From the “First Draft” Blog, quoting an excerpt from a Vanity Fair piece:

“Far from being a refuge for nose-picking narcissists, blogs have speedily matured into the most vivifying, talent-swapping, socializing breakthrough in popular journalism since the burst of coffeehouse periodicals and political pamphleteering in the 18th century, when The Spectator, The Tatler, and sundry other sheets liberated writing from literary patronage. If Adison and Steele, the editors of The Spectator and The Tatler, were alive and holding court at Starbucks, they’d be WiFi-ing into a joint blog….” (Emphasis added.)

And here I thought I was just spouting off.

Israeli troops disguised themselves as Palestinians and then ambushed and killed five Palestinians. Now how is this assassination any less terroristic than suicide bombings?

Sen. John Cain (R-Ariz.) at first flirted with the Dems, saying a Democratic VP nomination for him wouldn’t be out of the question. But later he had his office say no. Meanwhile, he wants the Federal Elections Commission to do its duty, which sounded like an attack on the Dems 527 end run around soft money.

The Washington Post story today about Bush’s nominee for a new assistant secretary for commerce – a “manufacturing czar” – uses virtually all anonymous sources to say that he might be in trouble because his company has a factory in China.

Now I love giving Bush a hard time, but what happened to The Post’s new guidelines announced last Sunday (see my recent post) about limiting the use of anonymous sources? Isn’t this a story planted by administration sources to see what kind of political fallout the proposed nomination might cause?

So you think there is a “Chinese wall” between the editorial and the business sides of newspapers? (Thank you to Romenesko’s blog.)

Changing the rules in Haiti.

Virginia to Gays: Get Out of the State
The Senate passed by a veto proof margin a bill prohibiting same sex unions in Virginia and the recognition of those performed in other states. Right wing nut case Bob Marshall (R-Prince William) proposed the bill. Compatriot in bigotry, Sen. Kenneth Cuccinelli(R-Fairfax), said the legislation would prevent court challenges, but others say the bill is so broadly written it wouldn’t stand up in court.

The Assembly has already approved a resolution supporting a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and a bill allowing companies to offer benefits to same sex couples was killed earlier this year.

“Virginia has a long history . . . of standing in the door,” Sen. Richard L. Saslaw, D-Fairfax, said, referring to the state’s earlier ban on interracial marriage. “We’re telling these people who happen to be gay, essentially, ‘stay out of Virginia.’”

Sen. Janet Howell (D-Fairfax) was concerned about the impact on businesses that would be reluctant to come to the state.

Find the vote here. Among those voting for the ban was the supposedly moderate Sen. Jeannemarie Devolites (R-Fairfax), who is proving to be anything but this session. She also sided with the right on the Senate’s budget plan.

The Washington Post’s Marc Fisher has a column this morning.

What If?
Michael Hardy And Jeff E. Schapiro of the Richmond Times-Dispatch – for my money, the best two reporters on the General Assembly beat – have a good summary of the politics of the budget process and the options if a deal isn’t reached by Friday.

House GOP Moderates Intimidated
Several House GOP moderates felt intimidated by Speaker Bill Howell yesterday when he barged into their meeting.

“Get Tough, But Not on Us”
Virginia is tough on crime, right? Former Gov. George Allen built prisons and abolished parole. Legislators love mandatory sentences. Well, except when they’re the perpetrators. A bill that would set mandatory sentencing guidelines for public officials caught embezzling was stymied in the Assembly. And they didn’t have the guts to record a vote. They did it on a voice vote.

“We may be going a little too far to try and help out with a very serious problem,” said Del. Morgan Griffith (R-Salem).

God forbid we should go too far in punishing crooked lawmakers.

Is the House Budget Real?
Little happened in Richmond yesterday, as budget conferees exchanged letters and lamented that they were miles apart. A special session seems more likely, according to many reports.

But among the “no news is bad news” stories, there is this nugget: The House seems ready to admit that its budget isn’t based on good numbers. Here’s how The Washington Post put it:

The amount that plan would raise is in dispute. The House has estimated it would bring in $522 million, which would be divided between the state and local governments. But that number is in dispute: Fiscal analysts have said that the plan could bring in far less, which if true means that the House’s budget isn’t balanced, which the state constitution mandates.

House negotiators gave a written offer to the Senate on Tuesday. It stated that they would be willing to discuss additional ways to ensure that the state receives the amount it must have to balance the House budget.

Although the offer did not specify which additional taxes the House might be willing to consider, negotiators said in interviews that they might consider eliminating additional business tax breaks or an increase to the cigarette tax.

The Hampton Roads Daily Press says instead of over $500 million the House originally claimed to be raised through the elimination of sales tax breaks for business, the real number may be closer to $335 million, according to calculations by the Department of Taxation. But, says the Daily Press article:

Chichester said he remained wary of balancing the budget on money generated by erasing sales tax breaks for businesses, which is a cornerstone of the House plan. He said there is no solid way to determine how much money can be generated. State tax officials have said their own estimates are tentative on the current House proposal, which erases sales tax breaks for a variety of businesses, from power companies to contractors.

There is also disagreement about how much money the House plan raises for K-12 education. The Washington Post has twice published charts showing more than $800 million in additional funding. But the Senate Finance Committee says there’s actually a $1 million cut in the House plan.

Meanwhile, Governor Warner suddenly raises the issue of tax fairness:

“… The debate here inside the Capitol has focused too much on dollars raised and too little on tax fairness. Together with our obligation to meet the state’s long-term commitments in a fiscally responsible manner, tax reform has been, and must continue to be, an important goal for this session,” he wrote in a letter to Chichester and Callahan before both sides began their separate meetings.

The Virginia Organizing Project has been trying to get anyone to listen to its proposal that was true tax fairness, but neither the Governor’s office, the two houses or the press seemed to care much for it.

Meanwhile, local jurisdictions around the state brought their voices together to generate a number of stories about the local impacts on services and local taxes caused by Virginia’s penuriousness:
Northern Virginia Journal
Richmond Times Dispatch
Virginian Pilot
Danville Register & Bee
Winchester Star

Bristol Mayor sums it up: “This is not a question of whether taxes are going to be raised this year. It’s a question of who’s going to have to raise them.”

General Assembly Spares Kermit the Frog
A bill passed the Senate that allows students to study computer models of frogs rather than dissect them. Which makes Virginia follow California’s lead. That’s scary. From the Virginian Pilot.:

“We are on our way to becoming a nation of wimps,” said Senate Minority Leader Richard L. Saslaw. “It’s just a frog, for crying out loud.”

Saslaw, a Democrat from Fairfax County, said the bill was a bad case of political correctness. But, he acknowledged, “I’m probably going to get a call from Kermit.”

Poynter Online, the daily blog from the journalism school Poynter Institute, alerts readers to an interesting article posted at Slate online yesterday. Editor-at-large Jack Shafer muses about The Washington Post’s new guidelines on the use of anonymous sources.

I think newspapers sometimes unwittingly becomes the White House’s outside public relations mouthpieces when they carry stories of dubious news value. I recall once when a Post front page story announced that the White House was going to launch a PR campaign about something or other. Having pitched stories myself, it’s quite a coup to get any publication to announce not only what your PR campaign is about, but the mere fact that you have a campaign.

But Shafer’s story is more about how newspapers play into the administration’s hands by thinking every anonymous source must be offering a good story. He writes:

…what would be lost if the Post and the [New York] Times turned their backs on [the White House’s] worthless background briefings and stopped barking like terriers for table scraps from administration officials? Not to disparage the fine work of Post and Times reporters, but how great a tragedy would it be if they gave the official agenda a bye and stopped reporting the incremental changes in White House policy that pass for news?

Recall yesterday I posted a link to another blog about reporters always calling the “usual suspects,” those pundits who are quick-tongued and always available. Are reporters missing something when they don’t look beyond the well-known and well-worn spinmeisters? Shafer continues:

For one thing, it would free up staff to cultivate sources outside the corridors of power. There’s plenty of news to be gotten further down the pecking order, as Michael Massing explains in his recent New York Review of Books feature “Now They Tell Us.” http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16922 Massing found that the Knight Ridder Washington Bureau, which relied on “blue collar” sources to report the prewar WMD threat rather than high-level ones, captured a more accurate picture of Iraq’s capabilities than did the New York Times’ Judith Miller, who had numerous high sources feeding her.

Another interesting idea Shafer discusses: reporters saying “this is true” (or isn’t) instead of just giving us a “he said, she said” regurgitation:

Perhaps the Wall Street Journal, an extremely accurate newspaper, points the way out of this morass. The Journal relies on confidential sources, of course, but it also allows its reporters more latitude in asserting what they know to be true. The paper encourages reporters to incorporate analysis into their reporting rather than compose a stenographic procession of facts, quotations, and official denials, allowing it in many cases to get closer to the truth than its rivals.

Shafer asks readers to watch closely to see if The Post and the New York Times adhere to their stricter policies on anonymous sources. If you find the papers caving in, write to pressbox@hotmail.com. Slate says “E-mail may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.”