More here

The story about how Celebrate Billings paid for ads that appeared in the Billings Gazette backing a school mill levy election takes a new twist.

When I interviewed Gazette Publisher Mike Gulledge about this, he assured me that The Gazette intended to do, and would do, the right thing. I believed him not, I hope, because I am hopelessly naive but because it wouldn't really make sense, so far as I could figure, to do it any other way. When a reader telephoned to ask if this was "dirty money," I said I didn't think so.

But I find the Gazette's accounting for the expenditures obscure at best (as, apparently, does the commissioner of political practices and, perhaps, MSU Billings). I can't help but wonder if the explanation is that the Gazette wanted to count that $225,000 in Celebrate Billings membership dues as Gazette revenue rather than as a separate account. If so, the intertwining of funds, especially funds used for political purposes, may have been a bad mistake.

Naturally, I was skeptical about the whole Celebrate Billings project from the git-go. Daily newspapers exert considerable influence just from their natural role. To try to leverage additional influence using nonprofit partners stretches my understanding of what a newspaper's place in the community ought to be.

UPDATE: The curse of running a weekly. I checked with the commissioner on political practices on Monday; on Tuesday, a formal complaint was filed.

Interesting that one of those involved in the complaint was Donald Cyphers, who has experience in such matters.

By coincidence, I raised skepticism both about Celebrate Billings' political involvement and about Cyphers' political ad practices in the same column six years ago. More here.

Eric Bibb

The Outpost sponsored a 2002 appearance by Eric Bibb at the Alberta Bair Theater. He's coming back on Jan. 23, and we are sponsoring the show again.

I was only mildly interested in sponsoring the show. We thought his first show was solid but not spectacular, and it evoked no overpowering desire to see him again. But Corby Skinner brought by Bibb's latest CD on Monday, and now I can't wait. I started playing the album on the way home from work late last night, and had to sit in the car and let it play for a while before I could get out and go in the house. I drove to work this morning listening: The same thing happened. Now I'm just back from driving to the bank. Same thing. He's got me hooked.

It's hard to say exactly why. He's got a driving basic blues guitar style, embroidered by world music influences. He brings in other instruments as needed, including a few other voices. All the songs are originals, except one, Dylan's "Buckets of Rain." It was Dylan, according to Bibb's Wikipedia entry, who told him when he was 11, "Keep it simple, forget all that fancy stuff."

He seems to have taken the advice to heart. The new album is full of simple ideas, simple themes, simple tunes, playing out in front of intricate guitar work. It is addictively listenable. I can't wait to see him.

Dixie Chicks

Late last night I watched "Shut Up and Sing," the 2006 documentary about the Dixie Chicks' dust-up over a comment Natalie Maines made about George Bush. It was a very well made film that not only reinforced my concern about their plight but also made me interested in them as musicians and as people -- something I never imagined would happen.

Maines comes across as just incorrigibly outspoken on nearly every topic, sometimes laughing at her own absurdities even as they are escaping her lips. Her fellow chicks come across as nearly saintly: committed artists devoted to family, music and each other.

Not everybody in the film comes off so well. Radio executives act like scared clowns; anti-Chicks protesters as dumb hayseeds. It's particularly dispiriting to see so many country fans behave so badly. After all, country music was built on the work of people who didn't fit in. Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, George Jones and Merle Haggard are hardly models of clean living and moral solemnity.

Coming off worst was a Republican congressman who said the Chicks were merely experiencing the business consequences of expressing their opinions in public. If there is any bedrock principle of democracy, it is that political opinions ought to be kept separate from business consequences. Democracy works only if you and I agree that we can fight bitterly over who should be elected president of the country or the school board, then cast our votes and go back to living and working together, you getting your hair cut in my shop and me getting my car repaired in your garage.

Break that principle, and the entire democratic contract is in peril.

Don't fence me in

Nearly all of this opinion piece in today's Gazette makes good sense.

After spending a year monitoring the East German border back in the 1970s, I became unalterably opposed to building walls around countries. The mayor of McAllen, Texas, takes a more carefully reasoned view.

I suspect he knows the real reason why sensors, radar and video surveillance are unacceptable alternatives. Even though they would be cheaper and work better, they just wouldn't have the same symbolic impact as a big, ugly fence blighting our border. I'm agin it.

It has never been clear to me how a fence would keep out terrorists. As the mayor points out, there are easier ways to get inside this country. And it still is unclear to me why if it is such a good idea to export jobs to foreign low-wage workers, it's a bad idea to import foreign low-wage workers. What's the difference?

My one quibble: I don't think a guest worker program would work. To me, it gives us the worst of all worlds: security problems and a permanent unassimilated underclass. You can't let people in if you aren't going to give them hope and a reason to act like Americans.

Media for Schweitzer?

What's Right in Montana has this odd post, anticipating "an all-out effort from the media" supporting Brian Schweitzer's re-election. I don't think there is any question that Schweitzer is liked by a lot of reporters, for reasons that have nothing to do with his politics. He's colorful; he spouts good quotes; he's spontaneous; he's confrontational; he sometimes calls reporters up to ask their opinions. When my mother died last fall, he called to offer his condolences. That sort of thing is all meat to a reporter.

But it doesn't follow from that that the media would go all out to lift Schweitzer over Brown. I have lots of respect for Brown and always enjoy talking to him. He always has struck me as honest, honorable and decent. I know some other reporters feel the same way, and I don't know of any who don't (although I admit I don't follow this stuff closely anymore).

Anyway, I happened to be interviewing Roy Brown this morning (see next week's Outpost) so I asked him about that. He said that generally, yes, he's been treated fairly by the Montana press and has no particular complaints. Obviously, there are lots of reasons why a candidate who has just launched a statewide campaign might not want to sound like a whiner about press coverage, but I suspect Brown was telling the truth and that he has, in fact, gotten fair coverage.

So I don't know what Kool-Aid What's Right in Montana has been drinking, and I'm equally mystified by his assertion today that the media had picked Hillary Clinton for coronation. I know even less about national politics than I do about statewide politics, and I know that the media's alleged pro-Clinton bias has been a popular theme on right-wing talk radio.

But I can't think why it would be true. By the accounts I've read, Clinton runs a tightly controlled campaign that is unlikely to endear her to reporters. She isn't a maverick, like Paul or McCain (in 2000) or a fresh face like Obama. Her politics are relentlessly mainstream. Why would the media choose her for coronation?

I didn't even think we had coronations in this country. We have elections, and reporters who cover elections like above all a good story. Obama's a good story. Huckabee's a good story. Paul, if he can raise his numbers, would be a good story. Clinton? Old news.

UPDATE: With respect to Hillary Clinton's press relations, see this.

Billings Blog swings the market

In Thursday's Outpost, I reported that Lee Enterprises stock was trading at $14.53 a share, down from around $21 in July. Yesterday it closed at $11.78.

Here's a take on the fall by a Lee newspaper.

Convict Burns

Montana Headlines says the press convicted Conrad Burns in the last election. Maybe his memory is better than mine, but I don't recall that happening. Obviously, questions were raised about Burns' relationship with Abramoff, and, obviously, reporters explored those questions. That's their job.

But I can't recall reading anywhere in the press that Burns was guilty of a crime. I don't have time to do the research right now (I'm still delivering papers) but I did just enter "conrad burns abramoff convicted" into Google. Glancing through the results, the only sources I see that say Burns was guilty are all bloggers. Maybe Montana Headlines was reaching for some higher metaphorical truth -- somewhere up there beyond the realm of actual facts.

One of the first things reporters learn is not to say that people who haven't been convicted of a crime are guilty of a crime. Reporters who make that mistake get sued, and fired. I would be surprised if it happened here, but perhaps someone can show me where it did.

Montana Headlines also says that Burns has now been "cleared." I guess that's true, if "cleared" means he won't be indicted. But that doesn't mean Montana voters were wrong to decide that his behavior wasn't what they wanted to see in that high office.

Future of news

The reclusive editor of the Outpost emerges from seclusion long enough to write a column, then quickly retreats.

Good Time Charlie

I didn't get around to seeing "Charlie Wilson's War" over the holidays, but I would still like to. Maybe this weekend.

I want to see it not just because the movie got good reviews and because the topic interests me. Charlie Wilson, now retired, was the first congressman I ever had occasion to cover back in rural East Texas in the late 1970s.

I was working in a small town for the Palestine Herald-Press, but his was a rural district, so he spent a fair amount of time courting the newspaper. He was a classic Southern politician of the era: tall, good-looking, with a booming voice. He is one of the few people depicted in the movies who looked better in real life than the actor portraying him on the screen. When he stood with his shoulders rared back, he wasn't merely ramrod straight. He was more than that, practically concave, a bantam rooster at full height. When he stood in front of the room, in a well tailored suit and pinstripe shirt, thoughtfully sucking on tiny spectacles, he was an impressive sight.

His was a brand of politics that no longer seems to exist. I agree with Jim Gransbery that conservatives and liberals are mainly distinguishable these days by loyalties, not by ideology. Wilson was a Democrat, of course; that was mandatory in East Texas in those days. But his politics consisted of a sly mixture of conservatism, populism and old-style liberalism. He backed the mujahideen in Afghanistan, Somoza in Nicaragua, Medicaid, the Equal Rights Amendment, choice on abortion and increases in the minimum wage. His reputation as a Washington party animal apparently was well earned, but I can't recall that it ever was a campaign issue. People honestly seemed to think that it was nobody's business but his own.

And he wasn't afraid to bump heads. Wayne Sellers, the publisher of the little paper I worked for, was a rail hobbyist and a booster of Amtrak. When he asked after a Chamber of Commerce speech why Wilson didn't do more to push funding for trains, Wilson replied, his voice booming across the room, "Because we can't make people ride them, Wayne."

He wasn't the sort of politician one now associates with this conservative, Bible belt part of Texas. But he made it all work, serving 12 years in the Texas Legislature and 24 years in the U.S. House.

Gazette campaign spending

Here's my little scoop, by the way.

At least I think it's a scoop. I've paid so little attention to local news lately that I might have missed it somewhere else.

Bohlinger for McCain

Good choice. McCain increasingly seems like the only Republican presidential candidate it is possible to vote for. Much as I like Ron Paul, he strikes me as too ideologically pure to govern successfully as president. And the rest of the GOP batch are too soft on torture and civil liberties for my taste.

McCain worries me because I don't like his position on the war, or on campaign finance reform, and his age bothers me a little. But he does seem to be an honest man, willing to take public hits on positions he believes in strongly, and I really don't see that Republicans have anyone else to turn to.

Now we'll see how much heat the endorsement takes off Bohlinger.

UPDATE: In comments, Eric says I'm too liberal for McCain and Mark T. says, in effect, that McCain's war position disqualifies him for the presidency. Mark also indicates that he has trouble telling liberals from conservatives.

Of course, I argue that all Americans are liberals because America is a liberal democracy founded on liberal principles and almost nobody rejects those principles. We pretty much all believe that humans are capable of self rule, that they should be equal under the law and that they have rights that outweigh the power of government. Those are all liberal ideas.

Real liberals and real conservatives both embrace those ideas, which can make them hard to distinguish, and that's a good thing. Telling them apart often boils down to what percentage of GDP they are willing to spend on taxes. But the right-wing talk machine has done a great job of conflating liberalism with socialism, an absurd but politically powerful gambit. And so-called conservatives have in large measure abandoned traditional American principles on torture, on foreign wars and on individual liberty. They should not be confused with real conservatives, who are people I respect and would, in fact, vote for.

As for McCain, I find his war position hard to take. But none of the other Republicans, outside of Ron Paul, is any better. And among the Democrats most likely to win, only Obama was against the war when it really mattered. So yes, I might vote for McCain if it comes down to a choice between a candidate who voted for and still supports the war and a candidate who voted for the war and has been running from the vote ever since.

A merry Christmas

Despite the death of Russ Brown (see below) Arlene Becker went ahead and held the annual Christmas party that she and Russ have hosted for years. It was a brave thing to do but, as she said, the tradition had to go on. The food was great, as always, and the crowd was eclectic. All that was missing was Russ' distinctive charm as host. He is definitely missed.

My daughter, Rachel, home from Missoula for the holiday, and I still had to go back to the office after the party to finish the Outpost. Christmas Day was our normal production day, and typically I don't put the paper to bed until the wee hours (or later) Wednesday morning. Pushing the schedule up by a day and a half is a real challenge for a weekly, especially with our regular production person gone on vacation, a vacancy in classified and last-minute Christmas shopping to do. So my wife did the classified pages, Rachel built ads, and I put the paper together, and we got done around midnight, just as Christmas Day broke. I even broke a bit of news, which you can read tomorrow.

So we slept late, opened presents, then cooked tamales for Christmas dinner -- a Southwestern tradition that we have been importing to Montana for years. They were wonderful, accompanied by Mexican rice, beans and a huracan gravy that was the best I ever made, I think.

Then the best part: a few cold tamales for breakfast today. Most tamales served cold are an abomination -- mealy, greasy and unpleasant. But really good homemade tamales take on an almost supernatural quality straight from the refrigerator -- firm, rich and painfully addictive. Then a slice of cherry pie, and back to work.

Chamber for Brown

The Montana Chamber of Commerce has given Republican gubernatorial candidate Roy Brown a Champion of Business Award for his 95 percent "pro-business" voting record.

Ninety-five percent? Saddam Hussein didn't do much better than that when he was at his peak. Do you think the Chamber is on your side 95 percent of the time? Heck, I own a business, and I don't think the Chamber is on my side that often. Incumbent Gov. Brian Schweitzer, by contrast, rates only 12 percent.

I'm not too happy with either of those numbers. I'd like somebody who knows what it takes to help the economy but realizes that sometimes what it takes is slapping the Chamber of Commerce around a little.

The partisan card

In response to this post, a commenter at Montana Headlines suggests that I have failed to take into account the extent to which the Schweitzer administration is playing the bipartisan card for cynical political purposes.

There might be some truth in that. But my sense is that Schweitzer doesn't really care much about partisan politics. What he does care about is winning, and he will play whatever cards are in his hand to do that.

Paul vs. Romney

This is amazing. Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe asked all presidential candidates a series of crucial questions about the powers of the president, the Constitution, surveillance and unlawful combatants. Here's where Ron Paul stands. Now here's where Mitt Romney stands.

All of which raises two questions of my own:

1. Any doubt why Ron Paul arouses more public interest than the rest of the candidates put together?

2. Did Mitt Romney give a real answer to even one of those questions?

Additional note: Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee refused to respond at all.

Election update

Taylor Brown, who has owned the Northern Broadcasting System since 1985, is running for Senate District 22. Outside of his radio broadcasts, Brown, 51, may be best known for getting former broadcaster Conrad Burns into politics. This is his first run for office.

According to his news release, "Senate District 22 includes the Briarwood and Lockwood communities on the south edge of Billings, then runs down the Yellowstone River to the edge of Miles City. It includes Colstrip on the south, and runs north to include all of Treasure County." The seat is held by Lane Larson, who is running for re-election and is stopping by the Outpost tomorrow as he kicks off his campaign.

Person of year

This isn't exactly happy news either, but at least one Montanan has won a Person of the Year award.

Sad news

Kevin Dowling just called with news that Russ Brown has died. Probably heart-related, but that isn't certain yet.

Russ was one of my favorite people, the best kind of political activist with plenty of energy and good will and a sense of humor. In recent years, our favorite event of the holiday season has been to go to his and Arlene's house on Christmas Eve for a seafood feast: oysters on the half shell, soup, dessert and whatever dish anyone cared to bring. We like to bring shrimp jambalaya. I'm not much of a party guy, but the food is always great, Russ was a first-rate host, and the crowd was so interesting that I always looked forward to it.

In fact, Russ left a long, rambling telephone message on our machine yesterday about this year's event. He said he was counting on us for the jambalaya. We were in full production at The Outpost yesterday, so I didn't hear the message until this afternoon. By that time, Russ was already dead, although I didn't know it at the time.

It's a sad day.

UPDATE: This from Ray Tracy, chairman of the Yellowstone County Democratic Central Committee:

It’s with a very heavy heart that I inform you that this morning Russ Brown passed away. Russ’ death was from natural causes but was also unexpected and tragic. If anybody knew Russ, they knew his life was all about Montana politics and helping out in any way he could. Russ was known for his spirited character, his capacity for vibrant debate, and volunteerism. His wisdom, experience, and cheerful presence will be deeply missed by all who knew him.

I will announce Russ’ memorial service as soon as it’s known.

In the meantime, please take care of yourselves and treasure every moment with each other.

UPDATE 2: Russ Brown’s memorial service will be at 2 p.m. Friday, Dec. 28, at the Elks Club. Donations may be made an environmental organization of your choice.

He's back -- no, really

OK, it wasn't much of a comeback. I underestimated how many papers I still had to grade and how much catching up around the office. Then there were a few hours of pure indolence: grocery shopping, movie watching ("Beowulf" in 3D!), even a TV football game. And there's that thing about blogging: The further away I get from it, the smaller it looks. If I don't have my nose in it every day, it doesn't seem to much matter.

But there was this: My annual survey of news consumption habits among my journalism students once again turned up not a single regular consumer of news and political blogs. I have asked every year since I first heard about blogs, and while I no longer have to explain what a blog is, I still haven't found a student who regularly reads blogs for news and commentary.

As I told them, failing to follow the news when one is in college isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's one time in life when it makes sense to focus on news that never stops being news, like "Beowulf" in 1D, which I spent a whole semester on in graduate school. After seeing the movie, I picked up my copy of the poem, wondering whether I remembered any of the language. In short: No. It might as well have been my blog.

He's back

I promised not to let the blog go totally dark during the fall semester, and I kept that promise -- but just barely. Now I'm back -- but just barely. I taught my last class on Friday and still have a couple of finals to give and quite a few papers to grade, but I have gained a little breathing room. So a few scattered comments:

1. I was disappointed to see that Roy Brown was listed as signing a no-tax-increase pledge in his campaign for governor. Why? It isn't like Brian Schweitzer is going to run to the right of him on tax increases. If low taxes are all you care about, then Brown is your man.

So the pledge gains him nothing and costs him something I would hope for in a governor: the flexibility to deal with changing circumstances, no matter what they might be. A no-tax pledge says that no imaginable situation, crisis or emergency is important enough to raise taxes, even temporarily, or even while other taxes are being cut. I don't particularly want taxes to rise, but I also don't think it's the worst thing in the world. I can think of a lot of things worse than higher taxes -- wars, fiscal crises, natural disasters -- and I don't want politicians to unilaterally disarm.

2. Montana Headlines has an interesting post about Republicans' hate-hate affair with John Bohlinger. Montana Headlines makes some good points -- I, too, would like to see Bohlinger face Republicans in their natural lair -- but I think he misses an important point: What makes Republicans so annoyed with Bohlinger is exactly what makes him popular. Like it or not, Americans increasingly identify loyalty to party with disloyalty to country. Many of us fear that politicians in both parties are sacrificing the well-being of their constituents on the altar of partisanship.

Every day Bohlinger is in office, he makes a quiet statement that what unites us as a people is far more important than what divides us as political partisans. And Republican attacks on Bohlinger just reinforce that statement.

3. Montana Headlines also is worth reading on the presidential race, where John McCain is seen as making a comeback. I liked McCain against Bush, but this year it seemed that time had passed him by. He is no longer the newest thing on the shelf, and he gives activists at both ends of the political spectrum reason to dislike him: liberals because of his support of the war and conservatives because of immigration and campaign financing reforms.

Still, he is the only Republican who seems to understand that torture is a war crime. And, as Montana Headlines points out, McCain sensibly declined to sign a no-tax pledge (see No. 1 above) while still acting like a fiscal conservative.

The only other appealing Republicans from this chair are Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee. Admirable fellow that he is, Paul probably is unelectable and would quite likely be a disaster as president. Huckabee is an amiable sort, but for me he is disqualified by his statements that the president should have the power to start a war even if Congress says no. I don't want to vote for a president who would be perjuring himself the moment he swore to defend the Constitution.

UPDATE: Here's another reason not to like Huckabee. I don't care what he thinks about homosexuals, but the idea that the cost of AIDS research should be borne by "multimillionaire celebrities" is the sleaziest kind of pandering -- not to mention wildly unchristian.