Afflicting the comfortable

Every week, I open beautifully scripted correspondence from folks telling me to shove it.

And no, not all of it’s from my boyfriend, U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg. (Yes, Howdy Doody, R-Tipton, is such a charmer).

Officials of all political stripes can threaten not to talk to me, as if that will keep them out of the story.

Folks, as any good flack will tell you, the easiest way to skirt the line of fire is not to do something stupid.

But take your shots. I can take ‘em.

That’s what take-no-prisoners columnists like H.L. Mencken and Molly Ivins did. And if there’s a missing ingredient in journalism today (besides money for emaciated newsrooms), it’s fearlessness.

The most common and effective PR tactic by any politician, business, lobby or bored, but motivated individual is to beat reporters and media outlets down. Fight them on every controversial story; instigate a boycott; circulate politically spun “fact checks”; threaten to sue; threaten to get the writer fired; pen libelous blog posts against them.

Some unlucky reporters have entire Web sites dedicated to disparaging their work, typically the handiwork of swaggering campaign operatives. (Personally, I savor the anonymous posts that Walbots have gotten me canned from my last two gigs. Nice try, boys).

Yep, kill the unfavorable coverage by any means necessary. Especially, of course, if it’s the truth.

Why do you think so many editorial pages nowadays lack any spunk, soul or actual opinions, even when taking on mostly irrelevant issues like, “The iPhone: cool or supercool?”

Taking positions and telling it like it is tends to ruffle feathers. Folks who prefer the dumbed-down world of the blogosphere, where you can shop around for the facts of your choosing, don’t like the harsh slap of reality that a hard-nosed newspaper can deliver.

And interest groups, fat and spoiled by politicians who give them carte blanche to write laws, seem shocked that they don’t have control of the media, too.

These shrill voices and heavy-handed tactics can wear on journalists, who work crummy hours for circus peanuts. But this exercise in masochism actually makes perfect sense to most of us.

We love what we do. We believe in truth and justice. It’s our job to dig to the bottom of corruption and deceit and bring it to light.

Mencken, as always, said it best, that it’s journalism’s job to “afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.”

That is why I write this column.

This is my life. I don’t share stories about my 10 children, 22 cats and two iguanas. Life’s too short to bore you with sickeningly saccharine anecdotes about today’s tiff between Mrs. Puffers and Scaleystilskin.

But I have the privilege to write every week about art and presidents and books and human nature and the perennial quest for sound public policy. Things that may seem abstract, but are intimate facets of all our lives.

Politics isn’t a game to me. My Capitol press corps colleagues warn I’ll burn out for sure because you have to recognize the divine comedy of it all. And I do – that’s where my endearing satire kicks in.

But I am a shameless idealist. And I think the stakes are incredibly high in an era of massive debt, globalization, failing education, terrorism and astronomical health care costs.

So when our esteemed leaders foul up, I’m gonna hit ‘em hard and hit ‘em fast.

And I don’t care if I’m called the next Ann Coulter or a commie traitor by my venerable fan base.

At the same time, I think a politician’s character counts immensely - and shouldn’t be an oxymoron. Here’s a dirty little secret: Lots of the folks you think are right on the issues are vicious SOBs and many on the other side are decent, well-intentioned people. (For the record, Mr. Recall, Leon Drolet, is a droll chap who’s far cleverer than his adolescent adversaries on liberal blogs).

And often it’s leaders’ egos, nastiness and guile that gets in the way of compromise and critical policy.

In crafting this column, I’ve thought about doing measured, policy-wonk fare fit for the Economist. There’s certainly a place for that (it’s my day job) and we need more of it.

But here, I’ve chosen to write a weekly wake-up call, mercilessly skewering those hucksters annihilating our economy, education system, environment, health care and quality of life. Analyzing why it’s happening - and who’s winning and losing.

After extracting a titter about the tragic absurdity of it all, I try to lay out some constructive solutions.

Battle Creek Unlimited CEO Jim Hettinger once said I don’t write with a pen – I write with a sword.

Well, that’s about the best compliment I’ve darn well ever received. And I know that’s the very reason my inbox gets jammed with hate mail.

That’s my job, really, to make you outraged – to make you pay attention.

Inconvenient truths taint blogosphere

"Blogs are nothing more than writing on the bathroom wall," so says my former editor, Jack Lessenberry.

The avowed curmudgeon, who ironically serves as patron saint of several left-wing blogs, has a point. If you want to read mind-numbing, inscrutable "analysis" of everything from Britney Spears' baby drama to Barack Obama's choice in underwear, then the blogosphere is for you.

Nowadays, truth is where you find it.Witness the explosion of the term "truthiness" — what you know in your gut without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination or facts — coined by satirist Stephen Colbert.

That's the biggest draw of political blogs. They'll tell you what to be outraged about for the day — no research, interviews or objectivity required. It's all the news that fits within the ideological prism of your choice.

Tired of thinking for yourself? Blogs can be a huge time-saver, like joining Right to Life or MoveOn.org.

If you consider reporting on troops killed in Iraq a violation of the Alien and Sedition Acts, for heaven's sake, don't read the newspaper. Just scroll right-wing blogs to reassure yourself liberals (who control the media) hate those soldiers, as well as freedom, America and all that is good and holy.

If seeing George W. Bush's face is too much to bear, turn off the news. Turn to left-wing blogs, which unlike conservatives (who control the media), only depict the president as a diabolical Alfred E. Neuman caricature, hell-bent on destroying children, the elderly and all that is holy and good.And of course, there's plenty of room for the tin-foil hat crowd to vent. (Yes, Hillary Clinton really does want to poison your guinea pig.)

The Internet's echo chamber is a dream come true for political operatives and party hacks. Sweet-talk a sympathetic blogger, and get your talking points or shaky video commentary posted instantly and unchecked.

Even better, you can now find a home in cyberspace (instant credibility, baby!) for that whisper campaign you started portraying your opponent as a gay, dog-molesting, illegal immigrant-lover who hates America and all that is good and holy.

Sure beats that pesky mainstream media that insist on fairness, facts and filtering out partisan crap.God forbid you be forced to read opinions that differ from your own. It's only a critical part of relating to others and understanding the world in which we live.

I know it's not politically correct to blast bloggers. They're the extreme reporters of the new millennium, too cool to follow old-school rules like journalistic ethics or basic grammar.

And besides, who wants to invite chronically misspelled hate mail?

Well, like anyone who's graduated from elementary school, I've survived playground taunts. Liberal bloggers already have anointed me "Wanker of the Day," and I'm also a "liberal socialist facist," according to some reactionary poster in desperate need of a dictionary.

I field complaints from self-important politicians and their overbearing flacks every week.So I suppose I'm not terribly impressed by bloggers who sport porn star-worthy pseudonyms instead of owning up to the dribble they spew. If you're so proud of your work — you know, finding the truth we in the evil mainstream media conspire to cover up day after day — pony up your name, address, e-mail and phone number.

Because when we in the media mess up — and let's be clear, we have — you know where to find us. In the Enquirer, corrections are front-page news because that's our commitment to accuracy and accountability.

That's the way it should be. Blogs need to wise up to those standards if they want to be taken seriously.Like any good Gen Xer, I spend hours online and am impressed by a handful of bloggers — those who go by their actual names and have experience writing sans emoticons.

I enjoy Andrew Sullivan's dry wit and contrarian conservatism and Eric Alterman's accessible, yet professorial liberalism. But they are rare voices of reason in the wilderness.

Most bloggers really aren't breaking new ground. They're just the progeny of 18th-century pamphleteers who viciously libeled political foes under the guise of anonymity. Savvy, flush folks will always find a way to game the system, so now it's open season online.

Sincere citizen journalists protest they're heirs to "Common Sense."I wish.

Because you have about as much chance of reading a Thomas Paine in the blogosphere as you do bumping into a Thomas Jefferson beneath the Capitol dome.

Readers deserve better government reporting

Ladies and gentleman, your leaders have failed you, and we in the media have failed you.

This Richard Clarke-esque epiphany crystallized somewhere in a 3 a.m. haze at the Capitol on Monday against the backdrop of infantile threats and finger-waving on the floor of Michigan's greatest deliberative body.

Afterward, everyone was left to bemoan what had gone wrong in our great state to make us shut it down for five hours, costing us upward of $1 million, when we were already almost $2 billion in the hole.

Culprits were, quite correctly, fingered as term limits, hyper-partisanship and gerrymandering.

Our neophyte legislators clearly had no concept of what it took to piece together a $42 billion budget without the aid of accounting tricks, even though they had 10 months to learn.

Thanks to term limits, which remain wildly popular, there are no old bulls left in the chambers to help steer the state from disaster. Former House Appropriations Poobah Don Gilmer paced helplessly on the sidelines Sunday night as he watched tadpole reps flail about.

Few, if any, lawmakers bothered to consult the erudite Emergency Financial Advisory Panel headed by former Govs. Bill Milliken and Jim Blanchard.

Pols would rather play the game of poisonous partisanship than make policy, pushed by the two parties and lobbies entrenched on both sides.

It's a dysfunctional system bolstered by redistricting, which is controlled by the party in power at the time of the census. Amazingly enough, the GOP last time managed to sketch state and federal districts that secured majorities, just as the Dems had before.

But enough about them. Flog the media, too.

We are your last line of defense against politics run amok. When the people are informed, it's a lot harder for leaders to run roughshod over us.

Sadly, too many media outlets view politics as a horse race and lack basic understanding of policy, so we figure you don't have to get it, either.

As an ignorant former editor of mine put it, "I view politics like baseball. The exciting time to cover it is during elections, like the playoffs. Otherwise, it's pretty much the off-season and no one's paying attention."

Wrong. I know poodles with a more nuanced take on public affairs.

You deserve to read about the history of the budget crisis, dating back to the '90s, when legislators — many who did know better — capitulated to what was easy and politically expedient. They slashed taxes to unsustainable levels to win elections. They raided $4.2 billion from reserves so they wouldn't have to make real reforms.

You deserve to read how budget cuts and higher taxes affect your life — how much you pay, how much you gain. That means connecting the dots from the state budget to all those local millages you've been asked to OK, program cuts at your local elementary school and the business that didn't open in your neighborhood because a tax structure wasn't in place.

You deserve to read about bills when they're introduced, not after they're law — from HPV vaccinations to pop-up tax reforms — so you know what your lawmakers are up to in Lansing and can be involved in the process.

In the last month, Michigan's press has been a model on all counts. But as soon as this crisis evaporates, so will our policy coverage.

Because just as the Legislature doesn't look like it did in 1983, neither does the Capitol press corps. It's been downsized by at least half, often the first victim in newspaper and affiliate cutbacks. Most media only run copy from wire services, which have taken big hits, as well.

What kind of message do we send to you, the people, when we don't do justice to the most important issues of the day?

In part, that's what's led to the explosion of political blogs, but most just litter the hyper-partisan wasteland. Anonymous posters at Right Michigan and Michigan Liberal routinely run propaganda the mainstream media normally wouldn't (and shouldn't) touch, such as the unbiased (ahem) state GOP poll showing Democrats are doomed with a tax hike or the Senate Dems whining about not being allowed to snap pics for political gain of the tax-hike tally.

We at the Enquirer, a small but scrappy paper, try to do our part, and I think we succeed more than any other in our weight class. But all journalists need to do more.

Because the stakes are too high in Michigan right now for us to fall down on the job.

Cowards and courage: I took aim in Tuesday's column at Sen. Glenn Anderson, D-Westland, for stalling on a vote for immediate effect of the new services tax. But Anderson did vote for it, though not for the actual bill, a move which could cost the freshman his seat.

That's what lawmakers are paid to do. But it's worth contrasting that with Rep. David Agema, R-Grandville, who decided embarking on a Russian hunting excursion was far more important than voting on Michigan's fiscal future.

Anyone who thinks the sheep slayer deserves another term should volunteer as his target practice.

A sex scandal to make you squirm

COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho — Through the thrush of evergreen forest and the Salmon River Mountains, it's about 319 miles to Larry Craig's hometown.

I will not be making a pit stop there — I have a date with the azure shores of Crater Lake — but I wonder how the locals view the voyeuristic feeding frenzy about their favorite son.

Because it's been making me queasy, and I don't even know the guy.

In case you've been even more lost in the wilderness than me, Craig was busted for allegedly putting the moves on a fellow stall dweller in an airport men's room.

The guy turns out to be a cop, the Republican senator cops to disorderly conduct and the sordid story turns out to be just what we all need to survive the Indian summer doldrums, since there are no shark attacks or abducted little girls to terrify us.

And what, evidently, could be more petrifying than a gay guy who likes to get it on in the filthiest of public places? Deadbolt those bathroom doors, gentlemen. No one is safe.

After a couple days of crucifixion and callow mockery ("Ooh! Craig called Bill Clinton a 'nasty, bad, naughty boy' and he is one!") the sexagenarian senator was forced to step down.

Look, Craig pleaded guilty. His explanations seem confused at best. Politicians should be held to a high standard.

But I'm having trouble understanding how his minor offense warranted automatic ejection from the Senate. And I find it amusing that the GOP was so eager to throw one of its own under the tracks quicker than posturing Democrats.It's not because it's sex.

If that's the case, what in God's name is David Vitter still doing in Senate chambers after admitting "a very serious sin" involving a D.C. cathouse? Where was the stampede to throw the deviant out?It's because it's gay sex — the ickiest kind. The kind the Religious Right — which still holds a noose around the GOP — believes is a randy rest stop on the highway to Hades.

Cavorting with a buxom hooker is a sin they can understand (remember that tramp, Mary Magdalene?) It's practically a beltway rite of passage.

But man-on-man congress in the public sphere, no less? That's incomprehensible. And wrong.

And it's precisely that kind of muddled thinking, masquerading as morality, that has turned so many people off of what used to be the Party of Lincoln.

As for the media, the Craig case brought out our worst.Sex scandals seduce networks into actually covering politics — if you call it that, and I don't.

Why bother delving into the specifics of Hillary Clinton's health care plan or Fred Thompson's views on anything besides playing tough guys on TV?

If the president boinks an intern or a congressman solicits a page, that's something we all can understand, right?

Sure, if your goal is winning the race to the bottom instead of informing and inspiring debate. We have so many things to report. Why is it that the cheap and tawdry win out every time?

That's why while I have written my share on political personalities, I have never touched stories shopped around by operatives about Senator X's sexual proclivities.

My questions always are: Do you have proof? How is this relevant to the campaign or the office? If the flacks can't answer them, then I ain't buyin'.

There was a right way to report on Larry Craig. And it wasn't news anchors feigning outrage at the hypocrisy of the senator's anti-gay votes, just to take a break from the illicit gay sex storyline.

The story could have been a textured exploration of public figures who preach family values and practice more profane ones. We could have asked the big questions, like what this says about our real ethics.

At least that way, my only reason for nausea would be writing this column while whipping around a wriggly mountain road.

Walberg is no friend of free press

U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg doesn't like me and I don't give a damn.

Neither should you.

Journalists and politicians often enjoy a testy, if not combative relationship; that's nothing new.

They're in the business of making themselves look good, raising cash and getting re-elected.The press is in the business of reporting the truth about officials' voting records, platforms, finances and campaign ads.

Naturally, these goals often clash. As a result, Walberg and his staff refuse to answer my questions, provide information on his votes and inform me of his public events.

As an editor, I can't even assign a reporter to cover something as simple as the Tipton Republican's earmarks in the federal budget - as was the case last week - because I'm not privy to his press releases.

In short, I can't do my job to inform the public - and you lose.

What you should care about is that the congressman doesn't much care for you, either, because he is actively squelching your right to know.

Even more troubling is his hypocrisy. In a flowery, self-congratulatory column in last Friday's Detroit Free Press, Walberg metamorphosed into the media's biggest champion, sounding his support for the Free Flow of Information Act. It's a federal shield bill for journalists, protecting us from prosecution if we won't reveal a confidential source's name.

But who will protect the press from Tim Walberg?

"Government waste, fraud and abuse are breaches of public trust, and we must not punish reporters who bring such indiscretions to light through confidential sources," he writes.

Amen. And that's exactly what I did when I incensed Walberg by investigating Federal Election Commission complaints against him (same as I did for those against his rival, former U.S. Rep. Joe Schwarz, R-Battle Creek.)

That's what I did when I broke the story that Walberg refused to fire his campaign aide, Daniel A. Coons, even after finding out he pleaded guilty to abusing his foster son. That's what I did in reporting Walberg's goal to stockpile enough funds so Schwarz wouldn't take him on in 2008.

The difference is, I never used anonymous sources. The Enquirer has a practice against that. I used court documents, affidavits, FEC records and in-depth, on-the-record interviews.

The proof was there in black and white. But Walberg decided he didn't like the truth, so he took his toys and went home.

When Walberg does deign to answer media requests, his idea of openness and accountability is to have his press secretary, Matt Lahr, e-mail Orwellian, canned responses that never answer the question.

Example: "What does Rep. Walberg think of being challenged by (Scio Township Democrat) David Nacht?"

Answer: "The congressman is focused on tax relief, Great Lakes restoration and education reform."

Walberg has an obligation to communicate with you, his constituents, and the best way to reach the most people is through the media. But apparently, he believes that communication only has to flow one way.

When I asked about the public's right to know in my final conversation with Lahr, he chillingly replied: "The congressman's concern is getting out his message."

To do so, Walberg has to hope for a complacent, overworked media that will regurgitate his press releases and won't check his facts, question his rhetoric and examine his performance. Sorry, sir, you won't find any journalists like that at our paper.

He knows that, which is why he and his aides start singing the tired song that the liberal media is out to get him. Yes, people of all political persuasions pile on the press, but it's also true that the shrillest voices in the last decades have come from the far right.

It's a surefire way for pols to play to the base - which is how Walberg squeaked into his seat in the first place. And it's something journalists often shy away from saying, lest we prompt conservatives to belt out another chorus against us.

Well, bring it on.

With all the time Walberg spends stonewalling the press, you have to wonder what he's doing to earn $165,200 of your money each year and why he's so tight-lipped about it.

But we journalists will keep asking questions, because we owe it to you, the public. As your employee, Rep. Walberg owes you answers.

Which is something he might want to consider, since he's up for a big job evaluation next fall.