Bluey Blog - Official Blog of Robert B. Bluey

Check Out the New and Improved InsiderOnline.org

I don’t often boast about Heritage products on my blog — I probably should — but I do want to call attention to InsiderOnline.org, a website run by my colleague Alex Adrianson. A little over a month ago Tim McGovern and I sat down with Bridgett Wagner and Alex to figure out what we could do with the site before Heritage’s Resource Bank. With the hard work of Joel Smith, the new site launched two weeks ago.

The purpose of InsiderOnline.org is to make it easy for users to locate the best public policy studies and commentary being produced by conservative and free-market thinkers. Alex offers a good summation of our goals with the new and improved site:

We think you’ll find the new InsiderOnline.org to be even more convenient. Visitors who want to jump straight to their particular area of interest can do so via the list of topics in the upper left hand corner. Or you can just browse the latest research in the Policy Studies section. Notice what happens when you click on a study. Go ahead … Try it!

The blog still covers policy news. And we now have a Conservative Calendar that lets you keep up to date with all the lectures, seminars, roundtables, meet-and-greets, panel discussions, conferences, award banquets, and every sort of soiree that a policy organization could host.

Stay tuned in the next few months for further enhancements. We anticipate expanded content in most sections, particularly the “Legal Action” and “Featured Video” sections. We’ll add RSS feeds for the policy studies, and we plan to make the blog, the calendar, and the toolkit sections searchable by topic. So, whatever topic you follow — taxes, education, global warming, health care — arm yourself with the latest data and the best arguments from across the movement!

Have You Signed Up for Heritage’s Morning Bell Email?

We rolled out a slightly modified Heritage.org homepage this week with several important additions that reflect institutional changes. It accomplishes three objectives: branding of the Leadership for America campaign; greater prominence for our new blog, The Foundry; and a sign-up form for our new daily email, the Morning Bell.

If you haven’t been following the work of my colleague Conn Carroll on The Foundry, I highly recommend as a regular read. The blog features some of the most up-to-date information about the public policy debates conservatives are fighting in Washington. The companion Morning Bell email is a great way to get this information delivered to your inbox every day.

Dick Cheney Has a Sense of Humor

Last night I attended the 64th annual dinner of the Radio and Television Correspondents Association at the Hilton Washington Hotel — a wonderful evening filled with laughter and good times. As a guest of CNN’s Mara Gassmann, whom I met during the effort to save the GOP’s CNN-YouTube debate, I even got a coveted VIP pass to the afterparty.

It was my first time attending the dinner. After a surprise appearance by former presidential candidate Mitt Romney and a short video tribute from President Bush, a witty Vice President Cheney managed to outperform comedian Mo Rocca as night’s funnyman.

Donning a fishing hat and sunglasses, Cheney kicked off his remarks by noting his newfound popularity as fishermen — thanks to the speculation that a naked woman appeared as a reflection in the above photo. While Cheney kept the jokes mostly about himself, Rocca took a different tact and seemed to be gunning for specific attendees (Bill O’Reilly, Brian Williams and even Cheney) and just about everyone at MSNBC. It wasn’t surprising to see MSNBC host Joe Scarborough walk out early after the steady flow of insults hurled at the cable network no one watches.

NBC News’ David Gregory, the journalist who appeared drunk on “Imus” and proudly wears his bias on his sleeve during White House briefings, collected one of the night’s two awards. The other went to the absent Lara Logan of CBS News. Hers was presented by the late David Bloom’s three daughters in a wonderful tribute to their father.

After the dinner CNN competed against Fox News for the best nightcap. I headed to Russia House in Dupont Circle with my CNN friends. I had a wonderful time reminiscing with Melanie Buck (Wolf Blitzer’s producer and a high school friend of my wife), Chris Parks (a studio operator and Melanie’s fiancé) and Bethanie Chamberlain (a fellow Ithaca alum who was planning to forgo sleep to be ready to tape the Pope’s speech this morning). CNN’s Internet reporter, Abbi Tatton, was also there in good spirits. As I headed out the door, I ran into Romney’s former spokesman, Kevin Madden, who shows up on TV more often now than when Romney was in the race.

Props to CNN for putting on a great party. It was a thrill to attend. I hope I’m as lucky next year to score a ticket.

UPDATE — 3:54 p.m.: Everyone is raving about Cheney’s performance last night. Here’s the video:

The Week in the Blogosphere: Basra and the Surge

With the Iraq hearings wrapping up in Congress today, I encourage you to watch my Heritage Foundation colleague Conn Carroll on BloggingHeads.tv explain how the violence in Basra is as a preview of what would happen in Iraq should Barack Obama become president. Militia power in Basra became a factor largely due to the premature British withdrawal. Conn and Bill Scher of Liberal Oasis also cover topics such as John McCain’s economic platform and chat about pro-Hillary Clinton bloggers.

‘Leave Us Alone,’ Says Grover Norquist

Earlier this week the Heritage Foundation took its weekly Conservative Bloggers’ Briefing on the road to the offices of Americans for Tax Reform, where Grover Norquist gave an outstanding presentation about his new book, “Leave Us Alone: Getting Government’s Hands Off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives.”

As usual, David All and Joe Mansour have done a bang-up job over at TechRepublican reporting on the meeting. The Friends of ATR blog also has coverage of the event.

I took a bunch of video and finally got around to posting six clips on YouTube last night. They include Grover’s views on earmarks and transparency, the meaning of the “Leave Us Alone” coalition, why investors are so important to Republicans, and how tax-hiking Republicans destroy the GOP brand.

All Dressed Up for the Press Party

Missy and I attended the 25th annual National Press Foundation awards last night at the Hilton Washington Hotel. It was our second year at the dinner; Heritage regularly buys a table at the black-tie event.

With us were my Heritage colleagues Conn Carroll (with wife Wendi), Paul Gallagher (with wife Cindi), Izzy Ortega (with girlfriend Josie Rote), Audrey Jones and Eric Heis. Photos of the group are on Flickr.

This year turned out to be much more enjoyable. I ran into friends Shira Toeplitz of Roll Call, Jackie Kucinich of The Hill, Mike Steel of Minority Leader John Boehner’s office, Tory Mazzola of Sen. John Ensign’s office, J.P. Freire of the American Spectator, Amos Snead of FD Dittus Communications, and Carrie Sheffield of the Washington Times.

Heritage Makes Its Debut on Ustream.tv

About a month ago Brad Hunstable came to Heritage’s conservative bloggers’ lunch to tell us about Ustream.tv. I was sold immediately. In the time since, Ustream.tv made big news when the Republican National Convention announced it would be using the web-based video platform.

Heritage jumped on the bandwagon yesterday. We broadcast Sen. Jim DeMint’s speech about the Senate’s conservative agenda for 2008, and later in the day, Sen. Johnny Isakson’s speech on biennial budgeting.

The best part of Ustream.tv is the ability to embed the webcasts as they’re happening, which we did at The Foundry. Ustream.tv also featured both speeches on its homepage (see above) as they were happening. And for anyone who didn’t catch them live, they’re now available on our channel archive.

Heritage has webcast speeches for years on our own website. But taking this additional step will allow us to reach a whole new audience — and give users the ability to chat, leave comments and embed the code on their own blogs.

Heritage’s Lee Edwards to Be Honored at CPAC

There are few people who rival Lee Edwards for his knowledge and insight about the conservative movement. As the Heritage Foundation’s distinguished fellow in conservative thought, Edwards is the go-to guy for a historical perspective about conservatism. He’s also the author of one of my favorite books, “The Power of Ideas,” a book that chronicles the history of Heritage.

But that’s not the only reason we treasure Lee. Last year he was an influential playing in the dedication of Washington’s newest monument, a statue honoring the victims of communism. President Bush was on hand for the ceremony, and my colleague Andrew Blasko captured this great shot of the president thanking Lee for his work.

Lee will be honored with the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award tomorrow at CPAC. The award was established in 2005 to honor
individuals who have made outstanding contributions to journalism in the tradition of Reed Irvine by independently covering news that was misreported or ignored by the mainstream press.

The Vice President Visits My Office

The Heritage Foundation hosted Vice President Cheney today for a speech on FISA, the intelligence-gathering law that awaits congressional action before Feb. 1. The speech itself got mixed reviews, but topic couldn’t be more important to the debate on the war on terror. With Democrats threatening to delay action, Cheney sought to put pressure on lawmakers to act.

We posted the complete 15-minute speech (embedded below) on YouTube and have four shorter clips available if you want the abridged version. The complete text is on The Foundry.

While there weren’t nearly as many complications getting in and out of my office (located directly below the auditorium where Cheney spoke) as there were during President Bush’s visit in November, I still got booted temporarily and didn’t dare venture off the sixth floor.

Surviving Success in Washington and Beyond

I had the good fortune of eating dinner with Bob Herbold last night. The former COO of Microsoft and senior VP for marketing at Procter & Gamble was in town for Heritage’s all-staff meeting, where he delivered a lunchtime speech about his new book, “Seduced by Success.”

I highly recommend Herbold’s book, but as good as it is, sitting next to him and getting a firsthand taste of his experiences is unbeatable. At yesterday’s lunch, Herbold told stories about companies such as Kodak and IBM that became seduced by success and failed to adapt. Others like Apple took another road and found success adapting to change and empowering employees.

I’d like to think Heritage performs pretty well based on Herbold’s standards. (After all, he does sit on our board.) Even so, I heard from several people who picked up important tips; I personally plan to apply some immediately — keeping committees very small, reducing the number of meetings I attend, recruiting fresh talent to help Heritage keep pace, and challenging my employees not to grow too comfortable in their jobs.

Another thing I found interesting was Herbold’s answer to a question about his own professional development. When asked what he found most beneficial, Herbold said it was his ability to move from job to job and oversee new responsibilities. Not only did it keep him fresh, but it also provided a window into other aspects of the companies where he worked. At P&G, for instance, Herbold had a broad portfolio of jobs, beginning in computer science and taking him to market research and eventually the CIO before moving back to marketing. The same was true at Microsoft, where he was tapped by Bill Gates as the man who could fix all the operational “messes” at the company.

It’s interesting how I see my own career following a similar path, particularly in my last two jobs, where I was hired to do one thing and ended up taking on far different responsibilities. Of course, I can’t say I’m all that surprised. The same has been true of my father, who has spent a career playing the same kind of role.

Pick up Herbold’s book if you get a chance. I guarantee you’ll pick up some important tips about surviving success.