The Sunday Newspaper

Reading the Sunday papers for you!
by Charlie Leck

I rise about 4 o’clock in the morning on Sundays. It’s my wife’s morning to sleep in and I can be sure I’ll have a few hours of deafening silence in the house and I can begin to read the Sunday papers – one of my absolute favorite activities. The Minneapolis paper will not have arrived yet. It arrives at approximately 5:30. So, I begin with the New York Times and the Washington Post.
There’s just nothing like it. I flash through the opinion pages, the entertainment and arts sections, and go to the blogs that the paper sponsors. Good stuff. Here are some tidbits from my Sunday morning reading.

In the NY Times, Paul Krugman warns us that an Obama nomination does not guaranty a land-slide victory. He doesn’t think the candidate will really inspire the activist-left of the party to get out and work for the vote or to even necessarily vote. Krugman is not sure the election can be won on Obama’s charisma and magic.

”All in all, the Democrats are in a place few expected a year ago. The 2008 campaign, it seems, will be waged on the basis of personality, not political philosophy. If the magic works, all will be forgiven. But if it doesn’t, the recriminations could tear the party apart.”

In a video commentary in the NY Times, Tom Friedman brings together the 9-11 Attack, the New Orleans Hurricane Disaster and the Flattening of the World, to explain why America has gone as green as red, white and blue. The attack on the Twin Towers made us realize we are funding, through the purchase of oil, a part of the world that hates us. New Orleans made us realize that environmental calamities have grown more possible on this altered planet. The flattening of the world has merely “brought 3 billion new consumers on to the global economic playing-field from India, China, Russia, Brazil – all with the American dream.” With that much demand for product, what does that do to the sensitive environment of the planet? This is a video worth listening to! A few of my best friends, and some good thinkers I know, think Friedman is a light-weight. Listening to him in his video, makes me wonder how they can think that.

I’m a regular reader of Stanley Fish. He’s a bit too ponderous for most people. He moves slowly (sometimes painfully so), but he moves with clear steps of logic and blatantly allows you to see the progression of his thinking. This week he indicates that John McCain will have certain very clear advantages over Barack Obama in the general election and most of those advantages will come from the war in Iraq. At first blush that seems crazy, but read Stanley Fish’s column and you’ll see just what he’s talking about. Amazingly, however, Fish suggests that John McCain, as a non-candidate, would likely vote for Obama in the privacy of the voting booth.

Who is Stanley Fish? Get to know him. He’s a real pleasure to read.

“Stanley Fish the Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University Professor and a professor of law at Flordia International University and dean emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has also taught at the University of California at Berkeley, Johns Hopkins and Duke University. He is the author of 10 books. His new book on higher education, Save the World on Your Own Time, will be published in 2008.”

I breezed through Bill Kristol’s column on William F. Buckley also. I don’t recommend it. Kristol is a light-weight conservative and he doesn’t really understand Buckley and this column if full of platitudes, generalities and bluster. Where is the information about Buckley’s opposition to the 1964 civil rights legislation? What about Buckley’s avid support of Joe McCarthy in the 50s? These are important connection considering the theme of Kristol’s column. I’d put my own blog about Buckley’s contribution up against Kristol’s drivel anytime.

Every Sunday I spend time with The Opinionator. This blog takes me through the major blogs in the country and les me know what’s being said by them in summary fashion. If I’m interested in reading the entire out-put, they give me the appropriate links. Much like I’m doing for you here.The Opinionator sent me quickly to read Andrew Sullivan’s blog in the Atlantic Monthly on Obama’s position on gays. Very interesting! If you’re curious about how gays are looking upon Obama, go read this thorough, well written piece.Within the Opinionator itself, Chris Suellentrop wrote a particularly interesting and informative piece that compared the kind of people Bill Clinton gathered around himself during his initial campaign for the presidency and those that Barack Obama has pulled together. They are not alike and they show a very different approach to what we might see in an Obama administration.

Freakonomics, as many of you know, is my favorite blog. I don’t miss any of its new postings. These two guys are great! Their book, of the same title, was wonderful. I turn to this blog without fail during the few hours I set aside for reading on Sunday mornings. I always find myself giggling and oohing and ahhing with great delight. This Sunday was not an exception.

George Will’s column in the Washington Post (published in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune on Sunday morning) was especially interesting. It warns us about the possibility of a John McCain presidency. He talks about McCain’s ability to see the splinters in his fellow Senator’s and Representative’s eyes, but not the log in his own eye:

”Such certitude is, however, not merely an unattractive trait. It is disturbing righteousness in someone grasping for presidential powers.”

Garrison Keillor tells us why he lives in Minnesota, even though March is a generally dreary and crappy month (Sorry, the Tribune Media Services refuses to put this column on-line):

“I want my kid to grow up in a society that values knowledge and hard work and public spirit over owning stuff and looking cool. That’s why I live in Minnesota. It isn’t for the climate.”

I’m pretty shocked that I’ve read two consecutive Lori Sturdevant columns in a row with which I agree. On Sunday she described the depth of the budget deficit we are likely to face due to the current “economic lag.” Here in Minnesota, the Governor has the power to indiscriminately slash spending in order to get the budget balanced, which it must by law. She warned Governor Pawlenty against doing that without working through these decisions with the legislature. The last Governor to do this was Al Quie and the state got itself into an awful mess as the result of his actions.

“’If I had it to do over again, I’d have called a special session,’ Quie said last week. By acting alone, he gave every candidate, including his fellow Republicans, license to criticize him. He didn’t recover from the political damage he sustained. It put him in a weaker position to govern the state through two more years of economic trouble.”

Syl Jones, local journalist and playwright (and the son of extraordinary civil rights activists) was asked to argue the side of electing the black man over the woman, both from traditionally ignored groups in national office. Jones wrote well and reasoned wisely, but, in the end, pointed to Obama’s election.

“It’s a shame when one marginalized group has to compete against another for the presidency, especially since good leadership is at a premium. But 2008 is destined to be the year when racial politics is finally turned upside down and the last shall truly be first.”

There’s lots more…

A slide show in the NY Times of Robert Weaver’s 1962 drawings from baseball spring training of that year. I went through them slowly and they brought me great pleasure.

I happen to love Dick Cavett’s sarcasm and dry humor. I read his blog, Talk Show, regularly. On this particular blog Cavett savages the Academy Awards program with his very unique and special sarcasm.Well, enough. As Cavett said in the blog above:

“I’m sick of this subject, and you probably beat me to so being. I shall drag you and it no further.”

It’s untrue, of course! I’m not sick of it at all, but I have dragged you through my reading quite far enough.

END

Photoshop Gets a Bum Wrap

This photograph of one of my grandchildren
was taken by an inexpensive camera. In Photoshop™
I was able to burn some of the edges and areas of
the photograph to force the eye to the areas of
importance; that is, the areas the photographer
intended to be the subject of the photo. The
technique is no different than those used in
darkrooms 50 years ago – as a matter of fact,
that’s where the term ‘burning’ comes from.
The old, darkroom masters also used a system
they called ‘dodging’ to lighten areas to draw
the eye to them. Nothing really changes.
It’s just that it’s much easier and faster now.

It still takes a good photographer to get a great photograph!
by Charlie Leck

This past summer I was at a great photography exhibit at our community art center. I was amazed at the quality of the photographs on exhibit, but a friend who wandered over by me was less than enthused. She began a long rant about how she hated Photoshop™, claiming that it made photography too easy for the masses and now “everyone” thought he/she was a good photographer. She thought it was too easy to repair one’s mistakes and “fix up” things that should have been taken care of at the time the photograph was taken. She was a film user, she proudly announced, and she had no intention of going over to digital.Too bad, I thought. You’re missing out on great fun!

She is too nice a lady with whom to argue in such a public setting (we were packed shoulder to shoulder), so I let it go. The comments have hung around in my mind ever since she made them, though, and I need to rebut them. So, I wondered, why not use my blog to do it.

Lately I’ve been watching some video tutorials on blurring, dodging and burning in Photoshop.™ In watching the tutorial I was amazed to discover how “the old time photographers” used these studio techniques in their development laboratories to alter, enhance or improve the photograph from what the camera’s lens had actually taken. Ah, hah! It’s true. That darkroom was where so many of the great photographers, such as Ansel Adams, went to work to correct problems in the film as the camera recorded the photograph. They were master photographers because they knew how to use the tricks that the dark room would allow them to apply. They could enhance or soften contrast. They could burn or blur certain areas to force the eye to focus on more essential elements in the photograph; and they could lighten or brighten still other areas to make them the highlighted elements in a photo. These great photographers also had correction techniques that allowed them to remove evidence of dust that may have been on their lens and they knew how to fix a scratch here and there. If they got unwanted reflections, there were darkroom techniques to alter those problems, too.

Photoshop™ has just made the whole process of photograph enhancement and improvement much easier. Many of the wonderful instructors from whom I’ve taken Photoshop™ or Lightroom™ tutorials are themselves masters of film photography. They explain that taking the photograph is only half the process in producing great film photographs. The other half takes place in the darkroom.

I recently applied some of the burning techniques I’ve been learning to a photograph that someone else sent me – of one of my grandchildren – and I was flabbergasted at the results and the improvement the techniques made. And, they were really very minor adjustments. And also, they were the kind of adjustments that could have been made to film in the darkroom.

Sometimes it’s very difficult to accept change. My friend, that day at the art center, was blown away by the colorfulness, the crispness and the perfection of the photos she was viewing. She shouldn’t think that any old photographer could have done that just because he/she had Photoshop™ available. No, these were great and wonderful photographs, first and foremost, because they had been taken by a wonderful photographer. I see evidence of this all the time. I’m getting to be a master of Photoshop™, but I’m still unable to get the kind of production from my own work that the truly talented, artistic photographers can get.

Up from Conservatism

True Conservatism is a worthy opponent!
by Charlie Leck

I have been working on this essay about true conservatism for months. It seems a bit silly to think that I, a self-admitted liberal, could write such an essay. That's precisely why I've been struggling. With the death of William Buckley in the last few days, I knew I had to move on with the task.

I was about to turn 19 years of age and I was soon to leave for college. It was 48 years ago. I was just starting to develop an interest in politics. I was very confused about what it meant to be a Republican, which my father claimed to be because he liked Ike, or a Democrat. I was asking myself some serious questions. What did it mean to be a conservative? What was a liberal? I'm not kidding when I say that I had no real idea.

A cousin of mine, two years younger and about 6 grade levels brighter, gave me a copy of a newly released book by William F. Buckley, Jr., Up from Liberalism. I have no idea why she gave it to me. She urged me to read it. I tried. I couldn't. It got shoved away on a bookshelf and it has survived all these years and stands now on the shelves in my study. The foreword to the book was written by John Dos Passos. I had no idea who he was in 1959. Now he is one of my favorite writers. As Vonnegut might have said, "That's the way it goes."

In about 1972, a good friend convinced me to read the Dos Passos trilogy, which included the 42^nd Parallel (1930), Nineteen-Nineteen (1932), and The Big Money (1936). This is not the place to break down these novels. The point I want to make is that when I read these I certainly would not have gotten the idea that Dos Passos was, in any way, a conservative. So when I carefully read Buckley's book ten years ago, I was mighty confused about why Dos Passos was associated with it. Let me answer that very simply. Dos Passos saw the conservative political movement as an attempt to conserve something – to preserve the principles upon which the nation was founded. Is that what true conservatism is? Let's delay the answer to that question.

"The radicals of the period of the first of the century's great wars were trying to conserve something too. We were pretty conscious of the fact that we were trying to conserve the independence of the average citizen which we felt the power of organized money was bent to destroy. This was the underlying theme of the Populist agitation, of the Progressive and Socialist and Farmer-Labor parties. Through the referendum and recall and primary elections and labor unions and cooperatives we thought that something like the old townmeeting type of self government could be revived. The aim of all the diverse radical movements of that politically fertile period was somehow to restore the dignity of the man who did the work. Staid Single-Taxers, direct action IWW's and bombthrowing anarchists had the same eventual goal. They believed that if every man could be assured of the full product of his labor, the Kingdom of Heaven would be installed on earth. Their quarrel was about ways and means." [John Dos Passos, foreword to Up from Liberalism by William F. Buckley, Jr., 1959, page viii).

There, you see? Dos Passos was the radical when he wrote his trilogy in the 30s. So where was he in 1959?

The argument that Dos Passos puts forward is that the great crash of the economy in 1929 did not lead to a takeover of power by the working man. He calls the crash the abdication of business and that gave birth to the new bureaucracy. "The radical theorists from the colleges crowded into Washington." The managerial class was born. Roosevelt personified it, managing both the massive labor unions and the community of big businesses. When the second Great War came to an end in 1945, massive government took over and "towered" over both the working man and big business. He sees the period as the birth of militant liberalism.

Enter William F. Buckley, Junior.

When the brilliant Mr. Buckley talks about conservatism, he is talking about preservation. He writes in the introduction to the book that the nation "is in danger of losing her identity – not on account of the orthodoxy that we are being told in some quarters threatens to suffocate us; but for failure to nourish any orthodoxy at all." These are the presuppositions he works from as he begins to develop his thesis.

His thesis then is that "conservatism is the only apparent rallying point." His objectives in the book were to "discredit doctrinaire Liberalism and plead the viability of enlightened conservatism." Buckley also argues that the differences between liberals and conservatives are completely negotiable even though the liberal community doesn't think so."

This conservative ideal, the grand concept of preserving what the founding fathers intended for the nation was the principle upon which Buckley and people like the famous Senator from Arizona, Barry Goldwater, built the conservative movement of the early 1960s. Buckley says that conservatism is not "a crassly materialist position, unconcerned except with the world of getting and spending money." Remember, Buckley is speaking about classical conservatism.

Buckley's great fear (and the fear of the classical conservative) is a loss of freedom by attrition. His view (in 1959) was that the society in which he lived was moving head-long toward totalitarianism; that is, government's absolute control over virtually everything. It is nearly 50 years since he wrote of that fear. I don't think we're there and I don't think we've even inched in that direction although, in fairness to Buckley, the following, according to him, would be evidences of a diminishment of our freedom: "…the progressive income tax, the ban on religious teaching in public schools, the union shop, the FEPCs, the farm laws.."

In the end, it turns out, it is "the welfare state" that Buckley fears the most. Buckley warns that there is a significant difference between government services that provide dollars to the people, to do with as they wish, and providing services for him (by which he means things like "…federal aid to education, housing, rural electrification, small business,… insurance programs…" like health and accident insurance.

Here we must look at William Buckley to really understand where he is going with his strong argument against liberalism. First of all, it is quite easy to document that William Buckley was deeply in fear of communism and its worldwide outreach. Remember, Up from Liberalism came to the market in 1959. Most of the nation was living in absolute fear of communism. That fear had made the McCarthy movement possible. It is also easy to document that Buckley was a great supporter of what Senator McCarthy was trying to do when he began his hearings meant to expose suspected communists active in our government and society. It wasn't until late in the 60s that Buckley could admit that he had been wrong about McCarthy and that his great fear of communism was misplaced. By the time Vietnam came along, Buckley could see the foolishness of the McCarthy endeavor and of communism itself.

Pure conservatism, as Buckley envisioned it, is a worthy and significant political movement – that is, the kind of conservatism that Buckley defines in the book we are writing about in this essay. Buckley had no appreciation for the kind of right wing conservative movement that was introduced into politics by the likes of Richard Nixon. The current right-wing, Christian evangelical movement of today's Republican Party is something that Buckley could have done without completely.

None of this is meant to say that Up from Liberalism was not an alarming book. It was. Clearly stated, the purpose of the book was "to bring down the thing called liberalism, which is powerful but decadent; and salvage a thing called conservatism, which is weak but viable."

I would never have known it as a young man, but now I do; that is, Buckley's understanding of, and definition of, liberalism is all wrong. He claims that liberals believe that the human being is perfectible and also that "social progress predicable." Nonsense! Liberalism believes quite the opposite, but, nevertheless, moves toward the hope that man can be better and less self-centered and that society can be fairer and more just than it is.

In 1959, Arthur Schlesinger accused Buckley of being more interested in preserving his reputation "as the conservative enfant terrible than with any serious attempt to understand what contemporary liberalism is all about." I think this was more true of Buckley than any of us know.

A great deal of Buckley's 1959 book is a rant against Social Security – a still popular tirade among contemporary conservatives – and it becomes weak in its logic the longer it goes on. Finally, his most serious complaint is with the compulsory nature of social security, even with the understanding that "very few people, if given the opportunity, would opt for exclusion." He finally concedes that government could go ahead and give this money to folks, but it should hold the line on welfarism, which provides services to people.

Buckley also reveals a mild dose of ignorance in the book when he continues to defend government's denial of the vote to black Americans – an idea he later in life confessed was stupidity. Buckley would also oppose the civil rights legislation of 1964 and it wasn't until twenty years later that he finally acknowledged it was worthy and needed law. He also finally matured into the knowledge that his book (1954) defending McCarthyism was wrong and so was his illogical fear of communism. It is so odd to me, in reading this early Buckley book, that he was so willing, for the sake of rooting communists out of our government, to throw out all the constitutional protections he so reveres today.

Fortunately, Buckley matured over the years and, in the end, staked out a solid and defensible conservative position. Do not confuse Buckley with the John Birch Society, Newt Gingrich, Carl Rove or George W. Bush. He liked none of them nor did he care for their politics. According to Sam Tanenhaus, Buckley has said that "if the United States had been a parliamentary system, President Bush would be subject to a 'no confidence' vote." And Buckley was so uncomfortable with the war in Iraq that he wrote many columns in the National Review that clearly opposed it.

"He initially supported the war because he was impressed by the case Vice President Dick Cheney made that Saddam harbored weapons of mass destruction. Once this was proved to be untrue, Buckley told me that if Cheney had known the actual truth, then President Bush would be a candidate for impeachment." [Sam Tanenhaus]

We cannot forget, even though we would like to do so, that conservative Republicans have ruled the nation for 20 of the last 32 years. They remain a powerful force of political possibility in every state in the union. If credit is to be given to any single person for being the motivating force behind this movement, it would have to go to William Buckley who, as the founding editor of the National Review (with the credo, "It stands athwart history, yelling Stop"), formed his movement of conservative youth at his Connecticut home in 1960, and was the basic educator of political conservatives from that time until his death two days ago. As Dan LeRoy wrote in 2005:

"With the death of President Ronal Reagan last year, Mr. Buckley became the major living symbol of the modern conservative movement he helped found."

Russ Limbaugh has called Buckley "the godfather of the modern conservative movement." For the first time in my life, I may be in agreement with Mr. Limbaugh.

In 1965, embarrassed by the decisive defeat of Barry Goldwater in his run for the presidency, Buckley anointed himself, in humor, the conservative candidate for Mayor of New York City. His platform, printed in the National Review, contained some surprising proposals.

-To fight crime, either lock up teenage felons or make their parents legally responsible for them
-Legalize drugs for adults
-Cut off welfare to everyone except invalids and mothers looking after children 14 years of age or younger
-No more busing to achieve racial balance

The Sam Tanenhaus account of Buckley's run for Mayor in 1965 is one of the most delightful and interesting political accounts I have ever read. After reading it, one puts it down with the realization that William Buckley truly had gonads. Truly!

What really broiled Buckley was a haughty attitude he sensed among liberals – an attitude that allowed "the reflexive equation of liberalism with virtue" (as Sam Tanenhaus has described it). Buckley believed, right to his death, that liberals did not use logic and the intelligence that God gave them to arrive at their convictions, but that they were driven by petty emotions and the desire to do good.

In its 28 February obituary, the New York Times says that Buckley "was a magnet for controversy." Indeed, he was! Many of his contemporary men of letters were in constant and angry disagreement with him – men like Mailer, Styron, Vidal, Capote and Baldwin.

Had I read Up from Liberalism when it was given to me in 1959, I would not have understood it. I would not have realized how critical sarcasm and hyperbole and outrageous humor were to Buckley. Might it have changed my life if I had read it then? Would it have turned me away from the liberal ideology with which I fell in love? I doubt it very much. I think I would have been as shocked then by William Buckley's basic unfairness about the plight of people of misfortune as I am when I read him and listen to him today.

Let's give him all this, however: He was a man of humor and of serious letters; he had a great stage presence; and he spurred serious dialogue.

END

An excellent source for information about Buckley and his brand of conservatism: George H. Nash: The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America.

An on-line source of most of Buckley's writings: Hillsdale College web site.

Bloomberg Rings a Bell

This is meaningful, but what does it mean?
by Charlie Leck

New York Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, perhaps the most powerful politician in America, has sounded an alert that should get our attention [see his guest commentary in the NY Times].

"In the weeks and months ahead, I will continue to work to steer the national conversation away from partisanship and toward unity; away from ideology and toward common sense; away from sound bites and toward substance. And while I have always said I am not running for president, the race is too important to sit on the sidelines, and so I have changed my mind in one area. If a candidate takes an independent, nonpartisan approach — and embraces practical solutions that challenge party orthodoxy — I’ll join others in helping that candidate win the White House."

If you don't think Bloomberg can push this election one way or the other, you don't understand just how wealthy and influential he is.

I happen to like the New York City Mayor. He makes sense on a lot of issues. He was formerly a Democrat and switched over the to the Republican Party. In fact, he's an independent. He's also a very creative thinker and this commentary in this morning's newspaper is a call for the candidates to think outside the box.

It will serve you well to keep your eye on Michael Bloomberg.

She is my Hill

Poem to Jean
by Charlie Leck

I dreamed very vividly last night about my sister. In the dream, I created a poem for her. I kept reciting the poem, over and over. I awoke about 2 o'clock and the poem kept playing itself, again and again, in my head. So I jumped up and wrote it down as best I could remember it.

My sister, throughout my life, has been more of a mother figure to me. She was there, with my mother, on the dark night in the Bronx when I was born. My father was out, trying to find a doctor who would come and help. A birth-bond was created when I slipped out into life and it has always been very strong.

Now she fights valiantly against disease. She's a tough hombre and has no thought of going off easily. The pain is intense, but her heart remains loving and generous. She continues to give more than she receives.

This poem is for her.

She is my hill
from which
I see things around me more clearly

It is not a mountain top
but merely
a gentle, little hillock
that rises slowly and kindly
through green and gracious countryside

A mere slope ascends
that is effortlessly scaled
on a day at the height of spring
in only a moment
that seems like many pleasant, carefree years

She is my hill
from which
I see and understand my life
and all things more clearly
and dearly

It is a gentle
little hill
that looks upon and over
all the world and every village
where common people live
and love

I see
from here
all things more clearly
and dearly
and wisely
with love and tenderness
and understanding

I would not
have seen this world
so beautifully
so clearly
so dearly
had this little hillock not been here
for me to so easily ascend
on a lovely
sunny
pleasant day in May

She is my hill
from which
I see things around me more clearly
and dearly

My dear sister is such a special person in my life. I love her so dearly. How I wish I could take her pain from her and give her dozens more years to live.

NY Times on the Hot Seat

This was not great reporting, but the story’s not over!
by Charlie Leck

The New York Times article on John McCain’s possible encounters with ethics questions was itself quite a phenomenon. It bears looking at. There are some good questions. Why the article? What about its timing? What did the article really say and what was its central thesis? How was the article misunderstood? What was the reaction to it by other journalists?

Some worthwhile blogs about the current John McCain and New York Times hullabaloo:

John Dean at Find Law
Mr. Dean writes that the denials of inappropriate sexual behavior by Senator McCain and Ms. Iseman are very weak. Why haven’t the two directly challenged the times and demanded a retraction? Why hasn’t Ms. Iseman indicated she will bring legal action against the NY Times for damages? Has the NY Times got more information than they’ve already given us and both the Senator and the lobbyist are not wanting the other shoe to fall?

The Brian Williams Blog on MSNBC Nightly News Web SiteWhen News is the NewsWilliams makes a good point in this blog: New is not supposed to be the news! One of the responsibilities of journalism is to avoid being itself the headline.

Also check out the Brian Williams story on ABC News, refuting McCain’s claim that he is the only one in the campaign not receiving special interest money.

The New York Times is criticized by its own Public Editor
for messing up a really very good story about John McCain.“The pity of it is that, without the sex, The Times was on to a good story. McCain, who was reprimanded by the Senate Ethics Committee in 1991 for exercising “poor judgment” by intervening with federal regulators on behalf of a corrupt savings and loan executive, recast himself as a crusader against special interests and the corrupting influence of money in politics. Yet he has continued to maintain complex relationships with lobbyists like Iseman, at whose request he wrote to the Federal Communications Commission to urge a speed-up on a decision affecting one of her clients.”

Martin Andrade wonders if the NY Times has more – if anothershoe is going to drop!
This is a thought I’ve had also. I read the NY Times story through one time very quickly. Troubled by it, I read it twice again and very carefully both times. If this is it – if they don’t have more information and sources than this – we have to call it a shoddy piece of journalism. Here’s some wild, unsupported speculation. The NY Times has got the goods. And, don’t forget that this is not only a story about possible sex for legislative favors, but it is also about John McCain’s regular dalliance around the edges of congressional ethics questions. With Martin Andrade, we’ll have to wait to see! Here, however, as Andrade points out, is the Catch 22 trap in which the NY Times is caught:

“If the Times has more and are waiting for another day to catch McCain in a lie then they are practicing political strategy rather than journalism and deserve denunciation; If this is it, if this is everything the NYT has on this "scandal" then the Times deserves ridicule.”

Right-Wing religious/political zealot, Gary Bauer, calls this Yellow Journalismof the worst kind and I am going to agree with him (which I find rather hard to believe) unless the NY Times is going to come up with some good reason for making this a front page story (or even a story at all).

Many bloggers are demanding that the NY Times explain just what motivated them to publish this story. I’ll add that they need to provide the explanation quickly. Nothing less is at stake than the publication’s reputation as a great newspaper.

Jane Hamsher, of Firedoglake,points out that this is pretty much a question of John Weaver’s word against that of John McCain. We need to hear more from Weaver. I’m not concerned about the sex charges that might result from learning more about this matter; I’m worried about McCain’s vulnerability to lobbyist influence. If all this stuff turns out to be true, McCain is toast both in the Senate and in the presidential race.

Tom Elia, blogging at the News Editor, is correct in what he says below UNLESS the NY Times really does have another shoe to drop:“30 years from now, when enough time has passed for the necessary historical perspective, and people wonder how the New York Times wrecked its journalistic reputation, this article will be one of the major pieces of evidence.”

The Mahablog calls all this the McScandal. I like that!

Brave New Films has a different tilt. They want to point out who the major friends of John McCain really are.

Now, when all is said and done, the problem the NY Times had with this article is two-fold. One: The public is made up of loads of very poor readers. It reads what it wants to. Nearly everyone read this NY Times story to say that John McCain had an affair with a much younger woman. The story was really about John McCain’s regular tendency to play a little too loosely with questions of ethics in terms of his general relationship with lobbyists. Two: The NY Times was a little too enchanted with the possibility that there may have been a sexual relationship involved in this cozy relationship with a lobbying firm. They tried to prove it for months, but they couldn’t. The egos around the newsroom simply wouldn’t let go of the possibility, however, and they ran with it as innuendo. Not good journalism.

The best summary of the whole debacle comes from Phil Hoskins in a Capitol Hill Blue blog.

“This week “straight talking” John McCain was exposed as the liar he is and true to form, the result was a circling of the right-wing wagons to support him. It isn’t the issue of whether he snuggled up with his lobbyist gal pal that is important but rather his poor judgment when it comes to lobbyists.”

My final take on this is that the investigative reporters have been turned loose. They smell blood and they are going to try to prove something that the NY Times couldn’t or didn’t bother to do – that is, prove the NY Times story is correct.

No New Nukes

Urge Administration to Abandon New Nuclear Weapons
by Charlie Leck

This email came to me in the last 24 hours from the Union of Concerned Scientists and I consider it an important one. As they requested, I've sent off an email expressing my concern. Perhaps you would like to also.

Despite the fact that the United States still maintains hundreds of nuclear-armed missiles on high alert, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently published its newest proposal to upgrade the entire U.S. nuclear weapons complex.

First announced as “Complex 2030” in 2006, “Complex Transformation” would return the U.S. to a Cold War cycle of designing, developing, and producing new nuclear weapons. Fortunately, a mandatory environmental review allows you to submit comments on this ill-advised draft plan.Write today and tell the DOE that we don’t need the capacity to build NEW nuclear weapons; we need to take the lead in moving closer to a world free of nuclear weapons.Please make your letter personal by adding in your own thoughts and concerns. Every letter makes a difference, but customized letters have the greatest effect!

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