Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Soldier's Ethic Guides FCC's Powell

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 23:17:26 -0400

'Soldier's Ethic' Guides Powell At the FCC

Chairman gets advice from father, the General

By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 15, 2003; Page E01

Michael K. Powell can't seem to please anybody these days.

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission said the public
interest would be served if the agency overhauled its media ownership rules,
which it did in June. But 2 million members of the public told him otherwise
via e-mail and postcards.

He said Congress made him update the rules, to keep them current with the
changing media landscape. But members of both parties in both houses of
Congress disagreed, and voted over the summer to modify or wipe out the new
regulations.

He said the federal courts tossed out the old regulations, telling him to
come back with better ones. But when he did, one court issued an emergency
stay to stop them from taking effect in early September. Last week, a second
federal court told him that his thinking on cable lines and Internet service
providers is wrong, too.

All of which has turned Powell into one of most widely criticized men in
Washington, faulted by Republicans, Democrats, conservatives and liberals,
feminists, gun owners, big media companies, columnists and lawyers. Many
have called on him to resign but Powell, as recently as early this month,
insisted that he does not plan to do so.

By digging in and sticking to his policy prescriptions, Powell is following
the advice of one of his closest confidants: his father, Secretary of State
Colin L. Powell.

The Powell men e-mail nearly every day and talk on the phone when they can.
The entire family, including mother Alma and sisters Linda and Annemarie,
stays in close touch. When the secretary of state is in town, Sunday dinners
at his Virginia home are required. The 66-year-old secretary has provided
constant reassurance, a long-term perspective and "even a slap on the head"
to his son over the past few controversial months, the younger Powell said i
n a late-summer interview.

" 'Look -- this is a tough and controversial decision,' " Michael Powell,
40, said his father told him. " 'You're the easiest [way] to make this issue
accessible. The issue is very complex; have you heard the opposition express
their criticism in a complex way? No. It's a lot easier to blast the
messenger than deal with the substance of the issue.' "

The two men are alike in many ways, say those who know both -- the former
head of the joint chiefs of staff and the eager Army lieutenant.

"You can't know us if you don't know the soldier's ethic," Michael Powell
said.

For the younger Powell, the ethic was forged by a horrific accident in West
Germany in 1987, when the young officer was thrown from a tumbling Jeep that
bounced and landed on him, essentially breaking him in half. He spent the
next year on his back at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the year after
that learning to walk again. His back still causes him more pain than he
lets on.

For the elder Powell, the ethic formed in Vietnam, as he watched a failing
war firsthand. He experienced the many privations of soldiering, such as
being unable to attend the birth of his first child, Michael.

As head of the FCC, Powell has led the most sweeping overhaul of media
ownership rules in recent agency history. It largely has been up to him to
justify why it's a good idea to allow television networks such as CBS and
Fox to buy more stations and for newspapers and television stations to enter
into more cross-ownership arrangements.

On June 2, the FCC commissioners voted 3-2 to pass the new rules, with
Powell joined by the other two Republican commissioners, and opposed by the
commission's two Democrats. While the new rules relax television and
newspaper ownership, they also tighten radio ownership rules, but that
action was criticized by groups that believe the radio rules are still too
lax.

In late August, Powell attempted to address some of his critics by launching
FCC efforts to ensure that local radio and television stations serve local
audiences. Even that went over poorly.

"If he was an official in Japan, he would resign in shame," said Jeffrey A.
Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, which has
opposed Powell and the new rules. "He has alienated practically every member
of Congress and scores of interest groups."

Michael Powell said he tries not to take the criticism personally. Enter his
dad, whom Powell calls "an emotional and moral cheerleader."

"He helps me keep things in perspective," Michael Powell said. "He'll say,
'Oh, you got hit in this article; ha, ha, ha, ha. Well, here's 20 articles
from 10 years ago that said I was dead. When you get this, call me.' "

The Powell men are a rare and powerful dad-lad political combo, an reminder
of which hangs on a wall in the FCC chairman's office.

As keeper of the Great Seal of the United States, Secretary of State Powell
signed the presidential commission that granted his son the FCC chairmanship
in 2001. Close inspection of the framed document, also signed by President
Bush, shows that Colin Powell has punctuated his signature on the august and
official decree with a smiley face.

"People would be surprised," Michael Powell said. "We don't spend a lot of
time on the politics of this guy or that guy, or he's up to this stuff or
that stuff. We don't traffic in that all that much. We talk about how to be
successful, how to keep going and how to deal with the press and
controversy."

Exit rumors have swirled around Michael Powell. As observers have speculated
that he has been damaged by the media rules fight, there have been calls for
his resignation.

"Just because Congress wants to potentially change its mind about how many
stations you're going to be allowed to own in a market, I should quit?"
Powell said. "I don't think so."

The Bush administration has threatened to veto any congressional attempt to
overturn the FCC's media rules.

"Chairman Powell is doing an outstanding job of leadership of the FCC and
the president very much appreciates his service," White House spokesman
Scott McClellan said yesterday.

Powell has said he believes his ultimate audience on the media rules is the
courts, not the public. But his refusal to play politics has hurt him.
Powell was outmaneuvered and frustrated by fellow FCC commissioner Michael
J. Copps, a Democrat and longtime chief of staff to Sen. Ernest F. Hollings
(D-S.C.). A relentless foe of Powell's on the media rules, Copps traveled
the country, building a constituency in opposition, effectively reducing a
complex, two-year FCC study and decision-making process to a concise
message: Powell and the Republicans on this FCC want to hand control of the
media to general-purpose bogeyman Rupert Murdoch and his ilk.

"I am sometimes surprised to the degree to which the death of our democracy
is reported as if that might really happen," Powell said "Hitler didn't
bring down democracy. Stalin didn't bring down democracy. Civil war didn't
bring down democracy. I don't think television in America is going to bring
down democracy."

Former FCC chairman Reed E. Hundt, an occasional Powell critic, said the
current chairman is the product of his times.

"Mike Powell has had the very bad luck of inheriting businesses in trouble,"
Hundt said, referring to the struggling telecom industry. "Under those
circumstances, pressure is brought to bear on a regulator. It's like being
at the bottom of an abyss. It's crushing."

However, Hundt said Powell has reacted in an "idiosyncratic" fashion by
ignoring the court of public opinion, which Copps plays to.

"Most people in public office say their audience is not the judiciary but
society," Hundt said.

At about the same time his father was testifying before the United Nations
in February, trying to rally world support against Saddam Hussein, Michael
Powell presided over a public hearing on the new media rules at the
convention center in Richmond. Several people walked to the microphone and
said they were worried about the media growing larger and potentially more
influential.

Toward the end, an editor for a Philadelphia leftist publication called
Insubordination Magazine, blamed the news media in heated tones for
promoting the administration's war on Iraq. This was the inevitable result,
he said, of Michael Powell being the son of a "war criminal."

Powell said nothing, but a storm crossed his face that suggested he was but
one barely-restrained second from coming out of his leather swivel chair at
the guy. You can't know us if you don't know the soldier's ethic. An FCC
staff member who was there said it took a substantial act of will for Powell
to remain silent.

"You can imagine that a son is wired to defend the honor of his father," the
staff member said.

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26728-2003Oct14.html

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