Bacon's Rebellion

I got an email this afternoon from the Chesterfield County Republican Committee. The lead was “The Deception of Jeff Schapiro …” and below it, in slighty less bold type, was “Jeff Schapiro Should Stop With His Opinions.”

Schapiro, of course, is being attacked for his Richmond Times-Dispatch news story on the Brad Marrs fundraising letter. The attack is wrong-headed and could likely make things worse.

Attacking Schapiro for “liberal bias” might be a good fundraising tactic, but Mr. Schapiro’s hands are clean on this one. He reported the news–and the news he had was hot. During a campaign, everything is scrutinized more closely. Partisans are ready to strike out at any opportunity. What might have been an unnoticed line in an off-year fundraising letter gets fine-tooth comb attention in a contested race. The Marrs campaign should have been more careful, especially knowing the atmosphere in which they were working.

Wow–defending Jeff Schapiro. Am I still an “Ass of Evil?” My diabolical backside buddy Norm Leahy has a slightly less charitable take on Schapiro and further thoughts on the controversy here.

The Blue Dog has only been blogging on his own for one week, but that’s already too long for the Kaine campaign. When emailed this post, Mo Elleithee replied, “Please remove me from your email spam list. Thanks.”

Ouch. Even the “Asses of Evil” don’t get treated like this.

Update: I have it on good authority that at least one prominent Democrat has already gone to bat for the Dog with the Kaine campaign.

National CrossTalk is a publication of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. Their summer issue features a story on Virginia’s university system and, in particular, the “charter university” bill that morphed into broader university management legislation during the 2005 General Assembly.

The set-up for the story is interesting. We’re lucky our state universities still exist because things were so bad before this legislation:

Virginia’s reputation as a nurturer of excellence in higher education teetered on collapse.

The despair expressed by education officials was notable. One college president described the state as delivering “grievous wounds” to the campuses. The director of the state’s Council on Higher Education departed his post, saying any more time on the job would amount to “cruel and unusual punishment.” A dean at the University of Virginia said the starving of public institutions represented “insane, ideological, odd thinking” in Richmond.

While this article is a useful discussion of the potential impact of the legislation and includes an interview with Gov. Warner, it is more noteworthy for what it says about the way the higher education establishment views the world.

Jeff Schapiro of the Richmond Times-Dispatch got a forwarded email from Jerry Kilgore’s campaign that contained “confidential electronic messages” between the candidate and a staffer. Schapiro tells us breathlessly that this campaign “oops moment” provides a “rare glimpse of its inner working.”

I guess it is August.

On Monday, Kilgore’s deputy spokesman emailed Kilgore some thoughts on a New Republic story about Doug Wilder. Kilgore responded, apparently using his hand held computer, with this:

“How about sending this to the press?? Get others to ask, what was Kaine’s role?? This could get us on offense on rt issue.”

Whoa! This is big. You don’t often get an unscripted moment like that. It’s as close as we might ever get to Kilgore in his pajamas, blogging. No profanity, no dirty trick suggestions … just the “rt” shorthand instead of “right.” Hmmm, what does that say about Kilgore?

Of course, the Kaine and Potts campaigns jumped on this failure to delete as evidence that the Kilgore campaign is unraveling. Perhaps they should release a few of their guy’s emails. Let’s compare grammar and spelling!

If you’re interested, Norm Leahy and John Behan covered the New Republic story. Were they part of the “press” that Kilgore mentioned? Were they unwitting dupes of a sinister plot? Could be the missing link in this conspiracy ….

If you can’t get the gubnernatorial candidates to debate face to face, at least you can line up their faces on the same web page and issue video messages on the same topics. That’s what the Virginia chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars has done. Not Guy Incognito has the goods here.

I am spending the week with two nephews and the son of a Duke classmate from Charlotte–ages 11, 13, and 15–camping here in the mountains in my own version of “get a life”. We begin each day with a two mile hike, breakfast, and then a series of scheduled adventures. I have insisted that they keep journals (get your kids a pocket Moleskin) and read aloud to each other in the evening from their summer reading lists. Herewith, an update:

They arrived Saturday, the camp is squared away and we’re into the routine completely. Did our first 2 miles in the rain Sunday, had a big breakfast, then spent nearly 6 hours in the sun at Floydfest. With little prompting, they have taken to regular journal keeping, and make entries together as a group, and individually on the sly. We began the out-loud readings Sun. night.

They all stumble with about the same frequency during the evening readings on word pronunciations and meanings and I stop them and we go ever them without embarrassment or judgment, but with frankness, until we get them right and understand not only the meaning but the context of the usage. I am insisting that they all do their part in meal preparation, clean-up,
laundry, etc. and all are responding like galley slaves.

Exhaustive day Monday. About 13 hours without down time. Morning walk, breakfast, couple of hours rigging for afternoon fishing, then driving lessons on the tractor, followed by litter pickup along the roads for 5-8 miles. Then a hard, heavy hike in to the river and out through country that would give Army Rangers pause. Spent five hours on the water, thoroughly wet start to finish. And caught several nice trout–Browns. Our asses were dragging, though, and after the evening reads all fell into quick and heavy slumber. Breakfasted in Floyd yesterday, made Natural Bridge by 10:00 and had a nice look around–including a tour of a Monacan Indian village replica.

Took the tour of Stonewall Jackson’s House, on Washington Street, in Lexington. Delightful lunch at the 1820 Walker-Wilson House on Main Street. The two Ians had duck fajitas and Grant and I had good beef and shrimp kabobs. Of course, the three of them knocked back a few Shirley Temples.

From there we went over to the George Marshall–VMI Museum. That is truly worth a look–the Marshall Plan, in retrospect, makes our foreign policy since then look childish, mean, and small. Not to forget ‘Little Sorrel,’ Jackson’s favorite horse, which they have mounted there. Not holding up nearly as well. Shot some photos of the Jackson statue in front of the VMI barracks, whereupon is inscribed his words to the cadets as they approached New Market in one of the early skirmishes of the war–boys the age of these three I have with me: “Gentlemen, the Virginia Military Institute shall be heard from today!” The school has an illustrious history. Marshall graduated in 1901. General Patton–a line of them–went there–and it claims a dozen or so Medal of Honor winners.

From there we went to the Lee Chapel, where Marse Robert himself is buried in a white marble tomb beneath a magnificent, full-size marble sculpture of him in death repose that is so life-like that I halfway expected him to raise up and bid us greeting. Here’s the thing: Among some people, his burial site–inside an absolutely beautiful and flawless chapel–is the most sainted, revered piece of real estate in all of Virginia–and it was completely, utterly empty today. Even the guards and curators were absent–I have no idea why–but sensing a rare opportunity to engage in a little civil disobedience in the matter of the ‘NO PHOTOGRAPHY ALLOWED’ signs, I ordered my troops to fire at will, and at close range–and they all unlimbered and did just that.

This morning, it is horses into Rock Castle Gorge, lunch at the bottom of the gorge, and sporting clays this afternoon. Tomorrow it is the Virginia Museum of Natural History, in Martinsville, and a horse-pack to an overnight on one of the high peaks here. Friday is Fairystone State Park. Saturday is Charlottesville and Monticello. Sunday is a tour of the area by airplane and the week will be done. I may keep you posted.

The new president of William and Mary, Gene Nichol, has made an early policy pronouncement to the editors of the Newport News Daily Press. Nicol told the paper he will encourage “socioeconomic diversity,” defined as increasing the number of students from low and moderate income families receiving Pell grants. Right now, 8% of William and Mary undergraduates meet that criteria.

“In terms of racial and economic diversity, we have more work to do,” Nichol said. “We are educating the privileged.” The article did not give the racial breakdown of current Pell recipients at the college, so it’s hard to tell if Nichol expects racial diversity to be expanded as a by-product of socioeconomic diversity, or if some separate program will be used to increase racial diversity.

Tom Jackman of the Washington Post has more on why Richard Goemann, executive director of the Indigent Defense Commission, was pushed into resigning on Friday, but it’s still a murky situation. Steve Minor had asked, “Where’s the beef?” over at Commonwealth Conservative, then posted an item about the controversy on his always useful SW Virginia Law Blog.

From Jackman, we learned that “some public defenders complained that Goemann’s executive offices in Richmond expanded while resources were denied to struggling public defender offices in the field.” But then he quoted Sen. Kenneth Stolle, R-VA Beach, as saying Goemann’s departure was “not based strictly on budget issues — it just had to do with what was best for indigent defense.” Stolle couldn’t say more because of “confidentiality rules on personnel matters.”

Commission member Steven Benjamin said “This is not directed at Richard. The commission has made bad decisions about the allocation of taxpayer money. More should be going to the field or public defenders, and less should be going to administration and frills in the central office.”

There you have it. The commission made bad decisions, so Goemann had to go.

In the comments section of my Hawaii post, Scott asks if Bacon’s Rebellion is going to take on the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation, especially in light of the revelations published by Save Richmond.

Contrary to blogosphere rumors, Jim Bacon does not summon us in the middle of the night to issue the “party line.” For my part, I’m going to join the opinion of Norm Leahy over at One Man’s Trash. It’s time to pull the plug on this organization (“put a stake through this boondoggle”) and try to salvage something for the city. The first priority should be to bring back the Carpenter Center.

County officials are back from a national conference in Hawaii and Will Jones of the Richmond Times-Dispatch checked in with them. In a sign that citizen and media skepticism before the trip had an effect, officials Jones spoke with gushed about specific things they learned that will help their localities.

What they really learned was that vague claims of “hard work” at these conferences just won’t cut it anymore. At least the skepticism accomplished something.

In a Potomac News story on three day care centers that may be shut down by the state for violations, I came across this bit of information about a critical player in our economy:

Given that there are about 600 daycare licensing regulations, most of the state’s 2,621 licensed daycare centers’ records include violations, according to Lynne Williams, assistant director of the division of licensing programs. [emphasis mine]

We may have part of the explanation for why day care is so expensive for consumers and so low-paying for employees.

In a letter signed by all of Virginia’s congressional delegation except Eric Cantor, Congressman Rick Boucher, of the Fightin’ Ninth, has asked the Veterans Administration for a formal explanation of Virginia’s next-to-last ranking in average compensation for disabled veterans–a matter first reported in Virginia here at Bacon’s Rebellion (See ‘Shameful’ post of July 16, 2005). Additionally, an aide to U. S. Senator George Allen reports that Allen’s office has filed a similar inquiry.

Sunday’s New York Times published a thoughtful and balanced essay, “Bad News,” about the decline of the Mainstream Media, with special attention paid to the issues of political polarization, media bias and the role of blogs. (If all you care about is blogs, jump to page 5.)

Author Richard A. Posner, a federal judge, law school professor and blogger, addresses a number of critical blog-related issues — contrasting the error-correcting machinery of blogs vs. that of the MSM, for instance — but raises one in particular that has concerned me, a former member of the MSM:

The bloggers are parasitical on the conventional media. They copy the news and opinion generated by the conventional media, often at considerable expense, without picking up any of the tab. The degree of parasitism is striking in the case of those blogs that provide their readers with links to newspaper articles. The links enable the audience to read the articles without buying the newspaper. The legitimate gripe of the conventional media is not that bloggers undermine the overall accuracy of news reporting, but that they are free riders who may in the long run undermine the ability of the conventional media to finance the very reporting on which bloggers depend.

Who can deny it? Bloggers are parasites. Where would Virginia’s emerging digital media be without the MSM publishing online news and commentary that we can link to and respond to? In Virginia, a handful of e-zines — Bacon’s Rebellion, Augusta Free Press, Virginia News Source — provide a modicum of reporting, but it pales in comparison to the breadth and depth of news coverage provided by Virginia’s daily newspapers. As for that sub-species of digital media we call blogs, only a handful have created “news” content of any kind.

It is tempting for bloggers to cackle at the newspapers’ declining circulations and their own rising readerships, but the status quo cannot sustain itself indefinitely. Virginia newspapers are business enterprises. As circulation declines and ad revenues stagnate, newspapers are cutting resources dedicated to gathering news. More critically for blogs, newspapers are restricting the unfettered access to their online offerings. At some point, Virginia blogs must contemplate a future in which readers must pay to access MSM material online, thus negating much of the blogs’ value. What, then, will the blogs do?

One might observe, rightfully, that blogs do create original content. Occasionally, bloggers provide eye-witness accounts of political events. Increasingly, political campaigns are taking blogs seriously — witness Tim Kaine’s first-ever blog conference. Without question, Virginia political blogs have begun functioning as filters for campaign press releases, often beating the MSM to publication. But masticating press releases is essentially passive. For the most part, we aren’t digging up the news, we’re simply digesting scraps of the news that we stumble across or that are handed to us. We are adding to the body of knowledge, but not comprehensively enough to be considered a credible “news” source.

Ultimately, I believe, digital media needs to create its own content and its own economic base. That means (a) charging subscriptions (a non-starter), (b) generating advertising, (c) raising money through sponsorships and foundation grants, and/or (d) sharing resources. If this is not a topic that we can discuss in the upcoming Sorenson Institute blog conference, perhaps it is one that can be considered in a follow-up assembly.

The Town of Herndon is ground zero for two intertwined debates, one local, one national.

The local debate is over a proposal to create a site where day laborers, predominately Hispanic, can gather for the purpose of getting hired to work for contractors and individuals. These laborers are currently mingling at a 7-11 in the town, creating something of a nuisance.

The national debate is over illegal immigration. Part of the opposition to the planned location argues that a government funded meet-up location is tacitly encouraging illegal immigration.

I know the slogan says “think globally, act locally,” but in this case I think those fighting the illegal immigration problem by fighting a gathering location is misguided. Defeating a meet-up location won’t make a dent in the national illegal immigration problem, but establishing a designated place will do a lot for local orderliness.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch has a news story on the controversy; the Washington Post had an editorial supporting the meet-up location.