the idea of starting my own blog--featuring my personal commentary about items appearing on their op/ed pages--came to mind. Blogging would be the ultimate avenue for my opinions! I would be in control of the message as well as the medium. I alone would grant access to individuals who would request permission to post their responses to my online entries. Since I won't need commercial backing for this activity, no one can censor me or shut me down if my opinions didn't match those of their corporate culture or target audience. In this scenario, I realized that I have now ascended to the same level as Ms. Belcher and her staff--minus all the 'strings'!

Once I have posted some specific responses to DDN items and establish a steady blogging routine, I will send Ms. Belcher an email featuring a link to this site. I think that may be one delivery she will want to receive (and read)...