Questions about Huckabee

This from CBS News' Scott Conroy:

Mitt Romney fired back against Mike Huckabee over the former Arkansas governor’s accusation that Mitt Romney has engaged in “voter suppression” in arguing that a vote for Huckabee is a vote for John McCain.

“I don't think he's chosen the right word,” Romney said at a press conference after speaking to hundreds of enthusiastic supporters at a rally here. “It's not voter suppression. I want people to vote, but I want them to vote for me. That's sort of the nature of politics, as I understand it.”

In recent days, Romney has avoided responding to Huckabee’s barrage of attacks, as the former Massachusetts governor seeks to portray the nomination fight as a two-man race between himself and McCain. But in his remarks this afternoon, Romney hit back hard.

“First a couple of rules in politics,” he said. “One: no whining. And number two: you get them to vote for you and so I want them not to vote for Mike Huckabee and not to vote for John McCain and to vote for me … that’s not voter suppression. That’s known as politics.”

The rest of the story's here.

Of course, Romney's right. In politics you want people voting for you and not the other candidates.

So where did Huckabee come up with his "voter suppression" charge?

Do you think he's been taking advice from those veteran campaigners, the Revs. Sharpton and Jackson?

Don’t stick taxpayers with subprime bailout

Former LA Times political reporter Ron Brownstein, now political director of Atlantic Media Group, is, according to one colleague, “blandly liberal.”

But in a recent National Journal column concerning mortgage foreclosures and who should pay for “subprime mortgages” fraudulently obtained and now in default, Brownstein was anything but “blandly liberal.” He was more like “a passionate liberal.”

With at best questionable evidence Brownstein began by claiming Blacks and Hispanics were disproportionately victimized by current mortgage market conditions. He went on to exaggerate the extent of mortgage foreclosures. He was silent regarding people who obtained mortgages fraudulently. And he wound up calling for American taxpayers to pay the huge bill for mortgage loans which should never have been made in the first place.

That's "passionate" liberalism.

What follows are excerpts from Brownstein’s column and, below the star line, an email I sent him.

Brownstein began:

The surging tide of housing foreclosures is threatening to sweep away one of the most encouraging, if little-noticed, social success stories of the past 15 years.

Starting under President Clinton and continuing under President Bush, African-Americans and Latinos made dramatic advances in homeownership from the mid-1990s through the first part of this decade. Those gains stabilized troubled neighborhoods, boosted city treasuries, and helped minority families build wealth.
But now that escalator has stopped.

From 1995 through 2004, the homeownership rate among African-Americans increased every year -- from 43 percent to just below 50 percent overall. But since then, the homeownership rate among blacks has fallen back under 48 percent, according to the Census Bureau. The Latino homeownership rate, which was just 42 percent in 1995, hit a record 50 percent in late 2005 but has stagnated since.

Whites are losing ground, too: Their homeownership rate has dipped from a peak of 76 percent in 2004 to about 75 percent now. But the trend in minority communities is more ominous because their advances were more tenuous. And the problem, for whites and minorities alike, is likely to get worse before it improves. …

"The numbers are going to be dismal, especially in the minority communities, over the next two years," says Lori Gay, president and CEO of Los Angeles Neighborhood Housing Services, a nonprofit organization focused on low-income homeownership.

Gay's group is at the front line of the foreclosure crisis. Every day, it deals with the impact of the rapid, almost unregulated, growth of the subprime lending market. Subprime loans are made by brokers and dealers of sundry ethics and common sense, often to borrowers who might not qualify to borrow as much (or any) money from conventional lenders. …

These loans, which barely existed in the early 1990s, now account for about one-fifth of new mortgages, with African-Americans and Latinos more likely to have them than whites. …

There's plenty of blame to share. Many borrowers were misled, but others were complicit in the carnage. Bruce Solomon, a bracingly clear-eyed loan officer at the L.A. housing group, recently worked with an African-American man who inherited a home from his parents and then lost it to foreclosure after he misrepresented his income and obtained a $570,000 refinancing loan.

The lender gave the man a wildly inappropriate loan and winked at his financial forms (because the lender planned to quickly sell the loan to someone else). But the man knowingly borrowed a sum that he could not possibly repay on his real income: $1,000 a month in Social Security benefits. "People got to the point where ... the only thing they wanted to hear was yes," Solomon said.

In the near term, Gay says, the most pressing need is money for cities to help keep struggling borrowers in their homes -- and to help nonprofit groups committed to community development obtain more of the homes that are lost to foreclosure.

Longer term, Washington needs to explore tougher oversight of subprime lenders and the creation of a federally backed corporation that would convert troubled adjustable loans into stable 30-year fixed mortgages.

Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., is sensibly pressing Senate leaders to include help for cities and homeowners in the stimulus plan heading toward Bush's desk. …

******************************************************************
Dear Mr. Brownstein:

Do you remember there used to be another name for “subprime” mortgages? They were called “high risk” until about 15 years ago.

Why aren’t you and others in the MSM calling mortgages made to less credit-worthy borrowers and/or for the full or near full market value of the property “high risk mortgages?” Overwhelming data show those are the mortgages most apt to fall to foreclosure.

Why do you speak of a “surging tide of housing foreclosures?”

In most areas, foreclosure rates are well below 1%? In the worst areas, they’re below 2%?

Your “surging tide” language left me wondering whether you were trying to gin up support for a government sponsored bailout.

You say “Bruce Solomon, a bracingly clear-eyed loan officer at the L.A. housing group, recently worked with an African-American man who inherited a home from his parents and then lost it to foreclosure after he misrepresented his income and obtained a $570,000 refinancing loan.”

Assuming what you say is correct, why is Soloman working with a man who committed loan fraud? Why isn’t the man being investigated and/or prosecuted?

And if the lender knowingly winked at fraudulent mortgage application documents, why isn’t that lender also being investigated and/or prosecuted?

Who will pick up the costs associated with the fraudulent $570,000 mortgage loan?

Is that where Sen. Dodd’s plan kicks in and the taxpayers get hit with the bill?

And by the way, do you know whether the African-American who obtained the re-fi did so after the Clinton administration made clear to lenders they should be making more loans to African-Americans?

What Dodd’s proposing is a taxpayer-funded bailout of people who should be held to account for their own actions.

You see the current mortgage market as particularly tough for African-Americans and Hispanics. Actually for them, as for all other Americans who are credit-worthy and financially sensible, now is a very good time as far as home mortgages go.

According to Mortgage Bank News’ latest report, home mortgage rates are at their lowest level in four years.

What an opportunity for tens of millions of people to refinance and lower their interest costs; and for millions of others seeking to begin homeownership to do so with their interest costs the lowest in years.

But you didn't you mention any of that wonderful news. Why not?

And will you now do something to help get that wonderful news out to people of every race and nationality?

I’m posting this at my blog. Should you care to respond, I‘ll publish your response in full.

Sincerely,

John in Carolina

McClatchy reporter gives Clinton’s the “R” treatment

McClatchy Newspapers’ Washington correspondent Matt Stearns has been treating the Clintons the way most MSM reporters treat the Rs.

But Stearns has to know the Clintons aren’t Republicans. Yet look at the way he’s treating them.

From a Feb. 3 report:

To hear Hillary Clinton talk, she's spent her entire career putting her Yale Law School degree to work for the common good.

She routinely tells voters that she's "been working to bring positive change to people's lives for 35 years." She told a voter in New Hampshire: "I've spent so much of my life in the nonprofit sector." Speaking in South Carolina, Bill Clinton said his wife "could have taken a job with a firm ... Instead she went to work with Marian Wright Edelman at the Children's Defense Fund."

The overall portrait is of a lifelong, selfless do-gooder. The whole story is more complicated — and less flattering.

Clinton worked at the Children's Defense Fund for less than a year, and that's the only full-time job in the nonprofit sector she's ever had. She also worked briefly as a law professor.

Clinton spent the bulk of her career — 15 of those 35 years — at one of Arkansas' most prestigious corporate law firms, where she represented big companies and served on corporate boards.

Neither she nor her surrogates, however, ever mention that on the campaign trail.

Her campaign Web site biography devotes six paragraphs to her pro bono legal work for the poor but sums up the bulk of her experience in one sentence: "She also continued her legal career as a partner in a law firm."

There’s more. You can read it all here.

And look at how Stearns treated former President Clinton in a story which ran Jan. 23 in the McClatchy owned Raleigh News & Observer [excerpts]:

Bill Clinton finally had a good day Tuesday: His only mistake was the color of his tie.

Campaigning in University of South Carolina country, Clinton sported a Clemson-orange tie instead of Gamecocks garnet.

"I left all my red ties at home," Clinton apologized to Russell Pardee, a voter who called Clinton on it at a Columbia diner.

Given the criticism recently piled on the former president as he became wife Hillary Rodham Clinton's chief attack dog against Democratic presidential rival Barack Obama, a tie gaffe is nothing. It's been so bad that influential African-American Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., warned him to "chill." …

"He used to be my boyfriend, but I have no respect for him for the remarks that he's been making," said Bennie Bayard, 60, a black retiree from Greenville who attended an Obama rally. …

Clinton did distort a few things on Tuesday -- but to his and his wife's benefit, not at her opponents' expense.

He continued the mythology that the campaign has built around Hillary Clinton's legal career: "She could have taken a job with a firm . . . instead she went to work with Marian Wright Edelman at the Children's Defense Fund."

In fact, Hillary Clinton worked less than two years at the Children's Defense Fund. She spent the bulk of her career -- 15-plus years -- as a corporate lawyer at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Ark.

Clinton boasted about his hybrid "Mercury mini-SUV that gets 39 miles to the gallon," even as he regularly circles the globe by private jet and in motorcades featuring full-size, gas-guzzling SUVs.

And he was as full of contradictions as ever. Hours after criticizing reporters in Columbia for focusing on the "spat" between Obama and Hillary Clinton at the Monday debate, Clinton told voters in Greenville: "I kind of liked seeing Barack and Hillary fight last night. They're real people. Neither one of them is supposed to be this wind-up doll who's supposed to behave a certain way. ... I like this. I think it's exciting." …

Clinton's infamous temper flashed briefly when a Greenville voter asked if Clinton felt he was standing in Obama's way as the Illinois senator tries to become the first black president.

"I'm not standing in his way," Clinton snapped. "Nobody has a right to be president."

But Clinton quickly chilled out. …

Here’s the entire N&O story.

The former President's an “attack dog” with an “infamous temper?” Hillary's a self-promoting corporate lawyer who’s tried to cover that up?

That’s usually not what we’ve been told about the Clintons.

Until recently we mostly heard Bill Clinton “rocked.” He was “very popular in contrast to Bush” and Hillary’s “greatest asset.”

And Hillary? We heard a lot about how she cared so much for children she even wrote a book telling us how to raise them: It Takes a Whole Village.

Remember?

I don’t know whether McClatchy’s Stearns is one of many in MSM who’ve swooned for Sen. Obama and are angry at the Clintons for their opposition to him.

It could be Stearns is a reporter who simply tells it like he sees it.

I’ll be watching for his byline and reading his reports as the campaign unfolds.

Ernie Pyle death photo & D-Day column

(Welcome visitors from Black Five and Mudvile Gazette. )

My vote for best WW II correspondent goes to Ernie Pyle. Of the many great correspondents who covered the war, none did a better job of conveying the ordeals and sacrifices of our military and the war’s meaning for America and the rest of the world.

Today the AP reports:

The figure in the photograph is clad in Army fatigues, boots and helmet, lying on his back in peaceful repose, folded hands holding a military cap. Except for a thin trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, he could be asleep.

But he is not asleep; he is dead. And this is not just another fallen GI; it is Ernie Pyle, the most celebrated war correspondent of World War II.



As far as can be determined, the photograph has never been published. Sixty-three years after Pyle was killed by the Japanese, it has surfaced — surprising historians, reminding a forgetful world of a humble correspondent who artfully and ardently told the story of a war from the foxholes. …

The rest of the AP’s story is here. Attached to it is a story reporting Pyle’s death and reaction to it. It begins:

"COMMAND POST, IE SHIMA, April 18 (AP) — Ernie Pyle, war correspondent beloved by his co-workers, GIs and generals alike, was killed by a Japanese machine-gun bullet through his left temple this morning. ...

The news stunned a nation still mourning the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt six days earlier. Callers besieged newspaper switchboards. "Ernie is mourned by the Army," said soldier-artist Bill Mauldin, whose droll, irreverent GI cartoons had made him nearly as famous as Pyle.

He was right; even amid heavy fighting, Pyle's death was a prime topic among the troops.

"If I had not been there to see it, I would have taken with a grain of salt any report that the GI was taking Ernie Pyle's death `hard,' but that is the only word that best describes the universal reaction out here," Army photographer Alexander Roberts wrote to Lee Miller, a friend of Ernie and his first biographer….

As JinC Regulars know, each year as part of my D-Day tribute I quote from Pyle’s D-Day column. Written June 7 Pyle described the previous day’s battle on Omaha Beach and his thoughts as he walked the beach after the fighting had moved inland.

The column, which Pyle titled "A Pure Miracle," was held by military censors for five days and then published in America on June 12, 1944. It follows in full:


In this column I want to tell you what the opening of the second front in this one sector entailed, so that you can know and appreciate and forever be humbly grateful to those both dead and alive who did it for you.

Ashore, facing us, were more enemy troops than we had in our assault waves. The advantages were all theirs, the disadvantages all ours. The Germans were dug into positions that they had been working on for months, although these were not yet all complete.

A one-hundred-foot bluff a couple of hundred yards back from the beach had great concrete gun emplacements built right into the hilltop. These opened to the sides instead of to the front, thus making it very hard for naval fire from the sea to reach them. They could shoot parallel with the beach and cover every foot of it for miles with artillery fire.

Then they had hidden machine-gun nests on the forward slopes, with crossfire taking in every inch of the beach. These nests were connected by networks of trenches, so that the German gunners could move about without exposing themselves.

Throughout the length of the beach, running zigzag a couple of hundred yards back from the shoreline, was an immense V-shaped ditch fifteen feet deep. Nothing could cross it, not even men on foot, until fills had been made.

And in other places at the far end of the beach, where the ground is flatter, they had great concrete walls. These were blasted by our naval gunfire or by explosives set by hand after we got ashore.

Our only exits from the beach were several swales or valleys, each about one hundred yards wide. The Germans made the most of these funnel-like traps, sowing them with buried mines. They contained, also, barbed-wire entanglements with mines attached, hidden ditches, and machine guns firing from the slopes.

This is what was on the shore.

But our men had to go through a maze nearly as deadly as this before they even got ashore. Underwater obstacles were terrific. The Germans had whole fields of evil devices under the water to catch our boats.

Even now, several days after the landing, we have cleared only channels through them and cannot yet approach the whole length of the beach with our ships. Even now some ship or boat hits one of these mines every day and is knocked out of commission.

The Germans had masses of those great six-pronged spiders, made of railroad iron and standing shoulder-high, just beneath the surface of the water for our landing craft to run into. They also had huge logs buried in the sand, pointing upward and outward, their tops just below the water. Attached to these logs were mines.

In addition to these obstacles they had floating mines offshore, land mines buried in the sand of the beach, and more mines in checkerboard rows in the tall grass beyond the sand. And the enemy had four men on shore for every three men we had approaching the shore.

And yet we got on.
__________________________________________

You can read more about Ernie Pyle as well as some of his WW II columns at this site hosted by Indiana University's Journalism School.

Special thanks to JinC Regular AC
__________________________________________

Ernie Pyle (August 3, 1900 - April 18, 1945) RIP

Talking to Regulars & Commenters – 2/3/08

( A post in the old web log tradition: “notes at the end of the day” for those who “follow the blog.” Others are welcome to read as well, but don’t look for links and expect some “informality.”)

I won’t get done today the post I promised responding to a column by liberal/leftist journalist Ron Brownstein.

You can read that column here.

Most of you who read Brownstein’s column will quickly see his liberalism glaringly evident in his failure to call subprime mortgages what we know them to be – high risk – and his “solution” for foreclosed mortgage debt which must be paid by someone: let the American taxpayers foot the bill.

Now that's liberalism, isn't it?

I’ll try very hard to get my post responding to Brownstein up tomorrow.

I didn’t get the “first pass” post up concerning whether the N&O can be held to account for its biased, racially inflammatory and, in some cases, deliberately fraudulent coverage of what we now know was the trashing of Duke students who were members of the school’s 2006 Men’s lacrosse team, and the attempt to frame three of them for multiple felonies, including gang rape.

I’ll get that up tomorrow.

The short answer is: It will be very, very hard, but not totally impossible, to hold the N&O to some account for what it did. Even allowing that it can be held to some account, there’ll be a question of whether its worth the great effort.

In the same post I plan to touch on why I think it’s in the N&O’s parent McClatchy Company’s best long-term interest to acknowledge fully and frankly the accidental mistakes and deliberate deceptions which were essential to the framing of the Duke students in the public’s mind, and which remain very important "props" for the ongoing cover-up of the attempted frame-up.

Moving on - - -

Some of you are linking my posts to other blogs.

Thank you very much.

Look for more tomorrow.

John

N&O Editor’s Nifong reply & “small errors”

Regulars here are familiar with my posts concerning a Raleigh News & Observer news columnist statements published in her column and the Yaeger (with Pressler) book, It’s Not About The Truth, concerning the N&O’s use of the disgraced Mike Nifong as an anonymous source during March 2006 when the N&O led the media trashing and framing of the Duke lacrosse players.

Regulars also know I’ve asked questions about the N&O’s use of Nifong as an anonymous source for its now discredited Mar. 25, 2006 “anonymous interview” story it said was about “the victim’s” account of a night which ended in “sexual violence.”

Background to all of this, source citations and links are in this post: N&O editor's response re: Nifong as anonymous source.

Since June 2006, the columnist and editors at the N&O have ignored my questions about their use of Nifong as an anonymous source until this past Friday when I received the following email from the N&O’s public editor, Ted Vaden, in response to my recent post: What’s really hurting the Raleigh N&O :

John.

I don't see here that Ruth said Nifong was an anonymous source for The N&O.

The paper did not quote any anonymous sources in the course of its
coverage of the lacrosse case, with the exception of the early interview with the accuser.

And, of course, she was not anonymous, but unnamed in the article.(emphasis mine)

In those early days, Nifong was anything but anonymous, which was part of his eventual downfall.

Ted V.

I’m preparing a response to Vaden's self-contradictory, at variance with the facts reply which I’ll post this evening or tomorrow morning.

In the meantime, I thought you’d be interested to know some of what, while researching for my response, I found in Vaden’s Apr. 2, 2006 column: "Searching for fairness in the Duke story"

In the following three snips Vaden's discussing the Mar. 25 "anonymous interview/sexual violence" story.

"In my view, the interview is at odds with The N&O's own policy on anonymous sources, which discourages their use except when the information can be obtained no other way."

A little further along he says:

But let's talk more about the anonymous interview.

And we also find in Vaden's column:

The difference, though, is that The N&O did not offer to let the accused speak anonymously, as it did for the accuser.

Vaden recently ran a column in which he said newspapers' credibility are being hurt by “small errors.”

But small spelling errors and getting the address of a fire wrong aren’t what’s destroying newspapers’ credibility.

It's major reporting errors, news suppression and gross bias such as we've all seen in the coverage of the Duke lacrosse story, and and what newspapers do to cover them up that’s really hurting their credibility.

Surely Vaden knows that.

Canada and America are being warned

At National Review Online Mark Steyn tells readers [excerpt]:

…The Canadian Islamic Congress has complained about my "flagrant Islamophobia" under the guise of Section 13 of the Human Rights Code.

In a surprising development from an unlikely quarter, Keith Martin, a Liberal Member of Parliament from British Columbia, has filed a private member's motion in the House of Commons to abolish Section 13 on the grounds that Canada should be a country where we're "allowed to speak our mind".

Dr Martin is no friend of social conservatives or any other type of right-winger, but he is a principled Liberal and a believer in freedom of expression for all. I wish there were more like him.

I commend Dr. Martin for his action. I hope many of us speak out and support what he’s doing.

I grew up being taught Canada was “a good neighbor and a great, free nation.”

I still believe that.

So I find it very hard to accept some of the anti-democratic things happening there just as I find it hard to accept similiar things happening here in the States.

Why is it that in Canada you can say terrible things about people, including even publicizing fatwas calling for their deaths, but you can’t say much critical of the Islamists who issue those death threats?

How did Canada get to where it is today: a country where it’s OK to issue death fatwas and call for the destruction of Israel, but where it’s not OK to condemn the Muslims who enable and/or advocate such things?

And how did America get to the point where Berkeley, CA is telling Marines they’re not welcome there?

Folks in both countries – What’s happening are warnings we ignore at our peril.

God bless Canada and America.

And thank you, Mark Steyn. You're one of the free world’s best pundits.

Talking w. Regulars & Commenters – 2/2/08

( A post in the old web log tradition: “notes at the end of the day” for those who “follow the blog.” Others are welcome to read as well, but don’t look for links and expect some “informality.”)

I always recommend you read the comment threads so I’m doing that again.

I’ll note in particular the thread of A Subprime Mortgage Suggestion. There’s one comment there I can’t agree with and I’ve left a comment there to that effect.

But the rest of the comments ( I think about 7) reflect an awareness of financial and psychological fundamentals which should underpin the housing and home mortgage markets.

But for a variety of reasons America is getting away from the idea that banks and s&ls should look at borrowers credit-worthiness and that mortgage borrowers should have a good hunk of their own money in the house they’re “buying.”

But the commenters make those points and others.

MSM, IMO, has been under-emphasizing those points when MSM has not been ignoring them entirely.

It was a pleasure to read the comments as they came in.

I’ll post tomorrow fisking a column former LA Times Washington bureau chief Ron Brownstein wrote. It’s an example of the kind of liberal/left values and rationales that have made the housing and home mortgage markets less secure than they should be and which are, like so many liberal/leftist efforts, doing much harm to the very people they're supposed to help.

Regarding Durham ADA Tracey Cline and her various and sundry statements about the DA’s office, her upcoming campaign for the Democratic Party’s nomination for DA ( in heavily Dem. Durham tantamount to election ) and her role in securing the NTO which was so important a part of the attempt to frame innocent Duke students, all of you who’ve commented make clear that what I’m saying fits with what you’re thinking.

It sure is important what Cline and DPD say about the who, how, when and why of that NTO order.

Thanks for your comments re: Cline. They're helping me focus on matters most people are ignoring.

And yes, I plan to stay on the matter. In a few days I'll post a letter to her asking her for some clarifications.

On the matter of N&O pub. ed. Ted Vaden’s email to me Friday ---

I’ve looked at his Apr. 2, 2006 column which is a response to N&O readers criticisms of the paper's biased, racially inflammatory and often false coverage of what we didn’t know then was a frame-up attempt.

Would you believe that in that column Vadem himself referred to liar Mangum as an “anonymous source?”

Many of you are likely saying: “Of course! Were you surprised, John?”

I’ll answer that question tomorrow.

I’ll also offer a “first pass” answer to a question many of you have asked and that I’ve long ignored: “Can’t the players sue the N&O?”

I’ll also post another talking post tomorrow responding to, among other things, your suggestions I contact the N&O publisher and the McClatchy board.

Thank you for your interest in JinC and for your comments.

Thay mean a lot.

John

Durham ADA Changes NTO Story

The Durham Herald Sun reports today Freda Black's announcement she'll be a candidate for DA in this year’s primary scheduled for May 6. Black was the disgraced Mike Nifong’s major opponent in the 2006 Democratic DA primary race.

A former Durham ADA, Black was dismissed by Nifong when he was appointed DA by the governor to fill the unexpired term of his predecessor who’d been made a judge. Black is now in private practice.

The H-S story also mentions current Durham ADA Tracey Cline who has told friends and supporters she’ll be a candidate in the May primary.

The story includes this:

Cline defended her role in getting a court order for DNA evidence from 46 lacrosse players "as a regular routine that any assistant district attorney or district attorney would give police advice to do everyday."

What the H-S reports today Cline is now saying represents a major change from what on Jan. 9 the H-S reported Cline said:

From the Jan. 9 Durham H-S - - -

[…] At the heart of the matter is material taken from the notes of lacrosse case lead detective Ben Himan, and notes and a deposition from Durham police Sgt. Mark Gottlieb.

They referred to Cline's role in the creation of a non-testimonial order, or NTO, that allowed police to take photographs of and collect DNA evidence from 46 of the 47 members of the Duke lacrosse team.

Cline denied that she had any role in writing the order.

"The record will indicate that David Saacks did it," she said. Saacks is the interim district attorney but was an assistant DA at that time. "I didn't prepare any paperwork on that case. Nothing at all. I've never even seen or laid hands on a non-testimonial order."

She said, "I remember Gottlieb asked me about a non-testimonial order, and I told him I was not available."

But when asked by The Herald-Sun whether she'd asked police to draft the non-testimonial order, Cline responded, "I don't recall."

Himan's notes and Gottlieb's deposition indicate that police consulted Cline on March 22, 2006, after they learned players, on the advice of attorneys, wouldn't show up that day for a scheduled meeting with investigators.

How about that?

In less than a month Cline has gone from saying she was unable to “recall” whether she’d directed police to prepare the NTO to defending her role in getting the NTO as just “a regular routine that any assistant district attorney or district attorney would give police advice to do everyday."

Quite a change, isn’t it?

Did Cline have “a recovered memory” experience all by herself. Or did someone(s) remind her that she did have a role in securing the NTO?

If someone(s) did, who was that someone(s)? What was said to Cline that improved her memory?

Now that her memory’s improved, does Cline agree with what Gottlieb and Himan have been saying: that she directed them to prepare the NTO?

That question needs to be answered. We shouldn’t have to wait for discovery to get Cline’s answer. She should give it now.

Cline should also tell us on what basis she at least supported and perhaps ordered the preparation of an NTO request which was anything but routine. In fact, it’s been called "mammothly unconstitutional" and a "dragnet fishing expedition."

Readers following the case, especially those with questions concerning the who, why, when and how of the securing of the NTO, may be interested to read:

Who “Owns” that “Toxic” NTO? (1/13/08)

NTO Battle – Durham DA v. Police (1/17/08)

Today's entire H-S story is here.

MSM hypes bombings in Iraq

Soldier’s Dad at Mudville Gazette has concerns about the contribution MSM is making to the deaths of innocents in Iraq:

[When civilian casualties in Iraq declined in December] ...of course this good news was tempered by a major Suicide Bombing in Baghdad on January 1st.

[When] civilian casualties in Iraq for January continued to decline...of course Al Queda had two major Suicide Bombings in Baghdad today, the 1st of February.

This should pose an ethical dilema for News Editors...innocent people are being deliberately killed in order to influence story placement in their publications.

Major suicide bombings have now occurred two months in a row on the day that the major Iraq story should have been that violence levels continued to drop.

We are all familiar with the maxim, "If it bleeds, it leads"...but what if the inverse is true 'it bleeds, because it leads"

If story placement can be shown to be a causal factor in murder, does that make News Editors an accessory to murder?

A serious ethical and moral dilemma to be sure.

Soldier’s Dad raises an extremely serious point.

It’s an open secret the terrorists engage in bombings because they know the bombings get graphic front-page newspaper coverage and lead the evening TV news programs.

The bombings are legitimate news stories, but they don’t have to be so hyped.

We should also be hearing more about the anger among Iraqis directed at Western journalists they feel are helping make them targets and victims by hyping the terrorists’ attacks.

Most MSM news organizations were quick to assure angry Muslims they wouldn’t publish the Danish cartoons. (“Please don’t hurt us. We’ll do whatever you want.”)

Newspapers like the NY Times and the Raleigh N&O insisted the public had no need to see those Danish cartoons. Besides, showing them would be “offensive.”

But those same newspapers spread their pages wide and make them available to terrorists who use the bombings as a major propaganda tool to influence Americans to support cut and run from Iraq policies.

Soldier’s Dad posses a “serious ethical and moral dilemma.” But I don’t think most MSM will face and react to it with much humanity.

It’s more likely most in MSM will whine about how tough their jobs are and how little the American public appreciates them.

And go on hyping the bombings. If it bleeds, it leads because it sells.

Hat tips: Mike Williams and Mudville Gazette

Al Qaeda Death Benefits

The AP reported:

One of al-Qaida's top figures, Abu Laith al-Libi, has been killed in Pakistan, an Islamist Web site announced Thursday. Pakistani officials and residents said a dozen people, including seven Arabs, died in a missile strike in northwestern Pakistan near the Afghan border. …

The entire story’s here.

Past reports of the “killing” of Al Qaeda “high value targets” have often proved false. But this one looks to be right.

It’s great news anytime Al Qaeda killers are taken out, especially when it’s a leader. And if a leader’s henchmen are “martyred” along with him, that’s a welcome “operational bonus.”

And there are many other benefits that go along with the killing of Al Qaeda leaders. But the AP story doesn’t mention them.

I’ll skip over the more obvious ones – disruption of command structure and operational planning, for example – and focus on an Al Qaeda leader “death benefit” that’s rarely mentioned by MSM news organizations.It has to do with sowing distrust among Al Qaeda leaders.

The top Al Qaeda guys keep their whereabouts and movements as secret as possible. But top guys tend to know when and where the others are.

Somebody knew exactly when and where, in that vast mountainous region, al-Libi would be meeting. And that somebody, and very likely others, got the word to the guys who could arrange for a missile to end the meeting ahead of schedule.

According to intelligence experts familiar with it, Al Qaeda’s top commanders, while united by certain hatreds, are extremely distrustful of each other and split by intense personal and ethnic-based rivalries.

Al-Libi’s killing will only intensify all of that, and make cooperation within Al Qaeda more difficult.

Who knows: some Al Qaeda leaders may even decide they know who it was within the organization who dropped the dime on al-Libi.

And you know what will happen then: another death benefit.

The Churchill Series - Feb. 1, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

In 1975 a fierce debate raged in Britain over whether it should join the European Common Market.

Opponents of membership supported their arguments with this Churchill quote: "Each time we must choose between Europe and the open sea, we shall always choose the open sea."

Churchill's grandson and namesake, then a Member of Parliament, wrote to The Times of London providing context for his grandfather's words. it tells us about the Churchill-de Gaulle relationship as D-Day approached. The quote, Churchill's grandson wrote:

"is drawn from de Gaulle's version of a wartime row he had with Churchill, as is made clear by the very next sentence: 'And if I have to choose between you [de Gaulle] and Roosevelt, I shall always choose Roosevelt.'

The date was 1944 and the Europe referred to was dominated and occupied by Nazi Germany. It is not surprising that Churchill, on the eve of the Allied invasion, should make clear to de Gaulle that the U. S. alliance was more important to Britain than de Gaulle's forces.

Churchill was not referring to the European Economic Community, as it had not even been thought of at the time.

A more representative idea of his thoughts can be gained from his many speeches in the cause of European unity especially those at Zurich, The Hague, and in the Albert Hall in 1947, when he declared, 'If Europe united is to be a living force, Britain will have to play her full part as a member of the European family.'"

It should be remembered that when Churchill spoke in 1947 of British membership in the "European family," he had in mind a militarily powerful Europe which could protect itself and, when necessary, project force to other parts of the world.

Today's Europe, excepting perhaps Britain, is militarily weak and not the Europe Churchill envisioned in 1947.

Now on a personnal note: The weekend is underway and I hope your's is a very good one.

John
________________________________________________
Letter to The Times, Winston S. Churchill, MP, (Here at Churchill Centre. Scroll to Winter, 1975)

Gore bad news for Obama

Atlantic.com’s senior editor Josh Green tells his faithful readers:

It feels official: Barack Obama has momentum. He won a resounding victory in South Carolina. He just posted another astonishing fundraising total. Gallup reports that he’s pulled to within four points of Hillary Clinton. And Ted Kennedy’s endorsement Monday had the feel of history about it. Even conservatives swooned.

Only one endorsement could be bigger—and if Al Gore is going to pull the trigger, you have to think he’ll do so in the next 72 hours.

Yes, yes, I know. Gore has said he won’t endorse. …

But Tennessee looks to be a state in which Clinton currently holds a lead—that is, unless a certain favorite son were to endorse her opponent.

Gore has already seen one presidency (his own) slip away over a handful of votes. He must have pondered how it would feel to play kingmaker and shore up someone else’s path to the White House.

A well-connected Tennesseean (sic) told me two things today that got me thinking about this.

The first is that Obama and Gore have been speaking regularly, about every two weeks or so. The second is that, despite this, and despite Tennessee’s primary on Tuesday, Obama has not visited the state since June.

It may be simply that he does not plan on competing there. Or it may be that he’s been waiting for a special occasion.

Gore for Obama?

Why not? So many liberals and leftists are rallying to Obama.

Shouldn’t Gore?

And what about George Soros and Cindy Sheehan?

But if - maybe when - Obama gets Gore's and all the rest's endorsements, will that really help Obama?

Won't those endorsements make him "the liberals' candidate?"

And won't that be bad news for Obama?

Green’s entire article is here.

N&O editor's response re: Nifong as anonymous source

As JinC Regulars know, for many months I’ve posted concerning Raleigh N&O news columnist Ruth Sheehan’s claims Mike Nifong was an anonymous source for her Mar. 27, 2006 column ( “Team’s silence Is sickening” )attacking Duke students who were members of the school's 2006 Men’s lacrosse team.

I’ve also asked whether Nifong was an anonymous source for the N&O’s now discredited Mar. 25, 2006 story headlined: Dancer gives details of ordeal
A woman hired to dance for the Duke lacrosse team describes a night of racial slurs, growing fear and, finally, sexual violence

Here are some recent posts which deal with one or both matters.

Nifong an N&O anonymous source (Post 1) (7/29/07)

Nifong an N&O anonymous source (Post 2) (8/1/07)

Nifong discovery: An N&O worry? (12/17/07)

What’s really hurting the Raleigh N&O (1/23/08)

I’ve asked Sheehan via emails and links to posts to say more about her claims but have heard nothing back.

Via emails, comments at their blogs and links to posts, I’ve asked former N&O executive editor for news Melanie Sill, current N&O executive editor for news John Drescher and the paper’s public editor Ted Vaden for full and frank public explanations of any use the N&O made of Nifong as an anonymous source beginning in March 2006 and thereafter.

Until today none of the three had even made a pro forma acknowledgement of my contacts and requests.

Today, in response to What’s really hurting the Raleigh N&O, I received the following email from public editor Ted Vaden. (The email was sent as a single paragraph. I’m posting it in sentence-by-sentence form for readers’ ease.)

John.

I don't see here that Ruth said Nifong was an anonymous source for The N&O.

The paper did not quote any anonymous sources in the course of its
coverage of the lacrosse case, with the exception of the early interview with the accuser.

And, of course, she was not anonymous, but unnamed in the article.

In those early days, Nifong was anything but anonymous, which was part of his eventual downfall.

Ted V.

Vaden’s response is disappointing to say the least.

I’ll work this weekend on a response to Vaden and will share it with you.

I haven’t fully outlined a response, but I know it will include at least:

1) Sheehan’s lengthy, quoted statements in It’s Not About the Truth describing how she phoned in to the N&O on Mar. 26 to discuss a column she already had “in the can” to run on Mar. 27; was provided by someone(s) at the N&O with information from Nifong; and therefore scrapped the column she’d plan to run and, using the information passed to her from Nifong, set to work on her “Team’s Silence Is Sickening” column.

2) Make the point again to Vaden that Nifong didn’t begin speaking publicly about the case until sometime on Mar. 27 after Sheehan's column had appeared

3) Note that “anonymous” and “unnamed” are synonyms.

4) Provide examples of Associated Press documents discussing the use of sources in which the AP uses “anonymous” and “unnamed” interchangeably.

5) Note that Vaden hasn’t really spoken to Sheehan’s claims and my questions which I know many of you have asked as well.

What do you think?

The economy & government regulation

The International Herald Tribune (owned by the NY Times Co.) sees a very serious recession coming, feels the Fed has done its best to cushion the downturn's effects, and advocates more government regulation as the proper response to what it calls "the excesses of the bubble years." [excerpt]

...In short, no matter what the Fed does, it will take time - certainly a period of retrenchment, and quite likely of recession - to work off the excesses of the bubble years. That means foreclosures and financial ruin for some, joblessness and belt-tightening for others, and less vibrant and less viable communities for many.

The damage, now becoming apparent, demands that policymakers take stock of how the economy arrived at this place. The bubbles in housing and mortgages would not have been possible were it not for the progressive deterioration in regulation over the past several decades, culminating for all practical purposes in a regulatory collapse during the Bush years. The anti-regulatory ethos, in turn, derived its potency from a pervasive ideology that markets are self-regulating and self-correcting and therefore best handled with incentives and voluntary best practices, rather than rules and boundaries.

The task of reinforcing the regulatory apparatus of the nation's economy is as formidable a challenge as managing the downturn, and ultimately of more lasting importance.

Some rules and boundaries are needed but we must be careful.

Wouldn't it be foolish for America to go in the direction of countries such as Germany and France with their highly government regulated economies just when those countries are realizing their "rules and boundaries" have led to chronically high unemployment and slow or no economic growth?

And isn't part of the current trouble with America's housing and mortgage markets ( which are fundamentally sound, by the way) the result of government pressure and "rules and boundaries?"

I'm thinking, for example, of the pressure in recent years that mortgage lenders came under when they said they didn't make certain loans because the applicants weren't credit-worthy.

That wasn't good enough for many political leaders and news organizations such as the NY Times who were sure racism was playing a big part in the rejection of certain mortgage applicants.

I wish those political leaders and news organizations had started their own mortgage lending companies. They could have loaned to whomever they wished, absorbing the risks, profits and losses.

MSM should be reporting now on those political leaders and news organizations who pressured mortgage lenders to make high-risk loans they didn't want to make.

The entire ITH editorial is here.

Obama’s the “most liberal” senator but don’t tell anyone

National Journal reports:

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was the most liberal senator in 2007, according to National Journal's 27th annual vote ratings. The insurgent presidential candidate shifted further to the left last year in the run-up to the primaries, after ranking as the 16th- and 10th-most-liberal during his first two years in the Senate.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., the other front-runner in the Democratic presidential race, also shifted to the left last year. She ranked as the 16th-most-liberal senator in the 2007 ratings, a computer-assisted analysis that used 99 key Senate votes, selected by NJ reporters and editors, to place every senator on a liberal-to-conservative scale in each of three issue categories. In 2006, Clinton was the 32nd-most-liberal senator. ...

The rest of the NJ story’s here.

You can’t open a newspaper these days without seeing something about whether Sen. McCain “is conservative enough for Republicans.” And there are all those “Gov. Romney needs to excite conservative voters” stories.

There've even been stories comparing the percentages of votes each candidate got in Florida among voters self-ID'ing as “conservative” and “very conservative.”

But how’s Sen. Obama doing compared to his fellow liberal, Sen. Clinton, among voters self-ID'ing as “liberal” and “very liberal?”

I don’t know. I haven’t read anything about that. How about you?

After Sen. Ted Kennedy, “the liberal lion,” roared his endorsement of Obama, there were scads of stories in the Democratic-dominated MSM about the help Kennedy’s endorsement would be to Obama among Hispanic and union member voters.

But I can’t recall any stories about the effect of Kennedy’s endorsement among “liberal” and “very liberal” voters, two groups Ted Kennedy "excites."

I posted the other day concerning the reluctance of most liberal Democrats and their media flacks to call liberals “liberal.” Many of them even cried “smear” during the ’04 presidential campaign when Republicans correctly called Sen. John Kerry "a liberal." ( Who thinks "liberal" is a smear? )

But it’s no more a smear to call a liberal “a liberal” than it is to call a conservative “a conservative.”

The country’s had an awful lot of MSM puff-piece stories about Obama’s “message of change.” It’s time for some solid reporting on his liberal voting record.

The Churchill Series - Jan. 31, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

It was September 1919. British troops, along with those of other nations, were fighting in Russia. They were attempting to help the Czar armies (The Whites) defeat the Bolshevik armies (The Reds) led by Lenin and Trotsky.

Many in Britain opposed using troops in Russia and demanded they be brought home. They said British troops were fighting the Czar's battle.

Churchill response to those people contained an analysis and prophesy

"It is a delusion to suppose that all this year we have been fighting the battles of the anti-Bolshevik Russians. On the contrary, they have been fighting ours; and this truth will become painfully apparent from the moment that they are exterminated and the Bolshevik armies are supreme over the whole vast territories of the Russian Empire."

________________________________________________
Quote cited in Finest Hour's (Summer, 2003) review of David Carlton's "Churchill and the Soviet Union." (Here and scroll down)

N&O still silent on stripper ads, Nifong

Folks, below is a post I published on Jan. 27, Those Raleigh News & Observer's Stripper Ads, followed below the star line by comments Michelle Hillison, who self-IDs as a former N&O staffer, and I subsequently left at the Raleigh N&O's Editors' Blog.

John
________________________________________

Those Raleigh News & Observer Stripper Ads (posted 1/27/08)

At the Editors’ Blog, Raleigh N&O executive editor for news John Drescher recently posted Headline on target: Both Clintons v. Obama

To date Drescher’s post has drawn one comment. It’s from reader Michelle Hillison who posted on Jan. 23.

Hillison’s comment follows in full, after which I offer a comment and make a request.

To Editor Drescher - - -

This isn't about the post at hand but I was hoping you could address this either here or as a post - or direct me where to ask this.

I've worked in media for many years so I understand ads are necessary. I also understand the generic demographic for sports readers skews male so it sadly is the nature spot for the 'adult' entertainment ads.

While I don't like those ads, I fully understand why you take them and place them in sports.

However what I don't understand is days that you place them directly adjacent to high school sports coverage. I've seen it regularly and today was another example. There was a right side column on 7C with several HS stories that ended with an ad for a stripper.

I find that irresponsible. High school coverage draws young viewers and a photo of a porn star coming to town is not what those kids should have their attention drawn to in the paper.

In issues like this, I normally think this is falls (sic) parents to be the stewards of what their kids see but if the information is right next to it, there doesn't seem to be many options.

I accept you all are going to take the money for those adult ads and place them in the paper but I think the placement of them can be better managed. Is there an official policy in place about this? Or a rule of thumb?

I think the N&O overall should have as a policy that adult ads do not appear on a page with high school or younger sports coverage.

Folks, as of today, Jan. 26, Drescher has made no reply to Hillison.

After reading Hillison’s comment, I decided to offer one myself.

Here it is, followed by a request to you:

Dear Editor Drescher:

Why does the N&O advertise strippers and “Men’s Clubs?”

Yesterday, Jan. 25, the N&O even placed one of its provocative and illustrated stripper ads ( "Casey Parker -- Live & uncensored for 4 nights & 1 incredible lunch show" ) right below stories about women's tennis and figure skating, and right beside an ad for UNC - Chapel Hill women's basketball.

Ugh!

You should answer Michelle Hillison's questions.

And you should answer my questions about the N&O's use of Mike Nifong as an anonymous source for the stories in which you trashed the Duke lacrosse players for hiring strippers and in other ways abetted the frame-up attempt.

Many readers wish the N&O would stop making money by advertising strippers and "Man's Clubs."

But if the N&O is going to solicit money from strippers and “Men’s Clubs," can’t you at least run the ads beside and below the editorials and your column?

That way high-school age and younger readers will be less apt to see them.

Think about it.

Thank you for reading this.

Sincerely,

John in Carolina

I encourage readers to leave comments for Drescher on his EB post here. You can also contact the N&O’s publisher Orage Quarles III --- oquarles@newsobserver.com

Those of you who like twofers can leave a comment on Drescher’s post thread and paste the comment into your email to Quarles.

***********************************************************************

Comment from: michelle hillison [Visitor]

01/29/08 at 22:26

Wow John, finding your comments were a great surprise since I didn't find anything from Mr. Drescher. I don't know you but thanks a bunch.

Personally I'm saddened at this lack of response especially since I'm a former N&O employee. (I worked in new media and with sports from 97-00 and resigned on good terms).

I'm disappointed at no response.
___________________________________________

Comment from: John in Carolina [Visitor]

01/31/08 at 17:20
I'd like to comment to both Editor Drescher and Michelle Hillison.

To Editor Drescher:

Nine days have passed and you still haven't explained why the N&O solicits and publishes stripper ads.

Why does the N&O do that?

And why does the N&O often place those ads next to sports stories, including high school sports stories, where young readers are most apt to see them?

In the past, you posted a lengthy explanation of how the ampersand came to be part of the N&O's logo.

So why won't you explain why the N&O solicits and publishes stripper ads?

Also, you still haven't said anything about Ruth Sheehan's disclosures concerning the N&O's use of Mike Nifong as an anonymous news source back when the N&O was telling readers Crystal Mangum was "the victim," trashing the lacrosse players as drunken racists, and in many other ways helping enable Nifong’s and others attempted frame-up of Duke students.

A number of journalists have told me you owe the public an explanation concerning what Sheehan has said.

You should be candid with readers and give us full explanations concerning both the N&O’s stripper ads and any use(s) the N&O made of Nifong as an anonymous source.

Thank you for reading this.

To Michelle Hillision,

I appreciate your nice words but they’re undeserved.

You’re the one who raised a very important issue in a civil and fact-based way.

That Editor Drescher has not replied is no reflection on you.

His silence reflects on him and the N&O.

Let’s hope our second round of comments prompt Drescher to provide full and frank answers to our questions.

Sincerely,

John in Carolina

Did Obama say Hillary’s divisive?

An AP report begins:

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama said Wednesday a Hillary Rodham Clinton presidency would be a step back to the past, turning her husband's image of a bridge to the future against her. ...

Further along the AP says:

In his speech, Obama depicted Clinton as a calculating, poll-tested divisive figure who will only inspire greater partisan divisions as she sides with Republicans on issues such as trade, the role of lobbyists in politics and national security.

The entire AP report is here.

I couldn’t find any place in the story where Sen. Obama is actually quoted as saying Hillary is “divisive.”

How a public figure uses “divisive” when referring to another public figure is very important.

We’ve gone years now listening to Dem leaders and their MSM news flacks calling President Bush “divisive.” They use "divisive" as a pejorative term. .

They count on the public not to remember that every great American president and public leader has been divisive, sometimes very deliberately so.

Lincoln knew many of his policies could help bring on a civil war, but he pursued them in what he felt was the country’s best long-term interest.

FDR knew his request just months before Pearl Harbor for legislation to extend the service time of Army draftees would divide the Congress and country. He was right. The legislation passed the House by one vote after much bitter debate and a national outcry to “let the boys come home.”

Public figures, journalists and news organizations have used “divisive” as a pejorative term to attack President Bush and gain some partisan advantage.

Calling policy proposals and judicial nominations “divisive” has also become a way of sliming them and a cover for not giving them a fair hearing.

I hope Obama, who’s promising us change, is not going to go the route of sliming his opponents as ‘divisive.”

Obama should confront Hillary on the issues. If he does call her “divisive,” it ought to be because he can make the case that she is needlessly divisive.

The Churchill Series - Jan. 30, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

Churchill's father, Lord Randolph, treated him very harshly. For his part, Churchill did all he could to please his father, the hero of his youth whom he revered all his life.

Below are portions of two letters the father and son exchanged. They illustrate what I'm saying.

At the time Churchill was 19 and a cadet at Sandhurst. Lord Randolph had given him a gold watch; and later learned from the watchmaker, Mr. Dent, that it had twice been damaged while in Churchill's care. That prompted Lord Randolph's letter. The "Jack" Lord Randolph mentions is his son and Winston's younger brother by about five years.

21 April 1894

Dear Winston,
...
(Mr. Dent) told me (you had) with the utmost carelessness dropped it on a stone pavement & broken it badly.

(After repairs) Dent again received the watch and you told him it had been dropped in the water. He told me the whole of the works were horribly rusty.

I would not believe you would be such a young stupid. It is clear you are not to be trusted with a valuable watch & when I get it back from Mr. Dent I shall not give it back to you. ...

Jack has had the watch I gave him longer that you have had yours; the only expenses I have paid on his watch was 10/s for cleaning before he went back to Harrow.

(In) all qualities of steadiness taking care of his things & never doing stupid things Jack is vastly your superior.

Your very much worried parent,

Randolph S. Churchill

Winston replied the next day. His letter includes lengthy explanations of the circumstances in which the watch was damaged and what he did to set matters right. Here's what he told Lord Randolph about dropping the watch "in the water."

I placed the watch ...in my breast pocket - not having with uniform a waistcoat to put it in - and while walking along the Wish Stream I stooped down to puck up a stick and it fell out of my pocket into the only deep place for miles.

The stream was only about 5 inches deep - but the watch fell into a pool nearly 6 feet deep.

I at once took off my clothes and I dived for it but the bottom was so uneven and the water so cold that I could not stay in longer than 10 minutes and had to give it up.

The next day I had the pool dredged - but without result. On Tuesday therefore I obtained permission from the Governor to do anything I could provided I paid for having it all put straight again.

I then borrowed 23 men from the Infantry Detachment - dug a new course for the stream - obtained the fire engine and pumped the pool dry and so recovered the watch.

I tell you all this to show you that I appreciated fully the value of the watch and that I did not treat the accident in a casual way. The labour of the men cost me over (three pounds). ...

I am sorry to have written you such a long and stupid letter, but I do hope you will take it in some measure as an explanation.

With best love
I remain ever your loving son
Winston S. Churchill

Nothing Churchill did impressed Lord Randolph. To the end of his life he predicted his oldest son would be a failure and an embarrassment to the family name.
_____________________________________________________
Randolph S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill: Youth. (pgs. 209-213)