This one is about as incestuous as it gets. But before I get to all the disclaimers, I have to say I was pulling rotted fascia boards off a shack yesterday while the kerfuffle over KMSP Fox9 was exploding, at least among a tight crew of media colleagues, counterparts, and competitors. In other words, to quote Woody Allen, "I was nowhere near Oakland."

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Henry Luce, the legendary publisher of TIME-Life, might be spinning in his grave at the cover story in this week’s issue of his news magazine. “The End of Excess: Is this Crisis Good for America?”, written by former Spy magazine editor Kurt Andersen, reads like the sort of loony lefty bulls*t (as Luce likely would have called it), that the TIME of old would have assigned to its most retrograde columnist for a thorough trashing.

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The combination of premature spring and some technical issues has taken a toll on my blogging the past few days. But now, like Nixon in '67, I'm back, (not so) tanned, rested, and ready to bloviate. (I am also, BTW, your go-to guy the next time you have to uninstall a satellite dish and re-wire cable.)

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By dawn Thursday Jon Stewart's take down of CNBC for its bootlicking, fanzine style of "reporting" (i.e. cheerleading) of international finance in the run up to the meltdown was already the stuff legend, well on its way to pop culture immortality. And deservedly so.

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A week ago, back in beautiful Edina, I had lunch with a local ad guy. It wasn't on record. We were just catching up after several years. Then this week, down here in Phoenix, I called Tim McGuire, former editor and senior vice president of the Star Tribune—pre-McClatchy—for a cup of coffee. Topics such as cratering ad sales and the disintegration of traditional media weren't focused entirely on money—or lack thereof—but the acceptance that some things we thought pretty damned fundamental have not just broken down and fallen apart but are so badly screwed, they aren't going to get put back together in anything like their old forms.

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Let me recap, just so we're all clear.

On Monday, WCCO radio and its two sister stations show fourteen employees the door.

Monday was also the day anyone who wanted a buyout from KARE, formerly the Twin Cities' money-printing colossus, had to have raised their hand or wait for layoffs.

On Tuesday, the Star Tribune tells its employees they need to "save" their investment wizards $20 million, most likely by working for less and paying more for health insurance.

On Wednesday, the Star Tribune refines its message and announces it'll be laying off another two dozen newsroom employees.

On Thursday, KSTP-TV--the house of "breaking news"--leaks word that it is whacking eighteen out of its news department.

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I'm tempted to paraphrase Gerald Ford at this moment. You know, the business about "Our long national nightmare . . .?" But I'll wait until tomorrow, or maybe January 20, since Dick Cheney could revoke the Constitution between now and inauguration day.

As the guy who long ago predicted Obama by eight points nationally, this election appears to be working out much like I thought. There will be countless postmortems tonight, tomorrow, and in the days to come. But in short, the Democrats will have one man to thank beyond all others if the polls and pundits are correct . . . Karl Rove.

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I'm out in Seattle tonight, and I have seen the future. Setting up at a table outside one of eight coffee shops in line of sight on Queen Anne Hill, I hit the Wi-Fi finder on ye trusty MacBook and get . . . fourteen overlapping signals. Is this why the terrorists hate us?

Happy hour tonight with a former highly-placed source at a Twin Cities television station went on a bit longer than I had planned. So if this post is more incoherent than normal, accept my apologies in advance.

Our conversation touched on yesterday's national campaign issue du jour—McCain accusing Obama of "playing the race card," which Obama allegedly waded into in response to McCain's ad comparing Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton in terms of "celebrity" appeal. My happy hour companion, an unapologetic Republican, who is charged with guiding news decisions for Seattle's dominant TV station (anchored by ex-KSTPer Dennis Bounds), said he found it all "fascinating," "great stuff," "I couldn't take my eyes off it."

My argument—that he had been played by the Republican common denominator machine that has no compunction about pressing any underbelly button it needed to close the deal—got lost in another round of Mackerel Chugger Ale or something. But I assured him what McCain's people—and this Rick Davis guy mouthpiecing for McCain, who obviously sees no flies on the legacy of Karl Rove—are doing with Obama is being echoed in Minnesota, where Norm . . . friggin' . . . Coleman is producing more common denominator-friendly attack advertising than career comic Al Franken.

What gives?

As much as I, a card-carrying, touchy-feely, highbrow elitist wants to think that thoughtful, well-considered positions on major issues, particularly those that restore this country's grievously sullied reputation for decency and fairness, matter more than cheap advertising tricks . . . well, who of us doesn't remember The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, or Harry and Alice, that charming middle-American couple deployed by the HMO industry to sell quarter truths and outright lies about "Hillary Care" back in  '93?

Advertising for knuckleheads works and not just on the knucklehead crowd that has paid so little attention this year it still thinks Barack Obama is a Muslim and that of the two candidates here in Minnesota, Al Franken is the one closest to a hedonistic pornographer. The meme that McCain's team is trying to develop is of Obama as messianic neophyte while Coleman's team is managing to paint Al Franken as a show biz pervert with Norm as the laid-back jokester.

Good God almighty!

If Coleman's ads with the three jowly bowling dudes (does Norm worship at the church of Lebowski?) weren't any good, we could ignore them as silly and desperate. But they are good. More to the point, they're far more engaging than anything Franken—who made his living off his sense of humor and a talent for satire—has produced. The Coleman strategy is diabolically clever. As I've said before, Franken finds himself in a position where he doesn't dare be the person he actually is. He appears to be living in constant fear of betraying a hint of the humor that gained him an audience—and credibility—in the first place . .  as though flashing satiric humor will only remind unsophisticated Minnesotans of his "pornographic" propensities.

Nice going, Norm.

Granted, it is only August 1, but both Obama and Franken have to get hip to a dual-track game. Their rock-solid base, appalled by the criminal incompetence of the Bush era, will lap up their message of earnest renewal from here to election day. But the, shall we say, "uncommitted" crowd, susceptible to arguments that Bush-hugging McCain and Bush-acolyte Coleman, is less worrisome than a wholesale change to . . . a cool black guy . . . and a Hollywood hipster . . . must be approached and convinced in a manner that engages THEM, and that means to can't be too high-minded and should be . . . amusing.

The language and imagery of pop culture has a steep downside in terms of developing a conscientious adult culture. But we're talking winning elections here. Something Republicans are very good at because they have no qualms about stooping to appeal to the public on a level it finds entertaining and, therefore, understands.

Oh wait. What's this? Floreffe Ale . . . "brewed with sugar cane." Niiice.

This country has a problem with "heroes," and I thought so before losing ninety-seven minutes of my life last week to a preview screening of Hancock, Hollywood's latest superhero-of-the-week movie, this time starring Will Smith as a drunk who can barely fly straight. Then today we have Internet and cable news heads making loud braying sounds over retired Gen. Wesley Clark's alleged "diss" of John McCain's war record/patriotism/hero status.

On Face the Nation on Sunday, Clark said of McCain, "I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in the armed forces as a prisoner of war.

"He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee. And he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn't held executive responsibility. That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded--that wasn't a wartime squadron.

"I don't think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become President."

I'm not sure which campaign denounced Clark's comments first, Obama's or McCain's, but given the choice between making an erupting volcano out of Clark's opinion or chewing over Floyd Landis losing another appeal for his Tour de France trophy, the usual suspects leaped on Clark. McCain even launched the "McCain Truth Squad" to help rebut such "outrageous slurs" from the Obamamites.

The only problem there--besides the fact Clark was giving an opinion and a not even particularly outrageous one at that--is that tucked in among McCain's truth-tellers was retired Col. Bud Day, as in Bud Day of the same Swift Boat Veterans, who in 2004 flat out lied his ass off selling the dimmest of the American electorate the story that, as Day so neatly put it, Democrat John Kerry was, "the Benedict Arnold of Vietnam."

I suppose everyone should avoid pointing out that McCain denounced the Swift Boaters in '04, and it doesn't speak well for his executive judgment that he has taken on one of them, a proven liar, as one of his top truth-vetters. But what the hell, it's mid-summer, who's paying attention to this stuff anyway?

The "hero" business is tied up in here because, a little like Rudy Giuliani and 9/11, McCain's campaign imaging, the selling of John McCain, is very heavy on the "war hero" shtick. (They're laying it on even thicker than Kerry.) His "outraged" campaign indignantly denied ever suggesting in its advertising that being a "war hero" was a presidential qualification. That, of course, is a little like saying that the movie trailer with all those scenes of the starlet pouring out of her dress in no way suggests that might be a ticket you want to buy.

Clark, of course, is absolutely right. Getting your plane shot out from under you and surviving five years in a prison is not a qualification for the presidency. My beef is that it isn't even a criteria for "hero" status.

Joseph Campbell has a florid definition of "hero." A hero, he writes, 

" ... is any male or female who leaves the world of his or her everyday life to undergo a journey to a special world where challenges and fears are overcome in order to secure a reward (special knowledge, healing potion, etc.) which is then shared with other members of the hero's community."

What's implicit here is that the criteria for "hero" requires a person to make an informed choice to put himself/herself in some kind of self-sacrificial peril for the benefit of others. Did McCain accept the likelihood of peril when he joined the military? Yes. McCain, unlike other prominent Republicans (George W., Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Tom DeLay, Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani  . . . and on and on and on), did not play Daddy's Air National Guard card or shamelessly contrive to avoid the draft. And that is commendable. If you're going to be gung ho for war, make the choice to go yourself. But what was the "special reward" McCain sought to acquire and share with his community? Stopping Communist "aggression" in Southeast Asia? If heroes aren't smart at the get-go, you expect them to have gotten a lot smarter by the time they return home.

Likewise, surviving a prison camp suggests you're made of tough stuff. Good on you, John. But what was the choice there? Suicide?

The real problem is that our truth-vetters, the American press, have such a juvenile notion of heroism. Too often, survival alone is sufficient grounds for heroic stature. People sign up for the Army. Instead of Ft. Sill, they get sent to Iraq. They come home. They're "heroes." If they've been wounded, they're bigger heroes. Badly wounded, bigger heroes yet. If they die, well, you get the idea.

Remember Lenny Skutnik? Of course you don't. He was the guy who jumped in the freezing Potomac River to rescue a woman after the Air Florida crash in the early '80s. That was heroic. He made a clear, potentially self-sacrificial choice. The "special reward" was the woman's life and what inspiration he may have been to others who have seen what he did. There's no end of similar episodes of self-sacrificial choice among the troops in Iraq. But their rationale for being there--for undertaking the journey--is problematic when it comes to the classic definition of heroism. Lenny Skutnik undertook his journey for unimpeachable reasons.

Gen. Clark presents an opening to a valuable national conversation. Why don't we start with the professional press re-thinking the definition of "hero," applying it only to those who deserve it and--this is the good part--aggressively challenging those who wear it immodestly.

It says something that a lurid, highly speculative story whipped up here in the Twin Cities got better play this month on national cable than anywhere else in this market. The so-called May sweeps—the Nielsen ratings period—ended last Wednesday night, the same night I caught CNN's Anderson Cooper interviewing one of the cops in KSTP's "Smiley Face Killers"  opus.  Three  out  of the four local newsrooms showed gains for their premier late news show, with only WCCO, who whacked weatherman Paul Douglas as the period began, dipping a modest 4 percent, but not enough to drop it out of number one for the month.

Here are the numbies for May '08, May '07 and, for the hell of it, May '01. (Ratings/share.)

Station .........May '08.........May '07........May '01.

WCCO (4).......11.7/20........11.9/22.........12.7/22
KARE (11).......10.6/18..........9.8/18.........14.1/25
KMSP (9)..........9.2/15..........8.1/14.........
KSTP (5)..........6.9/12..........6.2/12..........9.6/17
KMSP (9)..........4.4/8...........4.4/8............2.4/4

I don't know what more I can say about KSTP's "Smiley Face" report, which led off the sweeps in late April, other than to repeat that I regard it as a case study-worthy example of disgraceful overreaching for  commercial effect. Moreover, the  fact that Good Morning America, CNN and Fox News gave it airtime while it sparked no new interest from local law enforcement or even local competitors (who would have happily made fools of themselves  ratcheting up the  hysteria if they thought there was an iota of substance to KSTP's story), says plenty about the programming priorities of morning talk shows and 24/7 cable.

It was interesting to see KMSP's Tom Lyden, who had reported on the death of Chris Jenkins book in '06, finally drop a report on the situation in LaCrosse, where other young men ended up in the river . . . only to have their deaths tied into the forty-homicide "Smiley Face"  conspiracy theory.  (To reiterate for anyone who missed this, KSTP lent great credence to a theory by two retired New York cops that organized "pods" of killers were stalking otherwise able-bodied college men and apparently "mentally" torturing them prior to slipping their bodies into rivers and lakes. In almost every case investigating authorities described the deaths as the result of extreme intoxication.)

Lyden was biting his lip in late-April, pretty much appalled (like other veteran crime reporters in town) at the way KSTP had allowed itself to be played for chumps by the two cops' "Smiley Face" theory. His LaCrosse piece avoided mentioning KSTP,  emphasizing instead the effect of a really un-sexy "Operation Rescue," an organized foot patrol along the riverfront, which since the publicized  drownings there, has intercepted forty-two boozed up kids from falling into the river.

As the FBI and authorities in LaCrosse have long suggested, by far the most likely "killer" in the "mysterious" deaths of these college guys is booze, not some roaming band of psychopaths, as KSTP helped suggest.

I had spoken with Lyden a few days after KSTP's  first  story, (it was a two-parter, with a couple shorter follow-ups), and again a couple days ago. Lyden, one of the town's more colorful and aggressive reporters, is  also  a guy who, as I don't mind telling him, knows his way around a good pulpy story. Point being that given the local TV news business model, you're always going to get a lot of theater with your facts. The game is played that way, and Lyden is one of the best at plussing his scripts and delivery with Fox-y drama.

But there is a point you don't want to cross.

"I saw the Anderson Cooper interview," says Lyden, "and I saw [ex-'CCO anchor Randi Kaye's piece], and I don't mind telling you I had steam coming out of my ears. [For a classic example of underwhelming skepticism, note how Kaye's story buries the dubiousness of law enforcement authorities at the very bottom, long after hyping the movie-of-the-week melodramatics.] But then I had to stop and ask myself why this bothered me so much? And I decided it was because as a reporter who likes to  stay ahead of the competition, I worry all the time if I am buying into bullshit. And, as you know, I am not someone you'd call old-fashioned about these kinds of stories. But the idea that someone can feed you bullshit and you run with it worries me to the point I'm constantly watching out for it."

While Lyden dismisses the "Smiley Face" theory as claptrap, he says he still sees a good story in the Chris Jenkins case—the student whose body turned up in the Mississippi months after a Halloween '02 drinking bout. The case was reclassified as a homicide, largely it appears on the basis of information that has since been discredited. But there is a tantalizing—pulpy—story in who Jenkins was with and what was going on in the hours  prior to his disappearance, none of it remotely suggestive of a network of psychopaths.

Lyden's boss, news director Bill Dallman, conceded that KSTP got "some national 'pop' " on its "Smiley Face" pieces but says knowing what he knew, i.e. what Lyden knew, he never once considered  doing a follow-up off KSTP's "reporting," other than reiterating the night of KSTP's first "Smiley Face" report that Lyden had covered this ground two years earlier and seen no such conspiracy.

As for CNN about the time you're throwing up your hands after their third straight week of flogging Rev. Wright, you realize that  given  a choice between inciting hysteria over a manic preacher or whipping up mass paranoia with a thin gruel theory about roaming psycho killers we're probably better off with the former . . . I mean if that's the choice.

To paraphrase J.J. Gittes partner Walsh, "Forget it Jake, it's cable . . . "

I did however like "Smiley Face" detective Gannon's explanation to Cooper for why he's in the deep end of the pool on this story. (Not verbatim here, but close.) "One of the mothers made me promise that I'd prove her son didn't die from an ordinary drinking accident."

That says a lot.