Hillary's Best Friend: El Podito knows him when he sees him--

Kerry would be doing Hillary a favor to run against her, because stuffing the guy who got 59 million votes in 2004 would be a mark of her electoral power come 2008.

Right. Remember the Washington Generals? ... P.S.: But Podhoretz is semi-delusional if he thinks there "will be no room for any Democrat to challenge her" from the Netroots side. ... 10:33 P.M.

Stick Clovis in your Plano, Brokeback-in-the-heartland spinners! Clovis, New Mexico is just the sort of heartlandish town that's supposed to now be in a "swoon over the star-crossed gay cowboys of 'Brokeback Mountain,'" according to [$]  NYT columnist Frank Rich.  Marlena Hartz of the Clovis News Journal reports on the film's reception:

"Brokeback Mountain" arrived in Clovis on Friday at the Hilltop Twin Theatre. It has grossed $1,400 since it premiered, according to Hilltop employee Stewart Neff. Even for a small theater, that's a low figure, Neff said, especially for a film that has already pocketed a Golden Globe, leads in a number of Academy Award nominations, and is predicted to nab the Oscar for best picture.  [Emphasis added]

I was wrong, so wrong, to predict Brokeback wouldn't break the $50 million barrier [v]. But just because Brokeback makes a lot of money does not mean it's accomplished the fabled "red state breakout," notwithstanding the press' eagerness to buy its studio's story line to that effect. You can make a lot of money playing metropolitan centers and the coasts.** The test of whether the film could "Move the 'Heartland'"--the LAT's query, which prompted Rich to predict a "resounding yes"--was always going to come when it went "wide" and expanded into smaller markets like Clovis. ...

P.S.--The 5.8% Oscar Bump: Last night (Friday) Brokeback did an estimated 5.8% more business nationally than the previous Friday, although it showed 26% more theaters. In an ordinary week, that would be a solid performance (given that the added theaters are probably also smaller theaters). But am I crazy to think that 5.8% is not an impressive gain in the week after a film was nominated for 8 Academy Awards?

**:-- Matt Yglesias points out to me [v] it's not simply Hollywood's films that skew "left." Hollywood's audience--largely young people, in cities--skews left also. There's less of a mismatch there than Hollywood critics like Ben Stein and Evan Coyne Maloney  like to claim. But this natural congruence also means a film can succeed at the box office without changing many minds in Bush country. ... [Tks to reader S.B.]8:59 P.M.

Why We Are Willing to Pay $2 for the New York Post in Los Angeles: They give us the  Death Cheese Bus.

Why We Are Still Not Willing to Pay 50 cents for the Los Angeles Times in Los Angeles: The director of the James Bond movie "Die Another Day,"--as well as "XXX: State of the Union,"  "Mulholland Falls," and "Once Were Warriors"--is arrested "after allegedly dressing as a woman and offering sex to an undercover Los Angeles police officer in exchange for money." (Apparently he's selling, not buying!) The mighty local monopoly paper gives it ... two sentences buried in a news roundup on page B4. Too interesting! People might talk about it.**

P.S.: The New York Daily News, operating on an East Coast deadline, managed to generate a whole page on the busted director.  But then they had a genetic advantage--lack of the LAT's twittish, slow, respectable, self-satisfied news-averse corporate DNA! ... [Alert reader G. tipped me off to this stark contrast.] ...

**--Alternative explanation: The Times is not that twittish. Calls were made and they're actively protecting somebody. ... Cover-up or clueless? It's hard to assess these competing theories--the results are indistinguishable. ... 4:40 P.M.

Ending Oil As We Know It: Thomas Friedman argues [$]  for "breaking America's addiction to oil," but not because it will take away a strategic weapon (the threat of oil cutoffs) from Middle East autocrats. Instead, he claims easy oil dollars have prevented Arab countries from developing the middle class industries (and resultant power centers) that would support democracy. Without oil,

[w]hoever ruled [would have to] nuture a society that would empower its men and women to get educated and start companies to compete globally, because that was the only way they could thrive. ... [snip]

The only way [new leaders put in place by elections] will allow for real political parties, institutions, free press, competitive free markets and proper education --a civil society--is if we also bring down the price of oil and make internal reform the only way for these societies to sustain themselves. People change when they have to, not when we tell them to. [Emphasis added]

I can't help noticing that Friedman's logic is more or less identical to the logic of welfare reform. Welfare reformers argued that without easy cash welfare, single mothers would have to organize their lives more purposefully around work. Hortatory efforts were ineffective--people would change their lives when they had to change their lives to sustain themselves. Friedman is simply applying this same (to my mind, powerful) materialist logic at the level of nations rather than individuals.

The difference is that vigorous welfare reform threatens a complete cutoff of welfare--or at least a cutoff that would put individuals who refuse to work into an unsustainable economic position. But there is little chance of an analogous, near-complete cutoff of oil revenues to Arab-Muslim autocracies. Even if we were to magically develop alternative competing fuel sources overnight, oil is still going to be useful and valuable. Oil producing nations like Iran and Saudi Arabia will still generate billions and billions in easy revenue for many, many years, no? Will a mere price cut (Friedman throws out the highly optimistic goal of $20 a barrel oil) be enough to actually force unwilling regimes to "nurture" the productive middle class that they find so threatening? Or will they just cancel extravagant oil-funded projects and contain whatever discontent results from straitened economic circumstances the way they always have?

Before the 1996 welfare reform, remember, the typical Republican approach was to reduce welfare benefits, not end them. But it turned out merely reducing benefits wasn't enough to force the change--indeed, benefit reductions arguably offered the worst of both worlds. Welfare mothers were still trapped in a dysfunctional welfare-based culture--they were just poorer welfare mothers trapped in a dysfunctional welfare-based culture. Similarly, Bush's Friedmanesque efforts to reduce the price of oil might just produce poorer, angrier autocracies. The real equivalent of welfare reform--an actual end to oil revenues--seems outside the realm of possibility. ... Update: Alert reader D.J. notes "the price of a barrel of oil was $22 in 2002" and it didn't produce "real political parties, institutions, free press, competitive free markets" and the other wonderful aspects of the "internal reform" Friedman envisions.  In fact, the price hovered roughly around the $15-20 level  from about 1986 to 2000. Why would $20/barrel do the trick today? ... Rich Lowry makes a similar point toward the end of this column.. ...

The  cruder, strategic argument for alternative fuels--that they would simply take the retaliatory oil weapon out of Middle East autocrats' hands--seems stronger than Friedman's more complex, appealing quasi-Marxist argument. ...

P.S.: I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't realistically hope for the growth of middle class economies in nations like Saudi Arabia and Iran. I just wouldn't count on Friedmanesque oil shock treatment--as opposed to Internet-publicized, envy-producing national prosperity stories (Iraq, in the theoretical future)--to produce them. ...

P.P.S: A short, vloggische discussion of this issue, featuring Matt Yglesias, can be found here [v]  . ... 3:54 P.M.

Combing the Long Tail: I used to think that if you took a) the year's five best songs by bestselling popular music artists and b) the year's five best songs from artists who are completely unknown nationally--including one-hit wonders-- the songs on list (b) would be just as good as the songs on (a). But my friend E. pointed out that I'm wrong. The (b) songs would be much, much better! ... You just have to find them. ... With this in mind, I try to tune to Demolisten, a weekly L.A. college radio show that sorts through and plays submissions from unreleased acts. ... If I hear one good song by an artist I figure, "That's a good song." If I hear two good songs by an artist I figure, "That's a good artist." Last year the application of this crude A&R algorithm yielded up continuing kf fave  Inflight Movie. This year's two-hit find seems to be A Faulty Chromosome. ...

P.S.: Fans of The Strokes will like A Faulty Chromosome! Except maybe they won't, because A Faulty Chromosome is much, much better. ...  2:14 A.M.

Friday, February 3, 2006

My grandmother's cousin Charlie, the only known acting talent in my family tree, turned 101 recently  and some blogs have affectionately  saluted him  for his enormous list of successful performances. A warm and funny guy, even if he was the rent collector for Pottersville. ... 3:54 P.M.

Kornheiser v. Kurtz! Two months ago, Katharine Seelye of the New York Times wrote, regarding WaPo media reporter Howie Kurtz:

He draws salaries from two of the most important media companies in the country: CNN, which is owned by Time Warner, and The Post, which is owned by The Washington Post Company. Such arrangements do not violate Post policy. In fact, The Post has quite liberal rules regarding extracurricular work by its reporters and editors. [Emph. added]

Thursday, WaPo ran a piece about its own sportswriter, Tony Kornheiser, who is being wooed by various television and radio stations, including some owned by Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder:

Kornheiser would be prohibited from writing for The Post if he accepted a position with a Snyder-owned company. Under the newspaper's conflict-of-interest rules, a sportswriter cannot write about a team while accepting payment from it. [Emph. added]

Hmm. Could Seelye, as suspected, have been a wee bit conned about what does and doesn't normally violate Post policy? If Kornheiser can't write about a team while accepting payment from it for extracurricular work why can Kurtz write about CNN while accepting payment from it for extracurricular work? Are the ethics rules tighter for sportswriters than for reporters? Tighter than for reporters whose beat is chastising other reporters for violating ethics rules? Is Kurtz a bigger star at the paper than Kornheiser? Is that why he gets a pass? How does Kornheiser feel about that? Should Kornheiser hire Kurtz's lawyer? ... P.S.: At the bottom of the Post's piece on Kornheiser, we learn

Staff writer Howard Kurtz contributed to this report.

Did Kurtz himself write the paragraph about "the newspaper's conflict-of-interest rules"? If so, wasn't that itself ... you know, a conflict of interest? ... P.P.S.: Nah. After all, it's not as if whoever wrote the graf in question described the ethics rules narrowly, as if they apply only to "a sportswriter" but not to any other kind of reporter! Oh, wait. ... 1:24 A.M. link

Thursday, February 2, 2006

Anti-Brokebacklashlash: Nikki Finke claims it's not red state moviegoers who are avoiding Brokeback Mountain  because they're "disgusted" by "the possibility of glimpsing simulated gay sex." It's the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences--even "baby boomers and younger Academy members." I'm skeptical, as one should always be regarding a Nikki Finke article. Surely some Academy members are viscerally averse to watching gay sex. (They have genes too.) But Finke's three-alarm charge of hypocrisy smells like a brilliant move to counter the mild anti-Brokeback backlash evident at the recent SAG awards. ... P.S.: You knew there would be an anti-homophobic guilt trip somewhere in this process. I didn't realize it would be directed at Hollywood liberals rather than moviegoers. But it makes sense--as Finke notes, guilt-trips work on them. ... P.P.S.:  Many commenters have noticed the obvious--the Best Picture nominees are four left-messaged political films, plus a movie about Truman Capote! But if you read Finke's column, you realize it's really not that bad. It's worse! If she's even 50% on the mark, the Academy Awards are now hopelessly, pervasively, and openly politicized (and the politics are Hollywood Left). Maybe they should be carried on Daily Kos. ...

Nominee for Best Euphemistic Attempt to Hide That the Five Nominated "Small Films With Deep Political and Social Themes" Were Actuallly Small Films With Liberal Political and Social Themes:  Sharon Waxman of the New York Times, who also  writes:

Many nominees observed that Oscar voters seemed to be in a ruminative mood, perhaps reflecting the nation at large.

Or perhaps not! 9:23 A.M.

Lutz's Revenge? Is Dan Neil overextended? Since he won the Pulitzer Prize for his auto reviews he's added a magazine column and  radio commentaries on a local NPR station. But his formerly funny auto reviews have become a disappointing parade of Hearty Hackisms ("... ladies and gentlemen, what we have here is the Buick from another planet") and strained laugh lines ("Americans who might otherwise think [hybrids are] all a plot reeking of patchouli and macrobiotic ice cream."). Neil's heart's not in it anymore. Let him move on. ... 8:47 A.M. (early!)

Wednesday, February 1, 2006

Mission of Burma? One of the tiny little suprises in last night's so-so SOTU was Bush's inclusion of Burma--along with North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Zimbabwe--on the list of non-democratic nations whose freedom is required for the "peace of this world."  For some background, here is a recent report, commissioned and seemingly endorsed by Vaclav Havel and Desmond Tutu [pdf], calling the current dictatorial Burmese government a "threat to the peace."  The report apparently seeks to establish the prerequisites for possible U.N. Security Council actions, including "the authorization of a U.N. peacekeeping force to enter the territory." ... 4:46 P.M. 

To Democrats desperately searching for an alternative to Hillary: What's wrong with Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania? Assuming he wins reelection, he's governor of a large swing state. He's sensible, plain-spoken and candid--the Democrats' McCain. (It takes one to beat one.) Is there something impolitic (or worse) in his background that causes him to be Unmentioned? If so, please clue me in. ... 2:43 P.M.

Why did the traditionally uninspiring State of the Union address become such a big deal? I blame the Feiler Faster principle [v]: Our society's ability to quickly and comfortably process information  has become so great that we get bored without new masses of information to run through the machine. So, in the non-political culture, nice, second-order holidays like Valentine's Day and Halloween get built up into huge events requiring hours of hype and effort. Similarly, SOTU gets built up into another momentous make-or break occasion ... P.S.: Conversely, any day that doesn't feature either a make-or-break moment, major terrorist attack, near-apocalyptic natural disaster or celebrity murder becomes a "slow news day." Hillary Clinton's January 16 "plantation" comments generated controversy, we were told, because she foolishly made them "on a boring day" (Chris Matthews)-- a boring day on which there was a) an ongoing, bloody war in Iraq, b) a terror bombing in Afghanistan, c) mystery as to which Al Qaeda leaders, if any, we'd killed in a controversial Predator missile attack; d) unrest in Nepal, e) final campaigning in the Palestinian election, f) Israel's prime minister in a coma, g) a confrontation with Iran over the bomb, h) spreading bird flu and i) ongoing scandals over eavesdropping and sleazy lobbying. ... Boring days aren't what they used to be! 1:08 P.M.

Monday, January 30, 2006

From the today's Alito coverage:

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), the only GOP senator who has not said how she would vote on Alito's nomination, agreed. "I find it regrettable that there are those who are trying to resurrect a filibuster even as there is clearly nothing in the record that constitutes extraordinary circumstances," she said. [Emph. added]

The way Snowe is talking, you'd think "extraordinary circumstances" was a clause written into the Constitution (like "probable cause" or "high crimes and misdemeanors") instead of a banal fudge-phrase sealing a temporary deal among a few Senators a few months ago. ... And why should their deal bind anyone who isn't a party to it? ... P.S.: I'm not convinced Alito isn't the best we're likely to get under the circumstances, but filibustering a Supreme Court nominee--in essence, requiring a supermajority before you fill a lifetime, unelected office with vast, uncheckable power--seems more defensible than the average, everyday minority obstructionism. It's an honorable course Democrats might choose to take. ... P.P.S.: It's also honorable to stage a vote even if you know you're going to lose! ... 7:29 P.M.

Friday, January 27, 2006

Bob Wright and new blogginghead Matt Yglesias worry that the Bushies, in tacit concert with hard-line Israelis, will blow [V] the dialectical opportunity for peace presented by Hamas' election victory. ... What I don't understand is why (as both Wright and Yglesias seem to assume) it would help if the United States now struck a "moderate" hopeful tone, giving Hamas "leeway" in order to "draw [them] in" to the peace process. Isn't that plodding State Department thinking--we send them a positive signal, they respond, etc? If we moved to be nicer to Hamas, it seems more likely that this would be the kiss of death--e.g. it would guarantee that they would become allergic to any moderation. If they're going to change, they need to do it themselves, after assessing their position in honest opposition to their enemies (Israel, and us) in a way that lets them take credit for standing up to them. By talking tough now, Bush doesn't foreclose that possibility--he enhances it, no? Today, confrontation. Manana, aufhebung! ... P.S.: Scott MacMillan makes an intriguing point about the way in which  Hamas' very religiosity may allow it to compromise on territory. But I suspect they are a ways away from settling for the "Islamicization of individuals," the so-called "de-territorialized ummah." ...  3:38 P.M.

Here's what kf's cut-rate private eye (alert reader G) dug up on XM satellite radio's Meritocratic Poster Boy Luke Russert! I'd say it will only help him with his target demographic groups. ... Next time I splurge and hire a shamus from Craigslist. ... 2:20 P.M.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Let 144 Flowers Not Bloom:  According to Shanghai Daily, the Chinese government has ordered 144 auto manufacturers to "shut down production," rather than let them fight it out and see which ones survive. Now that's industrial policy. In theory the Chinese should pay a price for this anti-market selection. ... P.S.: Some of China's early vehicle exports do seem to be  junk, although you'd think that sort of gross defect will be weeded out in the international marketplace, at least if Chinese companies want to sell cars. ... 10:41 P.M.

Fannie Mae: Too big to have to file financial reports, unlike other companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The  Jim Johnson legacy  grows. ... 9:54 P.M.

BrokeBangle Hype: BMW's boasting about record sales, but it sure looks to me like sales of the franchise-making 3 series are flat, flat, flat, despite the introduction of a brand new model embodying big-talker Chris Bangle's latest visionary breakthrough. Shouldn't sales have surged? What if they now collapse, like second-year purchases of the Bangled-up fake-Gehry Z4? ... Customers may be failing to appreciate the new cars' place in the broad sweep of the "biggest single aesthetic undertaking in human history!" Instead, they're just looking at the cars. Philistines! ... 7:27 P.M.

Now they tell us:

The Justice Department went to court last week to try to force Google, by far the world's largest Internet search engine, to turn over an entire week's worth of searches. ... [snip] ... But the case itself, according to people involved in it and scholars who are following it, has almost nothing to do with privacy.

Gee, it seems like only yesterday the NYT was fronting a story highlighting the terror of computer users  who, because of the Justice Department's actions, were now afraid to type in ordinary, curious search requests like "rent boy" for fear their privacy had disappeared. ("Would Google have to inform the government that she was looking for a rent boy - a young male prostitute?").  But it turns out you only imagined that Howell Raines had come back as NYT editor to launch one of his overheated, misguided crusades. It was all a dream, a bad dream. ...[via  JustOneMinute ] 3:39 P.M.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson contributes a forceful and admirably BS-free post on a dirty little un-PC secret of the Democratic coalition: Anti-illegal immigrant sentiment among blacks. ... Is this the real, little-noted reason why President Bush made only miminal gains among African-American voters while he was wooing Latinos with his guest worker and quasi-amnesty proposals? ... Note: Just because employers don't "hire Latinos at low-end jobs and exclude blacks from them solely because of their race" doesn't mean illegal immigrants don't drive down wages at the bottom of the job market. Even if the immigrants weren't willing to work for less, the mere presence of more workers drives down wages on simple supply/demand grounds. A big reason wages at the bottom rose in the late Clinton years was a perceived tightness (i.e. shortage) in the low wage labor market, with the result that employers offered wages that weren't quite so low. We want a tight labor market at the bottom again, and restricting immigration could be one reasonable way to get it. African-Americans (as Hutchinson concedes) aren't racist just because they reach that conclusion. ... P.S.: I'm not saying economics is the only reason for anti-illegal fervor among blacks. Cultural resentments may be a big part of it. I'm just saying the economic argument is rational. ... 1:04 A.M. link

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Mas Hamas? Bob Wright on why a Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections might be the best outcome [V]. (Hint: It's not just because participating in democracy will moderate them.) ... 11:54 P.M.

AG Synecdoche: Reporters at a press conference so desperately trying to fit it into the pre-existing "story they had in their minds" that they "failed to ask some very basic and important questions"? BoifromTroy shouldn't be shocked, but he does make his case. (His unasked questions--about allegedly sleazy lending practices--are good.) 11:52 P.M.

Lukegate: ... Step 1) Tim Russert books the tired Carville-Matalin act more than 35 times on his Meet the Press talk show, boosting their bankability on the lucrative  lecture circuit. Step 2) Carville--with Russert's eager prodding--also uses their most recent, conveniently-timed MTP appearance to plug his new XM Satellite radio sports show. ... That's smarmily venal enough, you say? Wrong! Step 3) Carville's co-host on the XM show is Russert's son, Luke, who is "currently a sophomore  at Boston College." Russert and Carville joke about this on the air but don't quite have the balls to actually inform viewers of the key conflict:

MR. RUSSERT: James Carville, before you go I understand that politics may be part of your past, that you're going to go on XM Satellite Radio and do sports?

MR. CARVILLE: Well, Mr. Russert, I can't talk about that too much, but I think there going to be a story tomorrow's paper. Tomorrow night I'll be on the Jay Leno show on NBC, and we'll be talking about some exciting new developments and maybe a new twist on an old career.

MR. RUSSERT: With anyone I know?

MR. CARVILLE: Maybe you would be familiar with someone I'll be teaming up in this, but let's just say it's going to offer a generational look at sports and the coaches of sports and things like that ... [Emph. added]

Har, har. ... Special Russert Prosecutor Arianna Huffington effectively exploits almost all the possible lines of attack here--including, but not limited to, the core charge that Russert has perverted the content of his own show for self-interested motives that might be excused as subconscious if they weren't so blatant:

Does Tim think nobody's going to notice that he's having a guest on his "news" show who is making it possible for his son to co-host a national sports radio show before he's out of college?

You'd think NBC would have an ethics policy or something. ...

P.S.: One angle Arianna misses is the bad parenting angle. It's one thing if a big star uses his connections to get a job for his unemployed son. Connections help. Stars' sons are often talented! But a sophomore in college? Isn't that rushing the connections thing a bit? Does Tim Russert think he's actually doing his son a favor? Does Luke Russert have no spark of honest Oedipal anger? ...  The late Marjorie Williams could get a whole column out of this parenting point. I'm not Marjorie Williams, so I'll stop. But quite apart from parenting, the whole thing stinks. If George Stephanopoulos, or someone with a perilous network perch, tried this, they'd be in deep trouble. Maybe Russert is too. ... [Don't you occasionally plug bloggingheads.tv, which you have an interest in?--ed. I do. (I just did again!) But that conflict's obvious to readers on its face. And it felt smarmy enough that I gave up my small ownership interest in bloggingheads. ... I'd also argue that blogs are a different animal, with different rules, than network chat shows. They're more like Don Imus--you listen to him because you're amused by his various conflicts, which are all-too-elaborately disclosed. Here Russert apparently couldn't bring himself to go the hang-it-out Imus route, perhaps because he realizes it wouldn't go over too well.]  Russert certainly won't be giving a keynote address at a conference on "Ethics in Media" any time soon! ... Oh, wait. ...

P.P.S.: Does Howie ('Sure, I'm willing to attack my CNN paymasters') Kurtz have the huevos to write about the Russert/Luke/Carville incest in WaPo? I say no! ... 4:53 P.M. link

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Josh Marshall  opposes Hillary  on anti-dynasticist grounds that are valid and resonant but surely second-order. If you actually thought she'd be a terrific president you wouldn't hold her last name against her. (And if you did, she'd change it!) ... 5:37 P.M. 

General Motors still seems to be missing the point. On the company's FastLane blog, GM Advanced Concepts Group director Jack Keebler promises to "work on the creation of a line of small, agile, rear-wheel-drive cars."  That's fine as far as it goes, but seems consistent with GM's approach of confining rear drive to a couple of sporty car ghettos (e.g. the Camaro and Cadillac) while normal, affordable everyday sedans get the unpleasant front-wheel-drive the corporation deems more suitable to "the intended purpose of the vehicle," to quote Autoblog. This is wrong! Rear-drive is more fun in sporty cars and non-sporty cars! The hot, franchise-making Chrysler 300C is not a "small, agile, rear-wheel-drive" car. It's a big, galumphing rear-wheel drive car. It can carry a family. Moms and dads can enjoy rear-drive dynamics on the way to Bed, Bath & Beyond! Is GM saying that if you have a family you lose interest in how a car feels? It needs a rear-drive Chevy Impala. ... P.S.: Give Keebler points for admitting that his company has produced "perfectly passionless products." ... 5:10 P.M.

The "CW Network"? I thought that was NBC! ... [Cheap shot set-up courtesy of AgendaBender ] 3:15 P.M.

TimesSelec t Hitting the Wall: On November 9, 2005 the New York Times announced that its new TimesSelect service had attracted approximately 135,000 paying Web subscribers (i.e., people who weren't getting the service for free as print subscribers). Today, two month's later, the Times reported it has attracted 156,000 paying Web subscribers, according to E&P's relentless Joe Strupp. Doesn't this mean TimesSelect has gained only 21,000 subscribers in the past two months, after attracting 135,000 in the first two months? I think it does! The TimesSelect sign up rate, as predicted with annoying frequency in this space, is slowing dramatically after the initial likely users signed up, despite an aggressive (and probably expensive) advertising campaign. It's a quagmire! ... Is the Times getting desperate? Today the paper announced a 50% price cut for college students, faculty, artists, writers, alumni, Kerry voters, and people with brown eyes or putty-colored computers. ... If they just cut the price one more time by the same amount, they'll hit the sweet spot! ...  P.S.: Note how the Times cannily buried the bad news about TimesSelect under its bigger bad news about earnings--a proven public relations technique familiar to those who remember the "Densepack" missile deployment system, which relied on incoming nuclear warheads to knock each other out, minimizing the damage on the ground. Luckily for the paper's spinners, there should be plenty of bad news available in the future to bury the additional bad news under. ...

P.S.--Chris' Double-Secret Hidden Blog! On the other hand, TimesSelect has Chris Suellentrop now, writing a subscriber-only blog, The Opinionator [$], that he describes as a "'but-wait-there's-more' product, the journalism equivalent" of the "free shoephone that Sports Illustrated used to hand out with its paid subscriptions." Suellentrop's almost worth $49.95 by himself! But I suspect that within weeks, if not hours, he'll look at his stats and wish he weren't locked away behind Pinch's wall. ...  1:10 P.M. link

Monday, January 23, 2006

Sources protecting their reporters: Cathy Seipp deals with two newfangled bloggy etiquette questions: 1) When an MSM reporter (or anyone, for that matter) calls you to research a story, do you have to refrain from posting online about it? 2) Do you have to honor unilateral demands for confidentiality in emails from newsworthy figures like MSM reporters? ... I don't know what the right answer is on (2)--it would be nice if there were a technological fix ("Click here if you agree to keep this private.") But Seipp gives what seems like the right answer to (1), which is "no." If a New York Times reporter (hypothetically) calls me on a story, I don't think I have an obligation--as their source--to keep that secret unless I agree to keep it secret. They called me. And it's a story (for a blogger) that the NYT is working on a story! Isn't the default rule in a free country that you can write about what happens to you?** MSM reporters will have to learn how to deal with leaky, bloggy Heisenberg-inducing sources--presumably by extracting promises of confidentiality.*** ... P.S.: It's revealing that prolific NYT emailer and reporter David Cay Johnston seems to automatically assume the new etiquette rules should be written to favor the NYT, requiring bloggers to hold their fire until the mighty Times has the chance to go first. ...

**: The email situation--(2)--seems like a potential exception to this "default rule" because there's now no clean way to extract a promise of confidentiality before it's too late. Make it a "default default rule" then. Update: Reader S.P. says you can always extract the promise of confidentiality in an introductory email. Then, if the receipient agrees, you send the unhinged flamer! Good point. ...

***: But can the sources weasel out, Judith-Miller-style? 7:26 P.M. link

Interviewing Grover Norquist is always a good idea! From A.L. Bardach's piece on Ken Mehlman:

"By the 2006 elections, we'll have gas prices down, people will have forgotten about Katrina, and we'll get the troops coming home from Iraq," ...  And then for the coup de grace, says Norquist, his baby face breaking into a wide grin: "We'll bring in al-Zarqawi and Osama Bin Ladin." [Emph. added]

Norquist also talks about the Plame case:

"If Cheney is involved in any way, then [Scooter] Libby pleads guilty and stops the hemorrhaging."

And then Bush pardons both of them? I ask.

"Sure," says Norquist.

But: If Cheney's involved, how does Libby pleading guilty stop the hemorrhaging? 7:02 P.M.

Stephanopoulos is a River in Egypt: Here's This Week'sGeorge Stephanopolous on whether the 1994 "Contract with America" helped the Republicans take Congress:

I don't think that made any difference. ... I think a tax increase and raising taxes on Social Security had a lot more to do with it.

He's in some kind of liberal revisionist denial, right? To pick one salient issue, does Stephanopoulos really think the contract's call for welfare reform, which Clinton campaigned on in 1992 but backburnered, and which Newt Gingrich talked about obsessively, didn't make "any difference"? 4:05 A.M.

Another patient denied a "good death," despite expert opinions: An 11-year old girl said to be in a "vegetative state with no hope of recovery"-- begins to recover, according to Malkin. ... Where's the fabled Republican message machine when it comes to publicizing this story in the MSM? It tends to put GOP activism over Terri Schiavo in a favorable light, no? 3:08 A.M.

This Brokeback Thing Got Me Bad! Brokeback Mountain's marketing mindermast Jack Foley explains his "release strategy" to BoxOfficeMojo:

Foley: I spent a whole lot of time studying gay markets and making the discussion about the movie less abstract.  [Emph. added]

Wait, I thought this was a universal love story embraced by mainstream American markets fed up with cynical GOP anti-homosexuality! [$]  ... Those early "heartland" venues (e.g., Plano, Texas) that were said to demonstrate the film's across-the-board appeal couldn't have been intentionally located near large gay markets, could they? [You're still at it aren't you? This film is going to do $65M in domestic business, easy--ed.  $65 million is not a "runaway phenomenon" (Frank Rich's words)! It's Barbershop 2. $100 million would be a phenomenon. The English Patient, another doomed-romance film, did $110 million, adjusted for inflation. Fahrenheit 9/11 did $119 million, unadjusted, without having any discernible effect on the red states. I'm moving the goalposts!] ... 1:56 A.M.

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Ford is smart (from a shareholders' point of view) to get its cost-cutting and plant closing done soon-- i.e., tomorrow. That's because Ford has at least two likely hit products--the Fusion and Edge--entering the market. Once it becomes clear that they're selling and generating profits, it will be harder to convince Ford's workers that sacrifices are necessary. ... 6:20 P.M.

Hillary's negatives among Democrats are rising and she gets thumped by McCain in a head-to-head general election poll.   ... She almost loses to "generic GOP." (McCain leads "generic Dem" by 13 points). ... Update: And Molly Ivins is off-board. (Her anti-HRC column seems even angrier with no paragraph breaks!) ...  2:36 A.M.

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