Expecting too much? Or, let’s not talk about Jeremiah Wright

Political courage, once again, was in short supply last week, what with two-thirds of the viable candidates for president reaching new lows in pandering. In California, we know all too well how gas taxes get used for funding all sorts of projects having nothing to do with their intended purpose. As a state, we have more interest than most in transportation matters that involve driving our own vehicles. Ample and/or efficient mass transit is but a pipe-dream outside of the Bay area.

So, when the presumptive Republican presidential nominee raised the idea of suspending the federal gas tax, and then the increasingly desperate and once "inevitable" candidate for the Democratic nomination said she could not only suspend the tax, but also pay for it by imposing a windfall profits tax on the oil industry that inevitably will never get through Congress, they provided an obvious news peg for media all over the state.

The only newspaper I could find that explained how a suspension of the federal gas tax would affect its audience – really adversely, it turns out -- was the Press Enterprise, based in Southern California’s Inland Empire. (I don’t subscribe; I was visiting Corona on Friday.)

Reporter Dug Begley outlined how local leaders believed the suspension “could have devastating effects on Inland road projects.” (Take a look at "Proposed gas tax hiatus not good news to Inland transportation officials.")

Most media didn’t do even this much. They simply accepted the parameters of the argument on either side. No one extended the discussion to wonder about how, in the long-term, we might curtail our dependence on cars, gas, or even why the price of oil is so high and that it currently has little correlation to demand, which happens to have fallen.

Journalistic courage was questionable during an exclusive interview with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger snagged by Patt Morrison on her public radio show (KPCC-FM; for podcast, click here). Morrison is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and her show is usually excellent. I think she’s consistently among the most thoughtful and entertaining hosts on the dial. While not hard-hitting, the interview couldn’t help but be newsworthy in a week that had Morrison’s paper reporting that the governor was not averse to new taxes. (The governor continues to deny this despite increasing evidence that something’s afoot.) The way the chat started made it sound like Mary Hart was the inquisitor.

Morrison began the interview with a question about whether Schwarzenegger would make an appearance in the upcoming fourth "Terminator" movie. The governor said he would be proud to if the film was shot in California, thereby keeping devalued dollars (his reference) from going to places like Canada.

The disappointing part about the interview was that Morrison didn’t really challenge Schwarzenegger on any of his actions or responsibility related to virtually anything in office, with the mild exception – maybe – being when he was asked about his proposal to cut the state budget by 10 percent across the board to help make up for a reported $20 billion deficit.

Morrison wondered whether such a move would punish state agencies that had performed well and been fiscally responsible. The governor smoothly said that all the state agencies had been efficient, essentially rejecting Morrison’s premise. Really? Sounds like a very promising investigative series for some organization that still has investigative reporters on staff.

Editors, there’s more if you’re short on story ideas this week. Maybe you can also find out, if only for my sake, how a state government sees revenues increase from $74 billion to $94 billion annually during the time Schwarzenegger has been in Sacramento and still can’t manage its budget. I’m just asking.

Another public media offering last week deserves attention and a little praise for getting “beyond the Beltway.” The small problem, I thought at the beginning of the show, with the effort by Now and host David Brancaccio is that they did not exactly get beyond the establishment.

The guests were former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, in the role of “The Democrat,” and former McCain 2000 adviser, now-professor at UC Berkeley, Dan Schnur, ably playing himself as “The Republican.” I didn’t expect to hear a challenge to the two-party oligopoly or about things I hadn’t heard before. That said, in a time when the White House press secretary admits she thought the Cuban Missile Crisis was the same as the Bay of Pigs, intelligent conversation among people who understand where we come from is to be applauded, even if its scope is relatively narrow.

Brown, who hasn’t endorsed a candidate yet, was “a realist” in saying that there are some Democrats who will never vote for a woman or a “person of color.” He advised that the candidates not waste their time on those folks by trying to persuade them to shed that engrained discrimination, but to concentrate on their kids and expand the number of people who vote. Brown shared thoughts on being a “superdelegate” -- he reminded that they were originally called “unpledged” delegates -- and his history in creating the system of what Schnur referred to as “adult supervision” in looking out for the party. Brown laughed.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the show) came when Brown recollected how he fought for the pro-McGovern California delegation to be seated in a floor fight at the 1972 Democratic convention in Miami Beach. Schnur acknowledged that "moment in American political history" and Brown talking about that "is extraordinary." Schnur presaged a possible "Willie Brown moment" happening again by wondering if a young politician from Florida might make an inspiring speech to have his delegation seated. Brown did in 1972 and launched a brilliant political career.

Brown and Schnur then discussed the virtues of a "winner-take-all" primary system. Schnur likened the current Democratic proportional distribution of delegates to kids’ soccer games where everyone gets a trophy at the end of the contest.

Brancaccio, who was great on public radio’s Marketplace "back in the day," did a nice job moving the show along and then getting out of the way. Somebody send a copy to Charlie Rose.