BALANCE, CABLE NEWS–STYLE

via Tapped ...Nothing quite captures the storied revolving-door problem in American political punditry like seeing old Watergate players themselves (or, in the case of Pat Buchanan, not a Watergate participant but certainly a loyal Richard Nixon soldier) playing disinterested pundit-analysts on one talking-head show after another discussing Mark Felt. At this point maybe it shouldn’t seem so bizarre to me to see Chris Matthews chatting with G. Gordon Liddy about this story as if they were David Brinkley and Chet Huntley chewing over the day’s headlines.

That these characters have carte blanche on the cable chat shows to serve as credible Felt naysayers is just one more illustration of the wonderful cloak of immunity enjoyed by all right-wingers in the clubby, insular D.C. punditry world. Lying, stealing, prison time -- literally nothing can discredit a conservative gabber enough to cancel their membership card to the commentariat. And today we have Peggy Noonan to thank for granting some establishment pundit legitimacy to Ben Stein’s thoughtful Deep Throat-as-genocidaire thesis. Can’t wait to hear Liddy’s thoughts on it tonight on Hardball.

WHERE'S THE OUTRAGE? from the Prospect

Frank Rich has a very shrill column touching on Armstrong Williams, the White House’s propaganda operations, and the reprehensible, coddled insularity of the punditry club that’s really worth reading. Boy, is it shrill. read on

Rich pillories the “hard-hitting” co-hosts of Crossfire for lobbing marshmallows at Williams during his January 7 appearance, caressing him with chummy bromides and puffery. Indeed, I’d say that the most serious issues that the Williams story raises have little to do with the bottomless hackery of a single lame VRWC peon. The two real stories here are this White House’s regular use of taxpayer money for openly partisan propaganda campaigns, and the grotesque clubbiness and complacency of a punditry class (particularly its cable news component) that no longer has the ability to recognize the problem to which it is so central. The latter problem abets the former -- it has for the last four years.

(video h/t Oliver Willis)

Jim Cramer can hardly contain himself as the market falls nearly 1000 points in the span of a few minutes, and uses Procter & Gamble as an exemplar of how investors can turn a downturn to their advantage.

If ever there was a video that highlights the deficiencies in our 24/7 all-speculation-all-the-time cable punditry corps, this is it. As it turns out, the market drop was hastened, magnified and traders brought to their knees over this:

The selling was exacerbated by a huge drop in Dow component Procter & Gamble (PG, Fortune 500). There may have been technical glitches which caused it to plunge 37% in minutes. P&G's slump was responsible for 172 points of the 992.60 the Dow initially lost.

I have some real problems with this so-called glitch. Let's start with Jim Cramer using it as an object lesson for what to do with a steep market drop. If there was really a "glitch", it would have triggered sharp program trades and hedge fund transactions. Aren't we all glad we're taking Investments 101 this year so we know what those terms mean? As Cramer points out in the video, the price drop makes P&G a "completely different stock" with a completely different set of decision points around buying it.

Now add that reality to programmed trades. Those are trades set up far in advance by investors, executed by computers, and usually in large quantities. It turns into a cascade: The price triggers a programmed trade, which triggers a hedge fund trader's response, which triggers panic on the floor of the Dow, which triggers Cramer sitting at his desk speculating about how to profit from others' ruin.

There are some very real reasons for volatility in the market. A weak Euro, Greece's shaky economy, tightening credit in other European countries and the UK Elections have everyone on edge in a global market setting.

Still, a pricing "error" should not cause a 1000 point plunge in market indices in such a short period of time. I can't help thinking there are speculators out there who made a great deal of money on this.

Heather posted on George Will's mumbo jumbo hackery with Paul Krugman on ABC's THIS WEEK already, and after Brad DeLong watched the horror unfold he asks the question that we've all been asking for way too long.

Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps?

I think what it comes down to is that there just aren't any conservative pundits out there who can argue in the reality-based world. So we get either George Will's hackery or Peggy Noonan's overwrought gobbledygook-soap star-punditry method. Which is not to be confused with Lee Strasberg's 'Method acting'. And Cokie at times is the worst offender of them all.

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There really isn't more shameless a huckster working the snake-oil circuits of cable punditry these days than Glenn Beck. He embodies the worst of right-wing talking-head traits: obsessively wrong, compulsively stupid, reflexively mendacious, and always, always, shamelessly opportunistic.

He never misses a trick. Especially the 9/11 tragedy. He's managed to turn it into a big annual right-wing nutfest, particularly with this year's debut of the 9/12 teabaggers protest, a project Beck launched some six months ago.

On Friday, he devoted a long monologue to weeping, once again, before his national audience, and gnashing his teeth and doing that Glenn Beck schtick.

Not, mind you, in memory of the victims.

No, what ticks Glenn off is that we haven't built a new building to replace it yet.

Moreover, he manages to lay the blame for the delays -- which are in fact less than meets the eye* -- not on the usual kinds of delays that happen with massive construction projects, but on liberals in Congress and political correctness, or something like that.

Beck: I believe the only reason we haven't built it isn't because of Americans. It's because we are being held back. And who is holding us back? Politicians! Special interest groups! Political correctness! You name it. Everybody but you!

Beck doesn't bother to explain what the hell he means because, with his audience, it doesn't matter. They could care less about facts, it's the gut reaction that counts on Planet Beck. Besides, he's quickly off paranoiding out over the "1 World Trade Center" name ("One ... World. Ohhh. Isn't that great?") anyway.

Likewise, Beck's attempt to make 9/12 into a day of right-wing protest is just so much right-wing agitprop. Remember the mission statement at the project's website:

The 912 project is designed to bring us all back to the place we were on Sept. 12, 2001. The day after America was attacked we were not obsessed with red states, blue states or political parties. We were united as Americans, standing together to protect the values and principles of the greatest nation ever created.

Yep. Because cheap symbolism and fake sentimentalism are the real glue that binds hucksters like Glenn Beck to our national hindquarters.

This isn't the first time Beck has abducted 9/11 and its aftermath for his own personal use. Remember the time he tearily praised one of the 9/11 widows who had passed away in a plane crash.

Of course, all this is in stark contrast to what he said abut these same families in 2005:

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Beck: You know, it took me about a year to start hating the 9/11 victims' families. It took me about a year. Um, and I had such compassion for them and I really, you know, I wanted to help them, and I was behind -- let's give them money, let's get them started, and all of this stuff. And I really didn't -- all the 3,000 victims' families, I don't hate all of them, I hate about, probably about ten of them. But when I see 9/11 victim family, you know, on television, or whatever, I'm just like, 'Oh, shut up.' I'm so sick of them. Because they're always complaining. And we did our best for them. And again, it's only about ten.

In fact, Beck likes using 9/11 as his own political prop so well, he'd apparently love to have another one.

At least, that's what we had to conclude from the time Beck had on Michael Scheuer, who announced that our only hope was to suffer another big terrorist attack:

Scheuer: The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States. Because it's going to take a grass-roots, bottom-up pressure. Because these politicians prize their office, prize the praise of the media and the Europeans. It's an absurd situation again. Only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently, and with as much violence as necessary.

Did Beck respond as any decent human being would: "What??!!! Are you out of your mind??!! How could you hope for that??!!"

Er, no. Here's what Beck actually said:

Beck: Which is why, I was thinking this weekend, if I were him, that would be the last thing I would do right now.

Oooh, that's a heavy thinker there. Not to mention disgusting manipulator.

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There's a rather worrisome meme going around progressive bloggers nowadays - "if we all ignore John Bolton, his cabal will go away". Bolton hated the second Dubya term because it pretended diplomacy - demanding as preconditions everything that was supposedly to be negotiated and forcing Europe to push that pretense as America's proxies - rather than just invading. Now, his prescription is only changed from 2003 in that he realises that a US ensnared in two wars he and his neocon buddies pushed makes it unlikley that America can do the attacking on its own: he writes "Options on Iran are more limited, but meaningful efforts at regime change and assisting Israel should it decide to strike Iran's nuclear facilities would be good first steps."

Steve Benen is the latest in a line of progressives I've seen suggesting that Bolton should just be ignored:

Bolton, of course, doesn't need an excuse. He called for a war against Iran over and over and over again. It doesn't matter that his idea is crazy, Bolton has access to conservative media outlets and he knows how to use them.

One of the more ridiculous personnel decisions Bush has ever made was nominating Bolton as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, fighting for his confirmation, and then giving Bolton a recess appointment when senators balked. One of the more accurate personnel assessments Bush has ever made came a year later when the president said, "Let me just say from the outset that I don't consider Bolton credible."

I'm not sure why anyone would.

While I sympathize with Steve's sentiment, Bolton isn't just some rogue loose cannon who can be ignored onto the sidelines. He's still a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and receives funding from the very deep ($30 million a year) pockets of that neocon mothership and its corporate support system.

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The punditry has been enjoying vicariously Bush's "rock star" visit to Albania.

But something about this video has bugged me from the beginning:

Why aren't the Secret Service protecting the President?  Why are they allowing the Albanians to get so close and actually ruffle the man's hair?

 And then a commenter (forgive me, your screenname is a little difficult to recreate in a post) pointed out why the Secret Service really wasn't protecting the President.  If you look at the :50 second mark, there's a watch with a black wristband...at the 1:00 minute mark...it's no longer there.  That's right, those adoring Albanians--who have actually issued postage with Bush's face--were mugging the President.  Pretty ballsy, if you ask me.  After all, look at what he did to a country that actually posed no threat.

Is this the face you want to wake up to every morning?

Well, according to Drudge (I know, I know, consider the source), MSNBC is strongly considering Michael Smerconish as the replacement for Don Imus.

What is it with these suits? Do they think we need another conservative talking head on TV? Do we need another fact-challenged pundit that goes out of his way to smear liberals? Have they not internalized the results of the last election? Why are they ignoring the fact that the show on MSNBC with the rising ratings in the money demographic is Countdown, a show thankfully devoid of conservative punditry in lieu of news? Why on earth would they want to go after FOX's audience, especially since their ratings breakdowns show that their viewers are far from the coveted 21-54 bracket?

So here's an idea, Mr. Bill Wolff, VP of MSNBC and Dan Abrams, General Manager: how about trying out media people who will bring in that sought after demographic? People like Sam Seder, The Young Turks, my buddy Cliff Schecter (who has appeared on MSNBC numerous times), or even better, how about MSNBC counter-programming to the egregious FNC's "It's Out There" and create "Crooks and Liars TV" where we connect the dots on cable news the way it hasn't before?

Please, unless you really want another apologist for the Republican party on the air, let the management of MSNBC know who you'd rather see get Imus's slot. Remember, nasty-grams are easy to dismiss and ignore. Being polite and reminding them of the advertising potential of the demographic they shouldn't be ignoring will get you much further.

CorrenteWire: Karl likes the personal touch when he’s putting White House email out of subpoena range

Welcome to Pottersville: We'll get back to our apocalypse after these messages...

Connecting.the.Dots: What bin Laden and Bush took away

Whippersnapp: An infidel's guide to the Middle East

TomDispatch: How the public library became Heartbreak Hotel

Tales of the Freewayblogger: Public Punditry Contest!

The onslaught of attacks from the punditry class on Barack Obama hasn't even really got off the ground yet, but they've already managed to be disgusting just the same. I caught Ed Rogers last month highlighting his middle name as a signal of what's ahead for Barack and they have slowly started piling on ever since. Michael J.W. Stickings caught Debbie "I wish I was Coulter" Schlussel's latest bigotry.

So, even if he identifies strongly as a Christian, and even if he despised the behavior of his father (as Obama said on Oprah); is a man who Muslims think is a Muslim, who feels some sort of psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father's heritage, a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?

Media Matters has a great round up of our liberal media in action including more on "Schlussey"