It’s hard to find lessons for Vermont in last night’s election results as each election was so different. Dramatically different electorates all voting under truly unique conditions. Social conservatives took it in the gut (NY), social liberals took it in the gut (ME), moderates took it in the gut (VA), and space aliens continued to thrive (NYC).

I do see one arena with a potential message for us, and that’s Virginia. The first lesson is obvious. If the 5 Democrats in Vermont’s primary gubernatorial race allow their electioneering to become the kind of scorched-earth nastiness that we saw in Virginia, they’re liable to cause the same effect; the candidates with the smarts and capability to actually run a statewide campaign could essentially cancel each other out, and the last one standing could be the lamest of all.

This is exactly the opposite effect that a healthy primary will have. If the candidates can keep it from getting nasty, rather than follow the path of Creigh Deeds, the winner will follow the path of Virginia’s Senator Jim Webb and others like him across the country.

The other lesson from Virginia is in the numbers, and its the most important lesson of all.  

It wasn’t that long ago that I was – once again – hearing from Democratic Party electioneers that the path to victory is always to run to the center (one person – who should really know better – even used the downright delusional example of Peter Welch to make the point. Say what you want about Welch, but he sure as hell ain’t a Blue Dog).

Elections are algebraic equations. They are about balancing several variables, where the known value of some of those variables vary from place to place, election to election. Those who dumb down electioneering to “take the center” either have a deeply dumbed down view of elections and the social psychology behind them in general, or – more often – they are simply being self-serving. Most of the folks who insist that elections are always won in the center are simply themselves centrists and don’t want to feel bothered to expend the brain power required to step outside their own comfort zone and engage in a more nuanced – more accurate – analysis of what exactly is going on in a given election.

I don’t doubt that in some elections, centrism will carry the day. But the biggest lesson provided by Deeds in Virginia is how – even in a close race – mindlessly aping that mantra and blindly acting on it can be a ticket to disaster, as it may or may not be the main dynamic in play in any given election.

In Virginia, it most certainly wasn’t, and the numbers bear that out with little-to-no room for alternate interpretation. From FDL (via dKos):

In Virginia this year, one poll showed the percentage of the likely electorate under the age of 30 falling 70% from 2008-and the African American share of the vote falling 39% from 2008! That’s why virtually every poll has shown today’s likely electorate as having voted for John McCain by double digits over Barack Obama in Virginia last year-despite Virginia having voted almost exactly the reverse.

Unfortunately for us, the Deeds campaign freaked out and read these polls wrong over the summer. Instead of attempting to energize more young and minority voters to the polls to make the electorate more representative of Virginia-they began running a campaign targeted to the people already planning to vote. Creigh began bashing federal Democratic priorities like “Cap and Trade” and health care reform to appeal to the conservatives that were headed to the polls.

And every time he did it, polls indicated turnout shriveled even further among Democrats and progressive voters-making the electorate even older, whiter, and more conservative. To which Creigh responded to by bashing federal Democrats more-which resulted in even more progressives becoming disengaged. Over and over, the cycle continued. Over the last six weeks, PPP polls indicated the share of the electorate that identified as Democrats declined from 38% to 31%. In other words almost one out of every five self-identified Democrats planning to vote on Labor Day has since then looked at Creigh Deeds and his conservative message, and decided they weren’t voting. Ouch!

Election realities can be inconvenient for those who want to cling religiously to simplistic preconceptions. And the reality is that just running rightward is way too simple. It always has been.

Here’s yet another example of the political equivalent of “penny wise and pound foolish.”

During the last legislative session, there was a lot of talk on this site about moving the primary earlier in the year. In Vermont, the primary election is so late that it essentially acts as an incumbent protection scheme if the opposition party has multiple candidates for a statewide office. It’s the number one source of the disincentive for parties to have primaries, when primaries are so needed to refresh and reinvigorate what often becomes a stagnant debate and electoral system. Now that Jim Douglas isn’t running for re-election, the dynamics may be different, but the same reasoning still applies. Want healthy primaries? Don’t stack the deck against them by cramming them too close to the general election. It’s about making our democracy work as well as it can – regardless of one’s political party.

There was also a more blandly technical reason – the pinch of turning around absentee ballots to overseas voters in the time between the September primary and November general. She may be a candidate for Governor, but Secretary of State Markowitz was doing her job responsibly when she, too, asked the legislature to move the date earlier into the calendar.

All of these problems, of course, still exist – but it didn’t have to be this way. The Senate, led by Peter Shumlin, took the bull by the horns and made a change (if an only marginally adequate one) last session.

Speaker Smith and the House couldn’t be bothered to do their share.

But the problem hasn’t gone away

A new federal law will force Vermont lawmakers to consider changing the date of next year’s primary at a time when that primary is expected to be a hot one.

[…]House Speaker Shap Smith, D-Morristown, said the bill didn’t seem like a priority when it came over from the Senate late in the session, but the new federal law might change that. “That might spur us on,” he said.

So now they’re stuck with dealing with it in an election year, which will amplify the catcalls that its all a dirty trick to give Democrats (who, of course, have a gubernatorial primary, while the GOP likely won’t) a leg up. And coming, as they will, so close to the actual election, Dems have to be concerned that some of those charges might leave an impression.

Whereas, if they had just done their jobs when it counted – months ago – any furor would have long since passed.

I’ve heard folks at the Statehouse on more than one occasion comment that “good policy is good politics.” One wishes the House leadership had heeded that advice on this issue.

Looking ahead to game 4 of the World Series, but I'm feeling a little grim. I've been rooting for the Phillies who lost the crucial Game 3, largely because of a bizarre decision by Phillies starter Cole Hamels. Tom Verducci at Sports Illustrated explains:

When Pettitte stepped in, Hamels was working with a 3-2 lead, a runner at second base and — here's the key part — one out. Pettitte is a career .134 hitter who has come to bat a total of 12 times over the past three years. Hamels could dispose of him with fastballs, the way J.A. Happ would do the next inning, and he would be one out away from being out of the inning. Instead, Hamels threw a first-pitch curveball up, and Pettitte slapped a single to tie the game. Why in the world would he throw something slow — and up, no less — to an American League pitcher?

What a screwup. An obvious screwup. Anybody who knows anything about baseball knows that – and it cost the whole team. So what did Hamels have to say for himself?

“I made the right pitch to Pettitte,” Hamels explained. “A pitcher doesn't hit an oh-and-oh curve in a bunting situation.” I was incredulous. I had to follow up, and asked him, “Just to clarify, you thought Pettitte was bunting, so you threw a breaking ball up to try to get him to pop up a bunt?”

“Yes,” Hamels said. “That's what I get my fair share of the time when I'm bunting. He swung and got a hit.

Baseball is very, very difficult to understand sometimes.”

This had nothing to do with bunting. This was not a bunt situation. Sounds like a guy who screwed up and doesn't have an excuse for himself, so he's trying to recast the whole thing into something different to make himself look less bad. 

Hamels clearly did not regard the pitch to Pettitte as a mistake. I couldn't believe it. There is no way Pettitte is bunting there. There is virtually no advantage to be gained from moving a runner from second to third and be left with two outs… It's Baseball 101.

A terrible call. A costly call. A big mistake that could be the turning point for the whole Series. Here's a pitcher who's got too much pride to own up to his goof… so much that he can't even talk about his actual screwup without trying to change the subject to Burlington Telecom… er, I mean a bunt situation…

Wait – what were we talking about again? 

Yesterday was an odd day on the misappropriation of funds scandal relating to Burlington Telecom.

In the morning that I posted what I thought was a more-or-less common sense and low-impact diary on the matter, two other pieces were appearing in the traditional media: the latest from the Freeps and a rather bizarre offering from Shay Totten.

Totten may not have initially broken this story, but his work – and his narrative – have largely fueled it. In his latest “Fair Game” piece, though, he turns his narrative completely on its head without explanation. What had been a case of rulebreaking and hubris from the Mayor's office, enabled by an ineffectual City Council (making for a multipartisan – Dems, Repubs, Progs and Indys – scandal), is now… that's right… all a dirty Democrat plot. A mountain made of a molehill to make political hay – all part of a never-ending scheme to take the Mayor's office.

It's… weird. For example, Totten refers to an apology offered by the heretofore unapologetic Jonathan Leopold:

Leopold, for his part, has apologized for not telling the council sooner.

Oh? Totten's link leads to his previous column that contains no apology from Leopold whatsoever. In fact, it includes the Leopold quote “it was me, and I’m not ashamed of it.” This is an apology? It is followed by the vague, but equally unrepentant “In hindsight, you can always find things you could have done differently, but this was prudent.” As one reader told me yesterday, the link was as relevant to a supposed Leopold apology as if it had been a link to ebay.

And City Councilors certainly didn't hear an apology. This is from an email sent to councilors and City Hall from Independent City Councilor Karen Paul on Tuesday:

There is one other thing that is needed. When I make a mistake, I own up to it and do my utmost to make things right. This guiding principle applies in my personal and professional as well as my political life.

I don’t think an apology makes us look weak; rather, I think it makes us look human and shows humility. I think we are a forgiving community and we understand even when our elected officials err but our citizenry does not forgive or have trust in officials who don’t express remorse.

To stand strong to one’s convictions despite knowing one violated a Certificate of Public Good does appear to be rather cavalier. I would encourage you to reflect on these thoughts and be sure you don’t feel you owe the citizens of Burlington an apology.

So what flipped Totten so dramatically? Who knows. He has been clearly under extraordinary pressure since he began reporting this story. Take this exchange from Facebook (on the flip):

Liz Curry

there'sno bluner – listen to the Mark Johnson interview – the only gap is theDPS staff did not require the City to focus on the 60-day limit untilthey resolved Condition 17 of the CPG. Paying bills for BED, BT, theAirport has been common practice – it's not a loan- it kept BT going.Get the facts before scapegoating public officials who are acting onself interest.

Sat at 9:34pm

 

 [snip]

 

Shay Totten

Infact, it is a loan as it has to be repaid with interest. It may becommon practice, and it may be what was needed to keep BT alive (which,BTW, I think is a great service and hope these actions don't sink it).The issue is that it wasn't done openly or with approval from thecouncil or Board of Finance – which was needed as it alters the … Read Morefundamental approach to BT's operations.

Besides,councilors weren't briefed on the Condition 60 violation until May, sixmonths after the city says it first realized it was in violation. Thatsaid, the same councilors blustering now have known about this sinceMay and are as complicit as it gets.

Remember, too, Joe McNeilpointed out this week that he advised the city to fess up last Novemberto the PSB about its Condition 60 violation and they didn't take hisadvice. Why willfully ignore counsel like that?

Yesterday at 11:27am

 

Liz Curry

Oh really? And you've checked your facts with the people directly involved and confirmed statements made?

Yesterday at 1:24pm

 

Shay Totten

No, as a journalist I just make shit up. Puhleez.

Yesterday at 1:31pm

 

 [snip]

 

Liz Curry

“thereis no explicit OK on record from the board of finance or the citycouncil to loan the money, which is what irks many councilors and thepublic” (Fair Game, Wed. Oct. 21). The fact is, there is no legal basisor reason for getting an “OK” from any governing body in the City. Thispractice is used quite often by any and all administrations to … Read Morepaythe bills for BED, the Schools, and yes, BT. In fact, the bills beingpaid out of the general fund for BED's costs at the time were muchhigher than bills being paid for BT. It is not a “loan.” A loan is alegal document with a promissory note. And in fact, more people knewabout this than you can mention on any given day, which is what makesthis a political witchhunt that suits the media fine.

Yesterday at 9:52pm 

Shay Totten
GeezLiz, why bother with electing a city council if an administrationdoesn't need an approval from “any governing body in the City.” Or, whyeven bother with elections? That'd be even simpler — save money, timeand all that messy democracy stuff.
In fact, there is astructure in place for the administration to report the financial andoperational activities: The Board of Finance, at a minimum, if not theentire city council who has to approve its budget, its filings with thePSB, etc.
So why is it that none of the people who “knew moreabout it than you can mention it on a given day” were not on thecouncil or the board of finance?… Read More
Also,the use of the cash pool – in every other instance you've noted andJonathan Leopold has noted — pertains situations where outsidefinancing was already secured and had not yet released funds to BED orsome other city entity. In other words, it wasn't an open-endedcommitment with no guaranteed end in sight.
It may have beenthe right move, the best move and the cheapest move to keep BT alive.Doesn't justify the taking action without consent.
I've said itbefore, and I'll say it again: I think BT is a great service superiorto Comcast in a multitude of ways. And, I want to see it succeed as I'mall for the public option in health care and in telecommunications.But, that's not the issue.
It may be a political witch hunt forsome, but for me it's a very simple narrative about the lack oftransparency in government when the public's money is involved. Period.

Thanks for posting – getting me all warmed up to write this week's column!

Totten is clearly not in a fun place for doing his job on all this. Curry is of course a longtime lefty usual suspect in Chittenden County and does a lot of great work.

In any case, the Totten flip comes on the heels of a strategy meeting on the matter that was held Sunday night that reportedly included Curry, as well as John Franco, former Councilor Jane Knodell, Mayor Bob Kiss, Dean Corren, Councilors Marrisa Caldwell and Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, Sandy Baird and Representative Dave Zuckerman (who is already promoting Totten's new perspective).

What was the strategy settled on? Email from the State Party Chair to the Progressive listserv this week suggests the us-versus-them approach has been embraced at the highest levels:

Martha Abbott marthavt at sover.net

Wed Oct 28 12:27:55 CDT 2009

Hey Folks–Bob's live show is on Ch. 17 today. Please call in with support:5:25 till 5:55862-3966

I'm sure there will be many calls from the opposition.

Are Independents and even Progressives who don't like this situation now simply the “opposition?”

It didn't look like it was going to happen initially, considering the multiparty makeup of the City Council and the commensurate multiparty nature of the screwup, but a decision has clearly been collectively been made by key Burlington Progressives to bunker down with Mayor Kiss and company regardless of the actual merits of the situation, in the process making this a partisan thing.

And that sucks. “My Party right or wrong” is an awful political mantra. In fact, reaction against that mantra within the Democratic Party is largely what the blogosphere is founded on. It's no coincidence that the Democratic Party has both creeped towards the left and begun amassing more political victories since the blogs started challenging its leaders and orthodoxy – especially when they screw up.

By digging in like this, the Progressives are decidedly going against the historical flow, and it does no one any good.

Step back from the brink, folks. This path leads you – and the city – into a world of needless hurt… especially since there may well be some smoking gun documents on the matter yet to surface (more on that soon).

If the Burlington City Council and the Mayor’s office are any metric, the Progressives are indeed coming in to their own as a Major Political Party by engaging in the same sort of bunker mentality politics that the Republicans and Democrats engage in when they get caught screwing up. There have thusfar been no “mistakes were made” moments over the financial scandal rocking the Queen City, as the Council’s Progressives along with city hall seem to be stuck spinning their wheels on the first stage of grief.

(Note: If you just got back from the Negative Zone, Burlington Chief Administrative Officer Jonathan Leopold  cut a $17 million loan from the City’s general funds to Burlington Telecom (the city-run telecom entity) without seeking approval from the Board of Finance or City Council. As a result, BT is now violating its “certificate of public good” issued by the state by not repaying the loan within 60 days – as well as by not expanding its network as promised).

While the revelation that Prog politicians are every bit as human as Dems and Repubs may not be worth mentioning – the potential consequences of continued denial are. The line from Kiss and company has not simply been to avoid the subject of the actual breach of ethics and the terms of BT’s operating certificate entirely, but to try and change that subject. Here’s an example of the rhetoric that has been coming from Kiss and the Council Progressives of late (emphasis added):

“I don’t think we’ve lost the public’s trust, but we are at a critical juncture,” said Councilor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak (P-Ward 2). “We need to remind people what an asset Burlington Telecom is to the community.“

The Council Progressives and the Mayor have seemed to be on the same page – and that page is to make this scandal all about Burlington Telecom itself rather than a lack of transparency, a breach of public trust, and rule (law?) breaking. Presumablely they’re banking on the notion that a referundum on BT will go their way, so a deflection of the topic is in their favor.

But they’re wrong.

This scandal is a big, big deal that’s not going to drift away, and there will come a point that some of their opponents will recognize the opportunity and gladly oblige these Progs by helping to make the conversation about BT. Why? Because if the Progs are successful in linking the two conversations, the results could be devastating for the fledgling, publicly-run information infrastructure experiment. It could bring it all down.

The rational thing to do at this point is to show some humility. In this case, an overabundance of pride could well go before a very big fall.

One of the bad raps on the Progressives collectively has been the idea that they are all about – and only about – building their Party. That nothing else really matters to them. An insistence on a strategy to avoid responsibility for an ethical breach at the expense of one of their finest legacies will go a long way towards cementing that bad rap.

Let’s be clear; I’m not concern trolling. I’m not a member of the Progressive Party and likely never will be – but as a little ‘p’ progressive, I have a stake in Burlington Telecom. I want to see it succeed. And using it as a stalking horse in a political scandal is not in its best interest. I also know that there will be some Progressive politicians who will have no problem with continuing such a strategy, even if it looks to drag down BT.

But I also have faith in some of those folks to be smart and do the right thing. GMD readers will not only recognize the Council Progressives’ paid staffer, Doug Hoffer, but will likely join in my confidence in him to be one of those smart folks based on the quality of his contributions to this community. I genuinely have faith that Hoffer, and others like him who are in the midst of the storm, will ultimately see the bigger picture and keep Burlington Telecom from being sacrificed on the altar of political cover (or at least, that he will have some appreciation for the growing concerns on the matter).

The facts thusfar (and kudos to Shay Totten who almost single-handedly brought this issue out): Burlington Chief Administrative Officer Jonathan Leopold took it on himself to cut a $17 million loan (yes, that’s taxpayer money) to Burlington Telecom (the city-run telecom entity) without seeking approval from the Board of Finance or City Council. As a result, BT is now violating its “certificate of public good” issued by the state by not repaying the loan within 60 days (as well as by not expanding its network as promised). Given the current state of affairs, there is no guarantee that the citizens of Burlington are going to get that money back. These facts are not in dispute.

There are four elements to this that should surprise no one. First of all, that Leopold would engage in such an astonishing breach of ethics and rules. He’s historically just done what he wants to.

Second, that Bob Kiss doesn’t really give a damn if Leopold breaks the rules, as he’s consistently done whatever he can to keep Burlington Telecom protected from oversight and transparency. All I can assume is that its just another case of some on the left who decide the rules are there to control bad guys, and since they’re not bad, the rules don’t apply.

Third, that David O’Brien would be a drama queen about all this, leaping at the chance to be the hero and hoping that people will be distracted from his Fairpoint legacy, and other failures. He also wants the Douglas administration gold star award by giving Burlington the black eye ANR couldn’t manage.

Fourth, that the Burlington Free Press would jump on the pound-the-City bandwagon. They too look for any excuse to hammer the mayor’s office, and this one was gift wrapped.

Given these last two elements, why City officials would just hand their enemies a loaded gun and point it at their own temples like this is beyond me.

But what I really don’t understand is why the Burlington City Council went limp on all this. That’s the real mystery here, and the biggest breach of public trust in play. You can’t unite that crew over anything, but putting their own imprimatur on this behavior… this is what brings Republicans, Democrats, Independents and Progressives together? This? (And given the copious use of “executive sessions” shielded from public scrutiny, transparency is not a watchword for this crowd.)

On October 5th, the City Council just shrugged at the brewing scandal. No consequences, no nothing. Just its approval for the mayor’s office to seek to retroactively change the rules to accomodate the behavior, with broad promises that they’d report in more. Washington DC politics as usual, eh?

The only one who dissented was the biggest lightning rod on the Council; Ed Adrian. Adrian is a solid liberal, but is loathed by Progressives over his aggressive Democratic partisanship. So loathed by the Prog crowd in fact, that Progressive Representative David Zuckerman threw him out of his farm’s CSA over political differences. That’s some bad, bad feelings – and the marquee illustration of just how much worse the Prog-Dem thing is in Burlington as compared to the rest of the state.

So while its an interesting exercise in political anthropology to observe some of those folks who so loathe Adrian try to deal with the fact that he’s the only one looking good in all this, the fact is Adrian is the only one looking good in all this. Period. In his recent op-ed in the Free Press on the matter, Adrian comments:

On October 5, 2009 the Burlington City Council and the residents of Burlington learned for the first time the magnitude of the problems facing BT and just how much had been done in their name in their name to BT over the past year: 

1) Burlington’s Chief Administration Officer (CAO) knew as early as August, 2008 that BT’s Certificate of Public Good (CPG) issued by the Public Service Board (PSB) required any monies temporarily loaned to BT from taxpayer funds and other city revenues (“pooled cash”) needed to be paid back within 60 days;

2) Mayor Kiss’s CAO withheld this information from the City Council for at least 13 months;

3) the CAO has continued to authorize, without City Council approval, millions of dollars out of the City’s “pooled cash” funds for periods longer than 60 days thereby violating the CPG and the City Charter.

[…]

Five days after filing a petition with the PSB to amend BT’s Certificate of Public Good to allow the City to lend taxpayer dollars to BT, the Kiss Administration asked for the Council’s approval retroactively. I asked that a vote on the resolution be delayed for approximately one month to give both the City Council and the public time to learn more about and better understand the impacts of allowing taxpayer monies to be used to support BT on an ongoing basis. The Mayor opposed my request and it was defeated by a wide majority.

[…] It may be that voting occurred as it did precisely because the Council has not been given the information that it needed to act and was unwilling as a body to question the Mayor’s intentions.

Hard to argue with that.

But the mystery remains as to why the rest of the City Council fell all over itself to enable Leopold (and Kiss’s) bad behavior at their own expense. Perhaps the leaked video from that very City Council meeting can shed some light on this phenomenon…

From Senator Susan Bartlett’s gubernatorial campaign:

[…] David Heller will serve as Bartlett’s political media consultant and handle all of her campaign advertising; Alan Secrest will serve as her campaign pollster; and John Bauer will work on message development, fundraising and data management.

[…] Heller is one of the top political media consultants and campaign strategists in the Democratic Party. As president of Main Street Communications, an award-winning political consulting firm, Heller has compiled the best won-loss record among media consultants in the Democratic Party in terms of helping candidates win election to the U.S. Congress. Heller’s clients have won 10 out of 13 general election open seat races for Congress. He was instrumental in the election of Gov. John Baldacci (D-Me.).

Over the years, Heller has helped elect or re-elect more than twenty-five different Members of Congress, including many from some of the nation’s most Republican-leaning districts. Heller has helped elect and re-elect Members of Congress as diverse as U.S. Reps. John Olver (D-Mass.), John Lewis (D-Ga.), Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), Allen Boyd (D-Fla.) and John Yarmuth (D-Ky.). ).

Handling the campaign’s polling is Alan Secrest of Cooper & Secrest Associates, one of the nation’s largest and most successful survey research firms. They have elected or reelected more than 300 Members to Congress, as well as Governors and Senators in six states.

Bauer served as Campaign Manager for Jeb Spaulding’s first election as Treasurer, winning a primary where Spaulding was out-spent 2.5 to 1. He also worked as Finance Coordinator for the Vermont Democratic House Committee, Field Director of Vermonters for Dean and as Secretary of the Vermont Democratic Party. He spent the last two years as Marketing Director for Umiak Ltd.

If she’s hiring, she must be raising money.

You don’t see this very often. VPR reports (no link that I can find) that Bernie is lending support to librarians who are frustrated with Senator Leahy and the PATRIOT Act reauthorization that emerged from his Judiciary Committee. The reauthorization makes few changes to the post-9/11 rules allowing federal authorities to go on “fishing expeditions” through citizens’ library records. Interestingly, Sanders was a co-sponsor of Leahy’s original PATRIOT modification bill. It’s an unusual split between our sitting Senators, and Leahy defends the bill as the best he could move to the floor, given Republican intransigence.

Maybe Leahy is correct. Maybe this is the best he could’ve gotten through his committee. If so, what does that say about this Democratic majority? As with the health care issue, Leahy’s laying so much of the blame on Republicans rings quite hollow – especially with conservative Democrat Dianne Feinstein wielding so much power in the Senate Judiciary Committee in these matters. And the library provisions are far from the only problems with the Patriot reauthorization. From The American Prospect:

The bill passed by the Judiciary Committee, which Feingold derisively referred to as the “prosecutor’s committee,” left the senator “scratching his head” as to “how a committee controlled by a wide Democratic margin could support the bill it approved.” Civil-liberties advocates were especially surprised by Sen. Patrick Leahy, who proposed a much milder set of reforms than Feingold but eventually voted for a bill that didn’t have them. As Marcy Wheeler noted, Feinstein and Leahy had derided the 215s and NSLs as “fishing expeditions” back in 2005 during the last reauthorization. But that, after all, was when the GOP was still in charge.

Prospect writer Serwer notes that there are a few positives in the bill, such as changing procedures on military commissions to bring them closer to a civilian judicial standard – but only so far. Commissions are now institutionally enshrined (despite talk of sunset provisions) for the indefinite future, including provisions that now make the US the only other nation besides Rwanda that can try minors for war crimes.

And yes, much – if not all – of the onus on this goes right back to the White House, where the Obama administration has strongly opposed moving towards a pre-Bush civil rights regime on many levels – and whose push on even the bill’s modest reforms, found voice through an unlikely, although strangely appropriate in this case, agent – conservative Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions.

Like so many other Bush-era excesses, Washington Democrats are taking ownership of the federal assault on the 4th amendment as well.

Back in the 90's, I was among those who who protested the launch of the Saturn-bound Cassini probe. Problem was, it was powered by a big honkin' piece of unbelievably toxic plutonium that, in the event of a disaster during liftoff, could end up sprinkled out over half a continent.

But there were others protesting it for a broader reason, and that reason was on display in some liberal blog posts complaining about the recent lunar mission that ended in a piece of the probe crashing into a lunar crater. The idea was to analyze the dust kicked up in the impact with an eye towards finding ice crystals that would both enhance our understanding of Earth's nearest neighbor, but impact long term discussions about returning to the moon someday (they found none).

Lisa Derrick at the generally sensible national blog Firedoglake bemoaned our “explod(ing) a bomb into the Moon,” and was echoed by the usually dependable former Vermont State Representative Chris Pearson at the Prog Blog, in asking “Ah, are we really bombing the Moon? Yes, yes we are.”

“This hardly passes the straight face test,” Pearson complained, without elaboration. The closest thing to a clear argument seemed to be the following: “Given our dramatic national debt and frightening economic times is this really the best use of community resources?” 

To Derrick, it was all about the aesthetics of “bombing” the moon. It was icky. SO American, to bomb things. Of course, to bomb something, one generally needs… well, a bomb. A bomb is defined as “a projectile, formerly usually spherical, filled with a bursting charge and exploded by means of a fuze, by impact, or otherwise, now generally designed to be dropped from an aircraft.”

There was, of course, no explosive charge to this project, hence, the moon was not bombed. Period. Derrick, Pearson and many others decided that it was more important to elicit a visceral reaction that might reactively put readers on their side before they even read the details, than to present their case rationally.

From a coldly strategic perspective, you can't blame them. They are, in fact, asking people to join them in straight-up anti-science. The presumably educated readers of their respective sites are not unfamiliar with anti-science silliness, they're just used to seeing it in its more stereoptypical form; right wing creationism and the like. 

But let's look at Pearson's presumed thesis and leave the moon-bombing hyperbole for a moment. That this project should be held to a standard of whether or not it's the “best” use of resources, demanding it justify itself against other programs (programs we are to infer it is bleeding resources from).

You remember when parents used to tell their kids to finish their vegetables because of those starving kids in Africa? That's the logic in play here. It's no different. If we spend less money on science, it doesn't then follow that those funds automatically go to feeding the hungry or health care for all. Imagine, for a moment, if that logic were applied evenly and consistently, and every bit of taxpayer spending became a Schindler's List moment. Repave the road? You'll let a dozen kids starve. Somehow I doubt that Pearson applied this reasoning when he cast his vote for, for example,  The “Do Not Mail” anti-junk mail bill.

The fact is that we all – left, right, center and whatever – see government as being responsible for certain things. We don't hierarchicalize all of those things or put them up against each other in our worldview – we expect government to do its part for all of them. On the left, one of those priorities is education, and education is about more than teaching elementary school – its also about educating ourselves. Science left exclusively to the private sector will only lead to science for profit, and that's why promoting science (along with the arts and the humanities) has always been a part of any rational, civilized and responsible government's role in promoting education. Always.

Do we need to keep an eye towards priorities? Of course. Science should not take more than a modest portion of our budget as compared to social services and infrastucture. Do we want to avoid frivolous spending on science? Absolutely. Should we try to be as cost-effective as possible on publicly funded scientific projects? Unquestionably.

This lunar project met all of those criteria. Every last one. It was efficient, relatively inexpensive, and was a significant effort to expand our understanding of our natural satellite that could lead to more scholarship, and practical applications down the road. It is not simply an example of the kind of science our government should be funding, its an example of that kind of science done well.

Obviously this has hit a nerve of mine (which is generally what  it takes to get me blogging about anything, of course), but I think it's worth calling out this line of rhetoric. The next time we feel just a little too cocky when we look down with scorn on anti-evolution numbskulls in Mississippi, we'll all have a couple examples to remind us that anti-science blather isn't necessarily bound to any geographical or partisan borders.

In case you haven’t heard, Montpelier has a bit of a financial scandal going on at City Hall.

(Mayor Mary) Hooper and City Manager William Fraser disclosed last Friday that the city had mistakenly cut a check from the water fund for $548,111 to Scott Construction on Dec. 22, 2004, for a water line improvement project. The amount should have been $85,775.

The $462,336 overpayment, which was cashed by Scott Construction, wasn’t detected by an audit in 2005 and was discovered by the city in 2006. The city has been able to collect $114,688 of that overpayment from Scott Construction over the years, but last week Chittenden Bank called in its $4.8 million loan to the company and foreclosed on Scott, making it almost certain no further funds will be recouped by the city.

The City Council has met several times since 2006 behind closed doors in executive session to discuss and approve action to recoup the funds. Hooper and most council members believed keeping Scott’s financial situation quiet was imperative to preventing a run on his assets and recovering the lost money for Montpelier ratepayers.

The City Council and City Manager recently had their face the music meeting with townsfolk. By all accounts, it was generally civil, but no one that I can find feels good about any of this – in particular how it was kept quiet for so long. There is a keen sense of betrayal on that point in active circulation in the Capital City.

The rationale for the “cover up” is not crazy; if word got out about the company’s tenuous financial condition, there could have been a run from creditors, forcing them into immediate bankruptcy and shutting down any chance to recover the funds by being dropped to the back of the line behind secured creditors. And all that is true. It’s a sound explanation.

But its not justification.

When we screw something up, there’s a temptation to keep it quiet until you can fix it. It’s a lot easier to fess up to a parent, a spouse, a friend – whoever – if we can say “I broke it, but I took responsibility and made it better, so its all cool.”

It can be an appropriate approach, but it includes a gamble; if you fess up to a screw-up immediately, you can expect a certain amount of grief. If you keep it quiet in order to fix it before reporting, you have to be sure you do fix it, as there is major interest compounding on that grief. If you can’t make good on that reparation or payoff, the injured party is going to be that much angrier for the lack of disclosure, which may be seen as intentional deception.

This is why, while it may be a gamble we as individuals can choose or choose not to take in our private lives, it is never, ever a gamble that public officials should be taking through our democratic institutions. This situation should make that clear. Intentions may have been good – they certainly weren’t bad – but accountability and transparency have to be axiomatic in public institutions to guard against incompetence and dishonesty, the former certainly being in play in this case. Decisions to hide such things, as rational as they may seem at the time, also get tainted by feelings of fear or trepidation (even panic), self-interest, frustration, anger, etc. – and that’s no way to run a public institution.

The City Council and the City Manager made the wrong call – a call in which they placed themselves further apart from (above?) the community than they’re supposed to be. Very simply, the information was not theirs to withhold, no matter the intent. Do I think they should resign? No. We elect humans, not robots, and as long as I personally see no intent to do wrong, then I personally see no reason for them not to fill out their terms. That’s me.

But there’s no question that re-election could prove challenging for these folks (including for Mayor Hooper in her other role as State Representative), as Montpelier residents will all be making that calculus individually. And right now, emotions are quite understandably high.

(Yes, the post says “part 1”, but part 2 will focus on the Burlington Telecom snafu)