Search results for the tag, "Published Writing"
November 5th, 2009
A version of this blog post appeared on LindsayOlson.com on November 3, 2009.
If ever you’ve interviewed for a job you didn’t get, no doubt you’ve bumped into this unpleasant experience.
You interview, you send a follow-up letter—maybe even with some writing samples or references—and then you wait. A week or so goes by, and you check in, yet hear nothing. Another week passes, and your frustration mounts.
If you’re lucky, eventually you receive a form letter that the position has been filled.
Excuse me, but what the fuck?
If two parties take the time to schedule, prepare for, and meet for an interview, doesn’t common courtesy demand acknowledging subsequent communications? Is it that burdensome to respond with boilerplate such as, “We’ll let you know if we decide to move forward”? Straddling someone in limbo is just plain rude.
So what to do? A recruiter might advise you to keep your chin up and plug along. E-mails being ignored? Pick up the phone. Calls going to voice mail? Leave a message with an assistant.
Let me suggest an alternative. If a prospective employer refuses to give you the time of day, then check that company off your list.
Too often, we strain to craft the polite but pointed e-mail. “Just want to make sure you have everything you need?” “Was wondering if I should plan to uncork a champagne bottle this weekend?” “Thought I’d touch base…”
Instead, spurned job seekers would do better to take their talents elsewhere. Just because prospective employers tend to have the upper hand doesn’t mean they should abuse it. And just because prospective employees need jobs doesn’t mean they should let themselves be taken for granted.
Granted, many job seekers do not enjoy the luxury of being so choosy, especially when the unemployment rate stands at 9.8%. Yet this advice not only serves your self-respect; it’s also practical, grounded in the experience that if a company is interested in you, it will get back to you, usually promptly. When that doesn’t happen, rarely does following-up change minds. Move on.
August 24th, 2009
A version of this blog post appeared on GovLoop (August 24, 2009), TechRepublican (August 24, 2009), and K Street Cafe (August 25, 2009).
Everyone these days wants a blog. Blogs are known to be the most frequently updated—and thus most visited—facet of Web sites, and often form the crux of an organization’s online impact. Few, however, realize just how time-consuming and difficult blogging is.
Indeed, running a blogging consists not only in penning posts, but also in corralling them from colleagues and possibly guest contributors, editing them, and promoting them—not to mention moderating and responding to comments. As such, when considering a group blog for your organization, the following questions may facilitate a decision.
1. How many people on your staff can write well? Poor prose is a big turnoff, and crafting snappy paragraphs is a lot harder than banging out 140 characters apiece on Twitter. Put another way, anyone can swing a baseball bat; very few can hit pitches.
2. Do these people know how to write for the Web? Richard Posner and Gary Becker are two highly esteemed and well-published professors at the University of Chicago. But their joint blog—bogged down with long paragraphs and utterly devoid of links, pictures and blockquotes—is a textbook example of why online writing demands more than copying and pasting its offline counterpart.
3. Will managers give these people sufficient time to blog? Securing buy-in at the leadership level is critical. Otherwise, blogging will be treated as a distraction from “real work.”
4. Can these people each commit to X posts per month? One of the biggest reasons for failure in the blogosphere is infrequent posting. To be sure, a solid weekly post can be just as good as daily content, but unless you’re Sergey Brin, you’ll never build an audience by blogging sporadically.
5. Is there a blogger (either on staff or whom you can hire) who can serve as the editor? Not only do editors edit—correcting grammar, adding hyperlinks and pictures where appropriate, suggesting broader themes—and solicit content, they’re also responsible for the blog’s direction, consistency, and visibility. A blog without an editor is like a ship without a captain.*
6. Will the blog’s editor have the connections and standing throughout the organization to request and obtain content? If your editor is off site or lacks the respect of her peers, her ability to do her job will be compromised.
7. Will every post require approval by the C suite? If an executive or lawyer must vet everything, then a blog is more trouble than it’s worth.
On the other hand, a second set of eyes on anything for publication always is healthy—but within reason. The Cato Institute, which each day assigns a different staffer to approve each post, has found a happy medium between paranoia and prescience.
8. What niche will the blog exploit? In other words, why will people want to read it? If the niche is already occupied, how will your blog be better?
For these reasons, many blogs are stillborn. As with any project, a blog needs a strategic plan and ample resources. If you start with these boxes checked, the results can well repay the effort.
Related: Should Blogs Be Independent of or Integrated in Their Host Organization’s Web Site?
* Addendum (9/5/2009): The secret to the success of the many blogs on nytimes.com? Editors.
July 24th, 2009
A version of this blog post appeared on GovFresh, GovLoop, and K Street Cafe on July 25, 2009.
By now, it’s a cliché that Twitter has real-world value. Yet if you really want to appreciate both the usefulness and hipness of microblogging, try participating in a social media conference where live Tweeting is not only encouraged, the Tweets also are displayed on JumboTrons flanking the on-stage speaker.
Such was the case earlier this week at the Open Government and Innovations Conference. Held at the Convention Center in Washington, DC, the two-day conference brought together 700 “gov 2.0” types from the federal government and the consulting community that supports it. As such, not only did most attendees pack a Twitter-appified PDA; many also toted laptops or netbooks.
To meet such demand, the conference organizers established a hash tag—a unique series of characters (e.g., “ogi”), prefaced by a hash symbol (#)—to group together all #ogi Tweets. Tags, of course, are nothing new; what was new (at least for me) were the two JumboTrons that showcased, in real time on a 3×2 grid, each #ogi Tweet, coupled with the Tweeter’s headshot and user name.
Initially, this setup was overwhelming. With so many things competing for attention—the speaker, his PowerPoint presentation, Twitter, the JumboTrons, the legs of the blonde two tables over—distraction was easy. Yet as the conference proceeded, information overload gave way to information empowerment.
How? Instead of indulging our inner ADD, participants stayed focused. At the same time we typed, we listened. At the same time we listened, we read. Multitasking was not optional.
Yes, of course, such juggling can be dizzying. It’s not for everyone, and it’s not for philosophy seminars. But social media isn’t philosophy, especially for those of us who do it for a living. And when we attend a conference on a subject with which we’re already familiar, we learn not only from the speakers but also from our peers.
For instance, after a panel on how to make the federal acquisitions process more transparent, I carried out a Tweeted conversation, with Jaime Gracia, on how to make RFP responses public. When I wanted to attend multiple panels that were taking place simultaneously, the #ogi tag allowed me to be in two places at once. When questions were being solicited for Chief Information Officer, Vivek Kundra, even though my colleague, Steve Radick, was back in McLean, his tagged Tweet appeared on the JumboTron and soon made its way to Kundra.
The beauty of this live Tweet showcase is its combination of transcriptions with punditry; that is, while some record what’s being said, others prefer to add their own thoughts. Put another way, a live Tweet showcase crowdsources note-taking. The best notes are re-Tweeted, the best note-takers are followed, and, in the end, there’s a digital trail, complete with headshots and links, of contacts made, water cooler gossip, enlightened dialogue, and everything in-between.
But don’t take my word for it. Try it yourself at an upcoming gov 2.0 confab.
Addendum (7/27/2009): Ludo Van Vooren notes that the software used for the live Tweet showcase is called TwitterCamp.
Addendum (8/11/2009): Here’s another innovation from the OGI conference: The first-ever TweetBook, a compilation of hashgtagged tweets (in this case, #OGI). Don’t miss the pull-tweet on page 45.
July 13th, 2009
A version of this blog post appeared on the Next Right on July 13, 2009.
In his Pulitzer-winning biography, Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency, Barton Gellman recounts a conversation between former vice president Dan Quayle and newly sworn-in VP Dick Cheney:
“Dick, you know, you’re going to be doing a lot of this international traveling, you’re going to be doing all this political fundraising,” Quayle [said]. “I mean, this is what vice presidents do. We’ve all done it. You go back and look at what I did, or what Gore did.”
Cheney did that thing he does with one raised eyebrow, a smile on just the left side of his face.
“I have a different understanding with the president,” he said.
What exactly what was this “different understanding”? Gellman captures it perfectly in another reported nugget:
Days after [Hurricane Katrina] had passed, when he finally returned to Washington from Crawford, [President] Bush assembled his senior staff in the Oval Office. He was going to form a cabinet-level task force, he said.
“I asked Dick if he’d be interested in spearheading this,” Bush announced. “Let’s just say I didn’t get the most positive response.” Bush nodded ironically toward the vice president, putting on a show for the others: Card, Rove, Bartlett, Condi Rice. His expression, the tone of voice, had a hint of edge. Can you believe this guy?. . . .
“Will you at least go do a fact-finding trip for us?” Bush asked.
“That’ll probably be the extent of it, Mr. President, unless you order otherwise,” Cheney replied.
Leave aside for the moment whether you like or agree with Cheney. Can’t we all appreciate the sui generis power he wielded? The consequence-free autonomy? The chutzpah? Consider:
• He maneuvered the search committee he was leading to select a vice presidential candidate for then-Governor Bush such that he himself became the running mate—while maintaining a treasure trove of personal information about his would-be competitors.
• He argued, all the way to the Supreme Court, his right to keep private the names of those with whom he had devised a national energy strategy.
• He, rather than the president, issued the order to shoot down the unknown jetliner racing toward Washington on 9/11.
• He unilaterally exempted his office from the presidential order that requires executive branch personnel either to submit periodic reports on the classified information held in their offices, or to allow National Archives staff to conduct in-office inspections.
• He accidentally shot a friend in the face while quail hunting, and kept the incident under wraps for a full day.
• He, rather than the president, ordered the CIA to withhold information about a secret counterrrorism program from Congress.
Others have written at length about Cheney’s predilection for secrecy and executive power. But what fascinates me is Cheney’s psychology. He doesn’t care what you think. He’s a millionaire in his 60s who’s survived four heart attacks. He does what he wants, when he wants, and lets the chips fall where they may (for instance, a 13% approval rating upon leaving office).
There’s something wondrous, if not necessarily wonderful, about that.
July 7th, 2009
A version of this blog post appeared on K Street Cafe (July 7, 2009) and TechRepublican (July 8, 2009).
The staple of public relations is the press release. It’s been around forever; follows generally agreed guidelines for format, content, and length; and still succeeds in its objective to publicize the item in question.
And yet, bound by stale conventions that suffocate originality and don’t play well with multimedia, the press release has become obsolete. It’s not that there’s no longer a need to announce big news formally. It’s that there’s a better way to do it than drafting 400 words of boilerplate.
Indeed, as Claire Cain Miller reported in a much-discussed article last week, the pr agency representing Flickr never issued a release on its behalf—not even when Yahoo acquired the photo-sharing Web site. Similarly, when Google has exciting news to share, it does not use a wire service.
Rather, both companies self-publish blog posts. They do so, I suspect, not because blogs are hipper, but because they’re more genuine, more personal, and more flexible than their old media counterparts. Instead of a flack ghostwriting quotes for a CEO, the individual(s) who managed the project can craft a first-person narrative recounting the project’s past, present and future with pictures and videos and links. Then, as other bloggers pick up the post, “two days later, BusinessWeek calls,” as Donna Sokolsky Burke, of Spark PR, puts it.
When you visit Google’s online “press center,” the first thing listed is not press releases. It’s blog posts. If you think this is accidental, think again.
The press release is dead. Long live the press release.
Addendum (9/29/2009): Google recently celebrated its 11th birthday. To honor the occasion, the Next Web dug up Google’s first release, dated June 7, 1999.
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July 5th, 2009
A version of this blog post appeared on TechRepublican on July 7, 2009.
According to TwitterCounter.com, I joined Twitter two years ago. Yet only recently did I join the Twittersphere.
Let me explain. For the most part, I Twittered halfheartedly and sporadically (usually when captive on the metro). For months, I didn’t know how to check replies—or even understand the concept of “re-Tweeting” (RT). I used only Twitter.com, rather than experimenting with any of the dozens of programs that inject Twitter with steroids. In sum, I viewed Twitter the same way I view picture taking: I’d rather be doing the things being Tweeted or photographed, i.e., living rather than recording.
What changed this attitude (which, please note, prevailed over my personal account but not those of clients)? The light bulb was a Tweet I stumbled upon by Web strategist Jeremiah Owyang. His advice: Tweet “what’s important to me” instead of “what am I doing.” This pearl caused me to rethink micro-blogging.
For instance, instead of carping that the Clarendon metro escalators are not working yet again, I Tweeted this possible story to a few local reporters. Instead of trying to break the news that Sarah Palin has resigned, why not opine on it (ideally, in your best Wonkette way)? Instead of flattery, pose a question about the evolution of the thing you admire. Swap definitions of “success.” Debate FCC regulations. Engage in reciprocal promotion.
It took me a while, but I think I’ve learned the right lesson: Twitter is best not as a running tally of random things that happen in the course of your day, but as a vehicle for dialogue, engagement, interaction. To put it another way, Twitter is the world’s largest bar, and to gain the respect of strangers, you need first to respect the medium.
June 25th, 2009
A version of this blog post appeared on K Street Cafe on June 26, 2009.
This morning, I received an e-mail from NARAL Pro-Choice America. It began:
I was stunned when I saw the recent exchange between Ann Coulter and Bill O’Reilly [link added]. The one where she said, “I don’t really like to think of it as a murder. It was terminating Tiller in the 203rd trimester.”
This is the kind of rhetoric we ask you to stand against today.
To honor the legacy of Dr. George Tiller, and as a symbol of your commitment to furthering his pro-choice values, NARAL Pro-Choice America recently launched the “Trust Women” wristband campaign. Donate today and get your “Trust Women” wristbands.
Since you’re reading this blog, this sort of missive likely is familiar: An advocacy group uses a current cause celebre to gin up donations. (Incidentally, Coulter inspired a similar campaign two years ago when she called then-presidential candidate, John Edwards, a “faggot.”) Such ad hoc initiatives tend to be especially effective (even if their ability to counteract the given evil is questionable).
Yet as critical as they are, fund-raising e-mails today seem all-too common. By the same token, the opportunity to engage your members as activists rather than donors is all-too uncommon. Indeed, the ability to see its supporters as more than ATMs was one of several tactics that distinguished the Obama e-campaign from its peers. As Tim Dickinson observed in Rolling Stone,
Before long, the campaign had transformed hundreds of thousands of online donors into street-level activists. “Obama didn’t just take their money,” says Donna Brazile, Al Gore’s campaign manager in 2000. “He gave them seats at the table and allowed them to become players.”
As such, it seems that NARAL’s e-mail would have more been more powerful as an action alert. Instead of hitting people up for money in this still-dismal economy, the organization could have asked us to contact Fox News and/or our local affiliates, and request that Coulter’s contract be cancelled or that O’Reilly issue a clarification.
The resulting buzz might even have spurred some donations.
May 2nd, 2009
A version of this blog post appeared on LindsayOlson.com on May 1, 2009.
Would you hire this self-described Internet strategist? He rarely blogs, doesn’t much tweet, and uses YouTube for quick and dirty videos filmed with a Flip camera.
No? Would your mind change if you knew he were a veteran of Microsoft and Yahoo, whom the Washington Post described as “one of the elder statesmen in the … class of online political operatives”? What if NationalJournal.com credited him with expanding the Republican National Committee’s e-mail list from 1.8 million to 12 million, and “dramatically improving the party’s social media outreach”? His name: Cyrus Krohn.
What about this guru? He, too, rarely tweets, much less blogs, and enjoys only 285 Facebook friends. Yet he’s spent the past two and a half years building, from scratch, what the Politico ranks as the fourth best e-mail list in politics. Last year, PoliticsOnline and the World E-Democracy Forum named him one of the “Top 10 Changing the World of Internet and Politics.” His name: David Kralik.
Finally, while our third executive is active on Twitter, he has only 271 followers. He suspended his personal blog more than a year ago, and only rarely comments on the blog he helped found, RedState. His day job? Executive Vice President at Edelman, the largest independent pr firm, where he runs the digital public affairs practice and his clients include Wal-Mart and the American Petroleum Institute. His name: Michael Krempasky.
Clearly, these guys are major players in digital media. They speak at conferences, command sizable salaries, and boast enviable records of accomplishment.
Yet their efforts at personal branding—their own PR—are relatively lackluster. They’re behind-the-scenes operators, who keep their heads down. They’ll give a quote to a reporter, but client work is their priority.
And yet, if these folks were job searching, today’s recruiters no doubt would advise them to raise their own profile—to beef up their LinkedIn page, optimize the search engine results for their names, and start publishing thought-leadership pieces.
This advice is well taken, but perhaps overdispensed. Even if you work in digital media, you need not have 500 Facebook friends, as David All asks of his potential employees. While understanding the medium requires engaging it, you’d do just as well to help a client gain 10,000 Twitter followers than attain this feat for yourself. As Sean Hackbarth can attest, even being a well-connected blogger with nine years of experience does not guarantee gainful employment.
Put another way, Show me what you’ve done for others, and I’ll discern who are.
Addendum: Tim Cameron refers me to another underbranded expert: Blue State Digital Founding Partner and Obama for America New Media Director, Joe Rospars.
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February 25th, 2009
In my first op-ed in a while, I answer this question today at PRWeek. Here’s the text:
Clients often ask, What is new media? To answer this, I like to step back and ask, What is public relations?
Public relations is the practice of improving public perception. In a word, it’s promotion. A corollary of this is strategizing: What media should you use to get your message out?
New media is simply one of these outlets; specifically—and appropriately—it’s the newest outlet. But instead of developing relationships with producers on TV and radio shows, or editors and reporters at newspapers and magazines, we new media folk work with online sources: bloggers, podcasters, Web masters, news aggregators.
Our old media colleagues spend their days on the phone with journalists, meeting them for coffee, drafting press releases, crafting pitches, and compiling media lists. In essence, we do the same thing, but with a different vocabulary and under different rules.
The first difference is that reporters report because it’s their job. By contrast, bloggers blog because it’s their hobby; it’s what they do for fun.
Second, whereas reporters carry business cards, have a business phone number, and are typically always accessible via BlackBerry, bloggers rarely list their phone numbers, let alone their addresses, and often work in the early morning or at night. In fact, many of Matt Drudge’s best sources—even his West Coast editor—never talk with him on the phone; their entire relationship revolves around e-mail.
Third, anything a reporter writes—even the idea to pursue a story—is signed-off and then vetted by at least one editor. By contrast, bloggers write what pops into their mind. Similarly, there are no officially observed rules regarding “off the record” or “on background.” Unlike Judy Miller, bloggers are not going to go to jail to protect you as a confidential source, and it’s as easy as copying and pasting for a blogger to publish what you thought was private correspondence.
Finally, while reporters have long relied on PR people, bloggers tend to be skeptical of us. The reason: While it’s common to spam a hundred reporters with a press release, this is a cardinal sin within the blogosphere. A press release clutters a blogger’s inbox, which, again, is personal rather than one his paycheck requires him to monitor. A release is usually irrelevant, and the lack of personalization, especially if he’s CCed, or worse, BCCed, is insulting.
In fact, if you send a high-profile blogger a press release, you may very well find your e-mail address being made public as a result—which, of course, subjects you to real spammers. What’s worse, they may threaten to blacklist members of your firm.
None of this is to paint bloggers with a bad brush. I think the world of these people, and, in fact, am one myself. But in order to get the results you want, it behooves you to treat bloggers on their terms, rather than your own.
November 19th, 2008
After much procrastination, I just published my first post at K Street Cafe, a blog “where experts from a variety of backgrounds share new and novel ways technology, the Internet and social media are being used to shape public policies.” Many thanks to the Adfero Group for devoting its stellar resources to the blog, and for allowing me to contribute. (My next post, inspired by Bill Beutler, will focus on the use and abuse of Wikipedia.)
In the continuing debate over new media vs. old media—what’s online vs. what’s offline—the sub-debate about advertising is instructive.
On one hand, online ads are vulnerable to the tyranny of choice. The metrics can be overwhelming, the jargon can be off-putting and success can be mistaken for failure. Moreover, unlike traditional ad buys, online campaigns demand continuous monitoring and fine-tuning.
On the other hand, if you’re tired of one-off shots in the dark—where your one-page spread for life insurance runs opposite to an article on video games, or your spot for an SUV runs in the middle of a segment on high gas prices—then online ads may be right for your organization. Here’s why:
1. Cost. Online ads are cheap—cheaper than their print and broadcast counterparts. Rather than pay for exposure, you pay only when your ad is actually clicked on.
2. Targeting. Online ads allow you to reach niche demographics. Rather than throwing your ad in front of a general audience, you can narrowly tailor your target search criteria.
3. Flexibility. Online ads can be changed on the fly. Rather than getting one chance to craft the perfect ad, you can optimize your creative as conditions warrant for maximum performance.
4. Measurement. Online ads come with reams of statistics. Rather than rely on word of mouth or voluntary disclosure to ascertain your ad’s success, you can get the unfiltered data first hand.
Okay, I’m sold, you say, but where do I begin? Which programs should I use? Since the Web’s sweet spot in its customizability, I tend to prefer do-it-yourself (DIY) platforms over fixed buys. Of the various DIY options, here are the two I consider to be the best (runners-up include LinkedIn and MySpace):
1. Google. As you might conjecture, Google offers not only the biggest audience but also the Internet’s most sophisticated ad program. Its ability to track “conversions”—that is, how many people who click on your ads go on to execute a desired action, like clicking a “donate” or “subscribe” button—is priceless.
The difficulty, however, lies in the learning curve to master Google’s algorithm, which penalizes ads whose copy does not painstakingly correspond with both the text of the Web page it is linked to and the search phrases for which it is configured to display. Compounding these challenges are decisions on whether to display your ads wherever Google ads appear or just on Google.com, and how much to bid on each search term. Happily, Google’s help files are excellent, and the company offers a toll-free phone number where staffers will answer your questions patiently and proficiently. In fact, given two weeks’ notice, Google will optimize your campaign for free.
Conclusion: Google ads can be as frustrating for beginners as it is potent for experts. If you’re willing to invest the time and have a place for advertising in your long-range plans, then go for it—you might just be the next Eric Frenchman.
2. Facebook. While some have criticized Facebook ads as a “failure” and lackluster, they offer unparalleled microtargeting in ways that would make Karl Rove salivate, and they couldn’t be easier to create, change, or evaluate. Want to reach single women in Seattle who are older than 21 and work at Microsoft? Go ahead—there are 160 of them on Facebook, and your ads will only appear in front of this demographic, thus ensuring that not a single set of eyeballs goes to waste.
The downside: Facebookers are predominantly young. Of the socnet’s 35.8 million users in the United States, 14.7 million are 21 or younger, and 27 million are 30 or younger.
Conclusion: For its simplicity and deep data, Facebook is both a beginner’s tool and a marketer’s dream.
To borrow a line from Tom Friedman, the Internet has flattened the field of advertising, pulling back the curtain on this one-time specialty and allowing us Web flacks to add another quiver to our advocacy arrow. We should do so not because the quiver is newfangled, but because it’s effective.
November 11th, 2008
In the first week of my first job, my boss sent me the following e-mail:
“Jonathan: Please find out who voted for BCRA.”
My first instinct was to reply, “Hi Bill: So sorry about this, but I don’t know what BCRA is.” Fortunately, before clicking Send, I rethought my response and instead Googled “BCRA.” Ten seconds later, I found the answer: BCRA stood for the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, otherwise known as McCain-Feingold.
These differing responses represent the two types of employees. The first response, which foists the burden back onto the questioner, comes from the slothful employee, who wants to go about his job without exertion and who does not seek success. The second response, which embraces the burden, comes from the achiever. He may not know the answer—and even be utterly ignorant of the subject—but he takes it upon himself to learn. He is averse to answering a question with a question, and considers it a failure if he cannot do what is asked, even with limited information. (A third response, research without success, is fine, as long as the research is undertaken in good faith.)
In short, the slothful employee presents his boss with problems, whereas the achiever presents him with solutions. One is a problem; the other is a problem-solver.
Think about which person you are the next time you receive a request—and not just from a superior—which asks for something about which you’re ignorant. Instead of reaching for the Reply button, scroll a little farther for the search bar. You may surprise yourself.
November 29th, 2007
A version of this blog post appeared on Redstate on December 1, 2007.
Those running for president are asking us them to trust them with the launch codes to the world’s most powerful and largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. Surely, then, it’s perfectly appropriate to question their judgment.
The most controversial of these judgments concerns—ironically—the candidates’ most cherished beliefs, which is to say their religious convictions.
Let’s get the caveats out of the way: The candidates are running to be our president, not our priest, so whether they say grace or how often they attend church is inconsequential.
Yet since each one has professed to be a person of deeply felt faith, they have all thereby invited us to probe what that means.
Not because, as Christopher Hitchens would have it, religion is evil—from far it—but because anything—be it religion, a book or even a wife—which a candidates claims significantly informs his thinking, warrants scrutiny.
Addendum (12/7/2007): John Dickerson points out another paradox:
[Mitt Romney] claim[s] that for voters to ask questions about his faith runs afoul of the founders’ prohibition against religious tests for office. But the legal prohibition refers to government barring people from becoming a candidate or holding office. It does not bar voters from considering religion as they make their choices.
Also, the WSJ observes that evangelical bigotry toward Mormons is grossly misplaced:
Mormons seem the very embodiment of “family values,” and you couldn’t invent a religious culture that lived more consistently with Biblical messages. Broadly speaking, most Mormons have, and come from, big families; they’re regular churchgoers and give to charity; they don’t drink, smoke, gamble or engage in premarital sex. On the scale of American problems, the Mormons don’t even register.
September 28th, 2007
A version of this blog post appeared on TechRepublican.
The e-mail arrived yesterday at 7:19 pm. It was titled, “Cancellation: September Party at John’s House,” and the first sentence struck me like a sharp gust of wind: “We are sorry to announce the passing of John Berthoud.”
What!? I had seen John just last night, at the E Street Theater for the premier of The Call of the Entrepreneur. In fact, as we walked into the movie room along with a couple of NTU colleagues, the theater was so packed that we couldn’t find a group of seats together. John’s solution: he found an open seat, and instead of availing himself of it, said I should take it.
Later, at the after-party, I found myself chatting with NTU’s newest employee, who had just finished her third day. As John was leaving, he stopped by, and our last exchange went like this: “You know,” I said, “It’s pretty cool to have a boss who not only hangs out with you after work, but who’s also cool enough to be someone you want to hang out with.” John’s reply: “Dude, the job’s already been filled.”
This was John: selfless and dependable, witty and fun.
Whenever we took a taxi somewhere, John insisted that he pay. As he once e-mailed me, “You’re a poor indigent 20-something, so I’ll cover the cab.”
Another e-mail captures the same sentiment. “Amigo— I’m going to pop by this party on Water Street this evening. Want my Red Top [Cab] chauffeur to swing by and pick you up?” I said yes, but asked if we could leave 15 minutes earlier. “Anybody who—post-college—can swim a 200 free in two fricking minutes clearly shouldn’t be left tapping his fingers,” he wrote back.
Similarly, at the happy hours we both frequented, it was not unusual for John, finding his drink running low, to ask whatever circle of people he was in what he could bring them back from the bar. There was no ulterior motive; there was even no expectation of reciprocity. This was unqualified generosity—a happiness to be in the company of others, to meet new people and to enjoy life as it came.
I met John when I worked a few blocks away from NTU, in Old Town, Alexandria. We were just acquaintances until about six months ago, when we realized that a woman he had dated was the same one who got me my first job. After that, we became fast friends, both firmly believing in limited government and living a few minutes away from one another in the Clarendon section of Arlington.
You wouldn’t know it if you didn’t ask, but John was not only an advocate, having run NTU for the past 11 years, but also a scholar, having received a PhD from Yale and taught at George Washington University. Indeed, the fight for freedom lost a major figure yesterday, and I lost a great buddy.
Addendum: Jon Henke, Rob Bluey, CAGW, David Keating, Mike Krempasky, ALEC, Mary Katherine Ham, and Mike Pence each offer their own tributes to John.
Addendum: Another glowing tribute, from John’s ex-wife, Maria:
Reading the funny stories that some of you shared here about John made me smile (which has been hard to do for the past 24 hours), because so many of you captured his dry wit and humor perfectly, and everyone captured his passion and dedication to his work. Although John and I have been divorced for five years, the 10 years we spent together made me who I am today, and I will always be grateful for the time I had with John. Besides being the man I loved, and will always love, John was also my first real mentor in the work world, and there is no one I respected more, as his dedication to his work was immeasurable. But as his brother Charlie mentioned, so many people didn’t know the other side of John—his family, and how much he loved his brothers and their wives and children, and his mother and late father. His family meant the world to him. Those in the conservative movement lost a true hero yesterday, but his family lost a beloved member. I cannot imagine what the holidays will be like this year for his family without John’s presence. God bless his wonderful family, and God bless John, an absolutely amazing man that I was lucky enough to have had in my life for so long, and known so well. Goodbye for now JEB.
August 15th, 2007
Many of us are frustrated with the war in Iraq. No one doubts that serious mistakes have been made, and everyone is anxious for a panacea.
The problem is, instant gratification is not a strategy. Instant gratification, while emotionally pleasing, will only require our future return to mop up the metastasized mess.
First, consider the calls to cut our losses and redeploy. Presidential candidate and New Mexico Governor, Bill Richardson, wants to “bring all the troops home … in six months, with no residual forces.”
But as Richardson’s colleague, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden, retorts, “It’s time to start to tell the truth” about such withdrawal. “If we started today, it would take one year—one year—to get 160,000 troops physically out of Iraq.” Indeed, 19 years ago, it took the Soviets nine months to extract 120,000 men from Afghanistan, and they were simply going next door.
Slowing things down further is the staggering amount of stuff we would need to take with us—or destroy or sell if we couldn’t, lest it fall into the wrong hands. According to Time magazine, the U.S. currently has 45,000 ground-combat vehicles in Iraq, spread out across 15 bases, 38 supply depots, 18 fuel-supply centers and 10 ammo dumps. Equally daunting, equipment re-entering the United States must be inspected for any microscopic diseases.
Moreover, the price of pulling out prematurely is gigantic and grave. In the north, Kurds and Arabs would do battle for oil wells, as Kurdistan drifted toward independence, instigating skirmishes with, and possibly an invasion by, Turkey. In the south, an emboldened Iran would stop pussyfooting and uncork its influence, establishing a theocratic Shiite foothold, with neighborhoods controlled by militias like the Badr Organization and the Mahdi Army. The middle of the country would erupt in a bloodbath.
Those who contend that Iraq cannot get much worse than it is now would do well to remember that this was the same refrain about Lebanon before civil war enveloped that country and about Somalia before the U.S. rushed out in 1993. In short, the only thing standing between the shaky stability of present-day Iraq and an ethno-sectarian inferno scorching the Persian Gulf is the United States armed forces.
We should also honor our humanitarian obligation to leave Iraq more stable and more secure than we found it. To paraphrase Colin Powell, We broke it, so we own it; now we must fix it.
Finally, retreating without a decisive victory would perpetuate our enemies’ perception of us as a paper tiger. Early evacuation might also trigger an arms race among our friends and allies, who would no longer trust the weak-kneed U.S. to defend them, and it would surely endanger our diplomats around the world, who would become tempting targets for every would-be, tin-pot terrorist who questioned American resolve.
So, where do we go from here? Iraq today is at a crossroads. Prudence dictates that we stay the course until at least September 15, when Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, will deliver a report detailing our progress, or lack thereof.
In the meantime, preventing the country—and thus the Gulf, and thus the world—from slipping beyond repair will take patience and cause pain. But whatever our instincts may demand, a brighter future for the Iraqi people and vindication that American lives have not been lost in vain is still very much possible.
August 7th, 2007
A version of this blog post appeared on Redstate on August 7, 2007.
Legislation: H.R. 3162, the Children’s Health and Medicare Protection Act of 2007.
Background: Established in 1997, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP, pronounced “s-chip”) is a partnership between the states and federal government to insure poor children. The program is up for reauthorization by September 30, but big-government liberals want not just to renew it, but also to expand it.
The problem is, the expansion contradicts SCHIP’s original, limited intent.
First, it redefines eligibility by recognizing people up to 21 as “children.”
Second, it extends coverage to a family of four with an income of $82,600—hardly a “low-income” group.
Third, by removing the requirement for reauthorization, it transforms SCHIP from its current block grant status into a permanent entitlement, like Medicaid, which is automatically funded every year, regardless of congressional approval.
Thus, what’s being proposed is not reauthorization but repudiation. SCHIP was intended to insure kids. Now it’s being exploited to encompass adults and even wealthy families. Instead of distorting language and creating new entitlement programs, we should reaffirm sensible age, income and reauthorization parameters.
Furthermore, the proposed expansion crowds out private insurers in favor of government health care. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the bill will cause nearly two million people to abandon market-based medicine for Washington-based mandates.
In order to avoid caricature, this debate is not about whether to insure poor children. This debate is about how to insure them: not via welfare-style coverage, but via market forces that have facilitated the world’s most advanced drugs and cures.
Finally, at a time of ballooning deficits, expanding SCHIP makes a mockery of fiscal responsibility. According to CBO estimates, the bill will cost nearly $60 billion over 10 years, which is 10 times President Bush’s budget request.
Moreover, in order to finance all this, smokers would be hit with an extra half dollar in taxes for every pack of cigarettes they buy. Such a sin tax is inequitable and regressive.
Democrats are picking up where Hillary Clinton left off 14 years ago. Their Hillary Care-lite legislation deserves the same fate as hers: ignominious defeat.
Posted by Jonathan Rick in 
Before entering the digital space…
I flacked for the American Conservative Union and the Cato Institute, and reported for Time magazine and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.