For readers who would rather talk about Iraq than Lancaster:

When Dick Cheney convened a council of advisors on national energy policy that included Exxon for oil and ArcherDanielMidlands for ethanol/biodiesel, but excluded Armory Lovins' conservationist
"nega-watt" companies, critics howled. Correctly. Politicians should have a range of choices on the table to select from. Advice may be ignored -- after it's given. But excluding advisors is wrong, and critics were right to howl about it. So how come a local administration that only gets advice from one financial advisor gets a pass? In 2003 the LISD sought out not only financial opinions from RBC, but Bank of America and Nathan McClellan (who is also a non-Lancaster voter, but oh well.) More recently, however, the only voice allowed in council is Matt Boles's. What's changed since 2003? And can a journalist for a small weekly newspaper with a circulation of under two thousand can crack the Dick Cheney and Exxon problem, when the New York Times could not? Or is it possible that limited efforts and resources might be better directed into a local investigation?

When Halliburton and Kellogg, Brown, and Root undertake to build a school in Iraq under "cost plus" federal contracts -- which guarantee that H/KBR makes a profit however past schedule or however much
over budget that school construction projects run -- critics howl. Correctly. "Cost plus" contracts are an invitation to waste, abuse, and "scope creep". The mere mention of the name Halliburton is synonymous in some circles with financial hemorrhage. But federal "cost plus" contracts are legal, however unwise, and the only
recourse the public has to correct the problem is to rely on the press to bring the abuses to light, and for the contractors to react from embarrassment. Why, then, should a local construction company operating under Texas law of "agency" (as opposed to "at-risk") contract management be expected to be any more careful of public money than Halliburton? And why would a local journalist sneer at KBR and turn a blind eye to Gallagher? Think globally, sure. But act locally.


When Ahmed Chalabi of the “Iraqi National Congress” shared his visions of raising a liberation army of Iraqi refugees and leading it into battle like some 21st-century version ofCharles DeGaulle rescuing France – well, critics howled. Correctly. Only idiots believed in Chalabi’s delusion of turning his rag-tag over-aged, overweight, under-trained lackeys into a fighting force. And after the actual liberation, when Chalabi again pushed himself forward for a second bite at the apple, proposing himself as (by special appointment of the United States) the new President of the newly “democratic” Iraq, well, it was altogether right and appropriate to take a quick look back at how well his grandiose visions of the prior few years had actually turned out. Shouldn’t all such visionaries and dreamers, even those with degrees in architecture and design, be similarly scrutinized? Or should companies like Corgan, Inc, be ignored in the media, when they make their second grab at the apple, because their intentions are so admirable? Why should any critical thinker attempt to be consistent between the local and the international? Integrity, maybe?

Millionaire master of journalists Eason Jordan revealed, after Saddam Hussein was deposed, that his CNN investigators had learned of terrifying and horrid acts by the regime that they had never published. Publication, Jordan explained, would have resulted in CNN being kicked out of Iraq, and possibly their sources, guides, interpreters and
friends being jailed, tortured, or killed. Critics howled. They called Jordan a hypocrite, an accomplice to terror, a traitor, an elitist sycophant who’d rather keep a seat at a murderer’s banquet than expose truth… Few of those critics acknowledged that Eason was certainly correct in his claim that confronting Saddam Hussein would have put innocent lives in imminent danger.

On the other hand, very few progressive journalists of the William Allen White variety actually face death for speaking (or writing) truth to what -- in Emporia, Kansas or Lancaster, Texas -- attempts to pass for power. When such a local scandal becomes known, and goes unpublished – well, there are other reasons than a lack of patriotism.