It's top ten time again. Every year we get the listmania between Christmas and New Years. Some are stupid, but others are pretty interesting. Here are some worth reading.
If Republicans would apply the same bipartisan fetishes that the media demands of the Democratic party, I might change my mind, but you know that will never happen, so I hope we never see another "bipartisan" summit again on anything. If the GOP gets control again -- and that's very possible -- they will lead with a sledgehammer. All Democratic politicians will be called obstructionists and the party with no ideas by the Villagers if they stand in their way. That's a given.
And why is Dan Gerstein their go-to man? It would have been nice if the Dems had pressed the Republicans on most of their falsehoods. And maybe force Paul Ryan to explain how under Republicans, they would do away with preexisting conditions that so debilitate Americans from getting or changing their health insurance. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi did a good job, but it should have been a constant theme for them throughout the summit. Otherwise you get articles like this Politico one. Is a lie a lie if it's told politely?
Democrats have been far too reliant on our president's intelligence and speaking skills to magically transform the political dynamic. His mastery of the details of the job is impressive and after our last goofball it's a relief. But Obama's best moments yesterday were when he challenged Republicans on their lofty assumptions about what people can afford --- he repeatedly asked these Representatives and senators to imagine what it's like to met these expenses if you make 40k a year. It was a nice populist moment for the president, speaking on behalf of the average folks and it put the Republicans off balance.
Certainly debating is part of the job, and he's good at it. But I suspect that what people need from the president and the Democrats right now is a sense that they understand the urgency of their problems, not the details of how they're going to fix them. I recall Clinton relating a story during his "laser beam" interview right after he was elected that I always thought was clever. He said he'd understood that he had to act quickly when he saw a man standing beside the road with a sign that said "For god's sake just do something." That's effective stuff.
I hope that this summit is soon forgotten and they move to the next phase quickly. And I also hope the Democrats let go of the idea that this is a good way to deal with the Republicans. They are a lot slicker than the White House gives them credit for and it's never a good idea to give them a forum in which to appear as if they are operating in good faith. They are not, and it does the country no good to help them pretend otherwise.
There are plenty of post-summit wrap-ups all over the Internet, so have at it, but the White House needs to pass health care after this latest dog-and-pony show.
Not content with its lapdog coverage of President Bush over the past decade, the Beltway press has adopted a new, super-soft way to deal with Bush's former vice president, Dick Cheney, as well as GOP media star Sarah Palin. Journalists have set aside what had been decades' worth of guidelines and embraced special new rules for how Cheney and Palin get treated.
In a word, it's stenography.
That's how too many scribes have covered Cheney and Palin in recent months, allowing them to dispense tightly controlled pieces of information, which journalists then trumpet as breaking news. And yes, the trend is unprecedented in modern day American politics.
It's actually a two-fer. First, it's unprecedented because the Beltway press has never showered attention on political losers, such as Cheney and Palin. Meaning, the press has never cared what a former VP had to say about current events right after leaving the White House (think: Dan Quayle), or what a failed VP candidate had to say just months after losing in a landslide (think: Geraldine Ferraro). Traditionally, pundits and reporters disdain political losers (think: Mike Dukakis). But for Cheney and Palin, the rules have been generously reworked.
The second oddity is that journalists now allow Cheney and Palin to completely dictate the media ground rules and afford them the chance to have one-way relationships with the press. Palin, for instance, perhaps still bruising from her woeful 2008 media performances, still hasn't allowed herself to be interviewed by a single independent political journalist since she launched her book in November. Instead, she mostly communicates with the mainstream media via Facebook. And now that she's signed on to join the Fox News staff, the chances of Palin ever speaking with the serious press seem to be less than zero. That lack of openness stacks the deck and leads to dreadful bouts of stenography; of literally recording what controversial Republicans say, and nothing more...read on
You never see Cheney or Palin in a situation where they are forced to either debate someone or are even asked to defend their views by the media. All Cheney and Palin have to do is send a press release to Politico or write something on Facebook and it's taken as fact by the media. You can bet that Palin will never be on a Fox show in which she is forced to debate a progressive. She'll always just be there to answer questions by hosts who agree with her opinions -- one-on-one on Fox & Friends, Hannity and Bill O'Reilly. The internal politics will be interesting: Glenn Beck is the Teabagger King and probably views Palin as a threat to his authority. Likely we'll see her on Hannity a lot.
Since her book came out, has Sarah Palin been interviewed by any member of the press other than her loyal Fox brethren and wingnut radio talkers?
The truth is that since the launch of her book last November, Palin has refused to sit down with a single serious, independent reporter. Instead, she's stuck close to lifestyle interviews (i.e. Oprah and Barbara Walters) as well as taking questions from her professional right-wing media enablers.
Can you imagine the media caterwauling if, for instance, Hillary Clinton published a book and then refused to sit down with a single nonpartisan cable TV host, radio talker, or political reporter from a major newspaper or magazine? If Clinton roped off the press while she only did interviews with The Nation, Rachel Maddow, and Air America? The Beltway press would go berserk mocking Clinton for her timidity. But Palin completely snubbed the D.C. press corps, and rather than calling her out, journalists rewarded her with probably tens of millions of dollars in free book publicity. (Not that most Americans even cared about her book launch.)
And if Palin continues to avoid the press then they should stop quoting her Facebook page. How lazy can our media be? Yeah, that lazy.
Then there's Cheney. Have you ever seen as much press being heaped on an ex-VP as soon as they left office?
And let's not lose sight of just how extraordinary it was for Allen/VandeHei/Harris to even care what Cheney had to say in early February of 2009, because I can't stress enough how completely unprecedented it is for any major Beltway news outlet to turn to a dislodged vice president as a partisan newsmaker less than one month after he left office. And for Cheney to be the object of Politico's newsroom desire last February was even more bizarre since the Republican had just completed his stint as arguably the most unpopular politician in modern day White House politics. (Somewhere Richard Nixon was smiling.)
That is not an exaggeration. According to a CBS/New York Timespoll at the time of the Cheney's White House departure, his job approval rating stood at a how-is-that-possible 13 percent. Yet despite his historically poor standing with the public, and despite the fact that his party had just been trounced in an electoral landslide, and despite the fact that former VPs were never considered to be newsworthy just two weeks after they packed their White House bags, there was the Politico brain trust in February 2009, sitting at Cheney's knee ("Suddenly a man of leisure ... his own mood was relaxed, even loquacious") and treating him like he was still vice president -- treating him like he was a popular vice president. Treating Cheney like a man with all the answers.
Of course, Cheney probably was at least as responsible for the disaster that was the Bush administration as W. -- and so when he sat down to spew vicious attacks on the Obama White House, it not only should have been portrayed as the breach of protocol that it was, but each journalist should have considered it their duty to bring up the Bush administration's actual record in dealing with terrorism and the economy -- glass houses being crappy stone-heaving sites and all.
But then, real reporting is much harder work than stenography.
Could there ever be a Talk show Sunday without McCain or Lieberman? I think it's news when they don't appear, but CNN should be embarrassed for this "Exclusive" promotion.
This week, John's exclusive guests are Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) LIVE from Jerusalem. We'll get their insight on the foiled airline terror plot and President Obama's strategy on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I guess if McCain/Holy Joe travel to a new location then it makes them a hot item all over again. And doesn't the MSM realize that if it had been up to McCain, Lieberman would have been McCain's VP so in reality the networks are promoting the biggest f*&king losers of the 2008 election to an elevated media position? ABC has been a nonstop McCainathon, so CNN must have wanted in on the gagfest.
BEATING up on the wealthy seems to be the order of day. I suspected that. But a recent Wealth Matters column touched a particularly raw nerve. It looked at how even people with sizable fortunes were concerned about money in this recession and the impact that could have on the rest of us.
Readers rejected the attempt to understand the concerns of the rich.
“That’s so stupid that you ought to be slapped for it,” one woman wrote. My favorite began: “Bowties and Reaganomics are for losers. You can cry for the rich all you want, the rest of us will be happy to see them get taxed.”
The vehemence in these e-mail messages made me wonder why so many people were furious at those who had more than they did.
Uh, because we're paying for it when we're out of work and don't have affordable health care?
And why are the rich shouldering the blame for a collective run of bad decision-making? After all, many of the rich got there through hard work. And plenty of not-so-rich people bought homes, cars and electronics they could not afford and then defaulted on the debt, contributing to the crash last year.
"Collective run of bad decision-making"? Let's back up there a minute, pal. As anyone with half a brain knows (yes, even people who write for the New York Times), the financial services industry pushed our country over the economic brink through an assortment of unethical and illegal practices. Someone maxing out their Visa is not exactly in the same category; they merely bought the crack. Wall Street marketed and sold the crack. See the difference?
But in this recession, anger flows one way. Eric Dammann, a Manhattan psychoanalyst, theorizes that a lot of people are angry that the rules of the game seem to have changed.
“There’s always been envy and hatred toward the rich, but there was also a strong undercurrent of admiration that was holding these people up as a goal,” Mr. Dammann said. “This time it’s different because it feels like it’s a closed club and the rich have an unfair advantage.”
Gee, ya think? When corporate gains are privatized and losses are socialized, you think maybe the working people have finally had enough of picking up the slack? Can you say "market manipulation"? Can you say "front running"?
What is troubling is that the anger has hardened for some into a suspicion that all wealthy people are motivated purely by self-interest, said Brad Klontz, a financial psychologist in Hawaii and a co-author of the forthcoming book, “Mind Over Money: Overcoming the Money Disorders That Threaten Our Financial Health” (Random House).
“The script goes like this: Money is bad, rich people are shallow and greedy, and people become rich by taking advantage of others,” Mr. Klontz said. “But the same people who say money is bad say money is connected to their self-worth — they wished they had it and you didn’t.”
Would you like me to explain the difference, Brad? People who have earned their money through providing a service or product, people who hire others and treat them fairly - we still admire those wealthy people. We'd like to be like them.
Wall St. traders - bloodsucking scum who, as Elizabeth Warren puts it, made their money through selling "tricks and traps" - tricks and traps that destroyed our economy and sent them running to Washington with their hands out - those wealthy people can kiss our collective grits.
Go read the rest. It's all about how "good" wealthy people are suffering by association, how they do their fair share, they fund scholarships, live "modest" lives...
Let's be blunt, shall we, Mr. and Mrs. Wealthy Person? You get hefty tax write-offs for those donations. Yes, you like the feeling of helping, but you really like the tax write-offs - and your pictures in the society pages. Wealthy people haven't been paying their fair share of taxes for a really long time, but like to think they're "giving back" quite enough through supporting charities. (Oh, and it's voluntary. Unlike the banking bailout the rest of us are paying for.)
You're not giving back anywhere near what you're taking. Seen the pictures on the news of Americans lining up like cattle for free health care? That's our reality. So if you really want to help, start lobbying to change the tax laws. Support real healthcare reform.
Because for some odd reason, they don't pay much attention to us.
Okay, I'm confess I'm one of those who rolls her eyes at the sports threads that pop up here from time to time. And I don't like football, so I don't honestly really know who James Harrison is, but this just struck me as everything that's wrong with professional sports these days.
On Thursday, President Obama will welcome the Pittsburgh Steelers to the White House to honor the team for its recent Super Bowl victory. But, just like in 2006 when the Steelers had a post-title meeting with George W. Bush, defensive MVP (and Super Bowl hero) James Harrison won't be in attendance. But he has a good reason:
"This is how I feel -- if you want to see the Pittsburgh Steelers, invite us when we don't win the Super Bowl. As far as I'm concerned, he [Obama] would've invited Arizona if they had won."
Usually, when a sentence begins with "as far as I'm concerned," it ends with an opinion, not an incontrovertible fact. Harrison's comment is akin to saying, "As far as I'm concerned, George Washington was the first president."
Of course the Cards would have received the White House invite if they had won. Winners get to go meet the president, losers don't. They also get the trophy, the parade and those hats that say "Super Bowl champs". I don't think James Harrison turned down any of those things, which makes his refusal to go to the White House a tad hypocritical.
Seriously, WTF is this? I'm slightly less offended with the knowledge that Harrison similarly snubbed Bush43, so it's not like the hypocritical ASU or the Notre Dame pearl clutchers, but it is still one of those asinine low-information moments that just make people hate these overpriced divas in the NFL.
Look, what really happened at JFK was a hijacking. A chance for the potential next leaders of the United States to talk about a) real threats from bona fide terrorists, such as the unstable situation we've fostered in Pakistan and b) other issues that actually affect the day-to-day life of most Americans, like education, was hijacked by questions based around a local law-enforcement matter.
And, as Josh Marshall and others pointed out over the weekend, this is yet another time that implausible, half-baked and unfeasible plots have been trumpeted as high victories in the war in terror, including one plan to take down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch, the plot to "blow up the Sears Tower" by losers in Miami who probably couldn't find Chicago on a big roadmap, and our own inept Fort Dix crew.
Not that it will happen, but I wish the media, from CNN to Fox to the AP to everyone in between, would go to the nearest window and yell: "All 'terrorism' is not created equal."
Plenty of Democrats do appear on Fox. In fact, John Edwards, the first of the announced presidential candidates to drop out of the Nevada debate, has appeared on the network more than 30 times, most recently in late January of this year, and Mark Mellman has appeared more than 80 times.
But Fox also has a stable of regular commentators, some under contract to the network, who pop up frequently as representatives of the Democratic or progressive viewpoint. They do not appear to know what they have gotten into. Though these Democrats tell Salon they are doing their best to reach out and sway potential voters, they often seem to be used to further a conservative political agenda, fulfilling one of several roles that ultimately just helps the network's right-of-center hosts make their arguments against liberals.
Those Fox-friendly Democrats who agreed to speak with Salon say they're doing their best to help the party, arguing that Democrats can't afford to ignore the nation's most watched cable news network. They insist that when they've appeared on Fox they've scored points for progressives and swayed some viewers. "I think there are some liberals who are extremely biased about Fox News," says Alan Colmes, the liberal half of "Hannity & Colmes," "and wish to shun it or wish to criticize any liberal who appears on Fox News. That, to me, is not a particularly liberal attitude."
[..]But if one actually watches a lot of Fox News, the in-house Democrats don't come off as effective evangelists for their party or for liberal politics in general. It sounds harsh, but think of most of the Fox Democrats, at least those who appear on the opinion shows, which take up half the network's airtime, as one of three types. They are either scary liberals, losers or enablers. Representatives of each type may score some points for Democrats when they appear on-air, but ultimately they help further Fox's larger narrative about Democrats and liberals and what they stand for.
For more than two years, Marla Ruzicka worked to get help for innocent civilians caught in cross-fires here. A 28-year-old Californian with blond hair and an electric smile, she ran a one-woman aid group.
On Saturday afternoon, Ms. Ruzicka became a casualty herself. A suicide bomber attacked a convoy of security contractors that was passing near her car on the airport road in Baghdad, killing her and her Iraqi driver, United States Embassy officials in Baghdad said...read on
What a sad, sad story.Of course the right wing blog machine will remain silent on this courageous lady's passing. They will not mourn her, or even bother to mention her in the slightest. She doesn't further their agenda. She didn't go over to paint a happy face on Iraqi and worry about whether the AP photographers took pro-American pictures. She went to help the Iraqi people. She talked about Iraqi civilian casualties, which is not a very popular issue to discuss. On a day when we learn that she has been murdered, the Right Wing blog machine would rather print stories about how the LA Times circulation is going down or how Air America sucks. We like to think that we help the political discourse in the country for what we do, but this women actually did something remarkable. Her life though cut short, will remain powerful in the eyes of the Iraqi people.
See... its that she's not "the right kind" of American that matters to these people.
Update-Steve Gilliard:Don't help anyone: The cowards at LGF certainly aren't in Iraq, or doing anything useful, but they love war. The fact that even basement dwelling losers can become 11B's, but they have no plans on doing that. Instead, they go after a dead woman who mitigated some of the suffering we caused.
Update-Tbogg:Ugly on the inside and the outside The other day I posted about Charles Johnson of LGF who is the Head Jerkoff of the Little Green Floggers. It seems that Chuck, who has the delicate sensibilities of a thirteen year-old girl (and I do apologize to all thirteen year-old girls), was headed for a lie-down and a dose of laudanum after being offended by "...a revealing demonstration of the mean-spirited, foul-mouthed, debased state of the modern left."
I suggest we choose a charity for each team. If the Pats win, all us betting on the Eagles have to donate to the American Friends Service Committee (Ntodd's choice).
I'm going local. If the Eagles win, all you New England losers have to donate your bet to Project Home.
Count me in for $50. Pledge your bets in comments here or at Ntodd's place or on your blog, if you have one. I'll throw up a link to everyone's blog who's in (subject to my ability to keep up).
