Michael Gartner: RICK GREEN

The affable Rick Green is off to Cincinnati, so now there will be yet another publisher of The Des Moines Register.

That is not good news.

It is not easy being publisher of a newspaper. It particularly is not easy these days — when the industry is changing dramatically and no one really knows how the economics will play out. The Register doesn’t make its finances public, but it has been laying off workers regularly in recent years, and its circulation has plunged to the lowest levels in nearly 100 years. So either money isn’t pouring in over the transom or else it is being sent out in indefensible amounts to Gannett headquarters in Virginia. Both of those possibilities are bad.

Uncertainty is the only certainty in the newspaper business today. Indeed, it would be foolish to bet that there will be home delivery of the daily Register in five years. And if there is, it would be foolish to assume that there’s anything in it for readers over 45 — the traditional print readers but the upper end of the newspaper’s target demographic, in this aging state, both in print and on its loopy Web site.

So The Register needs all the help it can get. Time will tell if Rick Green set The Register off in the right direction — or the wrong one. But he had all but one of the skills needed to run the place. He understood news. He understood business. He got involved in the community, at least to a degree. And he was relentlessly upbeat, at least in public. An added benefit was that he truly cared about the First Amendment — in seeming contrast to a few of his predecessors — and spent some of his scarce dollars fighting for openness.

But he lacked one thing: He didn’t know the territory.

That’s a huge liability to overcome. (I know. I spent 15 months as editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, where I felt like I was editing a newspaper with one hand tied behind my back. I didn’t know Mitch McConnell from Willie Shoemaker, though I grew to admire one of them.) An editor and a publisher must have a great knowledge — and a great affection — for their city and state, a knowledge that makes them confident of their facts and an affection that spurs them to comment truthfully about those facts. Good and bad.

It takes a lifetime — a lifetime of insatiable curiosity — to learn at least some of those facts. As for the affection, it’s kind of like falling in love. At some point, it just happens.

Rick Green knew nothing about Iowa when he came here from California to edit the newspaper four years ago; that’s not his fault, it’s the fault of people at corporate headquarters who look at newspaper editors and publishers as fungible goods and move them around like inventory to stock a store whose shelves are bare. But editors are not auto parts, publishers are not bananas. Rick Green is a quick study, and he learned a lot, about as much as you can absorb in four years, and he didn’t commit any awful gaffes.

But the whole time, I suspect, his heart has been in Cincinnati. He was born and raised in Ohio, he graduated from Ohio University, he spent 16 years in the newsroom of the Enquirer — and his eyes sparkle when he talks about his years there. He knows the territory — and he is in love with it. He’ll do a great job in Cincinnati. The paper is lucky the corporate masters didn’t pick someone for Cincinnati who grew up in Vermont, say — or Iowa.

But where does that leave The Register?

Can Gannett find someone who knows what Joy Corning and Jo Ann Zimmerman and Roger Jepsen and Sally Pederson and Terry Branstad have in common? Can it find someone who knows the stories of Jack Trice and Nile Kinnick? Who follows the price of soybeans and knows how many bushels an acre of corn produces in Hamilton County? Who understands the Iowa school-aid formula (well, that’s probably asking too much) and the history of liquor-by-the drink?

As well as someone who can build a rate card and reach those generations who think print is ridiculous and who text each other even when they’re sitting at the same restaurant table? Someone who can wring every dollar out of the budget to make sure the newspaper has the manpower to cover the courts as well as Fifty Shades of Grey and to summarize city council meetings with the same thoroughness it devotes to “Girls” and “The Bachelor?”

And figure out a way to price what editors and publishers increasingly call “the product?”

Good luck in finding that person.

And good luck to Rick Green, who is the right person for Cincinnati.

Gilbert Cranberg: NETANYAHU’S DISSERVICE TO ISRAEL

There was something surreal about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent performance in Washington. Israel is militarily strong but essentially weak in that its existence is wholly dependent on the United States. Yet there was Netanyahu lecturing this country on how to conduct U.S. foreign policy. Call it chutzpah.

U. S. House Leader Nancy Pelosi rebuked Netanyahu for a speech she describes as condescending and insulting. Not many American politicians are willing to use such strong language in describing the Israeli leadership. Call it a straw in the wind, a willingness to subject the U.S. - Israeli relationship to the same critical standard we apply to all countries. In that sense Netanyahu may have done his country a huge disservice by overplaying his hand and seeming to bully this country into following his country’s lead on Iran.

Herb Strentz: IF I ONLY HAD A BRAIN

Lyrics to If I Only Had A Brain (From Wizard of Oz)

(As a GOP theme song)

We could do away with Perrys
With Carsons and with Christies
And with the man from Bain
We could do real soul searchin’
Instead of phony churchin’
If we only had a brain

We’d listen to the people
And not just the creep who’ll
Bankroll our campaign

With the thoughts we’d be thinkin'
We could be the party of Lincoln
If we only had a brain

Oh, we could do so much
To close the income gap
Cope with climate change, take ISIS off the map
And then dysfunction we could zap

We’d wonder ‘bout Giuliani
Our latter-day McCarthy
Good grief! The guy’s a pain
We would do our ‘nash-nul’ duty
Forsakin’ guys like Rudy
If we only had a brain

We would not just be a poutin’
Trumpin’, hatin’ and shoutin’
And just plain raisin’ Cain
We could win the election
Say goodbye to dis-affection
If we only had a brain

Gilbert Cranberg: GEORGE BUSH, RICHARD CHENEY AND BRIAN WILLIAMS

Brian Williams, George Bush and Richard Cheney each had the same responsibility to report accurately about Iraq to the American people.  Williams misreported a few things, for which he apologized. Nonetheless his career is in tatters and he has been relieved of his job for months at NBC News.

George Bush’s reports about Iraq were NOT harmless. He massively misrepresented the facts, causing immense grief and loss of life. Neither he nor Richard Cheney, his partner in making war in Iraq, ever apologized. Nor did they correct the many lies they told. They were responsible for orchestrating a campaign of torture in conducting the war that brought the country into worldwide disrepute. Nevertheless, they lived happily ever after, country-clubbing, and living lives of comfort and respect laughing all the way to the bank to deposit their government pensions. Neither man spent a moment publicly regretting the catastrophe they caused Iraq.

The glaring contrast in the reactions to Bush-Cheney and Brian Williams is almost beyond belief. There are two words to describe it. The words are shameful and disgusting.

Gilbert Cranberg: HOLD THE SANCTIMONY ON BRIAN WILLIAMS

I came within inches of being killed by Japanese machine gun fire. The bullets came so close I can still hear the snap of the grass as the rounds passed just above my head.

I did not ever say that a bullet creased my helmet. Though I could well have, given how close I was to Japanese fire. Moving that fire inches closer, through my helmet, would have been a slight exaggeration but it would make a harrowing story better.

I bring this up now for the way NBC news anchor Brian Williams is being crucified for reporting that he was closer to a helicopter under fire in Iraq than he actually was. Williams did not claim bravery under fire. He simply claimed, falsely it turned out, proximity to the incident. It’s as though I had embellished my account of Japanese machine gun fire to make it appear that it was slightly more dangerous than it actually was.

I was drafted and ordered into combat. Brian Williams went voluntarily to a war zone. He deserves credit for that. We can do with less sanctimony and more understanding about the work of a talented journalist.

Gilbert Cranberg: THE MYSTERY OF COPCD

Mitt Romney has taken himself out of the 2016 presidential race, or so it seems. Count me among the skeptics. After all, I’m a follower of Harold Ickes, FDR’s Interior Secretary, who observed, “The desire to be president is a disease cured only by embalming fluid”. Note that Romney’s disavowal of an interest of the ’16 race was equivocal. Others have noted that if he really wanted to quit the contest he would have said so in less uncertain terms. Call it the residual effect of Chronic Obsessive Presidential Candidate Disorder (COPCD), the medical community’s shorthand for the condition.

Signs of the condition are unmistakable: the uncontrollable urge to plunge into crowds to manically shake all hands in sight; the fixed insipid grin; the shameless panhandling; the inability to resist a microphone. Romney had a virulent case of COPCD, which is seldom possible to shake cold turkey, as he attempted to do. So, look for a Romney relapse.

More research is needed into the causes and possible cure for COPCD. The possibility that it is familial should be explored. It can hardly be coincidence that several members of the Bush family are afflicted. But if it is genetic, how to explain that some members of the Bush family escaped being ravaged by the disease and seem to be living normal lives?

Herb Strentz: IOWA STRAW POLL KEPT ALIVE BY MONEY, PRESS AND RELIGIOUS RIGHT

Brace yourself: The Iowa Straw Poll, endorsed by the State GOP, will return this summer in its role as a quadrennial horror story. Given how the maligned Poll was brought back to life, perhaps Zombie Burgers will be catered in.

The Iowa Straw Poll, which even Republicans admit gouges presidential wannabes for funds for the State Republican Party, was thought — or at least hoped — to be dead. Republican Gov. Terry Branstad and others called for the end of the Straw Poll because it is so costly for Republican candidates, because the likes of Rep. Michelle Bachmann was the Straw Poll winner four years ago, and mostly because the Iowa caucuses had enough credibility problems without the Straw Poll threatening Iowa’s status as a harbinger of presidential election outcomes.

We should have known better. Those thinking the Straw Poll was dead forgot that no amount of money is too much to throw away in today’s elections; those thinking the Straw Poll was dead forgot how gullible the press is; those thinking the Straw Poll was dead ignored the clout of the religious right in Iowa politics.

This is consistent with political analyst Charlie Cook’s insights on the 2016 presidential campaign made during a visit to Drake University’s Harkin Institute last fall. Cook said American politics is now the “Wild West” with no real controls over campaign spending and no discipline in political parties.

So give a big Yippie-yi-yo-ki-ay and saddle up for the Straw Poll, partners.

The State GOP will again set up the cash registers and ring in the contributions from candidates who, with good reason, think they can buy their way into the presidential race by winning votes in exchange for contributions to the Iowa GOP.

The gullible press will give the Straw Poll all the coverage it needs to be taken seriously because — as reporters will tell you — “We don’t have anything else to do this summer.”

But even without the wild spending in today’s politics and even without a lapdog press, it should have been obvious that the Straw Poll would be resuscitated.

That’s because of the influence of the religious right in the Iowa Republican Party. The message effectively communicated by the Christian conservative Iowa Family Leader organization was “Go ahead and not have the Straw Poll. We’ll do it for you!”

Surely, if the Iowa GOP decided to distance itself from the Iowa Straw Poll, Iowa Family Leader or a similar constituency would have stepped in to meet the demands of the press and the desires of some candidates, and had a poll of its own. In that case the hundreds of thousands of dollars coming in would be under its control rather than the establishment GOP.

So much for all the GOP efforts to suggest to independent voters and moderates that the party is not driven by the social agenda of the religious right. So much for Iowa efforts to suggest that the Straw Poll welcomes all GOP candidates and not just those who pander to the religious right.

Small wonder that the governing board of the Iowa GOP had little choice but to continue the Straw Poll. There will be cosmetic changes in token response to those who say the Straw Poll is phony and counter- productive when it comes to informing voters about who is deemed qualified to heal the nation and get about the business of governing. But the Straw Poll will again be won by the best panderer to the religious right, the best gun-slinger in Cook’s Wild West.

Yippie-yi-yo-ki-ay.