EdCone.com

Justin Catanoso: "The news this week that UNCG and A&T are collaborating on not one, but two planned research parks covering a combined 150 acres offers a timely dose of long-term hope for a community that desperately needs it." Better a generation late than never.

Poll: Edwards leads in South Carolina.

frograbbitmonkey reviews the Barn Dinner Theater, which I have heard advertised for decades but never visited. If newspapers offered reviews this truthful we wouldn't need weblogs.

frm: "On the way out, my grandmother thanked me sincerely and told me that I had really outdone myself taking them to see such a lovely performance so even though I wouldn't go back to the Barn Dinner Theater if I was on fire and they were the only place with a hose, making the family happy was what it was all about."

What happens when an actual scholar takes on one of those think-tank scholars-for-dollars? The idealogue loses.

Joseph Loconte, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, challenged UNCG professor Bob Wineburg over an article Wineburg wrote on Bush's "faith-based" social services. The difference is that when Wineburg cites John Dilulio or Ram Cnaan, he actually knows what they are talking about.

Wineburg wrote in the July 31 issue of Martin Marty's electronic newsletter, Sightings: "(W)hy is there a second Faith-Based Initiative? The answer is in a braided, yet discernable set of motives and activities that underscore the President's efforts: religious, social engineering, and votes, namely, black votes."

Loconte responded to Sightings, then engaged in an email conversation directly with Wineburg. Sightings doesn't print letters, but EdCone.com does. You can read the correspondence after the jump.

From Loconte to Sightings:

 

I'd like to respond to Bob Wineburg's article on President Bush's faith-based initiative. Mr. Wineburg's slam against President Bush's faith-based initiative suggests a lamentable ignorance of religious charities, government-funded social services, and the policies of the Administration over the last two years. It's baffling that Mr. Wineburg cites Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services and the Salvation Army to somehow prove that the president's initiative is a political ploy. One obvious problem with the status quo is that the thousands of smaller, lesser-known, but spiritually robust organizations have been ignored--or bullied--by government for years. The Catholic Charities model, though useful and appropriate in some ways, is simply not a model endorsed by many (if not most) of the faith-based charities doing the best work. Anyone who has spent time actually talking to ministry leaders on the street should know that. Mr. Wineburg also claims that "social engineers" who care little about religious charities are really behind the President's initiative. This sounds like a paranoid conspiracy theory. Anyone who has spoken to the key players in the Administration implementing the President's policies realizes they come from all races and ethnic and religious backgrounds, and they care deeply about the poor and the organizations trying to offer help.

 

Stop throwing stones and get to know them. Finally, Mr. Wineburg accuses the President of creating the faith-based initiative simply to curry favor with the Black vote. I spent an hour with Governor Bush months before he announced his run for President. He argued plainly and sincerely about the need for church and state to work more closely together to help needy people. No President in memory has spoken so clearly and passionately about the vital resources--material and spiritual--that religious charities can offer people in need. No one could miss the President's consistency on this theme, and only a cynic would dismiss it.Last time I checked, cynicism was not among the Christian virtues.

 

Respectfully,Joseph Loconte

William E. Simon Fellowin Religion and a Free SocietyThe Heritage Foundtion

Author of "Seducing the Samaritan: How Government Contracts Are Reshaping Social Services" (Boston: The Pioneer Institute, 1997)

 

From: Bob Wineburg

 

One obvious problem with the status quo is that the thousands of smaller, lesser-known, but spiritually robust organizations have been ignored--or bullied--by government for years. The Catholic Charities model, though useful and appropriate in some ways, is simply not a model endorsed by many (if not most) of the faith-based charities doing the best work.

 

Mr.Loconte, this sadly is more overstatement than fact. Is there one academic study that demonstrates that thousands were bullied or ignored? Best work? What is best work. I spent 12 days in 1995 working on Visions 2000 with Catholic Charities USA. They were developing several models? They have 1200 charities ranging from big ones like NYC and Boston to small ones in East Tennessee or Winston Salem. Those people were so sincere in trying to be thoughtful and Catholic. You sound like you were there too.

 

I have spent the last 6 years on the street working with the organization about which I am attaching a file. It was merely a dream when I started with them. For the 14 years before that, I worked with every church and faith based organization that called on me. I know, from my work on the street that things are much more complex than you are making them out to be.

 

Mr. Wineburg also claims that "social engineers" who care little about religious charities are really behind the President's initiative. This sounds like a paranoid conspiracy theory.

Mr. Loconte --is this the way scholars at the Heritage Foundation engage in academic discourse? I took part of the Social Engineering right out of the Preface of Professor Olasks'y The Tragedy of American Compassion written by Charles Murray who said " What is required is no more complicated and no less revolutionary, than recognizing first, that the energy and effective compassion that went into solving the problems of the needy in 1900, deployed in the context of today's national wealth can work wonders; and secondly, that such energy and compassion cannot be mobilized in a modern welfare state. The modern welfare state must be dismantled.

 

You can do better than calling me names? I am not some ideologue. They only gave me 750 words Mr. Loconte.

 

Anyone who has spoken to the key players in the Administration implementing the President's policies realizes they come from all races and ethnic and religious backgrounds, and they care deeply about the poor and the organizations trying to offer help. Stop throwing stones and get to know them.

 

Mr. Loconte, once again I am saddened by your assumptions about whom I know, and what I do and don't know. I have been on this circuit for a long time (I'll bet you a dinner I have been doing it longer than you --my first article was started in 1984 and finally got published in 1986. It was called "Using Church Volunteers to Fight The Feminization of Poverty). Nobody cared about church social services in 1986. I did and still do --think about them every day!

 

I was invited to Wingspread when Dan Coats and other early thinkers like Stanley Carlson Thies, Jay Hein (Hudson), Amy Sherman, (the scribe of this movement) Bobby Polito (HHS) Ryan Streeter (OFBCI) Don Willet, former Texas point man for the faith based initiative, and others, laid out a framework for charitable choice to be expanded. I know many of those, people particularly Stanley --whom I know the best and actually reviewed his book. Jay and I are actually not too far off on our views and respect each other. While Stanley and I, and Jay and I differ, we are friends. Do you think you could reframe what you said to be a little less dogmatic and a bit kinder?

 

Finally, Mr. Wineburg accuses the President of creating the faith-based initiative simply to curry favor with the Black vote. I spent an hour with Governor Bush months before he announced his run for President. He argued plainly and sincerely about the need for church and state to work more closely together to help needy people. No President in memory has spoken so clearly and passionately about the vital resources--material and spiritual--that religious charities can offer people in need. No one could miss the President's consistency on this theme, and only a cynic would dismiss it.

 

Mr. Loconte, you are mixing apples and oranges. Who said the president's faith and ideas aren't sincere. Tell me what you say to the following quotes in red?

 

Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper CompanyThe Boston Globe March 11, 2001, Sunday ,THIRD EDITION SECTION: NATIONAL/FOREIGN; Pg. A14 LENGTH: 1604 words

HEADLINE: BUSH TARGETS SUPPORT OF BLACKS FAITH-BASED EFFORTS FOCUS ON CHURCHES

"President Bush also understands the challenge before him, and that is growing the Republican Party," said Watts, who chairs the Republican party conference in the House.

Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's secretary of state and a leading black Strategist in the GOP, said the White House and Republican National Committee are making "a tightly choreographed effort" to become a "stable majority party" by targeting African-Americans and getting 30 percent of their vote in future presidential elections."The risk of us attaching ourselves at the hip to the status quo is enormous," Blackwell said. "If we don't improve the numbers through legitimate outreach, we can lose the Senate and the House in 2002."

 

GOP pollster Frank Luntz said the faith-based initiative is the president's best outreach tool. "If he continues on this road, that becomes the first successful effort I have seen to penetrate the black mind-set," Luntz said.

 

Do you know these fellows Mr.Laconte --maybe a tiny bit of politics here?

 

Your tone was very mean spirited --are you like that in real life when you disagree with someone? Whatever happened to civility?

 

Have a good day!

 

From Loconte:

 

Mr. Wineburg,

 

There's nothing mean-spirited about calling a cynic a cynic, which is what you plainly

have become. Your commentary was a tissue of innuendos and half-truths. You should be ashamed of yourself. I stand by what I wrote.

 

Joe Loconte

 

From Wineburg:

 

Mr. Loconte,

 

I have been out of town and just opened your post, and am again saddened by your mean spirit and basic disregard for scholarly protocol. I know the Heritage Foundation has a political agenda, which in our exchange seems to be: Attack everything and anything that is against the administration's view, and don't worry if it is a not so veiled Ad hominem attack. In and of itself, that stuff is OK for a think tank. It has that right. You get paid to do it.

 

However, when one wears the garb of an academician, like you seem to do with your title, one would think, as I have apparently done mistakenly, that the level of discourse would be honorable, even if you hated my ideas --which apparently you do. However, you both attacked some of the ideas, and implied that I had no awareness of faith-based charities --so as to discredit the ideas by discrediting me. I gave you enough information in my first post that should have put to rest some of that misdirected, and less than scholarly slap.

 

In return, I also asked you for some proof of your claim about thousands of bullied religious charities. Just one study. Instead you told me that I should be ashamed of myself. Your response was to attack, not respond --an old game Mr. Loconte.

 

An academic is a cynic by definition. In the sciences and social sciences one starts out with the null hypothesis. Those of who have come through the academy and done doctoral research, are taught in both the sciences and social sciences that one starts with the premise that the intervention, treatment, the policy one is analyzing, or whatever, is null, or will make no significant difference. In other words: "be a cynic." Then one sets up methods to determine the truth by a complex process of elimination. There is plenty of literature on academic research and what the role of a scholar is.

 

Mr. Loconte, first off I am not a liberal academic. I follow my own nose, which a good scholar should do. I am sort of a John McCain type academic. Some of my liberal colleagues don't like me. When they become blinded by their ideologies I never fail to challenge them. Same goes for many of my conservative colleagues, some are ideologues too, and I call them on it too. That role makes me very happy and not popular. The academy is not the church, it is about seeking and speaking the truth. If something looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, after careful study, I just may I'll call it a duck and pay the consequences if I am wrong. It took me a long time to be against Charitable Choice and I am against it for reasons that I have written about elsewhere. Most of the ideologues aren't sober enough to understand my position.

I am now coming to the understanding that you weren't trained as a scholar and that may be the reason why you haven't behaved like one in this little exchange.

 

Your pitbull-like attack on me was so far off that I was stunned enough to do a ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials search and only found one article for you, and it wasn't in a peer reviewed journal. I may be wrong but it doesn't seem like you have published in any scholarly journals where you had to put your work up for review by people who know what you are talking about as well as or better than you? If I missed something, I apologize. It may explain why you have chosen to be so unscholarly like.

 

Mr. Loconte, I may have come to conclusions that you don't like, but I arrived at my conclusions in a time tested fashion, through the scholarly channels, thoughtful research, with careful and many varieties of study. I have read both those who are considered liberal and those who are considered conservative. I have done two (3 year) studies of social services and religious congregations which were funded by the Lilly Endowment, and several before that, long before funding such work was sexy. I have been at this a long time. I stand by my conclusions until they are proven otherwise in a scholarly way!

B----

 

Bob WineburgJefferson Pilot Excellence ProfessorDepartment of Social WorkUNC Greensboro

 

From Loconte:

 

 

Mr. Wineburg,

 

Let me respond to your latest note by directing you back to your essay:

 

"So why is there a second Faith-Based Initiative? The answer is in a braided, yet discernable set of motives and activities that underscore the President's efforts: religious, social engineering, and votes, namely, black votes."

 

Any fair reading of this paragraph, and what follows, can convey only one meaning: that the author can see only dubious and crass motives behind the Administration's faith-based agenda. A single quotation was used to justify this assertion, but no other evidence was considered--not the President's prior commitment to this issue as governor, or the appointment of Democrat John DiIulio to head his faith-based office, or the President's consistent use of the bully pulpit to extol the virtues of church-based ministries helping the poor. The fact that the President's supposed conservative Christian base remains deeply divided over the proposal was also ignored.

 

You say: "So the political architects are buying votes but doing it through the church." When a liberal politician proposes policies that help African-Americans, he's considered to be responsive, progressive, and representative. But when a conservative politician does the same, he's assumed to be "buying votes." This is not an argument, it's an irrational emotional appeal.

 

This kind of argument, I submit, is the very definition of an "ad hominem" attack (an attack on a person's character, not a response to his contention). Academics, especially, ought to be above this nonsense.

It's not clear to me that you even understand the nature of your profession. You said that "An academic is a cynic by definition." Yet a cynic is defined as "a fault-finding captious critic; one who believes that human conduct is motivated wholly by self interest." That may well describe you, Mr. Wineburg, but I doubt most academics think of themselves that way.

You seem to be confusing a healthy skepticism with cynicism. Trained as a journalist, I'm as skeptical as the next guy, especially about claims coming from political figures. But I'm not a cynic. And though I'm not an academic, my training and journalistic careeer make me passionate about backing up my statments with real facts, and getting the facts right. My views about religious charities have been shaped by qualitative research studies I've done over the last 10 years or so. Some are contained in a book called "Seducing the Samaritan: How Government Contracts Are Reshaping Social Services (Boston: Pioneer Institute, 1997), a work commissioned by Prof. Peter Berger at Boston University. Another source is a recent report published by the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society. Commissioned by Prof. John DiIulio, it's called "Churches, Charity and Children: How Religious Organizations Are Reaching America's At-Risk Kids." If you're interested in studies documenting government's discriminatory policies toward religious charities, check the White House website that contains the 2001 report on this very topic (with data compiled following audits of five federal agencies). You might also check Bob Woodson's National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, which released its own report on this topic a few years ago.

 

Finally, I might direct your attention to a fellow academic, Theda Skocpol, prof of government and sociology at Harvard: "The academic literature on 'social welfare policy' has been so dominated by leftist secularists that it has written out of the record positive contributions from religiously inspired service to the poor. If noted at all, such ministry has transmuted into machiavellian acts of class or reacial domination." (See "Who Will Provide? The Changing Role of Religion in American Social Welfare," 2000). This is the posture of the cynic, the posture of too many people in government and in academia. It's precisely this attitude, embodied and entrenched in government policy, that the Bush Administration is trying to reform. You may disagree with aspects of the plan (I certainly do), but maligning the motives, and the person behind it, cannot represent a scholarly or academic approach.

 

Resectfully,

 

Joseph Loconte

 

From Wineburg:

 

Any fair reading of this paragraph, and what follows, can convey only one meaning: that the author can see only dubious and crass motives behind the Administration's faith-based agenda. A single quotation was used to justify this assertion, but no other evidence was considered--not the President's prior commitment to this issue as governor, or the appointment of Democrat John DiIulio to head his faith-based office, or the President's consistent use of the bully pulpit to extol the virtues of church-based ministries helping the poor. The fact that the President's supposed conservative Christian base remains deeply divided over the proposal was also ignored.

 

Mr.Laconte, You have gone from being like an executioner, to pitbull, to a mean Chihuahua, but you are getting better! I think you do have it in you to stop with the unnecessary attacks. If you need to win so badly --OK JOE, BOB SAYS UNCLE! You win!!!!!!

 

Now let's try to find some common ground! Look, you are very black and white --and this initiative is very nuanced. I only had 750 words, so what the public got was the unzipped file with 20 years packed in, and of course there was some hyperbole. Your attacks on me have been almost nothing but hyperbole.

You have some decent points this go round, but there are certain things you just don't know, that I do. For example in 1992, the Lilly Endowment introduced me to the people at Partners for Sacred Places in Philly. The purpose: to link the preservation of historic churches to their community service activities. Not a Republican or Democratic idea.

I was the only person in the country studying community service activities of congregations that at the time. The crux of my differences with most folks on this issue (FBI and CC), is around their basic lack of understanding of how community service systems, the interlocking local network of agencies and organizations, with their complex histories and local traditions, actually operate. This is where the President's initiative hits the road, and in my book it has not done it well. These systems are complex. There are public and private organizations that are intertwined.

 

There is no such thing in the US as one stop-shop social services, so everything is collaborative --some voluntary, some mandated, some hybrid. It is goofy but understandable; and it is FIXABLE, but not the way this initiative is doing it

 

To get the just released ex-con services, a church for example, will almost always have to work with the courts, if money is owed for kids --the DSS, if there is drugs or child abuse or a learning disability, again the courts, maybe nonprofits or vocational rehab --a state agency with federal money.

 

The local system is akin to a grocery store where every time you have a different food group, you would have to change lines. If communities are to solve, manage, or prevent the range of complex problems they face, a plan must be developed to get buy in from the players in the different sectors, and methods then must be mapped out for developing sustainable partnerships to make things work.

 

None of this has been done so far and it could have been. The Intervention strategy is awful!! It lacks a way to get local buy in. It lacks a comprehensive plan. It lacks a way for communities to assess resources, measure needs, and work toward matching resources to need. In other words where is the plan to evaluate the results?

 

I have already worked with NEBHANDS, Nebraska's Compassion Fund recipients and Mission Tree, North Carolina's Recipient. In a nutshell the Republicans are behaving like Dumbocrats. I care about fixing the interlocking system of service on the ground and others have been more concerned with winning an ideological war.

 

Every time I speak at the Rotary or other civic group, I bring a GIS map and show where the jobs are, where the buslines are, where the daycare centers are, and ask two simple questions: how can a woman get her kid to day care and catch a bus to a job where the bus doesn't go; and can the churches solve this problem? Even the attack dogs, who assume I am a liberal because I am from the University, start to see the complexities and many are willing to talk soberly about the issues. Two things have to work intandem in solving, managing, or preventing just about every social problem, a change in values -- you are right there, but along with that there has to be attention paid to redeveloping the delivery systems at the community level -- you cannot have one without the other!

 

So it is hard to argue with you Mr Loconte because I am not sure if you know you know how social service departments, public health departments, courts, schools, mental health agencies under several block grants, link up daily with congregations or fbos, or for that matter smaller community service organizations. I do, to the point of knowing the boring unsexy details of how to do community planning and service integration. It is messy but could be done well with a plan. This initiative was long on the wind and short on the plan and everyone is fighting unnecessarily.

 

Back to the Partners story. To make at least a chapter short --Partners asked me to do the study that Ram Cnaan eventually did. I told the people at Partners that they were too "anal" for me to do the study. They are art historians in Philly and I am a social scientist in Greensboro --not a good combo. I told them that I would introduce them to someone who could do the study and was near by.

 

Cnann, whom I fight with and hate, but love much more, will be staying at my house in a couple of weeks, as my family and I did his in December. I am having some medical problems and he and his wife e-mail me daily. We were doctoral office mates together and are best friends, but disagree on many parts of CC and this initiative --we also agree on many. Never has he attacked me like you because he knows that in the ring we are like Ali and Frazier --and we were taught how to disagree on ideas leaving the other person's dignity in tact --which you seem to be having a hard time doing.

 

There is more.When he visited the agency, about which I sent you the attached article, he said you have to write a book about this. I am doing it.

Anyway --when the data started coming in --John D showed up at Partners and Cnaan and John became good buddies. John never did a shred of research on the faith based organizations, but I watched him use Cnaan's data brilliantly to position himself, Ram, and to some degree Partners on the national scene by getting Joe Leiberman and Bill Bennett (have you written about his virtue lately? Joke) to kick off the findings of that study. That was 1997.

 

Subsequently, John advised both presidential camps. I have done enough research on John D and Byron Johnson at the Institute that you cited, to catch him doing what academics should not do --stretch the truth. Two examples:

 

John Dilulio: March 12, 1999 Wall Street Journal

 

Scientific studies testify to the efficacy of faith-based efforts. In a 1998 report issued by the Manhattan Institute, criminologist Byron R. Johnson of Vanderbilt University summarized the results of a systematic review of more than 400 studies testing the relationship between all sorts of religious influences (churchgoing being just one) and crime and delinquency. (I read the major article EVANS etc. al. they use, and it comes nowhere close to saying that.) Byron wrote a nonreviewd study which I read and it was sad.

The academy pays attention:

John Dilulio FEB 14, 2001 Wall Street Journal

There are, as yet, no suitably scientific studies that "prove" the efficacy or cost-effectiveness of faith-based approaches to social ills, or that support the success claims of certain well-known national faith-based programs.

 

Cnaan's work allowed these guys to have some data but once the sleepy academy weighed in, they wanted to know where's the beef --and faith doesn't cut it. So while the spin for the first year was about the effectiveness of faith based organizations --once there wasn't any proof -- boom! A new strategy -- You cited it I believe without giving it a name --The Unlevel Playing Field --I have it in front of me and I can't find the thousands of bullied organizations --what page is it on? It is packed with civil rights language and all it talks about all of this unfairness. It is not about poverty, not about linking services, not about measuring need, not about building community, but whining about little churches not getting to play in the big time. That is not the issue locally Mr.Loconte!

 

The issue is seeing these little churches along a continuum --some not ready to play, others not yet bilingual enough to play the street and the system, to some being ready to go! The continuum needs a plan for the successful development of the capacity to build ministries and then a plan for the successful development of partnerships, and a plan to monitor and change along the way --plain and simple. There are 16,000 plus cities in the US this has to be done in everyone of them. There are 3000 plus counties and since much of the social service provision gets parceled out among the states, counties and cities and then delivered in a strange way, --mucho coordination has to take place. Why haven't you been talking about this? Those things are the details. Let's engage in discussions about that sort of stuff. It is important and not yet mentioned. Yes, I did not talk about the President being a Christian. I have been at this a long time and that is a trivial matter in the scheme of concerns facing to poor of this nation.

 

It's not clear to me that you even understand the nature of your profession. You said that An academic is a cynic by definition." Yet a cynic is defined as "a fault-finding captious critic; one who believes that human conduct is motivated wholly by self interest." That may well describe you, Mr. Wineburg, but I doubt most academics think of themselves that way.

 

Mr.Loconte you were doing well until you got here then back to the Chihuahua! I was stretching the definition only to mean one who is often habitually negative which is part of my dictionary's definition of cynic. I meant negative in the null sense. I am sorry you beat me, but I said UNCLE before.

I am tired so I'll just say I am no fan of the Welfare state and was trained by the one of last generation's foremost welfare historians, Roy Lubove as was Ram Cnaan. Roy used to tell us that Social Policy is complex despite the simple mindedness of its formulators. If you decide to write me back try to keep the personal attacks and the smart little jabs to the level of a guide dog this time so maybe we can walk and talk together.

 

Bob WineburgJefferson Pilot Excellence

 ProfessorDepartment of Social WorkUNC

Tom Friedman, speaking this evening at Elon University: "Chirac was intoxicated with being the great un-cola to America's Coca-Cola."

His take on Islamicist anger: radicals see Islam as God 3.0, Christianity as God 2.0, and Judaism as God 1.0; they can't stand the dignity deficit caused by cultures that run inferior versions of monotheism yet enjoy more freedom, prosperity, etc.

Saddam's WMD never a serious, immediate, undeterrable threat to us. "We invaded Iraq because we could." This was the right thing to do because we need a space within the Islamic world where Islamic progressives can wage a war of ideas within their own culture. It sent a message we needed to send about our willingness to use force to remake the region and "burst the terrorism bubble" that inflated through the '90s, culminating in 9/11.

Iraq "post-war planning was pathetic." Major intelligence failure, aided by media, missed depth of Iraq's impoverishment. "We defeated the Flintstones, and we inherited Bedrock." Not enough troops there, for policing or secure borders. "We have dug ourselves a mighty deep hole." Cutting the $20 billion in aid for schools, roads etc. would be "greatest mistake we could make."

Winning peace is critical. Not possible with "radical" tax cuts that leave sacrifices only to soldiers and reservists. We must connect dots, understand linkage between relationships on trade and environment to war on terror. Cancun breakdown a big failure -- how can we expect Pakistan farmer impoverished by our farm subsidies not to send sons to Saudi-financed religious schools? We kill his son in Afghanistan, we think we're winning, but we're not.

Friedman gave a very lucid talk, and he was a good speaker -- he's improved since we last saw him at Guilford College a few years ago. The only thing he muffed was not mentioning that Elon's teams were until recently known as the Fighting Christians, once coached by Archie Israel. Surely that's a metaphor for something.

Wesley Clark has a campaign weblog, and he'll be represented at BloggerCon, where the panel on blogs in presidential politics is looking pretty damn interesting.

8 Simple Rules for Exploiting the Dead,

FOX Fair and Balanced Closeup:Tax & Spend Democrats,

and other new TV shows from the febrile mind of Mr. Sun.

Tara Grubb says the Rhino Times is more interested in selling ads than publishing the news. 

"Dear Mr. John Hammer, We waited patiently for months for you to call with questions about this campaign's mission and vision.  Though we heard from your advertising sales department, I did not hear from you."

Washington Post: "(T)he Justice Department is looking into an allegation that administration officials leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer to a journalist, government sources said yesterday."

 

The story is that White House sources leaked the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame as revenge against her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who helped wreck the Niger uranium story used by Bush to justify the war in Iraq.

 

Wilson says he'd like "to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs," it being a felony to intentionally expose a covert agent's identity, and Rove being the guy Wilson suspects of being behind the outing.

The best post yet on the John Edwards campaign blog comes from...Elizabeth Edwards. She's personal, she's passionate, she's smart. Her husband should take notes.

Dave Winer says this unofficial Edwards weblog is better than the official one, but the first-person blogging by Mr. and Mrs. Edwards might turn that around.

Linus Torvalds: "I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect."

NYT: ìIs there anything so deadening to the soul as a PowerPoint presentation?î Thatís the great thing about being the paper of record ñ you get to present stuff that my kid figured out in fifth grade as news.

Another photo by Claus Goedicke.

Man, you sign up for BloggerCon and Dave Winer puts you to work. He's added a couple of great new topics, including the Taranto/Apcar editing discussion and the Jeff Jarvis-led conversation on presidential politics.

Can Wesley Clark and John Edwards learn to stop worrying and love the Web?

So far, neither campaign seems to quite get it.

Doc Searls: Wesley Clark suicide watch. "Clark is, incredibly, scorching the earth where his grass roots were just beginning to spout."

Edwards, also in need of grassroots enthusiasm, is so far using his personal blog to say not much. It's only been a few days, but as yet all we've seen are short blurbs that amount to schedule recaps.

Today: "This morning I attended an early morning event in Providence, RI. We had 100 plus attendees, numerous elected officials, some SEIU members, and many friends both old and new. The enthusiam from the crowd was a great way to start the day. Now I am travelling through Ohio keeping up the hard work on the campaign trail."

And I'm thinking...name names. Let us in, Senator, give us the guided tour only you can give. Who did you see? How do you know this person, and what issue does that raise in your mind about the campaign? What in particular made the crowd roar in Providence, and how does that connect to your campaign?

The previous entry, the one about the Democratic debate, is just useless. I know he's got to be exhausted, I know he's got other priorities, but sorry, I want more than boilerplate about working together with the guys you are trying to convince me not to vote for. Again, what is it like to be on that stage? Did you spill your water on your notes, were your pants comfortable, did you remember something you should have said as soon as you finished?

Clark had some momentum on the Web, and Edwards is in the position to build some for himself. Will either guy figure it out? How cool would it be if they both do?

A really interesting question is the role of campaign staff in holding these guys back....staffers who know only TV and other traditional stuff, fear gaffes more than anything, and maybe even suspect somewhere deep down the threat this web stuff could represent to their careers.

And now for some good news...the House has approved $3.4 million for the UNCG/Cone Health System/Duke genomics project.

Josh Marshall compares the Bush administration to a heavily leveraged business.

To extend the business metaphor, the White House has been surviving not on profits but expectations of future profits or, in other words, credibility. The White House has been able to get the public to sit tight with a lot of objectively poor news (a poor economy, big deficits, bad news from abroad) on the basis of trust.

But a combination of the manifest incompetence of the planning for post-war Iraq and the dishonesty of the build-up for the war have become increasingly difficult to defend or deny. And that's struck a grave blow against the president's credibility.

Now it's margin-call time, says Marshall, as demonstrated by the falling poll numbers.

Weblogs and corporate governance.

Journalists were banned from today's annual meeting of Cone Mills. I got in as a shareholder [current value of shares: about $46], and dissident shareholder Marc Kozberg signed in other local journos including the N&R's Jim Schlosser, the Biz Journal's Doug Campbell, and WFDD's Larry Schooler.

But the real story is that companies can no longer control the flow of information from their annual meetings, because with weblogs every shareholder is a potential journalist.

Annual meetings are open to shareholders. Shareholders can now publish their notes immediately onto the Web. Any attempt by companies to limit this posting seems likely to fail.

Employees, managers, and directors may be legally bound to keep some secrets. Weblogs will fray those legal ties, to be sure. But for shareholders, the ties are now broken. Information wants to be free, even corporate information, and weblogs will help free it.

Cone Mills CEO John Bakane said at this morning's annual meeting that the dissident shareholders are almost sure to win their proxy fight, thus putting their three candidates on the board.

The buyout by Wilbur Ross pays nothing to common shareholders, a deal that Bakane acknowledged "essentially destroyed" management's chances in the proxy battle.

Management will still control the board, 6-4, making the sale to Ross seemingly inevitable.

Still, dissident leader Marc Kozberg told me after the meeting that he will try to get some value for shareholders. He said he had some alternative plans for the company, but he did not specify what his plans were. I asked if he would possibly cut a deal for his shares that would leave out other investors, and he said no.

Bakane told the meeting that an extensive study showed no way to pay common shareholders, given obligations to lenders and preferred shareholders.

I asked Bakane if he thought the White Oak mill would be open in five years, and he said yes. This view was supported by some knowledgeable insiders, who pointed out that White Oak is Cone's wellspring of innovation and thus the one plant it cannot do without.

Bakane explained the sudden Chapter 11 announcement by saying that after a profitable 2002 and a good first quarter, the bottom fell out, with key factors including rising cotton prices and Vietnam's  "blockbuster" trade deal.

These conditions have "all but eliminated cash flow from operations," he said, and Cone was unable to make a September 15 bond payment. 

Kozberg and his allies want to sell underperforming assets to pay debt, but Bakane said there were no viable buyers, and that any sale wouldn't have provided enough cash anyway.

It was probably the most interesting shareholder meeting since several Cone brothers and a group of dissidents came close to fisticuffs onstage in 1911. Folding chairs were set up in an unfinished open space, marked off with yellow caution tape, in the Cone office building. "It is highly unusual for a company in Chapter 11 to hold an annual meeting," said Bakane, who added that he wanted the chance to explain the situation clearly to interested parties.

Bakane wore jeans and an open shirt. I told cousin Benjy I only wear ties at weddings and funerals, and I should have worn one today.

How hot is the journalism panel at BloggerCon gonna be? Well, the panelists have started jostling each other already, and the conference isn't until next Saturday.

In the latest round, Scott Rosenberg unpacks Glenn Reynolds' dis of Josh Marshall... that's all three panelists, duking it out more than a week ahead of schedule.

As the moderator, let me point out that at least InstaPundit is consistent -- this summer he was calling critical reporters a "fifth column," which I thought was over the line -- even Andrew Sullivan retracted his use of that phrase, but as far as I know Insty never did.

Erskine Bowles will announce his run for John Edwards' Senate seat tomorrow.

A long, intelligent conversation about the John Edwards candidacy at The New Republic (thanks for the link, Monkeytime).

Jason Zengerle: "Talking with Edwards didn't feel like a stilted interview, but more like a conversation--and a good conversation at that, with moments of humor and insight and candor."

If Edwards can show that side of himself at his personal weblog, maybe it would help him gain traction.

Man, when that air traffic system works it's a thing of beauty.

When I got home this evening, the dog met me at the door with my slippers, followed closely by Lisa with a frosted shaker of expensive gin that was perfumed with the barest hint of vermouth, as the children looked up from their studies to greet me in Latin -- Ave, Pater -- then returned quietly to their books.

OK, the part about the plane being on time is true. Despite a late lunch at Les Halles and the mess the UN made of midtown, I made it to LaGuardia without much trouble, and USDespair lived up to its part of the bargain.

I had to park in the overflow lot at GSO. This would seem to be a good sign for our traffic-starved airport.

Jacques Chirac, Dave Matthews, and me -- all working in New York today. I have to run uptown to get a photo taken for a column I'm supposed to start writing in Baseline, then get some facetime with the powers that be, let them buy me lunch, and do some work at the Ziff Davis HQ on 28th Street. Home for dinner, so they say.

This is not an easy day to fly to New York, which has been backed up since early morning because of storms. My flight from GSO got canceled, but US Despair put me on a later one. Meanwhile my sister in post-Isabel Richmond hopes to have electricity again someday. Stupid weather.

John Edwards is blogging from the campaign trail. He started this morning. This is something interesting, a presidential candidate writing directly onto the Web as he travels.

The diary section at his blog is labled "From the Campaign Trail, written by John Edwards." This isn't his staff telling you where to send money, this is the guy who is flying the red-eye and going to breakfasts in McAlester, Oklahoma telling you about his day.

Edwards has been known to give a good speech, and his performance in the courtroom is legendary. Blogging could be a very friendly medium for him. If he writes interesting stuff, people will have to read it.

The potential economic impact of a new baseball stadium in downtown Greensboro is underestimated by many people.

You hear it all the time: bringing a few thousand people downtown a few times a week for a few months each year wonít spur enough spending outside the stadium to support other businesses.

If restaurants and clubs near the stadium were to depend only on stadium-related spending, then this would be true. But businesses succeed or fail at the margins, and the incremental income from stadium traffic could make the neighborhood attractive for restaurants and clubs.

You couldnít run a business on baseball crowds alone, but a couple of dozen full houses each year might be the difference between making it or not. This should help existing downtown businesses and new ones. At some point, especially if the trend toward downtown residential development continues, you reach critical mass and the district takes on a life of its own as a destination for nightlife.

Baseball isnít the magic solution, itís an incremental boost to a downtown thatís ready to pop.

* * *

Itís not too late for the Baseball Boys and the City to make at least some people in Fisher Park feel better about the stadium. I donít think noise and light will be big problems for the neighborhood that made preservation cool in Greensboro, but traffic and maybe parking could be. Why not address those concerns now, before the election?

If the stadium goes in and downtown starts hopping, property values in Fisher Park will go up. 

Last night I visited Justin Catanosoís journalism class at Wake Forest to talk about reporting on public companies and business writing in general. The students stayed awake as I discussed 10-Ks, proxy statements, and footnotes, which I took to be a good sign.

Boy, that Dick Cheney interview sure went down the memory hole fast, didn't it?

Instapundit: "The charge now, though, is that the Administration "gave the impression" that Saddam was behind the attacks, which is suitably vague and allows the chargers to point to polls showing that most Americans think so. It's also possible, of course, that people have made up their own minds, isn't it? Of course, to some, I suspect that's an even more frightening thought."

Made up their minds about what -- that Saddam was behind the attacks? Yes, that misconception is frightening, whatever its origins.

Update: The Wall Street Journal is saying that the Bush administration was too cautious in sketching the links between Saddam and al Qaeda.

And: An alert reader known only as The Oracle points out this letter from Bush to Congress, dated March 18 of this year, which argues for the use of force in Iraq in part because of our obligation to take action against "those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001."

Will Wilbur Ross force the closing of Cone Mills' White Oak plant?

Long the world's largest denim mill, White Oak is the last vestige of Cone's manufacturing presence in Greensboro. I hear that management has canceled at least one critical maintenance contract for the sprawling complex on 16th St. That doesn't bode well, but it's not conclusive, either.

For the record, I have no inside info on this from Cone Mills.

Chancellors Pat Sullivan of UNCG and James Renick of A&T will announce plans tomorrow morning for a joint "Millennium Campus" at the 75-acre site long occupied by the NC School for the Deaf near Browns Summit. The research-oriented campus will be discussed at a public meeting, Tuesday morning at 8:00 at the City Club, atop the JP building on Greene Street.

Dave Winer, re the Web: "Somehow this was just the thing I was waiting for and I didn't even know."

Front page lies.

So the News & Record runs an opinion section front-pager (not posted) arguing against the new downtown stadium, which argument is built almost entirely on the merits of refurbishing War Memorial Stadium instead.

Shouldn't the editors have noted that there is no funding for the rehab project? Writer David Wharton says for just $15 million or so, we can all enjoy an old stadium made new again. But there is no $15 million for the project, and no known prospects for raising anything close to that amount. 

It's a mirage, a fantasy, not an alternative.

Chris Lydon interviews Paul Krugman. 

"Stop that bandwagon, I want to get on."

In this morning's newspaper column, an analysis of my newfound love for the Carolina Panthers, an affection built on years of suffering.

"I am enjoying the fresh bloom of fandom, but that bloom has been nourished by many seasons when the team played like fertilizer."

You can read the whole thing after the jump

John Edwards makes his first appearance on his campaign blog.

It's a start. He doesn't say much, and somebody should tell him that grown men don't use exclamation points, but at least he's speaking directly through his weblog.

Now I'd like to hear him say something.

A photograph by Claus Goedicke.

The biggest mover on this year's Forbes 400 list of richest Americans? Jeff Bezos. It was the first time in three years that the aggregate net worth of the 400 increased, with tech stars like Meg Whitman, Pierre Omidyar, and Steve Jobs helping lead the way. 

Michael King has resigned from Project Homestead in the face of an audit by the City of Greensboro.

I had a feeling that he was in real trouble as soon as the Rhino said, "The cityís arguments all sound really bogus."

Shareholders got nothing when Wilbur Ross bought Burlington Industries. Now a group of Cone Mills shareholders is trying to avoid the same fate. Yep, I think I'll go to that annual meeting next week.

Burlington investors got the shaft despite the efforts of Greensboro's Walker Rucker, a tenacious sort who did win some concessions from Guilford Mills back when it kicked off this parade of textile bankruptcies last year. In the '90s, Rucker argued successfully with the state of North Carolina about how to run a railroad, the railroad having been brought to the state about 150 years earlier by his ancestor John Motley Morehead.

Whether dissident Cone shareholder Marc Kozberg is equal to a Walker Rucker is an open question, although you have to admit that Kozberg does not give up easily. Still, even Rucker couldn't budge Wilbur Ross, who earlier in the Burlington drama ran off no less than Warren Buffett, so maybe Cone shareholders shouldn't get too excited. Shares were at 9 cents on the OTC market last I heard.

Got an invitation to a David Hoggard fundraiser. Some swanky names on the host list, including one of Joe Bryanís granddaughters. Thereís no love lost between Mr. Bryanís family and Jim Melvin, so thatís not a surprise. Iíll be at BloggerCon that night, but it sounds like a nice party.

No power or water at my sisterís house in Richmond. It was so windy that their driveway was blown dry this morning despite 6 inches of rain. No bad damage at their place, which is lucky because that city is a mess. The worst of the storm came after its center passed over town, as Isabelís powerful right side sent winds from the north back through to finish what sheíd started.

Greensboro got rain and some wind, and our kids will spend fifteen minutes picking up minor debris from the yard as part of their ongoing work-to-live-here program. Guilford County schools are closed on this beautiful day for reasons comprehensible only to school administrators.

Isabel ñ I canít help but think of her as ìIggy,î which is what people called my grandmother named Isabel -- felt different from other hurricanes. Usually the air is warm and pregnant with moisture, tropical, but last night it was cool outside when I walked Luna.

The News & Observer, caught in the act of sneering at its readers.

I see the signs as I drive home via Eugene Street.

ìNo new stadium,î say a few. Direct and to the point.

ìFree Lindsay Street,î reads one. Clever.

But most of them say ìRenovate War Memorial Stadium,î and thatís a shame, because that is not what the Oct. 7 referendum is about.

There is no plan to renovate War Memorial, or, to be precise, no funding for any plan to do so. Itís not going to happen, even if new stadia are banned from downtown, which in turn is not likely to keep the already-approved stadium from getting built anyway.

Presenting this false choice between WMS and a new stadium has been part of evil genius Bill Burckleyís plan all along. That was the thrust of the petition that put the measure on the ballot to begin with. There is no such choice. Itís a lie.

I love War Memorial Stadium. It was part of the landscape of my childhood, from the time I started going to the curb market with my mom on summer mornings to watching Don Mattingly play there for the old Greensboro Hornets. If the guys with the $20 million wanted to renovate it, Iíd be thrilled.

And yes, Iíd be happiest if the new stadium was planned for South Elm and Lee, and the Bellemeade site was going to be used for retail and residential projects. That would be perfect, but nobody else has stepped up with millions of dollars to make all those things happen.

To support the stadium ban because it isnít one of the other two projects is to prove that the perfect is the enemy of the good. This stadium will be a net positive. Thatís a win in the real world.

So passeth a great American brand.

R.J. Reynolds isnít just eliminating 2,600 employees, itís curtailing marketing support for Winston cigarettes. The familiar red-and-white packs will still be sold in stores, but the promotional muscle behind Winston and another RJR brand, Doral, will be applied now to Camel and Salem.

Winston and Salem were named after their hometown, although sometimes youíd swear it was the other way around. Winston was once the most popular brand of cigarettes in the US.

I learned the proper use of ìlikeî and ìasî from the old TV commercial for Winston. ìWinston tastes good like a cigarette shouldÖWhat do you want, good grammar or good taste?î

For a generation, Winston was NASCAR. No more.

You win, Marlboro Man.

Josh Marshall has a question for Tim Russert about letting Dick Cheney insinuate a connection between Saddam and 9/11 that Bush and Rummy had to quickly deny: ìAt this point, Tim, don't you wish you'd followed up?î

He also has some worries about Wesley Clark.

Marshall is one of four bloggers (along with Joe Conason, Doc Searls, and me) interviewed yesterday by Chris Lydon about Clarkís candidacy.

Monkeytime on Johnny Cash's socialist roots.

Salon: "Sunset for the Golden Boy?"

I'm telling ya, John Edwards is being written off so completely that it makes me wonder if he might have a chance...

When are they going to name a hurricane "O.J."?

Or "Monica," although that would invite too many bad puns.

The tabloidization of meteorology is complete, and the television shows nothing but weather porn.

The promos for the new reality series, "Hurricane Isabel: Bitch at the Beach," made it sound so exciting. Now they say she might not be the worst storm ever, after all.

Category 2? That's like going to a NASCAR race and not seeing a wreck.

Still the weathermen are braying, Pat Robertson's praying, and Drudge has been playing the storm as his lead story for days.

It's all people can talk about, even 300 miles inland in Greensboro. Where, by the way, the trees outside my office window are rustling in a light breeze under blue skies.

Deadline. No time even to hear Phil Ford speak at a lunch meeting today.