Arkansas Blog

If David O. Dodd were a D-G news reporter, God help Huckabee.

As I read Brummett's comments I found myself wondering how fun life must be for Alice Stewart. Judging from Huck's nasty emails when his blackberry went off.....daily life serving the Huckster must be a training ground in sadism and masochism.

Alice! My laundry wasn't picked up on Friday! Where are those nipple clamps? The printer is out of black ink! Crawl on your knees and get the duct tape. Oh yeah....Alice is having a great life. And just imagine what it's going to be like at the end of Huck's 15 minutes of fame? Will she be the next Chandra Levy?

Of course Huck isn't going to kill anyone, but towards the end I bet Alice wishes a fast bus would scatter her guts for a block.

I once had a boss who would come eat me alive every time his wife torn him a new one. He couldn't stand up to his wife, so he bashed his dorky 21 year old office help. I got where I prayed each night that Jewel would go easy on Ed the next morning before work...so I wouldn't have to suffer.

So Alice is probably bearing the wrath heaped on Huck's head by The Janet on days when Janet wakes up on the wrong side of the bed. Transference is a bitch! But it shows how desperate many people are for a paycheck. Maybe Princess Walters needs to worry about bullying in NLR and leave the kids in Greenwood alone.

Hopefully Alice caught The Daily Show last week, the one with Scott McClellan. Poor Scotty still fails to see that he was used like a paper towel and trashed. In his ears the scorn from the audience became praise.

He came off like a cockroach in a suit. He's apparently still wearing remotely controlled Bush nipple clamps. So be it for all those who pretend flax are gold.

Someday Brummett will write The Trouble With Alice and all will be made clear. Until then...keep cashing those paychecks Alice and keep icing those bruises. Might not hurt to brush up on saying, "Welcome to Walmart"...

In five months, Huckie will have cars up on blocks at his NLR digs. If there are legs sticking out from any of those old Chevys, they belong to Jetherine.

This is getting more attention at Daily Kos. Interesting story here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/28/171226/876

"And Now, The Rest of the Story" ????
Is the DOG saying their reporter got it wrong? If he did, then THEY have an obligation to correct that. But that's not what they're doing.
Huck's submission would have been appropriate for the Letters columns.
Great newspaper, right? Worthy opponent and conqueror of the oldest newspaper west of the Mississippi, right? Oh, sorry, the Demozette IS the oldest newspaper west of the Mississippi, right?
Riiiiight.
Damn Gannett Company . . .
Anyone taking bets on how long Seth Bromeley stays on?

And while I'm spitting, just exactly why is destroying computers a minor (or non-) issue? I might buy the argument that obsolete computers should be destroyed rather than take a chance that confidential information such as Social Security numbers might be revealed. But no one said they were obsolete. Heck, I might even let it slide if the computer in Huck's office was destroyed. But state police computers? Something smells funny.

Hung out to dry? This type of lack of support from upper management unfortunately is par for the course at the Dem-Gaz. (Disclaimer: to perhaps head off Hussman investing in spyware to check his employees' blog postings or instituting a loyalty oath system, I don't work there).

Those in the know are well aware that top editors at the Dem-Gaz have a selected few favorite "star" reporters who are fawned over, paid the big bucks and allowed to coast, writing a handful of stories a year. Generally, the chosen ones aren't the best or the brightest but have some educational pedigree (i.e, Ivy League) that for some reason dazzles those in charge. One year, the newsroom intern was (I kid you not) a chemistry major from Harvard.

Toadying to those at the top gets brownie points galore while actual reporting ability and work ethic typically are given short shrift. If you look at the byline count, you'll see that the Capitol Bureau reporters far outproduce any of their colleagues in the main newsroom, and break more than their share of stories, but their work generally is greeted with a ho-hum by people whose new judgment is seriously deficient. Their decisions on story placement are often head-scratching and sometimes asinine.

The decision by Walter Hussman to give Huckabee an unchallenged, front of section op-ed that presents no new facts of substance and essentially calls one of Hussman's long-term employees a liar is-and there's really no other word for it-despicable.

This should be a case study in journalism school about how journalistic integrity can be sacrificed to cater to the petty ego of an ambitious politician who just happens to be running for president.

I hope all the other reporters - the real ones - at the DG will get pissed enough to not let the Huck skate anymore. If they don't rally around one of their own, they will be seen as the real losers.

Note to Hussman, Greenburg, et al: Much as I'd enjoy Huck being selected as the Republican's choice for the office, it's not going to happen. So why give him a free ride?

1) Not a religious nut-job at all
2) Is a "food policeman" now like Bloomberg
3) Thinks everyone should run marathons now since he does
4) Arkansas education ranking improved from 49 to 29
5) Like free gifts, free doo-dads, and crushing government hard-drives
6) A couple of years ago started acting like Clinton and reversed course on lots of stuff...wonder why?
7) Very pro-illegal immigrant
8) Was very steady during crisis at start of his term
9) Was very steady and rational during 9/11
10) Opened the doors of Arkansas for Katrina refugees and spent a lot of money and effort taking care of them
11) Writes a lot of thin trade paperbacks telling us how to be better like him
12) Way soft-hearted in the are of pardoning criminals. If you got on a Governor's Mansion work-detail you were golden for getting out early apparently.

So there ya go....a big fat mixed bag of telling people what they want to hear, mixed with some leadership, mixed with flip-floppy, mixed with weepy do-gooderism. He is definitely a politician and will change course when need be. They said Clinton had no firm inner core....must be in the water.

I don't know what to tell you. He will probably frustrate everyone on both sides if elected by not being ideological on some things and ideological on one side, and then ideological on the other.

I suspect a Vice-Presidential bid in the end.

Being the second banana turned out pretty well for the Huckster on the state level. I wouldn't doubt veep has been his true aspiration the whole time -- or at least something to fall back on.

Surely he doesn't honestly believe he's got what it takes to get elected president.

Do we need to fear the kind of monkeyshines we saw in Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004? That whole thing just had a Rovian feel to it, which maybe we'll be spared in 2008.

www.explorehuckabee.com

ARK. BLOG: Thanks, James.Good to see you hanging in.

www.giveitupjames.com