Even those who barely follow politics couldn’t avoid seeing Wisconsin constantly in the news last year. It started with Governor Scott Walker’s much-needed Budget Repair Bill, which curbed bargaining rights for many public-sector employees. A state Supreme Court race (considered a referendum on Walker’s bill) and state Senate recall elections followed. But despite tens of millions of dollars and hours of drum beating (literally-by protesters), the public sector unions failed on all three counts to gain the upper hand in Wisconsin. But give them credit for trying yet again in 2012, as it appears an actual recall of Gov. Walker will take place. The implications of that election reach far beyond Madison: If Walker loses, it will have a chilling effect on much-needed reform. Either other responsible governors and state legislatures will address the massive burden of public-sector salaries and pensions, or they won’t. Wisconsin continues to be ground zero in the battle between the right and the left over the proper role and size of government. Tim Dake, leader of the Wisconsin Tea Party group Grandsons of Liberty, is well acquainted with the excitement. His introduction to the Tea Party movement was actually somewhat humorous: “My wife and I attended the 2009 Tax Day protest in Madison, Wisconsin, fully expecting to get arrested—that was the first event in which we got involved. We attended a few more around Wisconsin after that but were surprised that none took place in Milwaukee,” Tim told me. “We decided that as the state’s largest city, Milwaukee needed to host an event, so in late July we got four people together and began planning for a Constitution Day rally. We drew between 10 and 15 thousand people to the lakefront in what is still the state’s largest rally.” But afterward, Tim realized that Wisconsin needed more than just sign-waving. “We were looking to create change and not just protest. That change means legislative and electoral change.” So he helped organize a conference of likeminded groups that created a legislative agenda—a wish list that eventually grew to about three dozen items. And then the drama hit. “We knew that the union fight would be messy. In anticipation of their dis-pleasure with Walker’s agenda, we secured the permit for April’s Tax Day in the week following the No-vember 2010 election. So we saw the reaction coming, but not the timing, with the union protests in February and March of 2011,” Tim said. “As a group, Wisconsin Grandsons of Liberty worked with the other groups (and American Majority) statewide on the ‘I Stand With Walker’ rally.” But that was just the start of the Tea Party’s efforts. Within days, Tea Party leaders began collecting signatures to recall three Democratic state senators who abdicated their responsibilities and fled the state in hopes of denying Republicans a quorum. And it just kept going. “We set up a PAC to raise funds for the recalls of the Democrats. We ran radio and television ads for not just the recalls but also for GOTV [get out the vote] for the April elections. We worked on the recount for Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser,” Tim said. Despite a hectic 2011, the movement is not backing down in 2012. When the public sector unions claimed to have collected more than a million signatures to recall Walker (roughly twice the number needed to trigger a vote), Tim and others decided they weren’t going to simply sit back and take it. “In response to the unions’ and Democrats’ efforts to derail the Walker agenda through the recalls, we created, in partnership with another Wisconsin group and a Texas group, the Verify the Recall online effort,” Tim told me. “This project was created to provide citizens a method of participating in the recall process and to ensure clean elections.…We no longer trust government agencies to carry out their tasks without bias.” Using the project’s website, people working from their own homes can enter petition signatures into a database that checks their validity. More than 12,000 people signed up to participate as of February. “Conservatives believe that protecting Walker translates into protecting the conservative agenda and movement,” Tim said. “Lose Walker and his momentum, and the unions and socialism reign supreme; protect Walker, and treat it as a public mandate to forge ahead.” When I asked what he thought about the Tea Party movement, Tim said, “The movement is in a precarious transition state presently, nationally and in Wisconsin. It is under pressure from the GOP, the media and some national organizations. The GOP was both impressed with the ability of the Tea Party movement to exert pressure successfully in 2010, and it was concerned because of the choice of some candidates that were not in line with the GOP message and were therefore ‘rogue,’ and because of the ability of the movement to ‘go its own way.’” He added, “Since the 2010 elections, two key developments have changed the relationship between the Tea Party and the GOP: attempts by local groups to ‘take over’ their county GOP chapters—either amicably or hostilely—and counter-attempts by the GOP to co-opt the local groups. A showdown is inevitable.” To make matters worse, as Tim relates, “Some national organizations have begun to exercise more influence over the local groups through funding, providing speakers and candidates, and through con-tractual efforts. Consolidation for the purpose of securing funding and electoral victories in 2012 is driving the competition between these organizations. The local groups are getting caught in the crossfire and being pushed to take a side.” Of course the national media is doing the movement no favors by all but cheering for its demise. “The media is looking for a guarantee from the Tea Party of the same electoral success as in 2010. If this is not promised, the media writes that the Tea Party is dying or is already dead. If the success is not delivered, then the same pronouncement will be made. This is causing some to think that their groups have to justify their existence by focusing on the elections,” Tim said. “The lack of an acceptable conservative presidential candidate appears to be, in the eyes of the media, a reflection on the strength of the Tea Party and is therefore a failure of the Tea Party and yet another harbinger of the movement’s demise. In Wisconsin, several groups, ours included, have written off the presidential race to focus on the all-important open U.S. Senate seat and the ongoing recall efforts.” Because of Tim and others like him, the Tea Party movement in Wisconsin is robust. It’s moved from simply rallying, to doing legitimate political work that will bring real change. As more and more Tea Party leaders head in that direction, the movement will continue to evolve. But one thing is clear: Tea Parties will have an impact for years to come.
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The Wisconsin Fight
The controversy over Frank Gehry’s design for a “memorial park” to President Eisenhower—a vast array of hideous metal walls, covered with reflections on the President’s humble origins, and mutilating (should it be built) an important public area of the capital city—has alerted Americans to the difficulty, in modern conditions, of obtaining an appropriate monument. Simple gravestones commemorate private people, and are inscribed with words of love from the few who will seriously miss them. Monuments, however, do not only commemorate public figures who have deserved well of the nation. They commemorate the nation, raise it above the land on which it is planted, and express an idea of public duty and public achievement in which everyone can share. Their meaning is not “he” or “she” but “we.” And the successful monument does not stand out as a defiance of the surrounding order, but endorses it and adds to its grace and dignity. Washington has many such monuments. But they belong (for the most part) to another era, when architects and sculptors were prepared humbly to retire behind their own creations, so as to respect the city and its meaning. In proposing Gehry as the architect of the Eisenhower memorial, however, Washington has opted for another and newer conception of the architect’s role, and it is important to understand this if we are to grasp the extent and seriousness of their mistake. The Eisenhower family has objected to the plans on the grounds that the resulting collection of screens and narratives seem designed to belittle the former president, to cut him down to size, to redesign him as the barefoot boy who looked in wonder on the high office that miraculously came his way. But this belittling of the subject is exactly what the monument intends. By belittling the President the memorial would exalt its architect. And the true subject of his memorial park, like the true subject of every building that Gehry has ever built, would be Gehry. This, it seems to me, shows us the reason why monuments are these days so hard to commission, and so invariably disappointing. Architects, who once were servants of the people who employed them, and conscious contributors to a shared public space, have rebranded themselves as self-expressive artists, whose works are not designed to fit in to a prior urban fabric, but to stand out as tributes to the creative urge that gave rise to them. Their meaning is not “we” but “I,” and the “I” in question gets bigger with every new design. Gehry belongs to a small and exclusive club of “starchitects,” who specialize in designing buildings that stand out from their surroundings, so as to shock the passerby and become causes célèbres . They thrive on controversy, since it enables them to posture as original artists in a world of ignorant philistines. And their contempt for ordinary opinion is amplified by all attempts to prevent them from achieving their primary purpose, which is to scatter our cities with blemishes that bear their unmistakable trademark. Most of these starchitects—Daniel Libeskind, Richard Rogers, Norman Foster, Peter Eisenman, Rem Koolhaas—have equipped themselves with a store of pretentious gobbledygook, with which to explain their genius to those who are otherwise unable to perceive it. And when people are spending public money they will be easily influenced by gobbledygook that flatters them into believing that they are spending it on some original and world-changing masterpiece. The most important feature of a Gehry “masterpiece,” like the absurdly costly Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, is that it “challenges” the surrounding order. Gehry does not build for people, but sculpts a space for his own expressive ends. You see this clearly in his Stata Center at MIT, a building that takes the old ideas of wall and window and holds them up to ridicule, to create a kind of collapsed caricature of a building, which is already springing leaks and cracking at the joints. In a striking monograph, Architecture of the Absurd , John Silber, former president of Boston University, details all the faults of the building, including its enormous cost overrun, and the expense of maintaining it. But by far the most telling criticism is one that can be leveled at all the starchitects, who adopt the same a priori approach to construction as Gehry, and also the same self-image of themselves as revolutionary geniuses. Gehry decided that, since the Stata building was to house the high-powered researchers that MIT collects, and bring them together in a single space, he should design an interior that encouraged them to interact, to share their ideas, to amplify each other’s creativity by throwing concepts like footballs from room to room. So he got rid of inner walls, made all boundaries transparent, opened everything out in spaces that are made stark and bleak by the childish supermarket colors that shout from the open corridors. This kind of a priori thinking, by an architect who has never troubled to observe another member of his species, recalls Le Corbusier’s plan for a hospital in Venice, in which there would be no windows, and all doors would open inward, since this would further the utter tranquility from which (according to the architect) convalescence springs. In fact researchers need walls, privacy, solitude if they are ever to produce the ideas that they can then bounce off their colleagues, just as invalids need light, air, and a view of the life outside, if ever they are to be motivated to get better. The Stata Center therefore fulfils no function as well as its primary one, which is to draw attention to the person who created it. Unfortunately, because we live in a celebrity culture, this habit of megalomania seems to pay off. City fathers and public bodies everywhere, faced with the need to commission a public monument, will turn to the starchitects, sure that in this way they will not be branded as philistines by the critics, and will be able to fall back on a host of “expert” opinions should the general public express dismay at their choice. And the more important the project, the more likely it is that it will be put in the hands of a starchitect, who will ensure that it stands out from its surroundings and, if possible, reduces them to absurdity, so as the better to draw attention to itself. Recently I spent a few days in Budapest, a city that is full of monuments. In every park some bearded gentleman stands serenely on a plinth, testifying to the worth of Hungarian poetry, to the beauty of Hungarian music, to the sacrifices made in some great Hungarian cause. The monuments include bas-relief, incorporated into the corner of some building, showing soldiers advancing into war, or patriotic faces against a background flag. They include classical colonnades linking buildings across the edge of a park, and gateways lending dignity to a public street. None stands out, none is designed to draw attention to itself. On the contrary, all attention comes from the monuments, onto the city and the people who live and move within their sight. They are like the eyes of a father, resting on his children at play. They are full of the joy of belonging, and convey a serene acceptance of death in the national cause. Such monuments are the very opposite of the one proposed by Gehry. Their sculptors and architects are forgotten, their forms and materials are the forms and materials from which the city around them is built. And they retire into their corners as though in acknowledgement that their work has been done. Now I firmly believe that there are architects and sculptors who share that conception of the monument. For it is natural to all patriotic people to wish for their past to be present in the city, but in the way that memories are—as a shared recognition that we owe gratitude to those who went before us, and must incorporate them into our lives while respecting their dignity and acknowledging their part in the national life. We must begin to look for those more modest architects and sculptors, and to reject the celebrity cult on which the great egos rely for their commissions. For monuments should be built by people who have no desire to draw attention to themselves, who are happy to hide behind their creations, and to build things that belong where they stand. It looks increasingly likely that the mistake made in Washington will be rectified by Congress. But let us hope that it will be the occasion to rectify a far greater mistake, which is that of treating architecture as the expression of the architect’s individual vision, rather than a contribution to our collective home.
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Monumental Egos
RINO Radio? Republican In Name Only Radio? Taking on… Rush Limbaugh???????? And demeaning the audience of one’s would-be customers… this is a business proposition? Seriously? There’s two parts of this discussion: talk radio and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. Let’s start with talk radio and the basics. All of which are now out there in the Land of Google thanks to the sponsors of this project seeking — and getting — their fair share of tons of PR. So that being the case… let’s work our way through their pitch and what they’re saying. Saying on the record, incredibly enough. Cumulus Media, says Reuters , recently “sent out an email blast to fellow radio station owners with a photoshopped picture of former U.S. Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, promoting him as the conservative talk radio host of the future.” Cumulus, you need to know, recently swallowed Citadel, setting it up with about 570 stations across the country, notably including WABC in New York, one of the nation’s largest and the flagship station for Rush Limbaugh. On this past Sunday, the Cumulus/Huckabee venture to capture the conservative radio market got a roll out in… yes, really… the New York Times . Says the Reuters story — really! — (emphasis in bold): “They are going after Rush’s affiliates,” said one radio company executive who received Cumulus’ email and spoke on condition of anonymity. “They are positioning Huckabee as the safe, non-dangerous alternative to Rush and saying to station owners, ‘If you are looking for conservative content, we want you to consider our guy instead of theirs.’” Another story, this one in the Wall Street Journal, reports : With the slogan “more conversation, less confrontation,” the syndicator behind “Huckabee,” Cumulus Media Networks, has been pitching the new show to advertisers as a less combative alternative to Mr. Limbaugh. Cumulus is a unit of Cumulus Media Inc., which owns 570 radio stations. According to the story in the New York Times (more of which shortly), Huckabee would be appearing on 180 stations (Rush is on over 600), and Cumulus itself carries the Limbaugh show on “dozens of its stations” including on New York’s WABC, the nation’s largest. Contracts being what they are, Rush won’t be moving anywhere in the immediate future in terms of WABC. But contracts also have to be renewed, and what happens to Rush Limbaugh in New York when his contract is up in 2013 and Cumulus is in charge? According to the WSJ story: In an interview, Cumulus’s Mr. Dickey said he would “honor” existing contracts with the Limbaugh show, including at WABC. But he didn’t rule out a switch to Mr. Huckabee in the future. “We are in favor of eating our own cooking,” he said. We are in favor of eating our own cooking? Aside from quite obviously dissing his own current radio superstar — a decidedly novel way of doing business… what is that supposed to mean?
David Brock says he got famous for calling Anita Hill “a slut.” That is his own description of how he became famous. Compounding the irony, David Brock says Rush Limbaugh made him famous. That’s right folks, the head of Media Matters For America, on a personal quest to destroy Rush Limbaugh after spectacularly failing to do the same to Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Anita Hill, and more, actually said, “Limbaugh was making me famous for calling Anita Hill a slut.” If you haven’t paid attention these past few months, from the Daily Caller investigation into David Brock to David Brock trying to get Rush off the air, David Brock really thinks the world revolves around David Brock. And David Brock tries to set up as much spin as he can to try to make you think the world revolves around David Brock. In fact, the reality is David Brock has a self-inflated sense of self-worth. He surrounds himself with bodyguards convinced someone somewhere wants to do him harm while he maligns the reputations of others, dabbled in illegal drugs, seemingly suffers from some level of instability , and felt obligated to pay his ex-boyfriend $850,000.00 to keep the ex-boyfriend quiet about Media Matters. It’s no wonder, with all the stories pouring out about how pathetic David Brock actually is, that David Brock is trying to divert attention to Rush Limbaugh. But you know what? Not only is the effort against Limbaugh failing, it is failing badly. Consequently, Brock is shifting gears — bragging about the money he is raising, which he actually isn’t, and trying to take credit for Cumulus Media potentially replacing the Rush Limbaugh Show with the Mike Huckabee Show, which so far hasn’t panned out. First, let’s look at the failing Limbaugh campaign. David Brock wants you to know he can take out Rush Limbaugh. His effort has been so effective Rush Limbaugh’s ratings are up pretty significantly. But it is not just that. As I told you would happen, new advertisers are filling the void left by other advertisers fleeing. The hit to Rush’s bottom line really never happened. Not only that, the much ballyhooed memo from Cumulus directing stations to move barter advertisers around Limbaugh’s show has been recinded. On Monday, the 600 or so radio stations that air Limbaugh’s program were told by his syndicator, Premiere Radio Networks, to resume running “barter” ads during his program. Stations are required to run these ads in exchange for paying discounted fees to Premiere to air Limbaugh’s show. Premiere, which is owned by radio giant Clear Channel Communications, had suspended the “barter” requirement for two weeks in a move widely seen as a way to give advertisers a chance to lie low while Limbaugh was in the news. So what is Media Matters left to do? Try to take credit for Mike Huckabee’s show potentially replacing Limbaugh. Follow along here. There is no doubt Media Matters and MoveOn.org are working together on this project. The Washington Post notes that MoveOn.org wants Rush off 180 stations. Media Matters is running an ad campaign in seven markets to aid in that effort. What they are not pointing out is that Cumulus Media expects to have Mike Huckabee in 140 markets with an initial launch of 50 markets. As I reported last week, Media Matters is running anti-Rush ads on several Cumulus stations that are thought likely to replace Rush Limbaugh with Mike Hucakbee if only to save the stations money. Huckabee, a Cumulus property and a new show, would be vastly cheaper than Rush Limbaugh. When Huckabee’s show expands and Cumuls begins the replacement process, MoveOn.org and Media Matters will undoubtedly take credit for something they had absolutely nothing to do with. It is typical David Brock. But wait . . . there’s more. It’s not just the craptacular effort to get Rush off the air, David Brock wants you to think he is a fundraising machine. According to the New York Times, he raised $23 million for his various projects in 2010. New York Magazine says the same. He wants to be the guy who takes down Fox, the guy who takes down Rush, and be forgotten as the guy who never took down the Clintons, Anita Hill, or really anyone else. There’s just one problem. According to the Media Matters for America (MMFA) and related Media Matters Action Network (MMAN) 2010 990′s, their 2010 fundraising was about $14.6 million. The 501(c)3 raised $13.2 million and the 501(c)4 raised $1.4 million. That leaves them almost $9 million short of the $23 million David Brock bragged about (assuming they raised nothing after Brock claimed $23 million in the November 2010 New York Times article). David Brock also has “Equality Matters”, but that seems to be a project within MMAN, which did not launch until December 2010, and the Progressive Talent Initiative, but that is also a project within Media Matters, not a separate group. And then there’s American Bridge….but that raised $0 in 2010. In the 990s, a Democratic fundraising shop, Bonner Group, is credited with all, or almost all, fundraising for Media Matters. Isn’t David Brock supposed to be some kind of “legendary” fundraiser? Just get a load of the self-indulgent quotes from Jason Zengerle’s New York Magazine article. “With doors opened, Brock got busy with what has emerged as perhaps his greatest talent: persuading rich liberals to give him their money.” “Brock’s fund-raising prowess is the stuff of legend—and some mystery—on the left. He explains it as simply a question of having the right attitude.” “But Brock’s greatest fund-raising tool is his personal story…” “Brock received the news of Beck’s departure just as he was about to walk into a meeting with potential donors at a hedge fund in midtown.” “In an interview with the New York Times, he boasted of his fund-raising record with Media Matters and predicted even greater success for American Bridge…” Of course all this bragging may get David Brock and Media Matters into trouble. Consider these similarly self-indulgent quotes from a New York Times profile of David Brock. “Certain to set off debate, however, is that Mr. Brock appears to be positioning his new organization so that fund-raising consultants can raise money for Democratic-oriented media efforts not just through American Bridge but also via one of the nonprofit organizations Mr. Brock currently runs, Media Matters Action Network, which does not disclose its donors.” “The action network, which tracks conservative politicians and advocacy organizations, is organized as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit group and is set to take on an expanded role in the 2012 elections, including potentially running television ads, according to an internal draft concept paper about American Bridge’s and Media Matter Action Network’s plans obtained by The New York Times.” Based on the second quote, shouldn’t every candidate Media Matters supports have to answer to Alan Dershowitz over Media Matters’ well documented anti-semetism ? Adding those quotes to what the Daily Caller and others have turned up, won’t the IRS be interested into Media Matters’ tax status? Between David Brock hyping his own importance and his fundraising numbers with nothing to really show for either, surely Democratic donors who’ve been far more willing to hold their action groups accountable than the right will start questioning him. And surely the IRS will too.
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The World According to David Brock
Today is March 16th. On this date in 1521, Ferdinand Magellan reached the Philippines, which didn’t work out too well for him as he was killed there. His expedition was the first to circumnavigate the globe. No word yet, though, on when someone is going to circumnavigate YOUR MOM! BURN! Sigh. Also on this date, in 1926, Robert Goddard launched the first successful test flight of a liquid-fueled rocket, paving the way for modern rocketry and space flight. Goddard once said: “It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.” I hope he’s wrong though, my dream yesterday involved being chased by a whale through quicksand while Ferdinand Magellan threw apples at me, and I hate when that happens. Finally, today is National Artichoke Hearts Day , which sounds vaguely violent, but is actually delicious. Consider this an Open Thread. Anti-Rush Campaign Was Media Matters Astroturf | Commentary “Wonder how the left was able to mobilize so quickly on the Rush Limbaugh boycott? According to the architect behind it, Media Matters online strategy director Angelo Carusone, the project was actually created in 2009, but stayed inactive until the Sandra Fluke controversy boiled over” Bin Laden Plotted To Punish America With A Biden Presidency | WaPo “Obama is the head of infidelity and killing him automatically will make (Vice President Joe) Biden take over the presidency. … Biden is totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the U.S. into a crisis.” U.S. Chamber Challenges Legality of NLRB Appointments | Free Enterprise “Appointing three of five members to the NLRB in a legally questionable way casts doubt on the work of the entire agency.” Seaweed in your gas tank | Charles Krauthammer “President Obama incessantly claims energy open-mindedness, insisting that his policy is “all of the above.” Except, of course, for drilling” Today’s Word of the Day comes via Luciferous Logolepsy. fichu : noun sheer, triangular cape worn over the shoulders
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Daily Links – March 16, 2012
