Tuesday, June 17, 2003

Oliver Willis has been one of John Edwards’ biggest fans on the Web, but he’s starting to wonder if he’s ever going to hear what he needs to hear from North Carolina's would-be favorite son. "Frankly, as an Edwards supporter - I'm not sure what the deal is right now…Its one thing to run as a moderate-centrist in the national campaign, but that doesn't mean Democrats don't need to offer bold alternatives and proud rhetoric to counteract the President…Edwards is being too cautious.   It's time to step up to the plate Senator.” 9:55:52 PM    comment []

Scott Rosenberg reads Bill O’Reilly’s mind. Reminds me of one of my most popular columns, ever, which ran a couple of days after Bill Clinton’s big mea kinda culpa speech about Monica. It took me about 16 minutes to write, and it’s probably the only thing I’ll ever write to get reposted by the Freepers. 9:47:02 PM    comment []

Camilo remembered Bloomsday. I didn’t.  3:32:19 PM    comment []

It doesn’t take a conspiracy to make Bill O’Reilly look dumb – Big Bill can do it all by himself – but the Volokh Conspiracy takes the trouble to do it anyway. Glenn Reynolds gives the dead horse of O’Reilly’s credibility another beating – but then he pussyfoots away from the suggestion by Andrea Harris that people might actually start to switch off Fox News, of which Reynolds himself produces a sophisticated weblog variation. 3:30:08 PM    comment []

Doozy recalls a time when some conservative Protestants supported separation of church and state, along with strong public schools. And, um, inspections of “convents, nunneries and other illegitimate Romish prisons and slave pens.” 3:19:12 PM    comment []

Monkeytime responds to my columnar suggestion that John Edwards take some sort of stand on trade. “Ah, to dream. It's a nice thought, Ed, but you're overlooking one vital point: Edwards' campaign is being run right out of the "New Democrat" playbook written by the fine conservatives at the Democratic Leadership Council. They've made it quite clear there will be no questioning of free trade, fast track or the ridiculously secretive and undemocratic way decisions are made at the WTO.”   Lots of good Edwards stuff over at Monkey Media, especially if you like news about feckless presidential campaigns and endangered senate seats. 10:21:11 AM    comment []

My Baseline reporting partner Dave and I wrote a case study about Eckerd, which did something unusual by firing its outsourcer, IBM Global Services, and rebuilding its IT department from scratch. You can see how IBM would be uncomfortable with the article, but the company’s decision not to talk to us strikes me as a poor PR move.   Eckerd did what it did. We were going to write the story anyway. As it happens, Eckerd made its move mostly because of the way the multi-year contract was structured, not because IBM was doing a bad job. I think IBM looks worse for failing to talk than it would have in discussing even in general terms the way it handles big outsourcing deals -- or in another, hypothetical situation, addressing serious complaints about service. Why not go on the record with some intelligent comments about doing business in the real world? 9:30:18 AM    comment []