Fox News’ underpublicized sick joke

I saw this on Talking Points Memo yesterday, and note that it’s been picked up by the New York Times editorial-page blog as well. Have a look at Fox News Channel contributor Liz Trotta as she jokes that it would be just great if Osama bin Laden and Barack Obama — and eh, who can tell them apart, anyway? — were both killed:

The question of the day is why Trotta’s sick joke hasn’t generated more outrage. After all, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews had to apologize publicly after he said Hillary Clinton’s political success was based on her husband’s “messing around.”

I’m tempted to say it’s because no one takes Fox News seriously, but certainly Media Matters, the liberal media-watchdog group, has been quick to pounce on Fox for other offenses. Perhaps it was because Trotta expressed her sick thoughts in the middle of a holiday weekend.

Fangs for the memories

Boston Magazine’s John Gonzalez writes that the Boston Globe’s three metro columnists — Adrian Walker, Kevin Cullen and Yvonne Abraham — seem more intent on writing inoffensive feature stories than in drawing blood.

Personally, I’d like to see more outrage. But I suppose the last thing the Globe needs right now is for pissed-off readers to call up and cancel their subscriptions.

Just recently I was thinking about how I’d like to see the metro columnists redeployed, and I came up with an old-fashioned idea that I think might work. (Keep in mind even having metro columnists is pretty old-fashioned.)

I’d station one at the Statehouse, one at City Hall and one at Boston Police headquarters, and instruct all three to write reported pieces with opinion, attitude and, yes, an occasional sense of outrage. Not to be too narrow — they’d be allowed to stray from their beats, but not often.

If you’re thinking that’s not the way to draw in a new generation of twentysomething readers, well, I guess I’d have to agree. But it would certainly make me happy.

No gold at the end of the rainbow

The Day of New London, Conn., reports that the Mashantucket Pequot tribe is eliminating 170 government jobs because the Foxwoods gambling casino isn’t pulling in money like it used to:

King has said Foxwoods generates about 99 percent of the tribe’s government funding, but the casino has weathered months of reduced revenue because of increased competition in neighboring states and an uncertain economy.

And that’s without any casinos opening in Massachusetts.

Making sense of Clinton’s senseless remark

Trying to make sense of Hillary Clinton’s truly bizarre reference to Robert Kennedy’s assassination? Good luck. The New York Times’ Katharine Seelye put up a comprehensive blog post last night that’s full of insight — yet she can’t seem to make sense of it, either.

Seelye seems to accept Clinton’s explanation that she was referring merely to the fact that the Democratic primaries had extended into June in 1968, and that she was not trying to suggest that, well, gee, maybe Barack Obama will get shot just like Kennedy, so she ought to stick around.

Yet Seelye also opens her post by referring to Friday as possibly “one of the worst days of Senator Hillary Clinton’s political career.” And she closes by wondering whether Clinton’s remarks were so toxic that she may have even alienated those who want to help her find “a graceful way out” of the presidential race.

Perhaps most telling, Seelye embeds a lengthy commentary by Keith Olbermann that is, as she says, “tough beyond measure.” Suffice it to say that Olbermann does not give Clinton the benefit of the doubt as to whether she had deliberately evoked Kennedy’s assassination.

Personally, I’m not sure what to think. Like Seelye, I believe Clinton was trying to make a point about the timing, not the assassination. But her remarks were tasteless and grotesque nevertheless. This may be one of those situations in which what Clinton was trying to say is being deliberately distorted, and she deserves it.

Patrick and the politics of symbolism

I’m not quite sure what to say about Casey Ross’ story in today’s Boston Herald reporting that Gov. Deval Patrick has increased spending on his own office by 80 percent. I agree with Ross that new positions such as a “director of grassroots governance” are “questionable,” but what follows from that is I’d like to see someone ask the questions: What is it? How will we benefit? Will we benefit? The governor’s staff tells Ross that we will, but in very non-specific terms.

What’s crystal-clear, though, is that Ross has dug up more evidence, if any were needed, that Patrick is an unusually poor practitioner of the politics of symbolism. And symbolism matters. At a time when the economy is in the tank, gas and oil prices are skyrocketing and cities and towns are straining to make ends meet, Patrick should not be trying to launch non-essential — if desirable — programs that we’ve somehow managed to live without up until now. Civic engagement? Nice. Funding for schools or for his long-promised property-tax relief? Quite a bit nicer.

The drapes. The Caddy. The book-contract signing while his casino bill was going down to defeat. All evidence that Patrick’s got a tin ear.

It depends on the question

Jon Keller delivered a sneering commentary this morning about the supposed fear our political leaders have of “democracy.” His main example: House Speaker Sal DiMasi’s abortive suggestion that an advisory question about casino gambling be placed on the statewide ballot this fall. As Keller noted, neither side is enthusiastic about the idea, and it seems all but certain to be dropped.

Keller’s commentary hasn’t been posted on the WBZ Radio Web site yet, but you should be able to find it here later today.

Well, I’m one casino opponent who wouldn’t mind seeing a question go on the ballot. But what would the question be? Here’s a simple, fair and neutral question that I think gets to the heart of the matter: “Would you support a gambling casino’s being built in your city or town?”

That is really the only question that matters. Various polls have showed mixed results or mild support for casino gambling when those being surveyed are not required to focus on the possibility that it’s their community that will be affected. The results are quite different, though, when the issue is literally brought home.

Two examples:

  • Last summer, Middleborough residents attending the town meeting that approved a casino deal with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe immediately turned around and voted overwhelmingly against a casino’s being built in their town. This nonbinding vote, all but ignored by the media, stands as the only occasion that people in Middleborough have expressed their true feelings about the issue.
  • Several months ago, a poll of Massachusetts residents showed that two-thirds were opposed to a casino’s being built in their community. Most news reports focused on mixed results regarding the abstract idea of casinos. But what does that matter if no one wants one next door?

Let’s be clear — this isn’t NIMBYism, because we don’t need to build a casino anywhere. Call it NIABYism — Not in Anyone’s Back Yard.