Back in the old days of 2007-2008 when Illinois Senator Barack Obama was on the rise, I wrote from time to time about his affiliation with the United Church of Christ — and his minister, Jeremiah Wright. I did this for two reasons. One, I am a member of the UCC myself. And knowing the denomination well, having served as president of my local church council as well as a member of the board of the regional Penn Central Conference, I felt compelled to explain that unlike, say, the Catholic Church, the UCC — home of the Congregationalists and the Pilgrims — has a bottom to top structure. Which is to say every individual church in the UCC runs itself and makes its own choices on everything from ministers to church policy and politics. Meaning then-Senator Obama’s choice of membership in Chicago’s Trinity UCC indicated to me at least the potential that his local church could be extremely left-wing and politically controversial. Or not. The way I learned about Trinity and the soon-to-be famous Reverend Jeremiah Wright was the dogged persistence of Sean Hannity, who had himself picked up the trail from writer Erik Rush. If one was watching, Hannity had Fox all over this story — including getting an early appearance from Rev. Wright himself. This is another way of saying that the rest of the media, like Brian Ross of ABC, were, for whatever reason, totally not in the chase. Eventually, as Obama began to gain on Hillary Clinton and the liberal media’s efforts on his behalf became apparent, Mr. Ross finally stepped up to the plate. Good for him. But for whatever reason tonight, Bill O’Reilly mentioned in passing during a talk with Laura Ingraham that Ross was out front on the story of Jeremiah Wright. A minor thing, perhaps, on the night of a big debate with other issues at stake. But for the record — as a UCC member actively following the Wright story and trying to determine the leanings of Obama’s local church and any implications coming from this — there is no question whatever that Hannity had this story cold right from the get go. He dug, he dug, and he dug some more — and still takes grief for persisting with it. But he was right about Wright. And in retrospect was sending up a signal flare as to how an Obama Administration would approach governing the country. And neither Brian Ross — nor anyone else in the mainstream media — was anywhere close to being out front on this. Just sayin’. Back to the issues.
Originally posted here:
Hannity, Not Brian Ross, Out Front on Rev. Wright
Mea culpa. Did I underestimate Rick Santorum, screwing up my Iowa predictions . In addition to his win — and this is a win even if Mitt Romney somehow scrounges up a five-vote margin over Santorum — the former senator gave a great speech that shows he has given some serious thought as to how to compete with Romney for the nomination while maintaining real crossover appeal for the general. I still have my doubts as to whether Santorum has the tools necessary to be a successful anti-Romney candidate. But he worked hard for his Iowa win, he deserved it, and he should enjoy it. On the issues where we agree, we agree strongly. I’ll leave the issues where we disagree just as strongly for another day. I’ll try not to misunderestimate him again.
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Misunderestimating Rick Santorum
Noted Email Stalker Barack Obama Issues Proclamation On Stalking Awareness
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Noted Email Stalker Barack Obama Issues Proclamation On Stalking Awareness
Mitt Romney has taken his first shots at Newt Gingrich. At what does he aim? Newt’s career choice, of all things. Romney has spent some time in the past few days attempting to beat back the rising Gingrich by pointing out to Republican primary voters that the former Speaker of the House has spent the bulk of his professional life in politics. One wonders: Does he think so little of the Republican electorate as to assume they don’t already know that? Romney’s attack on Gingrich for being a “career politician” is the kind of thing novice candidates say when they don’t have the knowledge to attack incumbents on the issues. But Romney has policy knowledge. He’s studied the issues diligently. There’s something else he doesn’t have, which he desperately seeks: conservative street cred. Gingrich has it, despite straying from the flock from time to time. Since Romney cannot out-conservative Gingrich, he is trying to out-outsider him, just as he did with Rick Perry. In his interview with Brett Baier last Tuesday night, Romney dealt Gingrich the blow. “He’s spent his last 30 or 40 years in Washington,” Romney said. He even upped the ante vs. Gingrich. Perry, in Romney campaign press releases, is merely a “career politician.” Gingrich, Romney says, is a “lifelong politician.” Gingrich, who is 68, spent 20 years in Congress (1979-1999). That’s 12 fewer years than “Mr. Republican” Robert Taft spent in elected office and only four more years than Ronald Reagan did. Does Romney think being a “lifelong politician” is a universal negative, or only a negative when the politician is running against Romney? Sure, Gingrich spent his out-years engaged in politics by writing and giving speeches. So did Reagan and Churchill. Gingrich also made a lot of money from his various businesses, including at least $1.6 million from Freddie Mac. Romney, though, isn’t attacking Gingrich for taking money from the disgraced, government-sponsored mortgage giant or from motivating Republican crowds in Topeka and Tampa. He’s attacking him for having a long political career — the kind Romney tried, but failed, to have. Romney first ran for U.S. Senate in 1994. Had he won, and continued to win, he’d be in his third term — and 16th
So, LightSquared. Some say that in some nebulous way, the firm is getting unreasonable and possibly illicit support from the Obama administration. I still don’t see it though, especially after listening in on a briefing of LightSquared’s today. The briefing discussed in depth the issues LightSquared has had with GPS manufacturers. LightSquared that they’re trying hard to be a “good neighbor” and have worked with the FCC to address all issues, to the point of giving up half their spectrum voluntarily, and standing ready to invest $50 million to help GPS makers fix the issues. Because LightSquared does claim that the only issues left involve “precision” GPS which, by design, listen on LightSquared’s spectrum. LightSquared points out that this is legal. You can listen to whatever you want. The problem is, legally you have no leg to stand on if you receive ‘interference’ by the legitimate holder of the spectrum you’re listening to. That said, they’re still working on a solution so everyone can benefit. Now obviously this is their side of the story. If there’s a detailed rebuttal of these claims available, I’d love to hear it and link to it in Tech at Night. I’m interested in finding the truth of this matter. We need spectrum, desperately, but I want to go into this knowing the facts. Even as our outrageously high unemployment continues to fester, California takes on the vital issue of bookseller privacy . Schwa? Sprint Nextel lobbies the FCC to go after AT&T , not content to have Eric “ I don’t remember ” Holder suing AT&T even as Sprint Nextel sues AT&T itself. Overkill? Insecurity, knowing this is actually about preventing, not protecting, competition? The REINS Act promises to do something about burdensome regulation . With House and Senate efforts underway from Geoff Davis in the House and Rob Portman in the Senate, I do hope the Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny Act passes. Eric Schmidt can’t seem to make up his mind. Even as he begs for Government to keep out of Google’s aims for Motorola Mobility, he continues to ask for Government to pick winners and losers in the form of fascist industrial policy: Schmidt also lamented the inability of U.S. politicians to reach compromises and make investments in the productive parts of society like other nations have. He noted many Asian nations are growing faster despite a less sophisticated education and healthcare systems. This statement is terrible when you consider his own comments about government : I’ll give you a formula. This is an Andy Grove formula. So I’m sitting at this dinner in 1995—Andy Grove was the CEO of Intel—and he gives this speech, and he says, “This is easy to understand. High tech runs three-times faster than normal businesses. And the government runs three-times slower than normal businesses. So we have a nine-times gap.” And I said, “Works for me.” But all of my experiences are consistent with Andy Grove’s observation. And so what you want to do is you want to make sure that the government does not get in the way and slow things down. We’ve now all developed an ability to lobby about this stuff. We want the government [to understand] if you want to manage something, manage the outcome you want. Don’t specify the technology. Right? In other words, regulate this thing but don’t tell us how to make it technologically. Because if you do, you’ve locked in an incumbent, a specific technological view, et cetera. He can’t even keep his story straight. If only he’d stick with this, as he said at the end of this Washington Post interview by Lillian Cunningham: But at the time, we took the position of ‘hands off the Internet.’ You know, leave us alone. And that’s probably still the general view here. The government can make regulatory mistakes that can slow this whole thing down, and we see that and we worry about it. Hands off the Internet. Yes. Eric, a government big enough to mess with the Internet is big enough to mess with you. Listen. Learn. Stop pushing for Net Neutrality and other power grabs, because they’ll come back and haunt you. Two words: Search. Neutrality.
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Tech at Night: LightSquared vs GPS, Geoff Davis and Rob Portman fight regulation
