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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (3231)	7/7/2003 9:10:14 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793720

INSIDE SCOOP HAS KELLER WINNING EXEC EDITOR JOB By KEITH J. KELLY - NEW YORK POST July 6, 2003 -- According to one source at the New York Times, "It's a lock - Keller is going to get the top job." That answers the guessing game inside the Gray Lady over Howell Raines' successor. Bill Keller, passed over once when Raines was made executive editor, has long been a newsroom favorite. Sources say he's been out more on the New York social circuit, and that he appears to be glowing. The big question now is who will get the No. 2 job? The latest word is "troika" - with Keller at the top of the triangle and the current Washington bureau chief, Jill Abramson, being brought to New York to share duties with John Geddes, who has been acting as managing editor ever since Raines and ex-managing editor Gerald Boyd took flight. Not surprisingly, Abramson, Geddes and Keller all refused to comment. But Geddes, at least, said, "I don't know anything about it." Meanwhile, under the once-interim executive editor Joe Lelyveld, breaking news continues to be a dominant feature, while the wacky features Raines favored show up with less frequency. Photo selection remains erratic. Above the fold in Wednesday's paper was a shot of enraged Iraqis who claimed an American missile destroyed their mosque. Below the fold was a picture that was so nondescript, some observers upon first glance thought it was the great lawn of Central Park, crowded with people attending . . . what? Perhaps Shakespeare in the Park. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be demonstrators packed into Victoria Park, in Hong Kong. Couldn't they get us some angry protesters? The thousands in the photo were mere dots amid the shrubbery. Wednesday's front page also marked the first appearance in weeks of Judith Miller's byline. Her questionable reporting techniques in Washington and in Iraq absorbed a blistering attack in the Washington Post by Howard Kurtz the previous week. As The Post reported last week, Miller has been given a "leash" and is now part of a reporting team. A Times spokesman insists there is nothing unusual about this arrangement. Some insiders tell The Post they disagree, however, saying the Times echelon is trying keep Miller from riding off the rails again. Miller, of course, may be well protected, given her close ties to publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. When the two were just kid reporters in the paper's Washington bureau, they shared a summer house on the Maryland shore with their significant others of the time. nypost.com

To: JohnM who wrote (3231)	7/8/2003 2:04:50 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793720

Howard Kurst confirms the "Buzz" that Keller will take over the Times job. He does a rundown of Kellers thinking, taken from his recent Op-Ed pieces. It's a shame that the Times has got to the point of advocacy in the News sections that Keller's political positions are important. >>>By picking Keller, Sulzberger would in effect be conceding that he erred by passing him over less than two years ago when he tapped editorial page editor Howell Raines to run the paper. But so what? It was always felt that the younger Keller might have a shot after Raines stepped down, although no one expected that to happen quite so quickly. Keller has a much lower-key style than the hard-charging Raines. Keller also has a champion in the man now running the Times on an interim basis, former executive editor Joe Lelyveld. The new Vanity Fair , by the way, describing Keller as "a cool, cerebral type more in the Lelyveld mold," says if Keller had gotten the job last time he would have picked as managing editor Jonathan Landman, the metro editor who clashed with Raines and wrote the famous memo saying that Jayson Blair had to be stopped. The article portrays Landman and Washington bureau chief Jill Abramson, the subject of much speculation for the managing editor's post, as leaders of the anti-Raines insurrection. With Keller the odds-on favorite, it's worth looking at what he believes. Which we're able to do because he's written some provocative op-ed columns and magazine pieces since stepping down from the editing ranks. While the Times was often seen as opposing the war in Iraq, Keller backed it: "The president will take us to war with support -- often, I admit, equivocal and patronizing in tone -- from quite a few members of the East Coast liberal media cabal. The I-Can't-Believe-I'm-a-Hawk Club includes op-ed regulars at this newspaper and The Washington Post, the editors of The New Yorker, The New Republic and Slate, columnists in Time and Newsweek . Many of these wary warmongers are baby-boom liberals whose aversion to the deployment of American power was formed by Vietnam but who had a kind of epiphany along the way -- for most of us, in the vicinity of Bosnia." At one point, Keller crawled out on a limb and called for Colin Powell to resign: "The most important reason the secretary of state should go is that the president has chosen a course that repudiates much of what Mr. Powell has stood for -- notably his deep suspicion of arrogant idealism." After the successful march to Baghdad, though, some of Keller's doubts rose to the surface: "I supported the war, with misgivings about the haste, the America-knows-best attitude and our ability to win the peace. The deciding factor for me was not the monstrosity of the regime (routing tyrants is a noble cause, but where do you stop?), nor the opportunity to detoxify the Middle East (another noble cause, but dubious justification for a war when hardly anyone else in the world supports you). No, I supported it mainly because of the convergence of a real threat and a real opportunity. . . . "The truth is that the information-gathering machine designed to guide our leaders in matters of war and peace shows signs of being corrupted. To my mind, this is a worrisome problem, but not because it invalidates the war we won. It is a problem because it weakens us for the wars we still face. Even if you believe that this war is justified, the route to it has been an ugly display of American opportunism and bullying, dissembling and dissonance." So even antiwar liberals should find something to like in this reluctant hawk. Keller doesn't buy the criticism that George Bush is a religious zealot, even as he tries to explain it: "I understand the critics' discomfort with Mr. Bush's public piety. It contributes to an image of crusading arrogance abroad, and to a fear of invasive moralism at home. . . . Perhaps the most important effect of Mr. Bush's religion is that, for better or for worse, it imparts a profound self-confidence once he has decided on a course of action." As for affirmative action, Keller supports it, even while recognizing it is not a panacea: "My own views on this subject are not entirely theoretical. I'm a trustee of a liberal arts college that tries to attract black and Latino scholars using a standard much like the one at the Michigan Law School. I also work for a newspaper that makes an effort to hire and promote talented minority journalists. The paper does this not for the sake of doing good (for that it has a charitable foundation) nor to defend a principle (for that it has an editorial page), but mainly because we can better comprehend a disparate world and explain it to a disparate audience if our reporting and editing staff does not consist entirely of Ivy League white guys." In short, this is a man of many opinions, but hardly a polemicist or an ideologue. Those opinions will be getting plenty of attention if Bill Keller gets his promotion. washingtonpost.com

To: JohnM who wrote (3231)	7/8/2003 3:57:41 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793720

That's why I spend my time in Waikiki! Redistricting plan likely to advance in Texas House By Hugh Aynesworth Published July 7, 2003 AUSTIN, Texas - A redistricting plan will probably find its way to the floor of state House of Representatives today or tomorrow, a plan that if passed is expected to cost Democrats five or six seats in Congress next year. On Saturday, with relatively little argument, the House Redistricting Committee passed a plan 10-4 and routed it to the House Calendar Committee, which is expected to put it up for debate. Republicans said the plan is fair. Democrats said it was not fair to minorities and rural voters in many parts of Texas, long a stronghold for Democrats. The latest plan, the fourth effort in a week, seems to assure that the dean of the Texas congressional delegation, Democratic Rep. Martin Frost, will be in a district where he can win another term. Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Austin also seems safe under the plan. Other Democrats may not fare so well. Reps. Charles W. Stenholm, Chet Edwards, Max Sandlin, Nick Lampson and Jim Turner would face strong Republican voting trends in their new districts if the plan passes. Rep. Ralph M. Hall, a Democrat who votes with Republicans on many major issues, also seems to be adversely affected. Many of his district's rural voters, among his most loyal supporters, would be transferred to a district dominated by Denton and Dallas counties, the home base of state Rep. Kenny Marchant, whom Republican leaders have been grooming to run for Congress. "They're so blinded by what they're trying to do to help the Republican Party," said state Rep. Richard Raymond, a Democrat from Laredo, "that they're not seeing what they're doing will take away the voting rights of millions of Texans." "My goal, and the goal of this committee, is to design a fair plan. Our intent is to have a map that meets legal muster and can withstand court scrutiny," said state Rep. Kent Grusendorf, a Republican from Arlington who introduced the plan Saturday. "This map just tears up rural Texas," said state Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon, a Democrat from San Antonio. Mr. Raymond questioned Mr. Grusendorf at length about the influence that Rep. Tom DeLay, the U.S. House majority whip, had on the latest redistricting plan. Mr. Grusendorf replied, "I don't even know if Mr. DeLay has seen this." "Then it's not the final one," Mr. Raymond snapped. "If it's not acceptable [to Mr. DeLay], it's not going to pass." Mr. Raymond predicted earlier in the week that no map that allowed Mr. Frost a safe seat would get by Mr. DeLay. "He just hates Frost too much," he added. "I'm having trouble keeping up with the bouncing ball," Mr. Frost said. "My attitude," he added, "is they ought to just leave all the districts alone. Every time you turn around there is a new map. You can't make any sense out of this." For the first time since Reconstruction, the Texas House and Senate are controlled by Republicans, matching a trend toward the Republican Party throughout the state. Yet Republicans are outnumbered in the state's U.S. House delegation 17 to 15. With Congress closely divided ? Democrats are 12 seats short of regaining the House majority they lost in 1994 ? the change of a half-dozen Texas congressional seats from Democrat to Republican could have a major political effect. The importance of the redistricting fight has not been missed by Karl Rove, the president's top strategist, who has contacted Texas Republican leaders on the subject. Mr. DeLay has also visited and had several aides help state leaders with planning. The redistricting plan, or one much like it, seems certain to pass the state House this week, but the state Senate's map may be far different. Although Republicans have a 19-12 advantage in that body, it takes 21 votes to allow a bill to reach the floor, so a bill needs support from two Democrats. dynamic.washtimes.com