Lincoln/Washington/Berlin -- Trying to keep up on events and ideas in three very different capitals runs the risk of being shallow about each locale and occasionally outright wrong in my observations of any of them. This post is a look-back at my previous writings to see where a dose of humility may be in order.
As a kid growing up in Nebraska, every school night I was tasked to polish my shoes with brown Jet-Oil to be ready for the next day at school. The liquid's dauber being prone to splattering, I would always do the job over the previous day's newspaper to catch the splashes. Inadvertently, I became quite an expert on such subjects as the demise of Bulgarin in favor of Khrushchev. I also couldn't help reading many of the newspaper's columnists, like Drew Pearson and Walter Lippmann. One local columnist always used the caption "I May Be Wrong," which I thought was a good reason not to read his column, but it was catchy and makes for a good title for this post.
A few years ago I wrote a column on the new GI Bill; the New America Foundation posted it. I warned veterans that the benefits weren't quite what they seemed, predicted that colleges would find ways to exploit the new legislation, and that many veterans would find themselves saddled with student loan debt. But I neglected to mention which colleges were most likely to do this -- the for-profit schools, which soon made veterans a mark for exploitation. This was a big error of omission. I should also have warned that leaving the administration of the higher education benefits to the Veteran's Administration was a big mistake. It has taken years for the VA to get the program underway correctly, and much still remains to be done. This was totally foreseeable. My column on the matter was far too shallow.
More recently I wrote a post on the slow start of the Nebraska Innovation Campus on the site of the old State Fair, noting that it had only one private partner after years of searches. The next day, the NIC announced three more. I should have waited. Time will tell, however, if this announcement was to try to prime the pump to make it seem as if interest is picking up. These are modest new partners, by any measure, the kind that could be created for the sake of appearances. Either way, I hope the NIC soon takes off successfully with a wide variety of innovative businesses.
Six months ago I offered an opinion on the scandal in Nebraska's correctional system. Most people were too eager to blame corrections' employees and to accept the explanation of bureaucratic bumbling. My own view was clouded by examples of ineptitude too, but I did point out one thread for further investigation: a corrections attorney claimed that the state attorney general's office had told the corrections department, more than once, not to follow a Nebraska Supreme Court decision, apparently for political reasons. At last, in recent days, a Lincoln digital reporter (with no connection to a newspaper) has uncovered the internal communications that bears this out.
As more and more information about this scandal has come to light, it's clear that the former governor bears much responsibility. It is also becoming clear that the former attorney general, who was quick to call others incompetent, now has a great deal of explaining to do himself. For political reasons, both the ex-governor and the ex-attorney general put corrections officials into no-win situations, and then blamed them for the outcomes. I tried to defend state employees to some extent, but I did not get to the heart of the matter. We all should have been more cautious about jumping to conclusions.
These are three posts I wish I had back, to get them right in the first place.
