LIBERADIO(!)

Jonathan Alter does a service to all voters in a recent piece in Newsweek by doing what I wish more journalists did: holding politicians accountable.

Some readers told me at the time that this was naive–that the president, if not indifferent to the problems of black people, as the singer Kanye West charged, was not going to do anything significant to help them. At first this seemed too cynical. The week after the article appeared, Bush went to Jackson Square in New Orleans and made televised promises not only for Katrina relief but to address some of the underlying struggles of the poor. He proposed ‘worker recovery accounts’ to help evacuees find work by paying for job training, school and child care; an Urban Homesteading Act that would make empty lots and loans available to the poor to start over, and a Gulf Enterprise Zone to spur business investment in poor areas. Small ideas, perhaps, but good ones.

Well, it turned out that the critics were largely right. Not only has the president done much less than he promised on the financing and logistics of Gulf Coast recovery, he has dropped the ball entirely on using the storm and its aftermath as an opportunity to fight poverty. Worker recovery accounts and urban homesteading never got off the ground, and the new enterprise zone is mostly an opportunity for Southern companies owned by GOP campaign contributors to make some money in New Orleans. The mood in Washington continues to be one of not-so-benign neglect of the problems of the poor.

Wouldn’t it be great if major dailies everywhere put together criticism like this 6 months after the State of the Union and other major policy addresses? The politicians do wonders as far as roadmaps and bullet points, but who comes back and assesses progress down the road? Rarely these same politicians, rarely the media, and, unfortunately it seems, rarely voters. We try to do this in a limited way with Liberadio, and maybe we can improve the job we’re doing. Care to help?

hat tip: Howard Kurtz, who offers a nice prelude commentary of his own on the notion of anniversary journalism, which he largely (and correctly, in my opinion) derides as a crock.

Thanks to our guest, Professor john a. powell. The two websites he referenced are the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity and National Alliance to Restore Opportunity to the Gulf Coast and Displaced Persons.

“Just When You Thought You’d Seen Everything: Hoekstra’s Hoax”, By Ray McGovern (Truthout.org) McGovern writes about “Recognizing Iran as a Strategic Threat: An Intelligence Challenge for the United States,” the trumped up report released last week by House intelligence committee chair, Pete Hoekstra. You’ll recognize McGovern as the veteran who spoke truth to power to Secretary Rumsfeld.

Nashville and it’s growing immigrant population is profiled in The Nation. The “nativists” have it so wrong. No one will argue that there needs to be immigration reform. But who gets the blame for that?

An Iraqi Peace activist is forced to change his t-shirt before boarding a plane. Is “Do you feel that Iraq is better now or under Saddam’s rule?” an appropriate question for airport seccurity?

Watch the beauty of Colbert and Stewart at The Emmys.

Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) is one of many Republicans who, in fighting to retain their tenuous hold on incumbency, have adapted to win precisely by cutting and running, completely abandoning strong advocacy for the war in Iraq. Interesting that Shays is employing this strategy in the very state where Ned Lamont recently bested Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary. Perhaps he’s nervous about the lack of Joementum achieved with Lieberman’s stay the course strategy. Actually, maybe Lieberman’s nervous about it, too, what with his subsequent call for Rumsfeld to resign.

What if all Americans, like William Arkin, demanded more accountability from the war in Iraq before calling for more trooops or not calling for fewer? Might we then wind up with a stronger foreign policy, better homeland security, more rapid rebuilding of critical infrastructure after emergencies like Katrina, and a diminishing deficit? It’s a hypothetical, but my hypothesis is “yes”.

An afterthought: I wonder if any element of Ken Mehlman’s sound bite strategy in developing “adapt to win” as a Republican catchphrase (while sweeping “stay the course” under the carpet) was actually drawn from the House of Labor’s Change to Win coalition, a labor movement spearheaded by SEIU’s Andy Stern after last year’s momentous decision to split from the troubled AFL-CIO? If the GOP strategist-in-chief is drawing inspiration from the Democrat-heavy labor movement for creative thinking about how to frame Iraq, maybe it’s a sign that Rove’s magic touch has completely worn off.

Crooks and Liars put on display an amazing Ann Coulter meltdown (No One Is Paying Attention to Me Hair Flip, patent pending). Ordinarily, I would not give any type of publicity to anything Ann Coulter, but when there’s an opportunity to witness public embarrassment of such a worthless windbag, I admit a guilty pleasure in answering that particular door.

What is interesting about this segment is how terrible an exploration of ideas the entire bit is. Sean Hannity talking over Michael Brown, Kirsten Powers talking over Ann Coulter (and spiritedly emerging victorious!). I pity people who look to this Fox News failure of a forum for inspiration or to learn about public policy and politics in America. While not perfect, I preferred Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect as a roundtable for bringing together different perspectives to explore political ideas. Or, on a local front, Teddy Bart’s Round Table. Heck, even a lot of folks in the local blogosphere defend their partisan fiefs without Coulterian bluster.

We certainly value and strive to achieve civil dialogue on Liberadio(!). While controversy may sell, civil dialogue doesn’t have to be a boring process, and even when it is, it might still be important. At the end of the day, my interest in dialogue is the power of ideas. And antagonistic shouting diatribes frankly don’t have a lot of power in the face of civil dialogue exploring rich and often complicated ideas. When I shop in the mediasphere, I often leave controversy on the shelf except when unavoidable, and I recommend that others do, too.

Ann Coulter, the committee finds you unmutual!

From the Nashville Post:

Shirley Ward, president of the Tennessee Federation of Republican Women, has turned herself in to authorities and has been arrested on charges of voter fraud by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, according to department spokesperson Jennifer Johnson.

Ward, a Tipton County resident, has been charged with knowingly voting in the wrong district for a Tipton County Commission race. While Johnson could not say which County Commission seat was affected, she said the winner of the race had won by one vote.

A call to the Tipton County Election Commission confirmed that the August 3 election for Tipton County Commission race, District 2, between John Arnold McIntyre Jr. and Billy Dan Huggins was decided by one vote. McIntyre was the victor in the non-partisan race.

Ward was elected president of the Tennessee Federation of Republican Women in 2005 and has a long history in Republican politics. According to her biography on the organization’s website, she has served as deputy chairman of “W Stands for Women,” county chairman for Senator Bill Frist and Van Hilleary and co-chairman for the Bush/Cheney campaigns of 2000 and 2004. She has also served as the financial director for TeamGOP.org, an organization that is run by her son, Jeff Ward.

She has also been named “Woman of the Year” by the Tipton County Republican Women’s club and serves on the statewide “Tennessee GOP Development Council in 2005.”

It’s impressive to see just how far someone will go to win a non-partisan race. Baroo?

UPDATE: Freddie says, “And, of course, Ms. Ward is the mother of Jeff Ward, the figure behind the somewhat notorious TeamGOP. I’m sure Mr. Ward will now be extra sensitive to challenges that Ford’s family legacy damage his candidacy.”

Kleinfelter…er, uh,…I mean, KleinHEIDER over at VolunteerVoters.com is worried about our MIA Governor. He writes:

If the Governor is so in command of his faculties, if the tests are routine, why could the Gov. himself not do the phone interview? Why was the media not told that the Governor was returning to the state until he was already here?

It’s difficult for public officials to balance their privacy needs with the tranparency they owe their constituents. In this instance, we should afford the Governor a certain degree of retreat since it’s only be a couple of weeks, not months. I’m willing to give our Governor a bit more “me-time.” The question then becomes, would I be willing to give the same latitude to a Republican Governor or, let’s say, a Republican President? It depends. If it were George Bush or some other high-ranking member of his administration then the answer is a resounding “no.” This is not a completely partisan answer but one based on past experience with a group of people so secretive and opaque that they can’t be trusted to be forthcoming on any topic.

That said, if Governor Bredesen’s lack of communication continues for a month or more then Kleingartner…er…heider’s most definitely has a point.

It’s the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which has been covered in achingly emotional detail by Spike Lee and The Span (forget CNN and MSNBC’s professional pundits – HBO and Cspan are giving us the real story from the victims and the people in the trenches).

It’s also the 10th anniversary of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act a.k.a welfare reform.

Ten years ago, in a strategic display of bipartisanship, President Bill Clinton worked with a Republican Congress to overhaul our welfare system. Progressives everywhere were alarmed at the prospect of welfare recipients without a safety net. Here it is, however, ten years on and the results have been reported as “one of the most successful policy changes in our nation’s history” reducing both federal spending and welfare caseloads.

As always, we need to take a deeper and more serious look at this Conservative “I-told-you-so” moment. It is true that welfare roles and federal spending have been reduced and that more poor women are working now then were working 10 years ago. It’s also true, however, that the minimum wage jobs employing the majority of the “Welfare-to-Work” recipients cannot support one person let alone a family of 2, 3, or 4. The requirement for those with children to support and without a High School diploma or work skills to “get to work or else” is a trap. In other words, work this low-wage job without any chance for advancement that eats into the time you need to invest in a GED or advanced job skills training, or else.

Then there are also those that are truly incapable of working 9 to 5 due to a physical or mental illness. They need a more nuanced system, not the inflexible federally-mandated welfare policies currently in place.

Other issues that still need to be addressed by Congress include the minimum wage, reliable child-care, and health-insurance benefits, all of which negatively affect the valiant working-poor struggling to take care of their families.

Rachel Gragg and Margy Waller, who served as advisors on welfare policy to Senator Paul Wellstone and President Bill Clinton respectively, offer up a “what’s next?” moment pointing out that federal policymakers should “stop basking in their own ’success’ and instead catch up to state and local officials who have been focusing on “turning low-wage jobs into better jobs with higher wages and employment benefits.”

It might be a good time, Mr. President, to have a welfare policy advisor in the White House once again as it’s painfully clear that welfare reform is an important work in progress.

“From Welfare To Poverty”, by Randy Albelda and Heather Boushey (TomPaine.com)
“Welfare reform, 10 years later,” By Rachel Gragg and Margy Waller (Boston Globe)
“Helping the Poor: From Welfare to Workfare,” The Economist

More likely, he just reads conservative blogs, but he also responds to them. In this case, he asserts his intention to continue to seek passage of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (S. 2590), which would, on its face, do quite a bit to improve transparency (and, one would hope, by extension, accountability) of government’s funding of its operations. Perhaps Sen. Frist should give Rep. Cooper a call? At the very least, maybe he’ll add the Financial Report of the United States Government to his summer reading list, per the congressman’s recommendation.

hat tip: Hotline On Call

Hotline On Call, a blog operated by National Journal, had an entry today providing the latest details on the newly beleagured campaign of George Allen (R-VA) in the wake of the Macaca Moment. Apparently, the Senator is being advised to start whining about unfair treatment at the hands of the liberal media establishment. Just a couple of notes here:

• This is the same liberal media establishment that helped to topple Howard Dean’s bid to become the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004 by perpetual exposure of The Scream. I’m certainly not endorsing the media’s treatment of Dean, and neither am I saying since they did it to him it’s okay for them to pillory political candidates universally for gaffes. But let’s be honest: Howard Dean was not insulting anyone. Allen, on the other hand… “Welcome to America.” There’s a story here. Regardless of the supposed meaning of Allen’s remarks, he was singling out someone for his appearance to mock him, and it’s difficult to take this particular Senator’s word that it was just about his hair based on what we already know.
• At the time of The Scream, video sharing was neither as popular nor as easy as it is today with services like Google Video, IFILM, or, of course, YouTube. Allen’s problem is just as much with the perfect storm of netroots activism originating with “Macaca” himself, who astutely posted the video such that it could achive viral status. At that point, the media, which loves a story that’s already a story, helped to perpetuate the story. If Allen is to start whining about anything, it would have its origins in the fact that clever people who don’t care for him or his politics outmaneuvered him politically. That the opposition has finally figured out a way to manipulate the media for its gains is something Allen should take pride in since its his party that has helped drive the media to its current sorry state.

In short, I find it hard to see how Allen is a victim of anything but his own personal politics.