Y’know, I wasn’t going to write about the sad final act of the doomed Len Britton for Senate campaign — Britton’s defeat at the hands of ex-campaign manager Jeff Bartley in a civil suit.

(Bartley sued Britton’s campaign for unpaid salary of more than $30,000. This week, a judge issued a ruling in Bartley’s favor. Which, see below, is probably worth nothing more than the paper it’s printed on.)

I mean, the whole thing is just so empty of meaning. A terrible operative fighting with a terrible candidate over the dregs of a doomed campaign. But I changed my mind when I read this, courtesy of VTDigger’s Alicia Freese:

A rising figure within the Vermont Republican Party has emerged victorious in a mud-slinging court battle against Len Britton, the 2010 Republican challenger to Sen. Patrick Leahy.

Cough. Choke.

Ahem.

“A rising figure”?

Jeff Friggin’ Bartley?????

Good God. I know VTGOP standards are low, but if Jeff Bartley is a “rising figure,” the Titanic is a masterpiece of naval engineering.

Let’s go over Bartman’s resume once again, for the benefit of those just joining us.  

His dismal career in Vermont politics began when he was still too young to buy a Gucci beer, or even a Shummy Special (Budweiser at the Legion Hall). The 20-year-old Bartley was hired by the Rich Tarrant-for-Senate campaign, where his duties apparently included a bit of ratf*cking: Bartley set up a phony political blog called VermontSenateRace.com, designed to poop out pro-Tarrant propaganda. This effort backfired on the Tarrant campaign when Peter Freyne revealed Bartley as the site admin.

In 2010, Len Britton hired Bartley as his campaign manager. We all know how that turned out.

In 2012, Bartley was political director for the Vermont House Republican Caucus. You know, the group that somehow managed to lose seats even though it had previously fallen to super-minority status.

After that, he managed to hook on as Chittenden County GOP Chair*. Which, I think, makes him Kurt Wright’s turd-polisher. And this fall, Bartley launched a short-lived bid for the state party chairmanship, but he couldn’t even beat out John “MacGoo” MacGovern as the favored candidate of the hard-right dead-enders.

*An unpaid position. Bartley has a day job as a “marketing analyst” at MyWebGrocer, the Tarrant Family Vanity Project. How nice of the Tarrants to reward a good and faithful servant. Whether he knows beans about marketing or not, is a whole nother thing.

This unbroken record of failure makes Jeff Bartley “a rising figure within the Vermont Republican Party.”

Well, given the dire straits of the VTGOP and their constant jonesing for someone — anyone — under the age of 50, maybe Bartley qualifies as “a rising figure.” But that says a hell of a lot more about the VTGOP than it does about Jeff Bartley.

And now, a fitting coda to this wretched affair:

One possible hitch in Bartley’s quest for reimbursement, however, is that the defendant in the case wasn’t actually Britton – it was the limited liability corporation (LLC) he formed for the campaign, which buffers members, in some cases, from being put on the hook for court fees.

Len Britton for Vermont LLC, has less than $1,000 to its name, according to the October 2013 quarterly filing with the Federal Elections Commission.

Ouch. Len Britton, failed candidate slash deadbeat, gets the last laugh?  

Every day, there’s more and more good news about Obamacare and Shummycare. On the national front, Consumer Reports — which, in late October, warned consumers to stay away from healthcare.gov — has now pronounced the website “terrific.”

[CR health care expert Nancy] Metcalf praised

…the new window-shopping function, in which users can peruse health plans without registering with the site. The requirement to make an account before viewing options was considered one of the main causes for the site’s initial traffic bottleneck. “It’s terrific, I’ve tried it, it was working yesterday through the busiest times,” Metcalf said.

And while Obamacare is consistently raising the bar, Vermont is going even higher. Yes, even with small businesses having to register online and send a check in the mail, what a pain, by the most important metrics Vermont is the biggest success story in health care reform.

CNN has posted a state-by-state map of enrollment figures; it has Vermont at just under 8,000 actually enrolled through Vermont Health Connect. If that sounds a bit meh, consider it on a per-capita basis.

Vermont has 12.8 enrollees per 100,000 people. Kentucky, the most widely praised success story, has enrolled a mere 2.49 per 100,000. Geez Louise, when does Shummycare get some national media love?

Even without the per-capita adjustment, Vermont is near the top. There are only four states with higher enrollment figures: California, New York, Washington and Kentucky.

Want more good news?

After the jump: More good news. Also: Phil Scott, emerging firebrand.

A policy expert of my acquaintance did some number-crunching based on numbers from the Kaiser Family Foundation, and came up with a truly impressive figure. Vermont went into this with a relatively small uninsured population, thanks to Catamount Care and Dr. Dynasaur; we’ve already put a substantial dent in that. I’ve been told that Vermont Health Connect has already enrolled approximately 16.5% of Vermont’s uninsured population.

The next closest state, by this reckoning, is Connecticut — with 2.4%. Yeah, Vermont is lapping the field.  

Now, will Phil Scott please shut the hell up with his “let’s put everything off for a year” nonsense?

Two further thoughts about Lt. Gov. Everybody’s Buddy, our Avatar of Moderation:

— How stupid does Scott think Governor Shumlin is? Postpone HCR for a year — conveniently just after the 2014 election? Hand the Republicans a gold-plated issue to run on? Let them yammer about the “failed rollout” and its dubious prospects for an entire campaign? That’d be the dumbest move since, oh, Neville Chamberlain.

— Who’s transforming who? When David Sunderland became VTGOP chair, the narrative was that Scott’s “moderate” faction had taken control of the party and would make it more inclusive. But on health care — the biggest issue in current politics — Scott is pushing the exact same talking point as Darcie “Hack” Johnston, firebrand of Republican conservatism.

I suppose Scott is simply taking more seriously his responsibility as putative party leader, but this isn’t exactly a positive indicator for the alleged “new direction” of the VTGOP.  

Well, it had to happen sometime. My own personal nominee for Best Capitol Beat Reporter, Peter Hirschfeld, is leaving the Mitchell Family Journalistic Enterprise for the greener pastures of Vermont Public Radio. He’ll start at VPR in January, ending four-plus years of stellar State House coverage for the Vermont Press Bureau. And leaving VPB once again with a single staffer, the brand-new (to Montpelier) Neal Goswami.

(And leaving me wondering whether to continue my Times Argus subscription.)

Hirschfeld’s coverage is distinguished, in my mind, by its combination of high quality and impressive quantity. He also has a knack for finding the key quote that illuminates a story while retaining journalistic objectivity. His writings have had a painfully small audience, hidden as they’ve been behind the Mitchell Family Paywall.

That will change with his move to VPR, where he’ll enjoy a much larger audience. (Plus, I’m sure, a generous pay hike and much improved benefits package*.) What remains to be seen is whether he can operate in the very strict time constraints of radio. A standard newscast “voicer” is less than a page of double-spaced copy, and even a four-minute feature contains a meager word count by print standards. A lot of depth will be lost, and he’ll be challenged to present the kind of nuanced reportage he’s been able to do in print.

*He gets full marks, however, for resisting the even plusher rewards of selling his soul for a PR job.

Especially since, quite frankly, I’m often underwhelmed by the news offerings of VPR. Much of its reporting is formulaic, and is often an audio regurgitation of what was in yesterday’s newspapers. Considering the relatively vast resources and budget at its command, VPR falls short on originality, quality and quantity.

(Well, the audio quality is uniformly excellent. The content is, as often as not, dull. Sorry.)  

Newly minted VPR News Director John Dillon sounds a hopeful note in that regard:

…Dillon said the move is part of an overall expansion of the station’s news coverage.

“We’re delighted to have Peter Hirschfeld on our news team. His experience with political coverage and legislative issues will give us an even stronger statewide news presence,” Dillon said.

I hope so. I also hope that VPR can beef up its reporting staff and break out of the current public radio tendency to load up on behind-the-scenes and management types. There are an awful lot of “producers” and executives on the VPR staff list. I suppose the former are useful in maintaining audio quality, which is gotten to be an obsession in public radio circles. They also, I suspect, contribute to VPR’s homogeneity; each piece goes through multiple hands before it gets on the air, and that usually results in blandification. Geez Louise, when I was a public radio newsman, I’d do all the reporting, production, and editing myself. I reported and produced entire series and documentaries on my own. Seemed to work fine. And I was often allowed to do things that were different, creative, even offbeat. There’s a lot less of that nowadays.

But I digress. Hirschfeld’s hire is good news for public radio listeners, even as it’s bad news for me as a reader of my local paper. I hope VPB can staff up quickly, and I hope the hiring of Hirschfeld is the beginning of a new and better day for VPR. It’s a good sign, to be sure.  

Must be huntin’ season, ‘cuz Paul “The Huntsman” Heintz just bagged hisself a biggun. This week’s “Fair Game” column is must reading for anyone who wants to understand the Vermont political landscape of today.

The subject is Governor Shumlin’s all-out (and completely superfluous) fundraising drive in advance of his re-election bid next year. Yes, the same Governor Shumlin whose campaign already has several hundred thousand dollars in the bank. And yes, the same Governor Shumlin who will face a depleted Republican Party who might just be desperate enough to let Randy Brock run again.

Take it away, Mr. Heintz:

On the night of last month’s mid-term elections – precisely a year before he himself faces the voters – Shumlin held an exclusive fundraiser with Vermont business leaders and a slew of prominent Republicans.

The host: “Commercial real estate developer Bobby Miller.” The entry fee: at least $1000 per. The guest list included:

…Green Mountain Power President and CEO Mary Powell, Jay Peak co-owner Bill Stenger, Walmart developer Jeff Davis, Barre real estate developer Thom Lauzon, and former GMP and NG Advantage exec Neale Lunderville.

All of these folks, as Heintz documents at length, have done a whole lot of business with the state of Vermont under Shumlin, creating a veritable cornucopia of potential conflicts of interest. But of course, as Shumlin would say, we’re all Vermonters here and Vermonters are pure as the driven snow and way above trading relationships for dollars. And, as many others would say, this kind of thing perfectly illustrates the need for ethics reform.

And explains Shumlin’s opposition to ethics reform.

But that’s not the biggest thing about this, in my mind. The biggest thing — well, two things — surprise and fear. Fear and surprise.

Sorry, wrong skit. The two biggest things:  

— It explains the near-bankruptcy of the Vermont Republican Party. I have previously asked the question, so where are the deep-pocketed donors who floated Jim Douglas’ boat? They bankrolled Brian Dubie’s bid for gubie in 2010, but seemingly abandoned the VTGOP thereafter. Well, now we don’t have to pore through reams of unsearchable campaign-finance pdf’s to find out where they went: into Governor Shumlin’s corner.

(Indeed, it wouldn’t surprise me if Heintz was the beneficiary of a tactical leak from the Shumlin team. This is certainly embarrassing, not to mention disheartening, to the VTGOP.)

I don’t see a conspiracy here. I don’t think Shumlin has sold out the people for a pile of dough he doesn’t really need, and I don’t believe state government is for sale. But he has, in purely political terms, brilliantly corralled the VTGOP. The rich and powerful who fueled the Republicans for so many years are either sitting out the VTGOP mess, or they’re actively supporting Shumlin.

Why don’t I see corruption? Well, because Shumlin is a centrist on most issues, health care reform aside. He’d advocate pretty much the same policies and make the same deals even if the likes of Miller, Davis, and Stenger weren’t cutting him the big checks.

— The other biggest thing: It explains Shumlin’s steadfast opposition to tax increases. Take it away, Mayor Lauzon:

“Certainly with Republicans, one of our issues is we don’t want to see broad-based taxes increased. The governor’s probably led that charge as well as any other governor has.”

Yep, he certainly has. And again, I don’t think this is a financial quid pro quo; I think Shumlin’s tax stance would be the same even if Lauzon wasn’t giving $2,000 to his campaign. But it illustrates what I see as a deal of convenience between Vermont’s top Democrat and the folks who used to underwrite the Republican Party: Shumlin governs from the center and blocks the liberal faction of the Democratic caucus, and they support Shumlin and starve the VTGOP.

My biggest regret about this? In a time of unprecedented strength for the Vermont Democratic Party, its top elected officials are committed to a centrist course. It’s not just Shumlin; it’s also House Speaker Shap Smith and Senate Penitent Pro Tem John Campbell, stout centrists themselves. We have a historic opportunity to take Vermont in a solidly liberal direction, but its Democratic leaders won’t have any of it. Except, again, for health care reform.

(Of course, if you asked Shumlin about this, he might well say the Democrats wouldn’t be in this position if the liberals were running the show. And I can’t say he’s wrong about that. This was a Republican state until about 20 years ago, and the last two Democratic Governors were devout centrists.)

If you find this upsetting, I suggest voting for some Progressives next year. Especially if they run a candidate for Governor; 2014 should be an ideal time for a protest vote.

Anyway, kudos to Heintz for bringing this all in the open. Peter Freyne would be proud.  

Welp, gonna make some people unhappy here.

I know that many in the GMD community (including my valued colleague Sue Prent) are appalled by yesterday’s Air Force decision to site F-35s at BTV.

I’m sorry, but I’m just not that upset. I agree with our Congressional delegation and our Governor: there are pluses and minuses to the decision, and the minuses can be managed through diligent oversight and cooperation among all involved parties. Two subsidiary thoughts:

— The best argument I’ve heard against the F-35 is that it’s a waste of money. Unnecessary, and mechanically problematic. But that’s an argument for a whole different arena. We can’t stop construction of the F-35 by opposing its presence at our airport.

— The real problem isn’t the F-35 or F-16. It’s the location of the airport. It’s too close to developed areas and housing. In the absence of a radical solution — like, oh, moving the whole shebang to South Hero or maybe Charlotte — the airport’s operation is inevitably going to require diligent oversight and cooperation. Maybe the pending arrival of the F-35 will lead to a better system for handling the inherent conflict between airport and neighborhood.

There was another item in yesterday’s news that was more upsetting than the F-35 decision:

Vermont’s bumble bees are in serious peril, according to a new study by the Vermont Center for Ecostudies. Three of the 15 bumble bee species found in Vermont are thought to be extinct and at least one other species is in decline. Bumble bees pollinate crops such as apples, blueberries and tomatoes, making them critical to Vermont’s agricultural economy.

… Native bumble bees are more important than honeybees for crop pollination. Leif Richardson, an entomologist at Dartmouth College, said in a VCE news release that “Wild bees perform the majority of all pollination on Vermont farms, whether or not the managed honeybee is present.”

This truly scares me, much more than the arrival of a new fighter plane. Aside from the real threat to agriculture, it’s another signpost on the road to a very different, less hospitable, planet Earth. And state of Vermont.  

We spend a lot of time fighting change, especially the big identifiable items like F-35s or natural gas pipelines, but we don’t seem to focus on the much more fundamental, but less visible, threats to the Vermont way of life.

And no, I’m not all that worked up about the gas pipeline either. The real issue isn’t whether Vermont remains untainted by the presence of Evil Fracked Gas; it’s whether we can find alternatives to hydrofracking and tar sands extraction and (Lord help us) exploitation of polar resources made accessible by climate change. The best way to do that is by developing viable and, dare I say it, profitable, renewable energy industries.

I’m a huge fan of Governor Shumlin’s plan to transition Vermont to single-payer health care. I really, really hope it works, so Vermont can be a model for the rest of the nation. Similarly, I want Vermont to become a leader and a model in creating a green economy, through energy efficiency and development of low-carbon or carbon-free energy sources. Including, yes, ridgeline wind and utility-scale solar farms and hydropower. And biofuels, if they make economic and environmental sense.

Back to the bees. There are many causes for their decline, almost all having to do with human impact. Invasive pathogens brought here from Europe with imported bees; changes in land use patterns; and, worst of all, pesticides commonly available at lawn and garden stores. Yeah, we’re killing the bees for the sake of greener grass.

There are fixes to the bumble bee crisis. But I suspect that this alarming story will soon slip away*, even as copious amounts of time, energy, and attention continue to be spent on the F-35. And the pipeline. And opposition to wind and solar development.

*Kudos to VTDigger and VPR for actually covering it. As far as I can tell, our print media judged it unworthy of attention.  

I know that concern about bumble bees and F-35s is not mutually exclusive. But our time and energy is finite, and far too much of it is being spent on things that, in the grand scheme of things, simply don’t matter that much.

We need to rethink our priorities and focus our energies on the most crucial issues we face. The F-35 just isn’t one of those.  

Oboy, oboy! Let there be dancing in the streets! The Green Mountain State now has its own putrid little outlet for James O’Keefe-style “new journalism” devoted to exposing the excesses of the public sector!

It’s called Vermont Watchdog, and its arrival was trumpeted almost two weeks ago by Robert Maynard of True North Reports. (Sorry, I don’t check TNR very often because it so rarely posts new material. Example: the aforementioned post, dated November 22, is still at the top of the TNR homepage. Sad.)

So what is Vermont Watchdog? It’s one of a bunch of cookie-cutter state “journalism” projects funded and controlled by the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity, a 501c3 nonprofit that’s definitely in the Koch Brothers/Americans for Prosperity/ALEC collection of popup institutions that push hard-right ideology. And, thanks to the regulations governing 501c3’s, don’t reveal their funding sources.

To give you an idea of The Franklin Center’s journalistic bona fides, it frequently employs the notorious James O’Keefe as a speaker and trainer of would-be far-right muckrakers. Yep, it’s hoping to raise up a whole generation of O’Keefes, God help us all.

VW’s reporter, and sole staffer, is a nice young man named Jon Street. I know he’s young, ‘cuz he just graduated last year, and I know he’s nice ‘cuz he attended an oppressively Christian college, and all those folks are just shittin’ niceness. Since getting his sheepskin, he’s been a busy little bee, according to his Franklin Center bio:

Jon has worked in a variety of media environments, from covering Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. to handling digital marketing for a Fortune 500 company. His previous works have been featured on The Drudge Report, Fox Nation, and discussed on air by Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly.

Mmmmmyep, I think I know what kind of “journalism” we can expect from Young Mr. Street.  

Oh, and about that college education: he’s a proud graduate of Missouri Baptist University, a strongly Evangelical institution. How strongly? Here are some comments by students and parents posted at College Prowler, a website for information and reviews about colleges and universities:

Since my school is a Baptist School,there isn’t any parties nor dances on campus as there would be with non-religious schools. However, they do have religious events and other things of that sort on campus for people who enjoy things like that.

… Very little things can students get away with, no walking with someone of the opposite sex at night! No hand holding

… Alcohol is not allowed…period. This is not your typical University. When you sign on to attend, you sign an agreement to the rules you will be held to uphold. I don’t live on campus, but my daughter was offered a scholarship there and we learned of many ‘rules’ that you had to strictly adhere to, and one of theme was that all main campus students WILL attend chapel every Thursday, it’s not optional.

… The religious environment is really pushed on non-religious students and at times it is uncomfortable.

It remains to be seen what kind of impact Young Mr. Street will have on the humanistic wasteland that is Montpelier, because he hasn’t yet written a damn thing for Vermont Watchdog. Maybe he’s house-hunting. Or maybe his MoBap-trained purity has already been corrupted by the countercultural blandishments of My Fair City.

So far, all the items posted on Vermont Watchdog — all four of ’em — were written by one Yael Ossowski, another Young Conservative Snot who apparently lives in Vienna, Austria. To judge from reading his Vermont Watchdog posts, he’s clearly scanning the wires for news items about Big Government and rewriting them with his brand of spin. That’s a long ways away from the brand of reporting promised by the Franklin Center:

Our established investigative journalists and capitol news reporters across the country are doing what legacy journalism outlets prove unable to do: share information, dive deep into investigations, and provide the fourth estate that has begun to fade in recent decades. …Watchdog.org promotes a vibrant, well-informed electorate and a more transparent government.

Yeah, when pigs fly.

Ah, the Friday newsdump, so beloved of politicians and institutions wanting to bury some bad news. It’s a longstanding tradition. But you don’t usually see it done in reverse: a media outlet releasing a news item that makes itself look bad.

Well, step forward please, Mike Donoghue and the Burlington Free Press. It’s time for your closeup!

The Freeploid chose Thanksgiving Day to publish a follow-up to Donoghue’s nothing-burger of an “expose” on time-sheet fraud by state workers. You remember, the story where he had virtually no details after a two-week investigation, so he filled his column inches with the story of one state worker who might have committed time-sheet fraud but had yet to face criminal charges? The story plastered all over Page One?

The story in which Donoghue named the poor bastard in print, forever linking him with disgraced state trooper Jim Deeghan?

Well, Chittenden County Prosecutor TJ Donovan has decided not to bring charges against the aforementioned poor bastard, due to lack of evidence. And the Freeploid published the story TODAY, on page B-12, in a paper stuffed to the gills with Black Friday advertisements.

And if you look for the story online, it’s nowhere to be found on the Freeploid homepage. You’d practically have to know it’s there in order to find it.

Nice going, Freeploid. Way to serve the public interest.  

If you do manage to track it down, you’ll discover that Donoghue again has little to report on actual time-sheet fraud, so he regurgitates every single detail of the poor bastard’s case – even though there is clearly no news value, and no public interest to be served whatsoever.

The entire case revolves around one single shift, during which the poor bastard was supposed to be working a second-shift liquor-control  detail.  He allegedly failed to do any work, and may have actually been at home for a substantial part of the shift.

Which means that, even if you assume the worst, the guy padded one day’s time sheet to the tune of a couple hundred bucks. But you can’t assume the worst, because Donovan determined there was insufficient evidence.

I should also mention that the poor bastard claims to be a whistleblower who has made allegations against his superiors, and says the time-sheet investigation was an attempt to discredit him. (And I’ve heard from one person in a position to know, that the state’s Human Resources Department isn’t above these kinds of anti-whistleblower tactics.)  

Which, if true, would mean that not only did the Freeploid disgrace a state employee who will never be charged with a crime, let alone convicted – but it provided aid and comfort to an official effort to force whistleblowers to shut up. Which would be the exact opposite of the ‘Loid’s supposed devotion to public transparency.

Congratulations, Freeploid. No wonder you buried the story on B-12. It’s frickin’ embarrassing.

Recent days have brought the unedifying spectacle of Vermont’s top Democrats fleeing pell-mell away from one of their own. Yes, I’m talking about Mark Larson, commissioner of the Department of Health Access, currently being raked over the political coals for the capital offense of giving an incorrect answer to a Republican lawmaker:

At a House Health Care Committee meeting Nov. 5, Rep. Mary Morrissey, R-Bennington, directly asked Larson who is commissioner of the Department of Vermont Health Access, if there had been any security breaches with Vermont Health Connect.

Larson told her there hadn’t, failing to disclose an incident on Oct. 17 in which one user was able to access another user’s Social Security information.

The blowback? Larson’s boss, Gov. Shumlin, called the incident “unacceptable” and said he was “tremendously disappointed” in Larson’s “lapse of judgment.” House Speaker Shap Smith, a former House colleague of Larson’s and a self-described “friend”, said the lapse “will undermine” Larson’s effectiveness.

Will undermine. Not “could” undermine, but “will” underrmine.

Dead man walking!

This is all of a piece with Democrats’ rank cowardice on health care reform, nationally and in Vermont. Rather than defending the signature legislative accomplishment of Obama and Shumlin, Democratic officeholders are fully engaged in a truly epic campaign of ass-covering: if anything goes wrong with health care reform, they want to be positioned as Guardians of the Public Trust.

Even if it means throwing a good man, a formerly valued colleague doing a really difficult job, under the nearest bus.

Understand, misleading a legislative committee is a serious matter. But the “security breach” was a one-time event involving two consumers who somehow were given the same Vermont Health Connect password. It wasn’t the usual kind of security breach, where hackers can or do gain access to reams of supposedly secure information. And when Larson answered Morissey’s question, that’s the kind of breach he had in mind.

Why would he think that? Well, perhaps because the isolated breach was well-known in Administration circles. Shumlin himself learned about it shortly after it happened, didn’t think it was a big deal, and didn’t try to inform the Legislature or the public. A fix was quickly put in place, and the incident was almost three weeks in the rear-view mirror when Larson gave his testimony.

You think maybe Shumlin’s own handling of the situation played a part in Larson’s non-answer to Morrissey?

The question of Larson having to resign was broached, and was promptly squelched by Shumlin. But the public rebuke, which ace reporter Peter Hirschfeld called “an unprecedented public dressing-down,” looks to me like a management tactic known as “creating a paper trail.” If you have doubts about an underling’s performance (or if you need someone to take the blame), you don’t immediately take action —  but you do put your doubts on the record. Then, if more problems appear, you’ve got a solid pretext for dismissal.

The real meaning of this little foofaraw? The Democrats, who are in the most secure electoral position you could possibly imagine, scatter like cockroaches at the first sign of trouble. And if there are more problems with Vermont Health Connect, they’ve chosen their designated scapegoat.  

Over the weekend, VTDigger posted a lovely little profile piece about one of our best frenemies, El Jefe General John McClaughry. The author, Dirk Van Susteren (no relation to Greta, I trust?), presented El Jefe General as a good ol’ Vermonter who lives out in the country, plays pickup basketball, is known to pinch a penny, and even has a faithful canine companion* (named Lassie, how original). And who actually has a sense of humor! — conspicuously never on display during his paid commentaries on WDEV, most notable for their bellicosity and poor audio.

*Perhaps El Jefe General doesn’t realize that the dog is the socialist of the animal kingdom, happily accepting a dependent relationship with its master; whereas the noble feline, while accepting the blandishments of home and hearth for convenience’s sake, maintains an air of self-reliance. (And, judging by the millions of wild birds killed annually by house cats, that self-reliance remains in a state of actuality undiminished by the daily acceptance of Fancy Feast.)

McClaughry, as Van Susteren informs us, recounts his story with a blend of “humor, introspection, and yes, pedantry.” The latter, I certainly believe.

Feel free to read more about El Jefe on your own time. What struck me, beyond the skilled feature writer’s ability to reveal the humanity in anyone (next weekend: “Goin’ Fishin’ with Assad”) is that this is the latest in what’s becoming — or threatening to become — a trend in Vermont political journalism: the exceedingly friendly treatment of prominent conservatives.  

It started a few weeks ago when Paul Heintz painted a tender and largely uncritical portrait of Darcie “Hack” Johnston, the “skillful” political operator who hasn’t won a campaign outside of her former relationship with Jim Jeffords.

The reader has to wade through accolades like “intense, hardworking person” (from Randy Brock, whose gubernatorial campaign paid handsome sums to Johnston for little or no benefit) and “She knows the political game” (from ex-Jeffords staffer Bill Kurtz) and an account of her anti-health care reform activities before getting to the heart of the matter: that since Johnston began her all-out attack on Shummycare, public support has actually increased and opposition has declined.

Fast forward to last week, when the Freeploid’s Nancy Remsen valiantly attempted to perform CPR on the moribund political career of Wendy Wilton.

Remsen, for those unfamiliar, rendered uncritical (and unwarranted) acclaim to Wilton’s perspicacity as an evaluator of single-payer health care, in spite of Wilton’s (1) obvious partisanship, (2) previous, highly-touted and disastrously wrong estimates, (3) the measurable differences between her current estimate and that produced by the “independent” consultancy, Avalere, and (4) the obvious problems with Avalere’s work, which produced a highball figure based on a number of “coulds,” “possibles,” and other uncharitable assumptions.

And now, with the McClaughry piece, we have three stories shining the best possible light on prominent Vermont conservatives. Plus, lest we forget, the broad acceptance of VTGOP chair David Sunderland as a moderating figure despite his hard-right record.

This isn’t enough to declare a trend, but it’s almost certainly the beginning of one. After all, the prospect for 2014 looks like this: either the Democrats will win, or the Democrats will win big. That’s it. The best the VTGOP can hope for, realistically, is to take back a few marginal seats in the legislature. Whoever they nominate for statewide office, aside from Phil Scott, is pretty much doomed from the gitgo.

So too in the 2014 legislative session. The policy debates that matter will involve Democrats and maybe Progressives. The Republican super-minority will be irrelevant.

But political reporters can’t very well say so, because they’d lose their precious aura of objectivity. So they have to cover Don Turner’s press conferences and overstate the Republicans’ role in the political arena, point out the areas where they might, possibly, potentially, have an opportunity to gain some slim partisan edge. And they have to shine a little light on leading conservatives, rather than pointing out that they’ve pretty much driven the VTGOP into a ditch.

Coming soon to a media outlet near you: Rob Roper, youthful free-market tactician and humble Vermonter; Randy Brock, the potential Comeback Kid of 2014 (ha); Can Lenore Broughton Finally Buy an Election?; and Mark Snelling, favorite son of an honored political family.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Gack.  

We’ve been living through some dark days for health care reform. Both here and in Washington, reports of glitchy websites, failures to connect, disappointed consumers, legislative unease, punditic portents of doom, plummeting poll numbers, the Ten Plagues of Egypt, and who knows what’s next.

Here in Vermont, Republicans are calling for a one-year delay (so they can hammer on a “failed” system in the next election), Dem and Prog lawmakers are publicly hedging their bets, and every Friday Paul “The Huntsman” Heintz puts people like Randy Brock and Darcie “Hack” Johnston in his “Winners” column because they’re making political hay over HCR’s troubled rollout. Governor Shumlin is endlessly reminded of his “nothing-burger” comment, later revised to “something-burger,” and I don’t know how we’ve gotten this far without some wise guy (Paul?) calling it a Whopper.

But while there have been problems, and it hasn’t gone nearly as smoothly as Obama or Shumlin would have hoped, I’m here to say it’s way, way too early for gloom. We’ve still got a few months at least; if this thing is working reasonably well by next spring, the glitches will soon be a distant memory. More and more people will enjoy the benefits of a more foolproof, more universal system. And the fact that Johnston won a news cycle or two in an off year will have no long-term impact whatsoever. (Kinda like the rest of her brilliant political career.)

And look: we’re starting to see reports from around the country — and here in Vermont (paywalled) — that exchange enrollments are taking off:

More people have submitted applications so far in November than in the entire month of October.

… “That doesn’t surprise me,” said Mark Larson, commissioner of the Department of Vermont Health Access.

“What I’m also noticing is that every week the number of applications started and submitted is larger than the week before,” he said.

So, between website glitches, a tsunami of negative media coverage, and people’s natural procrastination in the face of a new obligation, enrollment started out slow. That’s entirely to be expected.  

Nationally, the Washington Post Wonkblog points to a pair of stories (NY and LA Times) reporting dramatic increases in enrollment across the country:

This is what many health policy experts predicted: The rate of enrollment would grow throughout November and mid-December up until Dec. 15, the last day to purchase coverage that begins on Jan. 1. There would likely be a bit of a lull until late December and early January, followed by more sign-ups in February and especially March, the last month of the open enrollment period.

Our political media has the attention span of a caffeinated puppy. Whatever’s happening RIGHT NOW is crucial, history-making. In fact, the opposite is true: most of what’s happening right now will quickly be forgotten. (Especially by our political media, which is perpetually in search of The Next Crisis. Remember the intractable mess of Syria’s chemical weaponry and how it was threatening Obama’s legacy? Well, maybe you do, but David Gregory and his ilk don’t seem to*.)

*Speaking of whom, I remember seeing Gregory on TV at the height of that crisis insisting that diplomacy was not the solution. He said, yes he did, that even if diplomacy worked, it would be a defeat for American power and interests. God, what a tool.

Even in the short term, the impact of Obamacare’s troubles has been a lot less than the pundits try to tell you. Sure, his approval ratings have dropped by a few percentage points. After weeks of overwhelmingly negative media coverage, they were destined to drop. And if the exchanges continue to improve, so will Obama’s numbers. This “plunge” that supposedly imperils the rest of his second term will have been no more than a blip.

We should also not forget, as the media almost never reminds us, that health care reform was necessary because the old system left tens of millions uncovered and did nothing to rein in rising costs. And, as Talking Points Memo reminds us, reform was a huge challenge:

The Affordable Care Act is the biggest social services program to be implemented since the Great Society. It’s a grand experiment in whether, with a mix of incentives and regulations, the government can expand health coverage and reduce health care costs without eliminating the free market. It’s something that’s never been attempted before on this scale in American government.

Am I happy that there have been problems? No. Do I think problems were inevitable? Yep. Is there still a lot of work to be done? Of course. Will our present difficulties make any difference in the grand scheme of things, if Obamacare and Shummycare get off the ground in a reasonable amount of time? Not at all.

If that happens, it will matter not at all that Darcie Johnston made the “Winners” column once or twice. And Randy Brock’s insistence that Shummycare “does not work”?

Ash heap of history.