Topics: A federal judge's ruling will allow housing demolition in New Orleans, and the Democratic Party's plan to curb lobbyist influence in the nation's capital. Guests: Mary Frances Berry, professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania; John McWhorter, Manhattan Institute senior fellow in public policy; and Bob Meadows, writer for People magazine.
ED GORDON, host: This is NEWS AND NOTES. I'm Ed Gordon.</s>ED GORDON, host: On today's roundtable, people will receive notice of home demolitions in New Orleans. And another NBA player heads into the stands. Joining us today from New York, John McWhorter, Manhattan Institute's senior fellow in public policy. Also with us, Bob Meadows. He's a writer with People Magazine. And from our headquarters in Washington, D.C., Mary Frances Berry, professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania. I thank you all for joining us.</s>ED GORDON, host: I want to get into what we broached with the secretary just a moment ago, and that's that a federal judge has approved a settlement this week in a lawsuit over the first demolitions of New Orleans homes ruined by Hurricane Katrina. City officials suggest that they will give advanced notice to homeowners before the demolition begins. But there are a lot of people who are crying foul, suggesting that this seven to 10 day notice before demolition will occur is unfair because the way the notice will happen is the city will publish an advertisement over three days in the local newspaper there, listing the addresses affected. They will also post warnings on their website, and they say they will try to contact owners by mail. But many of these owners, Mary Frances Berry, will not be able to be found, quite frankly.</s>Ms. MARY FRANCES BERRY (Professor, University of Pennsylvania): Well, I think that's right, but I think that balance, this is probably the only solution we can reach. And I also know that some of the local community organizations are in the business of trying to notify people and tracking people. Everyone who has looked at that area, and I just spent three weeks down there on the Gulf and in New Orleans, knows that those buildings need to, or what's left of them, need to come down. The question is, how to do it, and what is the fairest way to do it, and what's going to happen to the people and their property.</s>Ms. MARY FRANCES BERRY (Professor, University of Pennsylvania): But I wanted to add to the interview you had. I just must say this. That HUD has done so little to help the people down there to either find housing if they were in public housing before, or to make sure that they are not discriminated against. And the Fair Housing Agency inside HUD is one of the worst run federal agencies. You can read a report on the website of the Commission on Civil Rights. You can go back over the years and read every single report evaluating the agency. It's always been under-resourced. It doesn't handle complaints when they're supposed to, on a timely basis. So it's nice for them to have an ad campaign, but the housing part of HUD hasn't done its job in trying to help people in a way that housing would be made available. And the enforcement part, I just think that the ad campaign is nice, but it is window dressing.</s>Ms. MARY FRANCES BERRY (Professor, University of Pennsylvania): But on balance, I think that the judge's order down in New Orleans is probably the best way we can go at this time and try to notify people, because the property needs to be cleaned up. Those areas, there are many places where there is wood and bricks and everything else out in the street, and obstructions, and that's got to be cleared away before we can do something else.</s>ED GORDON, host: Bob Meadows, it must be difficult though, if you're an evacuee, and you see the structure that is not just a structure to you, but your home, and knowing that emotionally you believe and hope that you'll be able to save it. But as Mary suggests that possibly it is the emotion in your heart thinking more than your need.</s>Mr. BOB MEADOWS (Writer, “People Magazine”): Certainly, it is. And that was one of the things that people were arguing for and asking for them to delay, or at least try and give notice, is that so people would at least be able to try and get home, try and come back and at least go through, because one of the things we have to remember is that we're not necessarily talking about physical structures that are standing.</s>ED GORDON, host: Mm hmm.</s>Mr. BOB MEADOWS (Writer, “People Magazine”): A lot of these places, as Dr. Berry implied, these places are rubble, rubbish, just refuse left over, but they do want people to at least be able to come home and perhaps go through it and see if they can find anything that means something to them. But, as we also said, this is the Lower Ninth Ward that they're starting at. A lot of these people were people who had to be evacuated and, therefore, are scattered around the country. Seven to 10 days? Not likely they're going to be able to get home in time.</s>Ms. MARY FRANCES BERRY (Professor, University of Pennsylvania): Mm hmm.</s>ED GORDON, host: You know, one of the most…</s>Mr. BOB MEADOWS (Writer, “People Magazine”): Sorry.</s>ED GORDON, host: Let me ask you this, John, and then pick up on that point. Mary raised an interesting question and I thought it was interesting to hear, when I asked the secretary about the idea of HUD and their thoughts of what had been going on and his suggestion that that is more a regional than a local issue, but knowing that, they may in fact have to come in on the backend and provide housing.</s>ED GORDON, host: There still seems to be the idea of, this whole situation, this whole region, this whole area, of being too much of a hot potato for anyone to want to hold.</s>Mr. JOHN MCWHORTER (Senior Fellow, Public Policy, Manhattan Institute): : Yes, there is a problem. I mean, nationally, in terms of what the people we're talking about have had to go through, these are people who, you know, don't have apartments. And in terms of the trailers, there's this not in my backyard issue as to where the trailers are going to be. People are being kicked out of their hotels.</s>Mr. JOHN MCWHORTER (Senior Fellow, Public Policy, Manhattan Institute): And it seems to me we definitely have a situation where the local organizations are going to have to do most of the work. And the exciting thing is that there are community advocates for these people, such as Tracy Washington and Bill Quigley. And it seems to me that in terms of looking ahead, I really agree with what Mayor Nagin said about the chocolate city and I eagerly anticipate it. And so with all sensitivities taken care of, I want to see these houses raised so that we can build a functioning chocolate city and show that there can be such a thing that is not a pit of destruction.</s>ED GORDON, host: Washington, D.C., will tell you it's chocolate city two.</s>Ms. MARY FRANCES BERRY (Professor, University of Pennsylvania): And chocolate city, chocolate city, by the way, Nagin had used it in speeches before. And as listeners might know, I'm now a great defender of his. And before, what he didn't understand is after what happened down there and these issues now, he couldn't just say something like that and have it taken in the same way. He should be more careful about what he says. But I realize the stress that he's under.</s>ED GORDON, host: All right. Let's turn our attention to something that's very interesting, quite frankly, and that is, surprise, surprise, that we are now seeing Democrats and Republicans vying for the first to be true in talking about the idea of truly reforming lobbying in Washington. We had on this week, two African American lobbyists who clearly want it known that by virtue of their prism, they believe lobbying is doing just fine and there are only just a few rotten apples in the bunch, but now Democrats are suggesting that you ban all gifts and travel paid for by lobbyists. They're aiming to seize this issue, obviously, as people take a close look at this. Republicans counter with a 24-page document targeting Democrats as being hypocritical and the hypocrisy, quite frankly, is flying on both ends here.</s>ED GORDON, host: How realistic, John McWhorter, is it to be believed that we are going to see any kind of real reform when it comes to lobbying in Washington when you know the kinds of dollars that fly in the nation's capital?</s>Mr. JOHN MCWHORTER (Senior Fellow, Public Policy, Manhattan Institute): Oh, well, please. I mean, we can chase an ideal, but this doesn't get to the heart of it which is the influence that special interests always have and I think always will have on legislation. That's the way the Republic has always operated, for better or for worse. And it does bear mentioning that I think that in the case that something is being lobbied for that is considered a good thing by what you might call the blue state crowd, somehow I think we're a little bit less indignant, sometimes a little bit of lobbying can be a good thing.</s>Mr. JOHN MCWHORTER (Senior Fellow, Public Policy, Manhattan Institute): Obviously, the Abramoff scandal is the bad kind of lobbying. This is too flagrant and too sleazy. But we're not going to really change anything. Don't we see something like this happening every, about every 20 years? This is just the latest episode.</s>ED GORDON, host: Well, Mary, I was going to bring that up and I'm curious what you think about this Democratic plan, as I suggested, would try to curb all of these perks, if you will, barring lobbyists from giving gifts to members of Congress. The Republican plan, like this one, said they want to end fact finding trips, that's where these trips are paid for by often lobbyists...</s>Ms. MARY FRANCES BERRY (Professor, University of Pennsylvania): Well, it's where you go play golf in Scotland.</s>ED GORDON, host: ...and deemed as fact finding. But you do all of these wonderful things in lieu of finding fact.</s>Ms. MARY FRANCES BERRY (Professor, University of Pennsylvania): Right, absolutely.</s>ED GORDON, host: They also want in-dead-of-night insertions of special interest legislation and we should note that that is the pork barrel spending that is added on to bills that most people wouldn't blink an eye at and it's usually done “late at night" and in hopes that people won't realize it. This has been going on for years and years and years. Mary, this has been talked about, reform has been talked about, nothing happens.</s>Ms. MARY FRANCES BERRY (Professor, University of Pennsylvania): Absolutely, absolutely. And both sides have done it. The problem now is that what Delay and the crowd did was over-the-top. I mean, and they were so open about it, this K Street Project. I mean, saying publicly, you know, you guys, I know some people who run lobby firms here and they tell me, we were told you better hire so many Republicans if you don't hire them by whatever, don't, you know, come in here and they better be these people. And so it was sort of over-the-top and there's nothing wrong with lobbying.</s>Ms. MARY FRANCES BERRY (Professor, University of Pennsylvania): What's wrong is the money, the influence, the payoffs and all the rest of it, that have been going on. I think the legislation should be passed. I think the Democratic legislation is a little bit stronger, and it should be passed. And if you wonder why it's not as much of a political problem for the Democrats is because, you know, Willie Sutton robbed banks because that's where the money was. The Republicans got most of the money because they're the ones who have the power. They're the ones who control all three branches of the government.</s>Ms. MARY FRANCES BERRY (Professor, University of Pennsylvania): But the problem is whether or not the reforms when they're passed, and something will pass before the election, whether they will be enforced on the Hill and they're not because the House Ethics Committee doesn't even work now. It hasn't even met and it isn't even doing anything. And in fact, Abramoff would not be known about publicly as this guy who was crooked if some reporter hadn't done a big series in The Washington Post and then that forced the Justice Department to go out and take a look at him.</s>Ms. MARY FRANCES BERRY (Professor, University of Pennsylvania): So this is all happenstance that is happening. Yes, it should be passed. Also bottom line, if we don't do something about campaign finance and the money that's paid for campaigns, all that will happen is the money that's going now for the lobbyists, the lobbyists will give the money to the campaigns and then they'll get the same result.</s>ED GORDON, host: Bob Meadows, let me ask you this: Is it smart for Democrats to use this as a campaign issue when, as Mary and John both noted, that this does happen on both sides of the isle. Can this come back to bite you?</s>Mr. BOB MEADOWS (Writer, “People Magazine”): Sort of like Ted Kennedy challenging Alito's membership and then finding out that he had his own. It is the pot calling the kettle black as they say, but you know, I thought it was interesting that Barack Obama, who's new to the Senate said that, you know, Republicans have suddenly found religion. But I think it's actually everyone finds religion on this and John said every 20 years.</s>Mr. BOB MEADOWS (Writer, “People Magazine”): I think it's every two years because that's how often the elections come up. This is something that the Democrats want to grab onto and hope that they can ride. They have a 12 year losing streak in Congress right now. They want to grab onto to this and hopefully ride it into more seats in both Houses.</s>Ms. MARY FRANCES BERRY (Professor, University of Pennsylvania): But let's not forget though, it is an important issue. Even though we're talking the inside baseball on it. It is a very important and serious issue that money can influence us directly and if you've got a whole big pile of money, you can influence what projects get approved and get earmarks and do all this kinds of stuff. Whatever party is doing it.</s>Mr. BOB MEADOWS (Writer, “People Magazine”): It's the money.</s>Ms. MARY FRANCES BERRY (Professor, University of Pennsylvania): And right now, the Republicans have the problem because they get most of the money and they have most of the ties with most of the guys who turned out to be crooked. So in that sense, it is a good political issue.</s>ED GORDON, host: So, John, Should we believe that that will not change today and that we will see a lobbying effort against this, money being thrown toward this, and we're going to see a watered down reform package?</s>Mr. JOHN MCWHORTER (Senior Fellow, Public Policy, Manhattan Institute): It seems to me at that this point, I think as we're all concurring here, there's certain gestures going on that are just based on which party is in power and which party would like to be in power sometime in the near future. But really, I think the ideal that we should seek is just that there is lobbying on both sides, that's it not intimately tied to the sleazier sorts of exchanges of money and trips that we're talking about, because we can admit that lobbying can actually concentrate forces for justice, if it's done right, and would inevitably arise in any governmental system.</s>ED GORDON, host: Let me bring this up, particularly since we have two people who spend a lot of time on college campuses and with young people, I'll be interested in your thoughts here. If alumni groups weren't in the news enough already this week, a fledging group in California, UCLA, is now suggesting that they're going to offer payments to students up to $100 per class to provide information on instructors who are "abusive, one-sided, or off topic" in advocating political ideologies.</s>ED GORDON, host: This is an organization, the Bruin Alumni Association, if you were going to give it a political slant, it would slant to the right. It says it wants to expose UCLA's radical professors.</s>ED GORDON, host: Mary, let me start with you. You are a professor. When you hear this kind of thing, what's your thought?</s>Ms. MARY FRANCES BERRY (Professor, University of Pennsylvania): My thought is that most students, at least most of mine, wouldn't know whether what I was saying was off topic or not, simply because they're in the class to try to learn something. And so, I'm wondering if this guy who's running thing, who's a graduate, I guess, out there, whether he would know that. They have freedom of speech and freedom of expression and they can do whatever they like and if they want to spend their time doing that, let them go ahead and do it. But I think that it is crazy and if you look at the people who are on their board, some of them, they wouldn't know whether what I was saying was off topic or not.</s>Ms. MARY FRANCES BERRY (Professor, University of Pennsylvania): I mean, if I say Benjamin Franklin said if you give up your liberty for the sake of security, you deserve neither liberty nor security. Does that mean I believe we shouldn't wire tap? You know, and am I trying to give a subtle message against policy? So if they want to spend their time doing it, let them go ahead and do it. I think it's silly and it's the sign of our times in that rationality seems somehow to have escaped people on occasion.</s>ED GORDON, host: John McWhorter, there are those political neophytes that run around college campuses who aspire and hope to be the next you-name-it, who would, in fact, not only spurred on by the idea of being a poor college student and looking for that hundred dollars, but also trying to make their mark, if you will.</s>Mr. JOHN MCWHORTER (Senior Fellow, Public Policy, Manhattan Institute): Oh, yeah. I mean the money part is, that's bound to create, people creating things, et cetera. I think that it's sleazy, it's virtually unethical. It's very small thinking. But the idea behind this, I think, is dead on. Tenured radicals was just a cute title for a book, but it is definitely true that on college campuses there is a strong tilt to the left in what students are taught in classes in humanities and the social sciences.</s>Mr. JOHN MCWHORTER (Senior Fellow, Public Policy, Manhattan Institute): And, frankly, it's more than a tilt. And it's largely a matter of just what is not talked about. But another thing is that, one, to truly understand what goes on, does need to have some live exposure to what actually goes on. There are courses that I remember other people teaching where if you looked at the syllabus it looked okay.</s>Mr. JOHN MCWHORTER (Senior Fellow, Public Policy, Manhattan Institute): But if you actually watched the professor doing what they do, not a zealot, but clearly one was being inculcated into what was considered a certain, you know, leftist way of looking at things, such that there are many very reasonable people who think that the reason, for example, that there are so view avowed conservatives in top political science departments is because science and reason simply couldn't support any view on the right, which simply isn't true. So there is an issue that this guy is dealing with the method of getting at it, I think, shall we say, draconian.</s>Ms. MARY FRANCES BERRY (Professor, University of Pennsylvania): Well, I just, I don't, no, no...</s>Mr. BOB MEADOWS (Writer, “People Magazine”): Looking at his Web site, you know, he also is...</s>ED GORDON, host: Bob, real quick.</s>Mr. BOB MEADOWS (Writer, “People Magazine”): Yes, he's also talking about, he's against the African American studies. He's against the bias. He's talking about the biased admissions policies. You know, we can talk about this with hiring the students. That's sort of an acute issue maybe. But he's got some very serious issues on his website that could lead to something even worse going on.</s>Ms. MARY FRANCES BERRY (Professor, University of Pennsylvania): Well, what it is, all of this is part of on the political side and Bob, you're right on. It's part of the whole attack on the kinds of changes that are taking place in the academy that have made it more inclusive so that there are people there as students who wouldn't have been there before. There are classes there that wouldn't have been there before, many of which need to be there because it reflects the changes in knowledge and the changes in interest that ought to be there.</s>Ms. MARY FRANCES BERRY (Professor, University of Pennsylvania): And so this whole thing about left bias and all the rest of it is all part of an attack and one should look at the website and take the whole thing, take it whole, and decide where the motives are and whether one would support it, I would think.</s>ED GORDON, host: All right guys. We had hoped to get into an incident that happened last night at another NBA arena where Antonio Davis of the New York Knicks went into the stands for fear that someone was harming his wife, but we're running out of time. We'll probably pick that up tomorrow.</s>Ms. MARY FRANCES BERRY (Professor, University of Pennsylvania): Ed, it was time out though.</s>ED GORDON, host: It was time out, but he still went in those stands. But we'll talk about it. Certainly a different circumstance than what we knew in my hometown of Detroit. So, Mary, John and Bob, thanks so much. Greatly appreciated.