Obama’s rope-a-dope

I’ve been as frustrated as anyone that President Obama hasn’t spoken out more forcefully about what’s taking place in Iran. But I’ve also heard a contrary view — that if he is seen as giving support to the reformist candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, he risks whipping up anti-American sentiment in favor of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Here’s a fascinating excerpt from an Arab-American blog being highlighted by Global Voices Online. I have no idea who the writer is, but what he or she says makes a lot of sense:

Whether or not Mousavi had the election stolen from him, it seems clear the ruling class has made a calculating move. Anti-American sentiment is one of the strongest cards those wretched clerics hold. By merely softening the tone Tehran hears from Washington, Obama has weakened their hand considerably. But re-instating Ahmadinejad ensures that US-Iranian relations will continue down a rocky road. What happens next is crucial. If Obama takes a firm position as a result of what’s happening, the mullahs may emerge victorious.

Writing for the Independent, Robert Fisk says there are hopeful signs that the Iranian security forces’ support for Ahmadinejad may be fading. That would be an enormously important development.

Obama and openness

Bill Dedman of MSNBC.com reports that the Obama administration is following George W. Bush’s policy of refusing to release the logs identifying visitors to the White House — despite two rulings that such records are public.

Good story, though Dedman doesn’t say whether Bush’s policy was a reversal or a continuation of what previous presidents had done. I hope he’ll clarify.

Update: Dedman writes that “the story makes clear that only in limited cases have these records been released. And that apparently only the Bush and Obama administrations have stood up in federal court to argue that White House visitor logs are not public record.”

Howie Carr, working-class hero

I know we’re not supposed to take Howie Carr seriously when he writes about the Boston Globe. But check out his Boston Herald column today. “Danny Donuts” is Dan Totten, president of the Boston Newspaper Guild. Carr writes:

Let’s face it, the Globe is on the ropes because it’s crammed to the rafters with writers who can’t write, reporters who can’t report, and editors who can’t edit, because Danny Donuts and his cohorts couldn’t sell an ad to save their inherited, tastefully weathered summer homes on Nantucket.

Now here is Jason Schwartz, describing Totten’s background in a Boston Magazine profile:

Totten first got active in the union in 2002, and it was a natural fit. His father was a member of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association for more than 35 years, his sister was a union representative for the Boston school system, and his grandmother had been a steward for the hotel and telephone workers union “back in a time,” Totten says, “when it wasn’t very popular or easy for a woman to hold such a position.”

We also learn from Schwartz that Totten is a graduate of the former Boston State College, surely one of the forgotten Ivies, and earned his MBA at Anna Maria College in Paxton, widely regarded as the Wharton School of Central Massachusetts.

Carr, meanwhile, lives in Wellesley and makes some three-quarters of a million dollars from his talk show on WRKO Radio (AM 680), as well as a presumed six-figure income from the Herald. He’s also a graduate of Deerfield Academy and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill — a real working-class hero.

For Howie to characterize a self-made man like Totten as overprivileged is laughable, bordering on the offensive.

“Look at this brave Iranian lioness”

Globe Voices Online has posted an update on what bloggers are saying and doing in Iran. There’s some pretty stunning material, including a video of a young woman kicking a member of the security forces.

Meanwhile, Simon Tisdall writes in the Guardian of unconfirmed reports that Hashemi Rafsanjani, the controversial mentor to the reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, may be in the holy city of Qom, measuring how much support he might have from the Assembly of Experts in a bid to topple the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

Best New England books

Boston.com has posted an interactive list of the 100 best New England books evah. My nominee — Nicholas Howe’s “Not Without Peril,” a compilation of a century’s worth of fatalities in New Hampshire’s White Mountains — checks in at number 85.

Clarification: I didn’t mean to suggest that I think “Not Without Peril” is the best New England book. Rather, I proposed it to Boston.com a few months ago as one of the top 100. Boston.com’s choice of “Moby Dick” at number one is all right by me.

I also see that Boston.com has ranked “Not Without Peril” at number 90, not 85. I think I was looking at the “most read” category earlier.

Finally, I just finished Nathaniel Philbrick’s “Mayflower” (number 36) last week. A worthy choice, though slightly overrated, in my view. Too many impenetrable accounts of battles, not enough narrative sweep. But well worth reading.

Media Nation comments policy

Thank you to everyone who weighed in with thoughts regarding a comments policy for Media Nation. I received some excellent advice. For now, I’ve decided to tighten up on comments just a little bit. It’s easier to start slowly and then ratchet things up if needed.

The only real difference is that I plan to become more pro-active in deleting comments that I think are inappropriate. In the past, the subjectivity inherent in deciding which comments would live and which would die had led me to approve almost everything.

I’m not going to worry about that anymore, even though I’m fully aware that my tolerance level tends to vary from day to day.

I am going to try to keep this as short and easy to follow as possible.

1. The use of real names is strongly encouraged. If you use your real name, first and last, then you will be taken more seriously by everyone here. Real names are not required. But if you choose anonymity, you should ask yourself whether it’s truly necessary (i.e., for work-related reasons) or if, instead, you are using anonymity so that you can express opinions you wouldn’t want to see attached to your name.

2. The purpose of comments is to encourage civil discourse. Personal attacks will not be tolerated. Posts accompanied by hostile or offensive user names or avatars will be deleted. If you wouldn’t say it to someone’s face, then don’t say it here.

3. Comments on this site are unmoderated. Offensive comments are not subject to a pre-approval process, but may be removed after they have been posted. If you believe you have been attacked, rather than responding to the attacker, send a private e-mail to da {dot} kennedy {at} neu {dot} edu. If I agree, I’ll remove the offending comment.

3. Comments on this site are moderated. Comments are posted to a queue, and will not appear on Media Nation until I have approved them. This is the policy I had in place until a couple of years ago, and, on reflection, I think it worked well. If you believe I should not have allowed a comment to be posted, send a private e-mail to da {dot} kennedy {at} neu {dot} edu. I’ve been known to change my mind. (Policy updated on Aug. 13, 2009.)

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Photo (cc) by Amy Kasameyer and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

Another potential big day for the Globe

Depending on how things go, this could be a very big day for the future of the Boston Globe and its employees. The Newspaper Guild is sending in its national president, Bernie Lunzer, to try to work out an alternative deal with New York Times Co. management. (Boston Herald coverage here; Globe coverage here.)

It’s easy to say the Times Co. is going to stick with the 23 percent pay cut it imposed last week, but there are reasons to think that management would be amenable to negotiations. Management’s chief aim is to extract $10 million in concessions from the Guild, and to do it in a manner that paves the way for selling the paper.

The 23 percent pay cut accomplishes the first goal but not the second, since the Times Co. is now dealing with building full of seething employees. And about 190 Guild members still have lifetime employment guarantees, which will make it more difficult for a new owner to do the sort of drastic restructuring that’s needed.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the two sides reach an agreement that looks quite a bit like the one that was narrowly rejected last week: a pay cut of around 10 percent; cuts to retirement and other benefits; and an end to the lifetime job guarantees. If Times Co. executives have any sense at all — a debatable proposition at this point — then they will sweeten the pot a little bit so that Guild members can feel that they actually got something out of last week’s “no” vote. As long as it adds up to $10 million, then it really doesn’t matter.

New York Times columnist David Carr today, meanwhile, checks in with a group of outside analysts to try to put a price tag on the Globe. It proves to be a futile exercise, as the prices range anywhere from $250 million to the Times Co.’s actually having to pay a new owner as much as $25 million to make the Globe go away. Nor does the longer online version add much.

The takeaway quote comes from the venerable analyst John Morton, who writes to Carr:

Should a private buyer be found I suspect that any Globe employees still employed after the deal goes through will recall the contract they have just rejected as paradise compared with what a new owner will impose in cost-cutting.

Times Co. executives have behaved badly enough through this crisis that it’s easy to forget the larger truth: the newspaper business is coming apart at the seams, and what’s happening at the Globe is no different from what’s happening to major metropolitan dailies across the country. Morton’s assessment is a reminder of that reality.