Bob Kerrey: Not a Big Fan of the Blogosphere?

Omaha World-Herald columnist Robert Nelson e-mailed Bob Kerrey for his response to the Nebraska Republican and Democratic Parties using their websites to attack potential candidates of the opposing party - himself and Mike Johanns, respectively.   Kerrey's reply to Nelson suggests he's not particularly fond of the effect blogs and the Internet have had on American politics. "In the old days (before the Web)... a 'name-caller' had to get a newspaper, radio, or television to include their insult in a story. Today the parties publish their own stories and the blogs add to the mix. "The fact that The World-Herald asks me to respond to a political Web site is evidence the world has changed. The tail is wagging the dog. "Couple this...with a decline in the number of radio, television and print reporters who cover politics and you have a lethal mix. The public drinks this stuff and something good dies." There's definitely a lot of truth to Kerrey's concerns. But, despite the polarization and raw partisanship with which Kerrey is right to take issue, it's unfortunate that he should fail to acknowledge the positive contributions to democratic discourse in our country made possible by the new media.

Also, it's worth noting that here we're talking about partisan attacks by political parties that are inherently - by definition - partisan. It's not very idealistic, but there's something to be said for this being their primary purpose. Either way, such attacks certainly didn't begin with the advent of the Internet - just one more outlet beyond the parties' traditional press releases, which have often tended towards ugliness and spitefulness over the years. If anything, the Internet has made it possible for political parties to bypass the middle men in the press and take their message directly to the people. This certainly changes the dynamics of modern campaigning, but it also heightens the dangers for political parties that go too far and run the risk of shooting themselves in the foot with voters when left to pursue their worst impulses unchecked. Such a system provides more information to the people and puts more power to hold politicians accountable directly in their hands. That can't be a bad thing - at least, not entirely. At the same time, there are sites like New Nebraska Network - which I like to imagine being above the fray...even while admitting we don't always live up to that standard. Still - despite his understandable comments above - I hope Kerrey recognizes our potential to serve the good rather than simply snuffing it out. As we look to 2008 and what is already shaping up to be a very contentious campaign season, I trust NNN will be a positive force in Nebraska politics - overcoming the cheap and the easy while still having fun in the process.

Go to full text...

Harold W. Andersen Announces World-Herald Departure

Under the guise of entering the "electronic telecommunications age" upon the suggestion of friends, it appears the Omaha World-Herald is finally kicking former editor and publisher Harold W. Andersen to the curb after years of filling its opinion page with increasingly insufferable inanity.
 
Andersen is, of course, an institution in the Nebraska press, but his ultimate legacy is one of unprincipled partisanship, protecting and projecting the World-Herald's singular position of power in Nebraska politics.  Andersen has always been keenly aware of the World-Herald's influence, and he has never been shy to use that influence to advance the paper's corporate, conservative agenda - in its reporting as well as on its opinion page.  Since retiring as publisher in 1989 (after being implicated in a series of bizarre allegations involving influence-peddling and even child sex abuse), Andersen has been been officially confined to duties as a twice-weekly columnist. But the spirit of his reign has survived pretty well intact.  One hopes the symbolism of Andersen's departure, the need for change in the face of declining readership, and a new generation of reporters and columnists untainted by past regimes might allow for a true change of course at the World-Herald, embracing an ethic of responsible reporting that actually challenges Nebraska's powers that be rather than positioning itself for pre-eminence amongst them.  But, let's face it - this is the World-Herald, folks. I wouldn't count on it.  By the way, Andersen promises that he will continue to make new columns available at www.HaroldAndersen.com after his last World-Herald column on September 30th. Thank God for that. I can't imagine what the people of Nebraska would do without Andersen telling us what to think.

Go to full text...

Obermeyer's View of....the Omaha World-Herald

Nebraska cartoonist Neal Obermeyer had a pair of classics this week. I'm not quite scoundrel enough to lift both of them for NNN purposes, no matter how big a fan.

Still, I'm happy to share the following as we kick-off the Labor Day weekend. As published in this week's Omaha Reader:

Also, be sure to check out Obermeyer's most recent depiction of Hal Daub. I've given the old man a hard enough time lately, but it would be downright impolite of me not to share.

Go to full text...

ES&S Faces $10 Million Fine in California

The Omaha World-Herald's corporate sibling, Election Systems & Software (ES&S), continues to gain negative publicity - even if it never makes it into the Nebraska press (for quite obvious reasons).

After last week's damning report by Dan Rather on the conditions under which their machines are manufactured and the defects in their finished product, now comes word of a very serious failure to properly certify ES&S machines that could end up costing the company millions of dollars.  The Inquirer reports:

The California Secretary of State's office announced today that it is investigating ES&S for allegedly selling uncertified voting machines in violation of state elections laws. ES&S's Automark 100 voting machines have been certified in California since August 2005. However, ES&S is accused of selling its later model Automark 200 machines before they had been tested by the Federal government in August 2006. The Automark 200 machine still has not been submitted to the State for its examination and certification, according to a Secretary of State spokesperson....  

According to California law, ES&S could be fined $10,000 per uncertified machine, or $10 million dollars for 1,000 machines. In addition, ES&S could be required to make full refunds to counties that bought the uncertified machines, which reportedly would cost another $5 million dollars. ES&S could also be barred from doing business anywhere in the State of California for one to three years, which could mean headaches and unanticipated voting machine replacement costs for the 14 counties that currently have ES&S voting machines. It's not known how many such uncertified voting machines ES&S might have sold in other states.

I've called for the World-Herald to divest from ES&S several times out of principle. But, with these sorts of liabilities and this level of incompetence, it might be time to consider divesting to protect their own economic interests.

Go to full text...

Did Chuck Hagel's Slap Down of Republican House Leader Even Get Reported by the Omaha World-Herald?

Seriously, five days ago, Sen. Chuck Hagel delivered as straight-forward and stunning a rebuke to the Republican Party's entire Iraq War noise machine as any that has been reported across the country. Without resorting to sound bytes - simply stating the facts - Hagel managed to single-handedly debunk every fantastical notion of success just around the corner that Congressional Republicans and the Bush Administration continue grasping onto in such sick desperation.
 
In particular, Hagel embarrassed House Minority Leader John Boehner with his merciless recitation of the cold, hard facts. At the same time, he shamed Nebraska's Republican Congressmen - who spent the week fundraising with Boehner across Nebraska, earning every blood-drenched dollar with their silent embrace of Boehner's and Bush's Iraq War fantasies.

Still, to my knowledge, the Omaha World-Herald managed to completely neglect coverage of Hagel's outright refutation of the party-line concocted by Boehner and his ilk. Did I miss something or is this oversight nothing short of outrageous on the part of Nebraska's supposed paper of record?

Even though Hagel's statements may have been made to the Lincoln Journal-Star, it's impossible to justify disregarding their importance or their implications for the national political scene and for Nebraska's stooge-like House delegation. A sitting U.S. Senator from Nebraska denounced his own party's leader in the House of Representatives - essentially calling him a liar or a fool - and we're left to assume our state's largest and most powerful newspaper somehow didn't find that newsworthy. Are you kidding me?

Once again, the World-Herald proves itself either incompetent or corrupt for keeping the people of Nebraska in the dark on issues and stories that are not convenient to its Republican political bent. Nothing we haven't seen before (or, failed to see, as the case may be). But, this is definitely a failure we must rage against if we're ever to put the World-Herald on notice that Nebraskans might - one day - expect better and find themselves seeking a more honest alternative.

Go to full text...

Public Pulse Taken Over by Republican Spin in Omaha Budget Battle

Ten days ago, Omaha Republican City Councilmen Jim Vokal and Chuck Sigerson attempted to embarrass Democratic Mayor Mike Fahey and to pin the blame on him for not doing enough to prevent Omaha's rash of gun violence this summer. To do so, they leaked a letter they'd sent last December recommending a temporary increase in property taxes to fund a temporary increase in the number of police officers. Leaving out the obvious but highly-relevant fact of who had released this letter in the first place, the Omaha World-Herald reported: Fahey's chief of staff, Paul Landow, said the...council members privately sent the letter to Fahey but didn't push the issue further. "If they were really interested in adding 50 police officers, why didn't they say it publicly at the time?" Landow asked.....   Landow also said Fahey has been steadily increasing the number of police officers, including adding 15 officers in 2007 and another 15 next year. But Fahey won't be calling for a temporary surge in police officers, Landow said.   In their letter, the council members suggested that the number of officers increase by 40 to 50, then decrease after three years, or after violence in north Omaha has lessened. Under the plan, the tax increase that would fund the officers would also be rolled back.   Landow said the idea of a temporary surge in police officers is unworkable. "What are we supposed to do at the end of the three years? Fire all the additional cops?" So, essentially, Fahey is planning a permanent addition of 30 police officers rather than the 40 - 50 temporary officers Vokal and Sigerson had recommended. And, Fahey is budgeting for these new officers without relying on the property tax increases Vokal and Sigerson had called for last December. It's rather ridiculous that they would even attempt to milk that difference for political gain, particularly when Omaha's Police Chief, Thomas Warren, had just told the Council, "I'm comfortable with the personnel allocation that we are proposing for the 2008 budget." Honestly, it's sad that the World-Herald even printed this sad bit of partisan spin attacking Fahey and playing on people's increased fears about local crime. But, having opened that door, it was only fair that Fahey's office decided to fight back:

Mayor Mike Fahey's chief of staff is accusing two City Council members of playing politics when it comes to addressing gun violence. Chief of Staff Paul Landow said Councilmen Jim Vokal and Chuck Sigerson have alternately advocated in letters to the mayor for both an increase and a decrease in the city's property tax rate....   Vokal and Sigerson...wrote Fahey last December that they would support a tax rate increase in 2008 to hire an additional 40 to 50 police officers. Then in June, Sigerson and Vokal wrote Fahey asking him to lower the property tax rate in response to what was projected to be a significant increase in property valuations....   "It's clearly disingenuous, political nonsense," Landow said. "One minute they are calling for a tax increase, and the next they want a decrease. Which is it?"..... Landow said the shifting positions were intended to bolster Vokal's possible mayoral bid in 2009. "This is all being done in the name of political ambition." Thoroughly established as opportunists and flip-floppers taking advantage of the surge in gun violence for their own political purposes, you'd expect Vokal and Sigerson to shut up. Instead, today's World-Herald ran three curiously-timed and similar-sounding letters in the Public Pulse that attempt one last time to shamelessly spin the fears and heartache of Omaha families to the Republican Party's advantage: Mayor Mike Fahey claims to want input from community leaders in an effort to solve Omaha's crime wave. But where was this concern in December when City Councilmen Jim Vokal and Chuck Sigerson offered to work with the mayor on addressing the sudden increase in gun violence in Omaha? Omaha has again seen a dramatic increase in violent crime this summer. Now, Fahey accuses the councilmen, through his Chief of Staff Paul Landow, of playing politics. If Fahey had been attentive to Omaha's needs and responded to the councilmen's ideas in December, maybe he wouldn't need to play politics now. Possible solutions already would have been in the works.   Joe Risko, Omaha ------------------- Landow called the efforts by Vokal and Sigerson politically ambitious. This is ridiculous. Landown's attempt to twist the facts of the situation and turn it into a political attack is abhorrent. In December, Vokal and Sigerson proposed increasing the number of police officers in Omaha by 40 to 50 and were willing to authorize additional funding to do so. But Fahey refused this offer. In June, Vokal and Sigerson responded to the de facto tax increase caused by property valuation increases by demanding a tax cut. These two positions are entirely consistent. Vokal and Sigerson are in favor of using additional funding to curb violence in Omaha with additional police officers. They are not in favor of raising tax revenues through higher assessments just to pad city coffers. It is time for Landow and Fahey to quit playing politics and start doing something to keep our children from dying on the streets of Omaha.   Scott Knudsen, Omaha ------------------- It seems to me that when these councilmen sent a letter to Fahey back in December, they were putting the interests of the people of Omaha above their own political futures. When it became clear to the them that their suggestion to add more police to stifle a crime wave was rejected, they were free to move on to resolve another increasing problem: Douglas County Assessor Roger Morrissey's desire to increase taxable property valuations. As a voter, I prefer leadership that is sensitive to the changing landscape of the city, not oblivious to it.   Pete D. Pedersen, Omaha I always hate to see the opinion page littered with these faux-letters pre-manufactured by party hacks and signed with the names of loyal Republican footsoldiers. It's sort of amusing, however, how each of these three letters contains its own carefully-crafted message attempting to obscure Vokal and Sigerson's hypocrisy while turning the tables on Fahey and Landow for who's really "playing politics." Of course, in this little skirmish, the real question of who was "playing politics" begins and ends with who first tried to use this issue for their partisan advantage. Clearly, that was Vokal and Sigerson. They simply got out-played, despite the World-Herald giving them every possible advantage. The facts speak for themselves. Sadly, the World-Herald appears to be concerned very little with Letters to the Editors adhering to those facts, instead allowing fabrication by repetition on its own opinion page.

Go to full text...

Note to Omaha World-Herald: There's No Excusing Karl Rove

Yesterday's Omaha World-Herald included an editorial that went out of its way to make a false and preposterous equivocation between political strategist and White House adviser Karl Rove (aka "Bush's Brain"; aka "The Architect"; aka "Turdblossom") and political players from year's past - particularly in the Clinton years:

The purpose of political parties and their operatives, so it is said, is to win elections. Karl Rove, about to depart the Bush administration 17 months shy of its eight-year limit, devoted himself fervently to that purpose. Just as people like James Carville did for Bill Clinton and other partisan devotees did for presidents long ago.......  

[A]s 2004 nominee John Kerry said this week, "the politics of division may win some elections but cannot govern America." But he ascribed the proof to Rove alone, as though Clinton's team didn't do its share. The pursuit of electoral success and the formation of wise public policy can be mutually exclusive.... 

Leave it to practitioners of his trade to weigh Rove's success or failure in building the long-term Republican majority that he craved. (That is, after they analyze how a more deeply rooted Democratic regime in Congress crumbled more quickly on the watch of Carville & Co.)

The World-Herald reveals its bias quite plainly for all to see by writing as if Rove's notoriety were a fabrication rather than a reflection of his singular legacy in modern American politics.

To suggest, as the World-Herald does, that the Clinton White House practiced the same "politics of division" as Rove and the Bush Administration is - frankly - a damn lie. Clinton - in policy-terms and in presentation - was always a uniter seeking to bridge the gaps that predominate in American life. Bush, on the other hand - under Rove's tutelage - long ago embraced a presidency of paranoia and endless power plays that saw a sitting president campaign for re-election speaking almost exclusively to audiences that had to sign a pledge of support to even get past security. Gone was even the pretense of representing a united American public. Rove's was a game of numbers - pure and simple - in which victory was not just the ultimate goal but the only principle.

It is absurd and patently hypocritical for the World-Herald to simultaneously accuse the Clinton White House of divisiveness while mocking it for the Democratic Party's 1994 defeat. The anti-Clinton backlash that resulted in the Republican Party's takeover of Congress that year was a manifestation of the GOP's politics of division, proving just how effective a weapon it could be.

The whole Clinton impeachment ordeal was an extension of that style of politics, which the American people eventually rejected as Clinton left the White House with high approval ratings and the affection of many voters. Still, it wasn't until Karl Rove that we saw the true culmination of that ethos - at the very highest level of power - bringing us to the present where the sorry state of George W. Bush's presidency hopefully spells an end to what will be remembered as a very dark political era.

The World-Herald's attempt at defending Rove is insultingly idiotic and utterly preposterous. No matter their self-serving desire to portray Democrats as just as devious and just as corrupt as their Republican counterparts, there is only one Karl Rove - and thank God for that.

Go to full text...

Dan Rather Reveals Troubling Practices By Nebraska Vote-Counters ES&S

Having moved online to pursue the kind of investigative reporting that no longer has a home on TV news, longtime CBS anchorman Dan Rather has just struck a devastating blow to Election Systems & Software (ES&S), an Omaha-based company specializing in vote counting technology and overseeing elections. Last fall, I challenged the Omaha World-Herald's biased coverage of ES&S' failures in the 2006 elections, while taking issue with the World-Herald's ownership of a significant stake in ES&S. But, nothing then reported was so damning as Rather's new report, The Trouble with Touch Screens, which should be viewed by absolutely anyone concerned with the integrity of our elections and our democracy. Rather's hour-long report spends the first 30 minutes focusing almost exclusively on the shoddy manufacturing of ES&S' Touch Screen voting machines, which became all the rage after federal tax dollars were sent to the states through the Help America Vote Act to purchase tens of millions of dollars worth of such machines in response to the supposed failures of more traditional practices in the 2000 Florida presidential election. Rather makes a convincing case that the rush to embrace these new technologies might actually have created more problems than it solved, using the 2006 Congressional race in Florida's 13th District where ES&S machines showed very high rates of failure to set the tone for the entire report. Of ES&S' manufacturing, Rather uncovers terrible work conditions and almost no quality control with overseas workers in the Philippines paid as little as $2.15 a day. There are also suggestions that ES&S is tied in with a corrupt Filipino family and that they knowingly used touch screens with obvious material defects. In fact, a plant manager estimates that as many as 16,000 defective machines were delivered in the United States. Perhaps most disturbing for our purposes in Nebraska - where the Omaha World-Herald is so dominant a force in the local media - is the documented evidence of ES&S being so much more concerned with avoiding negative publicity than correcting problems with their software and their machines. The second half-hour of Rather's report is just as thought-provoking and scary, looking back at the circumstances of the 2000 election to advance a plausible theory of intentional sabotage by the vote machine industry to force adoption of new and more expensive technology. Again, I strongly urge readers to watch Rather's full report. It is sad that the Omaha World-Herald does not offer this sort of investigative reporting in its own pages. What's even sadder is that they continue to own so questionable a stake in ES&S, leaving open the possibility that their journalistic complacency is actually corporate-dictated journalistic corruption.

Go to full text...

Terry v. Jackson: Say What?

by: Ryan Anderson

Oooo... I like this new format. Gives me an excuse to cover certain stories where extended comment just doesn't seem possible. Like this item from yesterday's OWH editorial page: If Congress exhibited the same passion for solving problems that US Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. showed when confronted by Rep. Lee Terry about alleged taunts, perhaps progress on immigration, anti-terror tools, responsible budgeting and postwar Iraq might be taking place. Instead, another day goes by when the House of Representatives is better known for posturing and political threats than accomplishing the people's business. That is a shame. Maybe I'm just being incredibly dense here, but the only comment I can muster is this: huh? Though I'm tempted to just leave the OWH with my patented, spot-on Gary Coleman impression ("Whatcha talkin' bout, Harold?"), let me hazard a guess that this is some kind of joke. Har har, if only we could see that fighting spirit directed towards the national interest, then maybe we'd see something being done about the great issues of our time. The issues?  Terrorism, immigration, the Iraq war... does the World Herald seriously think what's lacking from these debates is passion? We must be watching two different C-Spans, because I see passion and spirit and fight invested into these issues daily on the floor of both the House and the Senate. What I don't see is a consensus from the Republican Party that these proposals deserve up-or-down votes. I don't see an administration willing to negotiate with Congress in good faith for the change in direction we so desperately need. And I definitely don't see a local media willing to hold its own representatives feet to the fire, to place the blame where it belongs and give the credit where it's due. That is a shame.

Go to full text...