A few years back, many left-leaning commentators – up to and including Geraldo Rivera and some who are on the George Soros payroll – tried to bury Michelle Malkin in a wave of anti-Filipina bigotry.And while many people, left and right, rose as one to condem this ugly racist display, a number of left-leaning commentators were as silent as death on the subject. Among the silent – and thus, complicit – were:

• Steve Perry, editor of the big-buck-lefty-supported Daily Mole (and, at the time, editor of the City Pages),
• Karl Bremer, foul-mouthed Stillwater screechmonger, who has found via the local alt-meda a ready outlet and ravenous market for his raving vein-bulging screeching inner lout.
  
• Minnesota Monitor
• Every leftyblogger that attends “Drinkiing Liberally”, an organization of regional leftyblogs, which sets the agenda for local left-leaning alternative media.

The inference is clear; Perry, Bremer, Eric Black and the DrinkLib bloggers think the only place for a Filipina woman is writhing around a greased pole on a stage, or turning tricks by a navy base.

For that matter, on this blog I’ve commented many times at great length about the pre-1945 German trait of eliminationist anti-Semitism, as identified by Goldhagen. Who was silent on this subject? Perry, Bremer, MinMon and Drinking Liberally.

Their silence tells the tale; obviously, they hate Jews and want them all murdered.

Let us not forget that four years ago, DrinkLib participant and leading local leftyblogger Mark Gisleson called for the lynching of Vice President Cheney, among many other things. Whose silence again rolled like a hurricane storm surge? That’s right; Karl Bremer, the MinMon, the DrinkLib bloggers, and…well, OK, Steve Perry did sort of wind up giving Wege a muted “tut-tut” online.

The meaning is clear; all left-of-center alt-media commentators are racists who want to murder jews and lynch Dick Cheney.

Their silence is the proof.

When will leftybloggers rise as one and attack Steve Perry, Karl Bremer, the Minnesota Monitor and all of the Drinking Liberally leftyblogs?

———-

Stupid, right?

Yep. Intentionally so.

If only Steve Perry’s “Daily Mole” could say the same thing about Karl Bremer’s grindingly, corrosively stupid “Reader Op-Ed” hit ‘n run on Tracy “Anti-Strib” Eberly and, by the way, every single center-right blogger in the Twin Cities.

What happens when a leading local Republican blogger publishes a virulently racist screed that refers to Native Americans as “dirt worshipping heathens,” “domestic terrorists permanently stuck in the Stone Age” and “humanoid animals,” and describes them as a race “so primitive that they created nothing of any lasting value, nor did they contribute anything of note to the world”?

In Minnesota, evidently nothing—at least from his right-leaning compatriots in the Minnesota Organization of Bloggers and the mainstream media.

Wow. That’s pretty damning stuff. Where could that have come from?

Minneapolis regulatory affairs consultant Tracy Eberly published such a piece on his local blog Anti-Strib on October 11. Those are just a few salient quotes from it. If you want to read his further defense of genocide against Native Americans, you’ll have to visit his website yourself. Suffice to say it would make Andrew Jackson proud.

Um, yeah, Karl/Steve. About that.

Bremer knows how to put links into web copy; he provides copious links to the other Minnesota Organization of Bloggers (MOB) blogs that he wants to smear by association. So why – in the left-leaning “Mole”, publishing to a left-leaning audience – can’t he provide a link to Eberly’s actual piece?

Does he (and, by association, Perry, MinMon and the Drinking Liberally bloggers damn, now I’m picking up that awful habit), know is audience isn’t going to bother googling and digging to find the article? Is he counting on inertia (a reasonable assumption) to keep his audience from knowing the actual context in which Eberly was writing?

So read Eberly’s piece. I did. For the first time. I didn’t like it much, and don’t agree with it. Of course, I understand where it comes from – and it’s not racism.

To know that, of course, the reader would need to know the context of the story as well as the pull-quotes Bremer has elected to highlight. But that would undercut Bremer’s foamy-mouthed, self-righteous “point”. It’s unsurprising, of course – Bremer, a long-time anti-Michele Bachmann zealot, writes for “Dump Bachmann”, a blog whose entire oeuvre is built around crimes against context (and which also refuses to condemn the attacks on Malkin, the Holocaust, and to renounce the attack on Dick Cheney Crap. It’s catchy, and hard to kick).

More on that later. Bremer next lets his imagination romp and play – with results that some of his associates might find…hinky?:

Eberly is a member of a group known as the Minnesota Organization of Bloggers, or more appropriately, MOB. Self-described as “a group of mostly center-right bloggers,” MOB includes virtually every Republican blogger in the Twin Cities, including GOP-affiliated Minnesota Democrats Exposed, TCF-connected Power Line, and St. Paul Pioneer Press editorial board member Craig Westover.

Bremer slips from omission into lying, here. PowerLine is not “connected” with TCF, any more than Karl Bremer is “connected” to the Nazi Party for whom his deafening silence about the Holocaust is a sure sign of support (dammit) my employer is “connected” to my blog (I’m going to make sure Scott Johnson sees that, however; Steve Perry might want to see to the “Mole’s” “fact”-checking).

More importantly (to me)? The MOB is rigorously non-partisan. As one of the group’s “organizers” (there is no “organization”), I am the one, along with Chad the Elder, Brian Ward and King Banaian, to state this for the record; the MOB eschews politics completely, as a matter of principle. The group is a blogroll and a twice-annual gathering at a bar. Not only that, but we have made a point of reaching out and inviting leftybloggers to our semiannual MOB parties; not only as blanket invitations on our blogs, but specific emailed invitations to the leftybloggers themselves. These invitations have included several sent to specific City Pages writers (Paul Demko among others) while Perry ran the place.

Karl Bremer’s “boss” at DumpBachmann, Eva Young, attended the last MOB Party. She seemed to have a great time! And – what’s this? Tracy from Anti-Strib attended! Eva must hate Indians, too!

Some “right-leaning” group, that MOB, huh, Karl?

Eberly reportedly finished third in the runoff for their little club’s “mayor,” so he clearly has their respect.

For the benefit of any “Mole” reader who reads this; the “Mayor” race is the MOB’s equivalent of a “Miss Congeniality” award and – again, I say this as one of the MOB’s Capi di tutti capi, the mayor election is not an official MOB function. It is something the Kool Aid Report does for the fun of it.

Yet since Eberly’s “dirt-worshipping heathens” column ran last month, the silence from the usually fawning MOB mob has been deafening.

Let’s make sure we provide the context that Karl Bremer (anti-filipina, anti-semite and pro-lynching-advocate-by-omission that he is Jeebus, this “smear by omission” thing is a slippery slope!) is apparently afraid to, yet again.

Anti-Strib is a rant blog. It is not the Weekly Standard. It is among local center-right bloggers what “Norwegianity” is for the local center-left; the loud, unrepentant, sometimes gauche, sometimes dead-on (well, Anti-Strib, anyway), shoot-first-ask-questions-later portion of the local center-right psyche. They are South Park conservatives of the most unrepentant stripe; they whiz on Political Correctness with the sort of glee that PZ Meiers piddles (or tries to piddle) on faith, or “Crayola Boy” Avidor pees on…I dunno, artistic talent?

And – take note, Karl Bremer – just because we share a label doesn’t mean we think, act or believe the same. I’m not a screedblogger, so sometimes the Anti-Strib is off-putting. It’s a “big tent” groupblog, so the writing is mighty uneven, ranging from amateurish and awful to really good (sort of like the City Pages).

Do I care for the tone of Tracy’s piece? Of course not. Of course, unlike Bremer, I know some of the backstory that is probably opaque to Bremer and his readers; as he notes, Eberly is reacting to “Doug”, a malignant comment-section tumor (one of only four people that’s ever been banned from this blog) who claims to be (among many, many things) Native American, and who relentlessly romanticizes Native culture. “Doug” is such a remorselessly abrasive jagoff that if he were to start advocating for unicorns and puppies, I’d be tempted to rhetorically warm up the .270 and the meatgrinder. And I hate that – because while I deeply respect Native culture (I’ve spent a lot of time reading about hunter-gatherer and aboriginal farming cultures in recent years) within their cultural context, Doug’s relentless preening is enough to make Russell Means break out a copy of Fort Apache out of pure snotty spite.
Tracy’s article is an attempt to let the air out of a really obnoxious balloon. Was it coarse and un-PC and maybe just a tad less artful than I’d shoot for, myself? Sure. Remember, I banned Doug rather than indulge in a reaction I’d rather not have; after almost six years of this, I’ve learned to pick and choose my stressors. Tracy sees it differently; that’s Tracy.

I don’t endorse his reaction; neither do I think it’s a sign of racism or lousy character or bad breath or anything other than wanting to give the relentless prig Doug a rhetorical wedgie.

Suffice to say every regional leftybloggers had best be very careful about their own flippant bigotries.

And, of course, “logical fallacies” – like the kind Bremer smears all over himself in the next bit:

Minnesota Democrats Exposed is authored by Michael Brodkorb, a paid consultant to the Minnesota GOP, Norm Coleman and many other past GOP campaigns. Brodkorb calls Anti-Strib.com a “daily read,” and it’s the first permanent link on his website, where he has been flogging Al Franken relentlessly lately for Franken’s statements about Native Americans.

The “daily read” list is in alphabetical order. And – lest the distinction be lost on anyone dim enough to take Karl Bremer as an authority on anything – Tracy Eberly is not running for US Senate.

Even Westover, with his bully pulpit on the Pioneer Press editorial page, has remained on the sidelines

Bremer, again, fails to provide a link to allow the reader to note that Westover has “remained on the sidelines because his blog has been moribund for six months. Clearly, Westover’s “silence on Al Quaeda” during that time means he also supports stoning gays – by Bremer’s logic.

Substitute “Blacks” or “Jews” or “Christians” or “Catholics” for “Indians” in Eberly’s harangue, and what do you think the reaction would be, even from the right?

That’s easy. “That’s stupid enough to be a Karl Bremer opinion”

Isn’t it time Republicans and their internet and media cheerleaders [Hahahahahahaha! – Ed.] quit pointing their fingers at liberal political groups and their TV ads, and cleaned up the hatefulness in their own back yard? A good place to start would be a repudiation of one of their own family members, Tracy Eberly and Anti-Strib, for the shame he’s laid upon their doorstep. Because as long as they remain silent about fellow MOBster Tracy Eberly and his “earth-worshipping heathens” slurs, they will all wear the mantle of racism in my eyes.

OK.

Tracy; don’t insult Native Americans. Please.

Now – Steve Perry? What do you think about the fact that Karl Bremer has selectively misreported key facts of this story? If these misstatements aren’t corrected and atoned for, you will forever wear the mantle of “hack” in my eyes. And I know that’d hurt you to the quick.

Eva Young (Karl’s boss at “Dump Bachmann”) – either Karl misrepresented the MOB, or you are a closet right-winger because you attended the last MOB party. Clearly, if Bremer is correct, your participation in the MOB party means you Hate Native Americans! Where’s the correction – nay, the outrage?

See where this leads?

Karl Bremer is a Stillwater writer and part Cherokee Indian.

Good thing he’s got “aggrieved minority” to fall back on.

…on an update to my annual “State of Twin Cities Talk Radio” series…

…but I’m going to do some digging, first, since this bit here just might have a huge effect on it:

Thursday’s development does not mean Barreiro is leaving his employer of the past 15 years. The scuttlebutt is that KFAN has an opportunity to match any offer made by a competitor. Another factor could be the issue of a noncompete clause, something standard in radio and television contracts. Those usually run six months or one year, meaning Barreiro might have to go on hiatus if he does switch.

“We’re letting the process play out, I’ll just leave it at that,” Barreiro said.

As I noted in an earlier comment (in which Flash brought the story to my attention), it’d be an interesting move for the Evil Talk Empire.  They desperately need a morning show that doesn’t come with a warning not to operate around heavy equipment; and while I love my old friend and neighbor Tom Mischke’s “Broadcast” (one of the tiny list of things on which I agree with Garrison Keillor), Soucheray could use a little stronger lead-in and KSTP could stand a stronger counterprogram to Limbaugh (although, as always, I hope Mischke’s program survives and thrives).

It’ll be an interesting couple of months.

KAR takes Dumpster “freelance journalist” Karl Bremer to the factual woodshed.

So, the Dumpster is a moron, and gets one more of these:

 

Nice try though.

Go over and read Foot’s vivisection of our old friend Karl.

Oh, and that fail also goes to Eric Black for his gatekeeping.

Black might have some ‘splainin’ to do.

Mr. Black; while I’m the last person who should tell you how to do your job as a reporter, as a general rule anyone involved with The Dump is about as reliable a source as a ferret on meth.

Yours in superior gatekeeping,

Mitch

Someone emailed me to ask what I thought about Brian Lambert’s take on the latest round of ratings.

What the heck; it’s always good entertainment.

I’ll ask you to remember one thing that, for some of you (and you know who I’m talking about), might seem counterintuitive; while I am a conservative host (part-time, anyway), I’m also very, very clinical about the business itself. [Pacino on] It’s not personal. It’s business. [/Pacino off] As I’ve noted in the past, I could probably do a better job of making the local Air America affiliate successful than whomever Janet Robert has doing it now.  Not that I’m going to; I’m just saying.

So let’s go to Lambert (whom the Rake has absorbed, along with Deb  Caulfield-Rybak):

In response to thunderous demand for radio ratings statistics — a task I find strangely titillating — the Slaughter offers these snapshots of what Twin Cities listeners say they were tuned to over the past summer.

The disclaimer I will always issue is that as they are currently handled, by volunteers filling in written diaries, the Arbitrons have about as much scientific validity as The Flat Earth Society. The game will change dramatically when the so-called Portable People Meters, devices that accurately record what people are actually listening to, as opposed to what they remember, or prefer to think they were listening to, hits this market. But until then, the radio industry lives and dies by these things, and the patterns — even with constantly shifting volunteers — are pretty static.

True.  With one important caveat; Arbitron’s method is notoriously…no, notoriously fickle with stations with smaller numbers.

Here are the rankings for the top 15 local commercial stations, among adult listeners 25-54.

Continued advertisement

STATION…..2006…….2007

KQRS ………….11.1…….11.0

It truly amazes me what a juggernaut KQ has become…

KS95……………5.9……..7.0

…or that KS95 is hanging in there at all, much less this far up the rankings.

K102……………9.2……..6.7

Wow.  Great job, Clear Channel!  Gassing Mick Anselmo did you a world of good!

JACK……………5.0……..5.8

On the other hand, that makes me happy.  Jack is my favorite “conventional” music station (although I’ve found myself listening to MPR Classical more and more lately)
The Evil Talk Empire continues its post-Limbaugh languish…:

(Tie)KSTP-AM…….3.4……..3.8

With its consultants’ view that “conservative talk is dead” still undisturbed in its’ cabinet at Hubbard HQ, I betcha the winter book, sans the Twins (not to mention next summer, with a rebuilding team) is going to huuuuuuurt.

WCCO……………4.7……..2.9

This astounds me; WCCO is unravelling.

And this…:

KTLK……………2.3……..1.9

KTLK fired program director (and my old KSTP colleague) Doug Westerman; I can’t imagine that dropping “The Limbaugh Station” into freefall made ’em very happy (although sources tell me Westerman didn’t have much more actual programming authority than did the manager of the Caribou across the street from Clear Channel Twin Cities’ studios).

Finally, the important part:

(Tie)Air America…0.6……..0.7
(Tie)The Patriot…1.2……..0.7

So.  After three years, the Patriot and AAo’M are tied.

Except we’re not.  Remember – this is radio inside baseball, so I am, in fact, very clinical in my approach.  My apparent bias toward the Patriot (where I host a show) applies a lot less than you might think:

1. A tie may not be a Patriot win, but it’s a loss for AAo’M from a “physics” perspective.  Both stations are 5,000 watt AM operations; AAo’M is a 950 Kilocycles, while AM1280 is, obviously, at 1280Kc.  The lower an AM station’s frequency, the more range and clarity it has per watt of power; AM950’s signal should cover – very conservatively – 50% more area than 1280’s.  And AM950 broadcasts from the heart of the überliberal 5th District.
2. As we noted above, Arbitron numbers this far down the standings are notoriously fickle.
3. When the numbers are this fickle, it makes no sense for a station to take Arbitron ratings to potential advertisers.  They have to rely on demographics and results.  So compare advertisers and inventories; by that measure, the Patriot is creaming AAo’M.
4. Oh, yeah – to the extent anyone cares about the numbers, the first “Trend” numbers after the summer book show the Patriot up, and AAo’M down.  Just saying.

The Patriot has problems; as noted in this space (by many, many commenters as well as me), it’s had a series of frustrating technical glitches leading to hours of dead air, doubled-up commercials and other problems.  When those get fixed (and while I don’t want to go into inside-station details, big changes are underway there), it’ll  be a huge improvement.:

On the downside, K102, Twins-less WCCO and The Patriot took tough slides in audience levels. Speaking of the Twins though, KSTP-AM can’t be thrilled that their expensive “partnership” with the Twinkies netted them only a meager 0.4 increase in adult listeners. That ain’t good.

It’s worse than that; apparently whatever numbers they got from the Twinks didn’t transfer to any of the station’s regular programs.

Now, to the fun part – drive time:

STATION … AUDIENCE SHARE
KQRS ……..22.9 (Barnard)

Say what you will about Barnard, his personality, his show’s teenage-boy orientation – but speaking purely clinically, it’s kind of fun to be able to watch one of the industry’s most enduring phenomena, year-in, year-out.  Barnard is the Walter Peyton of radio; year after year after year, he just continues to dominate.

KS95……….9.3 (Greg & Cheryl)

Not speaking clinically in the least, it’s great to see Greg Thunder (the first Mr. Eleanor Mondale) score.  I knew Greg nearly 20 years ago; he’s one of the good guys.

Speaking of good guys:

The Patriot…1.1 (Bennett/Ingraham)
KTLK……….1.0 (Hines/Conry)
AirAmerica….0.5 (Press/Miller)

All of the usual caveats about numbers below 2 points still apply – but this is just plain fun.  Forget about Bill Press and Stephanie “The Liberal Laura Ingraham” Miller – the fact that the syndicated Bennett is beating the local legend (and expensive but pointless host)  (UPDATE:  Ex-host, actually) John Hines is a sign of how badly Clear Channel is handling KTLK.  And it’s reportedly worse after 8AM, where the syndie Laura Ingraham is reportedly body-slamming the local (and, honestly, not-bad) Dan Conry in the mid-morning slot.

Now, let’s move to afternoons:

STATION AUDIENCE SHARE

AM1500…5.3 (Soucheray/Thomas)
KTLK…..2.3 (Hannity/Lewis)
AirAm….0.8 (Hartmann/Heaney)
Patriot..0.5 (Medved/Hewitt)

Lewis’ performance is counterintuitive; he should  be dominating the late-drive slot against the limpid sportstalker Matt Thomas.  Forget Clear Channel – his numbers are a disappointment to me – Lewis is the host I always wanted to be when I grew up.

As to the vital AAo’M vs.Hewitt battle – that’s an interesting question.   The Mark Heaney show has expanded to two hours, which merely makes Heaney twice as excruciating. Remember – I’m being pretty clinical here.  Heaney is boring enough to be on MPR, but smooth and professional enough for KFAI.

On the other hand, Hewitt’s numbers lately are pretty terrible.  Part of that, no doubt, can be chalked up to the inter-election slump that always bedevils conservative talk.  Part of it is the Patriot’s technical bugaboos, which seem to be worst in the afternoon (and have even made me tune out).  And part of it, perhaps, is that Hugh Hewitt might, perhaps, overestimate the fascination the American people have  for the inner workings of the legal system; as someone who is not only a big fan but an acquaintance (whose own radio show owes a lot to support from Hewitt in the first place), there’ve been times where even I get tired of endless insider-noodling about appellate court decisions.  Hewitt will benefit when both he and the audience switch into election mode (provided the Patriot gets its’ pernicious technical bugs squared away).

The next year, with a national convention and a presidential election, is going to be the real test.

And (not speaking clinically at all, now), I’m looking forward to it.

The word is “pundit”.  Pronounced “pun-dit”. 

Not “pun-dint”. 

“Pun-dit“. 

That is all.

I, along with King, Michael, Ed, Brian, Chad and John, have been doing the Northern Alliance for almost four years.

The downside? We don’t get paid (regularly, anyway – we get the occasional talent fee for appearances and such).

The upside? We don’t get paid. We don’t depend on radio for a living. Of course, none of the other guys ever actually have depended on radio for a living.

I did, for many miserable years. Radio is a funky dichotomy; doing radio in any of its many forms – music, talk, sports, whatever – is just about the most fun thing in the world. But the business itself is just about the skeeziest, most dysfunctional industry there is. The stories I could tell. In fact, I told one: I wrote this about radio, back in 2004:

The industry is a breeding ground for dysfunctional people. It’s no wonder; people usually start in the business at a very impressionable age (late teens, early twenties), when so much of one’s adult personality is formed. It’s a crappy field for people who want to have a life like everyone around them You almost never quit a job; you get fired, for every kind of reason. If you stink on the air, sure, but if your boss is replaced, you can count on the new boss bringing in a clutch of their own people; if your station is sold and the format changes, or just sold, or (these days) goes from being a live to a satellite operation, it’s back to the trades, looking for that next job. As competitive as the field is, it requires monastic dedication not only to advance, but to stay employed. And it draws that dedication – you could call it an addiction, because being on the air is truly addictive. It’s not a recipe for well-rounded human beings.

And I was one of them.

So to sum it up so far – radio is kind of a crazy, ugly, scummy business.

———-

I’ve noted it a million times; when I started in talk radio, in 1985 during the final years of the “Fairness” doctrine of passive-aggressive censorship, talk radio was a fringe player and a very different beast than it is today. After Limbaugh, talk radio went from being an also-ran aimed at bluehairs to a cash cow; when I worked for Hubbard Broadcasting, the AM station was the poor cousin, a property Hubbard tried for 10 years but failed to sell off. When I came back – in 2003, for a one-night fill-in for Bob Davis – the AM station was carrying KS95 and Channel Five, with plenty of money left over.

But for all of that, the business isn’t for everyone. And I’m not just talking about talk show hosts, here.

Some radio stations’ management are distinctly uncomfortable with the flak they take by taking a political stance (even one that is as remunerative as conservative talk). In some cases, management figures “if we can land half of the audience by pissing the other half off, just think of how many would listen to us if we pissed nobody off”. Others just don’t like conservative politics. And for others, criticism stings. For some stations (and the consultants to make a living out of telling stations to try one thing, and then another, and then another, for years and years), it’s just too much; for all that conservative talk pays them, they’re looking for an out.
And when you dip into politics, the audience always yields a bumper crop of criticism – some of it justified, some of it dimwitted and irrational.

———-

Speaking of dimwitted and irrational, some people think I didn’t “fact-check” my story the other day about the firing of Andy Barnett, the morning host at KNSI radio in Saint Cloud (although taking the unvarnished, spin-driven word of a city council candidate does qualify as a “fact”, apparently). They are wrong, as usual. It’s just that there are precious few “facts” to check.

But King Banaian – who knows many of the people involved, whether on the Barnett Show, KNSI’s management, and in Saint Cloud civic politics, knows a thing or two. And here’s the big question:

One is compelled then to ask, did KNSI change its format under duress? What are its intentions to its listeners (of which I am one)?

Duress is a real thing for people who manage small radio stations. KNSI is a tiny station – 1000 watts, high up the dial at 1450 AM. They’re duking it out for the small Saint Cloud/central Minnesota drive-through land audience with WJON, which is sort of the WCCO of Saint Cloud (and is 5000 watts at the much clearer 1240 AM frequency), a station that tries to be all things to all people and, within the context of Saint Cloud, largely succeeded for many years. It’s the sort of thing that, before 1987, would have left KNSI as radio roadkill, broadcasting polkas and community billboards and, with satellite and computer technology becoming ubiquitous and relatively reliable, have led to the station becoming – like so many smaller stations around the country, including my own alma mater – “computer in a closet” stations.
But conservative talk – Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham and Joe Soucheray – have made KNSI a legitimate player and money-maker in Saint Cloud, as well as an audience. And money. Things that precious few 1000 watt stations in metro areas – and Saint Cloud qualifies – have these days.

But as King notes, KNSI’s owner – Leighton Broadcasting – has been uncomfortable with the label that goes along with the format:

• In April, Pscymeistr reported on the newspaper’s criticism of Steve Gottwalt, in which the local newspaper referred to KNSI as “KGOP.” (The article is down, as is the comment stream, but Leo has captured most of what’s written.)
• In July, state Senator Tarryl Clark stops by the station and inter alia informs talk show host Andy Barnett that she is not interviewing on his show any more because “is not comfortable doing opinion based entertainment talk shows.”
• Over the summer, according to sources, the station has been advised by a consultant, and the talk show — the only weekday local programming on the station — underwent several changes at the behest of management. When I guest-hosted on the show in October I saw the new “clock” or hourly chart you follow to know when to do sports, news, commercials, etc. It was very different from what I had seen before. “Why?” I asked Andy. He indicated this was management-inspired.
• There has been criticism of Barnett’s parodies, and those had created some criticism from mostly liberals.

Politicians throwing their weight around.

Consultants with background in the controversy-averse music radio business (i.e. – not the faintest clue about how talk radio works) trying to turn the station into a music station without the music.

The signs, according to King, were there.

Which doesn’t mean Barnett didn’t screw up…:

This should not be construed that I think the station had no right to fire Barnett. It can do what it wants as long as it’s not agreed to not censor Barnett through its contract with him; I agree with most that I do not think I would have fired someone for asking those questions (you can hear what was said by listening to this audio on Andy’s site and decide for yourself.)

Indeed, the question that sent Langjoen into her sullen tantrum was pretty standard talk radio fare; perhaps not really literally germane to a Saint Cloud City Council election, but also the kind of “litmus test” question that will matter to a large chunk of KSNI’s listening audience who – lest you’ve forgotten – come to the station largely for conservative opinion.

Stations have the right to do whatever they want with their format and staff (subject to the contracts they sign); having been fired at four different stations – never for cause, always due to the vicissitudes of management – I’m here to testify. I wish Barnett well.

The interesting remaining question; is Leighton Broadcasting losing its stomach for being a conservative lightning rod, and duking it out with intellectual thugs like Taryll Clark? Time will tell.
But it’d be a shame.

You’ve heard of Scott Beauchamp – the soldier who, as “Scott Thomas”, accused his fellow soldiers of a wholly-fictitious chain of atrocities, with the active connivance of the New Republic.

I’m not quite sure what I expected of Beauchammp – who was the subject of a fairly spirited Army investigation after his identity was revealed.

But I’ll admit that this was just about the last thing I expected:

I was at a reconciliation meeting between Sunni and Shia in the West Rashid district of Baghdad on 24 October, and it happened by complete coincidence that I was with Beauchamp’s battalion. In fact, I was with his old company commander for much of the day, although I had no idea for most of it that I was with Beauchamp’s old company commander.

At the reconciliation meeting, Beauchamp’s battalion commander, LTC George Glaze, politely introduced himself and asked who I wrote for. When I replied that I just have a little blog, the word caught his ears and he mentioned Beauchamp, who I acknowledged having heard something about. LTC Glaze seemed protective of Beauchamp, despite how the young soldier had maligned his fellow soldiers. In fact, the commander said Beauchamp, having learned his lesson, was given the chance to leave or stay…Lapses of judgment are bound to happen, and accountability is critical, but that’s not the same thing as pulling out the hanging rope every time a soldier makes a mistake.

Beauchamp is young; under pressure he made a dumb mistake. In fact, he has not always been an ideal soldier. But to his credit, the young soldier decided to stay, and he is serving tonight in a dangerous part of Baghdad. He might well be seriously injured or killed here, and he knows it. He could have quit, but he did not. He faced his peers. I can only imagine the cold shoulders, and worse, he must have gotten. He could have left the unit, but LTC Glaze told me that Beauchamp wanted to stay and make it right. Whatever price he has to pay, he is paying it.

So I’ll give what little credit I have to give, where it’s due.   

LTC Glaze wants to keep Beauchamp, and hopes folks will let it rest. I’m with LTC Glaze on this: it’s time to let Beauchamp get back to the war. The young soldier learned his lessons. He paid enough to earn his second chance that he must know he will never get a third.

I think a lot of people might be persuaded to take back some of the things they said about Beauchamp. 

As to the New Republic, though… 

…some on the staff may feel like they’ve been hounded and treed, but it’s hard to feel the same sympathy for a group of cowards who won’t ’fess up and can’t face the scorn of American combat soldiers who were injured by their collective lapse of judgment. It’s up to their readers to decide the ultimate fate.

The New Republic treed like a bandit . . . personally, I think they would make a nice Daniel Boone hat.

Now, them,  I can criticize.

In Sunday’s column, Lori Sturdevant recites about eight column inches of party line about former State Rep. and current Taxpayers’ League president Phil Krinkie (“ironically”, exactly the same line that certain other lefty pundits are spouting) – and, by way of noting that she and Krinkie are college classmates, notes that she actually troubled herself to talk with Krinkie about the spin.

And she says:

Notice how much more reasonable a zealot can sound when chatting with an old classmate than when performing on the stump?

No, Lori.  We notice how much more reasonable a reasonable person like Phil Krinkie sounds when his words aren’t filtered through a zealot disguised as a “gatekeeper” like yourself.

Read it yourself.  Make up your own mind.

That might make Lori Sturdevant cry, but life’ll kill ya, won’t it?

Speaking of radio…

Up in Saint Cloud, Andy Barnett – host of the excellent “Hot Talk” morning show – was fired for holding a liberal politician’s feet in the fire asking a liberal politician about her stance on abortion.

Leo from Psycmeister’s Ice Palace, a St. Cloud resident and one of Minnesota’s better bloggers, has the story:

If you can’t beat them, silence them.

Andy Barnett, of KNSI-AM 1450’s morning show, Hot Talk, has been fired.

I listened this morning to Barnett’s interviews of two St. Cloud City Council Ward 3 candidates, John Libert, and Karen J. Langsjoen.

Langsjoen displayed her mean spiritedness right off the bat when Barnett mispronounced her name (well, who the hell wouldn’t?)

(A radio host who’d done all of his homework in a heavily Scandinavian area, replies the Norwegian-American blogger. But then, if everyone on the air who flubbed a name got fired, Hugh Hewitt would be working at a Burger King in Pomona)

Langsjoen, whom one could tell is as liberal as the year is long, took great umbrage with Barnett’s quizzing both her and Libert on their stances regarding the sanctity of life.

To put it mildly, Langsjoen had a cow, saying that Barnett had no call to question city council candidates on their stance toward abortion.

Barnett countered that it was indeed relevant on a number of levels; including the notion that many of KNSI’s conservative listeners (yes, KNSI is a station heavily geared toward conservatives) would assess the pro-life stance of candidates as a barometer of the candidate’s character; additionally, Barnett brought up the fact that the Council may have to choose city employees’ health plans, and voters may be interested as to whether Langsjoen would approve a plan that paid for abortions, and/or domestic partnerships (read: Gay civil unions)

What a concept – candidates actually being asked tough questions, and, in a relatively conservative area like Saint Cloud (outside the University) in an interview MCed by an overt conservative, being asked questions that matter to the right.

Immediately following the interview, Langsjoen apparently stormed into the offices and threw what could be described as a whiny hissy fit to Leighton Broadcasting ‘s general manager John Sawada, who, after reportedly apologizing to Langsjoen up and down, fired Barnett.

First of all at the start of the interview, Langsjoen had stated that she “always was interested in getting into politics.”

Word to Langsjoen: If you can’t take the heat, get the hell out of the kitchen.

Radio’s an ugly business. I’d be interested in hearing Leighton Broadcasting’s rationale for this firing; it seems on the surface to be simple caving in to political pressure.

Which is nothing new in the world of radio.

But caving in to some pissant City Council candidate?

Read Leo’s piece for the rest of the details; expect more from the rest of the St. Cloud area blog community.

Right, of course.

Imus is back,  and it’s pretty much as I predicted.

Michael Yon is pissed.

Yon’s been in Iraq covering the war as a freelance embed for almost three years now.  As a rigid independent – unbeholden to either the administration or the media’s agenda – he’s not ever been a shill for the Administration.

It was Yon’s intensely critical reporting during the worst days of the pre-surge war of attrition that reportedly got him eighty-sixed from the Sean Hannity show. The Administration will no doubt not be thrilled about Yon’s current prognosis for Afghanistan.

But today, he turns his scathing pen from bumbling generals and crusty Command Sergeants Major to…his fellow reporters.

All describe the bizarro-world contrast between what most Americans seem to think is happening in Iraq versus what is really happening in Iraq. Knowing this disconnect exists and experiencing it directly are two separate matters. It’s like the difference between holding the remote control during the telecast of a volcanic eruption on some distant island (and then flipping the channel), versus running for survival from a wretch of molten lava that just engulfed your car…No thinking person would look at last year’s weather reports to judge whether it will rain today, yet we do something similar with Iraq news. The situation in Iraq has drastically changed, but the inertia of bad news leaves many convinced that the mission has failed beyond recovery, that all Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence, or are waiting for us to leave so they can crush their neighbors. This view allows our soldiers two possible roles: either “victim caught in the crossfire” or “referee between warring parties.” Neither, rightly, is tolerable to the American or British public.

Whatever your views on the war – right, wrong, iies, campaign to safeguard the nation – it’d take “Joe Isuzu”-level intellectual dishonesty to not figure out that things have changed, largely for the better, in Iraq in the past ten months.

And yet the media are still stuck in Abu Ghraib mode.  The other night, MPR’s lead story was about a squabble between the Army and the Iraqi Interior Ministry about civilian casualties in a disputed firefight, complete with unctuous sarcasm from the reporter during the Army’s side of the story.

Did I mention he’s no cheerleader?

I came to Iraq in December 2004 specifically because friends in the military had been telling me about the disconnect between the situation on the ground and the media coverage about it. This is partly why I have remained focused enough on this problem to write about it dozens of times, beginning with an early dispatch about how many news reports “from” Iraq are generated . Later I described the expensive and exasperating embed process that makes long-term on-the-ground reporting next to impossible for most small or medium media outlets, and just plain impossible for most freelancers and independents.

I’ve written about the small and petty ways the military’s Public Affairs Offices can sour even the most earnestly and positively-inclined reporters. I’ve written about how the military’s entire approach to media has failed utterly to serve both the particular mission in Iraq and the greater cause of an informed and vibrant democracy. I’ve written about reporters who got the story right, about those who got it all wrong, and also about those whose reports, good or bad, never saw the light of day.

But the villain in this report sits in a corner office on Broadway:

But it wasn’t until I spent that week back in the States that I realized how bad things have gotten. I believe we are witnessing a conspiracy of coincidences conflating to exert an incomprehensibly destructive force on the free press system that we largely take for granted. The fact that the week in question also happened to be when General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker were delivering their reports to Congress makes me wonder if things are actually worse than I’ve assessed, and I returned to Iraq sadly convinced that General Petraeus now has to deal from a deck clearly stacked against him in both America and Iraq.

Clearly, a majority of Americans believe the current set of outdated fallacies passed around mainstream media like watered down drinks at happy hour. Why wouldn’t they? The cloned copy they get comes from the same sources that list the specials at the local grocery store, and the hours and locations of polling places for town elections. These same news sources print obituaries and birth announcements, give play-by-play for local high school sports, and chronicle all the painful details of the latest celebrity to fall from grace.

And, finally, he’s got a plan, and needs your help.

So read the whole thing, and warm up your phone and keyboard.

…I actually was mildly encouraged by this bit here.

I said “mildly”.

Brian Lambert – the Major Renault of the Twin Cities media – yaps about the Stribs’ discovery of that thing that most terrifies people like…well, Brian Lambert; the free market.

But first, some things that oughtta scare all of us:

Former City Pages editor, Steve Perry, has been busy tunneling through some juicy news troves as he prepares to launch his much anticipated website, The Daily Mole, (Think: A young, hip, bra-less version of MinnPost.com).

Not sure that I want to see a bra-less Steve Perry.

But I digress. 

In the process, he came across an interesting piece of Star Tribune in-house stategery, (as W* would say) that we felt needed to emerge from behind the Mole’s beta fire-wall to be shared with all of you.

I quote:

“Ridder’s Star Tribune legacy: The newspaper of the very best zip codes.”

By Steve Perry
October 2, 2007

Let’s stop right there.

Brian Lambert and Steve Perry – no Frogtowners, no blue-collar working stiffs, nobody who would seem to have seen the wrong end of a time clock in his entire post-Dinkytown-fratboy lives, they – are yipping about a newspaper, a business, actually selling their product where the money is?

Perry:

Par Ridder may have fallen, but his vision of the Star Tribune’s future marches on. The map shown here (click on the image for a large view) is an internally distributed Strib planning document that identifies the “key zip codes” in the paper’s primary distribution area. Think of it as a visual rendering of the paper’s latest push to shore up its collapsing profits and reshape its news coverage in the most demographically attractive corners of the metro: the affluent, mostly conservative outer-ring suburbs. And if you live in Minneapolis or St. Paul (or any first-tier suburb save Edina), think of yourself as the hole in the donut.

The red sectors on the map also help to make sense of Avista point man Chris Harte’s push for a more conservative editorial page voice in recent months, a development that Brian Lambert and Deborah Rybak have been watching closely at their Rake-hosted media news blog. (Harte’s more notorious diktats have included forced revisions of editorials calling for DOT chief Carol Molnau’s head, and championing a proposed gas tax hike.)

Um, yeah.  The Strib has become a conservative tool.  Just ask…I dunno, a conservative.  Does Steve Perry know any?

I’ll go back to Perry’s bit while I herniate myself laughing:

As one Strib veteran tells the Mole, “The right-wing blog voices that were bashing the paper a couple of years ago, Hugh Hewitt and the rest, have gotten pretty much everything they wanted.

We got a paper that doesn’t say “be gentle” when the DFL says “bend over?”

(shrugs) 

 The GOP wanted the Minnesota Poll gone, and now it’s gone.

Really? 

They wanted to get rid of people like [editorial board members] Jim Boyd and Susan Albright and their editorial policy, and they’ve succeeded at that.

Well, to be fair to all of us conservatives, anyone that supported unbiased, fair journalism should have wanted both of them chased from 425 Portland by a torch-and-pitchfork-bearing mob.   

Now there won’t be editorials about the war and global warming; they’ll write about local issues like zoning conflicts in Coon Rapids instead.

Let’s leave the Strib’s congenital bias aside for a moment; even if they were going to remain a pure DFL flak organ, the fact remains that “local sells”.   

 They wanted the paper to hire a conservative columnist, and they got that.

Over how many dead bodies? 

From here on out, it looks like the Strib becomes the conservative, suburbs-oriented paper, and the Pioneer Press will become the paper of the city underdogs and the blue voters. They may wind up getting pushed more to the left.”

Let’s leave politics aside for a moment, again; the Pioneer Press might just have to to exactly that, since they blew the chance to try to capture the moderate-right-leaning audience that both papers have piddled on for all of recent memory.  If the Strib (and it’s a HUGE if) is actually moving to the middle, the PiPress may have lost its best chance to survive.  Period.

The irony is that the Parmeister worked his magic in St. Paul before turning his talents on Minneapolis. East of the river he frankly declared his intention to turn the Pioneer Press Op-Ed section into “the conservative alternative to the Star Tribune”, all while and blanding-down “news coverage” to those same mythically potent outer suburbs.

The “mythically potent” ‘burbs where most of Minnesota’s growth, and red-ifying, are happening, in other words.

In other words, though shamed by his own malfeasance, Ridder has wrought red across the Twin Cities metro.

Well, maybe he’s not so dumb after all.

(Via Ed and Tracy)

Paul Schmelzer – the MinMon’s best reporter (Eric Black seems to be more of an independent than a staffer, hence the distinction) – notes the larger story behind the flap that surfaced in this post:

No hat tips from the Strib: Big ups to City Pages for last week’s bona fide scoop on the University of St. Thomas/Desmond Tutu flap. It’s spawned reports on blogs and in the corporate media alike, but CP staffer Paul Demko isn’t feeling the love. He says the Star Tribune “simply stole the scoop” without crediting the altweekly and has been emailing blogs to get its props. If it makes you feel better, CP, it happens to us all the time.

Why, yes.

It’s really pretty common.

So why did Eric Black – the dean of Minnesota political reporters – jump on what turned out to be the Media Matters bandwagon on the phony “Rush Limbaugh Insults the Troops” fiction?

Honest mistake, fueled by (admitted) bias?  Too much writing, not enough analyzing?  Leash being yanked?

Kouba at TVM wonders too:

Last Friday on his website, Eric Black had a post where he passed along, with an uncritical eye, the blast from Media Matters about its trumped up attack of Rush Limbaugh. Worse, in the second paragraph he referred to Jeff Fecke’s musings on the matter. A bit like Theodosius declaring Alaric an authority on Roman culture. [Two minute penalty; piling on! Not inaccurate – just piling on – Ed.]
The post made me raise at least 1.5 eyebrows, for Mr. Black is smart enough not to accept at face value a broadside against Republicans from a partisan outfit like Media Matters.

That the anti-war Left would grasp at such a weak excuse to try and take some attention away from MoveOn’s blunder with its smear of Gen. Petraeus should be a clue they need a telescope to see the moral high ground.

And…

Mr. Black is too experienced a journalist to carry water for Media Matters, and now that he’s waded out into the blogosphere, this episode should highlight the fact there are creatures swimming around with sharp teeth that don’t play as fair as he does.

Black wrote a correction – sort of:

The essence of Limbaugh’s defense/rebuttal (which he delivered, in high dudgeon on the next day’s show after the Media Matters piece had led to Limbaugh being criticized by several congressmen and senators) is that the full text of the show in which he used the term “phony soldiers” proves that he was referring to only one soldier, Jesse MacBeth, who actually was a phony.

MacBeth claimed to have been an Army Ranger, an Iraq vet, and to have witnessed atrocities. But all of those statements were lies. MacBeth stands convicted of making false statements.

Media Matters original piece attacking Limbaugh made no reference to MacBeth or to the possibility that Limbaugh’s “phony soldiers” remark had been a reference to MacBeth. Limbaugh argues that any fair-minded person listening to the whole broadcast would have understood that he was referring to MacBeth and that Media Matters is guilty of a willful smear.

With an asterisk:

Here’s problem #1:

“Phony soldiers” occurs during a Limbaugh exchange with a caller. The caller complains that the media:

“never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media.”

That’s when Limbaugh interjects “the phony soldiers.” At that moment, it certainly seems that both he and the caller are referring to soldiers and veterans who oppose the war. Jesse MacBeth has not been mentioned and is not part of the context.

Yeah, talk radio’s a funny thing. It’s always your rough draft, your first take (unless you’re on NPR, doing one of their highly scripted shows).  If one is sympathetically inclined toward Limbaugh, one will probably assume he meant the slew of soldiers thrown up in front of the media by one anti-war group or another that later turned out to by phony.  If not, you might assume he’s talking about all anti-war soldiers.

But when one thinks of (and refers to) Media Matters as a “media watchdog group” rather than a “leftist propaganda mill”, it’s a pretty big chink in your chain of informational evidence.

It’d be interesting to have Mr. Black on the show again; we have a lot to talk about…

Ever have one of those days when you’re crushingly busy, but making headway…

…and then you run into a task that, at first glance, appeared pro forma and easy, but turns out to be a huge undertaking?

I got that same thing looking at Nick Coleman’s latest column excrescence today.  What looked via the headline to be a routine fisk has turned into a monstrosity that will take some concerted effort.

So rather than wuss out and do it later, I’m going to walk the alternative media walk, and decentralize the job.  I’m going to reprise one of my favorite bits, and ask you, gentle reader, to gimme a hand here.

Pick a part of the column – a paragraph, a passage, a statement – and fisk it in the comment section.

Show the dead tree media who’s boss!

You may commence.

A sample of the lunacy that occasionally bedevils Saint Paul (and may I say, thank heavens we live next door to even loonier Minneapolis) jumped out and bit us a few weeks ago, when Mayor Coleman declared his parking space a city park for a day.

St. Paulicy – one of my favorite blog discoveries of the past year – covered it like I’d have liked to, by quoting the Highland Villager’s Mike Mischke’s critique:

Mischke, responding to the “parking space park” declaration:

I had to consult a calendar to see if it was actually April 1.

The mayor’s supposed paean to the city’s parks system might have
caused nothing but head-scatching were it not for the serious threats
that the mayor’s 2008 budget represents to the same parks system, and
the imperial manner with which those threats are being dealt.

There is widespread disappointment among people who thought Coleman
would be far more receptive than his predecessor to involving
citizens in city decision-making. But that hasn’t proven to be the
case. Three cases in point:

* There is no contingency plan for the city’s rec centers that are
slated to be palmed off on private organizations to operate. If no
private partners are found to run those rec centers by the end of the
year, they will close. Yet rec center booster clubs, district
councils and youth sports organizations were blind-sided by the
mayor’s budget announcement, and they’re peeved about what they see
as the ham-handed, take-it-or-leave-it approach of the
administration. We’ve known for nearly a year about the city’s
looming budget woes, they say. Couldn’t the mayor have brought us
into the loop earlier and given us time to find private partners and
explore possible solutions with them?

* The off-leash dog park fiasco is another example of what happens
when the mayor shuns local parks advocates, district councils and
youth sports groups and simply sics Parks and Rec on a “solution” to
a problem that only a handful of Coleman’s constituents had
complained to him about: you get bitten on the backside.
Unfortunately, parks staff took the teeth marks when it was the mayor
who asked for them.

You should read the whole thing.

SPicy’s signoff:

In closing, Make sure to patronize Villager Advertisers, those that have not crossed the digital divide can generally county on reading editorials from Mischke that are (most of the time) right after SPicy’s own heart.  Let’s all make sure to support those who support the local press.

SPicy does have one great point; the Saint Paul neighborhood papers, along among the Twin Cities’ dead-tree media, are a bumptious, raucus, place that features some – hold onto your seat – genuine diversity of opinion.

Which helps (I say, helps) make up for that whole “one party town” thing.

I’m amusing myself at the moment by pondering this question: How would Lori Sturdevant describe a leader among conservatives, one who was unswerving in his devotion to conservative first principles and in their forwarding in the Legislature?  Someone like, say, Michele Bachmann or Phil Krinkie were, when they were in the State Senate?  Or like Marty Seifert is today?  I’m guessing words like “divisive” and “extremist” would pop up.

Just a hunch.

Naturally – being a DFL hack in all but name – Sturdevant can be expected to provide the same treatement to their opposite numbers in the DFL – if you’re in opposite world. 

So she shows, in yesterday’s column featuring my “represenative”, Alice “The Phantom” Hausman:

When state Rep. Alice Hausman of St. Paul rises to speak on the House floor, I’ve noticed, chatter quiets and paper rustling stops. 

If the chatterers and rustlers live in District 66B, they’re probably amazed to see that she actually exists.  Hausmann is not known for returning phone calls, or for that matter being seen around the district, unless there’s a photo op.   

To steal a concept from Andy Warhol; soon, everyone will spend fifteen minutes wrapping some personal shortcoming in the Constitution.

This week?  It’s this intellectual gimp, an editor at the Colorado State “Collegian” newspaper:

The editor of the Colorado State University newspaper says he has no plans to resign amid criticism of the paper for using an obscenity in an editorial about President Bush.

The four-word editorial, published Friday in the Rocky Mountain Collegian, said in large type, “Taser this. F—- Bush.” 

J. David McSwane, the Collegian’s editor-in-chief and a CSU junior, said the newspaper’s governing board may fire him but he said he would not voluntarily step aside.

The irony, of course, is that I’m flummoxed to remember a single person ever being tasered at a Bush press conference.  John Kerry, on the other hand…

(And oh, good lord.  A college kid with an initial for a first name.  I want to taser him on principle).

“I think that’d be an insult to the staff who supported the editorial,” McSwane told the Fort Collins Coloradoan in Monday’s editions.

I think that’d be irrelevant at this point.

Of course, the news isn’t all bad:

The newspaper’s business manager has said the operation lost $30,000 in advertising in the hours after the editorial was published, and that the pay of student staffers would be cut 10 percent to compensate

McSwane said the newspaper’s student editors decided to use the obscenity because CSU students are apathetic about free speech and other rights.

“We thought the best way to illustrate that point was to use our freedoms,” he said.

Let’s get something straight, “Mr.” McShane; you didn’t “use your freedoms”; you defaced them.  You “used” your freedom of speech like someone who farts in church, sprays grafitti on a bathroom wall, and has a food fight in a clothing store “uses” their freedoms of religion, press and assembly.  You trivialized those freedoms, and made yourself, your “advisors”, your paper and  your university laughingstocks. 

The Board of Student Communication, which oversees the Collegian and other student media at the university, plans to discuss the editorial when it meets Tuesday night.

Proposal #1:  hire a grownup.

(Via Fraters)

The Strib will be starting a “New” political section tomorrow.

The Star Tribune will launch a new website Monday that aims to be a one-stop shop for all things political in Minnesota. The site, Politically Connected, will particularly focus on the 2008 elections.

“The Internet has a wealth of political information, but it’s very specialized and very fractured,” said Dennis McGrath, a longtime Star Tribune editor who will oversee the site.

“What Politically Connected will do is not only give you the Star Tribune’s political news, but it will also sweep in all of the different political content that’s out there and assemble it in one place so visitors to this site can spend less time searching … and more time reading it, watching it and debating it,” he said.

I’m not going to hazard a guess as to the kind of “gatekeeping” the Strib’s crack political staff will do on all of this handy-dandy unregulated material, though. 

Oh, no.  Not me. 

Politically Connected –accessible on Monday at www.startribune.com/politics — will feature a main news-of-the-day page, as well as pages on specific political races and individual candidates, weekly podcasts on Minnesota politics, staff-produced blogs, links to blogs across the political spectrum and archival information.

In other words, “Blog House” with a budget?

“We give a lot of information about what’s going on that day or that week in politics, but it gets lost [in time],” Star Tribune Editor Nancy Barnes said. “We want to collect it and archive it and engage people in the discussion.”

It’s likely to be a lively site during the next 13 months.

Oh, that more or less goes without saying.

But will it be a big improvement on their usual political coverage?

Barnes said that in addition to informing the public, the website has the potential to generate revenue.

“Over time, we hope to get political advertising as people see it is the place to come for political news and information,” she said.

I’m shocked.  I expected unicorns on gossamer wings to flit from the sky with sacks of doubloons.

Here’s a question, Dennis McGrath; do you think the Strib has retained any credibility at all, after the past decade of in-the-bag bias?

Par Ridder gets his comeuppance:

Judge David C. Higgs, in a ruling marked by pointed criticisms of Ridder’s behavior, said Ridder violated the state’s Uniform Trade Secrets Act, and his “common law duty of confidentiality.”

“Given Ridder’s past conduct and his cavalier attitude toward his use and disclosure of confidential Pioneer Press information, it seems to the court that his past actual misappropriation is a good indicator of possible future misappropriation or use of confidential Pioneer Press information,” Higgs ruled.

It just goes to show you; no matter how gratingly smug an establishment media liberal you are, if you commit a grievous enough breach of conduct, a Minnesota judge might eventually hand you a nearly-meaningless consequence:

The ruling bars Ridder from his office for one year starting today, a move that lawyers for the Pioneer Press had argued was necessary to prevent further damage to their business. Ridder left the Star Tribune at 8:40 a.m., according to Star Tribune spokesman Ben Taylor.

I guess he’ll have to double-dog promise not to work from home.

Getting sent home; I bet Ridder hasn’t heard that one since fourth grade.

Michelle Malkin really does sum it up perfectly sometimes.

I’ve gone back and forth with Syl Jones in this space for pretty much as long as I’ve had a blog.  As I’ve noted in the past, I probably disagree with Jones 80-odd percent of the time.  But even at his worst, at least he’s always written his own stuff. 

Not so much with his latest piece in the Strib, which is enough to make you wonder if he spent too much time “consulting” and writing plays to get to his monthly column, forcing him to dig through his “in” box and find something, anything to write about, leading him to an envelope full of Code Pink talking points or Nick Coleman’s liner notes.

No, really; see if you’ve seen this before:

The winner of the Most Arrogant Nation In The World award is clearly the United States of America. We are arrogant in our dealings with sovereign nations like Iraq. We are arrogant toward our own citizens. We are arrogant in assuming that we have a special place in history. We are arrogant in believing that all nations want and need our kind of democracy. So, let’s all reach around and pat ourselves on the back. We’ve won. “Arrogance Is U.S.,” and the whole world knows it.

Seriously!  Deja vu is setting in!

We insisted on putting our massive footprint in the heart of the Middle East, where we don’t belong. Arrogance.

Er, yeah.  We just felt like going there. 

Like, nothing else happened.  It was the national equivalent of a 50 year old mortgage broker buying a Miata. 

Nothing else to it. 

We lied to the world about WMDs,

…in the same sense that Syl Jones “lied to the world”  about the psychology of Christmas.  

Of course, perhaps Mr. Jones would say he wasn’t lying, merely operating from information that he “reasonably” believes to be correct? 

We told the world that we were fighting them “over there” so we don’t have to fight them “over here.” More arrogance.

Um…huh?

We sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan without the needed armaments and equipment.

So badly armed and equipped were they that they did in a month what the Soviet Union couldn’t do in a decade.  So ill-equipped, they advanced a thousand opposed miles in three weeks.

Jones is wrong – or, to use his “logic”, lying. 

Far from following the advice of those on the ground, as President Bush has repeatedly claimed, we ignored and vilified Gen. Eric Shinseki for saying that we needed at least 250,000 troops to stabilize Iraq.

Shinseki was likely wrong; we didn’t need more troops, we needed to employ the ones we had there better.  As we are doing now.

But it’s perhaps unfair to hold Jones too closely to his words on a subject he only dimlly comprehends (or, to use his own logic, “is lying about”). 

Everywhere we look in this war, the United States is on the defensive not because the enemy is overwhelmingly strong but because we were unprepared. Now, the president has announced modest troop withdrawals in order to buy time for himself and for his failed policy of converting Iraq into a democracy on the backs of American soldiers. No, scratch that. The goal keeps changing. We’ll settle for a brokered cessation of hostilities between the rival militias and movement toward a functional coalition government. Absolute arrogance.

Also known as “realism”. 

Suddenly that’s a bad thing?

Furthermore, we have no intention of leaving Iraq — ever. We are building the largest embassy in the history of the world in Baghdad. We will maintain a military foothold there even after the militias have been subdued because our geopolitical interests are underneath the ground: oil. With friends like us, who needs enemies? We pedal arrogance 24/7 — it’s who we are.

Yeah.  Ask the Germans.

Actually, keep the Germans on the line; Jones is straying onto their turf:

Finally, the misappropriation of language, a hallmark of totalitarianism, is another sign of our arrogance. Starting now, I’m taking the language back from its abusers.

Oh, good.  This oughtta be fun.

 The “surge” is an escalation of an ill-fated, badly planned and executed war.

It’s a change in approach to the war – one we should have undertaken years ago.   

“Vietnam” is a war we fought to prop up an anticommunist dictatorship, and it took over 50,000 American lives. “AWOL” is where Bush resided during part of that war. “Five deferments” refers to Dick Cheney’s ticket out of the Vietnam War. And “Mission Accomplished” means we didn’t do our homework. The fact that we do not seem to grasp these concepts does, indeed, make us look like the most arrogant nation on earth.

 If that assessment proves to be true, then the outcome will be more tragedy, less safety at home and abroad, and a resurgence of international scorn.

“Syl Jones recycles rewarmed MoveOn talking points” equals “national arrogance”?

Way to take that language back, Syl. 

Syl Jones, of Minnetonka, is a journalist, playwright and communications consultant.

And, apparently, desperately short of ideas.

Over at TN, Swiftee notes a sad event involving an involuntarily-key figure in the history of the Twin Cities center-right blogosphere…:

 It seems that [former Saint Paul school principal Zelma] Wiley has passed away…I’d like to express my sincere sympathies to the family of Zelma Wiley.

…and the “columnist” who dragged her into the public eye:

 I firmly believe that she had the best interests of her students in mind when she agreed to work with Nick Coleman, She could not have known that Nick had a well deserved reputation of a shameless panderer and prevaricator and I don’t think that she deserved the abuse that rightfully belonged to Coleman.

My condolences to Ms. Wiley’s family; she was the principal of my daughter’s first school, and in my conversations with her she was always a courteous person who, to be fair, inherited a very difficult task (Maxfield is in one of St. Paul’s worst neighborhoods), and did the very best she could.

The other day, in the comment thread for Joe Bodell’s incisive investigative piece on True North, a commenter noted:

The real question is when MinnMo is going to get their radio show up.

Oh, my.  That, I’d almost pay to hear.  Once.

 OPENING JINGLE (Performed by a group of studio musicians earning union scale): “MinnMonitor – on the air!”

(ten seconds of dead air).

 OPENING JINGLE: “MinnMonitor – on the air!”

ROBIN “REW” MARTY: “Like, totally hello!  This is Minnesota Monitor Radio on Air America, like, Minnesota…”

 (five seconds of dead air)

…and I’d like to introduce the guys on the show.  We’ve got Andy Birkey…

ANDY BIRKEY: “I’m Andy Birkey…”

ROBIN “REW MARTY: “…and Eric Black”

ERIC BLACK: “Greetings”

ROBIN “REW” MARTY: “Joe Bodell”

JOE BODELL: “Robin!  I just ran a packet trace on John Hinderaker’s furnace, and found that his carbon footprint is actually higher than his golf handicap!”

ROBIN “REW” MARTY: “…”Paul” from “Eyeteeth”…”

PAUL SCHMELZER: “Yo”

ROBIN “REW” MARTY: “And, finally, the guy on the staff with actual radio experience from about 200 appearances on the Jeff Heaney show, Jeff Fecke”

JEFF FECKE: “Thank you.  As I always say, we must pay any price, bear any burden, to spread liberty and freedom”. 

ROBIN “REW” MARTY: “Like totally!  So our first topic of the day is, like, the Republican National Convention…”

ANDY BIRKEY: “It will affect gays more”.

ABDI AYNTE: “No, it will affect Moslems more”

ANDY BIRKEY: “That’s absurd!  Republicans hate gays more than they hate Moslems”

ABDI AYNTE: “That is rediculous!  They hate Muslims more than they hate gays!”

JOE BODELL OR JEFF FECKE: “Actually, they hate the troops even more”.

ROBIN “REW” MARTY: “Was that Paul or Jeff talking?”

JOE BODELL: “Beats me”

JEFF FECKE: “I have no idea”.

ROBIN “REW” MARTY: “Let’s take a caller.  In Minneapolis, it’s Eva.  Eva, welcome to MinnMon on the Air!”

EVA: “Read my blog”

(Five seconds of dead air)

ROBIN “REW” MARTY: “Totally!  Thanks for your call!  Next topic…”

JOE BODELL: “Just a minute, Robin. I ran a skiptrace on the ATM packets going from Karl Rove’s Blackberry to the RNC’s server in Virginia, and cross-indexed the results with derivatives of an IPMask Subnet to Supernet refluxogram, and it appears that the Republican National Convention is going to be held in…”

(Three seconds of dead air)

JOE BODELL: “…Bloomington.”

ERIC BLACK: (wearily) “It’s actually going to be in Saint Paul”

JOE BODELL: “No, look here – I printed it out”.

ROBIN “REW” MARTY: “Let’s take another call.  Eva, on line 2, you’re totally on MinnMonn on the Air”

EVA: “Read my blog”.

(Nine seconds of dead air)

ROBIN “REW” MARTY: “Yeah!”

JEFF FECKE: “When it comes to the RNC, it’s like Franklin D Roosevelt said to me; the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”.

ERIC BLACK: “OK, that’s enough, Fecke.  That was said in FDR’s inauguration speech, and he died over thirty years before you were born.  How are you attributing that to a direct conversation?”

(22 seconds of dead air)

JEFF FECKE: “I’ve spoken with my editor, and she’s advised me not to comment”

JOE BODELL: “Oh, we’re totally porked”

ABDI AYNTE: “That is an anti-Muslim statement.  You must apologize.”

PAUL SCHMELZER: “Dude, we’re all on the same team…”.

ROBIN “REW” MARTY: “It’s time for totally a break!  We’ll be back after this word from our sponsors, Juan’s Balloon Animals, and Kites are Us!

On the other hand, Air American couldn’t possibly do much worse than the somnolent Mark Heaney show they run every afternoon.