Pretty indicative of Romney's attitude, yes? What audacity, to charge journalists just for the ability to report from his campaign headquarters! Astounding. What's even worse is that some of those media orgs actually paid for it:

BOSTON — The campaign of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney appears to be setting a precedent this election year in charging journalists and news organizations for any access to a presidential campaign headquarters on the night of the election.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who is locked in a tight race with Democratic President Barack Obama, will be holding his election night gathering at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, where access costs anywhere from $75 for a chair in the ballroom to $1,020 for permission to use the media filing center. Broadcast news organizations will be paying up to $6,500 for workspace.

Seriously, I'm impressed. The man could squeeze blood out of a nickel.

Obama's campaign party will be held at McCormick Place, in Chicago, and although his campaign is charging for premiums, credentialed reporters are granted access, which includes a workstation, electrical power and a wireless Internet connection, at no cost.

The credentialing process for Romney's election night activities allowed a reporter to choose where they would like to be, whether on a riser, in the ballroom or the media filing center, although prices weren't posted until days later, after an organization entered credit card billing information to confirm their credential request.

And by the time the confirmation email came along, the only option left was the media filing center, where reporters can reportedly watch the happenings in the ballroom on a closed-circuit TV with catered meals.

The Republican/MassLive.com, which will be on the ground in Boston on election night covering the Senate race, planned on sending a team of at least four reporters to Romney's headquarters, but decided to send only one after it was revealed by the Romney campaign that the cost for each approved credential was $1,020.

Romney spokesman Ryan Williams confirmed on Monday that there was indeed no way to cover the event unless paying for facilities.

"As a reporter, you need to pay for access to the filing center if you want to cover (the event)," Williams said, confirming there was no access for credentialed media otherwise.

Al Tompkins, who teaches online and broadcast journalism the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., said that restricting reporters' access to an event based on a paywall is "outrageous."

"If you're going as a journalist and need access to infrastructure, such as electricity, special lighting, etc., it makes sense that you pay your way. They are incurring a cost for that and you should have to pay as you would in any other situation," Tompkins said. "But if you aren't using anything at all, and are just looking to report from inside the building, there is no reason a credentialed member of the press should have to pay. This is paying for access to a story."

Well, it's a blow to the progressive movement but not the end of the world. (Especially since Halter wasn't really all that progressive.)

I do wonder if progressives might be better served by pouring all that money into lobbying on causes rather than pushing candidates who so often end up being absorbed by the Beltway Borg, anyway. Because I don't think we have enough time left to build a new Congress - but that's just me:

WASHINGTON — On a primary election night when the heralded anti-incumbency sentiment was expected to again demonstrate its strength, Senator Blanche Lincoln proved there were clear limits to its power.

Virtually written off as a likely victim of voter outrage at veteran politicians, Mrs. Lincoln, a two-term Arkansas Democrat, showed that an experienced office-holder with money, message and determination still had a chance to prevail even in a toxic environment.

“Blanche has proven once again she is a true independent voice for the people of Arkansas, but she is also a fighter for what she believes in and will never stop standing up for her convictions or for her state,” said Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

But while Mrs. Lincoln survived to fight on in the general election, incumbents in both parties could not take much solace from the outcome in Arkansas. In South Carolina, Representative Bob Inglis, a veteran Republican, was forced into a runoff election after finishing a distant second in the battle to hold on to his seat. And Gov. Jim Gibbons, Republican of Nevada, lost his primary.

The announcement of Christiane Amanpour's selection for host of ABC's This Week was certainly a little surprising. As someone who has watched the Sunday shows every week for the last four years for C&L, I was somewhat heartened by the hope of thoughtful discussions for once. And Amanpour, mindful of where her skills lie, has reportedly plans to make some pretty big changes to the show, moving it outside the Beltway to New York and not focusing on Washington politics exclusively.

Well, as you can imagine, a cerebral Iranian-British female reporter with a reputation for comprehensive work and a lack of interest in the cocktail class of DC and the endless pit matches between Republican and Democratic politicians that serve as Sunday show fodder has some people feeling a little tetchy. Longtime WaPo television reporter Tom Shales issued a prickly op-ed on Amanpour's hiring:

In a way, Amanpour, scheduled to leave CNN after 18 years of international coverage and take over the program in August, could be seen as the opposite of the perfect candidate. "This Week" deals mainly in domestic politics and inside-the-Beltway palaver, an area where Amanpour is widely considered to deficient. Consider: Whenever CNN has thrown one of its big election-night, convention, or presidential debate spectaculars, drafting nearly every living staff member to appear, Amanpour has had a conspicuously low profile.

And even though Amanpour has often been touted for her expertise on foreign affairs, she has vocal and passionate critics in that arena as well. Supporters of Israel have more than once charged Amanpour with bias against that country and its policies. A Web site devoted to criticism of Amanpour is titled, with less than a modicum of subtlety, "Christiane Amanpour's Outright Bias Against Israel Must Stop," available via Facebook.

Amanpour grew up in Great Britain and Iran. Her family fled Tehran in 1979 at the start of the Islamic revolution, when she was college age. She has steadfastly rejected claims about her objectivity, telling Leslie Stahl last year relative to her coverage of Iran: "I am not part of the current crop of opinion journalists or commentary journalists or feelings journalists. I strongly believe that I have to remain in the realm of fact."

Get that? Amanpour can't be objective because she lived in Iran. (For the record, Amanpour left Iran to study in England in 1969. Her family left Iran at the start of the revolution. Amanpour came to the US for college, graduating in 1983, per Wikipedia). So obviously, being part Iranian, she's unable to cover Israel objectively, so her "expertise" in foreign affairs is entirely suspect. It's quite a leap of logic, as Glenn Greenwald points out:

Without having the courage to do so explicitly, Shales links (and even bolsters) charges of her "anti-Israel" bias to the fact that her father is Iranian and she grew up in Iran. He sandwiches that biographical information about Iran in between describing accusations against her of bias against Israel and her defensive insistence that she's capable of objectivity when reporting on the region.

So here we finally have a prominent journalist with a half-Persian background -- in an extremely homogenized media culture which steadfastly excludes from Middle Eastern coverage voices from that region -- and her national origin is immediately cited as a means of questioning her journalistic objectivity and even opposing her as a choice to host This Week (can someone from Iran with an Iranian father possibly be objective???). Could the double standard here be any more obvious or unpleasant?

Wolf Blitzer is Jewish, a former AIPAC official, and -- to use Shales' smear-campaign formulation -- has frequently "been accused" of pro-Israel bias; should CNN bar him from covering those issues? David Gregory is Jewish, "studies Jewish texts with a top Jewish educator in Washington," and has conducted extremely sycophantic interviews with Israel officials. Should his background be cited as evidence of his pro-Israel bias? The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg is routinely cited as one of America's most authoritative sources on the Middle East, notwithstanding numerous accusations of pro-Israel bias and, even more so, his choice to go enlist in the IDF and work in an Israeli prison where Palestinians are encaged; do those actions (far beyond his mere ethnicity) call into question his objectivity as a journalist such that The Atlantic should bar him from writing about that region? Jake Tapper -- who Shales suggests as an alternative to Amanpour and who I also previously praised as a choice -- is Jewish; does that raise questions about his objectivity where Israel is concerned?

Besides objectivity towards Israel--Shales' overriding standard apparently for a This Week host--what other traits do they share? Could it be that we're talking about a bunch of white guys? Could it be that Amanpour being a female is threatening for a medium that has consistently underrepresented minorities and women? Could it be that she's not as enthralled as they are about themselves? Even Krugman, a frequent guest on This Week, found the criticism odd:

Um, maybe the idea is to do a bit less “inside-the-Beltway palaver”? You know, we’ve got a global economic crisis, a budding confrontation with China, a major row with Israel; maybe someone who’s knowledgeable about the world rather than the DC party circuit might be just the right choice?

Lawyers, Guns, & Money: Poor FOX, for them being ignored is the same as being muzzled.

William K. Wolfrum: Wow, come to think of it, Fox Business Network isn't much of a business network.

Oh No They Didn't: Sesame Street Disavows American Apparel. No, really.

Joe My God: Whoops, male McCain voters lost more than an election last November, if ya know what I mean.

Jack & Jill Politics doesn't sugarcoat it about Cheney, and here's some motivational speaker advice for Dubya.

Tonight I'm honored to bring you the C&L Election Night live-blog from the CNN Grill at the Time Warner Center in glorious liberal bastion New York City. Check back all night long for up to the minute thoughts and results.

UPDATE: This place is pretty damn cool. You order one drink and they bring you two.

I guess the whining from the McCain campaign has finally paid off.

New York Times:

MSNBC tried a bold experiment this year by putting two politically incendiary hosts, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, in the anchor chair to lead the cable news channel’s coverage of the election.

That experiment appears to be over.

After months of accusations of political bias and simmering animosity between MSNBC and its parent network NBC, the channel decided over the weekend that the NBC News correspondent and MSNBC host David Gregory would anchor news coverage of the coming debates and election night. Mr. Olbermann and Mr. Matthews will remain as analysts during the coverage.

The change — which comes in the home stretch of the long election cycle — is a direct result of tensions associated with the channel’s perceived shift to the political left.

John Amato:

All MSNBC has to do is keep their lineup intact. Hardball, Countdown, The Rachell Maddow Show and then go to Gregory just before and after the event. I think Tom Brokaw might be a little less cranky and they still cover it without blocking out six hours of time.

Photoshop from The Aristocrats.

Oh stop frowning, Cavuto***, the America-haters at The New York Times are just "asking the question..."

On Election Day in 2002, when New Hampshire voters were going to the polls in a hotly contested Senate race, the phone lines in Democratic get-out-the-vote offices were jammed.

After the guilty plea from its executive director, the New Hampshire Republican Party paid to settle a civil lawsuit filed by the state’s Democrats.

There is reason to believe, however, that the phone jamming ploy may have been coordinated out of the White House.

Democrats say there were 22 phone calls between New Hampshire Republican officials and the White House Office of Political Affairs on election night and early the next morning.

[New Hampshire Congressman] Hodes says that rather than trying to learn the truth, the Justice Department has engaged in unlawful interference to block the investigation. Read more...

***Nah, I don't expect anyone on Fox to actually cover this story. But I do wonder why news like this fails to increase my respiration any more.

LawSquawker: Safety for your family or corporations? I thought the Consumer Products Safety Commission was supposed to protect you and me and our families (and our pets) from dangerous, unsafe products. Now, Michael Baroody, who has has spent most of his professional life as a lobbyist and political operative on behalf of corporate interests has been tapped to run the Commission! Just another BUSHCO fox/henhouse outrage (h/t dabobbo)

Faithful Progressive: The 'surge' escalation still doesn't make any sense and simply props up a corrupt and incompetent Iraqi government at American taxpayer expense.

Daily Howler: Maureen Dowd is queen of our dumbest professional cohort - millionaire pundits

First Draft: We are at Day 605 since Katrina and Orleans Coroner Dr. Frank Minyard says there are more bodies yet to be discovered. And, said Dr. Minyard, there are still houses that have not been touched.

Secrecy News: Presidential secrecy is best understood not as an expression of executive strength but as a sign of weakness and insecurity, according to a provocative new book on the subject.

The Free Press: Did the most powerful Republicans in America have the computer capacity, software skills and electronic infrastructure in place on Election Night 2004 to tamper with the Ohio results to ensure George W. Bush's re-election?

The right wing nutosphere is world renowned for playing the victim card, but today they reached new heights in wankerville. They are calling Mike Stark a stalker because he went to the CPAC convention and took a photo with Michelle Malkin...And Malkin was so terrified that she immediately blogged about it...here...I mean here...I mean...Oh wait, nothing...It took Charles Johhnson, hiding in his spider hole to post Mike's picture and label him a stalker. He asks: "not a single lefty blog has condemned the creepy stalking behavior of Mike Stark.." Ummm, I met a host of right and left wing bloggers at the CNN election night party---nobody screamed "Stalkers!" and we all had a really nice time.

I guess he's trying to deflect some of the attention that Coulter got for her "faggot" remarks. Allahpundit was also equally flabbergasted:

I was eating dinner when Charles sent me the link to his post, and when I saw the picture I literally dropped the fork and scrambled to the phone to call MM’s husband. My hands were still shaking 15 minutes later. I know some people will read that and think I’m exaggerating to claim the mantle of victim hood on her behalf, but I swear to you I’m not...

Are his hands still shaking? Exactly what did Mike do---Charlie? Howard Kurtz will probably issue a press release stating that is was "an utter travesty that CPAC allowed Mike Stark into the convention." I'm waiting for the conservative "no convention list" to be published...Gavin has more...

Update: Mike emailed and said that he questioned her about the lack of recruiters at CPAC. He'll probably blog more about it later...

Hey folks, Cliff Schecter here. You may remember me from posting at C&L on election night, or from some YouTube videos where I get a bit "aggressive" with my my moronic GOP counterpart. But I am not here to discuss that.

I am posting in this hallowed space because my good friend Jennifer Abrahamson is the author of a fantastic new book. It's called Sweet Relief: The Marla Ruzicka Story. Some of you may remember Marla for the fact that she was the first person to ever get Congress to earmark funds for the civilian victims of our "collateral damage" in Iraq and Afghanistan. Or that tragically, while working on these very issues in Iraq, at age 28, she was killed by a roadside bomb.

Jen was good friends with Marla and decided to write this book not only to celebrate her life, but also provide an inspiring tale of what one person can accomplish, while also pointing out how we have lost hearts and minds by ignoring those who've become the victims of our advanced weaponry for so long (and still largely do). And any person who pissed off the pathetically racist bimbette, Little Debbie Schlussel, a woman who got Ann Coulter's personal warmth and hydrogen peroxide for her bat mitzvah, must have done something very right.

In any case, I will be hosting a book salon over at Firedoglake today at 5PM EST, where Jen will be live to answer any and all questions. I know, it's Christmas Eve. But you will find no more inspiring tale for the holidays. So if you are one of those people who really ticks O'Reilly off around Christmas time--you know who you are, you non-merry-Christmas-uttering-animists--or even if you do plan to celebrate, but can get a moment off from the egg nog, please come by and join us.