Hearst shuffles Beaumont publishers again

After just three years the soon-to-be-former Beaumont Enterprise publisher is moving on to an undisclosed 'other business opportunity'. The new man in charge is from the Houston Chronicle.

As part of a larger restructuring of Hearst newspapers in Texas, Bill Offill, executive vice president of sales and marketing at the Houston Chronicle, will succeed John E. Newhouse II as publisher of The Beaumont Enterprise. ...

As executive vice president, Offill has overseen the Chronicle's advertising sales, circulation and marketing divisions since 2004. He joined the Houston Chronicle in 1987 as an advertising sales account executive and later held key leadership positions, including advertising director and vice president of circulation.

Offill is one of the big winners in the mass shakeout the Chronicle itself experienced just over a year ago. His roots in circulation and advertising should provide some sorely needed expertise to the Enterprise, which continues to hemorrhage readership and, correspondingly, advertisers.

I've spent time in Beaumont recently working with some new clients and attended the Better Business Bureau's Torch Awards banquet just this past Tuesday evening. While all of the television stations and their on-air personalities were represented, along with a few radio stations, the newspaper was conspicuously absent -- no attendees, no sponsorships.

Heavy community involvement and activism was one of the hallmarks of the tenure of previous Enterprise publishers Aubrey Webb and George Irish (both of whom I once worked with; I have blogged here and here about that). I was more than surprised that there was nobody at an event of this profile. Even if the top man had plans to leave the paper, it seems odd that a business editor or reporter would not have attended or covered it. This link looks like a reprint of the press release.

Here's hoping the reorganization of the six Texas Hearst papers -- besides Houston and Beaumont, they include the Express-News in San Antonio, the Reporter-Telegram in Midland, the Daily Herald in Plainview, and the Morning Times in Laredo -- is a success.

Now if she will explain how Dirty Sanchez relates to immigration reform

Right-wing nutbag Melissa Clouthier tried to be outraged about the TeaBaggers being outraged about being called TeaBaggers.

She failed. Massively. This link is completely unsafe for work.

This one from the Houston Press is mostly OK, though. No excerpting; just go read it and LYAO. Or weep, as the case may be. Hat tip to Kuff for the link, and more and ever more hilarious comments at Wonkette.

Perry v. White over the air

Bill White is running ads in Houston (possibly elsewhere):



And this is the Perry campaign's response:



About the only thing they did right was getting that response out roughly 24 hours after the White ad.

This kind of attack this early in the campaign season says one just thing: Rick Perry is a man running scared.

He's seeing the polls tightening up; he's reading the articles about how White is going after his base (not the TeaBaggers, the country-clubbers), seeing Republican elected officials endorsing White and so on.

So despite the Newsweek cover story two weeks ago and the lingering speculation fueling a potential presidential bid in 2012; despite showing up and feeding his ego with Glenn Beck in Tyler and the White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington; despite the millions of dollars of free media he's earned in the last week for shooting a coyote, pandering to Texas Hispanics and jabbing the 'Baggers by not supporting AZ-style immigration law, not to mention declaring the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to be an act of God -- that's all just in the past seven days -- Rick Perry remains a terrified little man. Terrified of losing his twenty-plus year government paycheck; frightened of snakes and coyotes when he jogs, afraid that he might be revealed as a drugstore cowboy.

Which at least helps us understand why, despite having several armed Texas Rangers as bodyguards, he carries a handgun with a laser sight and loaded with hollow points when he goes out for a run in suburban Austin.

Because he runs scared. Not just of snakes and coyotes. Of everything.

Hat tip to Todd Hill at Burnt Orange for the DMN links, and to Quorum Report for the campaign videos.

Update: Elise Hu at the Texas Tribune notes the use of Yao Ming in Perry's ad in a weirdly inappropriate way. As it turns out the Perry campaign thought it would be hilarious to make fun of how short White is ... when he's standing next to Yao.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is enjoying the May flowers as we bring you this week's blog roundup.

The Texas Oil and Gas Accountability Project is A BIG BUNCH OF MEANIES according to a major industry publication. OGAP is so mean for "setting up shop in Texas" and requiring that industry Drill-Right Texas. And, TXsharon is really, really mean on her blog Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS.

Off the Kuff had a discussion of the city of Houston's term limits, which are currently under review.

In a first for WhosPlayin, a local school board trustee is compelled to admit he lied about his criminal record before the "liberal blogger" can write about it, based on act of investigating it.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants to point out that border violence precipitated by poor drug policy has nothing to do with immigration reform. Think about it. Don't let the fear mongers fool you.

Adam at Three Wise Men gives us the skinny on the upcoming midterms.

Governor MoFo had a decent media week: his two-month-old shooting of a coyote went national, and he pandered effectively to Texas Hispanics. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs summarizes the manipulations in "Rick Perry's not bad, pretty good week".

The Texas Cloverleaf looks at the possibility of the Arizona immigration law coming to Texas in 2011.

Neil at Texas Liberal wrote about one small way he maintains his faith in democracy despite all the dumb things taking place in daily life.

In a week full of immigration policy debates and talk of killing coyotes, Barfly at McBlogger chose to look at something far more troubling.

Bay Area Houston found Rick Perry's official campaign song; Macho Man by the Village People.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson wrote about Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst's double standard on spending taxpayer money in Please don't Dew us like this.

Libby Shaw discovers the true prototype for Governor Perry's governing style: Beavis and Butthead. As she tells it: "Rick Perry has as much compassion and empathy for his constituents as would Beavis and Butt-Head." She wonders: "...why does Rick Perry have serious problems with outreach programs, whether local, state or federal, all of which attempt to throw lifelines to those who are in a desperate struggle, be it a financial burden, crippling health care costs, or top quality educational benefits for public schools? Check it all out at TexasKaos.