Hi, all:

Looking for democratic ways to make the news? Stop by http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=index&cid=1760 and vote on the news stories that matter to you. If you see a poll favoring Kerry in Ohio, for example, give that story a 5. If Bush makes a nutty claim against Kerry, give it a 1. You get the idea...

If anyone needs a letter template to get started, maybe this will help:
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Hi, Sheri:

There's a news story making the rounds right now that
I want to share with you, since you handle our
investments:

http://www.startribune.com/stories/587/5027852.html

I'd like to know whether any of our family's money is
invested with Sinclair Broadcasting. Sinclair is in
the portfolios of the following funds (the list is
partial, I am sure):

Earnest Partners
SHARES HELD: 4,946,278

Gabelli Asset Management Co (gamco)
SHARES HELD: 3,640,000

Westfield Capital Management Co
SHARES HELD: 2,616,950

Morgan Stanley Investment Management
SHARES HELD: 2,526,303

Neuberger Berman
SHARES HELD: 2,266,809

Putnam Investment Mgmt
SHARES HELD: 2,081,861

Perry Corp
SHARES HELD: 1,911,452

Barclays Global Investors Intl
SHARES HELD: 1,801,161

Blackrock Inc
SHARES HELD: 1,428,435

Janus Capital Corp
SHARES HELD: 1,417,887

I hope our money isn't with Sinclair for at least two
reasons. First, they're demonstrating a
factually-challenged bias in their news reporting that
personally offends me. Second, and perhaps more
important from the standpoint of responsibility to
shareholders, they're offending viewers and
advertisers who help determine their financial
viability.

I can live with some ethical compromises in my
investments--we live in an imperfect world, right?
Sinclair, however, is going too far at a critical
time. Please let me know what I can do to ensure our
money is invested elsewhere, if necessary.

Here's what I wrote to my local paper on this topic:

[QUOTE]ABCNews' political director, Mark Halperin, issued a memo last Friday encouraging his news staff to report not only the quantity of distortions put forth by Bush and Kerry's campaigns, but also the quality of those distortions. But to hear conservative bloggers and news tabloids tell the story, one might be led to believe ABCNews is shaping its coverage to fit a political agenda. I would encourage (my local paper's) readers to look past the spin and recognize an honest effort by ABCNews to give its viewers the full facts.

Halperin wrote in his memo: "We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides `equally' accountable when the facts don't warrant that." In other words, if one candidate said 2 plus 2 is 5 and the other said 2 plus 2 is 5,000, both candidates lied, but clearly one candidate's lie was much larger than the other's. Halperin reminded his staffers that the public needs to know more than "the candidates lied": the public must also be told whether the lies were equally damning.

In his memo, Halperin referred to New York Times and MSNBC reports discussing the unique depth to which Bush is using factual distortions to make his case for reelection. In the Times article, Kathleen Hall Jamieson (director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania) said "so much of what (Republicans) are indicting is taken out of context. . . . And it's hard for journalists to write the context back in because it takes time.''

Restoring this context for the benefit of voting citizens is at the heart of Halperin's memo. If a truthful review of the facts demonstrates that President Bush's campaign distortions are greater and more reckless than Senator Kerry's, this is not the fault of ABCNews: it is the fault of President Bush. Halperin deserves our gratitude for urging his colleagues to give us the whole story every day.[/QUOTE]

I hope my letter either gets printed, or prompts the editors to find a more eloquent version of the same. It frustrates me how quickly nuance is lost in some of these discussions...

I'm trying make a stronger effort to keep up with unfriendly blogs (FYI, this is a "friendly" blog in my book), and came across a topic that has been hinted at in several ways:

http://www.nationalreview.com/kerry/kerry200410071100.asp

The gist of the thread is that the talk of tax-and-spend-liberal Kerry is simply the final chapter in Bush's effort to make Kerry unacceptable as an alternative to the already-repulsive Bush. See http://www.newdonkey.com/2004/10/here-comes-bush-pivot.html for another telling of the idea.

What I would like to see discussed at this point is how we lefties would prefer to see this tired charade neutralized. Bush is clearly grasping at straws to stay alive, even if his handlers knew they'd come down this rhetorical path months ago. I think Kerry can deflect much of this criticism by (1) emphasizing the facts about his record in a positive light and (2) continuing to hammer Bush on being an out-of-touch leader who needs to scare voters into supporting him. Thoughts?

Thanks for reading. (P.S. Yes, I attempted to start this discussion in a separate thread, but now I know this is another way to get it going--new guy here.)