His supporters say Werbach’s talents and enthusiasm outweigh his shortage of experience. In particular, they like his innocence of Beltway politics. Club dissidents have been grousing that the organization has become too much an old boys’ club that, to curry favor with other Washington insiders, takes timid positions. Exhibit A: a membership vote in April went 2 to 1 in favor of banning logging in national forests even though the board of directors had long shied from such an absolutist stance. David Brower, at 83 the cantankerous conscience of the club, says, ““With Adam I think we’ve found the trail again.''
This week Werbach plans to meet with MTV artists to organize public-service messages, part of his goal to ““reach out to the American public through emerging media, through art, through fashion, through music’’ – all of which may rekindle support among his fellow Gen-Xers. To him, ““citizen involvement is still power in this country.’’ A very nice sentiment, says Sierra critic Tim Hermach of the Oregon-based Native Forest Council. But Hermach would like to hear more about new directions and less about new media. In his view, Werbach is a ““good kid with a good head and a good heart,’’ but he worries that ““the kid’’ won’t be able to change the club beyond winning some nice publicity. The real power still sits with the board members, and they weren’t born yesterday.
