The subject is constituent meetings related to healthcare.

Senator Klobuchar:  “Meets” with constituents via a “tele-town hall”.  To te accurate – the technology was exceedingly buggy. To be fair, she and her people by all appearances tried to put on a fair show; it’s also worth noting that her stance on Obamessiahcare Kennedycare differs from the orthodox left’s stance, to the point that she’s angering liberals.  Fair is fair.

Representatives Ellison and McCollum: Held a healthcare rally for, basically, supporters.  At the DFL headquarters.  That’s it.

Representative Bachmann: Held a town hall meeting in which she welcomed supporters and detractors.

Just saying.

In reading Doug Grow’s account of A-Klo’s “Tele-Town Hall” “meeting”, it occurs to me…

One caller tried hard to pin her down.

“Do you support a public (health insurance) option?” he asked.

That seemed to call for a “yes” or “no” answer.

The caller got neither.

Sen. Amy KlobucharInstead, here’s what he got: “I will tell you this,” the senator said. “I’m open to a competitive option. You need to put pressure on the insurance companies. One way to do that [is allow the public to join] the federal health care plan or one just like it. The government does administer it, but it’s a private plan. That’s one way. And then there’s this co-op plan proposal [in the Senate]. That really hasn’t been formed yet. Those are some of the ideas. I want to make sure whatever option we choose works for our state. Make sure it makes it easier for small businesses and the self-employed.”

…that in the wake of Minnesota’s eight-month recount ordeal, that Minnesota has gone from having one Senataor in DC…

…to none.

So after writing about the apparent bollix-up with Senator Klobuchar’s “Tele-Town Hall”, I figured that in the interest of presenting a balanced picture of the news I’d invite the Senator to appear on the Northern Alliance Radio Network at the Fair next week.

So I went to the Senator’s “Press” page, and noted the contact name and phone number…:

…and called.

The guy on the phone had never heard of a Linden Zakula.  “Anyone in the Senator’s press operation at all named Zakula?”  I prodded.

“I’m sorry, I’ve never heard of her…”

So I took whomever I could get.  I told the non-Zakula staffer who took the message that our Senator would have her choice of times, from Monday the 31st through Saturday the 5th of September (Friday the 28th and Saturday the 29th are booked solid), and stressed that Ed and I do the most civil, respectful interviews in town; indeed, we’ll put anything we do up against anything MPR or NPR do in terms of overall tone and quality, and if they doubted it they should ask A-Klo’s former boss, RT Rybak. We’ve got tough, legitimate questions, but it’s not going to be a Jerry Springer show (provided the SEIU stays home).

I’m going to do something I haven’t done in a while:  issue a call to the MOB.

MOB bloggers – of all political persuasions – did you get an “invite” to Amy Klobuchar’s “tele-town-hall?”

Did you get the “callback” from A-Klo’s office to join the meeting?  Did you actually get to “attend” the meeting?

And presuming you got the “callback” – did you attend?  How did the meeting go?  Was there a balanced set of questions?

I plan on trying to listen to the audio later today. 

If you have a blog, write about it and either leave a link in my comment section, or email me.  If you do not have a blog, leave your story in my comment section.  I will update this post as needed.

I wanna see if there’s a story here.

Fresch Fisch got an invite to Senator Klobuchar’s  “Tele-Town Hall”:

And it sure sounded on the up-and-up:

Dear :_____

As someone who has previously contacted our office to share your thoughts on issues important to you, I would like to take this opportunity to invite you to participate in a live statewide healthcare tele-town hall meeting this Sunday, August 23 rd , at 7:00 PM…Once you’re registered, you’ll get an automated reminder phone call on Friday evening and you’ll be called again on Sunday to be joined to the call.  The phone number you provide will be kept private.

I look forward to hearing from you on Sunday.

Sincerely,

Amy Klobuchar
United States Senator

I’d have certainly taken that as an encouraging sign!

As did Fisch!

I was really pumped! Maybe all those calls to her Minnesota and Washington offices paid off! I even received my follow up call on Saturday. I was really looking forward to Sunday night.

But we were both wrong:

6:45, 6:50, 7:00, no call, maybe they are just busy, maybe it’s running late. Then at 7:15 I received my recorded message from Amy saying she “missed me”. How could she have “missed me”, I was home since 5 or so. She explained I could listen to a recording of her town hall on her website. If my call was as 7:15, was it over yet? I guess when no one is dissenting, things go pretty fast.

A fifteen minute town hall?  For government work, that is pretty dang amazing!

Seriously – I know there were a few conservatives out there who’d heard from A-Klo about these meetings.  Did anyone actually get “the call?”

Or did A-Klo’s office decide you were racist Nazis?

Fisch:

I guess maybe I didn’t call her office enough I’ll start calling more.

I think that’s a fine plan.

Maybe a bunch of us need to call on her.

Most everyone thought Norm Coleman’s concession speech was gracious and classy.  There were some risible exceptions (see previous)…

…and Charlie Quimby, who notes:

I heard an MPR reporter say that cameras from The UpTake were excluded from livestreaming Coleman’s announcement. Instead, the news service shot shaky video from a neighbor’s yard and posted it here — a mute commentary on the snub.The UpTake has provided the most in-depth video documentation of the various proceedings associated with the recount, but has been systematically stiffed by Coleman’s staff. If Coleman does decide to run for office again, he’s certainly not paving the way with citizen media.

Now, let’s see if we can get this straight:  Uptake, an avowedly “progressive” “news organization”, gets access to “document” the election process from election authorities led by a “progressive” Secretary of State; they do a decent job of covering the proceedings (at least, the parts where their editorial stances aren’t included), but they are unmistakeably in the bag for Al Franken throughout the entire process.

So how is Coleman wrong for ejecting them?

I have no problem with partisan media; I am partisan media!  I have no problem in particular with the Uptake, who I believe generally tries to do a good job (with a few notable problems endemic to its’ “everyone plays!” participation model). 

But being partisan media has consequences.

I am a conservative blogger and host; I can fairly easily get access to Governor Pawlenty, John Kline, Michele Bachmann, and the one good Senator Minnesota has had since 2000, Norm Coleman, at least in part because my allegiances and the audience are pretty obvious.  They all know that while there might be a tough question or two, there will be no ambushes, no smearing, nothing rebroadcast out of context.

On the other hand, last year I sent invites to appear on the Northern Alliance to Senator Klobuchar, candidate Franken, Representatives Ellson and McCollum, and RT Rybak.   Only Rybak responded (we had a good interview!); the rest didn’t even give the courtesy of a rejection.

“Well, of course!”, the standard response went.  “You’re conservative media!  The Uptake is…”

Um…what is the Uptake?

“They’re journalists!”

Well, sure – and by the same standard, so am I.

“Nooooo, Berg – you’re a fire-breathing talk show host! It’s different!”

Keep your stereotypes to yourself.  I’ll put the interviews that Ed and I (and King, and John and Brian) do up against anything on MPR.  Of course that’s a matter of opinion, but it happens to be correct.

So – why the vapors over the “progressive” Uptake’s snub?  Partisan journalism has its downside!

I sat in on “Radio Free Nation”, Marty Owings’ Blogtalkradio show last Saturday night.

Marty had booked Minnesota Fifth District representative Keith Ellison.  Ellison appeared for about 45 minutes.  For the first 25 minutes, the Representative talked about his economic platform:

• “Reform” of regulations for financial services companies
• “Strengthening Union Rights”, as he referred to it, via the Empoyee Free Choice Act
• Changing Capitalization requirements for bank assets.

So if you leave out the odd reference to Sean Hannity being a “bigot”, and conservatives “winking” at Von Brunn (the Holocaust memorial murderer), and his line that the US needs to stop “toeing the line for Israel” if we want peace in the Middle East?  Fairly uneventful.

Sorta.

I got my chance to ask questions about 36 minutes into the netcast.

I asked my first question: since, in his response to a previous panelist about the solution to the Palestinian/Israeli problem, Representative Ellison said that it was (closely paraphrasing) up to the people to push a solution (and the people wanted the solution!), I asked, given that the charter of the Hamas government that the people of Gaza elected to power in a landslide calls in as many words for the destruction of Israel as a nation and people, how we could expect “the people” of Gaza to really want “peace”?

Well, I tried to ask.

His immediate response?  “How many Palestinians do you know?”, followed by a fairly peevish little tirade.
I’m not sure if he wanted me to respond “some of my best friends are Palestinians”, or if he was just acting like a lawyer and trying to buffalo my question or what.  You can listen, if you’d like, to try to pick apart the tirade that follows.  I don’t want to say Ellison is “typical” of Minneapolis DFLers in being unable to hold a civil conversation with a dissenter (after all, I had a great time interviewing RT Rybak).

But I don’t think Ellison appreciates us peasants questioning our betters one little bit.

But we’ll find out – maybe.  If you recall, about a year ago – responding to Andy Birkey’s observation that Michele Bachmann only appeared on conservative media (which the last year has pretty well belied in any case), I sent invites to a slew of regional DFLers – Senator Klobuchar, Candidate Franken, Representative McCollum, Mayor Rybak…

…and Keith Ellison.

Only Rybak responded (as noted above).  Ellison’s press people didn’t even give us the courtesy of a “screw you, peasant”.

So I took the liberty of asking again.

We’ll see how that turns out.

As I noted earlier, free-lance journalist, former NPR reporter/Miss North Dakota/Fargo North alum Roxana Saberi is being held incommunicado in Iran.

Ed at Hot Air notes:

This puts Barack Obama’s “smart power” foreign policy to the test. If Saberi’s case gets a lot of attention, the State Department will feel the pressure to get her released. This happened a few times during the Bush administration, which succeeded in all but one case to gain the release of arrested Americans.

Of course, Congress is frequently the engine of the “attention” that needs to be paid.  What is the position of NoDak’s two Senators, arch-liberal Obama supporters Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan?

There was a time we could have counted on Norm Coleman to be a voice for justice in these cases.  God willing, we will again.

Where is Amy Klobuchar, figuratively (and where is Al Franken, literally)?  Do either of our Senators/would-be Senators have the falafel to smack down the mullahs?

There are indications the Dems are going to be scraping to get to sixty in the Senate.

Here’s the complete list of Senators and their staffs.

Naturally, pick the ones from your state (singular in Minnesota – perhaps good under the circumstances) and get cranking.

It’s unlikely Amy “A-Klo” Klobuchar will be one of the wobbly ones, but it wouldn’t hurt to show her how very upset people are over this legislation.  Last week, House staffers reported that call were running 100-1 against the “stimulus”.

…at least be thankful you’re not stuck at this Super Bown “party”

The invite of the year (so far): Barack Obama’s Super Bowl watching party. . .elected officials break out 11 Ds, 4Rs

Senators: Bob Casey (D-PA), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Arlen Specter (R-PA)

House members: Elijah Cummings (D-MD); Artur Davis (D-AL); Rosa DeLauro (D-CT); Charlie Dent (R-PA); Mike Doyle (D-PA); Trent Franks (R-AZ); Raul Grijalva (D-AZ); Paul Hodes (D-NH); Eleanor Holmes-Norton (D-DC); Patrick Murphy (D-PA); Fred Upton (R-MI)

It’d be a matter not merely of eating the muzzle of a handgun, but of making sure it’s a big-enough one.  At least .40S&W.

Although it certainly makes some peoples’ legs all tingly.

It hardly seems like it’s been three years since the staff of this blog issued the first-ever “Shot In The Dark Academy Of Blogging Art, Science and Engineering Awards For MetaJournalistic AntiExcellence” – known and loved as the “Shooties”. During those three years, the online metajournalistic world has expanded – and, like a Peter-Principled fog, opportunities for really bad metajournalism have expanded anon.

And so, last night at a gala at Northrop Auditorium, the staff of Shot In The Dark and an assembled audience of 3,000 of the creme de la creme of the elite of the elite gathered to bestow these awards, and to look ahead to next year. It was a dazzling display of fashion and blogging star power (marred only slightly by JB Doubtless’ tipsy recitation of his favorite slam poetry of 2006) highlighted by appearances by Marisa Tomei, Metallica and beer expert Michael Jackson.

(Technical awards were given the previous week at the Minneapolis Grayhound station, and were all won by Joe Bodell).

And so without further ado – a tradition unlike many others: The Shootie Awards for 2008!

The Andy Dick Whiny B**ch Award For B***hy Whinyness: Need I say more?

The Daniel Pearl Profiles in Journalistic Courage Award: This one goes to Molly “Is It White In Here” Priesmeyer of the Minnesoros “Independent”. Last March, she wrote:

…it’s at least refreshing to see McCain’s teeth get a razzing (though, unfortunately, not a cleaning). It gets a little tiring listening to the same sexist cries that Hillary Clinton is just too ugly to be president. Hatin’ on the looks of all the candidates? Now that’s equality!

The next day, she noted to MDE that, schwoops, she wasn’t aware that McCain’s teeth had been beaten out of his face while a POW in Vietnam:

I was not aware of the fact. I simply was linking to a post that revealed “his teeth” had become a topic of discussion on the blogosphere. Buzzfeed.com is an aggregator site that collects trends of the day.

The “Mindy” – all the news that’s fit for rich liberals to pay you to link to!

The Leona Helmsley “Accountability For Ye, but Not For We” Award: Last March, the Minnesoros Monitor “Independent”‘s Andy Birkey chided Rep. Michele Bachmann for eschewing appearances on the local tanning-bed media, preferring to stick to conservative and Christian news outlets (an approach that was pretty roundly vindicated closer to election time). I asked Senator Amy Klobuchar, Senate Candiate Al Franken, Representatives Keith Eillson and Betty McCollum, and mayors R.T Rybak and Chris Coleman for interviews on the NARN or, if their schedules didn’t permit, on my blog.

Mayor Rybak earned my respect by accepting the invitation.

None of the others responded to repeated inquiries.

The Cliff Clavin Award For Unintentional Comedic Self-Glamorization: Grace Kelly at MNBlue MnProgressiveProject some wackjob commieblog knows who the real heroes are.

DFL volunteers.

The Mao Zhedong “We Are Identically Diverse” Award: Lori Sturdevant has given so much to this award ceremony every year; she’s a serious contender for a lifetime achievement award. This years’ paeon to “feminist unity” (behind left-leaning women only, naturally) was just one of dozens of potential choices from her oeuvre this past year.

The Baghdad Bob “We’re Not Laughing With You, We’re Laughing At You” Award: Mere weeks after the Minnesoros “Independent” laid off much of its staff at the behest of the “Center for “Independent” Media” (causing editor Steve Perry to realize that he’d been running a bald-faced propaganda rag roughly two years after every other person in the Twin Cities had twigged to the fact), Chris Steller complained unironically that the Coleman campaign was tossing the utterly dependent Steller from press conferences. (The NARN is still waiting on press credentials from Keith Ellison).

Post Title Of The Year: While there were the usual avalanche of contenders, I found nothing better than Mr. Dilettante’s “Jesus Christ Oberstar“.

The Martin Luther King/Sermon On The Mount Award For Political Civility: Aaron Landry – MNPublius’ designated wind-up Frankenblogger – brought political discourse to a higher level.

The “Dewey Wins” Award For Gate-Keeping and Fact-Checking – This years’ award goes to the Minnsoros “Independent” (nee Monitor), for Dan Haugen’s “It Could Be Worse“. Background: during the spring legislative session, Rep. Tony Cornish (R – Good Thunder) sponsored a bill that would have clarified Minnesota’s rules for armed self-defense. While the rest of the Minnesota Sorosphere turned to actively lying about Cornish’s bill (see “Government Figure As Mushroom Farmer”, below), Haugen tried to wax humorous, snickering that at least Minnesotans weren’t proposing allowing guns in bars, like a bill in Tennessee proposed.

Unfortunately, being a highly trained “independent” “citizen journalist”, Haugen couldn’t be bothered to have found out that legal, unintoxicated (blood alcohol below .04%) permit holders are allowed to carry guns in bars in Minnesota.

The “C’mon, Thomas Jefferson – Work With King George!” Award: To the entire Twin Cities media and leftymedia (pardon the redundancy), for their nonstop pressure on the GOP to not just forgive and forget the Override Six for stabbing their party and constituents in the back, but to pretty much become DFLers anyway. As usual.

Government Official As Mushroom Farmer Award: This one goes to Dakota County Attorney Jim Backstrom, in his response to Rep. Cornish’s bill. Backstrom demonstrates the old adage – if you can’t dazzle ’em with brilliance, just lie, since the media will back you up anyway.

And finally, the big kahuna – the one we’ve been waiting for all year:

The Charles Townsend Award – In 1765, British parliamentarian Charles Townsend, in noting the Colonies’ protests against the Stamp Act, said:

“And now will these Americans, Children planted by our Care, nourished up by our Indulgence until they are grown to a Degree of Strength & Opulence, and protected by our Arms, will they grudge to contribute their mite to relieve us from the heavy weight of that burden which we lie under?”

And this year’s winner is…

(Drum Roll)

Larry Pogemiller, “I think it’s simplistic and naive to say people can spend their money better than the government.”

That’s it for this year, folks! But stay tuned – 2009 promises to be a doozy!

ALSO:  Swiftee is giving out awards, too – and unlike the autocratic Shooties, you have a say!

Bing West – Vietnam Marine veteran and author of The March Up and The Strongest Tribe among many other writings on the Iraq war, writes to Rich Lowry at NRO, urging caution about applying apples to oranges and, along the way, taking an oblique poke at a Dem campaign meme:

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs says we are now changing our strategy in Afghanistan. Hmm. What has it been for seven years?? The Command and Control has been an unfathomable mess—created by the military and not attributable to a lack of troops.

One of the Dems – Obama’s – key memes in the election was the idea of shifting troops from Iraq to Afghanistan (indeed, Amy Klobuchar thought it’d be hunky dory to shift all the troops to Afghanistan, and use it for a base to go back into Iraq if the situation went south.

West notes that the “Anbar Awakening” – really, the start of sound counterinsurgency warfare in Iraq – predated the arrival of David Petraeus.

We have to be careful not to design a strategy that is based on a theory created from myths. If you look at Anbar prior to the Sunnis coming over, you see that the Americans were persisting in very small unit (squads) dismounted patrolling, day and night. If you transfer that model to Afghanistan, you are increasing the risk and assuring many more US casualties. It may Americanize yet further a war that should be quite limited, and focused on how to get to al Qaeda in western Pakistan. Above all, we shouldn’t do it because we believe it worked first in Baghdad in 2007 and became the key to bringing over the Sunnis in a short period of time. That’s not what happened.

West may be being both a little parochial (he’s a Marine) and accurate (the change in approach in Anbar was largely pushed by the Marines’ General Mattis, and the Marines have long embraced the approach to counterinsurgency that the media has largely credited to Petraeus).

Either way, winning the war is no more about “sending more troops to Afghanistan” than it is about “finding Bin Laden”.  You may recall the last time Democrats ran a counterinsurgency – they sent half a million troops, over three times as many as are in Iraq.

We know how that turned out.

Two bits of news from talk radio that tie into a larger industry-wide trend.

Brain Maloney notes that Citadel Radio – one of the chains of broadcasters that has led the way in trying to jam left-leaning programming down the listeners throats, and largely failing (judging by their stock, which has gone from a solid hold to a penny stock in the past two years), is running the pointless Joe Scarborough and the execrable Mika Brezinski on their flagship station WABC in New York.

Maloney:

In fact, the decision to insert MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski into WABC’s midmorning slot is exactly how Citadel – ABC Radio got into this mess in the first place.Since the ill-fated merger of [Citadel and the old ABC Radio], Citadel’s upper management has struggled to grasp news-talk and what drives listenership. Instead of learning more about this highly-successful medium’s audience characteristics, CEO Farid Suleman has compelled stations to comply with a series of increasingly-bizarre programming edicts, of which this is merely the latest.

It’s nothing new, of course.  Since the aftermath of the 2004 elections, a lot of high-power consultants – the ones whom Rush Limbaugh caught by surprise – have been saying “conservative talk is dead”, and doing their best to prove it by killing off the stations they program.

This is manifested in ways small (the ongoing morphing of KSTP-AM into WCCO) and, in WABC’s case, big:

[Suleman’s] latest fiasco debuted yesterday, made possible by the recent removal of longtime WABC honcho Phil Boyce. One longtime major market radio programmer who monitored the broadcast told your Radio Equalizer that it “sounds like a train wreck on the air. Maybe this is the making of a new horror movie: When CEOs Program.” He further called it “just MSNBC on the radio.”

Without a skilled programming coach to guide Joe and Mika, both rank amateurs when it comes to talk radio, the program lacked focus. It skipped around haphazardly between topics and guests, which included MSNBC insiders such as David Gregory and Tom Brokaw.

Perhaps Suleman knows something we don’t.

Perhaps Harry Reid tipped him off that the Fairness Doctrine will not only be re-enacted immediately after inauguration, but enforced brutally, and it’s best to get ahead of the curve by filling your lineup with innocuous center-left talking heads who won’t offend the new regime and its mass of informants (who will be the engine driving the Doctrine).

In a related matter: while KSTP-AM has been floating aimlessly down this road for years, since the departure of Rush Limbaugh and Jason Lewis, programming innocuous hamsters like Willie and Jay, innocuous drive-time sportstalk with Matt Thomas, and mostly-apolitical social-curmudgeon with a thin veneer of “crusty reactionary” Joe Soucheray, who has been doing the same show to the same audience for (counts in his head) around fifteen years.

Now, “TBD” is replacing Mischke in the noon-2pm slot.  Yesterday, TBD was Jim Souhan, sports reporter at the Strib.  It was a bit of deja vu, going back to the days when KSTP seemed to think that any newspaper reporter could run a talk show; Nick Coleman, Catherine Lanpher, Jim Klobuchar and scads of other Strib and PiPress reporters and sportswriters paraded through the studio (including, to be fair, James Lileks).

Deja vu, also, in that it was just plain awful – like most newspaper (and TV) people are when they try talk radio.  It wandered aimlessly.  It skimmed past stories without giving anyone (in the forty-five or so minutes I wasted) a reason to pay it any attention.

It sounded, I thought, like pre-1987 talk radio.

I’m just gonna let that hang there for a while.

Mary LaHammer ponders yesterday’s vandalism of the homes of most of the Twin Cities congressional delegation – mostly Republicans (along with Rep. Ellison and Sen. Klobuchar):

 

If these images get a lot of attention I wonder if this could evolve into something like the Rick Kahn comments at Wellstone’s memorial. 

While the partisan in me sort of kind of hopes so (hey, I’ll cop to it), the rest of me does not – I think (and hope) most voters can tell the difference between pinheads with paint and party operatives (and in saying this I’m presupposing the vandalism wasn’t carried out by party operatives or their associates, naturally).

The Twin Cities’ tolerant lefties are hard at work vandalizing Norm Coleman’s house:

[Senator ] Coleman and his wife, Laurie, live in the Crocus Hill neighborhood of St. Paul. Spokesman Mark Drake says Wednesday morning that grafitti left on the outside of the garage says: “You are a criminal resign or else”; “Scum,” which is written three times; and “Psalm 2.”

Here’s the big question:  if Obama loses, how violent will the left get?

UPDATE:  They were apparently equal-opportunity vandals:

Also vandalized in similar fashion: U.S. Sen Amy Klobuchar and U.S. Reps. Keith Ellison, John Kline, Michelle Bachmann and Jim Ramstad. Klobuchar and Ellison are Democrats; Coleman, Kline, Bachmann and Ramstad, Republicans.

Ellison’s appears to be the only incident so far in which the home itself was vandalized. Campaign manager Larry Weiss said that Ellison’s wife, Kim, went out this morning and found graffiti that said “Traitor. Resign now. Psalm 2” across the side of their corner home. The word “SCUM” was spraypainted above the garage door — high enough, Weiss said, that the culprit probably would have needed a stepstool.

I don’t care who they vandalized – I hope the perps are caught and prosecuted as far as the law will allow.

And I’d say that even if they’d only hit Ellison and A-Klo.

To:  Dennis Lien, St. Paul Pioneer Press

From:  Mitch Berg

Re:  Fact Checking in your 10/9 piece

Mr. Lien,

Mitch Berg here.  Not sure if you’re new in the market because, like an awful lot of people to the right of Amy Klobuchar, I don’t actually read the daily newspapers in this town.  I know I’ve seen your name in the paper, but I don’t recall if you’re an old PiPress hand or not.

I’d like to hope so, since your piece on Thursday incorporated a lot of rookie, or rookie-esque, flubs. 

Your piece covers the “Dump Bachmann” blog, run by Eva Young.  The reason I wonder if you’re a newbie is, of course, “The Dump” got near-saturation coverage before the 2006 election, back when lots of reporters – whether well-meaning or gullible – treated “The Dump” as a legitimate news source. 

It’d seem you and the PiPress have fallen into the same trap – whether through wishful thinking or merely digging for anything to throw at the conservative rep and lightning rod in the Sixth. 

The reasons matter not – the same First Amendment that applies to me (until the Obamessiah repeals it) covers you. 

But there’s some fact-checking to be done, here:

There’s a lengthy discourse on whether Bachmann will attend a debate. 

“Discourse” requires two sides, Mr. Lien.  The word you’re looking for is “echo chamber”.   

 From its debut in 2004, the site, dumpbachmann.blogspot.com, has been home to a hyperactive collection of people who find Bachmann oddly compelling.

Whatever your piece’s other faults, Mr. Lien, I’ll give you style points; “hyperactive collection of people who find somone oddly compelling” is the most artful way to describe “bunch of obsessed stalkers” I’ve ever read.  Kudos!

But please see to this bit here…:

 Young said she spends an hour or two every evening updating the blog. Minneapolis cartoonist Ken Avidor handles the video items.

Let’s cut the crap, Mr. Lien.  It’s Ken Weiner.  “Avidor” is a pseudonym he adopts to try to dignify his dork-fingered oeuvre.  But don’t worry about names, since whenever he wants a different identity, he just takes one.  Without bothering to tell anyone.  You can call him Avidor, you can call him Weiner, you can call him Al Goldstein’s kicktoy, you can call him the only “cartoonist” in the Twin Cities less accomplished than Swiftee…

…but those of us who know him best just call him “the Lord of the Sock Puppets”. 

“What I bring to the blog is not only documentation and video, but a little bit of humor,” Avidor said.

Yep!  Funny stuff, like the picture of Michele Bachmann in a Nazi outfit!

(Although to be fair, perhaps that was what you were referring to when you wrote about The Dump’s “provocative, in-your-face bits of rhetoric”

And quoting Karl Bremer – a man whom Yellow Hacks have disowned for giving them a bad name – is kinda a self-limiting move, Dennis.

At any rate, please see to this, OK?

That is all.

(PS to Eva:  “Acknowleding and responding” to something is not the same as “having a cow”.  Or to put it another way; I’m laughing at you).

(And, of course, Lien).

Senator Amy “A-Klo” Klobuchar is all a-twitter about the Biden selection.

Or is she? (emphasi9s added):

What he brings to Barack Obama is the fact that he is not a ‘yes’ man. He’s going to challenge Sen. Obama to be the best president he can be,” the Minnesota Democrat said.

He reminds her of former Vice President Walter Mondale. “Mondale brought candid advice to President Carter. Joe Biden will do the same for Barack Obama,” she said.

So even A-Klo thinks Obama’s the next Carter?

Sweet.

The Carpenters Union has endorsed…

…Norm Coleman?

Rachel Stassen-Berger notes:

The backing is a switch — the 13,000-members union endorsed Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone in 2002 and Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar in 2006.

How bad are things going for Franken when even labor unions are shunning him?

UPDATE:  Ed is right:  the Carpenters Union did advertise on the Twin Cities’ Air America affiliate.

When I cast my first-ever conservative vote – for Ronald Reagan, in 1984 – I didn’t tell anyone. Part of it was that the whole conversion from mushy-left to right was so very recent. Part of it was that I was still feeling my way around an unfamiliar place.

And a big part was that I really just didn’t want to be associated with “those” conservatives.

In the media of the day, “out” conservatives were pretty much portrayed as smug fundamentalist televangelists, warmongering caricatures or malthusian skinflints. I edited a college newspaper at the time, and our syndication service – the “Campus News Service” – fed us a constant stream of anti-conservative, anti-Republican propaganda in written and cartoon form, all of it based on the three stereotypes above and the notion, constantly hammered in story after story, cartoon after cartoon, that President Reagan was

a) a doddering buffoon
b) a warmongering psychopath
c) both.

I got over it.

I graduated, moved to the Twin Cities – and it got worse. The media of the day ranged from left-leaning (it was the golden age of Jim Klobuchar; Nick Coleman was just getting started as a columnist) to falling-over left. Just before I started my old KSTP talk show, I remember reading a piece in the City Pages about some counselor/”artist” type in some political action group saying – unchallenged – “liberalism is the only intellectually acceptable philosophy”.

The attitude one perceived could have fairly been called “contemptuous” against conservative people and ideas.

And on the issues? Well, it was at KSTP in 1987, in a discussion on handgun control, where I first heard the old chestnut “I think people who think they need guns are…[brief pause as a verbal wink and nudge] compensating for something…”. It is, of course, the standard line for anti-gunners who want to believe they’re bringing the forces of soft science to bear against their opponents without actually understanding any. And it is nothing if not contemptuous. And it’s not the only issue where conservative substance has been met for decades with ignorant contempt.

To sum up: Twenty years ago, the contempt for conservatives was everywhere.

One thing that was not everywhere was avenues for response. This was before the market drove talk radio to the right. This was before conservatives had any written outlet, short of the National Review and the odd token George Will or Cal Thomas column set into the OpEd page like an exhibit at a zoo. The Strib’s letters to the editor, then as now, published only the most carefully-bowdlerized selection of conservative opinion (seemingly selected for sounding the least coherent, at times)

Today, of course, it’s a different story. Conservatives have voices – and those voices pretty well crush the opposition (which is why the Democrats are talking about bringing back the “Fairness” doctrine). Conservatives have outlets, and they’ve become influential out of all proportion to their size, which is why George Soros and his deep-pocketed friends are trying to buy a share of the blogosphere; it’s not really working (which is why the left has already tried to regulate blog content).

At any rate, in the last twenty years – and especially the past five years or so – people on the left, especially people who remember what life was like back when the conservative in the street only got to speak at the bar and around the table and every couple of years at the polls have had to learn that there really are more than one side to an argument.

The masthead of Charlie Quimby’s blog reads “How Can People Disagree And Still Build a Decent World?”; it’s a good question, one that I ask a lot in this blog and – rather more often – in personal conversation. It is important, and not merely because I’m a conservative with a mother who thinks Jane Fonda is a reactionary.

Charlie poked a little fun last week at the selection of Republicans getting credentials at the Convention next month. The common thread he found: “From Ladies Logic to Grizzly Groundswell to Pair O’Dice you’ll find at least one thing in common: a fairly strong contempt for liberals.”
Over the weekend and still on the subject (having gotten some pushback from a couple of the bloggers he’d names), he asked:

It is possible to separate personal relationships and politics. The success of any free political system depends on it. But over the past 20 years or so, it seems to be happening less and less. Contempt — not just philosophical disagreement — has been ratcheted up and real tolerance for human differences over policies is given the sort of smirking pro forma observance we see between Hannity and Colmes…

The difference, I suggest, is that over the past twenty years contempt and ridicule (and the guys behind their respective curtains, ignorance and fear) have become two-way streets. There’s not more contempt and ridicule; you can just see it. And if you’re a Twin Cities’ liberal, you can see it aimed at you for the first time.
You don’t have to read Nick Coleman or Lori Sturdevant or Brian Lambert all that terribly long to realize that Minnesota liberals of a certain age just aren’t used to being questioned, much less criticized, to say nothing of being the objects of contempt. I’m going to venture that not one of them, growing up in acceptably-lefty households, coming up through a left-leaning academic establishment, and working a career in left-leaning newsrooms, has ever heard someone say “I don’t know why people need pay-equity laws, unless they’re compensating for something, nyuk nyuk”.

Or bloggers and their invisible moonbat/wingnut friends. Which is why here I try to make those exchanges real and open, aimed at understanding rather than refuting the other.

Contempt is the tip on the iceberg of ignorance and – toward the bottom – hatred. I try to avoid it, and seek out conversation with the rare liberal blogger who’s not too stupid and sodden with fake intellectual entitlement…

…oh, crap. Let me start over.

Contempt is the junk food of rhetoric; it’s cheap, easy, and sometimes all you have in the cupboard. It’s easy to say “I don’t use it”; everyone knows better. There are times when it’s the easiest way to respond to the gaffes and slights and sins of the “other” side. It was the same thing twenty years ago; if Hubert Humphrey and Ronald Reagan are the respective egos of the left and right, “guns are compensating for something” and “liberalism is a mental disorder” are the respective ids. And we all balance these in different ways.

At some point, contempt for ideas and values becomes contempt for a group becomes contempt for a person, as the bones in mass graves the world over attest.

True.

But a lot of things have changed in the last decade or two. Liberals in the Twin Cities are having some inevitable growing pains realizing that there is more than one point of view in this world (just like conservatives in Austin Texas and Chapel Hill North Carolina have been having to do).
It’s just all out in the open now.

The only real question now is how people deal with it – a question people have to answer whenever there is more than one side to a debate.

Which is why it’s such a new thing in the Twin Cities.

I’m a little late with this one – but, given Al Franken’s latest ad buy (“I was a comedian, er, satirist; sometimes the jokes went off the mark, but that’s comedy.  Minnesota’s future is no joke to me”), I think it’s timely enough.

Last week sometime, Aaron Brown of “Minnesota Brown” kind of summed up the real problem with Franken and his past – quite possibly without knowing it.

Democrat Al Franken, an unusual candidate facing unusual challenges, is fighting to reestablish the narrative of a campaign which has been mired in talk of his past. Franken’s past does not include any of the things most politicians must explain or deny: he has no shady land dealings, love children or criminal activities; but he did enjoy a long, successful career in comedic writing.

And that – along with a hideously expensive, failed radio show – is it.   That’s all there is to Franken’s past.  He went from “Minnesota grade school kid” to “Harvard guy” to “SNL/comedian/satirist” to “liberal talk show host” to “candidate”. 

That is all. 

 This career produced reams of smart and somewhat unsmart jokes and a regretable tax reporting error that has been corrected. And that is the sum of the GOP incumbent’s campaign strategy.

 What else is there to talk about?  He’s never voted on a bill.  He’s never pushed for – or rejected – an earmark.  He’s never written or passed a budget.  He’s never been elected to catch dogs.

He’s written written, joked and talked about politics.

So has Aaron Brown, and for that matter yours truly (indeed, I’ve probably written more about politics than Al Franken has in six years of blogging). 

What else can Coleman address?

Oh, by the way…

 Anyone who knows even the tiniest bit about comedy knows that the moment you have to explain a joke, that joke becomes unfunny, indeed, poisonous. Which is why a rather good campaign by Franken has struggled against a relatively unpopular incumbent with eerily white teeth, Sen. Norm Coleman.

…Mr. Brown will need to explain the teeth reference.

But we digress:

But here’s my personal, highly anecdotal experience. If you were ever at some point far too young for your parents to let you watch Saturday Night Live, especially in the late 1980s and ‘90s when the show took some more crass turns, and then aged to a point where there was some doubt if you were old enough so you snuck over to a friends’ house to watch it, you aren’t bothered by Al Franken’s comedic past.

If you didn’t start sneaking in to watch the show until the late eighties, you have little idea who Al Franken was.  I started sneaking downstairs to watch the show when Chevy Chase still hosted Weekend Update.  And Franken was everywhere on the show back then.  So no, Franken’s comedic past doesn’t bother me (although given the number of droughts SNL has suffered through while Franken was writing for the show, it doesn’t exactly turn my comedic crank, either).  

In fact, if you are a Democrat of that age your first political book was probably “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot.” That book probably influenced your awareness of irony not just in comedy, but in politics.

So that’s what we have to thank for Markos Moulitsas, Jesus’ General, the Democrat Underground and the chanting masses of droogs in Jon Stewart’s audience. 

And so, you probably knew about Franken’s past “low” humor in addition to his many moments of deep insight (the kind of insight that would be useful in some kind of lofty federal office from a prominnt Midwestern state other than Wisconsin).

I’m struggling to remember a moment of “insight” “deeper” than “This is the decade of Al Franken”.  Feel free to fill me in.

 If you are unfamiliar with Franken’s very real transition from SNL jokester to satirist, however, the idea of a comedian gradually shifting gears over to public service seems to many as crazy as that crazy wrestler we elected governor and wasn’t that crazy! Damn kids!

You mean Dean Barkley and Tim Penny’s sock puppet our former “governor”, the 9/11 Truther?  You “kids” have some ‘splainin’ to do.

To get to what is perhaps Aaron Brown’s larger point – the higher-level concept that’s uncontaminated by inconvenient reality – let’s say a conservative comic were to run for, say, Senate.  Let’s say Dennis Miller (I know, more a libertarian than a conservative, but he’s right on most of the issues, and much funnier and politically cogent than Franken ever was) moved to Minnesota to take on Amy “A-Klo” Klobuchar in 2012. 

What would A-Klo’s campaign have to work with, other than thirty years of comedy?  From Dusk ‘Til Dawn Bordello of Blood?  Monday Night Football?   Joe Dirt? His switch from frowzy lefty to 9/11 libertarian?

Would A-Klo be at a loss for much more to talk about in re Miller?

What more is there to Al Franken?

I submit for your approval:  Nothing.

Discuss.

Alec Baldwin – who broke his promise in 2004 to move to France or Canada or Angola or whereever – has all sorts of reasons for voting for Al Franken against Norm Coleman this fall:

Norm Coleman, a former Democrat who had the unusual luck to run against a retirement-age Walter Mondale in order to fill the seat vacated by the tragic death of Paul Wellstone, is busy digging up clips of Franken’s old SNL and other satirical work in order to dirty him up for their Minnesota US Senate race.

Well, yeah!  I mean, it’s the only thing he’s done for his entire career, and all.

Onward:

Let’s make one thing crystal clear. Paul Wellstone was a great man. His death stunned and saddened progressives around the world. I stood next to Paul at a fundraiser in Minneapolis two weeks prior to his plane crash. Paul’s career was everything one could want to emulate in public service. He was smart, decent and brave. Paul could never be replaced. Ever.

Yes, yes, we all missed Wellstone, gotcha.

But why vote for Franken over Coleman?

But to fill that seat with a hack like Coleman? I can see states like Texas having not one but two hack Senators. People who never propose or cosponsor any significant legislation while in office. People like Hutchinson and Cornyn, who are the worst type of go-along-to-get-along lackey for the Bush administration. People who view their role as doing anything to preserve their own power and who never have an original or courageous idea while in office.

OK, so we have ad-homina against an entire state and a couple of Senators…

…but why would I vote for Al Franken over Norm Coleman? 

But Minnesota?

Coleman becoming a US Senator from that great state was a travesty. Now the time has come to correct that mistake. Coleman, who makes Mitt Romney look like a visionary, is so far from the best that state has to offer, it is unbelievable to imagine that he is even in the running for reelection.

So – a slur against a highly-accomplished former governor, and a hopelessly-broad generalization about what Minnesota “has to offer” – got it.

But…why vote for Franken? 

 An uninformed and weak-willed apologist for this awful administration is being challenged by one of the best progressive minds of his generation.

Ah, OK!  Now we’re getting someplace – information about Franken!

Let’s look and see: 

I don’t care how much ribald and salty humor he has dished out during is entertainment career.

And I agree!

But, Alec, my question remains – why should I vote for him? 

Judge Al Franken by what he stands as today: a searingly intelligent and abundantly caring son of Minnesota who has returned home to attempt to lend his voice to our nation’s political discourse on the most formal of levels. No blogging. No books. No comedy sketches. Putting his career and his opinions on the line on behalf of serving the people of Minnesota.

But Alec?  He has no public record, other than his entertainment career!  His “searing intelligence” to date has been expressed solely via his blog, his books, his sketches, his standup, his failed Air America show!  So as he “puts his career on the line”, that is all we simple plebeians have by which to judge him!

Well, that and the impassioned assurances of Alec Baldwin, a fellow who stars in a TV show and lied about moving to France.

So I’ll ask again – why should I, a mere Minnesota citizen, vote for Al Franken?

And what does Coleman do? He trots out old SNL material to grade one of show business’ most respected satirists and judge him as insensitive or inappropriate.

Well, Coleman has a right to an opinion, right?

As do Senator Amy Klobuchar and Congresswoman Betty McCollum, a couple of other “searingly intelligent progressives” who already represent Minnesota, and who would seem to be more critical of candidate Franken than any of us conservatives!

And again – his show biz career is the only basis we have for judging him!

So I’ll ask again – why would, should or could I vote fo Al Franken?

Voters of Minnesota, your choice could not be simpler. Coleman is a pathetic hack who will do as little as possible in a US Senate office other than cover his own ass and protect his power.

So another ad-hominem… 

Meanwhile, Al Franken is everything you could hope for in a candidate to represent your state in the world’s most august deliberative body. Smart, caring, brave. That’s the choice.

So my “choice” is “ad-hominem” versus a vague assurance that someone with no public record whatsoever is just doubleplus swell! 

But I keep trying to find out, Alec – How is his intelligence, his caring, his “bravery” expressed?  Other than his showbiz career, I mean?

 Mitt Romney light. Or a return to someone special in the US Senate from the great state of Minnesota.

Maybe it’s the audacious hope.

Of course, that IS good enough for a good chunk of the Minnesota electorate.

At any rate, Alec Baldwin; while I’m generally loathe to cop Laura Ingraham’s line – shut up and act.

And I don’t mean like in Nadine, either. 

(Norm should, too, although he’s voted generally correctly over the past seven years).

Senator Klobuchar:

I know you’re busy – too busy to respond to your consituents, indeed! – but I think you oughtta make time for this offer from Michael Yon:

One of the biggest problems with the Iraq War is that politics has frequently triumphed over truth.  For instance, we went into Iraq with shoddy intelligence (at best), no reconstruction plan, and perhaps half as many troops as were required.  We refused to admit that an insurgency was growing, until the country collapsed into anarchy and civil war.  Now the truth is that Iraq is showing real progress on many fronts:  Al Qaeda is being defeated and violence is down and continuing to decrease.  As a result, the militias have lost their reason for existence and are getting beaten back or co-opted.  Shia, Sunni and Kurds are coming together — although with various stresses — under the national government.

Oh, and…:

 If progress continues at this rate, it is very possible that before 2008 is out, we can finally say “the war has ended.”

Yon is no administration ass-kisser, a fact that got him banned from the Hannity show; he’s always told it like it was.

 Whatever we do in Iraq from here forward, we must strive to make better decisions than those made between 2003 and 2006.  And one way to achieve that is by making certain that our civilian leaders are fully informed.  All three candidates for President are extremely intelligent, but that doesn’t mean that all three are tracking the truth on the ground in Iraq.  Anyone who wants to be President of the United States needs to see Iraq without the distorting lenses of the media or partisan politics.  I would be honored to visit Iraq with Senator Obama, Senator Clinton, Senator McCain or any of their Senate colleagues.

I hereby offer to accompany any Senator to Iraq, whether they are pro-or anti-war, Democrat or Republican.  I will make this offer personally to a few select Senators as well.  Our conversations during the visit would be on- or off-record, as they wish.

Senator Klobuchar; you’d really show yourself to be a leader if you took Yon up on this.

Our civilian leaders need to make decisions based on the best information available.  The only way to learn what is really going on in Iraq is to go there and listen to our ground commanders, who know what they are doing.  Generals Petraeus and Odierno have years of experience in Iraq, and vast knowledge of our efforts there.  But the young soldiers who have done multiple tours in Iraq also have unique and invaluable perspectives as well.  These young soldiers have personally witnessed the trajectory of the war shift dramatically, and can articulate those changes in concrete and specific terms.  It doesn’t matter if a soldier is only twenty-something.  If he or she spent two or three years in the war, that person is likely to have valuable insights.

Take the offer, A-Klo.  While it might contradict Harry Reid’s forced pessimism…

…oh, wait.  Never mind.

…that even the Strib, which has never met a spending program it doesn’t like, gets it:

A number of members of Congress have celebrated this week’s passage of the $290 billion farm bill as a great victory for bipartisanship in Washington.

If this is what bipartisanship looks like, maybe we should hope for a return to gridlock.

The Bush administration initially took the right stand, proposing to eliminate any subsidy payments for farmers who make more than $200,000 in annual gross income. It later indicated that it could live with a $500,000 limit. However, the bill passed by the House and Senate embraces farm incomes of up to $750,000 and nonfarm income of $500,000 for individuals…A majority of House Republicans broke from the White House despite the president’s veto threat, and the Senate passed the bill Thursday in an 81-15 vote, making an override certain. That a veto-proof majority in both houses supported the bill is testament to the power of the agricultural lobby, especially in an election year.

So a little over a month after Andy Birkey at the Minnesoros Monitor pondered Rep. Bachmann’s reticence about giving time to regional non-conservative/Christian media, and my challenge in turn to Al Franken, Amy Klobuchar, Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum, Growth and Justice leader Dane Smith and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, I can report the following:

• Stuart Smalley:  Bupkes.
• A-Klo:  Nada
• Keef:  Zippo
• Betty Mac:  Pfffft.
• Dave Thune:  While not specifically part of my original challenge, I did ask Thune several times to come on the air for some questions about his “puking Republicans” slur.  We’ve not heard the last of that one, yet.
• Dane Smith:  We had an excellent interview on the NARN a week and a half ago
• R.T. Rybak: Well, glorioski!  We have confirmed the Mayor for this Saturday’s NARN broadcast!  The Mayor’s press contact and I just confirmed the details!  I will welcome the Mayor to the show on the broadcast this Saturday, May 3rd.

Kudos the the Mayor! 

And hey, Andy Birkey?  Since Franken, BettyMac, Ellison and A-Klo don’t return my calls, why don’t you ask them why they are even more evasive around right-leaning media than Rep. Bachmann is around the left-leaning media?

Not that I’ll hold my breath or anything.

It’s been a month since Andy Birkey at the Minnesota Monitor complained that Rep. Michele Bachman (GOP, MN6) fails to disregard the Minnesota mainstream media’s anti-conservative hackery, and limits most of her media to conservative and Christian outlets.

I responded by sending invites to half a dozen key DFL office-holders and candidates. I left emails and, in almost all cases, voice mails with the media contacts for Al Franken, Amy Klobuchar, Keith Ellison, my own “representative” Betty McCollum, Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak, and Growth and Justice president Dane Smith. In the intervening time, I also invited Saint Paul City Council prez Dave Thune to talk with us about his “puking Republicans” slur.

Of course, on Saturday Ed and I interviewed Dane Smith of G’nJ. It was, nearest I could figure, an excellent hour – although frustraing. I think we could devote a couple of shows to be debate between the “Happy to Pay for a Better Minnesota” movement that Smith represents, and the opposition of which I’m a part. It was a civil debate – notwithstanding the conceit of talk radio’s opponents, who believe we’re entirely about plate-throwing – and hopefully the first of several.

I noted last week that, in addition to Smith, I’d heard from another of my invitees. Sort of.

Someone in RT Rybak’s press office left a comment on “The Upsider” (a regional blog you should be reading) denying that I’d emailed the Mayor. I responded, in the comment as well as via email, saying that I’d left a note at the City of Minneapolis site on a form that said “we’ll forward the message to the right party”. Apparently that didn’t include the mayor’s office.

We traded an email or two last week. We shall see.

But I’ve heard not a peep from candidate Al Franken’s campaign, or from te press offices of Representatives Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum, or Senator Amy Klobuchar.

The logical conclusion is that, while conservative politicians have to either run the gauntlet of hostile left-leaning mainstream media or be considered “evasive” by the even more hostile, more left-leaning alternative media, Minnesota’s liberal politicians feel no compunctions about ignoring the half of their constituents with whom they disagree. They are afraid to face tough questions, preferring the vacuous softballs they get from a regional media that largely regards them as friends – a regional media that largely sympathizes with them (the Strib’s Rochelle Olson and the wife of Keith Ellison have been observed to have a cordial social relatioship; it seems unlikely that most of the Strib’s staff will get too tough with Amy Klobuchar, daughter of longtime columnist Jim Klobuchar; that Dave Thune feels the need to depart the friendly confines of the local media and the lefty echochamber to answer questions.

Which is the sign of a particularly gutless breed of politicians.

UPDATE AND BUMP:  I neglected, in my haste, to note the name of the blog via which I came into contact with Mayor Rybak’s office – The Upsider.