by hilzoy
McJoan at dKos has a very good post. She's talking about this article in CQ:
"Despite strong objections from many in their caucus, House Democratic leaders introduced lobbying legislation that would toughen restrictions on when former members can lobby Congress and would force disclosure of bundled political contributions.Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who helped her party reclaim the majority on an anti-corruption campaign platform, decided to offer the internally unpopular changes even though many in the caucus complained that they would be too drastic and would fail to resonate with constituents.
At a two-hour meeting with other top Democrats late Tuesday, Pelosi chose to move the legislation in two parts: a main lobbying overhaul bill (HR 2316) and a separate bill (HR 2317) requiring registered lobbyists to disclose bundling — the practice of soliciting donation checks and delivering them in a single bunch to candidates — of more than $5,000 per quarter. (...)
House leaders now face the difficult task of finding enough votes in their own party to pass the measure, since Republicans are unlikely to back it. (...)
Pelosi convened the evening leadership meeting after an extended and contentious afternoon caucus session, during which rank-and-file Democrats lined up at a microphone to express what one member described as “angst” about the lobbying measure — in particular a provision that would extend from one year to two years a ban on lobbying by former members.
“There were a lot of people complaining,” said Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of New York, who opposes both the bundling provision and the two-year ban."
McJoan writes:
"What will resonate with constituents, you dunderheads, is if you don't support strong anti-corruption efforts. Lobbying reform might not be the first thing on anyone's lips at a town meeting, but it sure doesn't mean that your constituents won't be paying attention to the news when they find out you resisted these reforms. (...)So here's a new project for all you Kossacks. Call your U.S. Representative, particularly your Democratic representative, if you have one, and find out where she or he stands on these two bills: HR 2316, the lobbying overhaul bill, and HR 2317, which requires registered lobbyists to disclose campaign contribution bundling. Report back and let us know who is willing to sell out their ethics for a future career as a highly paid lobbyist."
Why should Kossacks have all the fun? I'm about to call my Representative. If anyone else feels strongly about this, you can too. You can find you Representative's number here. Let's give them a better sense of what "resonates" and what doesn't.
my guess is that bril will say something positive about pie.
Let's give them a better sense of what "resonates" and what doesn't.
ok, done. here's to hoping Mr NC-4 is interested in my opinion of him.
Posted by: cleek | May 16, 2007 at 04:54 PM
But What Will Bril Say?
"Blah blah blah Harry Reid is teh debbil blah blah blah Democrats heart al Qaeda blah blah blah hyperlinks = teh suxor blah blah blah ObWi has a BDS!!!1"
Something like that, I'd wager.
Posted by: matttbastard | May 16, 2007 at 05:00 PM
I called my Congresswoman and urged her to support both bills.
Frankly, if the Democrats are lukewarm about this, it would be a great opportunity for the Republicans to embarass them by supporting the measures en masse - not that that is likely to happen, because they surely love their bundled contributions too.
I do wonder, if the measures ultimately fail, will the brils of the world be just as hard on the Republicans who opposed them, or will it be all about how the "Democrat Congress" failed to get lobbying reform done?
Posted by: Steve | May 16, 2007 at 05:01 PM
Steve: We've done what we can to make sure that we never have to find out the answer to your question. If everyone else does the same, we will live out our days in blissful ignorance ;)
Posted by: hilzoy | May 16, 2007 at 05:19 PM
The Repubs won't support it -- they don't want the Dems to have meaningful reform to their credit.
Posted by: Anderson | May 16, 2007 at 05:30 PM
The Repubs won't support it
Some will, hopefully enough. Any of them who think they lost Congress primarily due to the Iraq war are deluding themselves. It’s about corruption for a lot of us. I’ve asked Gilchrest (MD-1) to support it.
Kudos Speaker Pelosi. (ack! Pfut Phut. Jeeze that hurts.)
Posted by: OCSteve | May 16, 2007 at 06:22 PM
I've heard complaints about this bill, to the effect that the definition of "lobbying" may be so broad that it would require any group that asks people to contact Congress, (A Constitutional right, see the 1st amendment.) to comply with the reporting requirements. Of course, those complaints were about an earlier version, HR 2093, I don't know how this version stacks up in that regard.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore | May 16, 2007 at 06:23 PM
Brett: good question. I looked it up. The one part about which I can imagine this charge being leveled is the two-year ban on lobbying. Here, however, the problem is with the existing law (here); all HR 2316 does is change 'one year' to 'two years' at various points.
I don't see any such problem with HR 2317, which just requires disclosure of any bundled contributions.
Posted by: hilzoy | May 16, 2007 at 06:36 PM
Also: the lobbying bans in the existing code don't apply to anyone who contacts Congress etc., but to, for instance:
Posted by: hilzoy | May 16, 2007 at 06:39 PM
OT: Worst TV idea ever.
Posted by: hilzoy | May 16, 2007 at 07:07 PM
Rep. McDermott's office (D-Wa) was concerned that the bill might affect non profits. I said hardly, given the practices that were being targetted. He has not taken a position on the bills and I urged that he support them. Obviously, I'm just a small fry. Hopefully someone bigger can get to him on this.
Posted by: moe99 | May 16, 2007 at 07:14 PM
Hilzoy: "OT: Worst TV idea ever."
You linked to an AP story covering ABC's upfront on their entire schedule (this is upfronts week, of course): are you objecting to the entire ABC schedule? (I wouldn't really argue.) Or something more specific?
(Most of the potential programs have been leaked for a couple of months or so; the only one that got a ton of media attention was the Geico caveman thing, back in March, when there were all those stories about the show-based-on-advertising, but I suspect you may have missed that, perhaps.)
Posted by: Gary Farber | May 16, 2007 at 07:40 PM
A quick bit of searching reveals that the offensive "grassroots lobbying" provisions got dropped back in January. Never mind.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore | May 16, 2007 at 07:51 PM
Worst TV idea ever.
yeah.
well, that and Cop Rock.
Posted by: cleek | May 16, 2007 at 07:54 PM
"well, that and Cop Rock."
I always thought that "It's About Time" -- which was the first comparison that leapt to mind when I saw the news about the tv ads being made into a tv program a few months ago -- and "My Mother, The Car," were the epitome. But I am old and withered.
Cop Rock, on the other hand, was a high-quality, high concept, program, with an idea no stranger than that of being a musical -- which is generally not considered an exotic experiment by this century, I'm informed (say, those people are suddenly singing in the midst of their drama! That's crazy!) -- that didn't entirely work.
But it was, I would argue strongly, better than at least 70% of all tv programs ever produced. Which would you rather watch: The Beverly Hillbillies, or Cop Rock?
Posted by: Gary Farber | May 16, 2007 at 08:08 PM
Hilzoy: OT: Worst TV idea ever.
Worse than National Bingo Night?
Posted by: Gromit | May 16, 2007 at 08:36 PM
an idea no stranger than that of being a musical
not just a musical: a serialized, TV musical. can writers be expected to crank out listenable songs week after week ? most songwriters take years for listenable albums - and they aren't trying to write to a plot line.
Posted by: cleek | May 16, 2007 at 08:47 PM
"can writers be expected to crank out listenable songs week after week ?"
A perfectly fair question, but I imagine that so long as one has a budget to pay a bunch of songwriters, and the standard is only "listenable," that the answer could plausibly be "yes," though I'm only speculating.
(I'm not clear that the Writer's Guild would require that the scriptwriters would also be songwriters, rather than that one could simply have a budget to pay for five, or whatever number, of songs per episode; there's no shortage of songwriters interested in selling their songs, so far as I know; it's not as it would have to be the same five people writing the songs each week, after all, any more than there's some law or regulation limiting the number of people scripts can be bought from each season.)
If the standard were a bit higher, such as "that most viewers will find more pleasing than spending those minutes on dialogue and visuals each week," then the answer becomes far more uncertain, and perhaps the answer is "no."
But if you cut out the several minutes of song and dance from each 44-minute, or however long the precise length then was, episode, the show was otherwise vaguely not far below the quality of Bochco's other lousy cop shows, such as Hill St. Blues and NYPD Blue, and I'm not personally inclined to become heated about picking on someone for taking some artistic risks, which arguably failed, as an example of What's Worst About TV.
That approach seems deeply perverse to me, given the amount of vastly lower-quality material on tv (admittedly always a subjective judgment), which takes no risks whatever.
Naturally, YMMV.
And otherwise we could all dump out our subjective preferences and claim they're objective fact.
Or not. I've yet to find a "reality" tv program that interested me more than for a few minutes, but although I can be fairly snobbish about some of my opinions, I'd never go so far -- save as attempted humor, I hope -- as to insist that people who find more of interest in them are somehow objectively "wrong."
Tastes vary.
On the other hand, I'd defend the notion that, say, Cop Rock was more artistically ambitious, and less worthy of being cited as The Worst TV Ever than, say, The Price Is Right. Or It's About Time.
But perhaps you'd like to defend your argument that these are better shows than Cop Rock was.
Posted by: Gary Farber | May 16, 2007 at 09:11 PM
"can writers be expected to crank out listenable songs week after week ?"
Or to put my point another way: I'm unclear how this question differs from "can writers be expected to crank out readable scripts week after week ?" or "can producers be expected to find producable scripts week after week ?"
To which the answers seem to be "yes" and "yes," though few would claim anyone has ever produced nothing but excellent work every time out.
Posted by: Gary Farber | May 16, 2007 at 09:14 PM
Damn Bush and his fascist America!
More from Pelosi:
The sad thing is she says one thing and either does another or doesn't follow through. It appears she conveniently sets herself up to fail, hence accomplishing nothing, but gets to talk the talk
If she wants to claim the high ground she has to be more honest and put forth straight forward proposals people can get behind. She needs to quit playing politics and bring substance to the American people. She's all talk and no substance.
That got her elected, but its not enough now. The American people will eventually see through it all.
But c'mon. Am I the only one concerned about the fascist government Bush has helped to create?
Posted by: bril | May 16, 2007 at 09:21 PM
well that's kind of creepy
Posted by: Ugh | May 16, 2007 at 09:23 PM
Helpful hint, bril: if you wish to make a credible argument with a quote, you have to cite where the quote comes from.
(The second part is then linking to proof of the authenticity, or at least the source, of the quote, but we'll take one part at a time.)
George Washington famously said this, of course. And he said specifically that if bril doesn't follow this rule, no one will ever find bril's argument to resemble an actual argument. And Abe Lincoln added that bril will never pass kindergarten trolling until he learns that citeless claims aren't even worth discussing.
No, really, Washington and Lincoln said this. I don't need to provide a source or cite to be credible, do I?
Posted by: Gary Farber | May 16, 2007 at 09:55 PM
Needless to say, one might have difficulty understanding the concepts of "credibility" and "citation" when you take Matt Drudge, the man who cites anonymous sources, as credible.
Posted by: Gary Farber | May 16, 2007 at 09:59 PM
What strikes me as creepy is that I vaguely remember a joke version of the It's About Time theme song
(as I recall, it started:
It's about time
It's about space
It's about time
To get a new face)
even though I was not yet 3 when the show went off the air. I guess maybe I learned it from my older brother.
Posted by: Dantheman | May 16, 2007 at 10:01 PM
I'm unclear how this question differs from "can writers be expected to crank out readable scripts week after week ?
maybe it's not. but i just can't think of any other situation where songwriters have to do it. and, personally, i hate the kind of uninspired generic crap that people write for most musicals, even when they have months to work them out. doing three or four topical songs a week? either the muse gets ground-down, or it's all done by-the-numbers.
But perhaps you'd like to defend your argument that these are better shows than Cop Rock was.
if we take the measure of viewers' and advertisers' support for them, there's no doubt those shows are better. Cop Rock lasted what, a half-dozen episodes, at the most ? TPiR has been on non-stop for decades.
Posted by: cleek | May 16, 2007 at 10:36 PM
Let's see -- a post premised around what a troll would say.
Love it.
At least it's more interesting than the real thing.
Posted by: dmbeaster | May 16, 2007 at 11:13 PM
"What strikes me as creepy is that I vaguely remember a joke version of the It's About Time theme song"
It was an extremely catchy jingle, I'll give them that.
cleek: "if we take the measure of viewers' and advertisers' support for them, there's no doubt those shows are better."
Ah. I wasn't aware that this was your metric for artistic quality of tv shows. As it's not mine, I won't argue further.
To be sure, by that measure, Cop Rock is certainly not the "worst. tv. ever," since literally hundreds of tv shows have done far worse.
For instance:
That's happened to a number of other shows. Some shows have even been cancelled in mid-episode: So how this supports your claim that Cop Rock is the worst TV idea ever, I don't know, but perhaps this is all consistent somehow.Posted by: Gary Farber | May 16, 2007 at 11:28 PM
"Cop Rock lasted what, a half-dozen episodes, at the most ?"
Eleven hours.
I wonder if you're familiar with Poochinski. Have you ever seen an episode of My Mother, The Car?
Posted by: Gary Farber | May 16, 2007 at 11:44 PM
JS Bach had writing one cantata per week in his job description, so it seems that once there were people that could produce vocal music of acceptable quality on a weekly basis. And in the 19th century operas* were (at least in Italy) what soap operas are today** (elitists like Verdi were an exception). Repetitiveness and lack of originality*** is (alas!) standard and not considered a no-no on TV.
*average time of composing 3-4 weeks
**the quality (or lack of) was comparable too, I suppose. The quote "what's to insipid to be spoken on stage can still be sung" is from about that time, I think.
***Rossini is quoted saying that it was enough to see one of his operas to have seen them all
Posted by: Hartmut | May 17, 2007 at 06:03 AM
Wait a minute, what's wrong the The Price is Right?
Posted by: Phil | May 17, 2007 at 06:16 AM
Ah. I wasn't aware that this was your metric for artistic quality of tv shows.
uh.. no, Gary. mentioning one method of comparing TV shows doesn't mean that's the only method i use when thinking about these things.
As it's not mine, I won't argue further.
and yet...
To be sure, by that measure, Cop Rock is certainly not the "worst. tv. ever," since literally hundreds of tv shows have done far worse.
oh fer fncks sake, Gary... the Geico cavemen show might not be the "worst. tv. ever," either - it has a pilot which is going to be shown on national TV, which is more than most ideas get. the commercials themselves are funny, which is at least a better starting point than "Hill Street Blues + songs", or "let's watch surgery!" so, when are you going to jump on hilzoy for her horrid lack of precision in failing to take into account all of the objectively worse ideas that get made into pilots, and then into shows? come on, don't hold back - prove her wrong! wrong! wrong!
or, maybe you can just accept that "worst __ ever" is not an objective statement of absolute fact.
Posted by: cleek | May 17, 2007 at 07:35 AM
The comment thread of a post addressed to an incorrigible threadjacker is itself threadjacked. Surely there's a German word for this phenomenon?
Posted by: Gromit | May 17, 2007 at 11:00 AM
"so, when are you going to jump on hilzoy for her horrid lack of precision in failing to take into account all of the objectively worse ideas that get made into pilots, and then into shows?"
After the caveman show is broadcast, and there's reaction, I could conceivably debate and discuss its quality or lack thereof. Or not.
Since Cop Rock has, on the other hand, long existed, and I think it was a fairly good show, with much to praise, I'm curiously willing to defend it from mindless remarks whose remaining defense seems to be "I didn't mean what I said!; I was just uttering a thoughtless cliche with no point!; stop responding to my continued arguments, because that's unfair!"
If it was too unimportant a topic for me to respond to, then what makes it different for you?
Posted by: Gary Farber | May 17, 2007 at 11:15 AM
[Bad TV idea] and [of artistic value] are not mutually exclusive. They may even correlate to some degree.
Posted by: hairshirthedonist | May 17, 2007 at 11:27 AM
I'm curiously willing to defend it from mindless remarks whose remaining defense seems to be "I didn't mean what I said!; I was just uttering a thoughtless cliche with no point!; stop responding to my continued arguments, because that's unfair!"
what's curious about your defense of a crappy 11-hour TV show from two decades ago is how eager you seem to be to take it right up to the edge of personal insult. but besides that, your arguments in Cop Rock's favor include several variations of "it's not as bad as [some other show]", a pedantic attack on the phrase "worst ___ ever", and "the show was otherwise vaguely not far below the quality of Bochco's other lousy cop shows". woohoo!
and yet it's "a fairly good show, with much to praise" ?
make up your mind.
If it was too unimportant a topic for me to respond to, then what makes it different for you?
i was responding to the questions you asked.
Posted by: cleek | May 17, 2007 at 11:54 AM
I must admit that if the song "Remind Me" by Roykskopp (used in the Caveman airport commercial) is the theme music for the show, I'll tune in.
That song puts me in a very pleasant, Zen-like, elevator music, flat-line zone. If they played it at the dentist's office or during Republican candidate debates, I believe I could do without the root canal anesthetic in the former and the mute button and thrown shoe during the latter.
Posted by: John Thullen | May 17, 2007 at 12:18 PM
You can see a clip of the show here. It's about as lame as you'd expect.
Posted by: Gromit | May 17, 2007 at 01:03 PM
Is Typepad working again?
"the show was otherwise vaguely not far below the quality of Bochco's other lousy cop shows"
Hint: "lousy" was sarcasm, given Bochco's record of elevating the cop show from Dragnet and Adam-12 into art.
I guess that only works one way.Posted by: Gary Farber | May 17, 2007 at 01:56 PM
From the article:
Did everyone shudder as much as I did when they read that? Eeeesh!
("Cop Rock" rocked! Maybe not The. Best. Show. Evah, but far from the worst.)
"Pushing Daisies" -- aka Orpheus and Euridice!
Posted by: Jeff | May 17, 2007 at 04:12 PM
Hint: "lousy" was sarcasm
extremely well-disguised !
Posted by: cleek | May 17, 2007 at 04:22 PM
"extremely well-disguised !"
To someone who feels that "Bochco" isn't an implausible companion to "lousy cop shows," that's clearly possible.
Myself, I felt that the oxymoronic content was self-evident. As ever, opinions vary.
My own view is that Hill St. Blues was one of the best and most important tv dramas in the history of the U.S. And that NYPD Blue was of even far higher quality, as well as even more ground-breaking in what it opened up network tv to (nudity, swearing -- both up to a point, but points far beyond anything known before -- but also in the honesty and realism with which it approached situations and characters). (I was also a fan of LA Law.)
As it happens, these views have tended to be the critical consensus pretty much from the starting episodes of both shows, which certainly doesn't mean you're not perfectly entitled to disagree.
They're not, however, controversial, or minority, views, whereas thinking Bochco an exemplar of "lousy cop shows" is, again, perfectly defensible, but surprising enough that the majority of tv critics would cock an eyebrow, at the least, at the notion.
Thus my view that the sarcasm was obvious.
But we all always come to everything with only the perceptions we have, rather than that of somebody else, and thus the prevalence of mileage varying.
Posted by: Gary Farber | May 17, 2007 at 04:49 PM
More context:
So when I refer to his "lousy cop shows" in the context of vigorously defending the quality of his work, I don't think the sarcasm is particularly well-hidden or subtle.But no biggie.
Posted by: Gary Farber | May 17, 2007 at 04:54 PM
If someone says Beethoven wrote lousy music, I think the sarcasm is pretty obvious.
If someone says Hill Street Blues was a lousy show, I don't think the sarcasm is even slightly obvious. In fact, I'm sure there are plenty of people who feel that way.
What accounts for the difference? Good question. If someone says to me, "Bush is a great president," I certainly don't conclude that he's obviously being sarcastic, notwithstanding Bush's 28% approval rating.
I guess the difference is that Gary is interpreting "great" and "lousy" as signifiers of a general consensus (in other words, I know nothing about classical music, but I know Beethoven was a great composer because he's listed in all the books about great composers), while some others see those words as signifying nothing other than a personal opinion. It's simply a difference in usage.
As for me? I thought V was a great show. I mean really, truly great.
Posted by: Steve | May 17, 2007 at 05:12 PM
And that NYPD Blue was of even far higher quality...
well, we can agree on that, then. i liked that one, for the first few seasons anyway - then i lost track of it, and when i looked at it again, it didn't grab me.
i never got into HStB... i was a little bit under the target demographic.
but, as Steve notes, it's probably easy to find people who thought they both sucked.
Posted by: cleek | May 17, 2007 at 05:22 PM
"If someone says Hill Street Blues was a lousy show, I don't think the sarcasm is even slightly obvious."
That may well be, but we're not talking about some random person's opinion: it was my opinion, which it's perfectly clear, I suspect, to cleek is that I think highly of some of the work of Steven Bocho, and that I specifically think Cop Rock had its virtues.
If anyone is confused that that's what I've been saying, please raise your hand: anyone? Anyone?
In that context, my sarcasm would make no sense whatever, as other than sarcasm.
Or possibly you're suggesting that it's so normal for me to express completely contradictory, incoherent, views (I think highly of Bochco's excellent, lousy, cop shows), that that's to be expected, whereas the idea that I might be being sarcastic is so out of character for me that it wouldn't even cross your mind.
Perhaps that's the more sensible view; I'd certainly enjoy seeing it defended.
Posted by: Gary Farber | May 17, 2007 at 05:45 PM
it's perfectly clear, I suspect, to cleek is that I think highly of some of the work of Steven Bocho
it's clear now.
Posted by: cleek | May 17, 2007 at 06:30 PM
Why link? You guys are so rigid in your beliefs it wouldn't make a difference.
As usual Gary acts like he knows everything.
It's just not worth the effort to shift then
But whatever... its just rumor anyway. Its not like Boehner's office would really have anyway of knowing what Pelosi is doing. They probably just made up the press release.
But hey Gary knows everything and Hilzoy continues to refuse to acknowledge the lies of the Democratic leaders she supports.
No surprises.
Posted by: bril | May 17, 2007 at 07:55 PM
"As usual Gary acts like he knows everything."
Not at all. I just know more than you.
"It's just not worth the effort to shift then"
By all means, don't, then. I have no idea what this means, but one wouldn't want to interfere with anyone's shifting or lack of shifting, I'm sure.
Posted by: Gary Farber | May 17, 2007 at 08:15 PM
Now that we know the answer to the title question, can we please go home?
Posted by: dr ngo | May 18, 2007 at 03:02 AM
Not before we have discussed the lousiness of Beethoven's music in depths! ;-)
The statement "Beethoven wrote lousy music" would be probably valid if the implicit omission is "too" or "occasionally" and not "exclusively". The great artists have their bad days too.
Awards (or lack thereof) alone do not say much necessarily (see the Oscars).
Posted by: Hartmut | May 18, 2007 at 07:06 AM