ANNOUNCEMENT:

The editor is pleased to announce that this project will now undertake to have a weekly "SLAM" on a randomly chosen political figure in Wisconsin. Following a long tradition in journalism we will try to be largely untruthful, unfair, and rarely humorous.

"Memoirs of an Amnesiac"


An article from the American Prowler suggesting new titles for Hillary's book.

From Online Journalism Review : The most influential blogs.

"The Most Influential Blogs"
It's been a breakout year for Webloggers as they've taken on Trent Lott and The New York Times, as well as put their own stamp on the war in Iraq. Now Mark Glaser tells us who's who in the blogosphere.

A hint, this isn't one of them.

From Politicsonline:

STAT OF THE WEEK
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ERRORS RAMPANT ON GOV'T SITES
A Keynote study found that more than two-thirds (68 percent) of the government sites that were evaluated had Web application failures. While the figure may seem high, the government sites actually outperformed a sample of e-commerce sites, which recorded a 72.5 percent failure rate.
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This doesn't surprise those of us who have worked in and around government.

News of the Day:JS Online: Norquist leaving early

None to soon if you ask this writer.

News story:

-- Doyle will be getting and giving an award tonight at Madison Magazine's Best of Madison event at the Concourse Hotel. The magazine's reader's poll selected Doyle as the Best Elected Official and the person readers would Most Like to Have Dinner With.

This is stupid. Jim "Lovable" Doyle has hardly been in the Governor's Office long enough to be the "BEST" elected official in the state. He was certainly in the AG's Office a long time but, with all due respect, it was a poorly run and an admittedly error-prone morass of an office.

As to who Madison residents would "most like to have dinner with", that is more believable. A quarter of the citizenry works for the Governor and half of Madison seems to lobby the Governor.

TURNABOUT IS FAIR GAME

For a decade Governor Tommy G. Thompson tied the legislature in knots with his aggressive use of the veto pen. He of course faced a Democratic legisture for most of that time. Now it is a Republican legislature's chance to be quashed by a Governor. I don't think they will like it much. They will also be unsuccessful in overriding any veto. You heard it here first.

From WisPolitics:

-- Gov. Jim Doyle today told reporters he is fairly certain he can use his partial veto power to carve the Republican state budget into a package representing the administration�s priorities. However, he said, a veto of the entire package is still possible. The Democratic governor also said he expects to have his work on the budget within the first couple of weeks in July. The current biennium ends June 30.

�I feel confident that with my veto that we can move this to a budget that is balanced, that does not raise taxes. Obviously, I am very concerned about a number of other areas,� Doyle said.

He repeated his plan to use his veto pen to preserve his budget priorities which are to stop the problem of state overspending, present an honestly balanced budget that does not raises taxes of any kind, and does not do permanent damage to the state�s public education system nor the relationship between the state and local government. When asked if the three-year property tax freeze permanently changes the relationship between state and local governments, Doyle said: �Yes.�

Other likely vetoes will be aimed at the $25 million pork amendment passed as part of the Senate Republican maneuver to secure a "yes" vote from Democrat Gary George of Milwaukee -- notably the land purchase to construct a Hmong cultural center. Doyle also said he would not support any candidate in a recall election against George.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Nuno Crispim's Quotations What is a committee? A group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit,
to do the unnecessary. -- Richard Harkness, The New York Times, 1960

As Wisconsin's Joint Finance Committee completes the budget it is good to remember: " A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured, and then quietly strangled." -- Robert Katz

The Washington Post couldn't just come out and say Hillary Clinton is an inhuman monster, but they come darn close: The Barbara Walters-Clinton Interview: Hillary Has the Chilly Deportment Down Cold (washingtonpost.com)

Despite obvious attempts to do otherwise -- and Walters giving her the benefit of the doubt -- Clinton still comes across as almost chillingly chilly. She may have emotions like normal people, but she doesn't like to admit it and she's scarily proficient at suppressing them. Even during a sequence in which Walters covered the suicide of Vince Foster, friend to both Hillary and Bill Clinton, the interviewee appeared unfazed.

Communications Aides Reveal Tricks of the Trade

By David Perera
Roll Call Staff


Tuesday, Jun. 10; 04:29pm

As much as the media loves leaks, sources have their own reasons for doling out hot scoops. And to be a good press secretary, you need to know how to do it.

For example: �I tend to only do scoops on positive stories,� said John Feehery, spokesman for Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.).

That�s just one of the nuggets gleaned by Miami University of Ohio students who attended a panel discussion Monday in which speechwriters and flacks revealed the tricks of their trades.

Feehery told an audience of about 40 that a standard Capitol Hill practice is �to leak to The Associated Press.�

That way the leak will �get The New York Times� and Washington Post�s attention,� but will also likely be on the front page of a Member�s home district newspaper.

...

Meanwhile, the press secretaries talked mostly about their interaction with reporters. �Nothing gets reporters more angry than not returning phone calls,� Feehery said.

At the same time, the flacks said reporters should be careful not to get information wrong.

Trent Duffy, a press secretary for the White House Office of Management and Budget, said, �If a story is wrong, a fact is wrong, I have an obligation to point that out.� For example, he explained, reports that the deficit level is at historically high levels is true in �nominal� terms, but not when measured as a share of the economy.

Feehery said if he believes a reporter is a �jerk,� then he gives the reporter �the bare minimum. Something else I do, I give their competitors as good a story as I can.�

Feehery advised getting friendly with reporters. �They�re people,� he said. �Mostly they�re trying to meet a deadline.�

He said Democrats tend to be better at schmoozing reporters and attending reporters� social events than Republicans, however.

Stonewalling received universal condemnation. Then-Rep. Gary Condit�s (D-Calif.) 2001 interview with Connie Chung is �example 101 of how not to handle a crisis,� said Brendan Daly, press secretary to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). �It basically sealed his fate.�

THE BLACK ARTS OF POLITICS BECOME PUBLIC:

Boston Globe:Opposition research seen as key by presidential rivals

From Politics Online:

INTERNET VOTING TEST SET FOR 2004
The Defense Department, along with 10 states and several counties nationwide, has begun conducting a congressionally mandated Internet registration and voting demonstration for the 2004 election. The Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment (SERVE) will enable thousands of absentee uniformed services personnel, their dependents and other U.S. citizens based overseas to register to vote and cast their ballots from any Internet-accessible, Microsoft Corp. Windows-based computer worldwide.

County election officials will use the SERVE system to receive voter registration applications, provide ballots to voters, and accept voted ballots. These officials will use their existing election administration systems to process registrations and ballots.
See: Federal Computer Week
Related stories:
UPI
GOPUSA

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Law without enforcement is only good advice." -- Abraham Lincoln

Because :"Simply stated, it is sagacious to eschew obfuscation." the Editor will post the link to some darn good quotes: QUOTES

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Being elected to Congress is regarded as being sent on a looting raid for one's friends.
--George F. Will, Newsweek

Interested in politics on the internet? George Washington University has an entire Institute devoted to the subject.The Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet

Here is an article that the Editor loves:
Get bloggers on board

It suggests that newspapers hire bloggers to produce local content for their operations.

Hmmm. Money for writing web logs, what a great idea!

(Thanks to politicsonline.com for the link.)