SC Press Association awards

The S.C. Press Association held its annual meeting on Friday and gave out awards.
I received three awards:
• A first place award for best single front in a small weekly, for a page done for The Lake City News & Post;
• A first place award for best front page design portfolio, for three pages done for The Hartsville Messenger; and
• A third place award for best single front page for the The Hartsville Messenger.
I didn't get to go to pick up my plaques, so I missed out on seeing some old friends.
I am particularly thrilled with the performance of my colleagues at The News & Reporter in Chester. They won at least 23 awards, most ever, and won first place in General Excellence for two- to three times weekly papers. We were doing almost that good when I was there, but never better than third in General Excellence. Travis Jenkins certainly has them rolling along.
Proud of him. Hope they are paying him better than they paid me, because he's earning it.

Funeral for a friend: Jim Davenport

The funeral in Columbia on Friday for the Associated Press’s Jim Davenport was not what I expected it to be, and probably not what most attending it expected it to be.

He was, quite simply, the best reporter in the state. During the bulk of his career, nobody talked much about that. Not until he took a leave of absence from the AP two years ago to begin his fight against cancer. He came back, worked as hard as he always did until very close to the end. But a few weeks ago, I sent him a message on his AP Twitter account and I got a message back saying it had been discontinued.

He worked on stories up until a few months ago, but then it was time to go home and wait.

Jim Davenport, if you browse the blogs and the S.C. Press Association, read the obituaries on the Associated Press and in the State newspaper, was there when a lot of the most recent history in the state of South Carolina was made.

The general public, on larger scale stories, does not recognize or care about bylines unless a story has something they want to challenge or dismiss. They want to find out who wrote this or that, find out what political party they ascribe to so they can say, “Oh, see, he’s a Democrat out to get Republicans.” More rarely, but still in South Carolina, the opposite has been said.

I have seen no one say that about Jim Davenport.

When Jim Hodges was governor of South Carolina, Jim Davenport asked him challenging questions, and wrote stories that Jim Hodges did not like. When Mark Sanford took over, Jim asked challenging questions and wrote challenging stories.

A lot of people, particularly those who feel themselves victimized by reporters, say that it is impossible to be objective.

Jim Davenport was objective, through and through.

If the average South Carolinian knows him, they know him because he is the guy who first broke news that S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford was “missing,” with a spokesman saying the governor had chosen, on a Father’s Day weekend, to take a hike on the Appalachian Trail. After making call after call, Jim Davenport got through to the former First Lady and the former wife of the governor. Jenny Sanford told him, in terse language, she didn’t know where the governor was.

Jim wrote down the line, but with just enough juice to let the whole world know what Jenny Sanford had communicated to him. She wasn’t happy with the governor.

And the story blossomed until the governor was outed as having taken a trip or two to Venezuela during his term in office to meet a “paramour.”

Jim wasn't there when Sanford got off the plane from Venezuela from his Father's Day trip, but I contend no reporter would have been there to meet him if not for Jim's scoop.

It was just one of many "gets" in his career. A "get" in newspapers isn't just when you "get" a politician in a pickle, though it includes many of those. A get is a big story.

Jim was there when the agreement to bring down the Confederate flag from atop the State House was signed – on a Confederate flag, no less.

His obituary from the AP said he helped lead the first statewide audit of statewide FOIA compliance among local officials, which I contend is wrong. We've only had two, and yes, he organized the first. But he also organized the second. The only thing I think I ever helped do for Jim was after the second. I made a point to tell the S.C. Press Association director that Jim deserved some kind of recognition for that work. He got a special commendation from the SCPA a little while later.

When the second FOI audit was done, I was editor in Chester. I was asked to head back to my old stomping grounds of Chesterfield County and see how that sheriff was doing. "Big Sam" Parker wasn't sheriff when I left, and I had met him once or twice, but the odds were his new office people wouldn’t know me. They didn't, and they balked at releasing information that state law says had to be released immediately.

With both audits, the results were taken and used by the lobbyists for the SCPA to request improvements in the law, since it wasn't working as well as it was intended to work. I don't think the law is great, in practical, day-to-day usage. It can be and is abused too easily by public officials every day. But it is stronger now than it was 20 years ago because of those FOI audits. Because of Jim.

On the SCPA website, there is an obituary for Jim, and also a 23-minute "oral history" video clip, an interview with Jim about the stories he covered and the battles he won.

Because Jim Davenport took a look at the law and figured out the clear meaning of the law said the party legislative caucuses, in this modern era the GOP caucuses, were public bodies themselves because they received public money and all the real discussion of public policy seemed to be done at that level, so Jim tried to cover them. They tried to keep Jim out.

They lost.

When Mark Sanford held his first cabinet meeting, this candidate who had run on a platform of openness tried to have a closed-door meeting. Jim objected, and struck the first blow in the fight to get them open.

I don't remember if the first was open or not, but there was a brief period of fussing and negotiation back and forth. State law was changed, with negotiations from Sanford and staff, requiring the cabinet to meet, at least at the beginning, in the open, but allowing it, if necessary, to be closed for certain topics. In other words, it had to perform as any other public body.

Sanford and his supporters might think with that change in the law that they had won the point. But no other cabinet meeting under Sanford was closed to the public, at any time.

Point Davenport.

In one other instance, mentioned on the oral history, when the legislature switched to being controlled by the Republican Party, Sen. Harvey Peeler, Jim recalls, wanted to close an early meeting in the session to remove state Sen. Hugh Leatherman from his post as leader of the Senate Finance Committee. Leatherman, at the time, was still a Democrat.

Peeler wanted to do that behind closed doors. Jim found out about, tried to get the new GOP leadership to commit to doing it in the open, but as a body, it wouldn't commit. So Jim approached senators one by one until he found one who said, "You been fair to me," and let Jim enter the chamber with him. When Sen. Peeler made a move to have Jim removed, other senators, either believing in transparency a bit more than originally thought, or perhaps sensing the negative headlines that might result from ejecting a reporter while trying to punish a politician for suddenly being on the wrong side of the aisle after an election, voted to let Jim stay. I don't think Leatherman was pushed out, either.

Jim was there for a lot of the history that has been made in the past 13 years, and the one thing everyone said about Jim was he was fair, objective. And he was great.

If you met friends, you might hear tales about guy with a wicked, slightly off sense of humor. Goofy smile. He used to be part of our card game for a couple of years back in college.

Being at his funeral, a lesson I learned was I need to know my friends better, and I need to not compartmentalize them so much.

But the really surprising thing about that funeral, which had a sizable contingent of journalists at it, and perhaps a public official or two, though I didn't catch any, was that the funeral wasn't about Jim Davenport, the mover of events, the rattler of government cages, Jim, the just-damn good reporter.

The funeral was a mass, and it was about Jim Davenport, the Catholic. I don't remember it ever coming up when we were back at USC, but of course, for most kids, particularly those taking a liberal dose of liberal arts classes, your religion isn't a topic of discussion at college. And if it had come up then, well, I had begun a long period of serious lapsing, so it probably wouldn't have made us any closer. We were buds who played some cards, worked on student publications together, made jokes about the student reporters who thought they were good but ... weren't. And we made a LOT of jokes about the university president.

But in the intervening years, I lapsed less and less and have tried to make a better go of my faith.

I knew Jim was married and had heard him talk about his wife a few times. But I didn't know he was a father.

If you knew Jim Davenport at all, you probably knew the reporter. But to the priest giving the sermon at the funeral mass, his career went almost unmentioned.

It couldn't go completely unmentioned, because, if the priest wasn’t sure, I can guarantee it for him. Jim was a good reporter, and he was the kind of reporter he was, because he was a good Catholic.

In the movie "The Siege," Denzel Washington plays a goody-two-shoes, completely-by-the-book, black-and-white, good-and-evil, never-the-twain-shall-meet FBI agent. He was, simply put, too good to be true, and I was on the verge of writing the movie off. But halfway through, Annette Bening's fallen-from-grace CIA agent says she has been sizing him up.

She says, "Catholic school boy," and he replies, "St. Raymond's, in the Bronx."

The first time I saw it, I actually shouted out in the movie theater. I realized that there was a possibility he could be that good and that uncompromising. I think the character might have been talking about the boys' high school and not the elementary school, which I attended. But the indoctrination in what is good and bad and what is fair was strict at both.

It was an "aha" moment.

When I saw St. Joseph's Catholic Church listed as the place of his funeral mass in the obituary, I had the same kind of moment.

"Well, that certainly explains it," I said.

Being a good reporter (or fictional FBI agent, for that matter) isn't the province of a parochial school or even of the Catholic faith. Goodness and fairness is taught in many places.. I am not saying you have to be a good Catholic to be a good reporter. Too many good reporters have been without faith.

But Jim Davenport was as good as he was because he was a Catholic. It had to inform his sense of fairness, but also his dedication to his readers. He believed in the truth, both little t and big T.

I didn't catch the name of the priest who said Jim's mass and gave the sermon. But during that sermon, he talked about Jim's love of his faith, and of its symbols. I've not been to enough funerals to know even what a full-bore Catholic funeral mass might be. The one I remember most, my Aunt Kathleen's, I remember as much for the fact that I was allowed to give a eulogy for her, and Catholics generally don't allow eulogies.

But this priest, I think, sensed he was going to have an audience he might not normally have in attendance. I think he knew he was going to have a higher percentage of non-Catholics. So he went over carefully, the symbols used. A white pall was put over the casket. This is used as a remembrance of baptism, when Catholic children are put in a white baptismal gown (even us guys). There was a candle, like the candle given at baptism. The casket was sprinkled with water, again, a reminder of baptism, which our faith tells us removes the taint of original sin and sets the clock anew for us, giving us a chance to make our way to heaven.

And incense was used. It was used back in the ancient days to remove bad odors, but it is considered a pleasing fragrance, both to man and to God.

The incense rises, the priest said, as if going to God, to ask if Jim had led a "fragrant life," one pleasing to the Lord.

The priest had made clear that Jim was a very good Catholic. Jim didn't go through the motions, and he had his beliefs.

I never knew that about my friend, or that he had a daughter. We were both journalists, USC grads, card players, scoundrels (at times). But we didn't share with each other perhaps the two most meaningful "traits."

Catholics, and fathers.

I will miss my friend for what I did know about him, but I will miss him even more for what I found out too late about him.

My parish priest likes to confuse people, not on purpose. But he asks all the time, "Do you want to be a saint?" And people tell him no. He is shocked, he says, shocked.

If he asked, "Do you want to go to heaven?" they would of course say yes. They just don't want to be saints to do it. But the questions are one in the same. To go to heaven is to be a saint, and to be a saint, one must be worthy to go to heaven, head to the front of the line.

We are called to be saints, my priest says frequently. Everyone is called to be saints, and Catholics have no excuse for not knowing that is their calling.

So like I said, I was surprised during that funeral mass for my old drinking buddy.

It sounded, I swear I do not exaggerate, like the funeral mass for someone who might be a saint, and if not, is on the express elevator through Purgatory.

If so, an awesome story. And a roomful of the best reporters in the state of South Carolina might have missed it.

AP Reporter Jim Davenport dies

AP Reporter Jim Davenport dies

I saw this news first in an article on The State newspaper, which burns a bit.
Jim Davenport was always smiling. Except when he was on a story, and he was dogged and serious beyond belief.
I once had an editor tell me I was an iconoclast. I had to look it up. It's someone who shatters deeply held beliefs. But that was Jim, actually.
Journalists have a saying. "If you're Grandma says she loves you, check it out."
That was Jim. He would work a story to the bone, and if it was true, overwhelm you with the facts. If it wasn't, once he knew for sure it wasn't, he would happily move on to the next, none the wiser probably that they had Jim Davenport on their heels.
So why does it burn to read it from The State? Two reasons.
First, there is a widely held misconception that Gina Smith of The State is the reporter who took former S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford out over his scandalous trip to Venezuela on Father's Day weekend to see his paramour.
Gina Smith is a decent reporter. She was the one at the airport when Sanford got off the plane. But she doesn't flip a coin with a fellow reporter to see who got to drive down to Atlanta to meet that plane if not for Jim Davenport's initial reporting on this story. Jim broke it wide open. He got the first tip about Sanford being missing in action a few years back. He broke open his list of phone numbers and got cranking. In his list was a direct line to the island home of the first family, and he talked to former First Lady Jenny Sanford, who told him she had no idea where her husband was. The direct quotes he got and used were tantalizing enough that it put other reporters on the trail.
Jim Davenport, before and after, owned that story because he got the scoop. He later built a ton of additional scoops on top of it, about Sanford's use of state planes and private planes to travel. In the end,
It's not a knock on Gina Smith. Just the fundamental way I understand scoops and building stories.
Gov. Mark Sanford had to pay what still remains the biggest ethics fine in state history, and that started because Jim Davenport asked questions.
That's all he did, really. Ask questions. If the answers were -- if the truh was -- that Mark Sanford had used those planes and traveled completely in accord with state policy and law, there's no story. But Sanford did otherwise, and Jim's questions led to the truth being revealed. Again.
The second reason it burns, a little like indigestion, is that a prior story run in the The State about Jim Davenport receiving the Order of the Palmetto for his work, written by The State, showed them taking a little pride in Jim's award. Jim used to work for The State, you see.
He started out as a business reporter, but moved over into government coverage. He has made his mark, at the AP, as a government reporter. Why not at The State?
Many years back, as some friends and I gathered, with Jim, to have a night of poker and steaks in remembrance of another mutual friend who had passed on, Jim told me why he had left the state.
I only have his version, but I tend to believe it, having run into, on other occasions, some of the others involved. Let's just say his editor wouldn't let Jim be Jim and ask questions about a political ad being run by  former Gov. Jim Hodges. Jim wanted to "truth squad" the ad.
It might not have led to a different result in the election. But the voters would have been better served had the questionable ad been vetted.
Jim was out the door pretty soon afterward, because his bosses didn't back him up. 13 years at the Associated Press have proved The State made a pretty stupid decision.
Jim didn't want to vet the ad because he was a Republican trying to slam a Democrat. There are plenty of Republicans, Sanford included, who would say they are sure Jim was a Democrat because of the way he went after them. But he was never going after them. He was going after the truth. He didn't take sides, ever. He just asked questions, and he sent an example for most reporters in this state that they sadly do not come close to living up to.
That example, through countless stories, was something Jim gave me time and time again.
I can only say I did one thing for Jim. Well, other than helping him proof some pages and copy editing one very poorly written story for Portfolio Magazine at the University of South Carolina, back in the day.
The official story from the AP says that Jim Davenport organized the "first" audit of public officials' compliance with the Freedom of Information Act. That is true, but leaves out important information. Jim Davenport organized ALL the audits of the public officials' compliance with the FOIA. When I was editor at The People-Sentinel in Barnwell, I got a call from Jim Davenport or from Bill Rogers, executive director of the S.C. Press Association, asking if we would be willing to cooperate in a project.
Essentially, our reporters would go to communities that we never covered and would ask for records at police, sheriff's departments, county, city and school government offices. We would ask for records we know would have to be turned over immediately, and see what happened.
Reporters from other communities would come to Barnwell and Allendale counties and do the same. Because while the FOIA exists for the public at large, it is used primarily by media outlets and reporters tend to get treated more favorably than the public at large. That's what we learned.
That was back in the '90s.
In the 2000s, Jim decided we ought to do it again.
They did all the counties in the state except one, because something happened to a person. Because Rogers knew I had worked in Chesterfield County from 1994 to 1997, he knew I would know where to go to get some information. So I drove over to Chesterfield, went to the courthouse, the Sheriff's Office and asked for some routine police reports that would have to be turned over. I did not get them.
It gave Jim and crew another piece of data for the second audit of public officials compliance with the law.
Jim believed in freedom of information, and he didn't just complain about being personally stonewalled at time, which is what most newspapers and most reporters do. He did something about it. He got hundreds of people involved asking questions and proved that the FOIA is not quite followed as it ought to be.
A publisher boss of mine once told me while we preparing some background information on a local humanitarian type fellow who was dying that it issad we always wait for their deaths to run those stories.
"They should smell the roses," he said.
I said I don't have to wait until he died to run it. But I did have some more information to gather and that person did not get to smell the roses, unfortunately.
Jim got to smell the roses, I believe.
The one thing I did for Jim, after participating in that FOIA audit and hearing a couple of names of people that were going to be recognized by the S.C. Press Association, was mention to Bill Rogers that we should do something to recognize Jim Davenport. I didn't know what, but I made my feelings known.
I later heard from someone, somewhere, the SCPA had indeed given a special award to Jim Davenport.
Jim's obituary makes mention he was awarded the Order of the Palmetto. I am frankly surprised Gov. Nikki Haley went to such lengths to award it to him personally. It says she actually went to his house and visited with him for more than an hour before giving him the award. My wife thinks it went so long because Jim probably took the opportunity to grill her about something.
The Order of the Palmetto is the top award that can be given to a civilian in South Carolina for service to the state. With the short shrift given to the media these days, particularly to newspaper folk, particularly by conservatives, it is a stunning testament to his ability to do his job with excellence both in coverage and excellence in being fair.
My college experience with him was of him as the editor of Portfolio. A literary magazine with some reporting in it. His predecessor tried to make it more newsy. He continued that. His successors tried it to. So, as his obit says, he caught the news bug at USC. I can't say I was there when the greatness began. I think I was down the hall a couple of doors, however, when greatness began.
He was this goofball, with this huge smile, his eyes hidden behind the thickest Coke-bottle glasses on the planet. My picture of the man is him sitting at a dive of a rental house, under the water tower in Columbia, just off campus, staring at his poker cards, laughing as he or one of us recited a friend's mantra at the beginning of each hand.
That goofball I remember, that is the man, just a bud among drinking buddies. I can't believe he is gone.
But the byline, "By Jim Davenport, The Associated Press." I am thunderstruck that that awesome one is gone.
South Carolina is poorer for this loss.
When you seem him, Jim, say hello to Son, and I hope you have some nickels.
"Five will get you in the game."
RIP.

The 2012 Christmas Letter

I've had a long-standing tradition of writing a year-in-review Christmas letter for my cards. Started before I met my lovely bride. Since meeting and dating her, had a lot more stuff to write about.

People on the Christmas card get first dibs, but here it is now.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Friends and family,

Once more unto the breach, dear friends. Once more.

Yes ... the letter at Christmas. We are come to it again.

I’m doing better than last year, at which time I wrote the letter on Christmas Eve. Still, we are days from it.

The year in review for the Guilfoyles  has some highs, some highers and a couple of not lows, but not greats.

I remain a copy editor and page designer working in Hickory, N.C., designing newspaper pages for the Florence, S.C., group of papers since October of 2010. That sets a milestone for me. Twice before I had worked in North Carolina, and the longest of those jobs lasted just seven months. The other just three. So in two prior jobs, I had not managed to work a full year in North Carolina. I’ve been at it more than two years now. 

It remains a nice job, but it’s a LONG commute with terrible  hours. But it keeps me in newspapers until I can figure out a better long term move.

I won three design awards in the S.C. Press Association annual contest, including a first place, so I’ve still “got it.”

Patricia is now firmly ensconced in the Diocese of Charlotte N.C. She is the editor of the Catholic News Herald. She is considered pretty valuable, though sometimes I don’t think she realizes how much. But I see the way some folks react to her and what they say to her. I don’t say it often enough, but I’m pretty proud of her. She actually, just days before, got a pretty major scoop on a story related to the HHS mandate. Her web reporter says her story became the primary source for it on the Google. Maybe on the entire Internets.

Her website is really taking off, thanks to the redesign she did, and the reporter she hired. Her other reporter twice went overseas, one time on pilgrimage and another time on an “ad limina” visit our bishop made with others to visit the pope.

One of the biggest things for both of us professionally brought something we never thought could happen -- we worked together, somewhat. She got a credential for her paper to cover the Democratic National Convention, which was held in Charlotte this year. In her preparations, she wanted someone who is, unfortunately for his eternal soul, more of a reporter than a Catholic, but Catholic nonetheless. And so I freelanced to cover the convention. 

She wrote some stories as well, and we tried to get the Catholic take on issues as locked in stone as abortion and contraception but others with more common ground such as immigration and health care.

I had take time off from my regular job to do this project for her, but I loved it. I have links to all my stories on my blog (address below) but I summed the whole experience up in my essay, “How I spent my summer vacation.” I spent it working. But it was a huge event to cover, and I wrote a ton of stories in a short period of time. Spending a lot more time doing just editing and design, I sometimes wonder if I can still do the reporting that I love so much. This proved I can.

Normally I just write to comply with AP Style, but this time Patricia and the rest of her staff had some extra work making sure that what I wrote also confirmed the catechism.

I wrote a couple of other stories from some S.C. papers, took a few pictures here or there. I live tweeted and took Internet video, the most interesting an interview with a woman, a man and a polar bear. You read that right. It’s on my blog. 

On the health front, I had surgery on my right eye in April and was out of work for about a month convalescing. Got to watch “The West Wing” on DVD. All of them. And I was stir crazy after a week. The right eye still has a stitch in it, but the vision is much better. That, coupled with a new special contact lens for my left eye led to my seeing a meteor, HUGE one, on my way back home in December. A Geminid meteor. Never seen one really before. It was amazing. 

Now with all the career junk out of the way, we turn to the most important topic of our family life. We have to say that sometimes it seems like our days just run together and we don’t get to do much. But then we look back and realize it has been a pretty amazing year for our son, Stephen Christopher. He has been on a few adventures with Mommy, and he has embarked on new chapters.

He is now 6, if you can believe it. He got a party from his aunties and uncle in Spartanburg, then one with a few friends here.

He “graduated” from his pre-school, Field of Dreams, and started kindergarten in September. 

His teacher, Mrs. Knox, remarks frequently how bright he is.

Another adventure for him was a recent trip he took with his mommy. In July, he went down to Florida to visit his cousins, Grandma and Grandpa Larson and aunt and uncle.

But a couple weeks back, he made the same trip, but this time he rode down on an Amtrak train. The hours of the train trip are not great, leaving Columbia at like 1 a.m. to arrive in Palatka, south of Grandpa’s house, around 8 a.m. And coming back, it’s leave at 10ish to arrive at 4 a.m. But it removes a lot of worry I have about them driving. It also is about the same cost as it would be paying for gasoline down and back. He enjoyed it.

Patricia is really good about framing trips like that as adventures, and he responds well to them.

She also took him to the mountains to go panning for gold and jewels. He got some really shiny ... rocks. But they are treasures to him.

As I wrote last year, he continues to amaze us, all the time. On top of everything else, he is basically a sweet, sweet kid.

Harry and Annie are doing well, though Harry continues to get a little bit more cranky, a little bit more lazy every day.

We know we haven’t been around or been in touch as much as we could. We are doing well, but our life is just non-stop hectic most days, so that when we get some free time together, we just generally want to do something quick and easy and together. But never doubt our affection.

Have a merry Christmas. (Email still the best way to reach me. I check it every day.)

We love you.

Stephen, Patricia, Stephen Christopher, Harry and Annie

December 20, 2012

The FIRST Rule of Editing

In promulgating your esoteric cogitations or articulating your superficial sentimentalities and amicable, philosophical or psychological observations, beware of platitudinous ponderosity. Let your conversational communications demonstrate a clarified conciseness, a compact comprehensibleness, no coalescent conglomerations of flatulent garrulity, jejune bafflement and asinine affectations. Let your extemporaneous verbal evaporations and expatriations have lucidity, intelligibility and veracious vivacity without rodomontade or Thespian bombast. Sedulously avoid all polysyllabic profundity, pompous propensity, psittaceous vacuity, ventriloquial verbosity and vaniloquent vapidity. Shun double-entendres, obnoxious jocosity and pestiferous profanity, observable or apparent.

In other words:

Say what you mean and DON'T USE BIG WORDS!

This is the first-ever rule of editing I got, from my father, years ago, before I knew I would be a writer.

It actually comes from the pages of his little black book. In the days before smart phones and such, heck, before transistor radios, men had little black books. Most used them to keep phone numbers for the gals they knew.

Not my dad.

He had jokes, lots of them. An occasional photo of an Air Force bud. Things like that.

And the above rule of editing.

Throughout my career, it has been a problem with most of the writers with whom I have worked.

Shared credit

In his latest column, which is carried by the Morning News of Florence, Michael Reagan, adopted son of the former president, tries to make the point that it is President Barack Obama's self-aggrandizing style and share-no-credit attitude that has kept him from, in his words, failing to accomplish anything in his entire life, not just his first term.

He asks;

Did you hear how many times the president said “I” or “me” during the last debate? Did anyone hear a single “we”?

Yes. I heard President Obama say the word “we” in the debate. So I checked a transcript. He used the word we.

19 times, actually. 

In answering the FIRST question. 

Some were the “royal” we, but all Presidential candidates do that. In fact, Gov. Romney did the same thing in his response to the President. Some were the collective we. Some it could truly function as an I or an us.

But there was one definitive, non-royal use of the word We by the president in that first response.

We stand with them, he said. The Libyan people are the “them.” The We? Not him.

The American people.

It is safe to say the president believes in sharing credit.

Mr. Reagan, too, is someone who definitely believes in the concept of shared credit. He’s built a career on it. That is, on him sharing credit with his father for the things his father did and he had no part in.

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