Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

Big media has been happily bashing both sides of the Dean-Trippi divide.

Sure, Howard Dean lost a string of primaries–but Dean must be a villain to replace Joe Trippi as his campaign director.

Sure, Trippi turned Dean’s campaign from a footnote into a frontpage story–but he must be a villain because his company got paid millions to place Dean’s ads.

Funny how Trippi’s alleged greed never makes Dean less of a villain for replacing him. Funny how Dean’s alleged ingratitude never makes Trippi less of a villain for getting paid for the work he did.

One side of the story, at last, speaks up for himself.
Joe Trippi just got his own blog, Change for America”.

In today’s post he tells the story big media doesn’t want you to hear.

I recently inquired about the contract and my compensation. It turns out it was a 7% contract. Meaning that if $7 million in TV was bought 93% went to TV stations to buy the time and 7% or $490,000 was paid to the firm in which I was a partner. My firm has 3 partners so my third or share comes to approximately $165,000. I will let the grassroots and donors of the campaign decide if that was too much compensation. $165,000 is a lot of money, but it is not the $7 million the media and those leveling the attacks want you to believe either….

My partner Steve McMahon had handled Governor Dean’s media for over 12 years. And Trippi McMahon & Squier were hired as the media firm long before I volunteered to run the campaign when not many would. This is important — because this fact means that as a 1/3 partner in my firm — I would have made the $165,000 in 2003 if I had gone golfing in Fiji for the entire year instead of going sleepless in Burlington….

I do not talk about the Dean campaign in the past tense. Because I still think Howard Dean can turn the race around. I have said it as loud as I can — that I am out of the campaign, but I am not out of the fight.

Thanks, Joe. We’re glad you’re still in the fight with the rest of us.

Classic image–the hero stands alone, facing a battle that everybody expects he’ll lose.

Those who were once his friends are filled with doubt. The forces of evil–for example,
big moneyed media–have done all they can to make sure the hero goes down.

If you read my blog, you can guess who the hero is–Howard Dean, a feisty Democrat from Vermont.

From my point of view, Howard Dean has already won. He has turned the Democratic primaries from a banal centrist teaparty into a spirited critique of George W. Bush. Candidates like Kerry and Edwards who once were politely suggesting that Bush might have gone just a teeny bit too far got pushed by Howard to point out that Bush’s presidency has been a major disaster to our economy, our children, and our friendships abroad.

I’m still hoping that Wisconsin will bust the conventional wisdom–that the enthusiasm and heart of Dean’s young supporters will carry his message to the Wisconsin voters.

Because, in the end, it’s not the enthusiasts like me who get to make the choice. It’s the actual voters, voting one by one.

If this were a Terry Pratchett novel, I know Howard Dean would win. Good luck, Howard. My heart goes with you.

What did Big Media say after Diane Sawyer revealed that the famous Dean “scream”–broadcast more than 700 times with shocked comments each time–was the artifact of a mike that blocked out crowd noise?

Basically, “Oops!…I did it again…”*

CBS News: “Individually we may feel okay about our network, but the cumulative effect for viewers with 24-hour cable coverage is — it may have been overplayed and, in fact, a disservice to Dean and the viewers.”

— Andrew Heyward, President – CBS News

ABC News: “It’s always a danger that we’ll use good video too much.”

— David Westin, President – ABC News

CNN: “We’ve all been wrestling with this. If we had it to do over again, we’d probably pull ourselves back.”

— Princell Hair, General Manager – CNN

Fox News: “It got overplayed a bit, and the public clearly thought that, too, and kept him alive for another round.”

— Roger Ailes, Chairman and CEO – Fox News

No. Instead, I demand that every one of you gentlemen exorcise that inner Britney Spears.

Take off the multi-thousand-dollar suit, put on a tiny skin-tight costume, gyrate and sweat for us in front of a camera as you offer up those oh-so-lame-excuses. We’ll be here on the couch eating popcorn, making fun of your hair and lamenting how much cuter you looked when you were 15.

[A nonpartisan] study of 187 CBS, NBC and ABC evening news reports found that only 49 percent of all on-air evaluations of Dean in 2003 were positive. The other Democratic contenders collectively received 78 percent favorable coverage during the same period.

(Thanks to Roland Tanglao for the link.)

Get back in those costumes, and give us another chorus…

Oops!…I did it again…
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah…

Damn it, Britney–I mean, Roger Ailes–I want my country back.

Today, I drove two NH college kids home to Northwood, NH to cast their first votes in a presidential primary.

We stopped for lunch on the way–Shorty’s Mexican Grill on Manchester’s Daniel Webster Highway just off I-93 Exit 9-S. We ate in the bar to watch the huuuuge TV playing Fox News. (Over the bar was a set tuned to CNN, playing almost identical stories with slight time-shifting.)

Dean was no longer a story on either station. Fox showed lots of footage of Clark, a long interview with Kerry’s campaign mgr, and an interview with Dem Nat Ctee Chair Terry McAuliffe (he was good!) that the interviewer cut off fast when McAuliffe said, “Bush is going down in the polls, he is toast in November.”

But the story on Fox News was not what we saw in NH with our own eyes. The big highway, I-93, had been bare of signs. But once we got on Route 28 and Route 4 we saw lots of them, set up near houses and businesses. We saw signs for Dennis Kucinich, Lyndon LaRouche–and most of the rest.

Considering the number of candidates, it was striking that so many signs were for Dean–about half of all we saw! Great Dean team up in NH.

In tiny Northwood, about 7 people stood outside polling place with signs. Every single one of them for Dean. These Deaners were middle-aged, local-looking people.

Inside the polling place, tons of flags, friendly people, familiar faces from the town. “Don’t you have an Uncle Bill who worked at the dairy bar?” Yes, he did, about 30 years ago. Zoe and Chace took their thick-paper ballots into canvas-curtained booths to vote. Zoe said the man just after them showed them his ballot–he’d also voted for Dean.

Then to Concord (NH state capital) to say hi at Dean HQ. We drove the length of Concord’s Main St. Near the State House, more Dean people with signs. Also a very few others–one Clark, one Kerry sign. One sign said “Honk for Dean”, which we did! Concord HQ busy and full of workers.

(I posted a lot of this as a comment to the unofficial Dean blog, and I’m too tired from driving to re-draft it now.)

The support and enthusiasm we saw were incredible–and the tiny bits of NH primary coverage on Fox and CNN we saw at lunch gave no hint of what we saw.

No wonder Dean says “I want my country back.” I say, good luck to the good doctor and his supporters.

http://archive.scripting.com/2004/01/23#theFamousDeanRant

I asked Jim Moore what that was about, he said it’s an Indian war yell or something like that, they used to do it in United Farm Workers rallies, and they adopted it at Dean For America. A few minutes later Dean let out the famous scream, it was the same scream I heard in the conference room.

They’re probably not saying this publicly because it wouldn’t seem contrite to do it, and they probably know they’d get roasted for saying the scream and ranting you heard was part of the motivational culture at DFA. Some have compared the Dean speech to a similar rant by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer that made the rounds of the Net. So Dean gets a bit whacky, but after seeing it so many times, the shock value is fading. Taken at face value it wasn’t anger, it was a steam-letting, and an attempt to rally the troops, and totally understandable. The press, as usual, is making a big deal of catching a candidate being a human being.

First, the good news.

Dave Winer himself headed up to Burlington to start re-working the Dean team’s web technology. The first fruit of his effort is Channel Dean, also available in RSS.

If I didn’t already respect the good will and idealism of the Dean team–and of Dave Winer himself–this would make me do it.

First of all, Dave is not working “for” Dean. He’s expending this effort just for the sake of improved technology for democracy. And the Dean team is welcoming this outsider into their headquarters because, to quote the Channel Dean FAQ, “We believe that a more informed electorate is more likely to support our candidate.”

Think about the negative things Dave has said about Dean and his web effort. And if you really think about it, it makes their collaboration more impressive.

Now the bad news–the invisible primary got very visible last night.

What happened? I got some interesting insight from the blog of Iowa caucus member Eclectic Enigma. Before breakfast on January 19, she was undecided. By midnight, she had voted for Kerry.

The neocon hawks pushed Bush to invade Iraq because

1. Saddam had WMD,*
2. Iraq was closely tied to terror attacks on the US,** and
3. Grateful Iraqis would welcome our intervention. (three asterisks)

None of the above turned out to be true, but that’s OK, because Saddam was an evil man who killed and tortured any who dared to oppose him.

The good news from the neocons is that they don’t insist that we bomb and invade all the many other countries whose governments kill and torture dissidents. Phew, because that would be a long list.

No, all the
latest right-wing agenda demands is that Bush should prepare for war against Syria, Iran, North Korea, with an option for future action against Saudi Arabia and France.

Wow.

I feel very sorry for the soldiers who just found out that the Army can unilaterally extend their term of service. (four asterisks)

And I’ll be surprised if the Republicans are as eager to get all the military absentee ballots they can, in 2004.

** Bzzt, wrong again. Maybe they were thinking of Saudi Arabia?

(three asterisks) Bzzt, half right. A lot of Iraqis are glad to be rid of Saddam. Unfortunately, not many are happy with the chaos and violence that threaten to engulf them, and probably will when US forces leave.

(four asterisks) Washington Post headline: “Army Stops Many Solidiers From Quitting.”

Through a series of stop-loss orders, the Army alone has blocked the possible retirements and departures of more than 40,000 soldiers, about 16,000 of them National Guard and reserve members who were eligible to leave the service this year.

On December 13, President George W. Bush signed a big chunk of Patriot II into law–but the “major media” were focused on Saddam’s spider hole.

Coincidental timing? Bush hasn’t signed a bill on Saturday since–more than a year ago–the government would have shut down Monday if he didn’t, according to the San Antonio Current.

Patriot I freed the FBI from pesky Fourth Amendment restraints (like probable cause) in its dealings with “financial institutions.”

The new law (US 108-177) extends the definition of a “financial institution” to include car dealers, airlines, jewelry stores, and any other business “whose cash transactions have a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax, or regulatory matters.”

Public furor after details of the Patriot Act II leaked led to a change in the plan–but not what we hoped for. Instead,

Ashcroft and Co. disassembled Patriot Act II, then reassembled its parts into other legislation. By attaching the redefinition of “financial institution” to an Intelligence Authorization Act, the Bush Administration and its Congressional allies avoided public hearings and floor debates for the expansion of the Patriot Act.

Look, I’m in favor of fighting terrorism–but if this bill is needed then why is Bush working so hard to sneak it in under the radar? Why isn’t he instead telling the world about how and why it’s important?

I’m hoping my fellow-bloggers will join me in reminding our national representatives and media that this event deserves to be noticed, not tamely forgotten.

Or, if you’re too busy, maybe I could interest you in buying a nice tshirt that says “I Wasn’t Using My Civil Rights Anyway“.

Halley is having a house party for Dean! I am sooooo there.

Not only do I want to get in on the Dean conference call at 9:30, I am also dying to meet MakeOutCity’s Jay McCarthy, not to mention Sooz.

How about you? Here’s Halley’s RSVP page.

Great news! In case you just moved here from some distant planet, the great news is we captured Saddam Hussein.

I say, “Great news!!” So does my man Howard Dean.* So does most of the world.

But the Right-Wing is so very disappointed. Not about Saddam’s capture–they agree that’s great news.

The Right is mad because this blows their story that the anti-war Left was entirely
pro-Saddam, pro-Osama**, anti-American, and pro-terror.

Andrew Sullivan begs readers to send him left-wing responses matching right-wing beliefs that anti-war was pro-Saddam. Instapundit links to a slanted round-up of far-left blog reaction, supposedly representative of all non-Republicans. Just about the only Democrat whose reaction they like is Joe Lieberman who predictably, blasts Dean for loving Saddam.

Right-wingers, I’m sorry for you, but I’m happy for us, as in all us people who rejoice when some decent results come out of the blood and treasure spent in Iraq. Especially if this means we might get back to focusing on Osama’s international terror machine.

“This is a great day for the Iraqi people, the US, and the international community.

“Our troops are to be congratulated on carrying out this mission with the skill and dedication we have come to know of them.

“This development provides an enormous opportunity to set a new course and take the American label off the war. We must do everything possible to bring the UN, NATO, and other members of the international community back into this effort.

“Now that the dictator is captured, we must also accelerate the transition from occupation to full Iraqi sovereignty.”