Wide Open is, I believe, a first-of-its-kind Old Media-New Media relationship.

Jean Dubail, the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Assistant Managing Editor/Online, does a fine job of explaining it in the blog’s first “official” post (links added by me):

Today the Ohio blogosphere and the traditional media come together in a new, more collaborative relationship through WIDE OPEN, a new blog hosted by cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.

Written by four of the state’s leading political bloggers — Jill Miller Zimon, Tom Blumer, Jeff Coryell and Dave — WIDE OPEN will be a no-holds-barred discussion of Ohio politics we hope to continue through the 2008 election and beyond. Our hope is that you, too, will participate through the comments.

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This morning, during the 7AM hour, I was on 55KRC AM in Cincinnati with Morning Show co-hosts Brian Thomas and John Phillips. Listen live here.

The main topic of conversation: the “single-payer” Ohio Health Care Plan introduced in the Ohio House (link is to an analysis of the bill by the Ohio Legislative Services Commission), which may someday, if enacted, come to be called Teddicare.

This BizzyBlog entry (”The $50 Billion ‘Ohio (Universal) Health Care Plan,’ and What It Implies about Hillarycare II”), mirrored at NewsBusters, caught the station’s attention last week, primarily because it validated radio-ad claims made by the Ohio chapter of the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) that the Plan will involve $50 billion or more in new taxes (you read that right — that’s billion, with a “b”). It would roughly triple the size of state government in one fell swoop.

This bill, incredibly, appears to have some potentially bi-partisan support. Given its scope, it has received very little press coverage. Its potential for driving business out of the state cannot be underestimated.

I also got in a few words about the debut of the Plain Dealer’s Wide Open blog.

Someone’s going to have to help me explain some things about this vote to me:

• How did a resolution like this, sponsored by a member of the minority party (Cornyn of Texas) get to the Senate floor?
• Did Harry Reid, who, as red-boxed above, voted against it, totally miscalculate, actually believing he had the votes to win because no Democrat senator had categorically condemned MoveOn’s “Betray Us” ad?
• Was, and is, Hillary Clinton still worried enough about winning the Democratic nomination that she had to bolster her far-left cred with the MoveOnsters, despite the considerable risk this vote poses to her general-election campaign?
• Do Joe Biden and BOOHOO (Barack O-bomb-a Overseas Hussein “Obambi” Obama) really think they will get a pass by not making a choice? (BOOHOO was there, yet didn’t vote; I don’t know whether Biden was there)
• Will Sherrod Brown’s clear calculation that no one in Ohio will remember his pro-smear vote 5 years from now at re-election time be correct?

The Bellwether Daily’s Bill Sloat was very unhappy with Sherrod Brown’s vote. Bill has yet to learn that every crucial vote with Brown appears to be about calculation, not conviction. Here’s a previous example. Is all of this is enough to keep his knee from jerking left in the voting booth the next time Brown’s name is on the ballot?

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ALSO: Duane Patterson, at Hugh Hewitt’s place, last Thursday –

If any of you have any inkling of what kind of presidential timber Illinois Senate Barack Obama possesses, all you have to do is look at this vote. The Cornyn vote was called, Obama came to the floor, and when he discovered what the vote was for, he left the floor and didn’t cast a vote. He literally ran away from merely casting a vote to support our top military general in the field. But that’s not even the most telling moment of the vote.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, the next president of the United States, unless Republicans decide to run like Republicans again in 2008 and keep the White House in responsible hands, did cast a vote today, and voted against Petraeus, and for MoveOn.org, a watershed moment in her campaign. If she ever wanted her public image to be that of a moderate, it’s gone now with this vote. Hillary is one of three or four people that will be the next president of the United States, and she just tipped her hand that she shows more respect to the radical fringe of her base than she does to the country’s top general prosecuting a war that she originally supported.

Everything else that comes out of Hillary’s mouth from here to the election, whether it be smoke and mirrors about health care, education, whatever her polling tells her to say, keep in mind that when you hear Hillary Clinton speak, you are hearing her channel what MoveOn.org has approved her to say. If Republicans are smart, they’ll remind people of this vote from now until the election.

ALSO II: Ken Blackwell at Townhall last Saturday –

President Clinton would have condemned this ad.

But not Hillary Clinton.

….. Senator Clinton has gone so far to the left, she is so committed to the priorities of the blame-America-first, anti-military extremist fringe, that she cannot bring herself to denounce even a vicious attack piece against a heroic soldier. Even when she could hide behind Speaker Pelosi’s comments and has full political cover, she refuses.

This is the man she voted to send to Iraq just earlier this year, when everyone was singing his praise. Now she calls him a liar, and defends those who call him a traitor.

I thought she would be smarter than this. Senator Clinton has done more damage to herself than she knows.

And, of course, she initially voted for the war, and defended the decision for several years after that vote. What I said about calculation v. conviction about Sherrod Brown clearly also applies to Mrs. Clinton.

How far has fan behavior at sporting events devolved? So far that Old Media could almost justifiably shrug off what Brent Bozell describes in his Saturday Townhall column about the Navy-Rutgers football game the two weeks ago.

But only almost, since a team from one of the service academies was the target. The behavior was so bad that Rutgers’ President sent a letter of apology to the Naval Academy. However, it appears, based on the Washington Post’s brief coverage, that the apology might never have taken place if New Jersey sports reporter Mark DiIonno hadn’t ripped into fans’ conduct in his September 11 column. There was no mention of fan conduct in ESPN’s game recap.

The sportsmanship of Rutgers’ football team also open to question. In last week’s game, the Scarlet Knights, up 45-0 on a hapless opponent, called three defensive timeouts just before the end of the first half (scroll down to “SHOULD BE SCARLET-FACED”) in hopes of padding the lead (very slight defense: the starters didn’t play the second half).

Given that the “life lessons” learned there are all too often “Bad behavior is acceptable when it’s in large crowds” and “Hit your opponent when they’re down,” it’s unfortunate but true: You take your kids to major sporting events at their peril. It may not appear that way now, but this has potentially dire implications for the long-term prospects of major sports.

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Don Luskin sticks to his guns, telling us that he believes the Fed’s cut last week was an overreaction to an overstated problem, and that as a result, inflation will be a bigger problem than it would have been down the road. That’s what he said last week (first item at link) when hoping for only a quarter-point cut instead of the half-point that occurred.

Even if you don’t read Luskin’s column, you absolutely must see the accompanying graphic (opens in new window) for perspective. The graphic illustrates just how relatively unimportant (to the economy as a whole, obviously not to the individuals involved) the subprime mortgage problem is.

Oh, and the next time you hear about “millions” of affected people who are about to be thrown out of their houses, Luskin, who should know, says that “We’re talking something like 200,000 to 300,000 people here.”

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Luskin’s points, and graphic, in the item above make what’s revealed about proposals to “solve” the subprime mortgage problem in this past Saturday’s Wall Street Journal editorial that much more maddening:

We wonder if either end of Pennsylvania Avenue grasps the irony of what they are proposing. At the very moment when private mortgage lenders are under pressure from regulators, rating agencies and shareholders to tighten underwriting to avoid another mortgage meltdown, the FHA is relaxing its standards so it can insure more questionable mortgages. If that is permitted to happen, America’s newest and largest subprime lender will be Uncle Sam. Don’t expect this story to have a happy taxpayer ending.

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Courtesy of Bill Sloat’s sleuthing — Hamilton County employees learn that there are consequences to tax-and-spend, as people have voted with their feet (April 1, 2000 population - 845,303; June 1, 2006 population - 822,596).

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I not surprised that an Ivy League bookstore is the one trying this (HT Boing Boing via Techdirt):

Taking notes in class may be encouraged, but apparently it can get you kicked out of the Coop.

Jarret A. Zafran ’09 said he was asked to leave the Coop after writing down the prices of six books required for a junior Social Studies tutorial he hopes to take.

“I’m a junior and every semester I do the same thing. I go and look up the author and the cost and order the ones that are cheaper online and then go back to the Coop to get the rest,” Zafran said.

“I’m not a rival bookstore, I’m a student with an I.D.,” he added.

….. (Coop President Jerry) Murphy said the Coop considers that information the Coop’s intellectual property.

That doesn’t pass the stench test, let alone the smell test. This behavior is consistent, as it comes from an institution with a history of collusion in allocating financial aid and admissions.

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Speaking of not passing the stench test — New York State’s Medicaid program currently spends $47 billion a year (7th paragraph) on about 4 million recipients — about $11,700 per recipient, or over $46,000 for a family of four. The system has about $4.7 billion per year in flat-out fraud (based on a 10% rate cited here).

As was the case when he was the state Attorney General, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has more important priorities than fighting Medicaid fraud — like implanting new fraud into the Driver’s License Bureau, so it can then spread to the voting booth:

Fulfilling a campaign promise, Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced today that residents will be able to apply for state driver’s licenses without regard to immigration status. Applicants for driver’s licenses will no longer be required to provide a Social Security number or show that they are eligible for one. Instead, they will be allowed to provide foreign passports, previous state driver’s licenses and “other valid and verifiable documents” to prove their identity.

“Valid and verifiable” — riiiiiiight.

Bogus driver’s licenses are a great way to game the voter ID laws that are becoming more prevalent.

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From IBD Editorials — Georg Soros 101 (HT Instapundit). Read. Save.

From Thailand:

Last updated at 18:50pm on 17th September 2007

Thailand’s Foreign Minister last night praised the “silent” British hero of the Phuket disaster who risked his life to save fellow passengers aboard the ill-fated flight 0G269.

Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont and Foreign Minister Nittaya Pibulsonghkram visited Mancunian Peter Hill, 35, at the Bangkok-Phuket hospital, to bring him gifts of flowers and fruit after hearing of his heroism after the plane burst into flames.

Mr Hill did not even want to be identified as being on the flight, a British Embassy spokesman said yesterday.

But his heroism was brought to the attention of the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister by staff at the private hospital where some 30 of the survivors are recuperating.

Peter Hill was sitting in row 24A on the McDonnell-Douglas MD82 aircraft when it crashed and exploded in flames at Phuket International airport in a tropical storm.

His seat was right next to an emergency exit. Hill forced the exit open and dragged several fellow passengers to freedom before looking after his own safety.

Thai Foreign Minister Nittaya presented with him with fruit and flowers and after leaving his hospital room said: “He is a hero by the way. I believed he pulled two people out at (his own) risk. He is now doing pretty well, sitting up and smiling.”

Throughout the day Peter had declined all requests for interviews. A hospital spokesman said: “He does not want any fuss.”

Go here for the rest of the story.