Brummett's Blog

Who is this masked Huckabee?

2007-08-16T16:25:12Z

This is kind of wild. Politico.com has a blog item up just now about Mike Huckabee's appearing this morning at the Christian Science Monitor's monthly newsmaker breakfast and talking like John Edwards on economics while extolling religious tolerance, saying religous values ought to make one an environmentalist and praising Bill Clinton on foreign policy, but not George W. Bush.
Huckabee is trying to pull that magic straddle between the religious right and the swing center.
Here's what Our Boy Mike is quoted as saying: “The headlines are that the economy’s doing great. But if you go out and talk to the people who work on the floors of factories, or you talk to waitresses who are doing their second job and schoolteachers who have to work an extra job, you don’t get quite the confidence of how great the economy’s doing. There are a lot of people who are working harder than they ever worked, they’re staying at best even. But their cost of health care, their cost of fuel, their cost of college education means that no matter how hard they’ve worked, they’re not quite making it to the next level. That’s a sensitivity the president better have.”
“If you’re really going to say I’m applying my faith to the world on which I live, that has to conclude concerns about the environment, it has to include concerns about poverty and hunger. It can’t just be about abortions and same-sex marriage.”
“It’s ridiculous to think that any one political group owns God. That’s absurd.”
“We can’t ignore that there are kids every day in this country that literally don’t have enough food. And don’t have adequate drinking water. In America.”
A guy with the anti-government extremists called Club for Growth, asked to respond, sounded sickened.
“It sounds like John Edwards on his poverty tour,” executive director David Keating said.
Huckabee also had some kind words for Bill Clinton. This blog report at Politico.com said he grouped Clinton with Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan as presidents that had a “pretty darn good record of leading the country” despite lacking foreign policy experience when entering office. (Notably, he initially didn’t mention Bush in the grouping – but later said history would judge Bush “much better than his contemporaries.”)

Judge Miller

2007-08-13T20:14:45Z

Usually reliable word is that, owing to the recommendation of Arkansas' senators, Brian Miller, a 40-year-old African-American from West Helena, will soon be nominated to fill the federal judgeship vacancy in Arkansas created by the passing of George Howard.

Scooped

2007-08-08T19:59:09Z

I interviewed Gov. Beebe on Tuesday and, among other things, picked up a little item from him that I thought was a bit of a scoop — a clearer statement than he'd offered otherwise, at least. It's forthcoming in my Thursday column. I'll relate it now since I've received a call relating that Beebe got asked about the same thing today in Hot Springs, and shared the same information before an audience including reporters. It's this: Beebe has made clear to the natural gas industry that he believes Arkansas ought to get more than it's getting in severance taxes on natural gas and has advised the industry to agree to some legislative measure providing additional revenue or face the prospect of Beebe's leading an initiated act campaign to raise the severance tax by a vote of the electorate. Read more on that Thursday, along with a little tidbit about Beebe's possible forthcoming endorsement of Hillary Clinton.

Hillary in Arkansas

2007-07-26T14:04:36Z

Hillary Clinton, seemingly on her efficient way to the Democratic presidential nomination, and very possibly the presidency, is said by the Arkansas Times blog to be scheduled to dip into Arkansas on Aug. 20 for fund-raising appearances in Fayetteville and Little Rock. I happened to overhear that, in Little Rock, very tentative planning is for her to appear in the afternoon at a $150-a-person "young professionals reception," and, that evening, at a traditional $1,000 affair at the swank home of her friend/decorator, Kaki Hockersmith, who, in 2009, might be re-redecorating the Oval Office, even if it galls Maureen Dowd. A cheap-ticket afternoon affair would be smart. You extend yourself to a nontraditional fund-raising group, younger folks without the big bucks. And you net a little money in the process. Hillary has been doing smart things lately. In these regards, I'll have a column Sunday about how some experts speaking at the Clinton School the other night seem to be thinking it'll be Hillary v. Romney (Romney!?), and, for my national column published Monday around here, an essay on how it seemed clear to me that Hillary cleaned Obama's and Edwards' clocks in a transcendent moment in the YouTube debate on CNN the other night. Either she is a better politician than I used to think, or she has gotten a darned sight better. Or both.

State of the blog

2007-05-31T15:02:12Z

State Sen. Jim Argue, honored last night at the Peabody as one of four humanitarians of the year by Just Communities of Central Arkansas, formerly NCCJ, said this to me at the reception beforehand: "You're a terrible blogger. You never update it. I've quit even checking you." Don't I know it? I started so strong with this new toy during the legislative session. I'd see something in a Capitol corridor and blog it in real time. But I turned out to be a kid with a new toy, and kids tire of toys. I write five columns a week. I go around the state talking to groups. I play tennis four times a week. I need to cut the grass. I'm going on a two-week vacation in a couple of weeks. So, where does this blog stand? Dormant. But not dead. I reserve the right to jump-start the rascal whenever the mood strikes or events warrant. By the way, Joycelyn Elders was another honoree last night and said some fun stuff about sex that will be the subject of my Sunday column. You'll notice I save the good stuff for the newspaper. I'm incurably old media, I guess. Incurably old, period.

Next best thing

2007-05-18T13:35:02Z

Perhaps you recall my mentioning from time to time that I lead a class called "Behind the Headlines" each Wednesday morning at Second Presbyterian Church in Little Rock in the active-retiree program called "LifeQuest," formerly Shepherd Center. We have a good time and maybe a couple of hundred attend in the sanctuary. So next week I'll be in Fayetteville overnight Tuesday for what sounds interesting and fun, 10 minutes of commencement remarks to GED graduation. Not wanting to drive back to LR late at night or by 9 a.m. the next day, I had to get a sub for LifeQuest. So I got one. It's the governor, Mike Beebe. I appreciate his tinkering with his schedule to do it — not for me, but for those admirably active and thoroughly delightful retired folks. Fair warning to him: I encouraged these fine folks to ask him why he didn't show more initative and leadership and inject himself ad hoc into the Little Rock school mess for mediation. I told Beebe having him there would be the next best thing to having me. He replied, and I do not know what this had to do with it: "I know Dale Bumpers. Dale Bumpers is a friend of mine. You're no Dale Bumpers."

Crossroads

2007-05-18T13:22:04Z

I need to blog more or not at all. For the moment, I pick more. Let's talk about Mike Huckabee's supposed new viabilty as a Republican presidential candidate for making a joke. One — that says something about our political discourse, doesn't it? Two — I've said all along that his glibness will give him a fleeting moment in the sun. Three — I've also said all along, and I stole this from a fellow who can't be identified with it, that Huckabee is really running for cable talk show host. That's unless he gets the vice presidential nomination first. How about this: Hillary-Richardson versus McCain/Rudy-Huckabee? I think McCain, but Rudy showed me something in the debate the other night, seizing that Ron Paul-produced moment to play to his anti-terror strength and shift the spotlight from his social liberalism. Winning candidates show that kind of initiative and savvy. More on that in my national column, which, by the way, you can discover Sunday at reviewjournal.com before it shows up on Arkansas sites Monday at nwaonline.net or arkansasnews.com. Speaking of coming columns: Saturday's picks the best and worst of the recent legislative session. Sunday's seeks to stir a dollop of contoversy about the modern power of the Arkansas speaker of the House, the "mini-governor."

State of newspapers

2007-05-07T14:14:33Z

Walter Hussman, taking time out from running the Little Rock Public Schools, writes a commentary piece for the Wall Street Journal's on-line edition explaining that newspapers are "cannibalizing" themselves by offering free news, criticizing the AP for allowing Yahoo and Google and MSN to subscribe and bragging on himself for having subscription-only news for the Dem-Gaz on-line, and for using the on-line edition to tease, or, as he says, complement rather than cannibalize the paper product. He says we've made news a ubiquitous commodiity, and that that's a mistake. Actually, you can still get a lot of the D-G news free by going through nwanews.com, the Northwest Arkansas alliance with the Northwest Arkansas Times and Benton County Daily Record. And I have found myself weaned from Hussman's Little Rock paper product, mainly because the Arkansas Times blog tells me everything I need to know (immediately and with savvy attitude) about local news and I get national and international news elsewhere. The only things the D-G has locally that the Times blog doesn't are obituaries and local columnists who haven't managed to become required reading. But that's just me. There's a company I know of — well, I work for it — that seems to think the future viability of the paper product (well, at least one form of future viability) is in small towns and mid-sized towns where there are no on-line options for community news. It is interesting that while newspapers everywhere lost circulation in the recent cycle, three that gained were the D-G and the Stephens' ones in Northwest Arkansas and Fort Smith. You can almost always count on Arkansas to be different.

That GOP debate

2007-05-04T15:36:31Z

Well, the Republican presidential debate of last evening brings me out of blogging semi-retirement. I have a column for tomorrow ranking those characters 1 to 10, and doing so quite differently from this morning's emerging conventional pundit wisdom. Look for it at arkansasnews.com or nwaonline.net/opinion. I'll not scoop myself, but say this: I thought Huckabee was typically superficial and trivial, but his old pal and paid political consultant, Dick Morris, produces a column this morning calling him the third winner, with McCain, who scared me at times, and Romney, certainly the prettiest. I seem more impressed with Rudy than others were.

UPDATE -- GIRLS GONE

2007-04-23T18:40:54Z

A fantasy football league says it wants one of my Katie Award statues for use at its first-place trophy. One left.
UPDATE -- Now the second is promised to a guy claiming to have tipped the Arkansas Times blog to the stories in the Texas press about this scandal. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't; he can have this old girl either way.
One reader's idea, considered and rejected, was to donate the second to Market Street Cinema, which has a massive tub of popcorn named in my honor. I couldn't figure out what they'd want or do with it.
BTW: Fort Worth Star-Telegram says it's gonna ship its 14 Katies back. AP guy in Texas says they probably will too. Could be a lot of returning ahead, since signals are that '05 awards also dubious and '04 may be. Easier just to give the damned things away.

Update -- Beebe pays

2007-04-23T16:11:53Z

Based on my second inquiry in which I said I was probably going to elevate this matter from the blog to the real newspapers because I'd been shamed into it by readers, gubernatorial spin doctor Zac Wright says he has now checked and can report that Mike Beebe says the bookkeeping has been worked out and that his and Ginger's personal groceries are now kept separate from general Mansion operations and that the Beebes are paying for their personal foodstuffs themselves.

Should've known when Wally and I won

2007-04-23T15:00:15Z

There are these things called the Katie Awards. They are awarded annually by this thing called the Press Club of Dallas for supposed journalistic and other media excellence in a six-state region, though it appears only Texans and the occasional Oklahoman and Arkansawyer ever enter. The Dem-Gaz, when I was there, was always having cake and calling a staff assembly to brag on their victories. It always seems to mean something special in Arkansas to compete with Texans. A few years ago I availed myself of the fact that our Fort Smith paper, the Times-Record, regularly entered the competition, at an entry price, for medium-market papers and nominated the splendid cartoonist of ours next door to me, Vic Harville, who won rather routinely. Long story short: I've been a finalist four years running and a winner two years running in the second-biggest-newspaper category, in general column for '05 and in humor/satire for '06. You get this thing looking like a poor man's Oscar, a bronze statue about a foot tall called the Katie. So now the Texas media world is abuzz with the fact that it appears the Press Club was headed last year by a mentally ill woman with a criminal history who seems to have taken the couple thousand entries home and picked winners herself, bestowing on herself a record four for her work as regional correspondent for the New York-based Bond Buyer. It seems other journalists beheld her four and the work on which they were based and said, "What the hell?" She was asked to name the judges to whom she shipped the entries boxed by the Press Club staff, and all she came up with were strange names and a phone number for St. Jude's Hospital in Memphis. I cannot imagine why she wouldn't merely give herself one or two Katies. Why four? Well, perhaps that's the illness. Anyway, that I won and Wally Hall did, too, should have been a dead giveaway. That must have been the illness again, picking us, I mean. Her cry for help, perhaps. Can Texas do nothing right? First, George W., and now this. I've got these two large, tacky bookends if anyone wants them. You can probably remove the little plate on the base with my name. I'd send them back, but why should I go to the trouble? By the way, great story Sunday in Dallas Morning News about this mentally ill woman, who now has moved to corporate PR somewhere. Ought to win a Katie.

Huckabeebee

2007-04-10T18:32:10Z

One of the newspaper editors asked if I'd quit blogging. No, I've merely been dormant. I have five columns a week to write, and, anyway, this isn't the toy it was in the beginning. Nevertheless, here's a topic. I saw in a Max Brantley column that Mike Beebe charges public funds for his personal groceries at the Mansion, like Huckabee, but unlike Clinton and Bumpers, who admirably separated their personal foodstuffs from the residence's official foodstuffs. I couldn't believe it. Knowing Beebe, I thought he'd emulate Bumpers, not Huckabee. But all I get from Zac Wright, Beebe's chief spin doctor, is a technical defense based on arguable wording in an appropriation, and some smarting off for good measure. When I asked if Mike and Ginger's personal meals -- their coffee, their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches — were "operations" of the Governor's Mansion, Zac asked if I ate in my home. Yes, and pay for the groceries. BTW: I happen to know Beebe likes Shiraz, the heavy red wine, done especially well in Australia. Zac says Beebe doesn't charge the taxpayers for personal alcohol. Just personal coffee, personal steak, personal bread and milk. Zac also accuses me of pursuing a trivial matter. Perhaps. That's why I blog it instead of putting it in the newspaper. Now, in discussing this with many people, I have encountered some who say Mansion-provided personal groceries are the same thing as the Mansion itself - which is to say a perfectly legitimate gubernatorial perk. Of course the house and State Police escorts are for security. Don't know what the free food is for. Don't know that free food is safer than food you paid for. So, I leave it at that, except to say that, at noon today, some poor television reporter had Beebe on and referred to him as Gov. Huckabee. She was more insightful than she knew.

Mike and Mark

2007-03-30T17:20:34Z

A Republican blogger in Virginia reports interviewing Mike Huckabee, being impressed, and extracting Huckabee's faithful promise not to oppose Mark Pryor, of whom he reportedly spoke kindly. It's at tooconservative.com

Hall of Blah, Blah, Blah

2007-03-30T15:09:41Z

Well, it looks like the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame is going to get another hundred grand in taxpayer money from the General Improvement Fund for -- well, whatever the heck it wants. This is not a public agency. The appropriation doesn't even restrict the expenditure to development of the outfit's museum displays under eternal development in the Alltel Arena, a potentially worthwhile tourism purpose — but one that could be funded by this cultural committee handing out grants from real estate transfer tax proceeds, the ones they don't want the homeless to get for housing. This bill just hands over a hundred grand to a group that exists mostly to honor aging ex-Razorbacks with an annual cocktail reception. The outfit now has a foundation to raise money privately, but that mustn't be going too well, thus the taxpayers are forced into the breach. Sen. Salmon of NLR filed the bill, and, just now on the phone, didn't exactly overwhelm me with reasoning to justify such an appropriation. She got asked to put it in. The museum would be in her town. It's "Arkansas." Blah. Blah. Blah. Maybe the House will amend it at least to restrict the money's use to capital expenditures to erect the museum. Ideally it'd stomp the sucker flat. But I'm dreaming now. I'm coming next time with this Newspaper Hall of Fame — a hundred grand from your pocket to mine to throw an annual party honoring tired old journalists, present company included.