MEDIA LOG BY DAN KENNEDY

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Serving the reality-based community since 2002.

Notes and observations on the press, politics, culture, technology, and more. To sign up for e-mail delivery, click here. To send an e-mail to Dan Kennedy, click here. For bio, published work, and links to other blogs, visit www.dankennedy.net.

Tuesday, November 30, 2004

DEAN OF RADIO. I would describe Dean Johnson's radio column in the Boston Herald every Friday as indispensable, but I guess that would be technically inaccurate. Because Media Log has learned that the Herald's editors have decided it's very much dispensable. Johnson, a longtime Herald staffer who also covers comedy and other entertainment-related stories, will continue to write for the arts pages. But his radio column is no more.

Johnson declined to comment, but he's got plenty of readers. Radio is a specialty beat - the Globe's radio column is written by a freelancer, Clea Simon - and I suppose you could make the case that it's less interesting now that every station in the country is owned by two giant media conglomerates. (I exaggerate only slightly.) Still, Johnson's take was authoritative, and it was certainly one I always looked forward to.

"Personally, I think this is outrageous - his radio column was one of the best; he also wrote about pop culture and reviewed various shows for the Herald, always objective and always fair. If something was happening in media in Boston, Dean was on top of it. For him to be treated this way after 20 years is blatantly unfair," e-mails a radio junkie and Media Log reader.

Herald managing editor Kevin Convey is playing this as a better-for-everyone proposition, e-mailing, "Very, simply, we're interested in covering radio on a breaking basis rather than on a once-weekly basis. We want Dean, with his long history and wealth of contacts in the business, to translate the effort he put into the column into daily coverage. Hence, the column goes. But our hope is that Dean will be in the paper with news of the industry on a much more regular basis now."

That sounds like more-Dean-on-radio, but will it shake out that way? Yes, there's breaking news when there's turmoil, such as Jane Christo's recent resignation as general manager of WBUR (90.9 FM), or scandal, such as the mind-boggling story of Brad Bleidt and WBIX (AM 1060). Other than that, though, is there really much breaking news in radio? I want Johnson's perspective even when there isn't news breaking.

FREE SPEECH ON CAMPUS. The US Court of Appeals struck a blow for free speech yesterday by prohibiting the Pentagon from enforcing the Solomon Amendment, which requires law schools to allow military recruiters on campus as a condition of receiving federal funds.

Last Fourth of July the Phoenix bestowed one of its annual Muzzle Awards on Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for his vigorous enforcement of the Solomon Amendment. (Click here, scroll to the bottom, and click on "page 6.")

The issue is pretty basic. The military discriminates against lesbians and gay men through its "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Other employers that discriminate are not allowed on campus.

Although I wish the military would stop discriminating, I also wish colleges and universities would voluntarily allow recruiters from any organization to exercise their free-speech rights on campus. But the Solomon Amendment was coercion, and we should all be glad that the court recognized it as such.

posted at 11:25 AM | 1 comments | link

Monday, November 29, 2004

CORRECTION. A red-faced Media Log is reliably informed that the Patrick Healy who wrote today's front-page New York Times article is not the guy who's leaving the Boston Globe. And to think that all I had to do was this.

posted at 11:42 AM | 1 comments | link

DOLLARS AND SENSE AT WBUR. A business-consulting firm will begin setting up shop today at WBUR Radio (90.9 FM) in an effort to bring the Boston University-owned station's runaway costs under control.

Grant Thornton - whose clients include New Balance - will "review and [make] recommendations related to station operations, business office functions (including accounting, budgeting, and reporting), and personnel procedures and staffing patterns," according to a staff memo by the station's interim general manager, Peter Fiedler. Media Log obtained a copy of Fiedler's memo just before Thanksgiving.

The complete text of Fiedler's memo is as follows:

Dear Colleagues,

As I begin my sixth week at WBUR, I would like to share a number of my observations and some important developments taking place at the station.

As you all know by now, I have been holding individual meetings with members of the staff. These interviews have helped me learn a great deal about WBUR and understand the views and concerns of the staff in a relatively short time frame. I've quickly found that there is a very steep learning curve required for this job, and I'd like to thank all members of the WBUR community who have generously and candidly shared their viewpoints with me. I encourage WBUR staff members who have not yet met with me to please do so. Marinela Misho will assist you to find a mutually convenient time.

On Monday, November 29, consultants from Grant Thornton, a highly regarded national business consulting firm, will begin their work at the station. The Grant Thornton team will be located in the small conference room next to the general manager's office. Grant Thornton's focus will be on the administrative components of the WBUR Group. This will include, but is not limited to, review and recommendations related to station operations, business office functions (including accounting, budgeting, and reporting), and personnel procedures and staffing patterns. In addition, Grant Thornton will analyze fundraising systems and procedures, as well as other revenue streams including donations, grants and contracts, and underwriting. Grant Thornton will not be advising management on the type or format of programs currently being produced by WBUR. Their charge is to review systems, procedures, and management information processes to help establish a plan to improve station operations.

During the course of their assignment, members of the Grant Thornton team may ask to interview selected members of the WBUR staff in order to gain additional insight and to understand the context of station operations. My principal objective over the course of the next few months will be to concentrate on developing an appropriate framework that will support the core mission of the WBUR Group. As you may know, I have already decided to discontinue the Citizens of the World travel program. After careful analysis, it is apparent that the travel program does not adequately contribute to the support of our core mission of broadcasting programs of the highest quality. I intend to continue a systematic review of other station-related functions and activities to be sure they focus on maintaining our nationally recognized programming efforts and positively contribute to that end.

Although we are making progress toward examining station finances and identifying areas in which we can move forward, it is important to note that advances for WBUR will not be accomplished without some dislocation. A fiscally responsible plan will ultimately require us to prioritize activities and invest only in those that contribute to our principal mission. I am working closely with departments at Boston University to take advantage of existing central resources, such as assistance with purchasing, and to ensure that the most efficient and beneficial actions are undertaken during this period of transition.

Please feel free to contact me directly if you have any suggestions or questions, or if I can be of any assistance to you. I wish to thank each member of the WBUR community for your understanding and support during this time, and for the warm reception you have given me. It has made my work considerably more pleasurable. I hope you and your families have an enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday.

Peter Fiedler Assistant Vice President & Interim General Manager WBUR-FM 90.9 890 Commonwealth Avenue Boston, MA

Fielder's memo looks like good news for the station's staff and listeners. Rather than taking a chainsaw to programming, Fielder appears committed to managing his way out of the millions of dollars in debt left behind by longtime general manager Jane Christo, whom Fielder replaced on October 8.

The fear remains that Christo built up WBUR's programming beyond the station's capacity to support itself, especially in the post-dot-com '00s.

THE DEDHAM TORTURE CONNECTION. Farah Stockman has a truly odd story in today's Boston Globe about a Dedham law firm that's being used for cover with respect to a private plane linked to US-sanctioned torture operations.

FRONT-PAGE HEALY. Just-departed Globe reporter Patrick Healy has his first front-page story in the New York Times - a piece on rising tensions on Long Island between largely white communities and Hispanic day workers, many of whom are in the US illegally. [Whoops - wrong Healy. See correction.]

posted at 10:02 AM | 1 comments | link

Wednesday, November 24, 2004

MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY. Given the ongoing trantrum over my remark that charges of Dan Rather's liberal bias are "ridiculous," let me refer you to Mr. Alterman today, whose thoughts on Rather parallel my own. Alterman's got as much sympathy for Rather as I do, which is to say none. And here is Bryan Curtis's must-read from Slate, published in September. Curtis's diagnosis: it's not that Rather is a liberal, it's that he's barking mad.

DEPT. OF CLARIFICATION. I ran into a very smart person earlier today who told me she thought I'd written that the Boston Globe should have published Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff's op-ed on how wonderful everything is with the Big Dig. Here's what I wrote. And to clarify: no, no, no, no, no.

If Bechtel/Parsons had submitted a letter, I'm sure the Globe would have run it. That's all the company is entitled to. If newspapers opened up their op-ed pages to every person or institution that feels aggrieved by negative reporting, there wouldn't be room for anything else.

Hey, Bechtel: things don't look so hot in this photo, do they?

NEW IN THIS WEEK'S PHOENIX. Seth Mnookin's book on the New York Times shows how an editor's narcissism nearly destroyed the world's greatest newspaper.

posted at 3:45 PM | 4 comments | link

NOT THE FIRST TIME. Okay, I stand corrected on my "What is the frequency, Kenneth?" crack about Dan Rather yesterday. Today, though, I want to share something I stumbled across recently while doing some research for the media-law class I teach at Northeastern University.

You might think that basing a high-profile investigative report on phony documents would be a once-in-a-career event - mainly because afterwards you wouldn't have a career to go back to. But it turns out that the fiasco over George W. Bush's National Guard documents was not the first time Dan Rather had treaded into such troubled waters.

I quote from an article in the March 1989 issue of the Quill that was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Clark F. Mollenhoff and William Swislow. The article was a harsh critique of Times v. Sullivan, the landmark 1964 Supreme Court decision that, the authors argued, was a license for media irresponsibility. The Quill is published by the Society of Professional Journalists. If you're not familiar with the case, you may want to sit down for this:

The case of Dr. Carl A. Galloway against CBS, which the doctor lost, represents one of the worst cases of a miscarriage of justice under Sullivan's permissiveness. (And it should be noted here that I [Note: I'm not sure whether "I" refers to Mollenhoff or Swislow] testified as an expert witness in the case on Galloway's behalf.)

In a 60 Minutes program in December 1979, Galloway, a private Los Angeles medical doctor, was portrayed as a dishonest physician who had signed a false medical report on an insurance claim. Such an act would have been a violation of California law and a serious violation of medical ethics.

In fact, Galloway's name had been forged on the medical report that CBS displayed in the 60 Minutes program. Neither CBS correspondent Dan Rather nor the producer had reached the doctor in the several months the program was in production. The signature wasn't verified by a handwriting expert before the show was aired, and no attempt was made to reach Galloway with a registered letter or similar means. Galloway's effort to obtain a correction was rejected by CBS officials, although his demand for a retraction included signed affidavits by workers at the clinic saying that Galloway had not been involved with the false report.

He then sued.

CBS discharged its original law firm in the case after a representative of the firm told the judge in a pretrial session that its handwriting expert had concluded that Galloway's signature had been forged.

Logic would suggest that Galloway had won the crucial point about the falsity of a program that had stated flatly he had signed the false report.

But CBS officials continued to stand by the broadcast.

Galloway testified that he never received any report that CBS or Rather were trying to contact him, although other testimony said Rather and the story's producer had both left messages at Galloway's own office. Galloway also admitted during testimony that he learned the day of the Rather visit that 60 Minutes had been at the clinic.

Galloway said he had left the clinic more than a month before the 60 Minutes report and that his only connection with the clinic had been to conduct routine physical examinations one afternoon a week over a period of several months. He testified that he had never filed a false medical report and was unaware of any false medical reports being filed at the clinic.

Rather defended his failure to contact Galloway and to document his efforts, explaining that he saw several pieces of Galloway's stationery at the clinic and that he considered the failure to return his calls to be an admission of guilt. On the witness stand, Rather said he believed that Galloway had signed the false report at the time the program aired, and that he still believed it in the face of the doctor's denials and the statements of handwriting experts.

Despite the fact that Galloway was a private physician, the trial judge gave the jury the New York Times v. Sullivan instruction. If Dan Rather believed the false medical report carried Dr. Galloway's signature, it was required to return a verdict for CBS, the judge instructed. The jury found for CBS.

CBS lawyers and executives declared another victory for truth. It was in fact another victory for press permissiveness.

Galloway's suit was later the inspiration for a movie called Reckless Disregard.

Rather has done a lot of good work over the years, and the notion that he was driven by liberal bias is ridiculous. Still, I find it amazing that the lapse that finally did him in (Rather's denials to the contrary) was almost identical to one that took place much earlier in his career.

posted at 8:41 AM | 35 comments | link

Tuesday, November 23, 2004

BECHTEL UNLOADS ON THE GLOBE. Under fire from Governor Mitt Romney, Attorney General Tom Reilly, and others, Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff has decided to defend its work on the Big Dig by unloading on the Boston Globe. In a full-page ad on page 17 of today's Boston Herald, the firm reproduces an op-ed piece that it says it submitted to the Globe, only to have it rejected. "What the Globe Doesn't Want You to Read: Big Dig Safe & Sound," the ad begins. Isn't that nice?

The op-ed was written by Matt Wiley, who was program manager of the Big Dig and is a senior vice-president at Bechtel. I'm not going to reproduce his entire piece here (it doesn't seem to be online), but among other things he asserts that:

- "All the experts agree: The Big Dig is structurally safe and sound."

- "The tunnels already meet industry norms for water intrusion, even before they are finished."

- "The program to seal leaks will be completed within months, not years, generally at the contractors' expense and without jeopardizing the project's budget."

The ad also asserts:

The Boston Globe's Joan Vennochi began her November 18 column: "The Tunnel is leaking. And the private management team hired to oversee the Big Dig should answer these questions: Is it structurally sound? Who is going to fix it? Who is going to pay for it?"

But when Bechtel Parsons/Brinckerhoff tried to answer those very questions in an opinion column, adding informed perspective on the controversy, The Boston Globe refused to run it.

So why wouldn't the Globe run the column? I asked editorial-page editor Renée Loth, who referred my inquiry to Globe spokesman BMaynard Scarborough. Scarborough, in turn, released a statement. Here it is in full:

It appears that Bechtel/Parsons is trying to blame the messenger in this situation. Contrary to what they have stated in today's ad, The Globe's Op-ed page is not the place for interested parties to rebut news stories or challenge the facts therein. Nor is it a public relations forum. The Op-ed page is a section of the newspaper where we feature differing opinions on issues that affect the community at large. Bechtel had the option of working through the Globe Ombudsman or using "Letters To The Editor" to air their discontent. It should be pointed out, however, that The Globe reported today on page B3 Bechtel's position on issues raised in recent news stories. That, in our opinion, clearly demonstrates that we continue to approach this story with fairness and objectivity in mind.

By the way, here's the Herald's report on Bechtel's response. And here is the Globe's archive of reports on the Big Dig.

posted at 5:06 PM | 2 comments | link

CRIMSON AND WINGO. In case you haven't been following this, Harvard University and the Boston Herald are engaged in some serious eye-boinking.

It started last Thursday, when a Harvard senior named Jared Seeger wrote a piece for the Crimson devoted to the proposition that the Herald "is a really bad newspaper." Among other things, Seeger wrote that the Herald's editorial page "is where inane arguments go to die"; that columnist Howie Carr has "lower[ed] the 'acceptable' bar so that it is physically touching the floor"; and that "the newspaper pushes its right-wing agenda under the guise of honest journalism."

Seeger's column brought an angry response from Herald staff reporter Jules Crittenden, who wrote a letter to Seeger that's posted on Jim Romenesko's media-news site: "While it is regrettable that we have offended your sensibilities, you must recognize that when you go boldly forth to make your mark in the world, your limo driver will need something to divert himself while your Lordship is engaged in loftier pursuits."

Crittenden's response drew its own response, from Michael Woods, of Boxing Digest. Even though you might think Boxing Digest and the Herald would be sympatico, Woods came to the defense not of Crittenden but of Seeger. "While Seeger formulated a reasoned thesis about the paper's deficiencies, having obviously spend some time dissecting the personnel and their tendencies, Crittenden resorted to cheap shots based on stereotypes," Woods wrote, adding that Crittenden's tone "helps proves Seeger's points."

Finally - or maybe not - the Herald's page-one splash on Monday was "HARVARD HOOLIGANS," subheaded "Cops vow crackdown on rowdy, drunken fans." On page four, reporter Tom Farmer tells the sordid tale of drunken fans near the Harvard-Yale game on Saturday, much of it stemming from a decision by the Boston police to grant to Harvard's student union a one-day liquor-and-entertainment license for student tailgating.

Monday's Boston Globe ran a short inside story by correspondent Michael Busack on the same incident that identified two of those who were arrested as Yale students and five as Harvard students. That turned out, uh, not to be the case: today the Globe ran a correction - not yet online - saying that the two Yale students weren't actually arrested and the five Harvard students weren't actually Harvard students. Never mind.

No correction in today's Herald, which didn't identify the Yale students, and didn't specifically say the other five were Harvard students - even though the entire story reeked of ... well, what was that front-page head again? HARVARD HOOLIGANS!

Still, this story from today's Crimson shows that Harvard deserves plenty of blame for what happened on Saturday. Here's the best part:

But Undergraduate Council President Matthew W. Mahan '05 blamed the ban on kegs for the extent of hard liquor consumption. He said he never told Evans that students would only be drinking beer.

That's right. If only the kids had been chugging beer instead of Jack Daniel's, everything would have been just fine.

And I believe the ball is now back in Harvard's court.

RATHER ODD. Let's see. Dan Rather made a fool of himself over the phony Bush National Guard documents because of a report he did for 60 Minutes. That incident has made CBS the laughingstock of television news, which is really saying something. So Rather is going to step down as anchor of the CBS Evening News in March - and keep right on working as a correspondent for 60 Minutes. Is everything clear? And what is the frequency, Kenneth?

posted at 1:31 PM | 7 comments | link

Monday, November 22, 2004

STRIKE THREE FOR PENDERGAST? The Boston Globe today publishes yet a third letter disputing the facts in former Mass Pike general counsel Peter Pendergast's op-ed piece of November 15 - this time from someone Pendergast had praised.

Jack Lemley, described by Pendergast as "the legendary 'Chunnel' construction manager" who would have been brought in to oversee the Big Dig back in 2001 if it were not for then-governor Jane Swift, writes that he had never been offered the position. He adds that, in his view, the Big Dig tunnel is safe.

Last week Pendergast appeared on NECN's NewsNight to discuss his allegations. (Scroll down to "Boston Globe Unveils Further Big Dig Problems.") When pressed by co-host Jim Braude as to why Swift wanted to quash the reforms being pushed by Pendergast, Pike board member Jordan Levy, and former board member Christy Mihos, Pendergast replied, "Bechtel was apparently one of Jane Swift's constituents." (That's a reference to Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, the engineering combine that's overseeing construction - or perhaps actually not overseeing it.)

Meanwhile, Globe ombudsman Christine Chindlund today writes about "The Art of Writing Headlines" because, she says, she's currently "between controversies." Okay, I'll give her the benefit of the doubt - the controversy over Pendergast's op-ed is still playing out. Chinlund is scheduled to write again for the December 6 issue. The Pendergast column - how much of it is true, how much isn't, what sort of editing it went through - would be an excellent topic.

KEVIN SITES ON THE FALLUJAH SHOOTING. Here is the weblog entry from NBC News cameraman Kevin Sites to which the New York Times devotes this story today. Sites's account is harrowing. Notable is his belief - conviction would be too strong a word, since he's wrestling with it in his own conscience - that despite the terrifying, chaotic environment in which the US marines found themselves, the marine who allegedly shot the wounded Iraqi was nevertheless out of bounds.

Sites's entry is must reading in full, but here's a passage on how he dealt with his own dilemma regarding what to do with his tape:

I knew NBC would be responsible with the footage. But there were complications. We were part of a video "pool" in Falluja, and that obligated us to share all of our footage with other networks. I had no idea how our other "pool" partners might use the footage. I considered not feeding the tape to the pool - or even, for a moment, destroying it. But that thought created the same pit in my stomach that witnessing the shooting had. It felt wrong. Hiding this wouldn't make it go away. There were other people in that room. What happened in that mosque would eventually come out. I would be faced with the fact that I had betrayed truth as well as a life supposedly spent in pursuit of it.

But to think this through is one thing; to reach moral judgments about the young marine is another. Sites writes that the marine seemed horrified by what he'd done within moments of the shooting. For context, read Dexter Filkins's heart-stopping account in yesterday's Times about urban combat in Fallujah. As I wrote last week, I can't imagine that this sort of thing doesn't go on all the time.

Also, Slate last week published an excellent analysis by two military veterans on whether the marine actually committed a war crime. It's not an easy call, according to Phillip Carter and Owen West; for one thing, it depends on whether the dead Iraqi should have been considered an American prisoner, and that's something that could be argued either way. Carter and West also point out how repulsive it is to draw any sort of moral comparison between the marine's instantaneous reaction to an ambiguous, potentially deadly situation and the terrorists who cold-bloodedly executed Margaret Hassan.

I don't know where this is going, but I do know this: the marine's actions should be judged strictly on their own merits, and not on the fact that Sites's footage has inflamed some in the Arab world. It's not hard to understand why the marine did what he did. On the other hand, marines undergo rigorous training aimed at preventing this sort of thing from happening.

Perhaps he should be given extensive counseling and then be quietly discharged, with some follow-up to make sure he's getting on with his life. Based on what we know so far, that's the fairest solution I can think of at the moment.

I'd suggest counseling for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney as well, but I'm sure it's too late for it to do any good.

posted at 10:27 AM | 2 comments | link

Friday, November 19, 2004

SCRATCHING OVER THE BIG DIG. This past Monday the Boston Globe ran an op-ed piece that appeared to offer a lot of useful background and perspective with regard to the Big Dig fiasco. Peter Pendergast, the former general counsel of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, blamed much of the lack of oversight on former governor Jane Swift and on her hand-picked Pike chairman, Matt Amorello. Pendergast wrote:

As the direct result of the firings and her appointment of Matt Amorello as Turnpike chairman, Swift stopped the ongoing management restructuring of the Big Dig, including the cornerstone of the reform, to hire an owner's engineer to oversee the otherwise unsupervised Bechtel/Parsons....

The leading candidate at the time to become the owner's engineer supervising Bechtel/Parsons was legendary "Chunnel" construction manager Jack Lemley. In the mid-1990s, Lemley had written a report critical of Big Dig construction management. Ironically, Lemley is now leading the investigation of the leaks he might have prevented.

But wait. Two days later, Swift herself responded, not just whining at her negative portrayal, but making specific, factual allegations that Pendergast got it wrong. And today Swift's former top aide, Steve Crosby, writes to the Globe - again, with specifics suggesting that Pendergast allegations were factually off the mark.

Pendergast's charges are serious and relevant enough that we have a right to know whether they're true. This isn't just a job for ombudsman Christine Chinlund, although she might like to weigh in on the matter of how much vetting an outside op-ed piece ought to get. Rather, this is something the Globe itself should report.

The leaking tunnel is already a huge story. One major incident, and it's fair to say that this could become one of the great scandals in American history. The story is already going national. Today it's on page A3 of the Washington Post.

NEW IN THIS WEEK'S PHOENIX. From the New York Times to Al-Jazeera, the media try to make sense of the Fallujah.

THE YOUTH VOTE. I've written an article that's in the current issue of Bostonia magazine on a disturbing trend: the disconnect between young people and the news.

posted at 11:00 AM | 1 comments | link

Thursday, November 18, 2004

JACOBY'S INCOMPLETE ODE TO JOHN ASHCROFT. In his ode to outgoing attorney general John Ashcroft today, Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby offers incomplete evidence on his client's behalf. For example, Jacoby professes revulsion that People for the American Way had once compared Ashcroft to the "virulent segregationists" of the old South, and that the Los Angeles Times had once published a cartoon of Ashcroft in Klansmen's robes.

What Jacoby leaves out is that, in an interview with the neo-Confederate publication Southern Partisan, Ashcroft expressed his admiration for Confederate president Jefferson Davis, and spoke up on behalf of the Stars and Bars as well. The other day I heard an old clip of Ashcroft saying that he regretted not having done "due diligence" on Southern Partisan before agreeing to an interview. But the views he expressed in that interview are in perfect congruence with the mission of the magazine.

But I probably wouldn't have bothered to dredge up that history were it not for Jacoby's assertion that civil libertarians are not telling the truth about Section 215 of the Patriot Act. Jacoby writes:

The American Library Association revved up a hysterical campaign against Section 215 of the law, claiming that it posed a dire threat to the privacy of library records. When it turned out that Section 215 (which doesn't mention libraries) had never even been invoked, the ALA was not the least bit chastened. Making war on the attorney general and the Patriot Act had turned out to be great for PR. As a gleeful editorial in Library Journal put it, "If we didn't have Attorney General Ashcroft, we would have to invent him."

Does Section 215 mention libraries? Why, no it doesn't. But look at what it does say:

The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation or a designee of the Director (whose rank shall be no lower than Assistant Special Agent in Charge) may make an application for an order requiring the production of any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items) for an investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities, provided that such investigation of a United States person is not conducted solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution.

Not libraries. Books! Records! Papers! Documents! And, of course, Other Items! The fact that these things are often found in bookstores and, you know, libraries is of no consequence, right?

Let's also consider the notion that you can't be investigated "solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution." What does that mean? It's hard to say, but it shouldn't strike any fair observer as being particularly difficult to circumvent. As Dahlia Lithwick and Julia Turner wrote last year in a decidedly sober, non-hysterical analysis of the Patriot Act for Slate, "That means you can't have your records searched solely because you wrote an article criticizing the Patriot Act. But if you are originally from India and write that article, well, that's not 'solely' anymore is it?"

Then there is Jacoby's contention that Section 215 has "never been invoked." I've dealt with this before - most recently in August, when Globe columnist Cathy Young made the same mistake. It's true that Ashcroft's Justice Department claims it has never invoked Section 215. But a widely quoted (if apparently not widely enough) study found otherwise:

The USA Patriot Act of October 2001 and subsequent directives from Attorney General John Ashcroft have expanded the powers of federal law enforcement agencies. It is now easier for these agencies to obtain information about business records, including those of bookstores and libraries, and to monitor public meetings. Records of who has borrowed certain books or used public access computers (and for what purpose) are considered business records, although most libraries expunge information about what someone has borrowed once it is returned.

In the year after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, Federal and local law enforcement officials visited at least 545 (10.7%) libraries to ask for these records. Of these, 178 libraries (3.5%) received visits from the FBI. The number of libraries queried fell significantly below the 703 libraries reporting such requests the year before the terrorist events. The actual number questioned in the past year may, however, be larger, because the USA Patriot Act makes it illegal for persons or institutions to disclose that a search warrant has been served. A warning about these secrecy provisions on the LRC questionnaire may have served, in some cases, as a deterrent to candid answers. Fifteen libraries acknowledged there were questions they did not answer because they were legally prohibited from doing so.

What's unclear is whether law-enforcement officials were specifically invoking the Patriot Act when they dropped by for a friendly visit. What sticks out is that the number of libraries reporting such visits went down - in all probability a response to the provision of the Patriot Act that forces libraries to remain silent. After all, how likely is it that the number of law-enforcement visits declined during the year after 9/11?

A bookstore owner once told me about his strategy for letting his lawyer know he'd been approached under Section 215 without breaking the law merely by making that disclosure: he'd call his lawyer every day to tell him that the FBI had not dropped by with a subpoena. That way, if the day came when he didn't call, his lawyer would know what happened.

Section 215 is a secretive law passed by a terrified Congress and implemented by a secretive administration. Neither Jeff Jacoby nor I know how many times and under what circumstances it has been used. For Jacoby to claim otherwise is disingenuous.

posted at 11:22 AM | 1 comments | link

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

NOT THAT SIMPLE. Media Log will offer no snap judgments in the matter of the US marine who is being investigated for shooting an apparently wounded, unarmed Iraqi insurgent in Fallujah. According to reports, the marines couldn't have been in a more terrifying situation: some of the insurgents have faked being dead, only to rise up with guns ablaze, and some of the bodies have been boobytrapped. Moreover, the marine who's been charged in the shooting had been wounded the day before.

It's very easy to leap to the conclusion that the marine committed a war crime, and perhaps the facts will make that conclusion inescapable. But it's hard not to imagine that this sort of thing goes on all the time, given the chaotic, frightening environment into which these young men have been dropped. In this case, a camera crew just happened to be there.

The larger crime is that their - that is, our - government put them in that situation in the first place.

The Boston Globe's Bryan Bender digs deep on these moral ambiguities today. Also well worth reading: Anthony Shadid's account in the Washington Post. Shadid finds that Iraqi man-on-the-street opinion is more mixed than you might expect. By contrast, Eric Schmitt's New York Times coverage is thorough but one-dimensional.

Andrew Sullivan offers the proper comparison between this and Abu Ghraib: "One a snap judgment in a furious battle context; the other a pre-meditated example of abuse and murder of prisoners in U.S. custody."

Typically repulsive was Jay Severin yesterday on WTKK Radio (96.9 FM), who said that the marine ought to get a medal for killing "vermin." You don't have to endorse such idiocy in order to feel sympathy for the plight of this young marine.

posted at 11:30 AM | 7 comments | link

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

CONSERVATIVE FOR KERRY. I'm on deadline today, so I'll make this quick: conservative pundit Jonathan Last has a smart piece on the Weekly Standard's website on why John Kerry was "a pretty good candidate" for president. And New Republic editor-in-chief (and semi-liberal) Martin Peretz has a rant on why it was all Kerry's fault. (If you can't access Peretz's TNR piece, try this; it's pretty much the same.)

Yes, it's come to this.

posted at 11:58 AM | 0 comments | link

Monday, November 15, 2004

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. Before announcing his resignation today, Secretary of State Colin Powell carried out one last mission for a president who didn't deserve it. In the last few months of the campaign, the long-irrelevant Powell, whose prescient warnings about Iraq were ignored every step of the way, raised his profile, and even made it sound like he would serve well into a second term. As the Phoenix editorialized in September:

It had been a long time since we'd seen much of Powell, but it makes sense. Powell may be the president's greatest political asset. And that's what this is all about: election-year politics, nothing more.

Now the election's over, and Powell is gone, which should surprise no one. If you voted for Bush because you thought he was finally going to start listening to the sanest of his advisers, guess what? You were taken again.

posted at 11:03 AM | 3 comments | link

RADIO TRAGEDY. Here's a small but interesting wrinkle in the tragic story of Brad Bleidt, who reportedly attempted to commit suicide after admitting he had bought WBIX Radio (AM 1060) with money he'd obtained by defrauding his investors. As one of the few independent radio stations remaining, WBIX has attracted an inordinate amount of attention from other media organizations - including the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald.

For one thing, WBIX is the home of Bailey and Stein, hosted every weekday from 9 to 10 a.m. by Globe columnists Steve Bailey and Charlie Stein. It's a very good show that deserves a wider audience, and I would say that even if I wasn't an occasional unpaid guest.

For another, Bleidt and Herald publisher Pat Purcell had talked in the past about forming some sort of partnership, which would have given Bleidt much-needed capital and Purcell the radio outlet he has long coveted. In the spring of 2003, Bleidt told me he was definitely interested in some sort of arrangement. Added Purcell: "We've had a number of conversations, and that's a possibility."

Those plans, however, were contingent on the FCC's loosening its prohibition on cross-ownership, a rule that forbids any one owner from controlling a newspaper and a radio or television station in the same market. Later in 2003 the FCC, as expected, all but abolished the cross-ownership ban. But Congress, prodded by angry constituents, put the FCC's action on hold, where it has remained ever since. Congress did the right thing, but in this case what was good for democracy was bad for Bleidt - and possibly for Purcell as well.

When I interviewed Bleidt a year and a half ago, he sounded relaxed and confident. He made it clear that though he was looking for some sort of print partnership, he would not be willing to sell out entirely. "Actually, I'm having too much fun," he told me. "That's what's so delicate. We really have to make sure it's the right fit." But he closed on an oddly threatening note, mildly worded, yet totally out of sync with what I'd thought was a pretty friendly exchange. "You be good now," he said, adding: "I'm serious."

As it turns out, Bleidt didn't even own WBIX at the time of our interview. According to yesterday's Globe account, by Christopher Rowland, Bleidt agreed to buy the station for $13.2 million in November 2002, but didn't complete the deal until January 2004. In the spring of 2003, when I talked with Bleidt, he and his wife, WBZ-TV (Channel 4) reporter Bonnie Bleidt, were controlling the station, but he had apparently not yet come up with the cash he needed to call it his. Then, just six months later, he reached an agreement to sell to Chris Egan, the son of EMC founder Richard Egan.

The Herald coverage is worth reading as well. Here is Cosmo Macero's piece from yesterday's paper. Today the Herald follows up here, here, and here.

According to the papers, the sale to Egan is expected to go through. But if this thing's not nailed down, then all bets are off. Here's one possibility now that WBIX has a 24-hour signal: Bloomberg Radio, the home of Boston-based hosts Michael Goldman and Tom Moroney, would almost certainly love to have a Boston outlet. And Bloomberg ownership would fit well with 'BIX's all-business orientation.

COUNTING THE VOTES. I remain in wait-and-see mode regarding accusations that John Kerry would have been elected president were it not for shenanigans pulled by the Republicans, especially in Ohio. I've read some things that are interesting, but I have yet to see anything I would consider proof.

But why do we have to read out-and-out distortions like the assertion by Boston Globe columnist Cathy Young about "Kerry's groundless claim in a campaign stump speech that one million African-American votes weren't counted in Florida"?

Groundless? Uh, I think not. Greg Palast, who knows this stuff cold, wrote on Friday:

American democracy has a dark little secret. In a typical presidential election, two million ballots are simply chucked in the garbage, marked "spoiled" and not counted. A dive into the electoral dumpster reveals something special about these votes left to rot. In a careful county-by-county, precinct-by-precinct analysis of the Florida 2000 race, the US Civil Rights Commission discovered that 54% of the votes in the spoilage bin were cast by African-Americans. And Florida, Heaven help us, is typical. Nationwide, the number of Black votes "disappeared" into the spoiled pile is approximately one million. The other million in the no-count pit come mainly from Hispanic, Native-American and poor white precincts, a decidedly Democratic demographic.

Now, Young writes that Kerry claimed one million African-American voters were disenfranchised in Florida alone, but I think she's mistaken. Palast quotes Kerry's remarks before the NAACP convention earlier this year: "Don't tell us that in the strongest democracy on earth a million disenfranchised African-Americans is the best we can do. This November, we're going to make sure that every single vote is counted."

There is a high statistical probability that a million black voters were disenfranchised four years ago. There is no reason to think much has changed since then. By the way, be sure to read all of Palast's piece, which argues that Kerry would have won Ohio and New Mexico - and thus the presidency - if African-American votes weren't tossed at a rate far higher than those of whites.

And Cathy Young needs to start boning up on the facts.

posted at 10:28 AM | 6 comments | link

Friday, November 12, 2004

NEW YORKERS FOR BUSH. Robert David Sullivan, who developed the pioneering "Beyond Red and Blue" map for CommonWealth magazine, has uploaded his analysis of the presidential election. His most interesting findings:

• Bush got one of his biggest popular-vote boosts from the area around New York City, despite losing that region overall by a substantial amount.
• The most solidly Republican area of the country now is Appalachia, "which has the poorest and most rural population in the US." Guess those Republican leaflets saying that Kerry wanted to ban the Bible and force gay marriage down their throats worked. Yep.

THE OTHER SHOE. Boston Herald radio columnist Dean Johnson today asks a good question: is Boston University's investigation of itself really going to be allowed to stand as the last word regarding Jane Christo's tenure as general manager of WBUR Radio (90.9 FM)?

Without suggesting that the level of wrongdoing was really any worse than what was already found, wouldn't it make sense for BU interim president Aram Chobanian to name some sort of outside, independent panel?

At one point Massachusetts attorney general Tom Reilly was at least being kept informed of the investigation, but there are no signs that he's moving forward on this. (With the Big Dig tunnel falling apart, he's obviously got his hands full.) Besides, a full-fledged state investigation would probably amount to overkill.

But since Christo ran up multimillion-dollar deficits, awarded no-bid contracts, and the like as an employee of Boston University, Chobanian should get to the bottom of whatever was going on. The report issued this week appears merely to skim the surface.

HARD TIMES AT SPARE CHANGE. The Homeless Empowerment Project, which publishes Spare Change News, has laid off its executive director in an effort to keep its services intact - including the newspaper. (See earlier coverage here.) Here's the press release:

HEP, Spare Change News Restructure and Plan for the Future

CAMBRIDGE - In light of a projected 2005 fiscal shortfall, the Board of Trustees of the Homeless Empowerment Project (HEP) voted to cut costs by laying off its executive director. Relying on its remaining staff and its volunteers, the publisher of Spare Change News will continue all of its services: producing the newspaper and providing an employment opportunity for Greater Boston's unemployed and homeless.

On Tuesday, October 25, the HEP Board examined the proposed budget and discussed various ways to balance it - including layoffs, cutting services or cutting back publication of the paper from twice to once per month. In the end, the board decided that the only way to balance the budget while maintaining the core values and mission of the organization was to release Executive Director Fran Czajkowski. Czajkowski attended the meeting and was actually the individual who first proposed her departure as one option for balancing the budget. Czajkowski served the organization in the executive director capacity for several years, during which time HEP grew significantly and was able to continuously advance its core mission. Her last day of work was November 5. HEP board member Paula Mathieu, a professor of English at Boston College, has stepped in temporarily as interim director.

"HEP and Spare Change News have a talented, dedicated staff and group of volunteers who have seen the organization through tougher times than this," said Lee Mandell, president of HEP's board of trustees. "This change will not hurt our mission in the least."

The overall size of the HEP staff had doubled over the past year, from one full-time and three part-time workers to three full-time and two part-time staff. Fundraising, which has also grown over recent years, had not increased enough to maintain this increase in staff. The existing staff of two full-time and two part-time employees will cover all the day-to-day operations of the organization. The HEP Board will step in to oversee fundraising and establish new initiatives.

"In order to keep the paper going, in order to keep providing an income to more than a hundred men and women who depend on the paper, we had to cut costs," said Mathieu. "At the same time, we are going forward with direction, energy and hope for the future."

HEP will continue to expand its work with homeless and other disadvantaged people throughout Greater Boston. The non-profit plans to reestablish a Speakers' Bureau that will make available staff and vendors of the newspaper to talk with local school, religious or community groups about issues of homelessness and poverty. Additionally, long-time Spare Change vendor James Shearer was recently voted a member of the Board and will oversee the Vendor Committee as well as take part in discussions on future visions for the paper.

"We hope these changes will increase the empowerment opportunities at HEP," said Mandell. "We plan not only to survive but thrive, by encouraging all of our staff and vendors to become active in the organization as we go forward."

HEP publishes Spare Change News (SCN), a biweekly street newspaper that reports on issues including homelessness and poverty from local, national and international perspectives. SCN's vendors, many of whom are homeless, sell the newspaper to earn a living. SCN also publishes original work by people who are homeless or otherwise marginalized by society.

"Spare Change News will continue to publish timely, important and engaging articles that people will not find in other publications," said SCN editor Sam Scott. "We are committed to reporting the news and helping our vendors earn a living despite this temporary setback."

In addition to other fundraising measures HEP is planning, the organization will have its annual holiday appeal, which will be featured in the newspaper beginning November 25. People interested in supporting or volunteering for HEP can call 617-497-1595, ext. 12 or e-mail meg@homelessempowerment.org.

posted at 1:44 PM | 1 comments | link

Thursday, November 11, 2004

GONZALES AND THE DEATH PENALTY. President Bush's choice for attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, is getting plenty of well-deserved scrutiny today for his role in authorizing the torture of prisoners taken in Afghanistan and Iraq, and for urging Bush not to extend the protections of the Geneva Conventions to inmates at Guantánamo Bay. That latter decision was the subject of a scathing federal court decision earlier this week, a decision that at least temporarily put the military tribunals out of business.

Incredibly, the Gonzales choice may prove to be unpopular with right-wingers, because he's seen as a squish on reproductive rights and affirmative action.

Here's something else you need to know. In 2003, the Atlantic Monthly reported on Gonzales's role in advising Bush, when he was governor of Texas, about death-penalty cases and whether those scheduled to die deserved clemency. You have to be a subscriber to read the Atlantic article, by Alan Berlow. But John Dean summarized it for FindLaw.com, and his article is freely available (thanks to Michael Goldman for passing this along). A highlight from Dean's piece:

Berlow writes that the memos reflect "an extraordinarily narrow notion of clemency." They appear to have excluded, for instance, factors such as "mental illness or incompetence, childhood physical or sexual abuse, remorse, rehabilitation, racial discrimination in jury selection, the competence of the legal defense, or disparities in sentences between co-defendants or among defendants convicted of similar crimes."

Take the case of Terry Washington, a thirty-three-year-old mentally retarded man with the communications skills of a seven-year-old executed in 1997. Gonzales's clemency memo, according to Berlow, did not even mention his mental retardation, or his lawyer's failure to call, at trial, for the testimony of a mental health expert on this issue. Nor did it mention that the jury never heard about Washington's history of child abuse; he was one of ten children, all of whom "were regularly beaten with whips, water hoses, extension cords, wire hangers, and fan belts."

Justice tempered with sadism.

OFFICIALLY DEAD. Yasser Arafat died this morning, according to this Associated Press dispatch.

I agree with Jeff Jacoby so infrequently that I want to call your attention to his fine column in today's Boston Globe on Arafat's brutal legacy.

And here is the editorial from the new edition of the Boston Phoenix, the first part of which deals with the opportunities created by Arafat's demise.

NEW IN THIS WEEK'S PHOENIX. Axis of evil - meet five new Republican senators who want to make your worst nightmares come true.

posted at 8:07 AM | 3 comments | link

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE. Media Log is supposed to be taking the day off. But I'm so outraged by this story in today's Boston Globe that I feel an overwhelming urge to link to it and scream incoherently. Sean Murphy and Raphael Lewis report that it could take 10 years to fix the leaks in the Big Dig - which, last time I checked, isn't even finished yet. Okay, all togther now: Aaaiiiyeee!!!

Serious question I: Attorney General Tom Reilly is reportedly involved in discussions aimed at filing a lawsuit against those responsible for this calamity. Does that mean Reilly is not contemplating a criminal investigation as well? If not, why not?

Serious question II: Is the I-93 tunnel really safe? What assurances do we have that the walls aren't going to burst loose while hundreds of cars are trapped inside during rush hour? For some reason, I do not find it reassuring that the folks at Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff are telling us that the tunnel is "structurally sound."

KARL ROVE, ELBOW-PATCHED LIBERAL. Lowell Sun columnist and WBZ Radio (AM 1030) talk-show host Paul Sullivan says that George W. Bush did not win because of gay-hating religious zealots. He writes:

The claim that this election was some sort of religious revolution is a smokescreen that the liberal media, Hollywood know-it-alls and the elbow-patched campus crowd use to explain why they lost.

But Paul! Karl Rove says you're wrong.

posted at 9:29 AM | 7 comments | link

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

CURTAIN CLOSES ON CHRISTO ERA. The Jane Christo saga ended not with a bang but with a whimper. The Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, and the Providence Journal today report that Boston University has concluded its investigation of the former general manager of WBUR Radio (90.9 FM). The upshot: Christo's mismanagement of the BU-licensed station was far more serious than any particular improprieties of which she had been accused.

(Here is a piece I wrote about WBUR last month, just before Christo resigned.)

To be sure, Christo did not receive absolution. The investigation found that she had engaged in preferential hiring practices and had been involved in the spending of station funds for personal use. But though BU doesn't say so, it's clear that the real reason for her sudden departure after 25 years at the helm were the millions of dollars in deficits she had run up. Her stunning decision to sell WRNI Radio in Providence and a sister station in Westerly just six years after purchasing them triggered an unraveling of events that she couldn't control.

In time, it will become possible to assess Christo's legacy. Christo did great things with 'BUR, though I think she has been overpraised by her admirers. Her one overarching insight was that a public radio station could succeed with an all-news format, an insight that became increasingly important as deregulation transformed commercial radio into a wasteland for serious news and public affairs. If she had never done anything but make sure the bills from NPR, the BBC, and PRI were paid, she would have performed a significant public service.

As a programmer, though, Christo's record is mixed. Her major flaw was that she would never commit to a local show of the sort that can be heard on some other public stations in other parts of the country. As soon as she got a program up and running, such as The Connection or Here and Now, she would start offering it to other public stations and drain much of the local flavor out of it. The oddity is that WBUR broadcasts five hours of high-quality, original programming every day (the two aforementioned shows plus On Point), and none of it speaks to this city or this region except for the fact that they are based here.

I don't think I'll ever arrive at a satisfactory conclusion in my own mind as to how much responsibility Christo bears for the departure of Christopher Lydon, the original host of The Connection, and Mary McGrath, his senior producer. But I do know this: Lydon was the station's signature personality as well as an exceptionally talented, intellectually curious host. And for whatever reason, neither he nor McGrath could work with Christo any longer. Yes, Lydon and McGrath made some demands about ownership that Christo wouldn't and probably shouldn't have met. But was it really necessary for her to fire them? Was there no chance of working things out?

The major concern today is whether the station's new leadership, under interim general manager Peter Fiedler, can get spending out of control without damaging what we hear every day. That's why I don't expect to hear Lydon back on the air, unfortunately, although if Lydon were somehow able to put together a package that wouldn't cost WBUR anything, then Fiedler should jump on it. (And why haven't Lydon and 'BUR's main competitor, WGBH Radio-89.7 FM, found a way to form a partnership? It's inexplicable.)

As to whether Boston University can afford the station as it currently exists - well, ultimately, that's up to the listeners and the corporate underwriters. In an odd sort of way, public stations such as WBUR are far more market-oriented than commercial stations: if the listeners don't come through which checks, then the stations cease to exist.

Here is the full text of a statement issued yesterday afternoon by BU:

BU ANNOUNCES RESULTS OF INVESTIGATION INTO WBUR MANAGEMENT PRACTICES

Anonymous allegations pursued - many unsubstantiated, but some problems found; remedial steps taken

BOSTON - Boston University today announced the results of a six-week long investigation into certain management practices at WBUR, a Boston-based public radio station whose broadcast license is held by the university. The investigation, which began the day the university received anonymous allegations about the independently run station, found that certain of the charges were unsubstantiated while some had merit.

The university's Office of the General Counsel and internal audit team conducted the investigation with the full cooperation of WBUR's management and staff, as well as its former general manager, Jane Christo, who resigned on October 15, 2004. In those cases where the investigation found problems or deficiencies, other university departments were consulted in order to identify and implement remedial changes.

Vice President and General Counsel Todd Klipp summarized the investigation's findings and reported that:

Grant Money: WBUR management and staff did not misuse or mismanage restricted gift funds or State Department grants to the station, as had been alleged.

Hiring Practices: No illegality was involved. However, the station management's hiring practices created the appearance of granting preferential hiring treatment to a small number of applicants. The university's current hiring policies, which now cover the station, will prohibit those types of practices in the future.

Expenses: The investigation turned up no systematic or recurring abuse of the expense reimbursement process at the station. However, it was determined that less than $10,000 of station funds were used to cover personal expenses. The university will recover those funds on behalf of the station, and it has put additional reporting safeguards in place to prevent a repeat of this situation.

Tuition Remission: Contrary to the anonymous allegations, station management did not violate the university's practice of extending tuition remission benefits to dependents of employees.

No-Bid Contracts: The station's contract award process permitted certain contracts to be awarded on an on-going, no-bid basis. That practice is inconsistent with current university requirements and has been discontinued.

"Citizens of the World": The investigation found that although the Citizens of the World tour program was a well-intentioned attempt to cultivate major donors, it was neither successful nor effectively managed. The station has discontinued the program.

Station Vehicles: The investigation found that station vehicles were generally used in appropriate and legitimate ways, but one employee did use a car for personal purposes. That activity is no longer taking place.

"It is very clear," said Klipp, "that WBUR fulfilled its most important mission - to build and maintain one of the nation's best public radio stations - and the anonymous allegations must be put in that broader context. Nonetheless, as the institution that both holds the license and helps to underwrite the station, the university felt it was critically important to investigate, report and take remedial action. We have done just that."

Klipp went on to say that "wholly apart from this investigation, the university has decided to retain Grant Thornton, a leading management advisory firm, to review all of WBUR's business and management practices and report its recommendations to the station's interim general manager, Peter Fiedler. Any changes Peter may make as a result of the study will improve the station's business practices and make a great radio station even better as we conduct a search for a permanent general manager."

One of New England's leading sources of news and information, WBUR is owned and operated by Boston University and is a member station of National Public Radio. WBUR also broadcasts a selection of BBC programs and such locally produced programs as "The Connection," "Here and Now," "On Point," "Only a Game" and "Car Talk." WBUR has won more than 100 major awards for its news coverage, including several George Foster Peabody Awards, and was named Associated Press News Station of the Year for 2004.

Here is the text of a statement issued yesterday by Christo's lawyer, Max Stern:

Jane Christo's record during 25 years as General Manager of WBUR is one of remarkable accomplishment. Her vision and leadership has made WBUR into one of the most important and respected public radio stations in the nation.

Boston University's six-week long investigation, triggered by an anonymous letter alleging improper management practices, has determined that the allegations are without merit.

After an extensive review of the facts, BU has concluded that the management practices in question, save for a couple of very minor exceptions, were compliant with existing University policy and done with the full knowledge of University officials.

Jane is happy to have the investigation concluded and is looking forward to future challenges.

posted at 11:22 AM | 8 comments | link

Monday, November 08, 2004

GOOD NEWS FOR THE SUPREME COURT? Drudge claims that the White House is considering naming Clarence Thomas as chief justice if the ailing William Rehnquist decides to retire. I don't know how much stock to put in this - is the Bush administration really using Drudge to float trial balloons? - but this strikes me as a potentially positive development.

Call me crazy, but my guess is that President Bush would use the Thomas promotion as a sop to the right. And then, it seems to me, he would have to nominate someone more mainstream to fill Thomas's slot. The result: one fewer right-wing extremist (i.e., Rehnquist) on the Court.

posted at 11:26 AM | 17 comments | link

A TRAGEDY IN THE MAKING. Even if John Kerry were president, I suspect we would try to root out the insurgents in Fallujah. Such battles are tragic. Think of the young American soldiers who are going to lose their lives, or be permanently disabled, as a result of what happens in the days and weeks to come. Think of the Iraqi civilians whose lives are going to be destroyed. Yet if you accept Colin Powell's "Pottery Barn" rule - we break it, we own it - then surely we have to be willing to attempt extreme measures in order to bring stability to Iraq.

But the question remains, Do we know what we're doing? Danny Schechter today points to a story in London's Independent that's quite different from what's in the American press this morning. According to the report, by Kim Sengupta, Sunni leaders such as interim president Ghazi al-Yawar warn that the fighting could "trigger widespread rebellion throughout the country." Sengupta also writes:

There was increasing evidence yesterday that vast numbers of insurgents have slipped through the US net around Fallujah and regrouped to carry out attacks elsewhere. The US military, which had been saying until now that there were more than 5,000 fighters in the city yesterday, revised its estimate to 1,200.

This is hardly surprising. Everyone has known for weeks that we were going to invade Fallujah as soon as the presidential election was over. So why are we moving ahead if most of the insurgents have left? Even if we succeed, isn't Yawar warning us that we'll only create more insurgents?

And why is Donald Rumsfeld still secretary of defense?

DEFENDING THE 100,000 FIGURE. Christopher Shea has a persuasive analysis in yesterday's Boston Globe about that Lancet study showing 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the war. The study came under attack as soon as it came out. But Shea finds that though it's hardly perfect, the methodology was identical to studies on such hard-to-quantify matters as vaccination rates in developing countries.

Shea notes that critics such as Fred Kaplan, of Slate, have referred to the Lancet study as "so loose as to be meaningless." But Shea makes a good case that the 100,000 number, though extremely rough, is far from meaningless. In all likelihood, somewhere between 50,000 and 150,000 Iraqi civilians have died because of the war. That's a far cry from the 15,000 to 30,000 that Kaplan offers as his best guess.

posted at 9:50 AM | 0 comments | link

Sunday, November 07, 2004

TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES. Sophisticated conservatives such as David Brooks don't want to believe that the margin of victory for George W. Bush came from homophobic evangelicals and fundamentalists who feared John Kerry's first official act as president would be to officiate at a mass gay wedding in Provincetown. (Never mind that Kerry opposes gay marriage.) "This theory certainly flatters liberals, and it is certainly wrong," Brooks wrote in Saturday's New York Times.

Brooks claimed those exit polls showing "moral values" was the leading issue for 22 percent of voters - beating all other issues, including the war in Iraq and the economy - were based on a flawed question. "[T]hat phrase can mean anything - or nothing. Who doesn't vote on moral values? If you ask an inept question, you get a misleading result," Brooks lectured. "The reality is that this was a broad victory for the president."

The reality is that this was a three-point win for the president, 51 percent to 48 percent. Yes, he's everyone's president, including mine (so don't accuse me of saying otherwise, you e-mailing wingnuts out there), but his victory was neither broad nor a mandate.

But back to the matter at hand. Was the "moral values" question really flawed? Perhaps. As Brooks notes, no less an authority than Andrew Kohut says it is. Still, I think it's pretty clear that we liberals have not been misinterpreting it. (Here is the exit poll that Brooks and others are talking about.)

For instance, if everyone votes on "moral values," as Brooks asserts, why did those choosing it as their number-one issue vote for Bush over Kerry by a margin of 80 percent to 18 percent? Now, I happen to believe that waging an unjust war, despoiling the environment, and pursuing tax policies that widen the gap between rich and poor are all immoral acts. But if I had been exit-polled, I wouldn't have chosen "moral values" as my chief concern, because I recognize the phrase for what it is: code words that translate to opposition to gay and lesbian civil rights, opposition to reproductive choice, and the like. We all know the drill.

Don't believe me? Here's another finding from the exit poll: 23 percent of those surveyed described themselves as white evangelical or born-again Christians. And they supported Bush by a margin of 73 percent to 21 percent. Note that this is almost identical to the "moral values" numbers. The reason it may not match up exactly is that, unlike the "moral values" question, it excludes culturally conservative Catholics.

Here's an e-mail I received earlier today that sheds some further light on the subject:

I applaud your general acknowledgement that it was, in the final analysis, a "God thing" that served as the deciding pro-Bush catalyst this past glorious Tuesday, but you yet seem to be perhaps vexed by it all. As a father of three young boys, perhaps I can put it in concrete terms that will give you at least a visceral sense of what was at work for me and, I am sure, for many of the millions who pulled the lever on Tuesday for the President.

Take homosexual "marriage." Because the Mass. Supreme Judicial Court has mischievously seen it fit to effectively codify the insertion by men of their penises into one another's anuses, that very "norm" will undoubtedly be disseminated in the public schools, and in some corners it already is in fact being preached. Such an ethos deeply insults the Catholicism that I am handing on to my children (not to mention the traditional mores of virtually every other faith system the world over), so I don't want them exposed to it through governmental channels; nor do I want to subsidize it. I'll spare you the additional examples of abortion (or your Orwellian term, "reproductive rights") and the creation of human life to destroy it. The bottom line is that Bush and his policies are sympathetic to my Judeo-Christian parental plight, while Kerry and his would be sympathetic to your neo-pagan ideals.

"It's the economy, stupid" is so yesterday. Us ignoramuses expressed a different priority last Tuesday, Mr. Kennedy; deal with it.

Does it get any clearer than this? Despite my basically secular outlook, I am, in fact, a regular church-goer. The denomination to which my family and I belong supports same-sex marriage and abortion rights. It goes without saying that we would never seek to force anyone to marry someone of the same gender, or to undergo an abortion. Yet my correspondent - and millions like him - has absolutely no problem with imposing his religious views on us.

In today's Boston Globe, Scott Greenberger reports how the religious right mobilized in Ohio around an anti-gay-marriage ballot initiative, an effort that very likely led to Kerry's defeat there. Elsewhere in the Globe, columnist Tom Oliphant notes that eight of the 11 state ballot questions on gay marriage - including Ohio's - actually ban other sorts of legal rights for gay and lesbian couples as well, including civil unions. Thus would the evangelicals go even further than the president is prepared to go in demonizing gays. Having helped to unleash this hatred upon the land, Bush now is responsible for trying to contain it.

As for David Brooks - who, almost one year ago, came out in favor of gay marriage - well, these are his new friends. He can spin it any way he likes. But the fact is that homophobia played a crucial role in Bush's election.

posted at 10:48 AM | 9 comments | link

Saturday, November 06, 2004

A LETTER FROM LONDON. At least I think that's where he was when he wrote this. Michael Goldfarb, the host of WBUR Radio's documentary series, Inside Out, writes to Media Log. I'm leaving nothing out - the ellipses are his.

You had a moment in your Phoenix column this week where you realized you were being intolerant ... Don't ever worry about it when it comes to the religious right. Intolerance is their weapon. They broke the boundary between the civic space and the religious space in our society a long time ago. Remember in my documentary A Southern State of Mind: Inside Out, Jim Cobb reminds us of the Scopes trial. We hear JFK delivering his speech to the Houston Methodist Ministers conference in 1960 ... This whole movement can be traced back to the break up of the New Deal coalition over Civil Rights. This ain't a new thing.

The pushback will inevitably lead to harsh words. But they were the ones who started it. First by inventing a religion for us: secular humanism. They have been fighting that non-existent faith and condemning us gleefully to hell for decades. Who are these peckerwoods to condemn anyone? Fight them back.

In the center and on the left the time has come to revive the magnificent thunderings of the Abolitionists ... If we seek to understand these Red state denizens ... it should be pragmatic intelligence gathering. Know your enemy so you can destroy his arguments.

"Land don't vote" is a phrase I've been using since the Sage Brush rebellion sent Alan Simpson to the Senate and later to Harvard where he deployed his charm in the Institute of Politics to great effect ... perhaps next week the Phoenix can do a Red/blue state map where population determines the size of the state in the map. [Here's one.] Puny Nebraska and Wyoming dwarfed by Cal and Illinois and Minnesota would be a more accurate reflection.

The rage and anger cannot go away, there can be no fear. The existential moment tells us this is what the country is. Kerry ran as good a race as was possible for him and he was the best candidate out there.

Now for the changes: Al From: go home. Harvard professors, stop spending your ridiculous salaries on expensive wine and dinner parties where you can sit around with people you already agree with. Stop biding your time in the groves of Academe waiting for a recall to power in the next Democratic administration and start providing intellectual leadership right now. Eric Alterman, stop telling us what CD is in your changer and do a little more shoe leather reporting for your opinions.

The left: pick better battles. In the thirty years since Title IX crowned the civil rights era the left has only succeeded in making it impolitic for the right to use hate words like nigger, fag and kike in public. You have neutralized their language, not their hate. That is no victory, that is the scaredy-cats way of avoiding the real fight.

Hollywood, you're so goddam liberal, right? Because you give all that money to the Democrats, money earned from making idiot, brain-dead, bang, crash wallop CGI nonsense. Stop polluting the cultural atmosphere and get back to stories with real people struggling in our modern society. The time is right for a revival of films à la John Ford in his social realist phase: Grapes of Wrath, They Were Expendable. Film Noir isn't an exercise in style: it is low-budget story-telling about ordinary folks trapped by uncontrollable, unaccountable powers. Sound familiar? Flood the multiplexes with those films. That is a more valuable contribution to political change than the six-figure check to MoveOn.org.

Everyone, read the bible ... and some history of how the big book was actually written. Get ready for theological argument. Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin ... We have been weighed in the balance and found wanting ... but by the forces of history, not by the Lord.

NEW AT DANKENNEDY.NET. Under "Writings," I've posted the text of a lecture I gave at Northeastern University last Wednesday on "The Media, the Internet, and the 2004 Presidential Campaign." It's in PDF format.

FEAR ITSELF. What is this crap (PDF file) doing on page A14 of today's New York Times?

posted at 11:49 AM | 3 comments | link

Friday, November 05, 2004

COURTING DISASTER. For a while yesterday I kidded myself into thinking that George W. Bush wouldn't be able to nominate just any right-wing lunatic he pleases to the Supreme Court. After all, the Republicans' 55-44 edge in the Senate is short of the 60 votes it takes to end a Democratic filibuster. Besides, moderate Republican senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island (who may become a Democrat), and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania are presumably not going to stand by while Bush tries to use the courts to undo Roe v. Wade.

Well, that was yesterday. Charlie Savage reports in today's Boston Globe that Specter has backed off his earlier threat to block any anti-choice nominee after his fellow Republicans threatened to deny him the chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Specter is quoted as saying, "Contrary to press accounts, I did not warn the president about anything and was very respectful of his constitutional authority on the appointment of federal judges." Apparently he was offered a deal he couldn't refuse.

And Josh Marshall notes that the Bushies are already talking about getting rid of that little old 60-vote impediment. Marshall is way too easy on these thugs, writing that the 60-vote rule is "subject to a lot of very valid criticism." Come on, Josh. The rule is there for a reason: the idea is that neither side gets to do anything and everything it wants unless it has an overwhelming majority, which the Republicans clearly do not have. If the Republicans want to get rid of the filibuster, let them elect five or six more members in 2006. (I shouldn't have said that. Maybe they will!)

We live in a constitutional system. The rights of the minority are supposed to be balanced with the will of the majority. If Bush is going to use his very real but very slim victory to take away our civil and personal liberties, it's up to the Democrats - and to the few remaining Republicans of conscience - to fight him and his allies like crazed weasels.

One of the stories going around this week is that, if Chief Justice William Rehnquist has to leave, then Bush will replace him by elevating Justice Sandra Day O'Connor - a move that would be popular with moderates - and then replace O'Connor with a wingnut. Presumably the Democrats would roll over like puppy dogs because the president had given them half a can of Alpo.

The hell with that. Making O'Connor chief justice would be nothing but symbolism. Good symbolism, but symbolism nevertheless. Well-qualified moderate conservatives - the best we can hope for - should get a respectful hearing. Right-wingers should be filibustered into oblivion. It's as simple as that.

NEWS? WHAT NEWS? The Boston Herald today has a front-page blowout headline, DYING FOR A DEAL, with the subhead "Is an ailing Whitey trying to turn himself in?" Inside is a column (sub. req.) by Howie Carr reporting that Whitey Bulger may or may not be terminally ill, may or may not be having sex with teenage male prostitutes in Thailand, and may or may not be seeking to surrender in return for not having to face the death penalty - which, in any case, Carr notes, is an impossibility because Oklahoma authorities are determined to see him executed.

Carr does manage to get in a shot at John Kerry, though. Piling insult upon speculation, Carr writes:

According to sources, Whitey's agents were hopeful current U.S. Attorney Mike Sullivan would be replaced next year by some liberal puke Democrat. But Bush won, and the rumor in D.C. yesterday was that Rudy Giuliani, a guy who used to get death threats from the mob on an almost weekly basis, may succeed John Ashcroft as attorney general.

If there's any news here, it's news to me.

Media Log caveat: regardless of what you think of Carr, he's a pretty good reporter. I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes a real story in the days and weeks ahead. But this is utterly worthless.

THE MEDIA AND THE ELECTION. My old Phoenix colleague Al Giordano has a four-letter word for what we ought to do to the media, and it doesn't begin with "F."

ELLIS ON KERRY. Bush cousin John Ellis has some thoughts on why Kerry lost. I disagree with the premise - Kerry didn't lose, Bush won. I also disagree strongly with Ellis's first three points ("Culture," "Lifestyle," and "Rationale.") But Ellis makes some good arguments on "Strategy" (Kerry let Karl Rove sucker him into running in just 17 states) and "War" (leaving aside the merits of General Anthony Zinni as a potential Kerry running mate, I never liked the Edwards choice).

But I continue to doubt very much whether any Democrat could have done much better than Kerry. Just because he lost doesn't mean he did anything drastically wrong.

REPORT FROM OHIO. Homophobia really did put Bush over the top.

SUITABLE FOR FRAMING. This week's Boston Phoenix cover of the Great Leader is now available at BostonPhoenix.com as a high-quality PDF. Just choose your size. (Look under "Web Exclusives.")

posted at 11:39 AM | 4 comments | link

Thursday, November 04, 2004

LAND DOESN'T VOTE. The right-wingers are waving those blue-and-red maps as though they were some sort of moral rebuke to those of us who live in Blue America. Yeah, there's a lot of red. No, there's not much blue. And yes, it's even more striking when you look at a county-by-county map.

Well, so what? Land doesn't vote. People vote. The fact is that half the country is crowded into urban areas in the Northeast, on the West Coast, and around the Great Lakes. Yes, the Republicans control a far greater land mass than the Democrats. That's completely irrelevant. (On the other hand, the red states are gaining in population and the blue states are losing - that's damn relevant.) Other than Texas and Florida, the Republicans control a vast array of states where almost no one actually lives.

Already we're starting to hear a lot of blather about how the Democrats need to change in order to win the 2008 presidential election. Of course the Democrats have to try something different. But let's not get carried away. The story of Tuesday night is that the Republicans and the Democrats each represent about half the country. The red half - especially white middle-class families and evangelical Christians - are more reliable voters than is the infinitely more diverse blue half: African-Americans, gay men and lesbians, Latinos, white liberals, young singles, and the like.

To some extent, I suppose the Democrats are going to have to take some action to neutralize the Republican appeal to "moral values." But the last thing they should do is alienate their own base. What would the critics have had Kerry do differently? Endorse a constitutional amendment against gay marriage?

In the weeks and months ahead, there is going to be way too much emphasis on what the Democrats have been supposedly doing wrong, and way too little acknowledgement that the two parties simply represent radically different constituencies at this point in history. If the Democrats had nominated a moderate Southerner whose opposition to gay marriage seemed less forced than Kerry's, would it have helped? Probably. But Democratic primary voters could have chosen John Edwards if they'd wanted to, and they didn't. (I happen to believe that Edwards would have done far worse than Kerry because of his inexperience and his easily lampooned background as a trial lawyer, but that's another matter.)

What the critics are looking for is a Democrat who will compromise his party's own moral values and sell out some of the party's most ardent supporters - oh, just a teensy little bit - in return for flipping one or two red states his way. Tactically, this might make sense. That, after all, was what eight years of Bill Clinton were all about. It might make sense morally, too. Would gays and lesbians today rather have the DOMA-signing Clinton or the Constitution-amending Bush? But Kerry shouldn't be criticized for being more principled than Clinton.

WAS THE ELECTION STOLEN? I don't want to go down this road. I really, really, really don't. But it's what people on the left are talking about today, and at the very least this story bears watching. Slate has a roundup of what we know about the Diebold electronic voting machines, and it's pretty comprehensive despite the snarky tone.

Greg Palast - whose reporting on Florida four years ago was among the best - says today that Kerry absolutely would have won Ohio and New Mexico if it weren't for (1) punch-card ballots and (2) tactics to suppress the African-American vote. Interestingly, Palast doesn't even get into the Diebold controversy.

I need to see a lot more than this to be convinced, or even to be more than just slightly intrigued. But I suspect more than a few Kerry supporters just can't let go of the idea that Bush's presidency is illegitimate.

NEW IN THIS WEEK'S PHOENIX. Stuck inside of Red America with the Blue America blues again.

posted at 11:33 AM | 8 comments | link

Wednesday, November 03, 2004

GO, SID, GO! Lots of good stuff out there, but none better than this Sidney Blumenthal piece for Salon. Here's a taste: "Fear of the besieging terrorist, appearing in Bush campaign TV ads as the shifty eyes of a swarthy man or a pack of wolves, was joined with fear of the besieging queer."

posted at 4:42 PM | 1 comments | link

THE AFTERMATH. I just watched Kerry's concession speech on CSPAN.org a little while ago. It was a good, strong message from a good, strong candidate. Judging from the margin by which he lost - 3.5 million votes - I'd say it was never there for him, and probably wouldn't have been there for any other Democrat either.

Should Kerry have thrown in the towel? Absolutely. There was no way he was going to pull it out in Ohio. Let's remember the dynamics of 2000: Gore had moral standing to keep fighting because he'd won the popular vote; Bush had moral standing to keep fighting because he always held the lead in Florida, regardless of how questionable that lead may have been. By contrast, Kerry was way behind in Ohio, and he would have put himself in the impossible position of trying to use the Electoral College to unseat the first presidential candidate to win an outright majority of the popular vote in 16 years.

Was there unreported ugliness? Hmmm ... an intriguing question. Already, Media Log has heard from readers who wonder whether the exit polls look worse in areas that used those fancy new voting machines. The idea is that maybe the exit polls were right, and that it's the machines that screwed things up. Of course, the conspiracy-theory possibilities here are endless, and I don't want to chase a rabbit down that hole without real evidence.

Anti-Bush blogger Jeff Jarvis has gotten quite a bit of attention with his "post-election peace pledge." CNN's Aaron Brown emerged from his undisclosed location last night just long enough to give it a plug. It reads:

I promise to... Support the President, even if I didn't vote for him..... Criticize the President, even if I did vote for him..... Uphold standards of civilized discourse in blogs and in media while pushing both to be better.... Unite as a nation, putting country over party, even as we work together to make America better.

Will Media Log take The Pledge? In a limited kind of way, yes, sort of. Obviously Bush now has legitimacy that he had lacked up to this point. Nearly four years into his presidency, he has finally won an election for president. We do have to respect that.

But I'll tell you one thing that's really bothering me. In keeping with The Pledge, I want to make it clear that I'm sure this wasn't deliberate on Bush's part, and that he agonizes over the war he started just like any other human being would. Still, I can't help but think one of the reasons he won was that voters were understandably reluctant to reject an incumbent president during wartime. And this war was so unnecessary that you could argue he created the disaster that made his election possible.

One thing I'm not going to do is start praising the wisdom of the electorate and bowing to its judgment. The outcome of this election is bad news for anyone who cares about a more just, equitable, peaceful, and diverse society. It's bad news for gays and lesbians, poor people, scared single women who need an abortion, soldiers, you name it. It's good news if you make more than $200,000 a year.

But, unlike four years ago, Bush has earned the right to be president for the next four years. That is bound to change the tone of political discourse. For that matter, it should.

Bush is speaking in a few minutes. Which means I might break The Pledge before sunset!

posted at 2:55 PM | 12 comments | link

IS IT OVER? Fox News called Ohio for Bush less than 15 minutes ago - at 12:41:20, as Brit Hume portentously announced. Was Fox the first? I'm not sure. I do know that NBC has not called it yet. But Fox's call seems to be well founded - right now, Bush is leading Kerry by about 140,000 in Ohio, and holds a 51 percent to 48 percent lead with 83 percent of the precincts in.

Alaska's in the bag for Bush, which will put him over the top even if he loses Nevada and New Mexico to Kerry.

So yes. It's over. With an asterisk, I suppose.

posted at 1:58 AM | 4 comments | link

HOW BAD WERE THE EXIT POLLS? Slate lived with them. And now it's dying with them. Here are some hypes on Slate's home page that are still up as I post this: "The Latest Exit Polls: Kerry's Ahead in FL, OH, PA, WI, MI, MN, NM, and NH"; "W in 2008?"; "Did Bush Blow It with Hispanics?"; "How Bush Could Still Pull It Out." Not pretty.

Looks like Zogby's gone home. Nothing new since 5 p.m. No doubt he's drinking heavily.

There are still scenarios under which Kerry could win, but if he does, it looks like it will be with a substantial deficit in the popular vote. Right now Bush is beating Kerry by 51 percent to 48 percent - quite a bit more than by Bush lost to Al Gore four years ago.

Does Kerry really want to lose the popular vote by one million or two million and take office via an Electoral College fluke?

"PURE, UNADULTERATED HATE." Alan Simpson is prattling on to Tom Brokaw about the alleged hate campaign directed by the Democrats against George W. Bush and Simpson's friend Dick Cheney. All on one side, of course! That nice Dick Cheney would never suggest that voting for John Kerry would increase the likelihood of a terrorist attack.

THE KIDS AREN'T ALL RIGHT. I can't access the MSNBC exit polls directly for some reason, but here's what the Daily Kos says: "MSNBC exit poll indicates that the youth did not vote. The 18-29 bracket voted the same this year as in 2000, while 30-44 group was down. That's what's killing us."

posted at 1:06 AM | 5 comments | link

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

NO EASY NIGHT. I'm holed up in Cambridge, of all places, at the Sheraton Commander. Later this evening I'll be taking part in a panel discussion at Harvard's Nieman Foundation. Just wanted to check in before moving along.

Earlier this afternoon I met David Corn of the Nation for coffee near Copley Square, where workers were getting ready for tonight's outdoor party and rally. Like everyone who's hoping Kerry wins tonight, Corn was optimistic about the early exit-poll numbers. Still, there's a long way to go.

Zogby is projecting Kerry the winner, 311 to 213. Take away Florida, and Kerry's still got 284 - just enough to win. Slate's numbers - posted 20 minutes ago - put Kerry slightly ahead in Florida and Ohio, and substantially ahead in Pennsylvania. Kerry is kicking Bush's ass in Minnesota, which at one time had been thought to be in play.

For a brief moment this afternoon, there were indications that Kerry might win easily. That now seems to be evaporating. At the moment, I'd rather be Bob Shrum than Karl Rove. (I'd rather be Bob Shrum than Karl Rove even if I were down by 90 points, but that's another matter.) Still, right now it looks like this is going to be tight. And a long night stretches ahead.

posted at 6:43 PM | 0 comments | link

THIS JUST IN. Drudge: "KERRY CAMPAIGN FINDS COMFORT IN FIRST BATCH OF EXIT POLLS." It's actually a hell of a lot better than that from what I'm hearing, with decent Kery leads in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida.

I'm hitting the streets, so won't be posting for a while.

posted at 2:41 PM | 0 comments | link

PHILADELPHIA STORY III. Here's what the Republicans don't want you to know. The Daily Pennsylvanian reports: "Hundreds of flyers appeared across campus late last night, falsely claiming that out-of-state students who register and vote in Pennsylvania face losing state grant money."

PHILADELPHIA STORY II. Josh Marshall catches up with the lying liars. I told you it was B.S.

posted at 1:23 PM | 0 comments | link

ANOTHER REASON TO ROOT FOR KERRY. "Mark Steyn predicts a victory for the President - and says he will resign if his man is not re-elected." - The Spectator, 11/2/04. Click here.

PHILADELPHIA STORY. Maybe this isn't fair and balanced, but my instincts tell me that this Drudge exclusive is B.S. Supposedly some 2000 votes had been cast on the city's voting machines before the polls had even opened, and the Republicans are crying foul. Drudge "reports":

Officially, election officials explain the discrepancy is being caused by a number showing how many times various machines have been used.

But officials could not explain why machines used in other location were 'clean.'

Pennsylvania GOP is planning to file suit in Court of Common Pleas to have machines in question impounded, replaced with machines that did not 'already have votes on them.'

I think the last paragraph is the key: the Republicans are in court, trying to screw up the vote somehow.

Nothing so far on Philly.com. But do stay tuned.

posted at 1:06 PM | 0 comments | link

FINAL TALLY. Well, you know, the final before-the-votes-come-in tally. Electoral-Vote.com: Kerry, 298; Bush, 231; Slate: Bush, 269; Kerry, 269, with Bush more likely to win because his support is a bit firmer. Both award Florida to Kerry, which worries me. I mean, Kerry may win Florida, but will he get Florida? Just ask Al Gore.

Slate gives Ohio to Bush; Electoral-Vote.com gives it to Kerry. That's the main difference.

GUARANTEED TO INDUCE NAUSEA. Greg Palast writes:

John Kerry is down by several thousand votes in New Mexico, though not one ballot has yet been counted. He's also losing big time in Colorado and Ohio; and he's way down in Florida, though the votes won't be totaled until Tuesday night.

Through a combination of sophisticated vote rustling - ethnic cleansing of voter rolls, absentee ballots gone AWOL, machines that "spoil" votes - John Kerry begins with a nationwide deficit that could easily exceed one million votes.

This morning, Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens - generally thought of as one of the good guys - allowed the Republicans to station party goons inside polling places across Ohio to challenge the credentials of voters who look like Democrats. (I'm pretty sure that means voters with black or brown skin.)

Unless turnout is so high that the Kerry forces are able to swamp the Bushies, this could be a long, ugly day (week, month, take your pick).

KERRY: BETTER ON TERRORISM. A Media Log reader passes along this, from Gallup Poll editor-in-chief Frank Newport. According to Newport, Kerry significantly closed the terrorism gap with Bush during the last week of the campaign.

Is there any indication that the missing weapons in Iraq and/or the Osama bin Laden tape will affect the outcome?

Bush's positioning vis-à-vis Kerry on both Iraq and terrorism has slipped in the most recent poll, and it is reasonable to assume that this slippage is, at least in part, related to the weapons and bin Laden tape. Among all national adults, 49% now choose Kerry as the candidate best able to handle Iraq, while 47% choose Bush. This marks a significant pickup on this measure for Kerry, who was down nine points to Bush last week. In fact, Kerry has lost out to Bush on this measure in every poll conducted since the Democratic convention.

Bush's margin over Kerry as the candidate best able to handle terrorism is now seven points 51% of Americans choose Bush and 44% choose Kerry. This again marks a significant change. Last week, Bush had an 18-point margin over Kerry, and the 7-point advantage is the lowest yet for Bush.

I don't buy the idea that the bin Laden tape had much to do with it, but it would seem that the steady drumbeat of bad news from Iraq (culminating, in my mind, in two reports: the disappeared explosives and the assassination of Iraqi security-force recruits) may have finally caught up with Bush.

The final Gallup poll: 49 percent to 49 percent.

posted at 11:06 AM | 0 comments | link

Monday, November 01, 2004

A STRONG CANDIDATE. On Friday, Michael Bérubé had some interesting things to say about the Kerry-Haters for Kerry crowd - a group that seems to encompass just about every liberal pundit who's backing Kerry. Including, Bérubé notes, the editors of Slate.

Bérubé's lament is that while conservatives love Republican candidates, liberals only hesitatingly embrace the Democratic standard-bearer, and even then with plenty of disdain. If Kerry wins - and it increasingly seems as though he might - it's going to be hell for him to govern, since there will be no one reliably in his corner. Bush, on the other hand, has had Fox News, Rush, and other conservative media from day one.

Kerry can drive me nuts sometimes. But can we on the near left please admit the obvious? Kerry is a good candidate. His only real shortcoming is his inadequacy as a communicator. He's a solid liberal, somewhat to the left of Bill Clinton while close enough to the center so as not to alienate moderates, except those who choose to believe Republican distortions. He's smart, serious, and experienced.

How strong a candidate is he? Ask yourself where Howard Dean would be right now. The country is too evenly divided for Dean to be putting up McGovern-type numbers, but I'd be shocked if he were running more than 43 or 44 percent. Kerry, on the other hand, is in a position to win despite the Republican Attack Machine's unparalleled sliming.

BETTER LINKS. iFilm has the uncensored versions of both Public Enemy's "Son of a Bush" and Eminem's "Mosh." "Son of a Bush" is here, and "Mosh" is linked from the home page.

SPLIT PERSONALITY. Pat Purcell's Boston Herald endorsed George W. Bush a few weeks ago. Yesterday, Purcell's MetroWest Daily News endorsed John Kerry.

SELDOM SCENE. A magazine called Scene Missing interviewed me by e-mail over the weekend. It was a bit weird. There had been some talk that I might be paired with one of the other Dan Kennedys - the guy who wrote Loser Goes First - but it didn't work out. At least not yet. Anyway, you can see the results here.

As best as I can tell, the magazine is much hipper than I am. (Of course, it's generally safe for me to start with that premise.) I hope I didn't make too big a fool of myself.

posted at 1:48 PM | 2 comments | link

DAY-BEFORE MISHEGAS. I don't know about you, but I've had enough. I think I finally reached the point a week ago where I realized I will be really, really glad when this is all over. This morning, a few notes and observations as we all get ready for the polls to open tomorrow morning.

- If George Soros could have given his money to the Kerry campaign - or even to the Democratic National Committee - don't you think he would rather have done that instead of writing a check to the likes of MoveOn.org? In today's Boston Globe we have characteristic handwringing from professional scold Fred Wertheimer, who's upset with the Federal Elections Commission for not cracking down on MoveOn.org, Planned Parenthood, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and other so-called 527 groups.

No surprise there. We already know that Wertheimer values neat-and-clean political campaigns more highly than he does the First Amendment. For a bit more insight, let's turn to last Wednesday's Washington Post, in which media reporter Howard Kurtz took a look at some of the more outrageous 527 ads. Wrote Kurtz: "The assembled groups are saying things that the candidates dare not say, connecting conspiratorial dots, using more disturbing images and indulging in no-holds-barred ridicule."

Indeed. But the real solution is hinted at by Brown University political scientist Darrell West, who tells Kurtz that the 527s "have run some of the most hard-hitting and misleading ads, because they're not on the ballot.... The candidates have to exercise some restraint. The groups have almost no accountability, so they can say whatever they want."

That's exactly right. If Soros could give as much as he wanted to Kerry, and if the Texas zillionaires funding the lying Swifties could gave as much as they wanted to Bush, then the 527s would wither away - in fact, they never would have come into existence in the first place.

Here is a piece I wrote earlier this year on what's wrong with campaign-finance reform.

- In the North Pole edition of the New York Times that arrives every morning here at Media Log Central, Robert McFadden writes, "But many Catholic pastors emphasized in sermons that abortion, embryonic stem cell research and gay marriage, all supported by Mr. Kerry and anathema to the church, were 'nonnegotiable' issues - statements that amounted to endorsements of Mr. Bush." This is, of course, a flat-out error, since Kerry has only said about 10,000 times that he opposes gay marriage.

Online, the same story says, "But many Catholic pastors emphasized in sermons that abortion, embryonic stem cell research and gay marriage, issues on which Mr. Kerry differs from Mr. Bush and which are anathema to the church, were 'nonnegotiable' issues - statements that amounted to endorsements of Mr. Bush."

Better late than never, I suppose.

- Also in today's Times, columnist Bob Herbert has something that was new to me, at least: a story about a front group called the Milwaukee Black Voters League that is trying to intimidate African-American voters into staying home on Election Day. Herbert describes a mind-blowing flier that's being circulated:

It asserts that people are not eligible to vote if they have voted in any previous election this year; if they have ever been found guilty of anything, even a traffic violation; or if anyone in their family has ever been found guilty of anything.

"If you violate any of these laws," the flier says, "you can get ten years in prison and your children will get taken away from you."

Curious, I started Googling to see what I could find. Here is an image of the flier. And here's a piece by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Eugene Kane in which he writes: "Frankly, I've become so cynical about this campaign, I'm not sure whether this was a laughable attempt by some Republicans to dissuade blacks from voting or an equally silly move by misguided Democrats to ensure a backlash."

Oh, come now, Mr. Kane. Are you really under that much pressure to be "even-handed"?

- Hip-hoppers against Bush: if you've access to the iTunes Music Store, click on "Music Videos" and check out the first two selections - "Son of a Bush," by Public Enemy, and "Mosh," by Eminem. Both are completely over the top. Both are pretty damn righteous. Eminem's is stronger and more focused, which surprises me, but Chuck D and Flavor Flav sound great when they start in with "He's the son of a bad man!"

Looks like if you start Googling, you can find them even without iTunes. So get going!

posted at 9:23 AM | 10 comments | link

MEDIA LOG ARCHIVES

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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.