Tuesday, March 23, 2004

I've read that Jack Kelley's made-up stories in USA Today were less important than Jayson Blair's fiction in the NYT because the Times is a much more influential paper. I'll buy that to a certain degree... ...but Salon's John Gorenfeld shows that Kelley's fabrications were especially pernicious, and got plenty of attention: "What stands out in Kelley's phony oeuvre...is the way he trafficked in particularly explosive stereotypes. And what makes him emerge as a more dangerously misguided figure than his tarnished peers -- Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass among them -- is how influential those tales became." One story, for example, was repeated repeatedly by Tim Russert and picked up by columnist Armstrong Williams, another became fodder for anti-Semites (worth clicking thru the ad.) 5:50:35 PM    comment []

Expert advice. A powerful behind-the-scenes Democrat well-wired into Raleigh tells me that challenging Coble is not a priority, because he's unbeatable and running against him would divert money from winnable races. That's the logic of gerrymandering translated into the financial terms, the lingua franca of politics. A well-respected elected official and Democrat whooped with excitement when informed of my possible run, said it's a great idea. Both this official and a politically-connected Republican cousin of mine say that Coble will raise so much money so fast if he's challenged that he'll likely end up with more in the bank than he has now. 3:23:01 PM    comment []

Local blogging, national issue: Hoggard discusses the possibility of uniforms at Aycock Middle School. 11:19:02 AM    comment []

Baba O'Reilly. Discuss. 11:00:31 AM    comment []