Category: Miscellany

As a Southern California fellow, I’m taking particular interest in the wildfire currently raging on Catalina Island. But beyond the normal fascination with a natural disaster, I found that there’s an interesting comparison between “blog coverage” of the story and “real news coverage” to be had on the LA Times web site.
The LAT has the same reporter, Louis Sahagun, posting updates to breaking news blog and writing the “real” news stories on the fire.
The “real” news story is clearly out-of-date; it appears to have been fiinalized late last night. The blog, on the other hand, is highly current, packed with detail on what’s happening, and to me seems a nearly perfect way to cover a breaking story like this. Particularly given that they corrected the one flaw of the blog format, the lack of an overall summary for those not following the story closely, by putting a nice summary box at the top with the key facts as of now.
Why is the blog coverage so much more appealing for a story like this? The problem is with the traditional form of a news article — the “pyramid” structure that dictates putting the most important information at the top and then working your way onward to the less relevant details. This format makes perfect sense when you are publishing one story on a given event or topic per day (i.e., in a daily newspaper). But the traditional news form fails miserably when you are trying to convey updated information on an ongoing story repeatedly throughout the day, because it forces the readers who are paying attention to wade through the same basic facts that they already knew to find the small nuggets of updated information hidden in the story.
The blog form, on the other hand, does exactly the opposite: rather than organize the content strictly by importance (the pyramid structure), it organizes it by time: the most recent updates at the top with previous postings scrolling downwards. The blog form guarantees that when a reader who is following a story reads the blog coverage, they are immediately presented with new information that they haven’t seen before.
The ideal strategy for a breaking story like this, I think, is to do more or less what the LAT is doing: provide a “traditional” news piece that is updated a couple of times a day that provides the casual reader a full summary of the event and assumes no prior knowledge, while at the same time also posting a frequently-updated blog that allows the more focused reader to mainline the latest new information without wading through the same stuff they already knew.
It will be interesting to see whether the LAT uses this approach more frequently in the future, and if other mainstream media outlets follow the example…

Through the good graces of my friend class=”textlink”>Hugh Hewitt, I’m pleased to report that I am typing this from the Reagan Library, where it is now just four and a half hours before the first GOP Presidential debate will take place.
I’ll be blogging when I can on the goings-on at the site. Since the place is full of “real journalists”, I’ll be focusing more on covering the coverage, and hopefully giving the blogosphere a little behind-the-scenes view of how an event like this works.
Right now, I’m perched up on “radio row”, conveniently located on a balcony looking directly down on the “spin room”, where the candidates and/or their flacks will be doing their best to put their best feet forward throughout the day and into the night. There are only five radio outlets set up here, including Hugh (who is broadcasting live from the site this afternoon, natch). The BBC is one of them, but they are thus far AWOL. So like any good blogger would, I swiped their spot:

We’ll see how long until I get evicted. Or perhaps British courtesy will win out and I’ll just get a “right-o; carry on good chap!’.
The spin room itself:

A better view of Radio Row in its entirety:

And where better to put Radio Row than… next to the cafeteria! (No, really.)

And the view from the Reagan library itself — fabulous! This is just in one direction:

More to come throughout the day…
1:39 pm: Hmmm. A subtle plea for fiscal responsibility from the cafe staff?

2:12 pm: Here’s the “filing center”. Looks like about 180 spots for the press corps. Yikes.

And the ‘spin room’ as of now. More or less the quiet before the storm. If I understand correctly, the big candidates probably won’t make an appearance here until after the debate, if at all. But I did nearly bump into Ron Paul and his entourage a few moments ago…

2:27 pm: Yup, that was Ron Paul:

(he’s the blur on the left)
He looked a bit lonely. I’ll have to go see if he’ll talk to a lowly blogger next time his orbit returns him here…
3:04 pm: Correction! That’s not Ron Paul above, rather, it’s Charlie Black, one of John McCain’s folks. My bad! Charlie was kind enough to chat with me for a few moments, but when I asked, said that Senator McCain is not planning on stopping by the spin room. Bummer.
Check back for further updates throughout the day to find out who I confuse for Ron Paul next!
3:13 pm: Yikes. I was just informed that the good news is I have a ticket to get into the debate hall proper — but the bad news is, I have to be there by 3:30, after which the doors close. The debate doesn’t start until 5pm. So that might put a crimp in my blogging ability, but we’ll see…
6:55 am, the morning after: Well, as I feared in the last update above, the debate room itself was most certainly a no-blogging zone. I arrived there on-time, showed my “spin room” pass:

(which didn’t work), and then my “debate guest” pass and debate ticket:

(which did). Going in the door, I promptly found myself… backstage. Equipment, cabling everywhere. Actually had to hunt around a bit to figure out how to get out and into the public area. Odd !
Seating was extremely limited (they weren’t kidding about that) and it was all assigned seats. I ended up nearly dead-center in the room, a mere three rows almost directly behind the Governator and Mrs. Reagan.
The Air Force One pavilion was certainly impressive. I was disappointed that I didn’t have time or opportunity to see more of it — security for the event being in place, they clearly weren’t encouraging folks to wander around and explore. I had never been to the Reagan Library before, and honestly it never occurred to me to be a destination I should seek out. But having seen just a bit of it, I’d definitely like to return — a great facility in a spectacular setting.
So here’s a few shots of the debate area itself:

After Mrs. Reagan was escorted into the room by the Governator, the candidates filed in. But it was about ten minutes before air time, and so they were basically left to mill around for a while:

Now, as for the debate itself. If you want to know how the candidates played in the room to the in-person audience, well… I have no idea. Because the forum was so stringent about the “no applause” rule, it was more or less impossible to really know who was playing well with the crowd and who wasn’t. But I can tell you my own impressions, which I suppose are in some way different from those you’d get from viewing on TV, simply because I could watch all the candidates while they reacted to others or simply waited to speak. A small thing, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that subtly influenced my perception versus that of folks who watched on TV.
So here goes. Mitt Romney:

In my view, the clear winner of the debate. His only weak answer was on his position on abortion, and that’s one he just has to live with since he genuinely has changed his position. But other than that, he was solid and yes, Presidential on everything. He also benefited from a stroke of luck: because he was all the way on the far-left, that meant that on all the “down the line” questions, he got to go first, which his definitely used to his advantage to get in some good lines.
John McCain:

I disagree with many of McCain’s positions (campaign finance ‘reform’ in particular). But I definitely don’t share the visceral dislike of the man that many of my right-leaning blogging colleagues have. He’s a genuine Porkbuster, and he’s been strong on the war, and those are two of my biggies, so I’m definitely willing to give him a fair hearing.
But last night he just didn’t get it done. With respect to friend Erick, I thought his delivery was strangely angry, and frequently disorganized. Which was doubly odd, because before the debate actually started (during the milling about phase), he seemed downright cheery, and appeared to almost be horsing around up on the stage. But maybe that was his version of punchiness or nerves.
Rudy Giuliani:

I thought Giuliani did ok — not great, but OK — after the debate was over. Maybe hurt himself a little — his abortion answer in particular was weak, and you would think that by now, he’d have the whole “I’d leave it to the courts” answer down pat in a more smooth delivery.
But reading through commentary this morning — wow. I think it’s safe to say that he did indeed hurt himself, and not just a little.
I hardly noticed, but apparently, there were seven candidates on the stage whose names were not Romney, Giuliani, or McCain. None of them made much of an impression on me, although once and for all, here is the real Ron Paul:

Ron Paul scares me. He came across as a kind of grumpy, isolationist Jiminy Cricket.
And speaking of scary, I haven’t watched Hardball in … well, ever. So I can’t recall when the last time I actually saw Chris Matthews was, and therefore was not aware that he had turned into a thousand year old walrus:

When the debate was over, I joined my new friend Russ from Salem Radio in the important task of whisking Kenneth Starr (yes, that Ken Starr) from the debate hall up to Radio Row to do a little post-debate discussion with Hugh. Starr was an amiable and friendly fellow (didn’t threaten to investigate me even once). Here he is chatting with Hugh after Russ and I successfully accomplished our mission:

With the debate over, the spinning began in earnest. Here’s the spin room in full swing:

The rule seems to be, if you’re a top-tier candidate, you don’t show up in the spin room personally. So for example, Mitt Romney had his son Tagg doing some interviews:

And hey, look, it’s my buddy Charlie Black again!

(who is not Ron Paul, I am obliged to point out).
The second-tier candidates, on the other hand, did show up personally, at least some of them. Tom Tancredo grabbed some coffee (a man after my own heart) to steel himself for the ordeal:

Strangely, Tancredo was also seen at the entrance to the spin room, insisting that the security guards double-check everyone’s credentials before allowing them in. (Kidding).
Also making appearances were Jim Gilmore and I believe Duncan Hunter and Sam Brownback. I didn’t see Ron Paul around, so I assume he was off scaring small children somewhere.
And lastly, a shot of Radio Row from the spin room floor (Hugh’s the blur on the left):

Overall, it was definitely a great experience to not just see the debate live but get a behind-the-scenes view of the process. I can’t say I walked away knowing terribly much more about the candidates or their positions than I came in with, but it was a fun day and hopefully I’ve contributed something by sharing a bit o’ the behind-the-curtain view with the blogosphere. My thanks again to Hugh for bringing me along!

Want to see what’s up with the Democrat’s latest slow bleed strategy? Check out full text of the emergency supplemental bill at The Victory Caucus !

Note: This letter will appear simultaneously on a number of conservative blogs this morning. It has been scheduled in advance for that purpose. My personal comments appear below.
Conservatism treats humans as they are, as moral creatures possessing rational minds and capable of discerning right from wrong. There comes a time when we must speak out in the defense of the conservative movement, and make a stand for political civility. This is one of those times.
Ann Coulter used to serve the movement well. She was telegenic, intelligent, and witty. She was also fearless: saying provocative things to inspire deeper thought and cutting through the haze of competing information has its uses. But Coulter’s fearlessness has become an addiction to shock value. She draws attention to herself, rather than placing the spotlight on conservative ideas.
At the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2006, Coulter referred to Iranians as “ragheads.” She is one of the most prominent women in the conservative movement; for her to employ such reckless language reinforces the stereotype that conservatives are racists.
At CPAC 2007 Coulter decided to turn up the volume by referring to John Edwards, a former U.S. Senator and current Presidential candidate, as a “faggot.” Such offensive language–and the cavalier attitude that lies behind it–is intolerable to us. It may be tolerated on liberal websites but not at the nation’s premier conservative gathering.
The legendary conservative thinker Richard Weaver wrote a book entitled Ideas Have Consequences. Rush Limbaugh has said again and again that “words mean things.” Both phrases apply to Coulter’s awful remarks.
Coulter’s vicious word choice tells the world she care little about the feelings of a large group that often feels marginalized and despised. Her word choice forces conservatives to waste time defending themselves against charges of homophobia rather than advancing conservative ideas.
Within a day of Coulter’s remark John Edwards sent out a fundraising email that used Coulter’s words to raise money for his faltering campaign. She is helping those she claims to oppose. How does that advance any of the causes we hold dear?
Denouncing Coulter is not enough. After her “raghead” remark in 2006 she took some heat. Yet she did not grow and learn. We should have been more forceful. This year she used a gay slur. What is next? If Senator Barack Obama is the de facto Democratic Presidential nominee next year will Coulter feel free to use a racial slur? How does that help conservatism?
One of the points of CPAC is the opportunity it gives college students to meet other young conservatives and learn from our leaders. Unlike on their campuses—where they often feel alone—at CPAC they know they are part of a vibrant political movement. What example is set when one highlight of the conference is finding out what shocking phrase will emerge from Ann Coulter’s mouth? How can we teach young conservatives to fight for their principles with civility and respect when Ann Coulter is allowed to address the conference? Coulter’s invective is a sign of weak thinking and unprincipled politicking.
CPAC sponsors, the Age of Ann has passed. We, the undersigned, request that CPAC speaking invitations no longer be extended to Ann Coulter. Her words and attitude simply do too much damage.

Thanks to Sean Hackbarth for organizing this effort. In my view, CPAC should have stopped inviting Coulter long ago, and certainly shouldn’t have had her back this year after the 2006 ‘raghead’ remark. Some argue that she draws in a huge crowd for CPAC. But having been there in person, I can tell you that 6,300 attendees this year had the place overcrowded: all the major events were impossible for many people to get into unless they had paid for the most expensive ‘Diamond’ package (or had media credentials). So if next year, sans Coulter, CPAC has only 5000 attendees and doesn’t get hammered with lousy publicity… sounds like a great deal to me.

Greetings from CPAC 2007! On Day Two, Congressman Duncan Hunter kicked us off with a speech that touched on immigration, the war, and global trade.
Hunter is my kind of guy when it comes to the war, and I’ll just leave that as shorthand that he’s on the same page as those of us at class=”textlink”>The Victory Caucus. (It is my hope that we’ll be able to do an in-depth interview with the Congressman for Victory Caucus sometime soon).
The one perhaps newsbreaking item in his speech was when it came to immigration. Hunter went out of his way to cite the now infamous case of the two border agents imprisoned for shooting a suspect. Citing the 10+ year sentences they received, he declared flatly “As President of the United States, I will pardon Ramos and Compean.”
More CPAC news as it comes in…

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As most folks are aware by now, I’ve posted class=”textlink”>a HTML version of the Iraq Study Group Report here. Why? Because a monolithic PDF document is rather unwieldy, and makes it difficult for bloggers to comment on particular sections of the document and refer their readers to that exact section.
So there you go. But in creating the HTML version, I also spent some time with the PDF file published by the ISG itself. And I found something interesting — if depressing — buried inside the file.
Adobe’s PDF format allows the author of a document to save keywords in the Properties of the file. These should be words that capture the sense of the document, and words that people might use to search for the document.
So here are the keywords defined by the Iraq Study Group for their report:
iraq study group report james baker lee hamilton co chairs middle east congress bipartisan strategies president bush america abroad military withdrawal troops civil war iraqi government sunni shia kurds christian sectarian violence conflict post-conflict
Yes, that’s right. If you’re looking for “withdrawal”, this is the document for you. If you happen to be looking for “victory”, however — you are out of luck.