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Monday, September 8, 2008
MSNBC dropping anchors in storm
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
MSNBC has announced that it is removing both Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews from election-related anchor responsibilities.
Good move. In fact, how were they ever put in that seat in the first place?
I’ve never watched Olbermann on TV, but I’ve caught one or two of his rants on YouTube. Not my cup of tea. He can be hilarious doing sports, but he seems to have become trapped by his own schtick on politics. Outrage doesn’t wear well over the long haul; eventually it becomes feigned.
I rarely if ever watch Matthews either, maybe because the last thing I want to do when I get home is watch more news and opinion. But Olbermann in particular has no place in an anchor position.
Neither does Lou Dobbs on CNN, by the way. The guy’s lost it. He’s unwatchable.
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‘Bridge to Nowhere’ leads to White House?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Is it possible to build a reputation as a straight-talking reformer upon a bald-faced lie? We may be about to find out.
In her speech to the GOP convention, Sarah Palin laid claim to the reformer title by boasting that she had told Congress “thanks but no thanks” for a $233 million federal earmark to build the infamous Bridge to Nowhere, which would have connected the mainland to an island with roughly 50 residents. That same boast is now being repeated in GOP TV ads and by John McCain as well.
“She, as governor, stood up and said, we don’t need it, and if we need it, we’ll pay for it ourselves,” McCain said Sunday. “Now, that’s guts. I saw that, and I said, this, this is what we need in Washington.”
Unfortunately, that version of events is contradicted by an extensive public record.
In her 2006 campaign for governor, Palin was a strong supporter of the bridge, as coverage at the time in the Anchorage Daily News makes clear. For example, she was asked the question point blank in a Q&A published Oct. 22, 2006:
Daily News: “Would you continue state funding for the proposed Knik Arm and Gravina Island bridges?
Palin: “Yes. I would like to see Alaska’s infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now - while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist.”
In an editorial on Oct. 26, 2006, the Anchorage Daily News criticized the project. But it also noted that “Republican candidate for governor Sarah Palin supports the airport bridge project, her spokesman says. Ms. Palin told KTUU-TV last week that she would look to the federal government to write more checks for the project.”
“Yeah, right,” the editorial went on to say. “Congress took so much nationwide grief over the money it already has forked over for the bridge that getting more is about as likely as Senate Democrats voting to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to wildcat oil drilling.”
Again, that was in fall 2006, after Congress had already killed an earmark for the bridge. By September 2007, it had become clear that federal funding for the bridge would never be resurrected and in fact was as dead as a caribou carcass. If the project was to be built, it would have to be with state funds. Then and only then did Palin come out against the boondoggle.
Oh, and by the way, the $233 million in federal funding did not go back to Washington, as Palin implies. Alaska still got that extra money; it just wasn’t earmarked for the bridge. The U.S. taxpayer still paid the bill.
Now, there is no way on earth that a reasonable person could look at those facts and conclude that Palin had indeed said “Thanks, but no thanks” to Congress. Yet she and the McCain camp continue to repeat that claim, a fact that demonstrates a profound contempt for the intelligence of the American people.
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State leaders fail metro Atlanta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Metro Atlanta generates far more tax revenue for Georgia than it receives in return, with most of that money going to assist communities and families in less prosperous parts of the state.
That’s fine. But in return, it does not seem too much to ask that state government address metro Atlanta’s critical transportation needs. The refusal to invest sufficiently in the metro region’s transportation infrastructure is already costing Atlanta a lot of jobs, which costs the rest of Georgia as well.
According to Sam Williams, president of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, this region has become a “truncated labor market.” Traffic congestion has gotten so bad that workers aren’t able to reach a lot of jobs they might otherwise take, and as a result businesses are forced to draw from a truncated pool of potential workers.
For example, a region the size of Atlanta could tell a prospective business that we have a pool of 2.5 million potential workers to draw from. But according to Williams, recruiting experts tell him that “congestion has truncated your 2.5 million workers down to probably 600,000. So you’re about the size of Charlotte, because your transportation system will not let your workers have access to your jobs.”
Of course, for most commuters in metro Atlanta, the problem is a little more immediate and down to earth: long, tiring commutes, draining time, energy and gasoline that are already in short supply these days. The quality of life that attracted many to this region has begun to decline, particularly in suburban areas, because people simply can’t get around to do the things they need to do.
And the big hurdle to doing something is taxes. Addressing our transportation needs will require billions of dollars, which scares state leaders to death.
In the last legislative session, metro Atlanta officials worked hard on a proposal that would have given metro voters the chance to impose a regional transportation sales tax, but in the end it failed by three votes in the Senate.
“I think there was an outcry, and almost an outrage, when the bill didn’t pass,” says Kessel Stelling, president of the Bank of North Georgia and Chamber chairman. “I can tell you when that vote failed by three votes, we didn’t attempt to embarrass any of our leaders, our legislative delegation, but we sure said we’ve got to hold them accountable.”
Officials at the Chamber and in local government —- Republicans and Democrats alike —- have made it clear to state leaders that the funding problem has to be addressed in the next legislative session. And slowly, the gravity of the situation does seem to be sinking in.
Unfortunately, with vacancies opening in the offices of governor and lieutenant governor in 2010, leaders and would-be leaders under the Gold Dome will be tempted to kill any funding plan advanced by rivals and insist that they get the credit for any plan that’s adopted.
And because much of the action is going to take place in the Republican primaries, getting any tax plan at all approved will be difficult.
Cobb County Chairman Sam Olens, a Republican who is eyeing a race for governor, says that state leaders have to bite the bullet anyway.
“If we decide we want nothing to do with the ‘T word,’ we have to accept that property values will go down, that we won’t be getting the kind of high-paying jobs we want, and that people will move elsewhere, because our quality of life will decline,” Olens said.
As he points out, final approval for a regional transportation sales tax would have to come from voters anyway, not from politicians.
And in the next few months, he warned, the true extent of the funding crisis facing the state Department of Transportation will become clear.
“That will come as a shock to the legislators and transportation stakeholders, because the extent of the crisis is significant,” he said.
The time to act is now, Olens said, because “the maturity of regional leaders and their ability to work together is better now than it has been in decades.”
Unfortunately, the opposite is true of leaders at the state level.
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