Month: July 2003

Howard Finemand on Howard Dean:

Howard Dean is a simmering teakettle of emotion, aspiration and edge. In these wrought-up times, it’s a persona that has considerable appeal to the grass roots of the Democratic Party, if not, as yet, to the nation at large. It’s made him a celebrity on the Internet, where his Web-based efforts are changing the face of campaigning. As governor of Vermont, he was known for his chesty confrontations. As an early foe of war in Iraq, he made acerbic comments that now look prescient. But Dean’s aura of disdain can cause him problems, too. His attacks on Democratic presidential rivals are delivered with all the grace and humor of a fedora-wearing hit man

Except for the “prescient” part, it’s right on.

The most recent comment from the Howard Dean campaign staff at the Lawrence Lessig blog reaches a whole new level of pandering:

We’re all big Lessig fans on the Internet Team, and it has been, as many have said, an historic week. Lessig quotes EFF founder Mitch Kapor as saying “Architecture is politics.” For me, what is so powerful about this campaign is how the Internet is completely changing the architecture of politics. We talk alot about how the energy and momentum is bottom-up, but I think what sometimes gets lost is how the innovation is bottom-up and person-to-person as well (or e2e as Lessig might say).

So we see that technology now enables politicians to do the same sleazy things in entirely new and innovative ways, and that’s progress.

In the last election, voters were asked by exit pollsters whether they were regular users of the Internet. Here’s how they answered:

Regular User of Internet	All…	Gore…	Bush…	Buchanan	Nader
Yes	64%	47%	49%	1%	3%
No	36%	51%	46%	1%	2%

It appears that George W. Bush is our first Internet president.

Presidential candidate Howard (“Shorty”) Dean took a break from a day of heavy pandering to minorities, in which he bravely condemned racial profiling at meetings of La Raza and the NAACP, to reach out to Lawrence Lessig’s blog audience with a strong denunciation of Big Media:

The Internet might soon be the last place where open dialogue occurs. One of the most dangerous things that has happened in the past few years is the deregulation of media ownership rules that began in 1996. Michael Powell and the Bush FCC are continuing that assault today (see the June 2nd ruling).

The danger of relaxing media ownership rules became clear to me when I saw what happened with the Dixie Chicks. But there?s an even bigger danger in the future, on the Internet. The FCC recently ruled that cable and phone based broadband providers be classified as information rather than telecommunications services. This is the first step in a process that could allow Internet providers to arbitrarily limit the content that users can access. The phone and cable industries could have the power to discriminate against content that they don?t control or– even worse– simply don?t like.

The media conglomerates now dominate almost half of the markets around the country, meaning Americans get less independent and frequently less dependable news, views and information. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson spoke of the fear that economic power would one day try to seize political power. No consolidated economic power has more opportunity to do this than the consolidated power of media.

Of course, it’s good that candidates for office are willing to stick their heads above ground to meet and greet potential voters on the Internet. But the usual routine of telling each audience what you think they want to hear isn’t going to cut it in this medium (you can ask Trent Lott and Howell Raines about that.) Dean copied his post to his own blog, and censored critical remarks from the comments section. Here’s one that was censored:

Good pandering, Dr. Dean, you?ve clearly done your homework, and I respect that.

Concentrations of economic power certainly are a threat to democracy, as we?ve learned in California where we face a huge budget crisis because our elected officials are beholden to the unions, trial lawyers, and casinos who elected them, so I?m glad you?re on the case, and you?ll have my support when you take on these special interests.

Other threats to democracy that have been identified by scholars include the awareness of the majority that they can vote themselves the contents of the treasury (Earned Income Tax Credit, for example) and a potential descent into tyranny predicted by Plato as politicians appeal to the baser passions of the majority. I?m glad you?re on to that one, too.

Under the strict regulation of media ownership we had 20 years ago, the regime to which you?d like to return, we could only get television news from three networks, all of which had exactly the same, elitist, left-of-center, Ivy League orientation. Deregulation brought us Murdoch, the only news organization with a different spin. As you would clearly like to shut down the Murdoch empire, you?re actually an advocate of less diversity of opinion in the media.

Bravo for you – choice is confusing, and it?s much better to have a Big Brother in Washington telling us how to think.

Speaking of censorship, the Dixie Chicks are actually doing fine, selling lots of (copyrighted) records and selling out their concerts, but that right-wing fascist Michael Savage is getting what he deserves, don?t you think? Richard Bennett

Oddly enough, the censors didn’t delete the responses to this comment, which should prove to the skeptical that it was in fact deleted.

So do you trust a guy who practices this kind of censorship on a puny little blog to regulate media with the kind of sweeping powers he says he wants, where he can decide which company is small enough to own each and every single media outlet in each and every market? That’s one of the things you have to decide as a voter as the campaign progresses.

California Insider Daniel Weintraub has been blogging some great stuff lately, so check him out if you’re the least bit interested in Cal politics, the recall, the budget, or liberty.

The Supreme Court’s varying opinions in the Texas sodomy case struck me as a politically motivated jockeying between the conservative faction and one more attuned to Senatorial sentiment. Libertarian law professor Randy Barnett finds some actual jurisprudence in the Kennedy opinion:

Contrary to what has been reported repeatedly in the press, the Court in Lawrence did not protect a “right of privacy.” Rather, it protected “liberty” — and without showing that the particular liberty in question is somehow “fundamental.”

I have to admit that my first take was hasty, and Barnett’s puts the issues into a much more coherent perspective. If he’s right, Lawrence sets the stage for a radical new turn by the court, and a very good one at that.

Via Hit and Run and Instapundit.