Since Lambert, at Corrente, doesn't seem to know why a big Republican conference was held ina building named "The Gaylord Auditorium," and since this had too many links for Haloscan to allow posting it as a comment there, here ya go:

The Gaylord family, through its ownership of the Oklahoma Publishing Company (OPUBCO), has dominated Oklahoma news media for a century. They did this by owning Oklahoma City's most powerful radio and TV stations and the state's largest newspaper, The Oklahoman, which was noted as The Worst Newspaper in America in 1999.

OPUBCO sold WKY (930 AM) to Citadel Broadcasting in 2003, but it still owns the Oklahoman, and still partners with WKY for news. OPUBCO was forced by FCC regulations in 1975 to sell WKY-TV channel 4. These are the same media regulations that prohibit the current FCC has tried to overturn in the past few years, barring owning too many different outlets in a single market. The station has been sold a few times and is now KFOR-TV, owned by the New York Times Company.

None of this has stopped OPUBCO from putting its mark on Oklahoma.

The CJR mentions Edward L. Gaylord, son of OPUBCO's founder. He died in 2003. The newer generation isn't quite as determiend to let ideology trump news, but that's not saying a whole lot. As part of its media strategy, the Gaylord family diverged into entertainment starting in the 1970s. The family currently expresses this through Gaylord Entertainment, owners of Gaylord Hotels, ResortQuest, the Grand Ole Opry, the Ryman Auditorium that hosts the Opry, WSM Radio, and before any of that, the Opryland resort and hotel. The Gaylord family also owns 35% of Bass Pro Shops, a fact it did not disclose while OPUBCO was pushing hard for a tax exemption for Bass Pro in Oklahoma City.

The newspaper was always conservative, but until E.L. Gaylord took over from his father, the founder E.K. Gaylord, it was at least a journalistic enterprise. E.L. had absolutely no interest in putting the news ahead of ultra-right-wing politics, and he shredded the newspaper's reputation, both locally and nationally. In recent years, including just before his death, the family has tried to rehabilitate that somewhat with massive donations to the University of Oklahoma. The Sooners play on Owen Field, but thanks to a massive donation by the family to complete and expansion to Oklahoma Memorial Stadium (named for the university's students who gave their lives in various wars) is now officially known as "The Gaylord Family - Oklahoma Memorial Stadium at Owen Field." No locals use that name, not even the TV stations.

In the past year, the university also opened a technologically state-of-the-art journalism school and center, the home what is now known as the Gaylord School of Journalism. Suggestions that it be placed near the Richard Nixon School of Domestic Political Ethics have, to date, fallen on deaf ears.

Update: WKY-AM ownership information corrected thanks to Charles and the magic of trackback.

Well, maybe not, but in a 5-4 decision today, the Supreme Court ruled that local governments can invoke eminent domain and seize land for "economic development," even if the land is not in an economically undeveloped area, and even if all the state intends to do is take your seized land and turn around and sell it to a private developer for a shopping mall.

The government could always do this to build things like roads or schools, and even sometimes to turn besotted areas into less disastrous ones, but this is a new thing. Remember those classic stories of the little old lady who didn't want to sell her house to the company building the shopping mall, so they built around her, or they paid her $20 million, or whatever? No more - now, if the company can't get the land at the price they want, all they have to do is get the local government to take it from her at "fair market value" and resell it to the developer at the same price.

If a really connected company like Halliburton wants your land, then according to today's decision, there's nothing you can do to stop them from getting their paid legislators to take it from you. This is a bad decision, and a disappointing one, and it's also the first time I can remember that all nine justices wound up voting for the side I thought they wouldn't. Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer voted in the majority; Rehnquist, O'Connor, Scalia, and Thomas dissented.

According to SCOTUSBlog, though, this may not be quite the unlimited power grab that, quite honestly, it really appears to be:

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, in a separate opinion in the property rights case (Kelo v. New London, 04-108), appears to have put city governments on notice that they can go too far in using the added power that the Court seems to have given them to seize land for economic development.

The majority opinion by Justice John Paul Stevens sought to put off to the future any correction in the breadth of the new decision. Stevens dismissed "hypothetical cases" raised by property-owners, saying those "can be confronted if and when they arise." Those concerns, Stevens added, "do not warrant the crafting of an artificial restriction on the concept of public use."

Kennedy was not so reticent. Although he joined the Stevens opinion in full, it is clear from his concurring opinion that he sensed that the prospect of abuse was more evident than Stevens had acknowledged. Since his vote was necessary for the city of New London to prevail, his separate opinion in some sense may be said to be controlling.

According to Kennedy, if an economic development project favors a private developer, "with only incidental or pretextual public benefits," that would not be tolerated even by applying the minimum standard of "rational basis review."

[…] Kennedy was employing a technique raised to the level of a science by the late Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. -- join a majority opinion, but then add a concurrence that softened the edges somewhat. It is a technique that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is also good at deploying now and then.

No doubt, land-use lawyers trying to protect existing property users will now spend considerable time and energy developing arguments to exploit the opening that Kennedy's opinion appears to have created. At the same time, lawyers for city governments bent on calling in private developers no doubt will be giving their clients stern advice on how to proceed in order to avoid running afoul of Kennedy's presumption of "an impermissible private purpose."

(Via SCOTUSblog.)

Update: Neither Nathan Newman nor Scott Lemieux (writing at Ezra Klein's place) think this was the wrong decision.

For how many years is this pattern going to continue?

1. A Republican or several Republicans launch a blatant, divisive, plain-as-the-nose-on-your face partisan attack against a Democrat or all Democrats.
2. Democrats point out the factual existence of this partisan attack and demand that it be retracted, or that the attackers be held responsible.
3. Republicans respond by accusing Democrats of blatant, divisive partisan attacks for pointing out the factual existence of their own partisan attack against Democrats.

My guess is, "For as long as the press lets them get away with it." Today's crystal-clear example:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- White House adviser Karl Rove should either apologize or resign for saying liberals responded to the September 11 terrorist strikes by wanting to "prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers," Democrats said Thursday.

[…] Bush's chief political adviser, Rove said in a speech Wednesday that "liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers." Conservatives, he told the New York state Conservative Party just a few miles north of Ground Zero, "saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war."

Rove said the Democratic Party made the mistake of calling for "moderation and restraint" after the terrorist attacks.

[…] The White House defended Rove's remarks and accused Democrats of engaging in partisan attacks. Rove, said spokesman Scott McClellan, "was talking about the different philosophies and our different approaches when it comes to winning the war on terrorism."

I'd bet a quarter that not one of the talking head shows calls the White House on its continued, blatant hypocrisy. It works for the GOP so well because the press will not call them on it at all, in any arena.

• In GOP-world, saying Democrats coddle terrorists is not a partisan attack, but pointing out that they said it is an attack against them.

• Sending troops to die in Iraq is "supporting" them, but acknowledging their sacrifice is a "publicity stunt."

• Taking money from the poor to give to the rich is not class warfare, but pointing out that they're doing it is class warfare.

• Attacking gay Americans is not bigotry, but pointing out that they're attacking gay Americans is bigotry against their "Christian values."

If the parties were reversed, the Republicans would mention a Democratic White House Chief of Staff's transgression in every interview, on every talk show, and to every reporter, in every context, until he apologized. Then they would call on the President to fire him anyway, and keep that up until they either got a big concession on something (like eliminating the income tax for people making over $2,000,000 per year) or until the CoS was fired. They'd see it as an opportunity to take down an effective opponent, and they would not stop until they'd succeeded or until they got counter-attacked, something they're not used to experiencing.

Calling for an apology is not enough. If they can't hang this around Karl Rove's neck and make it weigh more than Howard Dean's scream, what the hell are they doing representing the party? All Tim Russert is going to care about is whether or not Howard Dean will scream again. Democrats have to do this on their own.