Category: Politics Feature

The global money-laundering system used by terrorists has also served the U.S. government and banks for years, creating wealth and occasionally supporting U.S. political interests abroad. Changing U.S. bank secrecy laws to pierce that laundering system is as essential to stopping terrorism as military force and diplomatic moves.

Terrorist networks all over the world depend on the international bank and corporate secrecy system to hide and move their money. This structure is allowed to exist by agreement of the world’s banks and financial powers, including the United States and its allies. Internationally, many make money from the system, including the owners and managers of banks that hide customers’ deposits from tax authorities.

But the system also enables terrorists to funnel money for their activities in dozens of countries and pay for houses, salaries, transport, weapons, and explosives. Terrorists need to move millions quickly and without detection, and transferring millions of dollars using secret bank accounts and shell companies is easy.

In many countries, known as “offshore” or “tax haven” countries, companies and open accounts can be established by individuals without using real names or identification. Phony banks that are just letter-drops send money to real banks. In the United States, the real banks routinely ask no questions when the phony banks open “correspondent accounts” to move money here for their customers.

For example, currently there is nothing in U.S. law to stop the Al-Shamal Islamic Bank in Khartoum, Sudan, from opening an account in a U.S. bank to wire money for use here or in another country.

In fact, that bank was set up by Osama bin Laden. Even if a stop is put on the bank, funds might easily move through a third party in Nauru or Liechtenstein or some other offshore haven to other U.S. banks, which are not required to ask about the owners of money. The foreign banks bundle cash from numerous customers and send the lump sum to their correspondent accounts in the United States. Then they move the money wherever their clients order.

The Sunday Times of London has reported that a suspected bin Laden lieutenant, Saudi dissident Khalid al-Fawwaz, used an account at a branch of Barclays Bank in London to finance circulation of bin Laden’s edicts and contacts through his global network. Khalid al-Fawwaz is being held awaiting extradition proceedings to the United States for participation in the conspiracy to murder Americans in the September 11th attacks.

Swiss federal prosecutors are investigating whether any money linked to the terrorists flowed through its country’s banks. According to Blick, a Zurich daily, Al Taqwa Management Organization AG, a Lugano-based financial services company, had links with Osama bin Laden. Lugano, in southern Switzerland, is notorious as a home for “financial services companies,” whose function is to move money discreetly, and shell companies and secret bank accounts.

The system is no surprise to the U.S. government because Washington and its allies have used it too. The Bank of Credit and Commerce International was a British-Pakistani bank that used secret offshore accounts to effect a global money-laundering fraud that cost victims $8 billion. Before it was shut down in 1991, it was used to fund the Mujahadeen, then fighting the Soviet-supported government of Afghanistan. The money came from U.S. and Saudi intelligence.

Now many of the formerly U.S.-supported Mujahadeen are members of bin Laden’s network. They know all about how to launder money through the international bank secrecy system.

If Washington wants to stop the money flow that supports terrorism, it needs to cut that pipeline. The first step should be immediate passage of legislation sponsored by Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI). Levin’s bill, which was opposed by Republican leaders last year, has two key elements. It would bar U.S. banks from providing banking services to foreign shell banks that have no physical presence in any country. And it would require U.S. banks to conduct in-depth investigations when opening accounts of $1 million or more for foreigners, as well as correspondent accounts for offshore banks or banks in countries with high money-laundering risks.

Other countries also need to change their practices. In London, a favorite center for Middle East money, banks connected to the Saudi royal family enjoy “sovereign immunity,” which England grants to monarchies. These banks are exempt from the scrutiny of the Financial Service Authority, which tries to head off money laundering.

The United States needs to get behind efforts by the globe’s main industrial economies, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the G-7 to crack down on enclaves of bank and corporate secrecy. Washington should not be letting these financial institutions off the hook, as the OECD did this year in response to U.S. pressures.

Lucy Komisar has been writing on the international bank secrecy system since 1997. This article first appeared on AlterNet.

From “Doing One Thing Well: Who is State Senator Steve Cohen, and How Did He Get That Way?” (Memphis Magazine, October 2001)

…When he was five years old, the age at which, Freud says, the psyche is achieving its first complete sense of itself, young Steve Cohen had an experience which is bound to have had an incalculable effect on him. Perhaps it even explains why his father, Dr. Morris Cohen, changed medical courses in mid-career, from pediatrics to psychiatry.

In 1954, when Dr. Jonas Salk was developed the first successful vaccine to end the once endemic scourge of polio (a.k.a. infantile paralysis), Dr.Cohen was given one of the first batches of the vaccine to administer to his patients on a trial basis.

“I don’t know if he volunteered, or how it came about, but in 1954 they gave him the Salk vaccine to give to second-grade students for testing. And he gave the shots to my brother [Michael], who was in the second grade. He didn’t give me the shots. I was in kindergarten. He had the vaccine, and he apparently thought about it and didn’t give it to me. I don’t know whether it was honor, a sense of responsibility, or whether it wasn’t his issue – his purpose. Or I’ve also heard there was some concern that some people might get the polio from the vaccine. Maybe he was concerned, you know, what if that happened? I didn’t know. But anyway, I got polio that fall. I was one of the last people to get it. And my father could have given me the vaccine. He didn’t.”

One doesn’t need an amateur psychologist’s license to read in this the possible origin of some ambiguity towards authority and authority figures.

“It didn’t cause any stress between us,” Cohen insists. “But it did cause my father a lot of angst. He goes on. “One good thing about polio: I’ve read this, that polio survivors tend to max themselves out, they tend to be over-achievers. ”

When he wears shorts, which is frequently around his house in the warm weather months, it is apparent that Cohen’s left leg is thinned and attenuated from the ravages of his childhood disease. That didn’t stop him, however, from playing football in high school — at the position of center, no less, one which results in about as much hard banging as you can expect on a football field.

As Dr. Cohen shifted jobs and specialties, he also shifted locales, from Memphis to Florida to California, back to Florida, and then back to Memphis. (“Stranger in a strange land, man without a country.,” indeed.)

One of the ways in which the young Steve Cohen connected with the shifting world about him was through the appurtenances of popular culture: sports, Top 40 music and politics. To go through Cohen’s house on Kenilworth, adjoining Overton Park, is to walk through a theme park of the aforesaid personal artifacts.

The button collection, for example, enchased here and there on his walls: There are campaign buttons for virtually every presidential campaign and every state political campaign of consequence, sports buttons, movie buttons. There are photographs of sports and music celebrities of every stripe, and photographs of Cohen with many of those selfsame celebrities.

Notable among these is Orestes “Minnie” Minoso, the Chicago White Sox great from the ’50s. When Steve Cohen was five years old, recuperating from the first ravages of polio and attending an exhibition game at Memphis’ old Russwood Park, leaning on crutches, a White Sox player came over and handed him a ball, then pointed to Minoso, who was standing some distance away.

“He wanted you to have this,” the player said, and then explained that Minoso, a Latino black, was nervous about approaching a white child himself.

“That was how it was in the ’50s,” Cohen remembers. “It gave me my first insight into the insanity of segregation.”

(It also, after the passage of some time, gave Cohen his email moniker, a variation on the name Minnie Minoso.)

Financial planners often bring valuable prior professional experience to their practices. Take my colleague Morton Gorden, for instance. He has a wealth of information based on his experience in retail merchandising. He is the descendant of an enterprising Jewish immigrant from Russia named Harry Gorden, who settled in Coffeeville, Mississippi, and opened a successful general store in 1912.

Harry’s son Aaron — Morton’s father — later joined the venture and the store burgeoned into a furniture and appliance business.

In 1957, at the tender age of 10, Morton was unleashed onto the sales floor on Saturdays. He took over the business from his father in 1979. As the nature of retailing irrevocably changed, Morton closed the Coffeeville business for good in 1989. It was a bittersweet transition, but after 77 years of operation, “H. Gorden’s” became a memory.

Through the years, the now 50-something Gorden has helped a number of friends, family members, and clients to close businesses. Gorden, who also serves as an arbiter for the Better Business Bureau, contends that many of these “going out of business” (GOOB) sales offer legitimate values to the public. But, he warns, abuses are commonplace. In Tennessee, the law requires that once a business starts a GOOB sale, the business must terminate within 90 days. (Some local municipalities allow 120 days with a special permit.) Further, the business operators may not purchase new merchandise once the sale has started. But creative operators sometimes place orders in advance for merchandise that is scheduled to arrive during the sale.

Consignment arrangements for merchandise not owned directly by the business are also employed. Such agreements provide the business with a risk-free opportunity to make additional profit because any unsold inventory may be returned to the consignor.

Because retailers often don’t know all the aspects of putting on a GOOB sale, external promoters are typically hired to plan and operate the event. These promoters may be hired as contract employees, who are entitled to a percentage of event sales, or paid a flat amount.

Or the promoter may purchase the entire inventory of a business at a negotiated price in advance. From that point on the original business owner is out of the picture. Often with this type of arrangement other inventory is brought in for the sales event to enhance the bottom line. In either case, the promoter uses the good name of the business to lure customers who believe they can profit from someone else’s misfortune.

Gorden stresses that these sales can be very lucrative for the businesses. The best-case scenario is one that yields both reasonable mark-ups for the business and better-than-average values for the consumers. He cites four types of common abuses.

Original prices are often repriced upward just before the sale. A $299 piece of jewelry is marked at $399, with a sale price of $279. The intent is to misrepresent the discount the customer is actually receiving.

Closeout merchandise that bears a higher original mark-up is brought in specifically for the sale. Retailers can often buy discontinued merchandise at up to a 50 percent discount. This tactic is considered ethical so long as the closeout merchandise falls within the range and quality the business typically retails.

The combination of strong customer response and healthy mark-ups can entice some businesses to continue their sale longer than the statutory limits. A recent example of an illegal GOOB sale practice involved Upton’s Department Store in Memphis being cited by the state for conducting its GOOB sale for 145 days. A $15,000 fine (plus various costs and penalties) was imposed under a settlement agreement with the state.

Misleading advertising is used to get people in the store. “Entire Stock Up To 50% Off” is an example of advertising that attempts to make the public believe that virtually all the prices have been cut in half. In reality, there could be very few half-off items available, with most sale items bearing lesser discounts. Although not illegal, it’s certainly ethically questionable.

Just remember: Not all going out of business sales are created equal. Let the buyer beware.

Bill Steinberg is a Certified Financial Planner and Mediator with Kelman-Lazarov, Inc. He can be reached at bill@kelman-lazarov.com.

NASHVILLE — It was in the wee hours past election midnight. Two Yellow Dog Democrats stood on the 27th floor balcony of a Nashville law firm. To the west they could see the outline of the hotel where Vice President Albert sat in a room wondering whether he was to be the bug or the windshield in this election.

Far down below and across the street, the two old Democrats could see the crowd huddled in the rain on the Legislative Plaza in front of the State Capitol. For hours this crowd had waited for Gore to walk out onto the steps of the War Memorial Building and tell them that he was, indeed, the windshield. Yes, Gore would assure them, it has turned out, indeed, to be a Bush bug smashed on the windshield of this ever so close election.

But that message never arrived. The hours ticked by and the bug was still smashed on the windshield, and nobody could make out the bug’s name.

“What are you going to do tomorrow?” said one of the tired Yellow Dogs as he dragged his tired frame away from the balcony, toward the door and home and, finally, bed.

“I gonna find Ralph Nader and strangle him,” said the other.

Indeed, it would seem that Nader might be the most despised man in American today. The numbers would seem to indicate that Nader, the Green Party candidate, ate into the Democratic vote enough in three states to tilt the election to Bush. On the surface, this would appear to be the case in Oregon and New Hampshire, and nowhere more so than in Florida.

If Nader’s 96,701 votes in Florida had gone to Gore, the election would be over now, there would be no need for an agonizing recount and possible court fight, and Gore would be President. Thus, the anger of the old Yellow Dog on the balcony in Nashville, and the comparable spleen that might be poured upon Nader’s name in the days to come.

And the Democrats, ask: for what? Nader fell far short of his goal of getting 5% so the Green Party could qualify for federal matching funds in the next presidential contest. The latest figures show Nader polling about 3%.

However, before that Yellow Dog strangles Nader he might want to talk to some of the professionals and do a bit more analysis. It will take several days of sifting through the votes and doing follow up interviews to find out just how damaging Nader really was to Gore.

Greg Wanderman, the Executive Director of the Tennessee Democratic Party, says that Nader was not that much of a factor, at least in Tennessee.

“Our polling,” Wanderman said on the morning following the election, “indicated that not many of Nader’s votes in Tennessee were coming from people who would have otherwise voted for Gore. I think they were mostly people who were disaffected with the system and may not have voted at all. Some of them may have been just people who hate the internal combustion engine and care about little else.”

In addition to the debriefing of the Nader vote, there is also on the morning after renewed speculation about the role and the future of the electoral college system. Among other things, if it turns out that Gore wins the popular vote and loses the electoral vote, there certainly will be renewed calls for a constitutional amendment to eliminate the electoral college.

Another line of speculation that ensued on the morning after was the debate about how much, if any, pressure can be brought to bear on electors to defect from their pledged positions and go with the popular vote. Twenty-three states do not require by law that electors vote the way they have pledged to vote

Some were even toying with the idea that Gore should be encouraged to mount a massive lobbying campaign to get electors to do just that. These speculators mused that, should Gore lose the Florida recount, he certainly should try that in the Sunshine State. What has he go lose, they ask.

Frankly, such a scheme has little chance of success. Each party’s executive committee chooses the electors for that party on the basis of their loyalty to that party. In Florida, for instance, there would be 25 Democrat electors pledged to support Gore and 25 pledged to support Bush.

Since it’s a winner take all system, Gore might have to convince as many as 13 Republican electors that they should bow to the popular vote mandate and force Florida’s 25-vote block to go to him instead of Bush. That’s almost impossible to imagine. Even if the rules allowed the 25 votes to be split up, Gore would face the task of convincing at least 10 Republicans to abandon their party and go with him. Again, not likely at all.

No, Gore’s best bet right now is to hope the recounters examine the bug smashed on the windshield and determine that the word “Bush” is written on its side.

Christy thinks Democrats are lousy tippers.

“But you know, with these things you expect it,” the young waitress continued. “Everyone figures that they paid their money so they could be here and they don’t want to spend any more on tips.”

The Democrats she’s referring to are the crush of people who filled the Wildhorse Saloon in Nashville last week for a concert and party that, together with other passings of the hat Tuesday, netted the Gore campaign $4.2 million.

Christy and the other servers elbowed through the crowd to serve food and especially drinks to the donors, most of whom showed signs of rumpling and sweating, due to the room’s heat, well before the concert actually started. People huddled three deep at the bar, drinking cocktails out of plastic cups (glassware had been prohibited) and leaving the empty cups strewn on all bare surfaces (the secret service had removed the trash cans).

About two hours after the Wildhorse opened its doors to guests, a long string of noticeably weary and disheveled national journalists filed in, settling into the press riser and trying to capture a new angle on a story they’ve already compiled dozens of times during this campaign season.

“If you’re waiting for Bob Dylan, you might as well go home,” said one clearly agitated man to no one in particular. “That’s why I bought my ticket, but Dylan being here is just a rumor that was started by the Bush campaign.”

Though this was apparently a well-circulated rumor, the outspoken man was the only one present with a theory on its origin. Instead of the legendary folk singer, campaign contributors were treated to a varied lineup that began with Billy Ray Cyrus and ended with Tony Bennett, with Kim Richey, Patty Loveless, and Bebe Winans in between.

The very bloated and still mullet-sporting Cyrus took the stage first, playing a handful of songs, including his early Nineties hit, “Some Gave All,” a tribute to Vietnam vets.

“This year we’ve got an opportunity to elect the first Commander in Chief who also served in Vietnam,” Cyrus remarked during his introduction to the song. At this comment, Al Gore, sitting on the saloon’s second-floor balcony alongside wife Tipper and running mate Joe Lieberman and Hadassah Lieberman, pursed his lips into a tight line, wrinkled his brow in thought, and nodded his head slowly and appreciatively, in an expression that seemed to reveal his thoughts — something like “Yeah, that’s good, remember that, use that.”

The mostly B-list performers seemed antsy and overwhelmed at the prospect of performing for the vice president and his running mate, with only Tony Bennett looking completely at ease. Bennett strutted and snapped through a repertoire of his best known hits, equally working a crowd composed of Ann Taylor-clad campaign workers and blue jeans-sporting labor union members. Though Bennett was a daunting act to follow, it was Al Gore who drew thunderous applause from the audience, his reception being second only to the one given to Eddie George, the Tennessee Titans well-loved running back who emceed the evening’s events.

Gore eventually took the stage, markedly at ease and occasionally drawing laughs from the crowd, despite the circles under his eyes and the leaden weight that caused his feet to drag with each step.

The Gore lovefest was only heightened when the veep contrasted the bright, sunny, beautiful day that November 8th would be if he is elected with the dreary, cold, gray day that he says the Wednesday after election day will be if George W. Bush wins the presidency. At this, the crowd cheered and thrust their “Gore/Lieberman” signs higher in the air, pressing forward in an attempt to shake the presidential and vice-presidential hopefuls hands.

As the festivities drew to a close, the secret service men’s faces screwed into looks of deep concentration, cautiously eyeing everyone who drew near the candidates. Orlando, a secret service officer who had been surprisingly chatty earlier in the evening, disappeared at this point, sucked back into a job that called for him to protect Joe and Hadassah and Al and Tipper from the bad tippers.

(You can write Rebekah Gleaves at gleaves@memphisflyer.com)

NASHVILLE — “Too dark, it’s way too dark in here, I can already tell,” said a cameraman to a mass of media types, none of whom were listening to him because cell phones were pressed to their ears.

It was just after 10 a.m. and Tennessee State University’s Poag Theater was beginning to fill on this Wednesday morning.

First in was a seemingly endless string of journalists. Cameramen lugged oppressively heavy equipment, trudged to the camera platform and began the Sisyphean task of checking light and sound, assembling and disassembling gear.

Reporters settled into seats in the theater, not caring that their view was completely obscured by the camera platform. Apparently after sitting through a few of these speeches, seeing the candidates becomes unimportant.

Secret Service men, betrayed by the squiggly cord trailing out of their ears, stood rapt in the doorways and attentive at the metal detector, giving each entrant a through, albeit brief, once over. Meanwhile, the reporters continued to mill about, sitting first in one seat, then another, flipping through copies of The Tennessean, then walking upstairs to the balcony, most of them more concerned with finding an available electrical outlet for their notebook computers than gaining a better vantage point.

“Does anyone know what this one is about?” asked one reporter to about a dozen others.

“Education,” came the answer from a disembodied voice.

“Does anyone have the text of the speech?” asked the first reporter.

“Not yet,” came the mystery person’s answer.

After about 20 minutes passed, students at the historically black college began to enter the theater. The rows in front of the media riser filled quickly. Students who sat in the reserved press seats were asked to move to accommodate the visiting reporters, and there was a bit of back-and-forthing, with the same groups of people standing, then sitting, then being asked to stand again, until it was realized there was a seat for everybody, or at least an out-of-the-way place to stand.

After the din of gossip and one-sided cell phone conversations had subsided, a noticeably nervous TSU student body president managed to say a few encouraging words to his fellow students before introducing Senator Joe Lieberman, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate.

Lieberman greeted the group by saying that he’d never had a bad day in Tennessee and then proceeded to tell a joke about a couple of college students who overslept an exam and asked their history history professor for a make-up on the excuse that they’d had a flat tire on the way to take the exam. The prof said fine, okay, then sat the students down in separate rooms, and gave each of them a two-part make-up exam. First part: for 5 points: Who was president during the Civil War? Second part: for 95 points: Which tire?

Thus was the credibility issue, so often vented during this campaign year, vented again at TSU. Ultimately, Lieberman wrapped it up and introduced the head of the ticket, Vice President Al Gore. The two men hugged on stage before Gore took the mike to ask the crowd, “Wouldn’t Joe make a terrific vice president?” The question, like most of the speech which followed was expressed in the vice president’s patented Golly-gee-give-him-a-gold-star Eddie Haskell speaking style.

Shortcuts

Gore’s speech itself was mostly centered on education, and the day’s leitmotif was the word “shortcut.” As in: “If we want our children to learn and grow, there aren’t any shortcuts.” Or: “If we want to raise the standards for every child, there aren’t any shortcuts.” Or: If we truly want to reform American education, there aren’t any shortcuts.”

Gore criticized his Republican opponent, Texas Governor George W. Bush, for talking about education reform, but not acting on his reform promises in Texas.

The vice president then set out to debunk a Rand Corporation study that Bush had evidently used as proof of education reform in Texas by citing a new Rand study, released only this week, showing, said Gore, that the education gap in Texas is widening.

An audible groan arose from the 200-plus students gathered in the theater, with echoes from the several hundred more who listened to the speeches through speakers positioned in an amphitheater outside of the building, when Gore maintained that Bush’s education reform plan would only increase the number of Pell grants awarded to freshman students, not the number granted to all students.

“That’s not a path to a college degree. That’s a path to a college dropout,” Gore said to enthusiastic applause from the students. He concluded his speech by saying– what else?– that Bush’s education reform plan was a “shortsighted shortcut in education policy.”

Immediately following his speech, the room came alive with the sounds of rhythm and blues music. First, the Jackson Five’s “ABC” blasted over the PA system and many of the students cautiously danced to the song as they pressed forward to get near the vice president. When that song ended, Arrested Development’s “Tennessee” began to play, and the students who weren’t already dancing, began to sing along softly. By the time James Brown’s “Feel Good” came coursing through the room, the crowd had become even less inhibited and the two candidates had left the building, off to meet the plane that would take them the day’s next stop at the fairgrounds in Jackson, the West Tennessee home of Gore’s maternal ancestors, the LaFons.

”Who’s Related to Me?”

Indeed, when Gore and Lieberman and a number of regional and state Democratic dignitaries– former governor Ned McWherter, state Gore-Lieberman director Roy Herron, U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Clark, state House Speaker Pro Tem Lois DeBerry, et al, et al.– ended up on a platform at the Jackson fairgrounds, the vice president issued a public call: “How many of you out there are related to me?” A generous number of hands protruded from the 2,000 or so people gathered in the July-like heat.

What the crowd heard was standard Gorefare– the usual talking points about “revolutionary changes” in education, protection of the environment, shoring up Social Security and Medicare, paying down the national debt, and “fighting for the working people” of Tennessee and the nation.

Stripped of his coat and with white shirt-sleeves rolled up to the elbow, the vice president got downright shucksy. The man who was famous for having his surrogates leak his international derring-do to the national press, his friendships with foreign heads of state and so forth, told this crowd: “You know, the local newspaper wants me to talk about foreign policy. I don’t usually do that, but I will.”

He then talked, in a brief and obligatory manner, about his ability to handle foreign crises and quickly resumed the catch phrases of his domestic concerns– “fighting for you,” “an equal day’s pay for an equal day’s work,” “pledge to treat teachers like the professionals they are.”

Gore eventually wound to his peroration: “I want you to fight for me so I can fight for you. I want you to feel my passion.” (To which an unfriendly demonstrator– one of several anti-abortion protesters who had infiltrated the rally with their signs– muttered audible, “I want you to feel my passion!”

At the end, though, just before some impressive fireworks and strings of confetti shot from guns, there was impressive enough applause from the crowd, and Gore departed the platform and set to shaking hands and pressing the flesh while the portable soundtrack played the usual staples, including, once again, James Brown’s “I Feel Good.”

Then the veep was off to Kansas City for a rally while running mate Joe Lieberman headed west to Memphis for a private big-ticket reception.

{Jackson Baker contributed to this story.]

(You can write Rebekah Gleaves at gleaves@memphisflyer.com)

SAINT LOUIS — It would have been no surprise for Bill Clinton to have poked out from behind the curtains last night at the final presidential debate. Clearly, American voters have earned a toast. And who better to give one than the man who has shown that he knows an easy conquest when he sees it.

I regret to report that the Green Party is winning the race for the nation’s next Commander in Chief — and I’m not talking about Ralph.

At least the journalists, the ones who are entrusted to deliver objective observations of what’s really behind those velvety blue Oz-like debate curtains, have been bought and sold all for the sake of some freebies.

Herded into the debate media tent were thousands of journalists from across the globe talking in their native tongue: garbled mouth fulls of free food and liquor. The open-all-evening bar offering Budweiser products (of course) was only half as popular a way to pass the hours before show time as having a flirty chat with the Bud Girls. Like perky perfume women at the mall, they gave out frosted Election 2000 collector’s mugs.

Most reporters declined the glasses because they were carrying too much already. In three free tote bags donated with various corporate labels, they lugged around complimentary t-shirts and baseball caps in between games of Budweiser foosball, air hockey, and ping pong. I suppose most wanted to savor their Southwestern Bell advertising packet for quieter times back at their hotels, especially those taking off on the Bush plane Wednesday morning when the candidate continues mangling his verbiage in the Northeast. A ticket to ride with W. costs news agencies $1,000 or more a day. That, of course, makes the cost of filing this story – which I had to do from Washington University’s Athletic Complex cum reporter bullpen – mere pocket change at $100 per phone line.

Reporters were confined to the pen all night. The auditorium was a coveted place, a mythical up-close-and-personal land that old curmudgeon journalists remember from elections decades ago. So, in an enormous gymnasium, reporters watched Gore and Bush duke it out on television. If Citibank had the foresight similar to their competitors, they could have banked a killing with a commercial — the ending going something like, “A ticket to one of the presidential debates . . . priceless.”

Unless you were an American with a heavy checkbook who gave heartily to the Bush or Gore campaign, getting a seat in the auditorium face-to-face with them remained a silly fantasy of true Democracy. Lucky students at Washington University won raffle tickets to the show but were ultimately told to stay back and keep quiet.

PBS journalist Jim Lehrer, who hosted all three debates by himself, announced before the debate began that a diverse group of undecided voters would get the opportunity to ask the Bush and Gore a variety of questions. However, he failed to mention that the people were hand-picked by the organization that runs the debates, the Commission for Presidential Debates, a filtering agency that complies with the desires of only the Bush and Gore camps without consulting third-party candidates Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan. Given the questions Tuesday afternoon, Lehrer chose which ones the candidates would address — but not before briefing Gore and Bush’s advisors about subjects of the questions first! So much for quick thinking and spontaneity.

There has been much grumbling from third party candidates that the commission has excluded them. Nader announced to a paltry audience of no more than 40 supporters that he has filed suit against the University of Michigan, the candidates themselves, and the Commission for Presidential Debates for blocking his entrance into the first debate.

“I had a ticket,” he explained to the mostly college-age crowd. “Our car was pulled over and a man who called himself a security officer told me that he had been instructed by the commission to order me to leave whether I had a ticket or not.”

Nader said that his banishment from the University of Michigan campus that night meant he had to cancel a prearranged post-debate commentary with Fox News.

Nader said he didn’t have a ticket to Tuesday night’s debate. When asked if would consider attempting to force his way onto Washington University’s heavily-policed campus and onto the debate, he replied, “No, I prefer to be the plaintiff in all matters, never the defendant.”

As I was writing notes in my complimentary Budweiser note pad, I started to give Nader’s strong accusations more credit. But, hanging my head low in disappointment, I, like most other journalists, filed this story and made a bee-line toward the fully Bud-stocked bar.

(You can write Ashley Fantz at freeland@memphisflyer.com)

Mark Brown, the communications/political director of the
Tennessee state Senate caucus, has responded to last week’s wrap-up in
this space concerning his party’s 2008 electoral misfortunes.

In the course of an extended e-mail conversation, Brown begins with
this assertion: “There was never a television ad that claimed
Dolores Gresham ‘had voted X number of times’ to raise her pay.
Our accusation, which was fully documented in our ads, was that Gresham
voted to increase her pension, which is pay. Also, this was a vote for
a very specific bill, which, again, was documented in the spot. This
was not a vote ‘for the same routine bookkeeping resolutions that
everyone else had.’ To the contrary, Gresham specifically voted for a
bill that increased her legislative pension. Your assertions are flatly
incorrect, and I believe you should print a correction.”

The context of my discussion of the race for the state Senate in
District 26 between Democrat Randy Camp and Republican Dolores
Gresham was the fact that, as I saw it, in race after race, the
Democrats, who lost the state House and trail the Republicans in the
Senate now by five votes, had largely invited misfortune by depending
too heavily on negative, patently misleading advertising.

Brown’s objection is well-taken in two particulars: 1) that, as he
says, mailers sent out by the Democrats did reference the party’s
candidates’ position on “the economy, jobs, and health care”; and 2)
that the indicated pay-raise ad did not claim that Gresham had voted
for an increase multiple times, only a single time.

That’s as far as I can go in crediting Brown’s objections, however.
As he acknowledges, the 2006 vote that the anti-Gresham ad references
was in two parts — a main bill that passed the House by the
nearly unanimous margin of 86-1 and an amendment to it that was so
uncontroversial as to pass by acclamation. Moreover, the
bill-cum-amendment did no more than adjust legislative pensions to
cost-of-living increases.

Given the fact that, of members present, only one member of the
House, Harry Tindall (D-Knoxville), voted against the measure
while another, Stacey Campfield (R-Knoxville), was recorded as
“present, not voting,” it is obvious that it enjoyed virtually
universal support across party lines and that it was as close to a pro
forma “routine bookkeeping resolution” as ever comes before the
legislature.

Moreover, to contend, as Brown does, that a pension is “pay” is a
stretch, and his subsequently made points that the amendment component
of the bill was introduced on the floor by a Republican and was
discussed out loud would seem to be irrelevant.

Brown also takes exception to my having noted that official
Democratic Party statements attempted misleadingly to saddle write-in
candidate Rosalind Kurita, a Democrat who had significant
Republican help, with support for a state income tax solely because she
was financially backed by former Republican governor Don
Sundquist. (For the record, Kurita was resolutely opposed to
Sundquist’s income tax proposals as a senator.)

Brown’s response to that is something of a nolo contendere. After
acknowledging that “we hit Kurita on Sundquist because Sundquist gave
her campaign contributions,” he amplifies on that later by claiming
that Republicans often have made unfairly sweeping allegations
concerning Democratic support for an income tax (a point well taken),
so that “[w]e pushed back by pointing out that Republicans were taking
campaign contributions from Don Sundquist, the father of the state
income tax; however, other than press releases and a few automated
calls, this was never a major piece of our messaging.”

I’ll let that statement speak for itself.

I appreciate Brown’s polite and responsive way of dealing with
points made both in my column and in e-mails to him. In defending his
party’s electoral strategy, ex post facto, he’s arguably doing what a
dedicated party spokesperson should be doing.

However, I stand by my original proposition that state Democrats
lost ground in the election at least partly because of reliance on
negative and misleading advertising. Granted, numerous Republican ads
were equally offending. But, if anything, Brown’s response seems to me
to confirm my original argument.

• In a ceremony on Monday, Kemp Conrad, winner of a
special election to succeed Scott McCormick, now president of the
Plough Foundation, was sworn in as the newest member of the City
Council.