By Scott Aust

The lobbying of Rapid City voters by Cabela’s has begun in earnest. These high quality postcards have started landing in city mailboxes. Here’s the front view:

And the back:

(Click images for legibility.)

Opponents are lining up as well. See my story today here

Looks like it’s going to be an interesting two and a half weeks.

By Bill Harlan

Kathy Johnson, owner of Tally’s Restaurant downtown, told me she got the letter below earlier this week, threatening a boycott by “Concerned Citizens of Rapid City” because she offered Tally’s gift certificates as door prizes at Pride Fest in July. (It was a gay-rights festival.)

The letters says, in part:

“We have enjoyed patronizing your business for the support and service you have provided in our community. However, we feel your support to the Pride Festival is an unwarranted affront on our moral values and infers your support of this deviant life style.”

The letter was signed by a “Don” somebody — last name starts with a W — but is illegible. There was no return address. The envelope was postmarked Rapid City. Click on the image below to make the letter legible.

Kathy Johnson, by the way, still welcomes anyone at Tally’s, and she’ll contine to offer support to nonprofits, including Pride Fest. “A lady from the Mason’s just asked for something,” she said. “They’re sometimes controversial, too.”

At least one other restaurant in Rapid City got a similar letter. “We don’t take it seriously,” Michael Coats told me. He’s the director of Center West in Rapid City, which organized Pride Fest. “We don’t think boycotts are effective, for us or the other side.”

I’m trying to find the author for a comment. Anyone know who this is? (Rather than post speculations as comments, please e-mail me at bill.harlan@rapidcityjournal.com).

I also thought this letter was interesting fodder for political conversation, given the ongoing Larry Craig controversy.

By Scott Aust

The guantlet has been thrown.
The smack laid down.
During a spirited, friendly after-meeting round of one-upmanship this week, Alderman Deb Hadcock challenged Alderman Malcom Chapman to game of winner take all, no blood no foul, one-on-one basketball throwdown.
While Hadcock is a scrappy South Dakotan, my money is on Chapman, who learned his skillz on the streets of Chicago and played ball in college.
Chapman said they could play to 32 and he’d spot Hadcock 30 points.
“The only time you’d touch the ball is when you check it,” Chap said.
I suggested the challenge could be a televised event with proceeds going to charity.
Neither took me up on the offer, but don’t be surprised if they show up in sweats and sneakers for the next council meeting. They may have gone all schoolyard to settle it.
Who here wouldn’t enjoy a bit of Celebrity Deathmatch or Battle of the Network Stars, Rapid City Council style?

By Bill Harlan

Bill Walsh’s tongue-in-cheek greeting to me Tuesday evening in Lead: “It’s great to be a Democrat and a heterosexual!”

By Bill Harlan

At last, something new to talk about re: Sen. Tim J. See the homepage. Handicap the 2008 race here.

Mary Garrigan

A Democracy In Action member pointed out the spousal informational sheets hung around the necks of the City of Presidents statutes that DIA placed to commemorate Women’s Equality Day on Sunday, Aug. 26. The sheets had biographical information about the wives of the presidents, while making a rather sad commentary on the fact that there are no presidential husbands. Just the novelty of having Bill Clinton as First Laddie is a pretty good reason to vote for Hillary.

I did notice that by Monday morning, Barbara Bush’s sheet was missing from around George Bush’s (41) neck, while across the street, Abigail Adam’s information was still intact. Not sure if that’s a commentary on Babs’ style as First Lady or not. I know she was supposed to be grandmotherly, but she always seemed more like Barbara the Battleaxe to me.

If not First Laddie Bill, who among the First Lady contenders do you all like?

By Kevin Woster

I had an e-mail exchange yesterday with someone who rejected my contention that staffers for Sen. Tim Johnson had lied about his secret interviews with ABC newsman Bob Woodruff.

The person wondered, in fact, if what I called a “lie” wasn’t simply a difference in views, or terms, sort of an honest misunderstanding. Since the Woodruff story would be timed for release later, when Johnson’s recovery had progressed and his earlier condition could be put into better context, maybe his staffers considered those Woodruff contacts with the senator something other than the more traditional interviews South Dakota reporters were seeking.

At least, that was the argument of the e-mailer.

So maybe, he said, when staffers said they weren’t granting interviews - in the sense of those to be published or broadcast immediately - they weren’t really lying. (Remind you of anything? Like Bill Clinton’s carefully parsed testimony during the Monica mess?)

And further, the person wondered, why would they lie when they knew they’d get caught when Nightline ran anyway?

I thought about both points last night as I finished my Monday column for the Journal. And I rejected them.

It was a lie, regardless of how you try to dress it up. And I think the Johnson staffers lied - in a calculated way that lasted for months - because they knew they could, without hurting their boss, and probably actually protecting him.

They knew the majority of the public either wouldn’t care about the lie or would side with Johnson- and, by association, with them. I think they were right.

They knew that most reporters would get angry at the staffers, rather than at Johnson. I think they were right there, too.

And they knew that reporters - those who respect their profession, at least - would not allow their anger about the lie to affect the way they cover Johnson. They were right there as well. (Those news weasels who would change their coverage of Johnson over this might want to look for other work.)

Viewed through the caculating lens of political expediency, this was a serial lie with plenty of upside - protecting their boss during a period of great vulnerability - and no serious political consequences.

I mean, who wins public support here, a popular senator recovering from a traumatic brain illness or a bunch of snoopy, pushy, cantankerous reporters? Duh.

So I disagree with those who think the lie was a stupid mistake. I think it was carefully calculated, and politically astute.

The fact that it was also dishonest will soon be forgotten by most citizens, and many reporters.

Many, but not all.

By Bill Harlan

I noted with interest this evening that the third most e-mailed article from the New York Times (as of 7:30 p.m. MDT) was “Inside the Countrywide Lending Spree Crisis.”

I’ve been following this story because just over a week ago we sold our home in Black Hawk and bought one in Rapid City. You can see this coming, can’t you? The morning we closed the NYT had a story with the words “Countrywide” and “bankruptcy” in the same paragraph. Still, the rate and the terms were pretty darn good. What the heck, I thought. I might be nervous if I were lending THEM money, but what could go wrong? Countrywide has been criticized for charging excessive and undisclosed fees. I think our local mortgage guy explained everything pretty clearly. He was upfront about the difficulties. (In fact, he directed our attention to the story hours before we started signing documents.)

Still, it makes a guy a little nervous. And the national media this weekend has been reporting that median home prices were likely to decline in the U.S. for the first time since 1950.

What does it all mean, Blogmorites? When big banks get in trouble, government often steps in, which means the economic questions become political. Does the “Lending Spree Crisis” have local political implications?

Meierhenry and Volk, the next J.K. Rowling?

By Mary Garrigan

If I were a betting woman, I wouldn’t have gambled on Mark Meierhenry and Dave Volk publishing a children’s book. But the duo of ex-South Dakota politicos has co-authored The Mystery of the Round Rocks, a story about glacial rock formations aimed at first through fourth graders. It is the first in a series of books published by the S.D. State Historical Society starring twins Max and Hannah and it hits bookstores this fall. It is beautifully illustrated by Jason Folkerts, a Rapid City Journal editorial page cartoonist, but then I may be biased. (Jason says he’s already storyboarding the next installment, The Mystery of the Trees.)

I’m not willing to put any money on whether or not it will be a best-seller. Of course, a month ago I wouldn’t have bet that Bill Harlan and Kevin Woster would have talked me into this gig, either. But I am betting that the former S.D. attorney general and the five-time state treasurer, have lots of other colorful South Dakota political tales to tell for a more age-appropriate audience. Any predictions on the title of THAT book?

Three gods o’ Blogmore (Harlan, Woster, Aust) joined by a slightly skeptical goddess (Garrigan)

By Bill Harlan

Not that I’ve ever seen editorial page editor Mary Garrigan wear a veil. But what a coup! After weeks — nay, months — of cajoling, Mary has agreed to join Kevin, Scott and me on our lofty perch. Just as soon as I can find someone who knows how to work one of these new fangled c0mputers, a version of the illustration above will replace the outdated Duo in Orange at the top.

Mary is an experienced reporter and columnist and a brand new editorial writer. (She’s also married to Blogmore god Kevin W.) Frankly, Mary is not entirely sure this whole blogosphere thing is going to work out, which I argued was a perfect reason to recruit her to the Mountain.

Her first post is coming soon. Let’s all treat her like the gentlemen and ladies we are. Or perhaps I should rephrase that …

By Bill Harlan

A flyer for the Homestake laboratory celebration Tuesday evening in Lead announced that Sen. Tim Johnson would be among the celebrated guests.

Johnson hasn’t appeared in public since he was felled by a brain aneurysm in December. Also, the Homestake celebration is the same night of Johnson’s “thank you South Dakota” celebration in Sioux Falls, which is being billed as his return to public life. So I checked. Johnson spokesman Julianne Fischer e-mailed me that Tim J. would NOT be in two places at one time — an unreasonable request for someone recovering from a brain surgery. In Lead, a spokesman will read a letter from Tim. (Next to Gov. Mike Rounds, Johnson has been the elected official most effective at promoting the lab.)

Which brings me to “ABC Nightline.” Julianne earlier had e-mailed South Dakota reporters to announce that ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff, recovering from his own brain injury, has spent months with the senator and his family documenting Tim’s recovery. That report will air on “Nightline,” maybe on Tuesday.

Julianne had asked that her Woodruff e-mail be off the record. Normally, requests to go off the record precede the information. In this case we honored it. The Johnsons had agreed to talk to Woodruff because of his personal experience with a head injury sustained in combat in Iraq. Woodruff has reported extensively on the subject since then. His report will help others in similar circumstances. It’s for a good cause.

However, the conservative South Dakota War College blog got Julianne’s e-mail and reprinted it in its entirety. So there it is. Cat out of bag.

Some South Dakota reporters, me included, were miffed at Julianne’s earlier e-mail. Johnson’s staff has been telling us for months that all requests for interviews were being turned down — except for the visit with outdoor writer Tony Dean (a Johnson family friend). I can already hear some Blogmorites crying “Boo hoo.” Weighed against a life-threatening medical condition and the chance to work in depth with a national reporter who has a unique perspective on this particular malady — well, a local reporter’s miffedness is a small thing.

“Bill, I can only promise you that the Johnsons went into this with the best of intentions,” Julianne wrote in her e-mail to me. “They wanted to help people.”

I don’t doubt that. Barb and Tim Johnson have faced three serious illnesses with grace and courage. And they can make a good case for granting Woodruff extraordinary exclusive access.

Still, we were misled. Boo hoo I guess.

By Bill Harlan

President Bush ignited a debate Wednesday in his speech to the VFW, comparing Iraq and Vietnam. You can read the transcript at the Washington Post. I offer an excerpt to the Mount:

Whatever your position is on that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America’s withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms, like “boat people,” “reeducation camps,” and “killing fields.”

I’m at once compelled and hesitant to throw out this piece of chum, which is bound to roil the waters in predictably mind-numbing ways. Still, I can’t help myself. An argument — around since the 1970s but appearing more and more frequently — is that if only we’d continued support to South Vietnam they could have resisted the North. (The counter argument: No U.S. troops died after 1975, and today Vietnam is a trading partner and tourist destination.)

In 1971 my unit worked with South Vietnamese troops, training them to take over security in an area near Saigon. Mostly these troops seemed unmotivated and eager for the work day to end. We suspected some of these guys changed uniforms at night. Today they might have Coca Cola bottling franchises in Ho Chi Minh City. Or they might have fallen victim to post-war reprisals.

I’ll admit my perspective was microcosmically narrow. And last fall at the Vietnam Memorial dedication in Pierre I met many fellow veterans who agreed with the argument that we were winning when we left. Still, for a president who was noticeably absent from the scene to suggest we should have stayed a little longer …

By Bill Harlan

I thought it was going to be a routine ground-breaker sort of story. Rapid City Regional Hospital is spending $18.8 million on a new heating and cooling plant. I covered the press conference and took a picture of a big hole in the ground.

Now I see my article has 35 RapidReply responses. This is like a mini-version of the hundreds of responses to the story about hospital personnel being forbidden to wear those funny shoes. Of course, the issue isn’t a big air conditioner or air-conditioned shoes. There is a lot of unhappiness out there — with the health-care system in general and with Rapid City Regional Hospital, the biggest player in town.

One RapidReplier wrote:

I’ll bet… wrote on Aug 23, 2007 8:36 AM:

“I’ll bet that when Regional put this little blip in the paper* to pat themselves on the back…they didn’t expect a flood of (gasp) negative comments about the way they do business. The people may not have much (or any) choice in their healthcare system, but you have to love free speech. “

In a nutshell, the critics say the hospital exacts high prices to finance high salaries and monpolistic expansions. Defenders say, like any business (”for” or “non” profit), RC Regional needs money to grow with the community.

Health care IS expensive in the United States, relative to other developed countries. Why? For an analysis, see “U.S. Health Care Spending In An International Context” by Uwe E. Reinhardt, Peter S. Hussey and Gerard F. Anderson (in Health Affairs). An excerpt:

By international standards, the U.S. approach to financing health care is extremely complex. Research suggests that a sizable fraction of higher U.S. health spending, not explainable by higher GDP per capita, can be traced to the higher administrative overhead required by such a complex system.16 To quote economist Henry Aaron on this point: “Like many other observers, I look at the U.S. health care system and see an administrative monstrosity, a truly bizarre mélange of thousands of payers with payment systems that differ for no socially beneficial reason, as well as staggeringly complex public system with mind-boggling administered prices and other rules expressing distinctions that can only be regarded as weird.”

Farm program beneficiaries in Manhattan, according to the Policy Analysis Database of the Environmental Working Group. (Size of red dots indicates size of benefit, the big dots being in the neighborhood of $250,000.)

By Bill Harlan

Apparently you can “keep Manhattan” AND “gimme that country life!”*

Mark Rey, under secretary for environment and natural resources at the Department of Agriculture, e-mailed me this map to me after our chat in Rapid City yesterday. (See a story here.) During a conversation after an unrelated press conference, Rey reiterated the Bush administration position, that maybe farmers with “adjusted gross incomes” of $200,000 or more had “outgrown their need for farm subsidies.” The Bush administration’s version of the farm bill would have limited such assistance. The House version … not so much. The Senate takes up the ag bill after the August recess.

On another 2007 farm-bill note, Rey criticized the House provision, added at the last minute, to increase taxes on U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies by $4 billion to pay for food programs for poor families. Rey called the measure “pretty close to jingoism” and warned it would result in retaliation against U.S. companies overseas. Rep. Stephanie Herseth, D-S.D., who voted for the bill, told RCJ reporter Steve Miller that the provision merely “closed a loophole.” She argued, “We’re not making the deficit worse and we’re insisting on pay as you go.” Rey argued the administration version wouldn’t increase the deficit either.

*With apologies to “Green Acres,” though this map suggests Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor might have happily adjusted to the “Fresh air!/Times Square!” opportunities of the 2002 farm bill. The big red dots just east of Central Park, by the way, are on Eva’s very own Park Avenue.

By Bill Harlan

Harlan, Woster, Aust and …??? (Graphic courtesy of a creative Blogmorite
with too much time on his hands (for which we’re thankful)).

The rumors are true. The three gods o’ Blogmore are in delicate negotiations for a fourth deity of the Mount. (That’s why Scott A has not joined us on the “flag” above. We’re waiting to fill the quartet.) We’ve got a candidate in mind, but, as Scott can tell you, it’s no easy tasking recruiting someone to join Woster and I in an Internet deal. (In Scott’s case, we had to stand him on an upside-down bucket with a hood over his head and electrodes attached to his fingers, which, for a city hall reporter, is called “positive reinforcement.”)

Meanwhile, as a personal aside, I’ve enjoyed being a spectator on the Mount during my so-called vacation. (”So called” because I spent it moving from Black Hawk back to Rapid City.) In fact, I’ve been without an Internet connection since late last week. Now it’s back and I’m back, so I’ve been catching up in big chunks in the past 24 hours. I note that Kevin’s gone serious on me, to good effect, but my favorite comment so far is Newland’s suggested name for Rapid City’s new hockey franchise: “The Memory.” (As in, RC professional sports franchises are soon only a …)

By Kevin Woster

This will come as no surprise, but Bill O’Reilly was on a full-fledged rant the other night about Robert Scheer.

I tuned into the O’Reilly tirade, as I often do, by way of a headset at the YMCA, as I tried to tromp a day’s worth of frustration into the whirring tread of an aerobic torture machine. You might wonder why I would add the pain of political commentary to the physical misery of my workout, which is a good question best left for a longer column.

Let’s just say I have a penchant for rants, and O’Reilly rarely disappoints. In this particular version, he was attacking Scheer - a liberal columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle who hates the war and the Bush administration - for labeling Americans as terrorists.

Scheer did that, sort of, in a column reprinted by the Journal when he compared the targeting of innocents by terrorists in Iraq with the targeting of innocents by the United States in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki near the end of the Second World War. Scheer referred to the “murder” of school children in those atomic attacks, and labeled the bombings as a “terror plot.”

Pretty inflammatory words, “murder” and “terror plot.” And I’m sure Scheer meant them to inflame. And I have to admit, I don’t like to hear them applied to us as a nation.

Many Americans would argue that there’s a difference between the horrid actions taken by a nation during a declared war and horrid actions taken by a shadowy network of quasi-solidiers representing a system of self-defined laws and beliefs. I like to believe that’s true.

Scheer sees little valid distinction between the terrorism in Iraq and what the U.S. did in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, however.

“The victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were available soft targets, much like the children playing in Iraq, suddenly caught in the crossfire of battles waged beyond their control,” he wrote.

The A bombs - unfortunately humanized as Fat Man and Little Boy - were certainly meant to end the war, and to save the lives of U.S. military personnel. And they were meant to do that by killing thousands of Japanese citizens, pulverizing a couple of cities and terrorizing a nation.

Was that war or terrorism? Sixty two years later, it’s still hard to tell.

By Kevin Woster

Sam Hurst, one of the Journal’s most thought-provoking contributing columnists, labeled Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin a “proud conservative” in his column today.

It wasn’t meant to be a compliment.

Hurst also lumped Herseth Sandlin in with other “weak-kneed conservative Democrats,” because of her vote in support of legislation giving expanded power to federal security agencies in monitoring Internet and telephone conversations of U.S. citizens.

The approved revision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Hurst said, supports the “imperial presidency” rather than the U.S. Constitution and Herseth Sandlin’s vote shows her true political philosophy to be conservative.

It’s an interesting column, as usual. And Hurst raises worthy points about the difficult balance between protecting U.S. security interests and maintaining constitutional liberties.

As for Herseth Sandlin the conservative? Well, I wonder: conservative compared to whom?

Based on what I know about South Dakotans, I continue to consider Herseth Sandlin to be a moderate.

Her position on issues such as expanding State Child Health Insurance Program benefits and, obviously, support for abortion rights certainly wouldn’t put her in the conservative camp. Her position on the other issues such as same-sex marriage, the war in Iraq and the security measure that inspired this Hurst column certainly might.

Is there an imbalance toward one side or the other? Maybe. But it’s not clear to me.

Like other members of Congress, Herseth Sandlin must vote not just based on her own beliefs, but on the beliefs - and the demands - of her constituents. I’m not aware of state polling data on the security issue, but I’d hazard a guess that a majority of South Dakotans would support Herseth Sandlin’s FISA vote.

I’m also guessing that a vote the other way would be perfect campaign ammo for a future Republican U.S. House candidate hoping to cast Herseth Sandlin as being weak-kneed on national security. Somebody like Sibson might go so far as to call such a vote “pro jihadist-terrorist.”

In an era of expensive “gotcha” advertising campaigns and always-attacking Web logs, the never-ending, two-year election cycle of the U.S. House turns every vote of substance into an almost-immediate campaign bomb.

And we, the voters, magnifiy the political gun powder in each of those vote by demanding that our elected officials agree with us on virtually everything, rather than giving them some room to vote with both their hearts and their heads.

I have no doubt that Herseth Sandlin, like our two U.S. senators, wants to do what’s right. She also wants to stay in office.

I’m guessing she considered her own beliefs, those of her constituents and the political realities of the times when she cast her vote on the security measure.

I guess I wouldn’t call that conservative or liberal as much as I’d call it smart.

I’d also call it political survival.

By Kevin Woster

Most of you know by now that Sioux Falls Development Foundation boss Dan Scott is suing the Sioux Falls Argus Leader for libel.

That’s interesting enough. But Scott elevated the game a bit by bringing in Bill Janklow as the main-card legal boxer in a bout against the state’s largest daily because of a column written by its executive editor, Randell Beck.

Beck’s columns are usually edgy satire. That appears to be what he was up to when he constructed a spoof letter of apology and facetiously attributed it to Scott. But Scott contends that some readers believed the letter was real, and really from him, and that he was injured in ways that deserve at least $1 million in damages.

Several questions wait to be answered. Is Scott, by the nature of his job, a public figure? If so, can a public figure we libeled in a humor column? Under what circumstances? What does it mean if some people thought the column and letter were serious? Is that an indication of libel, ineffective satire or easily confused readers?

If I hadn’t skipped most of my classes in mass communications law back at SDSU in the 1970s, I might hazard some guesses.

As it is, I’ll just wait to see what happens when the legal bell rings.

By Kevin Woster

James Kirchick, an upper-level assistant at The New Republic, wants gay rights advocates to cut the Democratic presidential candidates some slack on the gay marriage issue.

They’ve been dancing around it, for sure. But Kirchick argues that it’s a no-winner for Democrats to come out in support of gay marriage, or to be endorsed by organizations that promote it, given the majoriy opposition to gay marriage in the U.S.

He argues that it makes more sense for the Dems to push for an end to the don’t-ask, don’t-tell policy in the military and revocation of the the Defense of Marriage Act signed by Bill Clinton in 1996.

That’s just a snapshot of a very interesting piece. which left me wondering: Is it a political liability for a presidential candidate to support gay marraige? How much of a liability? Are the Republicans likely to win points on this one, regardless of what the Democrats do?

And, from a practical standpoint, would advocates of gay marriage be smarter to push for civil unions, which seem to be less explosive to voters who are struggling to adjust to the idea of marriage between members of the same sex?

By Scott Aust

OK class, put on your thinking caps. Rapid City’s CHL hockey franchise has launched a name-the-team contest on their Web site:

www.rapidcityprohockey.com

Blogmorites seem to be a witty bunch. What names can you come up with? I’m partial to Rapid City Skybox Kings, but I bet y’all can out-do me.