Don Henley- Heart of the Matter

These times are so uncertain
There's a yearning undefined
...People filled with rage
We all need a little tenderness
How can love survive in such a graceless age
The trust and self-assurance that can lead to happiness
They're the very things we kill, I guess
Pride and competition cannot fill these empty arms
And the work I put between us,
Doesn't keep me warm

Remember my little snark to the producers of This Week a few months ago, over yet another booking of John McCain? Well, I had to do it again this week. Not because of McCain, but the bookings are nearly as egregious:

I'm sure that in the effort to have the show ideologically balanced (for, clearly, every issue is reduced to Democrat vs. Republican on This Week), it has completely escaped the producers' notice that they have booked THREE politicos against health care reform (Coburn, Nelson, Blackburn) to ONE in favor (Wasserman-Schultz).

Curious that ABC's idea of "balance" on an issue with OVERWHELMING public support is to tip the scale against health care reform. Does [your Senior Producer] feel he is serving his viewership well with such skewed bookings?

Sadly, This Week's producer doesn't really want to engage in any further tete a tetes on their skewed sense of balance, but taking a look at this week's schedule, certainly, they're not the only ones guilty. Look, for example, at the hacktacular framing on The Chris Matthews Show. Or the inclusion of Joe "Sucking Media Hole" Lieberman on Meet the Press. Personally, I think I'm gonna focus on the CNN foreign policy shows, rather than pollute my brain with any more of the health care nonsense.

ABC's "This Week" - Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Ben Nelson, D-Neb.; Reps. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent; and Nancy Brinker, founder of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Joe Klein, Norah O'Donnell, Anne Kornblut, David Ignatius. Topics: Obama's Lost the Independents -- What Do They Want Him To Do Differently? Are There Signs of Carteresque Weakness in the Obama Presidency? Meter Questions: Will President Obama Sign a Health Care Reform Bill This Year? YES: 5 NO: 7; Will Delays Over Afghanistan and Health Care Hurt Obama's Image Longterm? YES: 5 No: 7.

CNN's "State of the Union" - Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Michael Bennet, D-Colo., Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Carly Fiorina, California Republican who's running for U.S. Senate.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - An exclusive interview with Maziar Bahari, the Newsweek reporter who spent 4 months in an Iranian prison. Plus, the Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, gives Fareed his only television interview on his trip to Washington.

CNN's "Amanpour" - New Jewish Lobby: A new Jewish American lobbying group is angling itself as an alternative to the well-known pro-Israel AIPAC group. Could this change the way Washington approaches Israel? Afghan Exclusives: Former Afghan Pres. Cand. Ashraf Ghani calls the Afghan gov. a "looting machine," and calls Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar's Interior Ministry "among the most corrupt in the country".

"Fox News Sunday" - Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., Kit Bond, R-Mo., Arlen Specter, D-Pa., and Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.; Bernadine Healy, former director of the National Institutes of Health.

So, what's catching your eye this morning?

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1180)

PLAYS: (5512)

Columnist David Brooks is a conservative that isn't blindly devoted to former Gov. Sarah Palin. "She's a joke. I can't take her seriously," he told ABC's George Stephanopoulos Sunday. "The idea that this potential talk show host is considered seriously for the republican nomination, believe me, it will never happen. Republican primary voters are not going to elect a talk show host," said Brooks.

But the other conservative on the panel with Brooks wasn't buying into the Palin frenzy either. George Will thinks Republicans can do better. "Some conservatives think they have found in Sarah Palin a Republican William Jennings Bryan. Now, Why would they want someone who lost the presidency three times?" asked Will.

John Amato: David Brooks has never been much of a fan of Palin. This is from a piece in Oct, 2008:

[Sarah Palin] represents a fatal cancer to the Republican party.
--
But there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I'm afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices. I think President Bush has those prejudices.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (58)

PLAYS: (174)

Conservatives virtually declared victory after forcing a moderate Republican out of a highly contested House race in upstate New York. The Republican candidate, Dede Scozzafava, withdrew Saturday virtually guaranteeing a win for Conservative Party Candidate Doug Hoffman in New York's 23rd Congressional district.

White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett told ABC's George Stephanopolous that pressure on Scozzafava to drop out shows how conservatives are marginalizing moderates. "I think [the Republican Party is] becoming more and extreme and more and more marginalized," said Jarrett.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (834)

PLAYS: (891)

Retired Gen. Jack Keane told ABC's George Stephanopoulos that if he were Gen. Stanley McChrystal then he would resign if President Barack Obama doesn't fulfill the request for more troops.

Partial transcript:

KEANE: Well, I can't speak to what General McChrystal's reaction will be. I can say this, if you're a general on the ground and you believe that a recommendation you made is the winning recommendation in terms of strategy, that will accomplish the goals that you have been assigned, and then, you're told that you can't execute that and ask the troops to go out and do something else that you don't believe will accomplish those goals, that gets very difficult in terms of a morale dilemma -- asking your troops to do something that you believe will fail.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you resign?

KEANE: That would be up to him to face that. That's something personal for every general.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Is that what you would do under those circumstances?

KEANE: Yes. The fact of the matter is, the president has a right to make decisions. One of the recommendations they get are from generals. That's the reality. The president also has a right to take information from other sources to inform those decisions.

Paul McCartney - Tug of War

Do you remember tug-of-wars from your childhood? I remember the adult in charge lining up us kids by height and then going down the line, alternating which team we would be on, to ensure that neither side was unfairly stacked. That notion of balancing the sides to make things fair has morphed in modern media to this simplistic binary equation of Republican vs. Democrat. But it's a false equivalence, because it assumes a completely valid argument on both sides, and as we chronicle daily here at C&L, rarely do we see sensible, much less valid, arguments coming from the right to make the "balance" actually informative. Instead we get death panels, socialicommunistmarxism, concern trollism over deficit spending and the Olympic Games.

This week, despite the fact that bills are coming out of committees on health care reform, the bobbleheads have decided we need to talk about Afghanistan. So we have National Security Adviser Jim Jones on Face the Nation and State of the Union, UN Ambassador Susan Rice on Meet the Press and former CENTCOM Commander Anthony Zinni on Face the Nation. The economy will also get big play, with former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan on This Week and Sen. Barbara Boxer and Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm on State of the Union to talk unemployment. But never fear, health care will be discussed, with of course, the media's version of "balance" of putting Party of No members John Kyl, Lindsey Graham, Saxby Chambliss and John Cornyn on to obsfuscate some more. One bright note in the morning, Rachel Maddow will be back on Meet the Press roundtable, so we have a chance of some reasonable discussion there. That is, if the Davids--Gregory and Brooks--give her a chance to talk.

ABC's "This Week" - Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan; Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and John Cornyn, R-Texas.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - National security adviser James Jones; Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.; retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni; Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Bob Woodward, Katty Kay, Elisabeth Bumiller, Howard Fineman. Topics: Will President Obama send an additional 40,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan? Will Israel attack nuclear facilities in Iran without U.S. consent? Meter Questions: Was the anti-Obama venom unavoidable? YES: 6 NO: 6; Has Obama Got Command Back? YES: 12 No: 0.

CNN's "State of the Union" - Jones; Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.; Gov. Jennifer Granholm, D-Mich.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - The United States holds its first one-on-one talks with Iran in decades. Will this new diplomatic approach work? Hear what our panelists have to say. Plus, the author of a controversial UN report on the Israel-Gaza conflict earlier this year. Finally, an interview with the President of Columbia on everything from the war on drugs to free markets and US relations.

"Fox News Sunday" - Sens. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., and Bob Casey, D-Pa.

So what's catching your eye this morning?

The Sunday talk shows certainly love John McCain. It's a joke that ABC has John McCain on as its guest almost weekly. He was just on August 23rd. Didn't he lose the general election? Being a guest once in a while is no biggie, but ABC's slavish behavior towards Sen. McCain is disturbing. They should just consummate their love affair and have him on every Sunday if they think his opinion outweighs all others.

I sure don't remember the media putting on John Kerry every week after he lost to Bush in 2005.

As he awaits trial on money laundering charges, disgraced former House Majority Leader Tom Delay on Monday launched the latest phase of his extremist makeover on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars." Two years after publishing his book and 18 months after starting the Coalition for a Conservative Majority, Delay turned to the Cha Cha to complete his resurrection. Which is altogether fitting for the man who repeatedly compared himself to Jesus Christ.

Delay's Christ complex first manifested itself in 2001 as he explained to the Washington Post the opposition to his none-too-subtle campaign to bring his fundamentalism to the United States Congress. "People hate the messenger," Delay announced, adding, "That's why they killed Christ." On the day of his booking five years later, Delay told Time he prayed:

"Let people see Christ through me."

As it turns out, the similarities between Jesus and Tom Delay are striking:

Continue reading »

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1275)

PLAYS: (2935)

President Barack Obama asked University of Maryland students to help him pass health care reform at a rally Thursday. Boos could be heard as the president mentioned a bill from the Senate Finance Committee chaired by Sen. Max Baucus.

"POTUS mentions Baucus bill -- it gets booed," wrote ABC's Jake Tapper.

John Stossel has been masquerading as a journalist at ABC for years. We've documented some of his hackery and whining over time and as I fully expected, he's finally making the jump to crazytown where he belongs -- Fox News:

John Stossel is leaving ABC News for Fox, where he'll host a weekly show on Fox Business and host a series of specials for Fox News.

TVNewser reports that the libertarian "20/20" host is expected to sign a multi-year-deal with Fox, where he'll host a two-hour weekly show on Fox Business and make appearances on Fox News in both the daytime and primetime hours.

Stossel's departure comes on the heels of last week's announcement that Charlie Gibson is retiring from ABC News. Read on...

At least at Fox Business he won't have to worry about ratings or being seen by very many people, but his "specials" for Fox News should fit right in with their low-brow, low-information standards. ABC will be a better network for letting him go.

I have avoided using the above wrestling, smack-down clip in past Stossel posts, but the comparison between Fox News and wrasslin' was too precious to pass up!

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1228)

PLAYS: (2564)

Two political pundits on opposite sides of the aisle found themselves agreeing Sunday on ABC's "This Week." Both George Will and Katrina Vanden Heuvel favor a withdrawal from Afghanistan. In his Washington Post column, George Will said it was time to get out of Afghanistan. In another column, Will said that that US work in Iraq is done.

Vanden Heuvel agreed. "I think there's a coalition, George. We can go on the road. A coalition for realistic foreign policy. But for these neocons attack you, these people should not be in our political life. They have no credibility. They should be held accountable for the Iraq debacle."

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1042)

PLAYS: (1794)

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told ABC's George Stephanopolous that President Barack Obama will make the case for some form of a public health insurance option when he makes a speech to Congress Wednesday. But Gibbs indicated that Obama wouldn't issue a veto threat for a bill that doesn't include a public option.

"I doubt that we'll get into heavy veto threats on Wednesday. We're going to talk about what we can do, because we're so close to getting it done. He'll talk about the public option. He'll talk about why it's a valuable component in providing choice in competition," said Gibbs.

Here we go again. ABC's resident Glenn Beck wannabe, John Stossel, whines in a recent blog entry that all critics of President Obama are labeled racists by his supporters. To prove his point, he cites an article by a right wing pundit who has been consistently wrong about issues of race -- Jonah Goldberg.

During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama’s supporters promised that his election would allow America to “transcend race."

But of course that hasn’t happened. Jonah Goldberg writes:

It was Obama’s supporters who hinted, teased, promised, and prophesied that Obama would help America “transcend race.” But now, it is they who shrink from their own promised land…

From Day 1, Obama’s supporters have tirelessly cultivated the idea that anything inconvenient for the first black president just might be terribly, terribly racist.

Without one shred of evidence to back up his assertions, Stossel ends his screed with this:

Come on. Every president eventually is criticized by the media – even one as “transcendent” as Obama. The President’s supporters should engage his critics with facts, not charges of racism. Read on...

Facts? If Mr. Stossel wants facts, he sure picked the wrong person to quote on his blog. The fact is, that racism is driving the heavy resurgence of right wing militias in this country. It is a fact that threats against our newest president have skyrocketed, and his race plays a huge role. The Minuteman movement is based on extreme racism and xenophobia, and all of this is being perpetuated daily by Republican politicians, Fox News and the titular head of the Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh, who gleefully aired a parody about President Obama called "Barack the Magic Negro."

I'm not trying to say that all critics of President Obama are racists, but there's no denying the fact that racism permeates much of the Republican Party, it's punditry and media. Oh and there's this, this, this and this -- and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Hey Stossel, if you're going to make these broad allegations, you need to come to the table with more than just quotes from Doughy Pantload wetting himself over Janeane Garofalo.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1156)

PLAYS: (1271)

Sen. John McCain believes that President Barack Obama must drop his support for a public insurance option before Republicans will consider supporting reform. "I believe that one of the fundamentals for any agreement would be that the president abandon the government option," McCain told ABC's George Stephanopoulos.

McCain defended Sarah Palin for claiming that Obama's health care goals include "death panels." McCain argued that "the way that [that clause] was written made it a little ambiguous."

"There was a provision in the bill that talks about a board that would decide what are the most effective measures to provide health care for people, okay?" McCain explained. "So what does that lead to? Doesn't that lead to a possibility of rationing?"

McCain went on to say that Sen. Edward Kennedy's absence from the Senate is damaging prospects for health care reform. McCain said that the Senate would be a "very different place today" if Kennedy were participating.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1017)

PLAYS: (2072)

Sen. Arlen Specter has faced angry protesters at his town hall meetings about health care. But Specter says that the protesters are not representative of most Americans. "I think we have to bear in mind, although those people have a right to be heard, they're not really representative of America in my opinion. We have to be careful here not to let those town meetings dominate the scene and influence what we do on health policy," Specter told ABC's Jake Tapper.

ABC's John Stossel is a buffoon of the highest order...and I believe that's being generous. Stossel has long shilled for right wing and corporate interests, and right on cue, he jumps head first into the health care debate and he's not pulling any punches -- Insurance company profits are more important than sick Americans:

"Insurers agreed to abandon some of their most controversial practices, like denying coverage to applicants with pre-existing medical conditions."

That's from the first paragraph of today's New York Times "news" story on health insurance.

Do the Times writers and editors take pride in their economic cluelessness? They take it as fact that denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions is "controversial," and that abandoning the practice shows "good will."

In the entire debate over health care reform, I have seen no greater example of why we need a public insurance option (actually, we need a universal plan) than Stossel's blog post.

Doing that may be required by Congress and cheered by the New York Times, but that doesn't make it a good thing for America. It doesn't even make it insurance. It's welfare. We can debate whether such welfare is good policy, but let's discuss it honestly. Calling welfare "insurance" muddies thinking. Read on...

The only mud here lies between Stossel's ears. If someone with a pre-existing condition is paying for their insurance policy, it's not welfare, unless you're a corporate shill who only cares about company profits and not people. Health insurance companies need to be returned to non-profit status, for the good of the country.