Hewitt Blog

Here's first edition Glenn. Here's today's edition. How many posts in between? How many words? How many eyeballs?

If a savvy advertiser had approached Glenn on the week of his launch with an offer of $10,000 for a lifetime ad, would Glenn have taken it?

Are advertising execs wondering even now how to spot and embed in the rising blogs? (One way to do it would be track the rise of very small blogs within the ecosystem over a year.)

Today's Wall Street Journal has a long story on GM's advertising strategy going forward. (Subscription required.) GM "sent two big marketing messages this week when it said it would give up its sponsorship of the Olympic Games after Beijing next year: It needs to be nimble rather than locked up in long-term obligations, and it is continuing to pull away from traditional forms of advertising," reported the WSJ. More:

The move is the latest sign of how GM is aggressively rethinking its approach to marketing. With TV viewers increasingly able to skip ads, many big marketers are questioning the effectiveness of TV advertising. GM, struggling to turn around its business, has a particular incentive to get the most bang for its buck.

"The media landscape has changed and our marketing strategy has changed," says Ryndee Carney, a spokeswoman for the auto maker. "We are looking for ways to be more flexible instead of entering into a 10-year deal ... We need to be able to move faster because business is moving faster."

A long term deal with Glenn would have been a very smart thing. As would strategic sponsorships of rising web talent. A lot of small but significant bets on emerging bloggers is an excellent place to start.



 

General David Petraeus appeared on Alan Colmes' radio program yesterday.

That's a smart move by the general, and Colmes is a fine host, though his site doesn't provide transcripts.

The folks who slandered the general for appearing on my show will now be writing what?

UPDATE: Here's a transcript provided by a reader. I can't vouch for its complete accuracy, but I trust the sender::

ALAN COLMES, FOX NEWS HOST: We welcome the commander of the Multi-National Force, General David Petraeus. General, thank you so much for being with us tonight.

GENERAL DAVID PETRAEUS, COMMANDER, MULTI-NATIONAL FORCE, IRAQ: Good

to be with you, Alan.

COLMES: Appreciate it very much.

You have an interesting pedigree. You have a PhD in international relations from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. How does that inform what you do day to day?

PETRAEUS: Well, it's interesting because I've often thought that helped a great deal, particularly early on because it was one of those, what you call out of the intellectual comfort zone experiences and in many cases that's the kind of endeavor this is, it's out of our intellectual comfort zones, not strictly high-end, major combat operations. It involves a lot of other activities and endeavors and frankly, I guess a lot of other skills at various times.

And I think that that has helped enormously over time. Even some ofthe basic concepts of economics and political philosophy were quite useful early on when we were in Mosul and some of the other places, so it has helped and I've drawn on that on a number of different occasions.

COLMES: Sir, we are heard this hour on Armed Forces Radio ...

PETRAEUS: I'm sorry. I can't hear you right now. Hang on a second.

COLMES: All right.

PETRAEUS: My apology. I'm sitting outside and that helicopter ...

COLMES: What are we hearing in the background? What is - that is obviously a helicopter.

PETRAEUS: That is a helicopter.

COLMES: We are heard on Armed Forces Radio during this hour of our show. I wonder what you might like to say to the men and women listening on Armed Forces Radio to you right now.

PETRAEUS: Well, I would say that - will (ph) remind them that all of America appreciates enormously what they're doing and that they really should be very, very proud of what they're part of.

Tom Brokaw, who, as you know, wrote the book, "The Greatest Generation" about the World War II generation was with us one day and after he saw all that our troopers were engaged in, he turned me to me before leaving and said to me, surely, this is the new greatest generation.

I really agreed with that then and I still do very much. They're great Americans, special in so many ways and we're very fortunate to have them serving in uniform serving our country.

COLMES: General, is the surge working?

PETRAEUS: Well, it is. We are making progress. We have achieved tactical momentum in many areas, especially against al Qaeda in Iraq, and to a lesser degree against the militia (ph) extremists. We're also heartened by the number of Iraqi tribes and local citizens who have rejected al Qaeda. We cannot attribute that to the surge but the surge certainly enabled that to move much more rapidly, we believe, than it otherwise would have.

COLMES: Now you ...

PETRAEUS: Having said that, there are innumerable challenges. And obviously an enormous amount of hard work remains to be done.

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The spreading credit squeeze is a problem that could become a large problem, which could become a huge problem. The Fed stuck to its anti-inflation guns yesterday, and would-be home buyers and home-sellers are screwed. "A growing credit crisis is prompting lenders across Massachusetts to cut back suddenly on new loans," the Boston Globe reported this morning, "making it difficult for even creditworthy borrowers to get mortgages and causing some home sales to fall through at a time when the housing market is already slumping."

The strangling of bad mortgage lending practices was a good move, but the smothering of mortgage activity is a serious indicator that overreaction to sloppy credit practices is having the sort of effect that can trigger recession. Six weeks ago an economist at the lefty Center for American Progress noted Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was arguing that "problems in the subprime mortgage market—rising delinquency rates and foreclosures—are unlikely to spill over to the broader housing market." Yesterday the Fed sniffed at credit tightening and its ill effects and refused to lower rates, noting that inflation remains a concern:

Some investors read the remarks to mean that chairman Ben S. Bernanke won't rush to cut rates in response to a rout in the subprime mortgage market that has prompted lenders to restrict borrowers' access to credit with higher rates and fewer down-payment concessions. The world's largest economy will survive the tumult, the central bank added.

"Financial markets have been volatile in recent weeks, credit conditions have become tighter for some households and businesses, and the housing correction is ongoing," the Fed said. "Nevertheless, the economy seems likely to continue to expand at a moderate pace over coming quarters, supported by solid growth in employment and incomes and a robust global economy."

Perhaps it is because I just read Amity Shlaes' The Forgotten Man which records the woeful response of economic policymakers under both Hoover and FDR to deflation, but the Fed's attitude of "let the housing market suffer for the sins of subprime" seems to me to be an echo of that era that I haven't heard before.

 

From the New York Times:

Attacks on American-led forces using a lethal type of roadside bomb said to be supplied by Iran reached a new high in July, according to the American military.

The devices, known as explosively formed penetrators, were used to carry out 99 attacks last month and accounted for a third of the combat deaths suffered by the American-led forces, according to American military officials.

“July was an all-time high,” Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the No. 2 commander in Iraq, said in an interview, referring to strikes with such devices.

Such bombs, which fire a semi-molten copper slug that can penetrate the armor on a Humvee and are among the deadliest weapons used against American forces, are used almost exclusively by Shiite militants. American intelligence officials have presented evidence that the weapons come from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran, although Tehran has repeatedly denied providing lethal assistance to Iraqi groups.

There's an old rule among compensation professionals: Whatever gets rewarded, gets repeated.

The U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, recently met with his Iranian counterpart for the third time. Ambassador Crocker is by all accounts a skilled, smart and courageous diplomat, but meeting with Tehran's representative while Tehran arranges for the death of Americans strikes me as exactly the sort of "reward" that will assure an increase in attacks on our troops.

 

From the New York Times:

An Army investigation into the Baghdad Diarist, a soldier in Iraq who wrote anonymous columns for The New Republic, has concluded that the sometimes shockingly cruel reports were false.

“We are not going into the details of the investigation,” Maj. Steven F. Lamb, deputy public affairs officer in Baghdad, wrote in an e-mail message. “The allegations are false, his platoon and company were interviewed, and no one could substantiate the claims he made.”

New Republic editor Foer falls deeper into Mapes-Foer Syndrome:

In an e-mail message, Mr. Foer said, “Thus far, we’ve been provided no evidence that contradicts our original statement, despite directly asking the military for any such evidence it might have,” adding, “We hope the military will share what it has learned so that we can resolve this discrepancy.”

Foer is demanding evidence from the Army, but won't offer the public his "evidence" for believing Beauchamp. His statement challenges the Army's truthfulness, but given his willingness to stand by Beauchamp even after Beauchamp admitted that the badly burned woman he imagined hadn't been in Iraq, this isn't a surprise. There isn't any way to describe this except Foer has decided to take the magazine with him on the long ride down.

Nothing from any of journalism's bravehearts at The Plank. Status as a TNR writer/Foer protege --that must really be worth a lot, given what these writers are sacrificing for it.

Would any MSMer who believes Beauchamp's original story, or anything like it, and is willing to stand side-by-side with Foer please make themselves known? No doubt Eason Jordan, Jayson Blair, Dan Rather, and TNR alum Stephen Glass have sent along notes of encouragement and solidarity to Foer, but I am interested if any pundit, reporter or editor is willing to publicly say "I think Franklin Foer is right to demand evidence from the Army while refusing to reveal his own and to stand by Beauchamp's story --the modified version that is." Any dean of any journalism school? Anyone not of the hysterical anti-war fringe?

 

The latest from Confederate Yankee.

More than a dozen posts at TNR's The Plank today, and still no one from among that band of truth-tellers has stepped forward to declare their distance --however slight-- from this mountain of lies.

Dean's Dead Pool goes on, but I ask a question in addition to Foer's exit date: What explanations, if any, will TNR's staffers and contributing editors offer post-capitulation? Loyalty to Foer over loyalty to the truth? They were following orders? The reputation of the troops just doesn't matter much to them?

UPDATE: Powerline's Scott Johnson looks beyond the Beauchamp fable to the Judis article and reports on "What War Did To The New Republic." 

Exurban League had the notes. (HT: K-Lo.) The first two questions:

When Dubya imposes martial law in January 2009, are you willing to call air strikes on Crawford, Texas?

We all know that fire doesn’t melt steel. So were the towers brought down by Rove’s weather machine or Cheney’s evil destructo-ray?

 

Max Boot summarizes the latest reports from analysts who have been to the front and are reporting back. 

The Ninth Circuit has ruled. To save you the trouble, here is the opinion:

FISHER, Circuit Judge:

The 2000 presidential election was one of the closest in our

nation’s history.

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I'll open the program today with Bill Kristol, recently returned from Iraq, on his article "The Turn." The transcript of the conversation will be up here later today.

We'll also be sure to talk a little about the Beauchamp affair.