Media Nation

Earlier today Media Nation received a private e-mail from J.M. about my first Theo item that ended with this: “What does that say about the stewardship of Theo and the owners? Seems to me they took a World Series winner and dismantled it.”

It’s a serious notion, worth analyzing. So, sorry for the baseball obsession today, but here we go.

At the end of the 2004 World Series, the Red Sox had a problem: its championship core was either aging or declining for other reasons, and couldn’t be expected to perform at the same high level in 2005 or beyond. Keeping the team together was not an option. Don’t believe me? Consider who they’ve gotten rid of over the past two years and why:

Not-so-dumb moves

Pedro Martínez: This was the big one — Petey was #1A to Curt Schilling’s #1 in ’04. But he didn’t want to re-sign with the Red Sox, so he was leaving in any case. And he’s been hurt a lot over the past two seasons, something that was eminently predictable.

Derek Lowe: His well-documented personal problems made it a given that the Sox would let him go. You’d like to think he could have turned it around after his astounding post-season performance, but he had a lousy ’05 for the Dodgers. He’s pitching better lately, though.

Orlando Cabrera: Yes, in retrospect the Sox should have signed Cabrera rather than obtaining Edgar Renteria. At the time, though, virtually every knowledgeable baseball person believed Renteria would be an upgrade. And now the Sox have Alex Gonzalez, the greatest defensive shortstop ever to wear a Red Sox uniform.

Bill Mueller: The oft-injured third baseman is probably finished following yet another knee operation. A fine player and a class act, but it’s a good thing the Sox picked up Mike Lowell.

Mark Bellhorn: An overachiever in 2004. Mark Loretta is a huge upgrade. For that matter, Tony Graffanino was a huge upgrade.

Kevin Millar: No explanation needed.

Dumb moves

Johnny Damon: Yes, I was among those who thought Coco Crisp could grow into a more-than-adequate replacement for Damon, and maybe he still can. But what Damon brought to the Red Sox, both on and off the field, is harder to replace than we realized at the time. Caveat: It’s possible that, like Pedro, he wasn’t going to re-sign no matter what. Damon might just see himself as someone who was born to play in New York.

Bronson Arroyo: This move is actually looking less dumb, not because of Arroyo’s recent slump, but because the Sox are worse than we thought. Wily Mo Peña might be a star in a couple of years, and we’re now officially in wait-till-next-year mode.

Bottom line

If Damon was willing to sign, then letting him go was the dumbest move that Theo and company have made since October 2004. And if that’s the worst you can say, then that’s not so bad.

As for whom the Sox have brought in to replace the guys they lost, well, that’s another story. Josh Beckett has obviously been a huge disappointment, but he’s got a world of talent. If he can listen and learn, he may yet be a star. Crisp was hurt, and I suspect he then started pressing. Seanez and Tavares were obviously busts. Timlin got old. Wakefield, Wells and Clement got hurt. And the absence of Varitek colors everything.

Epstein wasn’t that good when his decision to trade away Nomar turned to instant gold, and he’s not that bad now. Let’s see what he does this off-season, which should be the least tumultuous (i.e., no gorilla suits) of his short career.

The talk shows and the sports pundits are turning against Theo Epstein. Let’s stipulate that this is not his finest hour. But I think he deserves credit for not trading away the team’s future.

If Jason Varitek hadn’t gotten hurt, the Red Sox would probably be on their way to the playoffs right now. I think we’ve all seen in the past few weeks how much he means to the team, especially to the young pitchers. A guy like that can’t be replaced.

But — if Varitek had stayed healthy, and the Sox had also picked up Bobby Abreu and Cory Lidle, the Sox would still be lucky to make it past the first round the playoffs. There are way too many holes on this team, starting with Josh Beckett and the brutal middle-relief corps.

You might trade Jon Lester, Craig Hansen and/or Manny Delcarmen if you realistically believe that could get you into the World Series. But it would be idiotic to trade away the future in order to make marginal improvements to a team that still wouldn’t have what it takes.

Are there moves Epstein made that look bad? You bet. Johnny Damon apparently meant even more to the Sox than we realized when he was here. Bronson Arroyo could have provided some stability to the back end of a rotation ravaged by injuries and ineptitude. Bringing Coco Crisp and Josh Beckett here might prove to be a mistake, although I suspect they’ll both be a lot better next year.

But keeping the kids was not a mistake. This team isn’t worth the sacrifice.

Media Nation readers know my stand on Bob Dylan: I’m for him. Still, this brutal Washington Post review of a recent Dylan show strikes me as being right on the mark. (Thanks to M.T.S. for passing it on.)

I’ve seen Dylan live twice — in 1986, with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and in 1989, with a small band anchored by G.E. Smith. He was pretty good the first time, so-so the second. I’d like to see him once more, if only because he obviously can’t keep doing this forever.

But live performance is not his strength, and hasn’t been since the mid-1970s. His blown-out voice, almost appealing on record, just doesn’t work in front of an audience. And it doesn’t help that he often seems indifferent to the whole thing.

Good Herald: Today’s Herald leads with a pretty amazing story that the Globe missed. On Monday evening, Boston Mayor Tom Menino was walking through Dorchester with top police officials when a gunman ran right past him. “I saw this guy running past me in a black shirt. All the sudden, the police who were with me were running and chasing this individual,” Menino told reporter Michele McPhee.

Bad Herald: Aggressiveness isn’t always a virtue, especially if it leads to running a misleading story. On Monday, the Herald reported that “an alleged break-in artist” fell to his death while he was trying to enter a home via an unsafe spiral staircase. On Tuesday, the Globe caught up — and found that the victim, identified as 27-year-old Irish visitor Martin Lenaghan, had merely attempted to enter the wrong house after becoming disoriented. The Herald’s Tuesday follow-up made no mention of the “break-in artist” line.

Adam Gaffin asks: Worthy of a correction?

Correction: The Globe actually did have this story on Monday, and it managed to report the then-unidentified Lenaghan’s death without suggesting that he was a “break-in artist.”

The new-media story of the 2006 Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign is Blue Mass Group, three young (well, youngish) Democratic bloggers who’ve been following Deval Patrick’s, Chris Gabrieli’s and Tom Reilly’s every twist and turn.

By opening up their site to outside contributors, Daily Kos-like, BMG has attained critical mass, and is currently attracting about 2,000 unique visitors each day. Recently the site scored an impressive journalistic achievement, exposing the anti-Patrick Campaign to Stop Killer Coke as just some guy. The BMG report completely contradicted a report in the Boston Globe that the Phoenix’s Adam Reilly called “oddly credulous.”

Earlier, the Globe profiled the BMGers — three former John Kerry volunteers, Charley Blandy, David Kravitz and Bob Neer.

Although BMG’s coverage of the race has been even-handed, a pro-Patrick sentiment has come through pretty clearly. So it could not have surprised anyone when, on Aug. 14, Kravitz, Blandy and Neer gave Patrick their endorsement.

At a time when the daily press and, especially, television (with Jon Keller as the notable exception) have downgraded their coverage of state and local politics, apparently on the theory that no one cares, BMG has emerged as a Web site that really matters — especially to the liberals and Democrats who make up the majority of political activists in Massachusetts. It’s a site of political junkies, by political junkies and for political junkies.

The Patrick endorsement could be something of a watershed — a sign that BMG is ready to move up to the next level of influence, or, conversely, that its carefully nurtured sense of community has been put at risk. With that in mind, Media Nation conducted an e-mail interview about the endorsement, the results of which you will find below.

According to Kravitz, he answered Questions #1-4, Blandy handled Questions #5-7 and Neer took Questions #8-10. “We have all reviewed, edited, and signed off on all the answers,” he said by e-mail.

Q: Why did you decide to endorse?

A: For a couple of reasons. First, since our views had crystallized, basic honesty with our readers demanded that they know where we are coming from. We are not a newspaper where there is a “wall,” however artificial, between the editorial staff and the reporters. We should not pretend to be neutral observers when we aren’t. Second, it has always been a goal of the site to advocate for the election of candidates that we think advance progressive Democratic values. Endorsing the candidates who we think are most likely to do that seemed to us to be a natural — indeed, a necessary — part of that process.

Q: Was there a process, or were the three of you unanimous in your support of Deval Patrick? Were others involved?

A: Each of us independently decided to back Patrick. Our “process” for the endorsement consisted of getting together for lunch to talk about it, and then e-mailing back and forth until we were all satisfied with the draft. We were unanimous, and no one else was involved.

Q: If you had not been unanimous, would you have endorsed anyway?

A: Not collectively. If we hadn’t been unanimous, we probably each would have written separate statements about who we were supporting.

Q: Are you concerned that endorsing might compromise BMG’s goal of being an honest broker for people interested in Democratic politics in Massachusetts?

A: Not really. As I said in response to Question #1, the endorsement is in part a way of coming clean with our readers — it explains who we are voting for, and why. It would be harder to be an “honest broker” if we knew who we were voting for, but didn’t disclose it. We have no intention of changing the way we manage the site or the topics we write about after the endorsement. We have always welcomed, and we continue to welcome, opinions that differ from ours. (And, by the way, the three of us not infrequently differ from each other!)

Q: Newspapers often endorse as close to the election as possible so as not to taint their coverage. You’ve endorsed more than a month before the primary. Why so early?

A: Well, we’re not a newspaper. Frankly, the fact that we’re seen as a fair-minded place is very unusual for a blog, and we’re quite proud of that. But again, we felt that since we were all leaning heavily towards Patrick, we needed to be honest about that.

As far as “tainting coverage”: We’ve found that it’s a useful discipline to stay officially neutral, regardless of one’s private thoughts, for as long as possible, just to see how things shake out. But we’ve been watching the race since before there was a race, and we’re satisfied we had enough information at this point to make a decision.

Also, we feel that it’s not enough to be thoughtful and to have the right opinions about things; one of the main reasons we started the blog is to effect results. We don’t have the broad readership that a newspaper has, speaking mostly to folks whose political engagement may consist of inking a spot for a candidate once every two years. But we’ve observed that a significant part of our audience actually gets involved in politics on the functional level — from licking envelopes and phone banking all the way to actually running for office. To the extent that our endorsement moves anyone from thinking to decision and then action, it’ll have its desired effect. Five weeks before the primary is not too long a lead time for that. In contrast, the newspaper timeframe — a week or so before the election — would be too late for a blog to have any impact at all.

Q: Your readers are so intensely interested in politics that it’s hard to imagine they haven’t already made up their minds. What effect do you think this endorsement will have?

A: We think that it’s a pretty strong field, and there are likely folks who haven’t made up their minds (there was a recent post from an undecided voter that generated a very interesting discussion). And as the year progresses and our readership grows, hopefully we’re picking up readers who want to find some good discussion about the race. But again, it’s not enough to be thoughtful; it’s not enough to come up with the right opinion: If you want to have a wider impact, you’ve got to act on it. Perhaps people will be convinced by our endorsement to act on their thoughts.

Q: Following on the previous question, how do you think your endorsement might have an effect beyond your readership?

A: We don’t have any idea. While the endorsement is probably not a surprise at all to folks who know the site, we do hope it’s another crystallizing moment — however minor — where the choice becomes a little bit clearer for everyone. The sense of inevitability and momentum in a campaign is hard to pin down to one thing: favorites in political races emerge over a period of time. Perhaps the reasons we gave for supporting Patrick will filter into the general conversation about the race: independence, charisma, boldness.

Q: What has your growth trajectory been during this campaign?

A: You can find a complete record of our traffic since we started the site in late 2004 here. We make this information available to anyone at any time via the “Traffic report” link on our main page. Our traffic will probably be up about 10 to 20 percent in August compared to the June-July average. Right now we’re averaging over 2,000 unique visitors each day.

Q: Does your decision to endorse represent some sort of coming-of-age for Internet media? What does it mean for a partisan, relatively small Web site such as BMG to endorse as compared to say, the Boston Globe?

A: I don’t think it represents a coming of age since we are relatively late to the endorsement game, and political blogs have been backing candidates from the time they came into their own during the Howard Dean campaign. We have a far smaller readership and a narrower political spectrum of readership than the Globe. What our endorsement does mean is that we’re more aggressive than the Globe. As to what our endorsement “means” beyond a statement of how the three of us intend to vote on Sept. 19, the answers to Questions #5-7 address that.

Q: Although BMG is obviously partisan, you have tried to offer fair treatment of the three Democratic candidates for governor, even though your pro-Patrick leanings were rather clear. How will BMG change after the primary, when you will obviously be supporting one Democratic candidate against a Republican?

A: We have always said that, starting on Sept. 20, we will strongly back whichever Democrat wins the primary. That said, we are not an arm of any campaign, and that will not change after the primary. We will continue to call things as we see them, which has included and will doubtless continue to include criticism of the candidate we are supporting. Further, although we will advocate for the Democrat in our coverage, we will welcome Republicans who want to make the case for their point of view.

Washington Post reporter Thomas Ricks has been everywhere recently, talking up his new book, “Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq.” Ricks comes across as moderate, pro-military and shocked at the incompetence that led to the war and that has defined the subsequent occupation. You should listen to interviews he did with Tom Ashbrook and Christopher Lydon (joined by Noam Chomsky!) if you get a chance.

This month, Ricks also learned a lesson in the hazards of shooting your mouth off on live television. In an Aug. 6 appearance on CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” he made an assertion that he has come to regret. In the section that follows, he’s being questioned by the host, Howard Kurtz, who happens to be the Post’s media reporter. From the transcript:

KURTZ: Tom Ricks, you’ve covered a number of military conflicts, including Iraq, as I just mentioned. Is civilian casualties increasingly going to be a major media issue? In conflicts where you don’t have two standing armies shooting at each other?

RICKS: I think it will be. But I think civilian casualties are also part of the battlefield play for both sides here. One of the things that is going on, according to some U.S. military analysts, is that Israel purposely has left pockets of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon, because as long as they’re being rocketed, they can continue to have a sort of moral equivalency in their operations in Lebanon.

KURTZ: Hold on, you’re suggesting that Israel has deliberately allowed Hezbollah to retain some of its firepower, essentially for PR purposes, because having Israeli civilians killed helps them in the public-relations war here?

RICKS: Yes, that’s what military analysts have told me.

KURTZ: That’s an extraordinary testament to the notion that having people on your own side killed actually works to your benefit in that nobody wants to see your own citizens killed but it works to your benefit in terms of the battle of perceptions here.

RICKS: Exactly. It helps you with the moral-high-ground problem, because you know your operations in Lebanon are going to be killing civilians as well.

Last Friday the New York Sun reported (via Romenesko) that former New York mayor Ed Koch had reacted with outrage at Ricks’ “blood libel,” and that Post executive editor Leonard Downie had taken Ricks to the woodshed. Downie wrote to Koch, “I have made clear to Tom Ricks that he should not have made those statements.” And Ricks told the Sun: “The comments were accurate: that I said I had been told this by people. I wish I hadn’t said them, and I intend from now on to keep my mouth shut about it.”

Now, you could defend Ricks on the grounds that he was merely passing along what he learned in the course of his reporting. After all, he was careful to attribute his extraordinary claim to “U.S. military analysts.”

But was that the case? CAMERA, the Boston-based organization that monitors the media for what it considers to be anti-Israel bias, has published the text of a note that he wrote to Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell in which he said that his comments “were based on a long conversation I had with a senior Israeli official a couple of years ago.” He also said that, following his CNN appearance, he had “since heard from some smart, well-informed people that while such a strategy might be logical, that the Israeli public just wouldn’t stand for it. And they were pretty dismayed that I has passed on the thought.”

I am a little concerned that I can’t find Ricks’ note anywhere on washingtonpost.com. But I have no reason to believe CAMERA got it wrong.

I wish Downie had been a little more willing to defend his reporter. After all, Ricks’ comments were not based on nothing, and the standards for blabbing on live TV are not the same as they are for writing a news article. But obviously Ricks wishes he had been more precise. And given that he was basing his remarks on a years-old conversation, he probably shouldn’t have said anything at all.

One aspect of Scott Allen and Sean Murphy’s Big Dig story in today’s Globe strikes me as a significant advance in our understanding of what went wrong. They write:

In the end, the connector tunnel got a ceiling like few others in the United States, counting on bolts that essentially have been super-glued into the roof to each suspend 2,600 pounds of concrete. [University of Texas professor David] Fowler and other outside experts could name only one other tunnel, in Virginia, that used a similar bolt system for such a heavy ceiling, and they say few are likely to be built in the future because of the Big Dig’s problems.

Haven’t we been told from the beginning that the epoxy-and-bolt system of connecting those concrete panels was actually a tried-and-true technique used in many projects around the country? Indeed, at one point the Big Dig accident raised the specter of massive, nationwide inspections.

The Globe story casts serious doubt on that assertion, and raises the distinct possibility that the fatal accident of July 10 wasn’t just the result of incompetent workmanship but also of a deeply flawed design.

Thanks to a friend who helped me find it in an obscure corner of the Internet (shhh!), I’ve been able to download Bob Dylan’s weekly XM Radio program, “Theme Time Radio Hour.”

It’s a hoot. More than anything, I think Dylan’s comeback over the past decade is rooted in his rediscovering his sense of humor, and it’s certainly on display here. Every week, Dylan does an hour of music on a particular theme, spinning everything from Jimmie Rodgers tracks recorded in the late 1920s to Chuck Berry, Van Morrison and beyond.

This week’s theme was dogs. Here’s how Dylan opened: “Welcome to ‘Theme Time Radio Hour.’ Today we’re going to talk about a highly variable, carnivorous domesticated mammal — man’s best friend. And if you’re thinking dog, you’re right, buddy. So get off the couch, get yourself a bowl of water and heel.”

Dylan’s new album, “Modern Times,” will be out by the end of the month. I heard a preview recently, and it sounds pretty much like his last album, “Love and Theft” — or “‘Love and Theft'” as the Times fussily puts it in this piece by Jon Pareles. (Dylan was quoting, you see.)

All in all, it’s been a remarkable late-career return to form.

The New York Times’ Jack Curry offers a fairly brutal assessment of Josh Beckett, noting, among other things, that the Red Sox’ supposed co-ace has a 6.80 ERA against winning teams.

Media Nation is surprised and not surprised at the Sox’ collapse this weekend. On the one hand, the team has struggled against good teams all year, building up its soft first-place lead by feasting on the National League and the likes of the Baltimore Orioles.

On the other hand, I’m amazed at Beckett’s struggles, and at the huge differential between Coco Crisp and Johnny Damon. Beckett and Crisp seemingly have the swagger and the confidence to do well here. Maybe they will, but not until next year.

One more thing. I’ve heard enough stupid comments from people complaining about the Sox not making a move for Bobby Abreu. The Yankees made their deal for Abreu on the same day that Trot Nixon was hurt. Nixon was not exactly burning up the league, but he was having a decent season, and there was really no reason to replace him in right. The Sox have made some dumb moves this season, but that wasn’t one of them.

Here we go again.