South Dakota Politics

Media Landscape

I found this Washington Post article entertaining, as well as interesting.  It talks about new sources of media and how politics is changing as a result.  Here's a clip of a part towards the end.

All this has given Republicans a comfort and skill at using new media to political advantage that most Democrats have not matched. At the Republican National Committee, leaking items to the Drudge Report is an official part of communications strategy.

During the 2004 campaign, current and former RNC staff members said, opposition research nuggets on Kerry were almost always leaked first to the Web site. Sometimes they were trivial -- such as the fact that Kerry got expensive haircuts at the Christophe salon -- other times they were controversial quotes from his days as a Vietnam War protester. All together, these and other items contributed to Kerry losing control of his public image.

Ken Mehlman, the RNC chairman and head of Bush's reelection campaign, said his operatives leaked to Drudge because it inevitably drove wider coverage, including to old media organizations: "He puts something up and they have to follow it."

Last year, a delegation of RNC officials flew to Miami Beach, where Drudge lives, for a dinner at the Forge steakhouse to introduce the Internet maven to Matt Rhodes, the party's new opposition research director.

One of those who salutes the changing landscape -- with as much passion as Clinton deplores it -- is Cheney, who said he considers the breakdown of what he called an old media "monopoly" as among the most favorable trends of his years in politics. He said the change requires politicians to grow a thicker skin. Once while shaving, he heard Imus referring to someone as "Pork Chop." Only after a few minutes did he realize the host "was talking about me. I'm Pork Chop. And I laughed like hell."

"Sometimes it's pretty trashy," he said of new media's rise. "But I guess I'd put the proposition that there's more time and opportunity for policy discussions and debate than there used to be."

The next several weeks -- in which Republicans will bear the heat of an intense media-driven scandal in the Foley case -- may test Cheney's faith in that proposition.

Its a good article, and if you have time you should read the whole thing.  Hat tip to Drudge.

Headed for the North Dakota Badlands

I will be back packing in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park over the weekend, blissfully out of range of any Internet connections.  This will be my third trip to the Park's North Unit over as many years.  It is a marvelous piece of geography, and very different from the territory I am accustomed to traverse with my Dana Terraplane on my back.  The Wyoming Bighorns and Wind River Range, and Montana's Glacier National Park, are all made of granite.  It's easy to imagine a traveler a thousand years ago, or a thousand years hence, seeing the landscape much the same as I saw it.   Such parks are good Biblical metaphors: on Christ the solid rock I stand. 

TRNP, by contrast, is all sinking sand, and red, gritty, soil.  The landscape long ago converted to Buddhism.  Everything is changing with each gust of wind and drop of rain.  Rocks that serve as umbrellas protect the soil underneath them, while the rain carves the surrounding ground away, leaving the rocks as hats atop towers of grit.  Here and there strange moonscape beaches open up with no oceans to justify them.  In place of sea shells, the soft sand is littered with shards of petrified wood.  This is a testament to boundless emptiness, the Dharma of infinite potential.  A river named by the locals as "The Little Misery" reminds one of the Buddha's first noble truth: that life is suffering. 

Or maybe its just a cartload of erosion.  I can't be sure.  I will try to post some pics so you can make up your own mind.  A couple days of that and perhaps I will be prepared for news that the Twins have been eliminated and the Republican party is in free fall.  One thing is for sure: the Democrats had better win big.  Howard Fineman puts it this way in Newsweek:

An Iraq war that has cost us nearly half trillion dollars—and the good will of the world—might not have done it. Runaway federal spending that allowed the national debt to reach $8.5 trillion might not have done it. George Bush’s low approval ratings, the lack of comprehensive immigration reform, the historical pattern of an anti-incumbent “six-year itch” in presidencies, the cascade of stories about administration ineptitude and dissembling and congressional financial and lobbying corruption—none of these issues seemed destined to end the Republicans’ 12-year reign in Congress.

Then came the Foley Scandal. If the Democrats can’t take the Hill now, they deserve to go the way of the Whigs.

One thing is for sure, both parties could do with a few days walking in circles in the North Dakota badlands. 

History Carnival

Check out the latest History Carnival over at Rob MacDougall's Old Is the New New.

Also, if you have the time be sure to stop by the Northern Great Plains History Conference in Sioux Falls, which will go on until Saturday.  I was there today (which explains the lack of posts), where I presented a paper about Wounded Knee and historical memory and watched a few other presentations before having lunch with friends.  One final note, this weekend is also the grand opening of the McGovern Library in Mitchell.  Really, you should go.

Bruce Whalen on the Issues

I urge you all the read this interview with Bruce Whalen.  He speaks on several issues including energy and oil drilling, the secularization of America's schools, and the difference between him and Representative Herseth.

Here are a couple clips:

Do you support or oppose offshore drilling and opening ANWR to oil drilling? I do support offshore drilling; I do support ANWR drilling. I also support the American-Made Energy & Good Jobs Act that the congressmen in Alaska proposed. My opponent voted against that. I think it’s a great opportunity to add a million barrels of oil a day through that Act and also create a million jobs. We need to decrease our dependency on oil from other countries. The other thing we should do is also recognize that we haven’t had a refinery built in the past 30 years. I think that has a lot to do with oil prices and we need to start building refineries. Finally I think that we need to look toward diversity of our energy and make sure that we help further promote individual businesses and the science for biofuels here with ethanol and soybean fuels, also looking toward the switchgrass and see what we can produce from there. If we can diversify into that area of ethanol that would be great. We also have the opportunity to make sure that we have the transmission lines so we can get to the business of wind farming. Also we need to work with the United States auto manufacturers so we that can move in the direction of diversification. Anything that will keep American dollars from going into the banks of the sheiks of Iran and Iraq, then lets do that and lets start creating jobs here and involve our universities and economists in seeing how we can move that forward.

...

What is the most important difference between you and your opponent, Representative Herseth? I believe there a lot of significant difference. First of all I’m a husband, I have a loving wife, and I’m also a father of three children. Another thing that really touches me and that’s probably a large difference between me and my opponent is that she supports abortion. She’s voted to allow a minor child to be transported across the state line to have an abortion from a stranger, and all of this without parental consent. I believe that this damages the family. It’s a mandated secrecy act against the family as far as I’m concerned to withhold information from the parent about their child. We can’t even prescribe aspirin to our children in the classroom or allow them to wear pierced earrings, but they can go out and have a person rummage around this minor child’s uterus with an instrument of death. I don’t appreciate that. Probably another glaring aspect is I believe that taxpayers should be able to spend their money according to their desires. I’m standing firm with tax reform. I’d like to see certain tax cuts remain in place. My opponent voted against the permanent repeal of inheritance tax or the death tax. This year in the political season she has to look more like she’s a Republican than a Democrat. She’s flip-flopping like Kerry, but I don’t intend to do that. I intend to cast my vote. She has name recognition that she’s carried from her political ancestry and I’ve got the common roots name of a person that’s struggled himself out of the poorest area in the United States, was nominated by the Republican Party as its candidate for U.S. House. The Republican Party was the only party to have sent a Native American, and that was Ben Reifel, and now they are sending another Native American to Washington, D.C. this fall. She’s governed by special interest groups; the money that’s contributed to me has in contributed to me has been contributed by individual people.

Read the whole interview from Dakota Voice.

More Thoughts on Foley

Professor Blanchard has given his thoughts on the Mark Foley page scandal here and here.

I completely agree with his assessment, especially his statement that:

There is no evidence presented so far that the anyone but Foley acted inappropriately.

My Hoya column appears Fridays, but I am posting an advance copy here:

The disgusting electronic communications between ex-Congressman Mark Foley (R-Fla.) and Congressional pages have already led him to seek treatment for alcoholism, and may send him to jail. But, in light of statements from House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) this week that he was unaware of Foley’s obscene conversations, calls for Hastert’s resignation as Speaker are unnecessary.

The AOL instant messages Foley sent in 2003 which were recently released by ABC News are awful, to say the least. Hastert has admitted that he had prior knowledge of “overly friendly” — but nonsexual — e-mails sent by Foley. On Tuesday, Hastert said that no one in the Republican leadership saw the more graphic and unacceptable instant message communications that caused Foley’s immediate resignation from Congress.

Foley’s immediate resignation points out a clear difference between Republicans and Democrats in Congress. Two other homosexuals in Congress, former Rep. Gerry Studds (D-Mass.), and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), were also implicated in sex scandals.

In July 1983, the House was made aware of Studds’ consensual relationship with a 17-year-old male page that happened 10 years earlier. Studds admitted to the relationship, but refused to apologize. Studds was censured by the House, and turned his back and ignored the reading of the statement. He later held a press conference with the former page and publicly defended his choice.

In 1990, the House reprimanded Frank after discovering a male prostitute had run a prostitution ring out of Frank’s apartment. Frank had used his position to fix 33 parking tickets for his special friend but ignored calls to resign.

Again, both of these Congressmen continued to serve after their scandals. Fortunately for Congress, Foley is a Republican and the party willing to accept the consequences of its actions.

If Hastert did in fact only have access to the more benign e-mails, he cannot be criticized for his actions. Questions such as “What do you want for your birthday coming up?” and “What stuff do you like to do?” are certainly not what you might expect to receive from a congressman, but are harmless. Foley also asked for a “pic” of the teenage page, however. Both the page’s parents and Republican leadership then requested that Foley stop contacting the boy. These e-mails have now been infamously labeled “overly friendly.”

It’s interesting to hear that some people want Hastert to resign because he supposedly did not deal with an “overly friendly” congressman harshly enough. Foley did nothing illegal in writing those e-mails. Usually, in such a situation, one is told to “knock it off” when doing something that could be considered weird but generally does not lose his or her seat in the House. Hastert had no reason to take further action against Foley with the information he had at the time.

Overly friendly politicians should in theory be better than overly unfriendly ones. Imagine yourself, say, working for a primary candidate in an important midterm election race. While you’re attending a primary opponent’s rally, you are approached by the candidate and his staff in a Macaca-esque confrontation.

You are a fellow party member, however, and once everyone realizes this, you are treated much more nicely than Macaca. Soon after you’re approached, the candidate comes up to you and says, “Who is this tall, handsome, good-looking, blonde young man?”

Then, several months later, you’re at a party meeting and see the candidate again, who remembers you and says, “We’re all friends here,” and gives you a bear hug around the waist (remember, you’re a tall guy).

Finally, you’re attending a dinner a couple weeks later, and the candidate greets you in line, shakes your hand and includes the simultaneous forearm touch. You start to turn away, and the candidate, after touching your arm, says, “Been pumpin’ those weights? Oh, absolutely!” while continuing to grasp your arm.

I believe that whatever your reaction would be to these events, “overly friendly” would be an appropriate description of them. I do not think that any sort of action needs to be taken in situations like these just because occasionally politicians may be more personable than some people may feel comfortable with.

Hastert probably thought that Foley’s comments were eccentric but innocent — until the AOL conversations were released. Both the St. Petersburg Times and the Miami Herald had knowledge of the same e-mails Hastert did last November and chose to not run a story on the then-unconfirmed reports until the instant messages were released. In last Saturday’s issue of the Times, Scott Montgomery, government and politics editor, explained the paper’s decision, and said, unlike the newly public instant messages, the e-mails were “friendly chit-chat.”

Hastert, unlike Foley, has apparently done nothing wrong in the Pagegate scandal, and has no reason to resign his position as Speaker of the House. In the future, politicians must remember to use discretion when being friendly and personable; they can still kiss babies as long as they don’t slip them the tongue.

SD Railroad Board

Aberdeen American News:

PIERRE, S.D. - The South Dakota Railroad Board voted unanimously Wednesday to urge approval of a $2.3 billion federal loan for the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad's expansion plan that would haul coal from Wyoming to power plants in the Midwest.

South Dakota's congressional delegation, Gov. Mike Rounds and a number of business leaders supported the DM&E project at a meeting with a federal official Tuesday in Huron. Members of the state board said they also back the federal loan because the DM&E project would improve rail service, boost the economy and provide jobs.

"This is probably South Dakota's last best chance to have world-class rail service," board member Dan Baker of Rapid City said.

Bernanke's Outlook on the Baby Boomers

Here is a link to a story where Fed Chairman Bernanke speaks about the need for reform in our Social Security and Medicare entitlements. 

Unless Social Security and Medicare are revamped, the massive burden from retiring baby boomers will place major strains on the nation's budget and the economy, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday.

"Reform of our unsustainable entitlement programs" should be a priority, he said in prepared remarks to the Economics Club of Washington. "The imperative to undertake reform earlier rather than later is great," Bernanke added.

Changes were met with great resistance at the beggining of President Bush's first term.  It's an issue that clearly requires some foresight; I think President Bush was right to address it now before Social Security is a total crisis.  He didn't get much support for his plan, but I encourage him and Congress to work on new ways to solve the imminent problem.  Congress should act sooner rather than later on this.  I fear that we may have missed a great chance for reform; however, because if the Democrats retake one or both chambers of Congress, I doubt they'll change much in these programs except hiking taxes to maintain them in their current state.

The Iraq War and Its Critics

Victor Davis Hanson writes about "The War and Its Critics" and examines a cluster of new books purporting to tell the "real" story of Iraq.  Excerpt:

Most genres don’t require footnotes—the memoir, the essay, the journalistic dispatch. I’ve written histories that had too many footnotes—The Other Greeks had citations to ancient sources in the text, explanations with asterisks at the bottom of the page, and formal endnotes at the back of the book—and memoirs like Fields Without Dreams and Mexifornia with no citations.

But when you write history, and especially history of a contentious nature about Iraq, in which so much is at stake, it is incumbent to identify primary sources. The last three books about the supposed mess in Iraq—Cobra II, Fiasco, and now State of Denial—violate every canon of intellectual courtesy. Check who said what in Cobra II and you find the following: “Interview, former senior military officer”, “Interview, former senior officer”, “Interview, former Centcom planner,” Interview, Pentagon Officials,” “Interview, U.S. State Department Official,” or “notes of a participant.”

. . .

Every source in Cobra II, Fiasco, or State of Denial, may be accurate, but we will never know that, because for a variety of reasons the authors who claim they worked from notes and recordings, chose not to identify the most inflammatory sources by name. It would be as if I wrote a history of the Peloponnesian War and, to support my most controversial points, added footnotes that stated “A manuscript in the Vatican,” or “Private letter to author from anonymous Greek shepherd attesting a stone altar in his field”

Finally, note the silence from the numerous critics of the “Path to 9/11” who objected to the film’s adaptation of the 9/11 report. But that docu-drama clearly identified itself as a fictionalized rendition of a document, and made no claims as history. In contrast, this new genre of journalistic exposé purports to give us the real story of Iraq, but denies us the very tools of determining whether what we are reading is true, half-true, or simply made up.

Read the whole thing.

Narrative of Doubt

Austin Bay: Al-Qaida's Narrative of Doubt

Janklow Leaving Mayo Clinic

SD Moderate:

Former Governor Bill Janklow’s buddy at the Argus, Dave Kranz is reporting in today’s Argus that Janklow is no longer involved in the Mayo Clinics fight against DM&E.

But a Mayo official told me Tuesday that the official relationship between Janklow and the clinic is over.

Janklow, like former Senator Tom Daschle, has been catching a lot of heat from many in South Dakota for working with the Mayo Clinic in their fight against the railroad expansion project actually left the fight 3 months ago with no fanfare.

Even though Janklow’s departure took place three months ago, his exit in that official role seemed to be a well-kept secret.

No one from the Mayo Clinic is saying why he left and Janklow seems to be avoiding the media like the plague lately first telling KELO TV that “I don’t talk to the news” and more recently responding to inquiries by Kranz for this story by saying “I don’t talk to you. I don’t know how much clearer I can make it.“

Governor Bill seems quite testy with the media lately, if he is so set on avoiding media attention, maybe he should stop doing things that the media feels the need to cover…

UPDATE:  Janklow may be leaving, but his staffers are still working for DM&E, according to this KELOLAND report.

UPDATE II: Plains Politics: "There's one thing I don't get … if Janklow severed ties with Mayo in July, why was his former staffer out getting comments in September??????"

SD Political Leaders Supporting DM&E

The political establishment in South Dakota is lining up behind the new railroad project (except Tom Daschle and Bill Janklow, who are being paid by Mayo to kill the project):

Former Governors Harvey Wollman, Walter D. Miller, and Frank L. Farrar, and former Senators Jim Abdnor and Larry Pressler have signed on to an ad in today's Argus Leader in support of the DM&E project. The ad was paid for by GOTRAC. It is on the back of today's "Voices" section of the Argus Leader.

It says:

An Open Letter to the citizens of South Dakota
As former leaders of South Dakota, we support the DM&E railroad upgrade plan. It represents an extraordinary opportunity for South Dakota. We salute today's leaders - Senator John Thune, Senator Tim Johnson, Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth, Governor Mike Rounds - for showing vision in their united effort to create the first new Class I railroad in South Dakota history. This $6 billion project would be the largest private investment in our State's history.

State Senators Approve of DM&E

More news on the biggest project in South Dakota history:

South Dakota's top elected officials joined business leaders Tuesday to urge approval of a $2.3 billion federal loan for the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad's expansion plan.

The project, which would haul coal from Wyoming's Powder River Basin to Midwest power plants, also would create thousands of jobs and boost the rural economy in South Dakota and surrounding states, supporters told a top U.S. Transportation Department official during a public forum.

"The issue at hand is one of the most important issues our state has faced in many, many years," Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., said during the hearing. "We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity now."

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said the project could change South Dakota's entire economy by lowering shipping rates for grain, improving the hauling of ethanol and other products and boosting the supply of coal to power plants.

"I think this project has the potential to have a transformational effect on South Dakota's economy. It's that big," Thune said.

Foleygate 2

One of our readers sent an e-mail urging me to reconsider my views on the Foley story.  The reader explains that he was molested by a parish priest 40 years ago, and sees this as another case of an institution protecting predators.  I can certainly understand that.  My friend Chad at CCK has his own criticisms, which are not unreasonable.  I will state the facts as cleanly as I can in order to defend my opinion. 

1)  When Representative Foley was confronted with sexually explicit text messages he sent to former pages, he resigned.  Had he not done so, he almost certainly would have been expelled.  He may now face prosecution.  There is no evidence that anyone in Congress new of these messages until this week. 

2)  Last year a 16 year old received e-mail messages from Congressman Foley that the young man felt were disturbing.  I don't know that these messages have been published anywhere in full.  Here is how they have been described:

In those messages, sent after Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Foley asked about the well-being of the boy, a Monroe, La., resident. He wrote: “How are you weathering the hurricane. . .are you safe. . .send me a pic of you as well.” The page sent the note to a former colleague, describing it as “sick.”

3)  The young man sent the messages to the office of Rodney Alexander (Republican, Louisiana), who informed the House leadership of the matter.  It seems clear that Speaker Hastert was informed.  At the request of the young man's family, Congressman Alexander's office did not turn over the e-mails to other House Republicans, or reveal his name. 

4)  It is not true, as Chad has it, that the House leadership did nothing.  The House Clerk (Jeff Trandahl) and the Chair of the House Page Board (Representative John Shimkus) confronted Foley:

who insisted he was simply acting as a mentor to the former page, officials said. He assured them nothing inappropriate had occurred.

“They asked Foley about the e-mail,” the speaker’s statement said. “Congressman Shimkus and the clerk made it clear that to avoid even the appearance of impropriety and at the request of the parents, Congressman Foley was to immediately cease any communication with the young man.”

5)  The question is whether the response was sufficient, given what they had at the time.  What they had was a third party complaint by an anonymous accuser, based on documents that they were not permitted to see.  They were told only that the e-mails were "overly friendly" but not sexually explicit.  Is that enough to launch a more serious investigation, and to make public what at that moment amounted to mere rumors?  Maybe so.  But several independent sources now suggest otherwise.

6)  At least two newspapers, The Saint Petersburg Times and the Miami Herald, both had more information than the House leadership did (including, apparently, the text of the e-mails).  Both declined to publish the story. 

7)  The FBI also received copies of the e-mails in July.  The FBI concluded that they did not warrant an investigation.

8)  Based on points 5-7 above, I conclude that the actions of the House leadership were reasonable and proper.  They had no evidence at all of wrong-doing on Foley's part.  If it turns out that they knew more than we now know, they may be in deep doo doo. 

9)  Protecting minors from sexual predators is an imperative at all levels of government (and for newspapers, too, I assume).  Protecting the privacy and reputation of innocent citizens and office holders against calumny is another imperative.  One of the oldest and most important procedural safeguards is to put little weight on, and limit the spread of, anonymous accusations.  House leaders may have been acting to protect one of their own, but they were respecting those safeguards.  Democrats are surely using this story to damage Republicans (that's what I would do!).  But in their passion, they risk stripping everyone of a most basic kind of protection. 

10)  Congressman Foley's sexual orientation is clearly a part of this story.  Chad directs us to this nugget, from ABC news. 

A Republican staff member warned Congressional pages five years ago to watch out for Congressman Mark Foley, according to a former page.

That is a pretty short news article (I posted all of it).  It is possible that the anonymous staffer knew of previous inappropriate contacts between Congressman Foley and pages.  It is also possible that he knew from hearsay that the Congressman was gay.  It is likely that the young man who complained about the e-mail  was privy to this information as well.  That would explain why he viewed the e-mail as "sick," when it otherwise seems "overly-friendly" at worst.  Does homosexuality in itself constitute a grounds of suspicion in such cases?  Should Congressmen who are openly gay, or merely rumored to be gay, be quarantined from contact with pages, in the absence of any other evidence that they have behaved inappropriately?  I think that is the likely outcome of this story, and I do not think that it represents progress. 

Charlie Battery

In case you missed it last night, there was a good story about Charlie Battery that played on NBC Nightly News.  Follow the link and scroll down to the Nightly News Video: Soldiers Return to Grand Homecoming.

Farming

New York Times: "A Farmer Fears His Way of Life Has Dwindled Down to a Final Generation"

The New Media

Alvaro Vargas Llosa writing in TCS Daily:

With exceptions such as China and India, the (slow) decline of the newspaper business is a worldwide trend. The big mistake that newspapers in America, Europe and Latin America have made in response to the new environment is to treat this trend as a financial and a technological challenge rather than a cultural phenomenon.

Read the whole thing.  It's a good lesson that newspapers, like the Argus Leader, need to learn.

Foleygate

This year's October surprise is brought to us from the good folks at the New York Times:

Top House Republicans knew for months about e-mail traffic between Representative Mark Foley and a former teenage page, but kept the matter secret and allowed Mr. Foley to remain head of a Congressional caucus on children’s issues, Republican lawmakers said Saturday.

The exchanges began with what Republicans now describe as an “overfriendly” e-mail message from Mr. Foley to the unidentified teenager.

But news reports about the exchanges led to the disclosure of e-mail correspondence with other former pages in which the discussions became more and more sexually explicit. Shortly after he was confronted by ABC News on Friday about the subject, Mr. Foley, who represented a south Florida district, resigned from the House.

Now there are several stories here.  One is that Republican Mark Foley resigned  from Congress after it became public that he had sent sexually explicit text messages to former (and presumably underage) pages.  He almost certainly had no choice, and had he not resigned the House leadership should have moved to expell him.  I say "almost certainly" because there are a few key details of the story that don't seem to be clear.  But the fact that he did resign pretty much confirms the story. In the old days disgraced politicians used to  seek sanctuary in temples.   These days they check themselves in for treatment as alcoholics. 

The second, more important story concerns the allegation that the House Leadership knew about the sexually explicit text messages for months, and did nothing.  The Times is clearly trying to leave the reader with that impression.  The only trouble is that the impression is ungrounded.  Here are the facts that emerge from a careful reading of the Times article.  Last year, Congressman Foley sent a possibly inappropriate e-mail to an under-aged male, and it came to the attention of the House leadership.

Among those who became aware earlier this year of the fall 2005 communications between Mr. Foley and the 16-year-old page, who worked for Representative Rodney Alexander, Republican of Louisiana, were Representative John A. Boehner, the majority leader, and Representative Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Mr. Reynolds said in a statement Saturday that he had also personally raised the issue with Speaker J. Dennis Hastert.

“Despite the fact that I had not seen the e-mails in question, and Mr. Alexander told me that the parents didn’t want the matter pursued, I told the speaker of the conversation Mr. Alexander had with me,” Mr. Reynolds said.  . . .

Aides to the speaker and other Congressional Republican leaders said the messages, which an Alexander aide described to them as “overfriendly,” were much less explicit than the others that came to light after ABC News first disclosed the e-mail correspondence with Mr. Alexander’s page. The aides said Mr. Alexander’s office, at the request of the page’s family, did not show them copies of the messages. In those messages, sent after Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Foley asked about the well-being of the boy, a Monroe, La., resident. He wrote: “How are you weathering the hurricane. . .are you safe. . .send me a pic of you as well.” The page sent the note to a former colleague, describing it as “sick.”  [my emphasis].

In another message, Mr. Foley wrote, “What do you want for your birthday coming up. . .what stuff do you like to do.”

How did the House leadership deal with this?  Here is their story:

According to lawmakers and the speaker’s office, the page who received the e-mail forwarded the one in which Mr. Foley, 52, asked for his picture, to a colleague in Mr. Alexander’s office, repeatedly calling it “sick” and saying it “freaked me out.”

Mr. Alexander called the boy’s parents, who, Republican leaders said Saturday, told him they did not want to pursue the matter but wanted Mr. Foley to stop.

Mr. Alexander’s office also contacted staff members in Mr. Hastert’s office for guidance on what to do and, according to the speaker’s account, his aides put Mr. Alexander’s staff in contact with the clerk of the House, who oversees the page program. The clerk, who at the time was Jeff Trandahl, referred the matter to Representative John Shimkus, the Illinois Republican who is the chairman of the House Page Board, in late 2005, a spokesman for Mr. Shimkus said.

Mr. Trandahl and Mr. Shimkus confronted Mr. Foley, who insisted he was simply acting as a mentor to the former page, officials said. He assured them nothing inappropriate had occurred.

“They asked Foley about the e-mail,” the speaker’s statement said. “Congressman Shimkus and the clerk made it clear that to avoid even the appearance of impropriety and at the request of the parents, Congressman Foley was to immediately cease any communication with the young man.”

Now if this is accurate, the Speaker's office had some reason to be nervous about Foley.  But they had no evidence that he had done anything wrong.  It's not against the rules for a Congressman to e-mail a page.  Maybe the e-mail was inappropriate, but no one outside Rep. Alexander's office had seen it, and they declined to turn it over at the request of the parents.  Speaker Hastert's office was assured that the e-mail was not sexually explicit.  In short, it was not the Republican leadership, but the boy's parents who chose to keep the matter a secret. 

That this account is accurate is indicated by the fact that it parallel's the history of the story at the St. Petersburg Times:

In November of last year, we were given copies of an email exchange Foley had with a former page from Louisiana. Other news organizations later got them,too. The conversation in those emails was friendly chit-chat. Foley asked the boy about how he had come through Hurricane Katrina and about the boy's upcoming birthday. In one of those emails, Foley casually asked the teen to send him a "pic" of himself. Also among those emails was the page's exchange with a congressional staffer in the office of Rep. Alexander, who had been the teen's sponsor in the page program. The teen shared his exchange he'd had with Foley and asked the staffer if she thought Foley was out of bounds.

There was nothing overtly sexual in the emails, but we assigned two reporters to find out more. We found the Louisiana page and talked with him. He told us Foley's request for a photo made him uncomfortable so he never responded, but both he and his parents made clear we could not use his name if we wrote a story. We also found another page who was willing to go on the record, but his experience with Foley was different. He said Foley did send a few emails but never said anything in them that he found inappropriate. We tried to find other pages but had no luck. We spoke with Rep. Alexander, who said the boy's family didn't want it pursued, and Foley, who insisted he was merely trying to be friendly and never wanted to make the page uncomfortable.

So, what we had was a set of emails between Foley and a teenager, who wouldn't go on the record about how those emails made him feel. As we said in today's paper, our policy is that we don't make accusations against people using unnamed sources. And given the seriousness of what would be implied in a story, it was critical that we have complete confidence in our sourcing. After much discussion among top editors at the paper, we concluded that the information we had on Foley last November didn't meet our standard for publication. Evidently, other news organizations felt the same way.

Apparently the Miami Herald, like the SPT, did have the original e-mails, and thought that there was no story. 

It was only in recent days that the sexually explicit text messages came to light.  There is no reason to believe that either the Republican House leadership or the St. Petersburg Times knew of their existence earlier. 

So reconsider the Times' article lede: Top House Republicans "allowed Mr. Foley to remain head of a Congressional caucus on children’s issues, Republican lawmakers said Saturday."  Were the Republicans really supposed to remove Foley from his post and publicly spread rumors about him based on anonymous, third party hearsay, and documents that they weren't allowed to see?  There is no evidence presented so far that the anyone but Foley acted inappropriately. 

Voter Guide

As we inch closer to November 7, it might be good to remind readers to check out the South Dakota Ballot Voter Guide (pdf alert).  I haven't written much on where I stand on the many issues we'll be voting on (with the exception of the abortion ban which I oppose because it's bad public policy, not because I support abortion), but I do encourage everyone to give it a read and get an idea of the debates on all sides of an issue.  Check out the numerous South Dakota blogs too.  What are blogs at root other than purveyors of opinion and information?  If you're casting an informed vote, then you're doing your duty. 

Argus Admits It Didn't Scrutinize Tom Daschle

The Argus Leader blog has a blurb about how Tom Daschle "sometimes got a pass from the media":

You can disagree about what newspapers need to butt into – I sometimes do – but there’s one thing I’m certain of: My bulldog of an editor plays target practice with any clay pigeons, regardless of party.

I can almost hear the collective breath taken in protest: “But what about Daschle?”

Truth be told, former Sen. Tom Daschle never failed to irritate me with his mealy-mouthed liberal pieties while in Washington and common sense, down-home good ol’ boy charm here in South Dakota.

And I do think he sometimes got a pass from the media, the Argus included, but for different reasons than you might think.

For one thing, when he mouthed Democratic boilerplate, I think reporters covering him reasoned, “Well, what’s he supposed to say, after all? He’s the ranking elected Democrat in the nation.”

Another reason: As helpful as our parent company, Gannett News, is in covering D.C., we just don’t have the money to send someone from South Dakota to Washington (although I’m up for the trip, boss, if you ever can spare a dime).

I'm going to have to argue with this on a couple points.  For one, you don't need to send someone to Washington D.C. to cover our politicians.  South Dakota bloggers in 2003-2004 did just fine sitting in their pajamas behind computer screens.  And ranking Democrat or not, the Argus still failed to expose other discrepancies in his record.  To use one example, if he decided to tout the Democratic line on abortion, while previously being against it, then that's a sign of shifting with the political winds and not sticking to your principles.  Remember that Daschle once told ministers in 1986 that abortion was "murder" but then he was on the NARAL/Emily's List team.  And it's an issue the Argus could've easily covered without being in Washington.  Not to mention Daschle's refusal to answer a South Dakota reporter's question on his duplicity on the issue: he said one thing in DC and another in SD.  That's only one issue out of many.  The 1986 Daschle was pro-life, anti-gun control, anti-income tax increase, and pro-balanced budget amendment.  He changed on all these issues in 18 years.  Where was the Argus scrutiny?

Hog Merger

This AP story reports on the proposed merger between Smithfield Foods and Premium Standard Farms:

Agriculture and consumer groups are giving their support to a recommendation that the U.S. Department of Justice investigate Smithfield Foods' plan to buy rival Premium Standard Farms, a deal that would merge the nation's two largest hog producers.

The coalition says the deal would speed consolidation of livestock markets and lead to higher prices for consumers. The merger would lessen competition in the livestock industry and as such raises antitrust concerns for federal investigators, they say.

"Ensuring that livestock markets operate in a free, fair and transparent manner is critical to our nation's agriculture economy. Without such open and competitive markets, independent producers cannot survive, and consumers lose," the 15-group coalition said in a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

. . .

The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2007. If it does, Smithfield will own about 20 percent of the nation's hogs. That could limit independent hog producers' options and ability to get good prices for their meat, lawmakers said.

South Dakota Sens. John Thune and Tim Johnson backed Iowa's senators in calling for an antitrust investigation in September. Thune said the deal deserves "scrutiny" in large part because it could hurt South Dakota's small farmers.

In related news, also see this Associated Press story about the 2007 Farm Bill.

Janklow

Argus Leader:

Former Gov. Bill Janklow is arguing one of his first court cases since having his law license reinstated last February by the South Dakota Supreme Court.

Janklow and Sisseton lawyer Gordon Nielsen represent the father in a child-custody dispute that will be argued before the Supreme Court at 9 a.m. today at the Washington Pavilion.

Janklow will handle the oral arguments for his side in a case involving the Indian Child Welfare Act and whether a state circuit judge erred in allowing a tribal court to assert jurisdiction over his client's child.

Janklow would not comment when reached at home to discuss his return to the courtroom. "I don't deal with the Argus," he said.

More Criticism of Argus Bias

A reader at SDWC writes of the Old Guard at the Argus Leader:

Can we just be honest--the Argus, however it tries to change its stripes, is still run by a bunch of liberal hacks who have an agenda. Chuck Baldwin edits the editorial page--flaming liberal. Patrick Lalley edits the "Voices" page--raging liberal. Dave Kranz is their chief political "reporter"--and everyone knows how he has been exposed for 30 years of being the Democrats' chief booster. Peter Harriman is a big enviro and is well-known to be in love with Stephanie. I know many of these hacks from 15 years of working in South Dakota politics and business. The younger people I don't really know, but as long as Baldwin/Lalley/Kranz/Harriman are in power the Argus will be a flaming liberal rag. Why can't the Argus be honest about that? At least I'd have some respect for them then. But when they pretend to be objective, it's hard not to laugh. Few people are that stupid.

State Fair Attendance

Madville Times:

The State Fair board has apparently had enough time to coordinate their spin and get all the principals on the same page so they can release their attendance numbers, which remained a closely guarded secret for almost a month after the fair wrapped up. The Rapid City Journal reports that daily average attendance and vendor sales were up from last year. But remember, the fair truncated this year's event from eight days to five. So while daily attendance was up from 19,000 last year to 26,000 this year, total attendance dropped again, from 158,000 last year to 133,000 this year.

Fair manager Susan Hayward said attendance and other indicators show that the move to the shorter fair was a success.

"We are pleased with the figures that have come in, and this has been the most successful fair season we have had in my four years as manager," Hayward said Friday as officials released the attendance figures.

Now remember, this is the same Susan Hayward who is on record saying that attendance figures "are no indication of how well the fair is doing." I'm willing to give Hayward the benefit of the doubt and assume that her earlier comments in the Huron Plainsman during the fair were taken out of context. Surely she meant to say attendance figures are no indication of how well the fair is doing, at least not until we can cherry-pick the figures that make us look better. We'll see how well the spin from the fair board and the political forces from Huron goes over during the 2007 legislative session.

Twins Win American League Central Title

When Abraham Lincoln spoke of the only institution greater than the American Constitution, it is generally understood that he was speaking of Heaven.  I think he was talking about Major League Baseball.

The Twins decided earlier this weekend that if there was any shot at a division title still on the line in Sunday's regular-season finale against the White Sox, they would send Carlos Silva to the mound.

After the Twins dropped their second straight game to Chicago on Saturday and needed a Detroit loss to remain in the hunt for the American League Central title, there were some doubts.

But in a season where the impossible became the possible, the Royals pulled off a win over Detroit in Saturday night's contest, leaving Minnesota with an outside chance of earning the title.

Powerline's Paul Mirengoff sharply criticized the Wild Card system in contemporary baseball.  It is hard to agree this evening with his assessment.  The Twins passed the Tigers on the very last day of the regular season, and did so by playing some spectacular baseball.  They did so by beating the White Sox, thus depriving the Southside Slackers of the last thing they could hope for this year: taking the home field advantage away from the Twins in the first game of post season play.  The level of excitement in the Metrodome (and in my living room) rivaled that of post season games, and was amplified by the constant posting of scores from the Royals/Tigers game.  This has been a great season for Twins and, until recently, for Tigers fans.

And incidently, Joe Mauer finished the season with the best batting average in either league.  When that became clear during the game, Gardy had to bring him out to tip to the crowd. 

Bonus joke.  Dave Barry once noted something to this effect:  the difference between a man and a woman is that a woman will choose to save the life of a child rather than throw to first base without even considering whether there is a man on second. 

I Do Believe In Miracles

Sure, the Minnesota Twins lost two of three to the White Sox, but they beat them today and the Tigers succeeded in losing three straight to the hapless Royals.  The Twins are division champs and will host a playoff series. 

The Positive Prospects of the GOP

Time Magazine:

[J]ust six days after George W. Bush won re-election in 2004, his political machine launched a sophisticated, expensive and largely unnoticed campaign aimed at maintaining G.O.P. majorities in the House and Senate. If that campaign succeeds, it would defy history and political gravity, both of which ordain that midterm elections are bad news for a lame-duck President's party, especially when the lame duck has low approval ratings. As always, a key part of the campaign involves money—the national Republican Party is dumping at least three times as much into key states as its Democratic counterpart is—but money is only the start.

. . .

Thanks to aggressive redistricting in the 1990s and early 2000s, fewer than three dozen House seats are seriously in contention this election cycle, compared with more than 100 in 1994, the year Republicans swept to power with a 54-seat pickup in the House. Then there's what political pros call the ground game. For most of the 20th century, turning out voters on Election Day was the Democrats' strength. They had labor unions to supply workers for campaigns, make sure their voters had time off from their jobs to go to the polls and provide rides to get them there.

Now, though, Democrats are the ones playing catch-up when it comes to the mechanics of Election Day.

Read the whole thing.

Kofi Annan

From today's London Sunday Times Magazine:

Srebrenica is rarely mentioned nowadays in Annan’s offices on the 38th floor of the UN secretariat building in New York. He steps down in December after a decade as secretary-general. His retirement will be marked by plaudits. But behind the honorifics and the accolades lies a darker story: of incompetence, mismanagement and worse. Annan was the head of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) between March 1993 and December 1996. The Srebrenica massacre of up to 8,000 men and boys and the slaughter of 800,000 people in Rwanda happened on his watch. In Bosnia and Rwanda, UN officials directed peacekeepers to stand back from the killing, their concern apparently to guard the UN’s status as a neutral observer. This was a shock to those who believed the UN was there to help them.

Annan’s term has also been marked by scandal: from the sexual abuse of women and children in the Congo by UN peacekeepers to the greatest financial scam in history, the UN-administered oil-for-food programme. Arguably, a trial of the UN would be more apt than a leaving party.

The charge sheet would include guarding its own interests over those it supposedly protects; endemic opacity and lack of accountability; obstructing investigations, promoting the inept and marginalising the dedicated. Such accusations can be made against many organisations. But the UN is different. It has a moral mission.

It seems to me this is all we can expect from the United Nations: noble words and ideas without actually taking action and the value of intentions over achievements.

Iraqis Hate al Qaeda

Jules Crittenden of the Boston Herald:

Also in the news last week, poll results from a University of Maryland public policy institute found that 94 percent of Iraqis hate al-Qaeda. But two-thirds of Iraqis want U.S. troops out within the year. A majority of Iraqis believe the U.S. presence fuels the violence, which is interesting because most of the violence is now Iraqi on Iraqi, Sunni vs. Shia. This remains the most difficult part of the Iraqi equation. Saddam Hussein’s answer to it - the murder of hundreds of thousands of Kurds and Shiites - only fueled the current strife.

Hawkeyes

The Iowa Hawkeyes lost their first game of the season last night against the Ohio State Buckeyes.  Buckeye's quarterback Troy Smith threw for 186 yards and four touchdowns, thumping Iowa 38-17 last night.  Next week Iowa faces Purdue at home.

In related news, the SDSU Jackrabbits have finally pulled off some victories against Nicholls State and McNeese state, both in Louisiana, raising their record to 3-2.  They're home next week to host Central Arkansas for the 40th Annual Beef Bowl.

The "New" Argus, Same as the "Old" Argus

SD War College discusses how today's Argus Leader blends liberal opinion into its "news."  The liberalism of the "old Argus" seems to be very similar to the liberalism of the "new Argus."

Now, this is coming off of a front page article in one of the subsections which is blending opinion and news in a mish-mash where the reader can't identify which is which. It's a section front page article - Is it opinion? It looks like it's being portrayed as news? So, what is it?

If I were to give a name to this melding of opinion and news in the halls of traditional journalism without differentiation, I'd join the two words themselves and call it "ooze."

Yes, yes. Before you start, I know it's similar to the things we do on our weblogs and websites. But the difference is that most of us who are on-line are not pretending to be South Dakota's major public outlet of news in print. And we're pretty clear about what is being taken as reported fact and what is simply opinion.

As for me, I editorialize on news and what limited reporting I do is to report happenings in a gossipy fashion. Occasionally, I do some researched hard reporting.

But the Argus deems themselves THE source of South Dakota news. That's news, as in researched, and reported in a detatched and factual manner.

My gripe is in this instance, when you can't tell what is news and what isn't news, but opinion.