Raleigh
Failure of Leadership
There are two kinds of political leaders: uniters and dividers. Barack Obama is a uniter; Sarah Palin, a divider. Jim Hunt was a uniter; Jesse Helms, a divider. Ronald Reagan was a uniter; George W. Bush, a divider. Dividers can succeed in politics. But they don’t leave lasting legacies of accomplishment. The…
Read MoreThe Gang of Eight
Laura Leslie of North Carolina Public Radio-WUNC is a great reporter and one of my favorite bloggers. She recently had a post about the capital media that is worth attention. Since 2004, she wrote, the legislative press corps’ ranks have dropped from 20-something to, at the end of this year’s session, eight. That brought…
Read MoreTeens With a Cause
Forty years ago, I took part in an antiwar protest at the State Capitol after KentState. Yesterday, my 17-year-old daughter took part in the Wake schools protest at the Capitol. So I’ve been amused by Carter’s blogs about teenagers being “used” by adults angry at the new school board’s assignment policy. My experience…
Read MoreStooping Low
Everyday the bru-ha-ha between our local Progressives and the Italian transplants on the School Board gets more entertaining – the whole thing’s turned into a microcosm of modern life with far-left Liberals, Democrats, Progressives, Italians, Southerners, far-right Republicans, NAACP Reverends, a Duke Professor and a liberal Baptist Church all going at one another tooth and…
Read MoreThe Three Reverends
The Right Honorable (and Colorful) Reverend William Barber (head of the local NAACP) has laid the political birch-wood to the Italians on the School Board again; the Reverend Barber, who’s been holding demonstrations and protests lampooning the Italians, climbed up on his soap-box at his latest protest and announced the Italians are taking Raleigh back…
Read MoreWhen Reporters Are the News
It’s Reporter Versus Reporter. UNC-TV versus UNC Radio. And the best drama of the legislative session. Senator Fletcher Hartsell’s inspired idea to subpoena UNC-TV’s unaired Alcoa story stirred up great mischief. It: Put Alcoa in an unwelcome spotlight Put UNC-TV in an unwelcome spotlight Put a UNC radio reporter at odds with a UNC-TV.…
Read MoreItalians and Suburbanites
These days we old-fashioned southerners in Raleigh are getting an education about Italians as the war between the Tedescos and Margiottas (who’ve taken over the School Board) and our local ‘Progressives’ (who’re livid at the Italians for ending busing) roars along. About the only person in town sounding reasonable these days is the News…
Read MoreThe Post New South Era
Thirty five years ago when our current Mayor Charles Meeker migrated from Washington to Raleigh our local “Progressive’ politicians – and the Mayor joined their camp – were laboring mightily to give birth to the ‘New South.’ A generation later the ‘Progressives’ had triumphed: The old fogey southern WASP’s had been routed and whatever…
Read MoreRenaming Enloe
The Powers That Be on the WakeCounty school board are once again demonstrating their fatal flaw: They pick needless fights. What is the sense of this fight over changing the name of EnloeHigh School? Clearly, it’s payback – and spite. If Margiotta and Tedesco were bigger men – and real leaders –…
Read MoreNot From Here
Raleigh is reviving an old Southern trait: We don’t cotton to outside agitators invading paradise and stirring up folks. First my old friend Grady Jefferys wrote a provocative piece in the N&O complaining about “big city” ideas ruining old Raleigh. This week, after losing his Republican congressional primary, Bernie Reeves lamented that we’re…
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