The Shoe Is On The Other Foot For The GOP

Arlen Specter has been a Republican U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania for a long time, so naturally he wants to keep his job. With an election coming up next year, he found that the increasingly conservative GOP no longer welcomed his more moderate views, thus limiting his chances to retain the nomination of his party.

So Specter switched to the Democratic Party, where he will become the 59th vote in a nearly veto-proof Senate, rubber-stamping just about anything President Barack Obama wants. But Specter is more of an independent when it comes to his voting record--which is one of the reasons why he was on the outs with the GOP--and he says he will continue to do so as a Democrat.

Now all the Democrats need is a 60th vote, and they will get it if the Minnesota Senate race that's currently in litigation ends in Al Franken's favor over Republican Norm Coleman. The recount and the subsequent court case has dragged on for several months, but the Minnesota Supreme Court won't even hear Coleman's appeal until June.

With Specter gone, the GOP has no incentive to quickly settle the matter. All they can do is to keep the seat open for as long as possible, hoping that Coleman wins on appeal and Governor Tim Pawlenty signs the certificate for his man.

The Republicans are in such a mess right now, having lost the White House and Congress in the last election. They've become the party of reactionary Bible-thumpers with no real leadership. The public faces of the GOP are buffoons such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Alaska governor Sarah Palin, and Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann.

(Speaking of Hannity, he offered to be waterboarded for an alleged charity to prove to his viewers that it is not torture. Keith Olbermann of MSNBC, whose staff apparently monitors Fox News Channel so we don't have to, offered to donate a thousand dollars for every second Hannity doesn't cry uncle. Seriously, Keith, why are you wasting your money on this guy?)

The demise of the Republican party is not imminent--remember, Democrats were in this position when George W. Bush was riding high. But if they don't broaden their base beyond the Archie Bunker demographic, they might find themselves going the way of Pontiac and "All In The Family".

One Hundred Days: Baliouts,"Boarding and Bo

The first 100 days of President Obama's administration has become a big, huge deal on your favorite cable news channel (that is, until this swine flu thing came along). Wednesday marks the hundredth day, and the President will use the occasion to hold a prime-time news conference. Even though it will run after "American Idol", Fox is the only one of the broadcast networks that won't carry it live. Instead, they'll show the drama "Lie To Me" (subtle comment, no?).

So what has Obama been doing for the last 100 days, you ask? Plenty.

• Told the automakers and bankers that they need to get their act together if they want more government money.
• Released once-classified documents that tell us the U.S. used torture to extract information from suspected terrorists after 9/11/01. And promised never to do it again.
• Set a timetable to get soldiers out of Iraq while adding more to Afghanistan.
• Reversed George W. Bush-era policies on stem cell research, climate change and closing Guantanamo Bay.
• Shook hands with (or bowed to) heads of state Bush might have snubbed a year ago. He even taped messages to Arab-speaking countries.
• Dealt swiftly with Somali pirates who kidnapped an American sea captain.
• Oh yes, he got a dog. Maybe you've heard about that.

Every TV pundit I've heard gives the President an A grade, which is not surprising since most of them seem to be Democrats. Most polls say the country seems to feel the same way. But we think he deserves a grade of B. While he's certainly a step up from Bush, there's plenty of room for improvement.

What might the next hundred days bring for Obama? Seeing if any of the initiatives he introduced comes to fruition, or just withers on the vine. Oh, and how he handles the swine flu thing, too.

Trivializing a Serious Problem

Child abduction is a serious problem, we are told by the media and other well-meaning organizations. No argument there. Every horrific tale we hear sends parents into a panic. They tell their Precious Little Ones not to talk to strangers. They monitor what their kids view on the Internet. Whenever a convicted sex offender just released from prison wants to live in a certain neighborhood, the meetings are packed with folks who don't want him there.

TV stations and cable networks broadcast Amber Alerts for missing children, even though the reason they go missing mostly has to do with custody disputes. If it turns out that the child was sexually violated, showing the name and picture of that child is not just a bad idea, it might also do untold harm.

Meanwhile, in the name of safety, the kids are forced to stay home, playing video games and contributing to the nation's obesity epidemic.

So what happens when "stranger danger" turns into a false alarm, or becomes fodder for a sweeps-month TV news investigation?

1. Eden Prairie Police, according to an e-mail statement, recently investigated a report that an 11-year old girl said she was allegedly approached in the parking lot of a local church by a man in a vehicle claiming he was asked by the girl's mother to pick her up. The police determined, according to the statement, that "the incident was the result of a misunderstanding", and that "no suspicious activity took place". (See the full statement at http://www.edenprairie.org/)


2. Following an alleged attempted child abduction in Edina last week, MinnPost reported that the city's police sent e-mails to parents there informing them that a crew from KMSP (Fox Channel 9) would be cruising the neighborhoods in an SUV, asking kids for directions. Angry responses from parents and denunciations from media bloggers caused KMSP to scrap the story. Trish Van Pilsum, the station's investigative reporter who was mentioned in the e-mail, told MinnPost that the cruising never happened. The story was dropped before the e-mail was sent out, she says. (Much more of this can be found at www. minnpost.com.)

What are we to learn from all this? That innocent people sometimes get caught up in "misunderstandings" that involve the police? That TV stations are willing to risk the lives of children for the sake of ratings? Or that (at the risk of sounding hopelessly naive) we, as a society, need to step back and teach our children that the world is not always a dangerous place? It just seems that way.

A New Attitude in Foreign Policy

From the beginning, President Barack Obama has said his administration will be less about exorcising the demons of the last eight years than it will be about fixing this broken economy. Lately, though, he's been spending some time righting a few wrongs in the foreign policy department, with mixed results.

• By releasing top-secret memos detailing the CIA's involvement in using harsh methods to interrogate terrorism suspects, and the Bush administration's legal justifications for them, Obama is opening himself to charges that this will now hamper efforts to find out where the next attack will take place. The President has pledged never to do torture again, but he's not going to prosecute those who did the actual interrogating. Only the ones who came up with the idea in the first place.
• Making nice with world leaders who are not your friends (but would like to be): Shaking hands with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. Bowing to the King of Saudi Arabia. Working with Iran to obtain the release of an American-born journalist sent to prison on espionage charges, even as its president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continues to tick off the Israelis. Lifting some restrictions on Cuban-Americans visiting and sending money to relatives in their former homeland. This approach, however, will not work on Iran or North Korea. They still won't drop their nuclear weapons programs.
• There is one area where Obama and Bush would have agreed: how to deal with Somali pirates. In the rescue of a kidnapped American captain, Navy snipers picked off three of the pirates. No money changed hands. Instead it was shoot first, negotiate later. Well, they may have to rethink that next time if Al Qaeda was ever involved.

Still, despite gripings by conservatives and Bush-era officials such as former Vice President Dick Cheney that America is less safe because of Obama, what the new president is doing is a refreshing change from the "my way or the highway" approach that led to two wars and a lot of hurt feelings among world leaders. Let's see if this continues to work.

This, That, And The Other Thing

So much going on . . . so little space.

You Still Can't Call Him Senator Al

A three-judge panel ruled that 312 votes are enough for Democrat Al Franken to become Minnesota's next U.S. Senator. Hold on a minute! It is widely assumed that Republican Norm Coleman will file an appeal before the state Supreme Court, and that Governor Tim Pawlenty won't sign an election certificate until Coleman prevails. As sick of this process as we are, we now believe Coleman should go for it. After all, what's another month or two of Senator Amy Klobuchar doing the work of two men? And of Minnesota being the political laughingstock of America?

I'm a Former Governor . . . Get Me Out of Prison!

As anyone who watches Law & Order, Boston Legal, or any other crime show knows, defendants at a bail hearing usually have their passports taken away and ordered not to leave town by a judge. So why does former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich think he's an exception? He's been offered the chance to fly to the jungles of Costa Rica, competing with other semi-known notables on an NBC game show called "I'm a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here!", pending judicial approval. Blagojevich, who has pleaded not guilty to federal corruption charges, should be more concerned about staying out of prison right now. Besides, why would he want to go on another reality show when he's already starring in one?

John Madden: It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This

For the first time in 30 years, John Madden won't be in a broadcast booth to cover an NFL game. Instead, at age 73, he's going to spend more time with his family, and to plop down that Madden-cruiser wherever he damn well pleases. In the three decades since walking away from a Hall of Fame career as Oakland Raiders coach, Madden has been winning raves as the best ever to describe the X's and O's to football fans everywhere. And because Madden was the best, he usually got to work with the best play-by-play talent: Vin Scully and Pat Summerall at CBS and Fox, Al Michaels at ABC and NBC. If it was the game of the week, a conference championship, or a Super Bowl, you wanted Madden there. Cris Collinsworth will be Michaels' new partner on Sunday nights, but everybody knows it's hard to replace a legend.

Is It Live, or Is It Someone Else?

Much has been said and written about Susan Boyle, the ugly duckling who went on a British TV talent show and sang like a swan. On the surface, anyone who can impress judge Simon Cowell must be doing something extraordinary. But we were wondering if perhaps Ms. Boyle might be the victim of a cruel hoax. Is it possible that she might have been lip-syncing the voice of someone else a la Milli Vanilli? We hope it's not true, otherwise shame on the producers for taking advantage of the poor woman.

Another Toothless Season For The Wolves

The Minnesota Timberwolves' 2008-09 season is mercifully over, with a 24-58 record to show for it. They weren't the worst team in the NBA--that honor, if you can call it that, goes to the Sacramento Kings--but sometimes they played like they were. Blowing huge leads to the Dallas Mavericks. Losing at home to bad teams like the Kings, Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State Warriors before the Team of 5000. You know, things that can get a coach fired. Which is what happened to Randy Wittman.

Kevin McHale, who as general manager was responsible for putting together the current roster of youngsters and castoffs in the post-Kevin Garnett era, was kicked out of the front office and onto the bench in December. After a few more losses, the Wolves rattled off a post-holiday winning streak, mostly against teams with injury-depleted rosters. Suddenly, people put down their remotes and started watching pro basketball again. That is, until star player Al Jefferson wrecked his knee in the final seconds of a game at New Orleans, knocking him out for the rest of the season. At that point, it was time to go back to channel surfing.

Now that the season's over, the focus shifts to what will happen to McHale. From what we hear, he likes to coach but doesn't like the travel involved, and the more the Wolves lost, the less he liked it. But he has also done as much to damage the franchise (in concert with owner Glen Taylor) as well as improving it, Garnett notwithstanding.

The Wolves need to start with a new general manager who should be able to hire his own coach. That, and getting the talent required to back up Jefferson and Kevin Love in order to become more competitive in the tough Western Conference. If these changes click, the Wolves might someday be must-see TV again.

While the Wolves prepare once again to be passed over by the ping-pong balls in determining who gets the top pick in the NBA draft, it should be the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Los Angeles Lakers in the championship finals. LeBron versus Kobe, in other words. The NBA and ESPN on ABC can't wait.

Who Will Lead The Wild Out Of The Wilderness?

The NHL Minnesota Wild ended up two points shy of the final Western conference playoff spot, which is quite a comedown from winning the Northwest division the previous season. Then again, they have only themselves to blame.

With or without their franchise player Marion Gaborik, whose injuries kept him away most of the season, scoring had been static with one or two goals being the norm most games. They have had to depend on the generosity of their opponents just to get a point (or two) to keep themselves in the playoff picture in the NHL's convoluted system. Which meant plenty of overtimes and shootouts.

Now the Wild have to face their future, and they will do so without Jacques Lemaire, who stepped down as its head coach Monday. Since the franchise began in 2000, Lemaire's emphasis on defensive play, and his ability to work with the players provided to him, had enabled the Wild to be more competitive than any recent expansion team had a right to be. For that, Lemaire deserves to be saluted.

Then there's Gaborik, who becomes a free agent in July. Even if he was healthy, the Wild would have been pressured to use him as trade bait because they had failed to sign him. It appears Gaborik, who has also been with the team since the beginning, will follow his coach out the door. That is, unless he discovers that other teams aren't willing to spend money on a proven goal-scorer who can't seem to stay off the disabled list.

With a new coach and (possibly) new players taking the ice next season, will the Team of 18,000 dwindle in numbers waiting for the Wild to come out of the wilderness and into the promised land of the playoffs?

Meanwhile, the Stanley Cup playoffs begin Wednesday. The Boston Bruins and San Jose Sharks won home ice in their respective conferences, with this being the first time in ages that the Bruins have been any good. The Columbus Blue Jackets have become the last franchise in the NHL (as currently constituted) to enter the playoffs for the first time, and their reward is in facing the defending champion Detroit Red Wings in the first round. And the Chicago Blackhawks are back in the playoffs for the first time in who knows how long. OK, maybe not that long.

But when it comes time to play for Lord Stanley's Cup in June, we think it'll be the Red Wings and Bruins.

UPDATE Let the housecleaning begin. Wild President and General Manager Doug Risebrough has been given the old heave-ho by owner Craig Leipold. Payback for standing pat and getting nowhere?

KSTP-AM: Going In The Left Direction

Here's a novel idea for talk radio. Instead of all-conservative or all-progressive talk, why not bring both sides of the fence on one station, and you can have both audiences?

KSTP-AM 1500, previously one of the most conservative stations on the dial (how could it be otherwise in the House of Hubbard, given the owner's political leanings?), is apparently giving this a shot. They replaced right-wingers Dave Thompson and Bob Davis with a new midday show featuring a left-of-center duo from Madison named Shawn Prebil and Chris Murphy. That show began Thursday.

They also gave Patrick Reusse, sports columnist for the Star Tribune and a certified lefty, his own morning drive show along with Jay Kolls. Apparently, Reusse believes his days at the bankrupt newspaper are numbered, so he needs the extra income. I'll probably listen to the show the next time MPR forces Cathy Wurzer to beg listeners for money.

Not that KSTP has gone all Air America on us. They still have Joe Soucheray's "Garage Logic" in the afternoons, so that he can continue to give us his head-in-the-sand views on climate change, come up with cutesy names for liberals, and "blowing up" bumper music he doesn't like (which is 95% of them).

KSTP is still catching heat for getting rid of T.D. Mischke, whose firing a few months ago remains a mystery. Truth be told, Mischke's show was geared more for the night owl crowd than for those on their lunch breaks. He's landed on his feet at City Pages, where he hosts an Internet radio show as well as writing a column for the dead-tree edition of the alternative journal.

Since losing conservative radio superstars (and lightning rods) Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity to KTLK-FM 100.3, KSTP's ratings have been drifting, in spite of the addition of Minnesota Twins baseball. You could almost hear thousands of buttons across the Twin Cities pushed to other stations once Twins broadcaster John Gordon gives us the final score. So they had to try something, right?

Conservatives, who could be found on the Star Tribune website's comment section (from which we first heard about Prebil and Murphy) raising holy hell about the change and vowing never to listen to KSTP again, now have two choices: KTLK and WWTC-AM 1280, also known as The Patriot. There used to be three, but KYCR-AM 1570 just went to an all-business format.

Will Prebil and Murphy draw listeners from KTNF-AM 950, which we hear is doing very well for a small progressive station? As long as Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz are migrating from radio to MSNBC, it might happen.

That's assuming, of course, that Prebil and Murphy stick around long enough to make a difference for the station. If they don't, we'll be talking about who KSTP replaced them with in a few months time. Such is the nature of radio.

Steve Cannon: Anything But Mundane

In the sea of mediocrity that was (and still is) radio in the Twin Cities, Steve Cannon (with a little help from Morgan Mundane, Ma Linger and Backlash La Rue) stood out as an island of originality.

Cannon, who died at his Minneapolis home Monday at 81, had been on WCCO radio for 26 years (ending in 1997), running one of the most successful afternoon-drive shows in the country. Given 'CCO's reputation for blandness, it's a wonder how the station and Cannon put up with each other for so long. He was named to the Minnesota Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2002 and, according to Neal Justin of the Star Tribune, was rewarded with two plaques: one for himself, and the other for his characters.

Of the "Little Cannons", Morgan Mundane sounded like a Damon Runyon-type who usually called it right on his sports predictions, Ma Linger fancied herself as a sex symbol of a certain age, and Backlash La Rue (though his sexual preference was never spelled out) was an effeminate-sounding bon vivant.

Cannon spent several years after leaving his native Eveleth bouncing around the Upper Midwest in radio and TV jobs (he was "Wrangler Steve", an early-TV kids show host on Channel 11), and a stint at KGO in San Francisco before landing at KSTP-AM radio (which he referred to as the "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"). There he lasted for 13 years before being dropped by the station in the early 1970s. Fan reaction prompted WCCO to take on Cannon a few weeks later.

Cannon did his show from what he called the "basement studio", usually alone, so no one could see him change into his characters. Oh, station management tried to pair him off with someone else, most notably Ruth Koscielak. None of those attempts worked.

There are darn few individualists of Cannon's ilk working anywhere in radio these days. One of them is T.D. Mischke, who is currently plying his trade at citypages.com after getting fired by KSTP-AM, which meant that he and Cannon had something in common.

I've made no secret of my disdain for the way WCCO became nothing more than a 24-hour sandwich board with shows to fill in the gaps. But Steve Cannon was the only reason, besides news, sports and weather coverage, why listening to WCCO was a worthwhile experience. Is there anything like that now?
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For those of you who miss hearing Cannon's voice, or if you're just curious, there is an excellent collection of airchecks from his years in Twin Cities radio.  It's on RadioTapes.com (http://radiotapes.com/) , and they have just added material from Cannon's early years at WLOL (where he was a Top 40 deejay, which is hard to believe) and KSTP-AM, as well as from WCCO.  Stick with the site, and you'll find many more airchecks from Twin Cities radio of the past to historic broadcasts of major news events.

One More Year of Living Room Baseball

The Minnesota Twins came off a season when a coin flip cost them the American League Central division title. This year, their final season in that glorified living room known as the Metrodome, they won't need to choose heads or tails because they won't be anywhere near a title.

Owner Carl Pohlad may no longer be with us, but his surviving family members are continuing the fine Minnesota pro sports tradition of getting by with the least expensive talent available. The most significant off-season acquisition--okay, the only one--the Twins made was for third baseman Joe Crede, a free agent from the Chicago White Sox. He fills a need, if nothing else.

Question marks are everywhere on this team. The pitching staff is Scott Baker (who will start the season on the disabled list), Francisco Liriano, and cross your fingers until you get to Joe Nathan. And what about Joe Mauer? Officially, he has a back problem that will keep him out of the lineup for the first few weeks of the season. Unofficially, there might be more to his back than the team is letting on. Didn't he have some kind of kidney surgery recently?

The Twins were really, really fortunate to take advantage of a bad division to come within a playoff game of the champion White Sox. This year, the AL Central's much better (or so we've heard), and chances are real good the Twins will get lost in the shuffle. How does fourth place sound?

Elsewhere in baseball, it's all about New York. The Yankees and Mets have new stadiums. The Steinbrenner family built a nearly-exact replica of the Yankee Stadium they left behind. Nearly, that is, except for the luxury seating and the price tag. The Mets built one meant to evoke the glory days of the Brooklyn Dodgers and Ebbets Field. But recent events have turned it into a monument to greed at taxpayer expense. So why is it still called Citi Field?

While every other team tightens their belts, the Yankees continue to spend tons of money on free agents. CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Mark Teixeira are the latest in the team's never-endi ng quest to purchase a championship. Alex Rodriguez, another well-known and well-paid Yankee, is conveniently out of sight at the moment, tending to his surgically-repaired hip while dodging further questions about dating Madonna or his alleged use of steroids.

When October comes, here's who we think will make the playoffs.

American League East Boston Red Sox, Central Chicago White Sox, West Los Angeles Angels, Wild Card New York Yankees.

National League East Philadelphia Phillies, Central Chicago Cubs, West Los Angeles Dodgers, Wild Card New York Mets.

A Tale of Two Old Shows

They say nothing in TV lasts forever. They also say nothing in TV should last forever. It just seems that way.

The hospital drama ER has just concluded its fifteenth and final season on NBC Thursday night (that's 105 in dog years). Guiding Light, the long-running daytime soap that began when Franklin Roosevelt was President and before anyone had ever heard of television, will end its run this September after 72 years in broadcasting.

ER began in 1994, depicting the life and loves of doctors caught up in the frenzy of a Chicago hospital's emergency room. George Clooney, Anthony Edwards, Juliana Margulies, Noah Wyle, Laura Innes and Eriq LaSalle (among others) became familiar faces thanks to this show. Clooney, of course, parlayed all of this into a Hollywood movie career.

Guiding Light, depicting the life and loves of the good citizens of Springfield (no, not the one the Simpsons inhabit), began on NBC Radio in 1937, moved to CBS Radio in 1947, simulcast on radio and TV from 1952-56, then it was strictly TV until now. James Earl Jones, Kevin Bacon, Calista Flockhart and Hayden Panettiere (among others) passed through Springfield before moving on to bigger things. The show also provided gainful employment for longtime regulars Kim Zimmer and Charita Bauer.

ER was at or near the top of the TV ratings its first few seasons on the air, then began its slow ratings decline. It has lasted this long in spite of plots that were either recycled or bordering on the ridiculous, the original cast eventually replaced by actors you couldn't pick out of a lineup, and NBC having nothing better to replace it.

CBS has tried for years to unload Guiding Light because it was the lowest-rated of all the soaps on TV, but didn't want to offend Procter and Gamble, which not only produces the show but is one of TV's biggest advertisers. Daytime TV itself is having problems (even Oprah Winfrey is losing viewers) because its core audience of women have gotten lives of their own.

So rest in peace, ER and Guiding Light. Neither of you would be around as long as you did without somebody liking what you did.