MICHAEL O. ALLEN

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Freyne exits stage right

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Peter Freyne, R.I.P

I am not familiar with Seven Days, the publication that Peter Freyne last worked for, but I don’t believe that’s the paper he worked for when I toiled as a general assignment reporter at the Burlington Free Press from 1988 to 1990. I was always wary of him but, since I did not delve too much into political coverage, he never trained his sight on me. A Vermont friend sent me a message on Facebook that Peter had died. The message included the bit below:

Peter Freyne never missed a deadline in the 13 years he worked for Seven Days. He delivered his political column, “Inside Track,” every Tuesday by 4 p.m. and was never subtle about it. Shortly after emailing his article, Freyne would show up at the office to answer questions, argue, check last-minute facts and, depending on his mood, terrorize our staff. His column was the last thing we squeezed into the paper before sending it to press.

So it’s ironic – not to mention premature and terribly sad – that Peter Freyne left this Earth early on a Wednesday. After battling cancer, seizures and a strep infection that spread to his brain, he died peacefully at Fletcher Allen Health Care at 12:26 a.m. today – six hours after our weekly deadline. Did he have a hand in the timing of his final departure, knowing the news would break just after the paper went to bed? We wouldn’t put it past him to go out with a poke.

Freyne, 59, came out of the bar-stool school of journalism, along with his hero, Chicago newspapermen Mike Royko. He never went to school to learn to be a political columnist, but brought his considerable and diverse life experiences to a fun and informative “Inside Track” that originated in the Vanguard Press, Burlington’s original alt weekly, in the late ’80s. Freyne was the rare reporter who could skewer a politician in print and have a drink with him two days later. Many of his “victims” became his sources – and in some cases, friends.

Freyne gave up drinking and smoking. And Vermont journalism has been a lot less lively since he retired last June. Here’s a video that Eva Sollberger made of Freyne right after that, when Seven Days readers once again named him the state’s “Best Print Journalist” in our annual Daysies survey.

His passing marks the end of an era. He may have planned that, too. Please direct press inquiries to Seven Days Co-editor Pamela Polston.

January 7, 2009
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Enough, already, about Palin’s clothes!

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I’ve got no love for Sarah Palin. I think she’s awful on many levels. But I’ve about had it with stories about how much her clothes cost. The most recent revelation appears to be that the RNC spent $165,000 on three stylists to give the Alaska governor a wardrobe makeover.

So what? Yes, it sounds like a lot of money, but that is apparently what top-notch stylists cost. (Nice work if you can get it.) The Times article explains that the aggregate amount is not out of line with what a movie studio might spend on stylists for an A-list actress.

The job of Vice President is at least as important as actress. It’s also a job where appearances count — at least in a campaign. And, like it or not, women face a double standard on their looks.

Have you ever seen pictures of Palin from her pre-veep days? She would never have survived the scrutiny of a national campaign with the clothes in her closet.

In my view this was money well spent.

Cross-posted from Facebook.

December 6, 2008
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an ode to a great guy and a great editor

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I arrived at the Burlington Free Press in Vermont 20 years ago almost to the day.

I stayed in Vermont for almost two years, first visiting frequently after leaving, then those visits peterring out to where I have not been to Vermont in several years now. As it turned out, my Vermont time was a wonder time. I met many great people, people that I remain immensely fond of to this day.

One of my early editors was Rob Eley. Rob was tough but fair. Invariably, Rob would be on the desk when I called cop shops around the region and banged out stories late at night. Though we were on deadline, it was never a tense situation because Rob, in his soft-spoken way, eased the tension.

He might occasionally start a koosh war and he would give as good as he got but it was always in good fun. And the paper got out on time.

When I later graduated to a beat covering development and the environment, Rob was both my champion and an advocate for my work. He always had my back, even when he was not directly editing me.

I left the Free Press, traveled far and wide, and covered many stories over the past two decades, worked with many, many newspaper editors. Rob, besides being a great human being, was also my yardstick of what a good editor should be.

I did not meet many who measured up.

I don’t know why but I’ve never told Rob any of this. I am writing this now because a friend left me a note saying Rob has been laid off.

Newspapers are in the process of mastering the impossible: putting out the paper without reporters (it’s easy: just have someone out in Bangalore working for pennies watch a video of the council meeting and write a story).

But I never thought they would try to put out the paper without good editors.

December 4, 2008
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City for $ale*

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Alvaro Diaz-Rubio
I am a big fan of Wayne Barrett of the Village Voice. The past week ended without me hearing much about his piece exposing New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the seamy dealings he pulled to get the city’s money and political class to knuckle under and allow him to run for a third term as mayor.

This is the opening paragraph of The Transformation of Mike Bloomberg:
Mike Bloomberg is the best mayor—in fact, the best state or city chief executive—I’ve covered in 31 years at the Voice. He’s also the worst.
The piece then went on to describe how Bloomberg’s money and power has corrupted every institution and seeped into every fabric of city life, to the point where no one, hoping some of his largess would come their way, would dare oppose him on anything. This is how Barrett closed:
I remember in the early Bloomberg days—seizing any opportunity to observe, with pleasure—that his money had bought us a leader that was finally free of the circle of donors, lobbyists, and powerbrokers that consumed earlier mayors and confounded the public good.

His message, and it once was true, was that he owed nothing to anybody. He began parceling himself out in the 2005 campaign, when he did five contracts with unions that endorsed him and spent more of our money to re-elect himself than his own. And since his re-election was never in doubt, he dipped into his money and ours, it turned out, for vanity: It merely increased his margin of victory. Imagine how many own a piece of him now.

If you believe it’s worth all of this to get a savvy hand at the tiller in turbulent times, think back to what the Times wrote in 2001 when they endorsed his opponent: “Even within the annals of businessmen-candidates, he is ill-matched to the job he covets. His company has no stockholders and no unions. It is a brand-new business, its corporate culture and decision-making structure devised to suit his character. . . . Many of Mr. Bloomberg’s greatest talents would turn out to be utterly beside the point.” When the bursting collective bargaining, pension, and debt costs of the recent Bloomberg boom years are considered, the Times of old might have had a point. As it also had as recently as June 9, when it warned against a term-limits gambit and urged Bloomberg to seek another office: “We are wary of changing the rules just to suit the ambition of a particular politician.”

Bloomberg is so set on writing his own story that he decided to produce a memoir, set for release just as he left City Hall. He asked Margaret Carlson, who is on Bloomberg L.P.’s payroll, to collaborate on it. But he recently put it off, the Times said, because he was worried about its “boastful tone” possibly turning off voters. The book might have had other, related problems: A tell-all is fine for someone walking away from the game, but not for someone about to begin a new campaign. The claimed successes might have been an irresistible target for reporters, and the petty side of Mike may have led him to dish on people he now needs to seduce one more time. Obviously, most candidates would think that a bestseller in a campaign year, with a 300,000 initial printing, would be an asset. But not Mike, who isn’t ready yet to buy his own history. He’s determined, regardless of the moral costs, to make history instead.

Barrett’s piece is a cautionary tale. It says that whatever good Bloomberg may have meant the city, his money and power has become too corrupting, that the good citizens of Gotham would do well turn their back on their putative savior from financial doom.
November 24, 2008
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Learnin’

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What I’m Learning (Slowly) From Obama


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By Jim Sleeper, TPMCafé, November 11, 2008

It’s well known by now that Barack Obama learns from his mistakes and tries hard not to make them twice. So can those of us who supported him. Even here on what we fancy is the right side of history, we can look at our own mistakes candidly in order to learn from them, painful though that may be.

My use of “we” is rhetorical, if not imperial, of course, since my own performance as a commentator was so flawless. But, seriously, folks: Obama has a lot to teach at least a few of us about managing anger and about subordinating our righteous moralism to strategic generosity in order to win truly moral gains.

Right though I am to have insisted, from years of experience, that whites would vote in large numbers for blacks (See the “Voting Wrongs” chapter in Liberal Racism, or this 1996 article from The New Republic),-I was wrong to be churlish and self-righteous toward white-liberal and black activist defenders of racial-identity politics who built their careers and politics on the presumption of racial bloc voting – and, indeed, on the presumption that racial groupthink is the flywheel of politics and public policy.

Wrong though their own presumptions were, those people had plausible reasons for clinging to them. And the irony is that even as Obama – the candidate I could only dream of as I wrote Liberal Racism — vindicated my insistence that movements for justice have to transcend race in order to uproot racism and some of its structural supports, it was I who wavered in that faith as the test of Nov. 4 drew nigh.

Continue . . .

November 12, 2008
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‘Race’ in Obama’s victory

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In the waning days of the campaign, as I struggled to overcome my deep pessimism that this could actually happen, that Americans would actually elect a black man president, I began to let go of my anger for the noxious and dishonorable that campaign he ran against our now president-elect Barack Obama.

I have never worshiped at the Cult of John McCain, never believed him to be the truth-telling, straight-talking, national war hero. I felt that he showed himself during the campaign to be the craven, corrupt politicians that he truly is. McCain’s campaign, at times, seemed to be inviting people to kill that traitorous and treasonous character they were running against, a fictional character named Barack Hussein Obama. As the campaign wore on, I felt McCain deserved to have his name go down in infamy with Joe McCarthy and others who have besmirched our history.

I began to cope with my paralyzing anxiety about the outcome of the election by letting go of my anger at McCain.

I liked that he promptly came out and gave his concession speech, that it was somewhat gracious. Nevertheless, something about the speech stuck in my craw. I am talking about this passage:

This is an historic election, and I recognise the special significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight.

I’ve always believed that America offers opportunities to all who have the industry and will to seize it. Senator Obama believes that, too.

But we both recognise that, though we have come a long way from the old injustices that once stained our     nation’s reputation and denied some Americans the full blessings of American citizenship, the memory of them still had the power to wound.

A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt’s invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage in many quarters.

America today is a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States.

Let there be no reason now … Let there be no reason now for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on Earth.

Senator Obama has achieved a great thing for himself and for his country. I applaud him for it, and offer him my sincere sympathy that his beloved grandmother did not live to see this day. Though our faith assures us she is at rest in the presence of her creator and so very proud of the good man she helped raise.

I was overwhelmed and overjoyed at Sen. Obama’s victory and I did not complain about what everyone was insisting was a gracious concession speech. I stumbled upon a discussion thread on Facebook that led me to believe I was not the only one to think that there’s something not quite right with McCain’s words here.

The person who started the discussion titled it: race in the Obama win, then wrote:

It was interesting to me how McCain’s concession speech, gracious though it was, seemed to dwell on the “achievement” of an African-American, while Colin Powell’s remarks noted that Obama’s win went “far beyond race”. I guess the fact of Obama’s rainbow ethnicity is not easily grasped here.

A commenter wrote:

McCain (and Gerry Ferraro) truly believe the ONLY reason Obama won – was because of his ethnicity. They     cannot and will not see him as who/what he actually is – beyond the color of his skin. That is their prism for all people of color. That is their limitation. We are leaving them behind…sadly.”

But it was another commenter who captured my (irrational?) bitterness at McCain’s choice of words:

Of course, as we all know, being black has always been a tremendous advantage in this country. Just ask Dred Scott, Rosa Parks, Emmett Till, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Homer Plessy…

President-elect Obama’s victory in the presidential election has been hailed in every corner of this nation by people of all races and celebrated all over the world, every corner of the world. This victory simply goes beyond race, although race is a significant component. It is an achievement for America to be proud of, not just African Americans. This historic event restores, for the moment at least, America’s role as a beacon of hope for the world.

McCain, of course, was not the only guilty part in this fixation on race, the entire media and our political class was guilty. Obama has willfully refused to pander to race or note the racial import of his quest, at times frustrating the media. I remember media types noting with frustration that he did not mention his race (he did not actually mention himself, crediting voters, instead) when he claimed the nomination from Sen. Hillary Clintoon in June.

I could not wait to get my New York Times but found its front page of this historic event deeply underwhelming. If any newspaper was capable of capturing such an important and historic while noting the significant racial component, it would be my beloved Times. But on this occasion, it failed:

Something about that front page did not move me. Here are some other front pages:

Or, The Wall Street Journal:

The Washington Post:

The Philadelphia Inquirer:

I don’t know why but I really like the Omaha World-Herald front page:

November 6, 2008
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Bernie Sanders’ note from Denver

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As I sat on the convention floor and watched the television monitors showing CNN and other corporate media outlets, I saw the presidential campaign being treated as if it were a football game, an academy awards ceremony or a beauty contest. That’s unfortunate, because this campaign is not really about John McCain or Barack Obama. It is about the future of our country and the well-being of hundreds of millions of Americans.

The essence of this campaign is pretty simple. John McCain has made it extremely clear that the policies of his administration would follow closely what the Bush Cheney administration has done. So, if you’re comfortable with what’s gone in this country for the last eight years, I suppose a vote for McCain makes sense.

But, if you’re tired of seeing the middle class decline and poverty increase while the wealthiest people have never had it so good you should give thought to voting for Barack Obama. If you think it’s absurd to provide more than a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the wealthiest 1 percent and increase our national debt even more, you should vote for Obama. If you think every American should have health care, vote for Barack Obama. If you want to stop a trade policy that lets corporate America throw workers on the street and move jobs to China, you should vote for Obama. If you think we should strengthen Social Security rather than privatizing it, vote for Obama. If you think we should bring our troops home from Iraq, you should vote for Barack Obama.

August 29, 2008
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A question for McCain's fans in the press corps

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What About the Curve? By Josh Marshall, 08.04.08 — 11:30AM

Out of general fondness, the Washington press corps (which is not just a phrase but a definable community of people) has for almost a decade graded John McCain on a curve, especially in the last eighteen months when he’s slipped perceptibly. Now, in response to the bludgeoning and campaign of falsehoods his campaign has unleashed over the last ten days, a number of his longtime admirers in the punditocracy have written articles either claiming that they’d misjudged the man or lamenting his betrayal of his better self.

So my question is, do they and the top editors who with them define the tone of coverage, keep grading McCain on the curve that has so aided him over the last year?

Continue . . .

August 4, 2008
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Conditions on the Ground

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The big political news of the last week has been Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s embrace of Sen. Barack Obama’s position on the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and Sen. John McCain’s subsequent embrace of Maliki’s position on withdrawal. As Josh Marshall observes, “Sen. McCain has gone from predicting a decades long presence of American troops in Iraq and attacking any discussion of timetables for withdrawal to endorsing Maliki’s push for a 16 month timetable and tying himself in knots trying to explain why what Maliki’s endorsing is any different from Obama’s.”

On CNN on Friday, McCain insisted that his withdrawal plans are “conditions-based,” and suggested that Obama’s are not.

Nevermind that Obama’s withdrawal plans have always been contingent on conditions on the ground. He has said that he would be as careful getting out of Iraq as Bush was careless getting in. The sixteen month timetable has been Obama’s judgment of how long it would take to redeploy U.S. troops safely given conditions on the ground.

But what, exactly, are the conditions that matter to McCain? Journalists haven’t yet asked McCain that question.

My guess, based on McCain’s recent assertions that he would rather lose a campaign than lose a war, is that McCain’s key condition is the appearance of victory. If sectarian violence increases, or if the Iraqi government starts to crack, look for McCain to halt the withdrawal even if U.S. troops could withdraw safely. If it takes 100 years to win this war, then that’s how long McCain would leave our troops there.

In the end, I don’t think that McCain’s recent embrace of a 16-month timetable changes much other than his rhetoric. There are still deep differences between McCain and Obama and a real choice for the American people.

Cross-posted from Facebook.

July 27, 2008
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No Fair, McCain Complains

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John McCain, who often jokes that the media is his “base,” is now complaining that the media is too much in love with Sen. Barack Obama. And, not only does he have the videos to prove it, his campaign has compiled them into a couple mind-bending (I was going to say mind-bendingly stupid but I already called Ol’ McCain stupid yesterday) political advertisements.

It’s the same ad–with buffoonery by Chris Matthews and other media types embarrassing themselves and former Hillary Clinton surrogates airing complaints–set to different music:

“Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” version:

“My Eyes Adored You” version:

July 22, 2008
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