It’s hard to feel sorry for a guy like Kyle McKenzie. Knowing he’s the research director for Stand Together, an advocacy group owned by the Koch family, I’m not inclined to sympathy. But as a former advertising guy, who once sat through too many focus groups to count, I know well how consumer research can undo the best-laid plans. In McKenzie’s case, the plans were to figure out how the Kochs should handle HR1 — the massive voting rights bill now reaching the Senate — where they are once again on the wrong side of history. McKenzie was charged with finding ways to undermine any positive perceptions the public might harbor about making it easy for people to vote. What they were looking for was a message — any message — that might convince the public that the right to vote is overrated. We know this thanks to the amazing Jane Mayer of The New Yorker . Somehow, she obtained this eye-opening audio of a ten-minute conference call, in which McKenzie presents his research findings to
For all its faults, I’ve generally regarded 60 Minutes as real journalism, practiced by real journalists. Even so, their political coverage of late has been irksome — with too much both-siderist nonsense delivered none too subtly. The lead story on the March 21 show , however, went beyond both-siderist, to what I hope I’m misconstruing as subversive. The thirteen-minute segment featured an interview with former Associate Deputy Attorney General Michael R. Sherwin, a career prosecutor who until leaving office two days before, was in charge of DOJ’s investigation into the Capitol insurrection. It was a jaw-dropping interview, at least to a non-lawyer. For thirteen minutes, Sherwin took us through the investigation in startling detail, pointing out some of the rioters in the Capitol photos, outlining the kinds of charges they might face, and generally getting viewers salivating over the prospect of righteous restitution. But to anyone in the legal profession, the interview set off