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Ben Stein writes a smart weekly business column for the New York Times. He's a Republican A conservative. No fan of taxes. Likes John McCain. But he happens to not be insane. He calls McCain's hand on his promise not to raise taxes and to continue the Bush tax cuts.

I would like to pay no tax at all. I could have so much more to prepare for onrushing old age.

But the unhappy fact is that it’s necessary to raise my taxes and the taxes of all upper-income Americans. (I do wish, however, that “upper income” started just a dollar above me.)

The sad truth of the last two two-term Republican presidents is that their economic premise, the key part of their economic game plan, simply has not done what it’s supposed to do.

That is, cutting taxes, especially on upper-income Americans, does not generate so much economic activity that it replaces all the lost I.R.S. take and then some.

Fine, you say? Starve government? If only Bush had done that. But government kept growing and it needs more military billions still. Not to mention bridges to nowhere, etc.

Pennsylvania is expecting a shale gas drilling boom. But landowners there aren't waiting to see if state regulators protect them. They are writing tough environmental protection provisions into contracts with energy companies. Anybody here thought of that?

What, you say you trust the state of Arkansas to look after you? OK then.

Of all the places in Arkansas you wouldn't expect to see a kid barred from a basketball team because of his long hair it was Eureka Springs. But, as we reported a while back, so it was.

Good news. Leadership of the school district has changed. Gone with him is the short-hair rule, the Harrison newspaper reported today.

^{Citizen Huck}

It's from Kane Webb's interview with former Gov. Mike Huckabee in today's Democrat-Gazette:

If McCain wins and offers you a position in his administration, would you consider it ?

No. No way.

Why ?

Why would I want to do that ? What possible reason ? I’m gonna have a good life out here in the private sector. Why would I go back to telling everybody in the world how much money I make and being limited to what I can make and living in a very expensive city and barely surviving to have some obscure Cabinet post and have some 20-year-old from the White House telling me what I’m gonna do ? Thanks but no thanks. I have better things to do with my life.

 

Who do you think it was?

The New York Times asked the question of baseball star Torii Hunter. His answer:

Basil Shabazz. He was unbelievable. He played with the Cardinals organization. He broke records in track, football, basketball. He ended up quitting baseball and going back to football because he missed it so much, but he could have made it to the majors. He slipped a disk in his neck in college and he never played again.

Brummett reacts sharply to the cynical view of Chesapeake Energy about the media. It was reported here earlier.  One of its higher ups said in an interview that they figure they have us purchased already with conventional advertising and that it's just a touch more efficient to hire former news readers like Anne Jansen to directly funnel propaganda to the public in informercials and other forms of faux news.

Offensive as that idea is, it wouldn't be wise to wholly dismiss out of hand the influence that conventional advertising buys in media, particularly smaller media. Large news organizations provide many buffers -- not to mention much larger advertising bases -- to ward off business-side influence on editorial efforts. At small operations, a publisher and reporter might work a few feet apart. At the smallest, the publisher might do some of the reporting. Ultimately, you're judged by your work. Or lack thereof.

As I run across various versions of the Democrat-Gazette's followup to our story on Sen. Gilbert Baker's use of a UCA tent and UCA employees for a campaign fund-raiser at UCA trustee Michael Stanton's house, one simple question keeps emerging.

Believe, if you will, that the campaign really intended to pay for this before the Arkansas Times started asking questions. Believe, if you will, that UCA tent rentals are open to all at the same rates and staff is generously provided at the same rates. Believe, if you will, that an all-comers rental policy puts the veneer of ethical legality on this action. (But, please, first produce records of other outside tent rentals.)

The question: Why the hell if this was a straight deal didn't the candidate go to a private tent rental company and avoid the appearance of blatant impropriety?

Mike Huckabee will be in the front ranks of a group of evangelicals planning a news conference next week to try to bring the presidential campaign back to the important issues.

Not jobs. Not the deficit. Not the war. Not health care. Not the housing crisis. Not gasoline.

No, you know. The important stuff. Abortion, same-sex marriage, stem cell research.

Sigh.

I've been wrong before, but I think Huckabee's solid alignment with this group as the rising Jerry Falwell/Pat Robertson of the next generation might not be the best long-term career move for him politically. Financially? Sure.

Who am I? Why am I here?

Any number of punchlines suggest themselves from this account of a briefly disoriented old man name of John McCain who stopped in Northwest Arkansas yesterday.

Brummett's laser gets to the point today. The question is not whether Lu Hardin CAN survive as president as UCA. His turnout of supporters this week (including the bodacious assertion that he somehow single-handedly landed HP in Conway) and other media manipulation (whoever heard of a free-shot interview on Arkansas Week like Hardin got -- and did well on?) shows he has the immense political and marketing tools to get that job done.

The question is: SHOULD he survive after all we know and perhaps more that we are yet to learn. Bottom line:

The issue of one public institution's underlying integrity gets subjugated to the more burning issue of numbers and dollars and the still-greater one of a political man's survivability.

Oh, and I can't help but arch my eyes at Sen. Gilbert Baker's comment to the Democrat-Gazette, reported this morning, that he just forgot for six weeks to pay for that UCA tent used at his campaign fund-raiser at a UCA trustee's house -- the tent set up by UCA workers. He remembered this, I'd note, after questions were being raised fast and furious about insider favors at LuCA.

The Democrat-Gazette didn't bother to follow the housing insider scandal. They've apparently been deterred by the defensive smokescreen that other kids in addition to Baker's, Sheffield Nelson's grandkid and trustee Michael Stanton's kid have had cushy houses, too. (And many of them had the requisite connections of staff relationships, etc.) But what about the dozens -- hundreds -- that didn't know such houses were available and languished on housing waiting lists unawares? Or endured the much less comfy conditions in campus housing. To use Gilbert's phrase, his defense is a "half-truth." And that's being generous.

A Board of Trustees wanting to do right would order this fixed instantly. All University housing is published and a rational procedure is established for students to apply for it. Special pleading to the president isn't allowed.

The Democrat-Gazette chose to ignore it, but the Log Cabin Democrat has plunged into the debate emerging in the state Senate race between Republican incumbent Gilbert Baker (pictured) and Democrat Joe White. We reported it first here.

Why has Glbert Baker stayed silent on the multiple transgressons of public trust that have occurred at the major employer in his district, the University of Central Arkansas? Check this weasling:

"Just like all the legislators in this area, we will not interfere with the responsibility given to the UCA Board of Trustees," he said.

Baker said that though he hasn't participated in the public discussion of UCA's controversies, if re-elected Nov. 4 he would continue to serve on the joint budget and education legislative committees, as well as chair the Legislative Council Higher Education Sub-Committee.

From these positions, Baker said, "my primary focus will be higher education funding, and personnel issues ... from the president (of a state higher-education institution) on down.

"That is where I'll have the opportunity to demonstrate some leadership."

Leadership, senator, is to deplore spending of public money illegally, as UCA did in paying a bonus from public funds in excess of what the law allows. Twice, to the tune of $400,000. It is to deplore multiple violations of the Freedom of Information Act. It is to deplore the misleading of university trustees with a memo you say, wrongly, was written by others. It is to deplore a public employee who seeks an additional $150,000 a year in pay and asks that it be kept a secret from taxpayers. It is to deplore use of public property and employees in support of political campaigns. (Whoops. This wouldn't be prudent, since UCA people and gear helped the Gilbert Baker Campaign) It is to deplore a non-public procedure for alloting coveted single-family housing on the university campus. (Whoops. This wouldn't be prudent either. Not when the SENATOR BAKER'S CHILD is one of the lucky sperm club that benefits from special housing.)

The Cabin's article mentions our story this week about the UCA perks for pals. Regrettably, they let Baker get away with his laughable assertion about half-truths in the article. He's yet to cite one. Nor did the Cabin. Indeed, its interview with a campus official only served to make it clear how prone to special treatment is the assignment of special housing.

For another day dear readers: the free UCA wedding reception enjoyed by one trustee's child. A friend of Baker, I should add.

It's simple Senator Baker. UCA has been run like a club. And you've been one of the  inner sanctum members. That fund-raiser at which you had help from UCA employees and gear was held at the home of UCA Trustee Michael Stanton. Remember? None dare confuse this with leadership.

Do you really think Baker can get away with taking the UCA matter off the table for this campaign? Audacious strategy.