McClatchy gets more grim market news

First a brief corporate profile from the McClatchy Company which owns the liberal/leftist Raleigh News & Observer. Then some market news about McClatchy.

From a McClatchy PR piece - - -

The McClatchy Company is the third largest newspaper company in the United States, with 30 daily newspapers, approximately 50 non-dailies, and direct marketing and direct mail operations. McClatchy also operates leading local websites in each of its markets, which extend its audience reach.

The websites offer users comprehensive news and information, advertising, e-commerce and other services. Together with its newspapers and direct marketing products, these interactive operations make McClatchy the leading local media company in each of its premium high growth markets.

McClatchy-owned newspapers include The Miami Herald, The Sacramento Bee, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The Kansas City Star, The Charlotte Observer, and The (Raleigh) News & Observer.

McClatchy also owns a portfolio of premium digital assets, including 14.4% of CareerBuilder, the nation's largest online job site, and 25.6% of Classified Ventures, a newspaper industry partnership that offers two of the nation's premier classified websites: the auto website, cars.com, and the rental site, apartments.com.

McClatchy is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MNI.
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Now this link to a June 13 AP story – "Ahead of Bell: Newspapers downgraded."

That AP story led Douglas McIntyre, editor at 247wallst.com to post the following:

The newspaper industry was hit with another downgrade today, astonishing because almost all of the stocks in the sector are at 52-week lows.

Wachovia cut its ratings on several chains including Gatehouse (GHS), McClatchy (MNI), Gannett (GCI), Lee (LEE), and The New York Times Company (NYT).

According to the AP, "Analyst John Janedis expects total ad revenue to fall 10.4 percent in 2008 and 6.5 percent next year."

That kind of fall-off in revenue could be enough to undermine the ability of several of the debt-laden companies in the group to make interest payments.

It is now very likely that several of the companies in the sector will have to begin selling off properties by the end of the year. The firms may not be able to raise enough money to cover the entire amounts they have borrowed. That will leave their lenders hold (sic) the bags.

Folks, I think when McIntyre talks about firms not being “able to raise enough money to cover the entire amounts they have borrowed,” and thereby leaving their lenders holding “the bags,” he describing the kind of situation in which companies are forced to seek bankruptcy protection.

He just doesn’t want to use the “B” word.

What do you think?

BTW – According to AOL money & finance McClatchy’s stock ended the day, June 13, in afterhours trading at $7.77, close to its 52-week low of $7.51 and down from its 52-week high of $28.73.

Hat tip: Archer 05

NY Post: “McCain’s Oil Wrong”

The NY Post’s editorial yesterday follows. Then I comment below the star line.

Who's writing John McCain's campaign speeches - Michael Moore?

You'd think so, from the over-the-top rhetoric McCain used on Thursday night at Federal Hall, ripping into the nation's oil companies.

"I am very angry, frankly, at the oil companies," said the presumptive GOP presidential nominee. "Not only because of the obscene profits they've made, but their failure to invest in alternative energy to help us eliminate our dependence on foreign oil."

McCain also wants a "thorough and complete investigation of [oil] speculators."

Geez, where to begin?

OK, why should oil companies be investing in "alternative energy?" They're in the oil business, not the windmill business, for Pete's sake.

"Obscene profits"? To be sure, they're eye-popping in absolute dollars. But ExxonMobil's $40 billion in profit last year was based on $404 billion in sales - a fairly pedestrian 10 percent margin.

Industry-wide, profit margins average a relatively anemic 8.1 percent.

Speculators? They've likely played a role in the dizzying run-up in oil prices - but what's really driving the market is intense global demand and tight supply.

And McCain and his Greeniac buddies in Congress are in no small way responsible for that.

They've blocked exploration and drilling offshore and in any part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - likely repositories of some 100 billion barrels of oil and hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of natural gas.

Just the news that America's domestic energy sources were finally being tapped surely would discourage those "evil" speculators, and lower the price of crude. That, in turn, would help strengthen the weakened dollar - another reason for higher prices.

And it would create tens of thousands of American jobs in the process.

We understand that McCain relishes his reputation as a "maverick" Republican. But his demagoguery on the energy issue is truly disappointing.

How anyone who understands so clearly the necessity for resolutely fighting terrorism can be so obtuse on this equally critical issue is a true mystery.

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

Comments:

The Post lets the oil companies off too easy on the matter of their failure to do much research. But I’ll leave that for another day.

With the research caveat excepted, I agree with everything in the Post’s editorial, especially its noting McCain and others in the Congress have helped hold back energy development in the U. S. by catering to lobbying organizations that claim to represent “the environment.”

The Post’s rhetorical question as to how anyone who understands so clearly the necessity for resolutely fighting terrorism can be so obtuse on this equally critical issue is a good one.

Here are a couple of other questions for McCain:

He’s known for months he’ll be the GOP presidential nominee, and he knows he needs to convince people he won’t be Bush 3.

So why hasn’t the McCain campaign developed a comprehensive energy plan that includes conservation, research incentives, federal government backing for “green energy projects” such as Cape Wind, a review of energy project regulations to determine if some do more harm than good, and yes, drilling in ANWR and off our coasts?

McCain should be going all over the country now selling the public on an energy plan he’ll campaign on through November and work to implement should he become President.

President Bush has never proposed and fought for a comprehensive energy plan designed to make us as less dependent on foreign sources and as clean energy consumers as possible.

Can you think of many better ways for McCain to convince people he’s not Bush 3 while at the same time serving the country’s best interests, then by advocating a comprehensive energy program of the type outlined here?

Informal notes from Britain (post 2)

For background to this post, see Informal Notes from Britain(post 1).

I promised to say more about the overwhelmingly positive response of almost all Britons I’ve met to Sen. Barack Obama as a public figure as well as to his almost certain nomination as the Dems’ presidential candidate.

As a public figure Obama’s liked here for many of the same reasons people in the States like him: he’s “new,” “open,” “seems not like those others,” “reminds me of Kennedy,” and “we need someone young who’ll do new things.”

As in the States, Obama’s opposition to the Iraq war counts a lot in his favor.

Almost no one here knows who Tony Rezko is or anything about Obama’s connections to the Daley machine.

A few know Obama has a pastor who says “crazy things,” but they appear to think Jeremiah Wright just started saying those things and surprised Obama, who then quickly denounced Wright’s ravings. (Hey, isn’t that just what Team Obama wants everyone to believe?)

In sum, most people here are feeling very positive about Obama, but they know him at the level of the 15-second campaign ad.

As for Obama the Dems’ presidential nominee, everyone I’ve talked with thinks that’s a good thing for America.

But people differ on why it would be a good thing for America.

I’ll get into that in the next “notes” post.

Now, let’s talk about the price of gas a/k/a petrol in the U. K.

With averaging and rounding, and remembering as some of you cautioned that an Imperial gallon is not the same as what we in the States call a gallon, and using 3.78 liters = a gallon, a gallon of regular here costs the equivalent of about $8.80 to $9.00.

One of you provided on the thread of the first notes post the following:

A site for current UK gas prices:

http://www.petrolprices.com/

You may enter your postal location to locate the lowest price nearby.

A chart at the site claims an average of 1.17 UK pounds per liter = $8.86 per US gallon. Yow!

A breakdown of UK petrol taxes may be found here:

http://www.petrolprices.com/fuel-tax.html

The Brits need their own revolution.

I thank that person and the others of you who’ve commented on the thread.

I plan to post on the petrol/tax situation in Britain.

Also, one more “notes” post.

Rushing now, but not too hurried to reassure you all about lager and ale here: as great as ever.

Obama’s now a “free-market guy”

The Guardian’s Naomi Klein doesn’t like the changes we’ve been getting from “the change candidate” most MSM wants us “to believe in.”

Her column today begins - - -

Barack Obama waited just three days after Hillary Clinton pulled out of the race to declare, on CNBC: "Look. I am a pro-growth, free-market guy. I love the market."

Demonstrating that this is no mere spring fling, he has appointed the 37-year-old Jason Furman, one of Wal-Mart's most prominent defenders, to head his economic team.

On the campaign trail, Obama blasted Clinton for sitting on the Wal-Mart board and pledged: "I won't shop there."

For Furman, however, Wal-Mart's critics are the real threat: the "efforts to get Wal-Mart to raise its wages and benefits" are creating "collateral damage" that is "way too enormous and damaging to working people and the economy ... for me to sit by idly and sing Kum Ba Ya in the interests of progressive harmony".

Obama's love of markets and his desire for "change" are not inherently incompatible. "The market has gotten out of balance," he says, and it most certainly has. Many trace this profound imbalance to the ideas of Milton Friedman, who launched a counter-revolution against the New Deal from his perch at the University of Chicago.

And here there are more problems, because Obama - who taught law at Chicago for a decade - is embedded in the mindset known as the Chicago School.

Obama chose as his chief economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist on the left side of a spectrum that stops at the centre-right. Goolsbee, unlike his Friedmanite colleagues, sees inequality as a problem. His primary solution, however, is more education - a line you can also get from Alan Greenspan. Goolsbee has been eager to link Obama to the Chicago School.

"The guy's got a healthy respect for markets," he told Chicago magazine. "It's in the ethos of the [University of Chicago], which is something different from saying he is laissez faire."

Another of Obama's Chicago fans is the 39-year-old billionaire Kenneth Griffin, the CEO of the hedge fund Citadel.

Griffin, who gave the maximum allowable donation to Obama, is a poster boy for an unbalanced economy. He got married at Versailles, and is one of the staunchest opponents of closing the hedge-fund tax loophole.

While Obama talks about toughening trade rules with China, Griffin has been bending the few barriers that do exist. Despite sanctions prohibiting the sale of police equipment, Citadel has been pouring money into controversial China-based security companies that are putting the local population under unprecedented levels of surveillance. ...

The rest of Klein's column is here.

Comments:

Can anyone explain why by today, June 14, 2008 Klein or any other pundit is surprised Obama says one thing and then does something that contradicts what he said?

Why is Klein or anyone else surprised by now that Obama would attack a political opponent for Wal-Mart connections, and then cozy with a "big ticket" Wal-Mart supporter and puts that person in a Team Obama leadership position?

U. S. Army's 233rd Birthday

Our Army can proudly say today, June 14, 2008:

This 233rd U.S. Army birthday commemorates America’s Army – Soldiers, Families and Civilians – who are achieving a level of excellence that is truly Army Strong both here and abroad. Their willingness to sacrifice to build a better future for others and to preserve our way of life is without a doubt, the Strength of our Nation.

Every American has reason to give thanks to our Army and all our serving forces, veterans and the families who produced, love and sustain them.

No Churchill post June 13

I'm in England now and spending a lot of time with my family.

The Churchill Series will resume on June 16.

Thank you for your understanding.

John

News from “inside” the Raleigh N&O

In Spring 2006 the Raleigh News & Observer led the Duke lacrosse media witch hunt, trashing the students of the lacrosse team as racists and drunkards, and promulgating the “wall of silence” lie as it told readers about the “ordeal” of the “frightened young mother” which ended finally in “sexual violence.”

The N&O did all that even before Nifong began speaking publicly about what was a coordinated frame-up attempt in which the N&O used Nifong as an anonymous source.

The N&O hasn’t admitted that to this day, even as it’s reported the State Bar’s disbarment of Nifong and his later jailing for lying to the court about the case.
With that as background, we read the following excerpts from an N&O news competitor, WRAL. I comment below the star line.

WRAL begins - - -

The News & Observer is preparing to lay off about 10 percent of its newsroom staff and will announce other cuts affecting its news operation, sources inside the N&O tell WRAL.com.

A formal announcement may not come until next week, however. The N&O is part of the McClatchy (NYSE: MNI) newspaper chain, and the group reportedly is planning to announce corporate-wide cutbacks, one newsroom source said. McClatchy also owns The Charlotte Observer. …

Asked about layoffs, Felicia Gressette, vice president of marketing for the N&O who spoke on behalf of publisher Orage Quarles III, said, “We’re just not going to comment.”

When asked about other cost-cutting moves, Gressette noted: “Any changes will be announced in the N&O, not WRAL.com.”

The layoffs could affect as few as 15 or as many as 30 newsroom staffers, the sources said.

Numerous people had expected the layoffs to be made Monday following an announcement by John Drescher, the paper’s senior vice president and executive editor, at a recent staff meeting that layoffs would take place.

Gressette noted that Drescher talks often with the newsroom “about the great changes” the newspaper industry faces and that “more are headed our way.” Drescher did say that there would “likely be more staff reductions,” Gressette said. However, she added, that comment “did not mean there would be layoffs.”

“Management put out the word that layoffs were coming,” one source said. “There was no timeline.” Among the staff, “no one knows the criteria” that will be followed in determining who is let go, the source added.

A person in direct contact with several newsroom staffers described the atmosphere at The N&O as “incredibly anxious. … People are waiting for the hammer to fall.”

Word of the pending layoffs surprised many among the “rank and file,” according to one source who spoke on the basis of anonymity. They had expected that a series of voluntary buyouts offered by the N&O in April would be enough to pare newsroom expenses as the paper struggles with its finances, but, “Things just changed at the corporate level,” the insider said. …

Other cutbacks and changes include:

• The folding of the Business section into the City/State section. Business is currently published as a separate section, although the newspaper no longer runs extensive stock listings.

• The size of the space devoted to news will be reduced.

Drescher also could announce what a source described as a “major” reorganization of the news operation.

When asked about that move, Gressette said, “We are always looking for ways to be more efficient.”

The N&O recently said it would increase subscription prices. ...

The entire WRAL story’s here.

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

Comments:

I’m never glad to hear hard-working, able and honest employees are losing their jobs.

At the N&O, there are some reporters and editors of the type I’ve just mentioned.

There are also hundreds of N&O support staff – phone operators, accountants, security staff, subscription services staff and others – who are also “hard-working, able and honest employees.”

For all of those people, I’m sorry their jobs are at risk.

As for the people at the N&O who brought us those framing stories in Spring 2006 even as they knew they were biased or even outright false, I can’t summon any regret if they lose their jobs in the news industry.

I feel the same way about the people at the N&O who made the decision not to tell us our former ground commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, said in a prepared speech that most MSM in Iraq was biased against our military and that their reporting had caused the deaths of some of our forces. ( See On Sanchez: The N&O deceived us )

News reporting jobs need to be for people who report news.

Those who deceive us don’t belong at news organizations.

I’ll keep following this story.

Hat tip: Walter Abbott

Putting the best face on Obama’s Johnson mess

Newsweek’s Howard Fineman tries with this:

…What we learn is that Obama by instinct is no revolutionary, but rather a soothing semi-insurgent seemingly eager to reassure the very Establishments he claims to be eager to assault.

We learn that he has yet to master the art of keeping his cool when someone (an opponent or the press) has the temerity to question his decision-making. We learn that his first instinct is to brush off criticism with a flick of a finger.

But we also learn that Obama has absorbed much from his crash course in presidential campaigning. One lesson he has internalized is how to cut his losses quickly.

It took him months to ditch the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the Trinity Church of Christ.

It took him weeks to distance himself from the likes of Samantha Power.

It took Obama only a day to throw Johnson under the bus. …

Fineman’s entire article’s here.

I’m sure there are others in the Anything for Obama media club who are also trying their best for Sen. Obama, but my vote right now goes to Fineman.

If you find someone putting a better face on the Johnson mess, please let me know.

While visiting Westminster Abbey yesterday

Readers Note: I know many of you come to JinC and skip The Churchill Series posts.

No problem. Read what you like.

But visiting Westminster Abbey yesterday with my wife and granddaughter I thought of this "olden golden" series post and told myself only a cur would not enjoy it.

So I'm republishing it confident you'll all give it a look and smile.

John
__________________________________________________


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

This post is about Winston Churchill and Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation in June 1953. But not our Winston Churchill.

The Winston Churchill in this post is the great man’s grandson who, in his autobiographical Memories and Adventures, tells us a bit about what happened when he was invited to serve as a page at the Coronation. He was 12 at the time and attending Eton:

As may be imagined I was thrilled at the prospect of being a page at the Coronation, not least for the fact that it would mean getting away from school on at least three occasions, including twice for rehearsals. …

For the first rehearsal in May all those with specific parts to play in this splendid and ancient ceremony, excepting only the sovereign, were assembled in Westminster Abbey. We were directed to our places, under the eagle eye of the Duke of Norfolk, the hereditary Earl Marshal of England, and told precisely what was required of us at each point in the ceremony, from the highest functionaries of Church and State down to the smallest pageboy….

Though short of stature and ruddy of face and, viewed from across the great expanse of the Abbey, looking like nothing so much as Mr. McGoo, the Duke of Norfolk, trailing a long microphone lead behind him, instantly asserted his authority over the proceedings by the brusqueness of his commends but, above all, by his precise knowledge of every detail of the ceremony. …

There was a splendid moment when the Earl Marshal commanded the Archbishop of Canterbury: “Archbishop! Pray bring the crown!” The Archbishop shuffled off into a corner and reappeared a few moments later bearing a crown in his hands.

The Earl Marshal took one look at it from a distance and instantly proffered the stinging rebuke: “Archbishop! That is the wrong crown! Pray bring St. Edward’s Crown!”

It had an electric effect on the assembled company and thereafter, each one of us, from the Chiefs of Staff downwards, determined not to give the Earl Marshal any ground for offering us so stinging a public rebuke.

For the dress rehearsal just a few days before the great occasion, my mother supervised my turnout in minute detail, arranging for my hair to be cut and giving the barber precise instructions as to how it was to be done. No sooner had we arrived at the Abbey than I was accosted by Field Marshall Montgomery who could never readily restrain his instinct to be a busybody: “Boy! Tell your mother to get your hair cut before the day!”

I hope you’re smiling. Have a nice weekend.
_____________________________________________________
Winston S. Churchill, Memories and Adventures. (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) (pgs. 75-76)

The Churchill Series - Jun. 12. 2008

Folks,

Today's post is a "golden oldie" I've posted here.

I hope you're all back tomorrow.

John

Obama could learn from Rove and Reagan

So you think Sen. Barack Obama is sexy.

You don’t care that Obama listened to Rev. Wright’s racist and anti-American sermons and then brought his children to Wright’s church for their religious instruction.

OK.

But surely you don’t disagree with Karl Rove when he says today in the WSJ - - -

"Don't tell me words don't matter!" Sen. Barack Obama thundered at a Wisconsin Democratic Party dinner in February. He should have remembered that at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference last week.

There, Mr. Obama defended the outrageous promise he made last July to meet, during his first year as president and without precondition, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea. Mr. Obama's eagerness to undertake a "World Tyrants Tour" is both naive and foolhardy, and how he dealt with those concerns at AIPAC raises the question of whether he's done his homework.

Mr. Obama knew the audience was wondering what could come from such meetings, except propaganda victories for thugs and a loss of prestige for America. He tried to mitigate the damage of his promised meetings. But the man who criticizes George W. Bush for unilateralism ended up denouncing a multilateral approach to Iran, saying it would "outsource the sustained work to our European allies."

Mr. Obama also said he would practice "tough and principled diplomacy." There would be "careful preparation." He would "open up lines of communication, build an agenda, coordinate closely with our allies."

And then he brought up Ronald Reagan. He said he'd be "tough" like Reagan, who "understood that diplomacy backed by real leverage was a fundamental tool of statecraft."

But what do Mr. Obama's words mean? What would his preparations be? What would his agenda be? Does he want to coordinate closely with allies or not "outsource the sustained work" to them? And would he really be anything like Reagan?

As early as March 1975, Reagan described the leverage he would require before sitting down with the Soviets. His key insight was that "We need to remove [the Soviets'] incentive to race ahead by making it clear to them that we can and will compete . . . at the same time we tell them that we prefer to halt this competition and reduce the nuclear arsenals by patient negotiation." …

The rest of Rove’s column is here.

I hope Sen. Obama reads it. He could learn a lot from it.

Informal notes from Britain

The past 10 days I’ve been in the Britain with my wife and granddaughter.

This is about my 45th trip to the U. K. during the past 30 or so years.

I’d guess my total time spent here amounts to more than two years.

With that as background, I offer the following informal “this and that” notes from Britain in no particular order of importance - - -

People here are fed up with taxation to a degree I’ve never seen before.

Taxes are often the first subject people mention; and it doesn’t take much to get them started.

I walked into an antique shop the other day and greeted the woman with “How are you today?”

“I’d be a lot better if they hadn’t started taxing my pension.”

“I’m sorry that happened.”

“Then you don’t want to hear what they’re planning for the road tax.” (That’s a tax a lot like a property tax in the States on your car. I’m assured by friends here the government can and does seize your car within two months of your failure to pay the road tax.)

“But have a look around if you like.”

Almost all of what a British motorist or lorry driver pays for petrol is taxes.

Many people mention that and add: “You in America are so lucky to have gas at $4.00 a gallon. We’d be happy to pay that.” ( I don’t know what the price per gallon is here, but I’ll find out and let you know. If you know, please let me know, with a link if possible.)

I can sum up what just about all Brits I’ve listened to have said and what I glean from the newspapers with this:

“We went along with tax increases based on promises of better health care, better education standards, better control of immigration and greater public safety.”

“We got the higher taxes, but nothing got better.”

You’d guess from what I’ve just said that PM Gordon Brown’s Labour government’s in trouble; and you’d be right.

Polls show Labour at its lowest point in decades; trailing the Conservatives by 15 points or more.

Since British general elections are much more about party preference than our national elections, Labour’s current poor poll showings are far more significant than would be similar Rep-Dem preference poll findings.

If you ask people here what the U. K. voter preference poll numbers mean, they’ll tell you: “Labour’s lost the country.”

I hear that not just from Tories and Lib Dems; Labourties say the same thing.

Enough of British politics for now.

How are folks here looking at the Yanks?

Well, for one thing, the Dem nomination race has been widely followed, with most people favoring Sen. Obama.

I said “widely” because I was readying to say most people here haven’t followed the nomination contest to the point they have anything like what you’d call “some depth of understanding”

Typically, Obama is wonderful because “he’s young,” “seems to want to listen,” and “really excites me, although I know he needs to do more than that.” Hillary Clinton had support here because “she’s a woman” (same as in the States), and “she seems to know what she wants, and that’s good in a leader.”

With Obama now the nominee, almost everyone I talk to wants him to win.

I’ll say more about why tomorrow.

Now about the weather.

Many of you know the Eastern U. S. has been sweltering.

So are people here asking if I blame global warming for that?

No.

In fact, no one here’s brought up globel warming this trip.

That may be because many parts of England have just had one of their coldest and wettest Spring’s on record.

Final note - - -

With a few stinkers of the kind every country has excepted, I've find the British people extremely likable.

I wonder how they ever got the reputation of being standoffish.

They’re wonderful.

Fleischer shreds McClellan’s MSM “too soft” claim

Ari Fleischer was White House press secretary from January 2001 to July 2003. Writing today in the Guardian he get right to his main point - - -

Among the allegations in former White House press secretary Scott McClellan's book is his assertion that the national press corps was "too deferential to the White House", and that the media were "complicit enablers" of President Bush's agenda. The press, he charges, failed to aggressively question the rationale for war.

As someone whose duty it was to assume the position of a human piñata every day in the briefing room, I only wish Scott were right.

Liberals have made this charge for years, and prominent reporters have split their verdicts. Critics and journalists have also said they were intimidated after 9/11, and pulled back from tough questions.

Katie Couric, who was at NBC in the lead-up to the war, has called it "one of the most embarrassing chapters in American journalism".

ABC's Charlie Gibson says journalists did ask hard questions but that the White House didn't answer them.

At the risk of agreeing with one of my toughest protagonists in the briefing room, NBC's David Gregory, the press was tough, plenty tough. I have the scars - and the transcripts - to prove it.

Less than five hours after the September 11 attacks, as we flew on Air Force One, the travelling White House press corps asked me if the "president should be satisfied with the performance of the intelligence community". "Has he asked to find out where the gaps were," reporters demanded. "Is he concerned about the fact that this attack of this severity happened with no warnings?"

Even before the fires were out at the World Trade Centre, journalists pointed fingers and raised important questions. On a personal level they were stunned, like everyone else. On a professional level, they dug in.

Over the next few weeks - during the period when critics charge that the press did not do its job and was caught up in the post-9/11 patriotic fervour - I was challenged every day about intelligence mistakes, military plans and whether George Bush was "going soft" on Vladimir Putin to gain his support.

During the war in Afghanistan, I was grilled over the conduct of the war itself. I refused to answer questions about operational military details, questions that no White House press secretary should ever answer. I often returned to my office beaten down from the clashes in the briefing room. But those clashes have always been part of the job.

As for Iraq, as soon as Bush indicated that he was even considering using force against Saddam Hussein, the press challenged the White House. "Is the president willing to prepare to sacrifice American and Iraqi innocent lives to take out Saddam Hussein?" Helen Thomas asked in September 2002, more than six months before the war began.

In the lead-up to the war, no matter what position the president took, the press took the opposite.

One reporter quoted foreign leaders as saying that Bush would "destroy the war on terrorism" if he went to war, and of course almost all the press said Bush's actions were unilateral - despite support from Britain, Italy, Spain, Denmark and practically every nation in eastern Europe. …

There’s more refutation by Fleischer here.

I hope you read his entire column.

IMO – The column is a “clip-and-save” to have handy the next time you see some of the McClellan “MSM too soft on Bush” nonsense in your local paper and decide you’ll write the editor and set the record straight.

You couldn’t cite a better source than Fleischer. He has "the scars - and the transcripts - to prove" what he says.

And he provides some powerful examples to cite in your letter.

Kerry sails out of his depth

From John McCain. com with my comments below the star line.

Among the accusations he leveled this morning, Senator Kerry said Senator McCain "confuses the history going back to 682 of what has happened to Sunni and Shia."

Now, we at the McCain Report have been receiving a great number of panicked emails from supporters all morning, deeply troubled by Senator Kerry's suggestion that Senator McCain is anything less than totally familiar with the finer points of 7th century Islamic history. And frankly, we were worried too, at first.

After all, we know that -- more than keeping America safe from its enemies abroad, more than getting our economy back on track, more than breaking through the partisan gridlock that is preventing Washington from solving the problems we as a nation face -- Americans want, nay demand, that their next Commander in Chief is intimately familiar with the "history going back to 682 of what has happened to the Sunni and Shia."

There's only one thing that gives us pause. The date Senator Kerry cited this morning -- 682 A.D. -- has no significance in explaining the sectarian schism between Sunnis and Shiites.

Shiites trace the split to 632 A.D. -- the year that Muhammed died -- not 682. The battle of Karbala -- one of the most important battles in the history of Islam, commemorated by Shia Muslims the world over during the holiday of Ashura -- took place in 680 A.D. Still two years off.

Now, obviously, it would be more than a bit ironic if it turned out that Senator Kerry himself -- in the midst of pompously trying to show off his superior knowledge and erudition -- got confused about the history of the Sunni-Shiite schism. But based on his adroit performance in the 2004 presidential campaign, we're sure that he'd never commit such a gaffe.

Still, we can't help but wonder -- just what exactly was Senator Kerry talking about?
*************************************************************

Comments:

I hope the Shiites and Sunnis at least agree Kerry’s never released all his Navy records or spent Christmas in Cambodia.

The Churchill Series - Jun. 11, 2008

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

In yesterday's post I said:

Whenever Churchill’s wartime leadership is discussed, his determination and ability to inspire hope are invariably cited as two of his most important leadership qualities. There’s no doubt about the importance of either of those qualities.

But I want to introduce here and in a follow-up post tomorrow something I think was very important to the success of Churchill’s wartime leadership, but doesn’t receive much attention from historians.

It’s what for want of a better term I’ll call Churchill’s ability to remind people at certain key psychological moments about "on the other hand.”

Churchill used not the words “on the other hand” but the sense of their meaning to help the British people moderate the emotional highs that followed victories and the lows that followed defeats. He knew emotional "roller coasters" could destroy the constancy the public needed to see the war through to final victory.

As he so often said, "In war, resolution."

Today I want to share with you an appreciation of Churchill's "on the other hand" leadership found in Jon Meacham's Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship.

Meacham explains how Churchill presented to the British people the news of the great victory at El Alamein in November, 1943:

[Churchill] did not want the good news from North Africa to lull his listeners into thinking the hard work was over. "I promise nothing," Churchill said. "I predict nothing."

Winning battles did not mean winning the war, and just as the British has borne early defeats with equanimity, so now they must resist overreacting to success.

This was insightful psychological leadership on a grand scale: The natural reaction of a war-weary people to the glory of El Alamein – it had indeed been a long time since London could celebrate a victory – was to exhale and begin to think that perhaps the worst was over.

Churchill knew better and told the nation so. “I know of nothing that has happened yet which justifies the hope that the war will not be long, or that bitter and bloody years do not lie ahead,” he said.
(p. 203)

Between them, Churchill and Meacham make my point so well there’s nothing I feel I need to add except to wish you a nice day.

John

Drill for ANWR oil? Sure, we’ll get natural gas, too.

Here’s some of a June 9 USA Today editorial. I comment below the star line.

Surging gasoline prices have prompted renewed calls for drilling in environmentally sensitive areas, particularly Alaska's potentially oil-rich Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

We supported drilling in ANWR long before gas topped $4 a gallon and continue to do so. But let's be clear about what it would and wouldn't do.

It wouldn't bring relief from today's high prices, as President Bush implied Monday. And it wouldn't make the United States energy independent.

So does that mean, as critics suggest, that it's not worth doing? Not at all.

Drilling in ANWR and offshore is an important piece of any long-term strategy to make the nation less vulnerable to oil-producing nations and supply disruptions. It is one of many imperfect steps needed to both increase the supply of oil and curb the demand for it, while seeking energy alternatives.

It's true that any serious oil production from ANWR would take about 10 years. But dealing with the energy situation requires an ability to look beyond quick fixes. The fact is, ANWR oil would be flowing now if President Clinton hadn't vetoed a drilling bill in 1995.

Environmentalists charge that drilling would despoil a pristine area in northern Alaska that is about the size of South Carolina and is a critical habitat for caribou, musk oxen, bears and birds. In fact, exploration in the 19 million-acre refuge would be confined to 1.5 million acres, and drilling to just 2,000 acres, an area less than half that of Atlanta's airport. …

The entire editorial is here.

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

Comments:

I’m mostly in agreement with USA Today’s editorial.

However, I wish the editors, as well as saying,

” [ANWR drilling] is one of many imperfect steps needed to both increase the supply of oil and curb the demand for it, while seeking energy alternatives[;]”

had gone on to say something like this:

”ANWR drilling will surely make available a great amount of energy in the form of natural gas, which is environmentally safer to extract, easier and environmentally safer to transport, and a ‘clear burn’ when consumed.

“in fact, it’s very likely ANWR drilling will produce as much or more energy in the form of natural gas than as oil.”

“That leaves us wondering why the Bush administration has failed to stress that fact when advocating drilling.”

“We’re also left to wonder why environmental organizations continue to oppose drilling in ANWR when they know the alternative is more environmentally costly hauling of a greater amount of oil over a greater distance, with that hauling producing greater energy consumption than need be if the energy was produced closer to the continental U. S. market.”

Where's Obama on "Durbin's pal and prisoner abuse?"

Back on June 17, 2005 I published Durbin's pal and prisinor abuse.

I'm reposting it today because presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has quite rightly been outspoken in his denunciation of prisoner abuse by members of the American military.

But as far as I know, he's done very little about prisoner abuse in the Cook County Jail not far from his home.

The jail is notorious as one of the worst in America. It's been run for decades by members of the same Daley machine that Obama's a part of.

At the end of the post, I provide an update.

John
__________________________________________________


(Welcome visitors from Betsy's Page, Captain's Quarters, Michelle Malkin, Ombusmax and The Mudville Gazette. Please consider writing a letter to your editor expressing your thoughts and feelings about Senator Durbin's abominations. Thanks, John)

Illinois Democrat Senator Richard Durbin compared American servicemen and women serving at Guantanamo to Hitler's Nazis, Stalin's gulag thugs, and Pol Pot's murderers.

But I could find no criticism by Durbin of his pal, political ally and Cook Country's Democrat Sheriff, Michael F. Sheahan, who's run the notorious Cook County Jail since 1990. I used Google and Yahoo search engines. The Senator's office didn't return a phone call inquiry about Sheahan and prisoner abuse at the jail.

During the 15 years Sheahan’s run Cook County Jail, there have been numerous reports by rights groups, attorneys, and a grand jury documenting systematic prisoner abuse there, including rapes and beatings by guards.

Legal action by Chicago University's Law School's public-service law firm, The MacArthur Justice Center, led to a grand jury finding that a failure by Sheahan’s office to investigate prisoner beatings constituted “obstruction of justice.” The MacArthur site details other actions its brought against Sheahan and other responsible officials.

In a Chicago Tribune op-ed, MacArthur attorney Jean Maclean Snyder gave readers this graphic example of prisoner abuse at Cook County Jail:

(a) squad of 40 guards took over a maximum-security division of the jail in 1999 for the sole purpose of beating and terrorizing the prisoners. A jail investigator determined that the guards' misconduct was covered up by Cook County medical personnel, who filed false reports and refused or delayed treatment to the prisoners, and by the Cook County inspector general, who refused to cooperate with the investigation.

Snyder want on to describe a meeting with a prisoner who'd been beaten:

the whites of his eyes were nearly obscured by the red from blood vessels that had ruptured during the beating, and deep lacerations were held together by staples that had been applied to his scalp.

Chicago newspapers have reported and spoken out against the abuses in Cook County Jail.

Now they and the rest of the national media who've given voice to Senator Durbin's attack on the military need to ask him about his pal, Sheriff Sheahan, and Cook County Jail.
__________________________________________________________

Update:

Sheehan is no longer sheriff, but the jail is still run by members of the Daley machine.

The media has been shy, to say the least, about asking Sen. Obama about abuses in the jail so close to his home and run by his political supporters.

A group of attorneys in Chicago representing prisoners who they say have been tortured in the Cook County jail are fighting the Daley machine for disclosure and accountability. You can read more about it here, where you'll find 20 questions the attorneys have been pressing Daley and some of his aides to answer.

I'll report again on this story in a few days.

The Churchill Series - Jun. 10, 2008

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

Whenever Churchill’s wartime leadership is discussed, his determination and ability to inspire hope are invariably cited as two of his most important leadership qualities. There’s no doubt about the importance of either of those qualities.

But I want to introduce here and in a follow-up post tomorrow something I think was very important to the success of Churchill’s wartime leadership but doesn’t receive much attention from historians.

It’s what for want of a better term I’ll call Churchill’s ability to remind people at certain key psychological moments about "on the other hand.”

Churchill used not the words “on the other hand” but the sense of their meaning to help the British people moderate the emotional highs that followed victories and the lows that followed defeats. He knew emotional "roller coasters" could destroy the constancy the public needed to see the war through to final victory.

As he so often said, "In war, resolution."

So, for example, in the midst of the national euphoria following “the miracle of Dunkirk” in May/June 1940 which delivered almost all their army on the Continent back safe to the home island, Churchill reminded his countrymen “wars are not won by evacuations.”

(to be continued tomorrow)

When a church agrees to be tax exempt

The other day I posted Readers comment on Obama's Revs' tax exampt status. It's drawn a number of comments. I urge you to read the thread, if you haven't already done so.

I want to comment here on two of the comments.

Here are the comments in italics, with my responses in plain.

First Commenter - - -

The Black church has been a place for preaching on politics and social issues for a long time. History and tradition support this. If America wants to challenge this they will have to do so in a whole lot of churches, not just Trinity.

There's been politics preached in churches with black and white congregations for a long time. But that doesn't make it right, especially when a church accepts tax exempt status with the expressed understanding and agreement it will avoid political activity.

There's nothing preventing a church which fore goes tax exempt status from engaging in political activity.

You can call it a double standard if you want but I hope that there is not an attempt to take the discussion of politics out of the HBC.

I just explained above how any church can engage in "the discussion of politics," if it wishes.

What you seem to be advocating is a situation where certain churchs can violate their agreement to stay out of politics in exchange for tax exempt status.

Do I have that right?

Just a big can of worms. It is what it is. In my opinion it is not so much a democract vs republican double standard. The fact is most Black churches are made up of democrats and the discussion from the alter of politics is the norm.

The next commenter very effectively refutes the key points in your last sentences so I'll yield to that commenter.

Second Commenter - - -

Would you care to explain why "it is what it is" is any different from the old segregationist refrain "we've always done it like that?"

This double standard flies in the face of every principle this nation was founded upon. What would be your reaction to a White racist rant from the pulpit of a church? Would you feel that was harmless and supported by "history and tradition?"

The Second Commenter's reference to the "history and tradition" of pulpit politics which has included white racist rants as well as black racist rants, is a reminder of why we should keep politics out of the pulpits.

Also - if I may put it this way - for God's sake the American public shouldn't support any pulpit politicking by granting tax exempt status to churches and other house of worship which do it.

BUSH DIDN’T LIE ABOUT IRAQ. SURPRISED?

Regulars have no doubt noticed whenever I report or comment on bias and rank dishonesty evidenced by MSM organizations, I do one of two things: either specify the journalist/commenter and particular news/opinion outlet involved, or, in those cases where the bias and/or dishonesty is appearing in most outlets (eg. the Duke lacrosse hoax coverage ), qualify my criticisms with words like “most,” “almost all,” etc.

Doing such qualification can “slow the story flow” and even seem awkward at times, but its fair to the folks in MSM who are doing a good job covering whatever I’m writing about.

And it’s fair to you, readers, because most of you don’t want “the innocent charged with the guilty.” You appreciate my standard even if it “slows the flow.”

Today, there's an example of why its important to use qualifiers. A leading journalist at the Washington Post, its editorial page editor Fred Hiatt, has used his editorial page to present to WaPo readers , who include almost all the Washington establishment, including the Inside the Beltway media, critically important news and commentary that directly contradicts what most of them have been saying.

Hiatt makes clear the “Bush lied about Iraq” crowd were and are wrong. And he tells readers why what he calls “the phony ‘Bush lied’ story line” which so much of MSM and the Dems propagated is dangerous for America.

Hiatt’s column follows in full, with no subsequent comment by me.

Search the Internet for "Bush Lied" products, and you will find sites that offer more than a thousand designs. The basic "Bush Lied, People Died" bumper sticker is only the beginning.

Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, set out to provide the official foundation for what has become not only a thriving business but, more important, an article of faith among millions of Americans. And in releasing a committee report Thursday, he claimed to have accomplished his mission, though he did not use the L-word.

"In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when it was unsubstantiated, contradicted or even nonexistent," he said.

There's no question that the administration, and particularly Vice President Cheney, spoke with too much certainty at times and failed to anticipate or prepare the American people for the enormous undertaking in Iraq.

But dive into Rockefeller's report, in search of where exactly President Bush lied about what his intelligence agencies were telling him about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, and you may be surprised by what you find.

On Iraq's nuclear weapons program? The president's statements "were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates."

On biological weapons, production capability and those infamous mobile laboratories? The president's statements "were substantiated by intelligence information."

On chemical weapons, then? "Substantiated by intelligence information."

On weapons of mass destruction overall (a separate section of the intelligence committee report)? "Generally substantiated by intelligence information." Delivery vehicles such as ballistic missiles? "Generally substantiated by available intelligence." Unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to deliver WMDs? "Generally substantiated by intelligence information."

As you read through the report, you begin to think maybe you've mistakenly picked up the minority dissent. But, no, this is the Rockefeller indictment. So, you think, the smoking gun must appear in the section on Bush's claims about Saddam Hussein's alleged ties to terrorism.

But statements regarding Iraq's support for terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda "were substantiated by intelligence information." Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda "were substantiated by the intelligence assessments," and statements regarding Iraq's contacts with al-Qaeda "were substantiated by intelligence information." The report is left to complain about "implications" and statements that "left the impression" that those contacts led to substantive Iraqi cooperation.

In the report's final section, the committee takes issue with Bush's statements about Saddam Hussein's intentions and what the future might have held. But was that really a question of misrepresenting intelligence, or was it a question of judgment that politicians are expected to make?

After all, it was not Bush, but Rockefeller, who said in October 2002: "There has been some debate over how 'imminent' a threat Iraq poses. I do believe Iraq poses an imminent threat. I also believe after September 11, that question is increasingly outdated. . . . To insist on further evidence could put some of our fellow Americans at risk. Can we afford to take that chance? I do not think we can."

Rockefeller was reminded of that statement by the committee's vice chairman, Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.), who with three other Republican senators filed a minority dissent that includes many other such statements from Democratic senators who had access to the intelligence reports that Bush read. The dissenters assert that they were cut out of the report's preparation, allowing for a great deal of skewing and partisanship, but that even so, "the reports essentially validate what we have been saying all along: that policymakers' statements were substantiated by the intelligence."

Why does it matter, at this late date? The Rockefeller report will not cause a spike in "Bush Lied" mug sales, and the Bond dissent will not lead anyone to scrape the "Bush Lied" bumper sticker off his or her car.

But the phony "Bush lied" story line distracts from the biggest prewar failure: the fact that so much of the intelligence upon which Bush and Rockefeller and everyone else relied turned out to be tragically, catastrophically wrong.

And it trivializes a double dilemma that President Bill Clinton faced before Bush and that President Obama or McCain may well face after: when to act on a threat in the inevitable absence of perfect intelligence and how to mobilize popular support for such action, if deemed essential for national security, in a democracy that will always, and rightly, be reluctant.

For the next president, it may be Iran's nuclear program, or al-Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan, or, more likely, some potential horror that today no one even imagines. When that time comes, there will be plenty of warnings to heed from the Iraq experience, without the need to fictionalize more.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/08/AR2008060801687.html