The Washington Post:

The new winner of the Nobel Peace Prize walked out of his house just after 11 a.m., dressed handsomely in a dark suit and a classic blue tie. He descended a marble staircase into a manicured garden, flowers in full bloom, and stepped up to a podium on a perfect autumn day. After making a joke about the lightheartedness of children, he said he was "surprised and humbled" by the award. Then he asked the world to unite by providing all people with opportunity, dignity and freedom from violence and disease.

All told, Barack Obama spoke for six minutes Friday. He said little concrete, nothing controversial, nothing contentious. And yet, once he walked back into his house, contention dominated the day.

This is how it has always gone with Obama: His latest coronation, this time as Nobel Peace Prize winner, inspired a dozen different reactions that were similar only in their intensity.

It's very odd, that a person can win the Nobel Peace Prize and set off a public opinion war. We saw something similar a few years back when Al Gore won and the right-wing machine kicked into high gear. It was easier to dismiss the uproar back then, because Gore has so clearly devoted decades to environmental activism.

People are looking at this and saying, "Huh?"

But Obama has actually done a few things that give me, yes, hope. One is that he is is reducing nuclear stockpiles and pulling other nations along. The other is that he's taking a distinctly different direction in Israel policy by opposing the expansion of West Bank settlements. So an Obama presidency will eventually have its good points.

I was thinking about how vehement and relentless the attacks against him are (again, keeping in mind my own objections to his policies). And what I've concluded is that much of America is caught up in a giant stadium "wave" of media manipulation. As soon as one wave completes itself, the media creates another one.

And of course, we're supporting different home teams.

God knows how many of us there are, but there's a substantial percentage of the public who are, for lack of a better word, hyper-informed. (I hate to use the word "informed" because it indicates actual understanding, and I mean it more in the sense of over-consumption of information.)

We over-consume via 24-hour news channels, talk radio, print media and blogs, in something akin to the binge-and-purge cycle of bulimics.

The thing is, media manipulation is ultimately about selling soap. The soap might be dish detergent, a candidate or an economic philosophy, but someone's trying to sell something. And the more media we consume, the more we're willing to buy.

Media manipulation is so pervasive, so insidious that even people like me who identify it for a living are occasionally distracted from the real point.

All these emotional highs and lows are the results of hypervigilance, brought on by media overconsumption. (Look at your typical Beck fan. I rest my case.) Yes, there really are bad things happening - but probably not as many as you think.

Unfortunately for bloggers, it's our lot in life to play political Paul Revere. In order to protect and warn the village, we must constantly scan the horizon. But you? You don't have to.

The more life experience you have, the more diversity of people and places, the less susceptible you are to media hypnosis. So do step away from the computer occasionally.

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When news came that Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, I looked at my husband and said, "just watch, the wingnuts will lose it over this." And sure enough, I was right. But what threw me for a loop was how nakedly partisan CBS's Chip Reid was in attacking Obama for having the audacity to win the Nobel Prize, something even the great St. Ronnie didn't do:

REID: I mean, most Democrats have praised it, and most Republicans have said, you have got to be kidding me -- Ronald Reagan didn't get one, but Barack Obama, nominated 12 days after he was sworn in, gets a Nobel Peace Prize. And the fear among some, even some Democrats, is that this is going to widen the partisan divide and make things even more difficult to accomplish on every front.

Really? Even more difficult than reflexively fighting *every* *single* Obama agenda item now? How is that possible?

It's touching, isn't it, to hear Chip Reid's concern that this will widen the partisan divide? After all, past winners have included Al Gore and Jimmy Carter...obviously the Nobel committee loves them some Democrats.

But here's the thing that all these insulated Beltway Villagers continually forget: Outside of DC, life is more than Republican vs. Democrat, something that Gibbs gently tries to suggest to Reid:

GIBBS: I'll leave the pundicizing to the pundits. The notion that somehow this is going to more greatly divide America, you know, I think it should be mandatory that pundits spend a certain amount of their days each year outside of the friendly confines of the viewership of the Washington, D.C., media market.

Of course, that goes right over Reid's head. For Reid, this is all about dismissing the Nobel committee -- in Norway, mind you, and not subject to the mind-numbing partisan reduction that Reid seems to breathe as oxygen -- as some liberal organization. He just can't get his head wrapped around the fact the Ronald Reagan -- the man who ended the Cold War! -- was never awarded the Peace Prize. As my friend, Steve Benen says:

A few thoughts here. First, when White House correspondents from major news outlets start sounding like members of Grover Norquist's "We Love Reagan" fan club, it's not a positive development.

Second, the notion that Reagan "helped bring the Cold War to an end" is, at best, a dubious proposition.

Actually, I think Chip Reid is unintentionally letting us into his psyche more than he realizes. He's continually been a go-to guy for Republican talking points for years. He routinely criticizes Democrats for things he lets pass by Republicans and uncritically passes on Republican attacks without context or fact-checking. And here again, he mouths the GOP mentality.

But think about it: if the Nobel Peace Prize only supports liberal causes, isn't Chip Reid admitting that peace is liberal? Then we need never look to conservatives again, because they will never bring peace. Right, Chip?

Transcript below the fold

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Sparklepony is right. This flow-chart of the song "Total Eclipse of the Heart" is "totally why Al Gore invented the internets."

Open Thread below...

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During the Meet the Press panel discussion on the return of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, for some reason, Jon Meacham felt the need to compare a hug between Al Gore and Bill Clinton after the journalists were returned home to Brokeback Mountain. WTF Jon?

He actually went on to make some good points about jailed journalists in other countries that we should care about being freed as well, but his statement about Gore and Clinton frankly left me scratching my head as to why he felt it necessary to blurt something like that out.

GREGORY: Well, I, I would be remiss if we didn't spend a little bit of time on one of the images of the week, and it's such a great political story, and here it was in Burbank, California. You had a former president and a former vice president, Clinton and Gore, with the two journalists from North Korea coming home. And there was the much commented on lingering hug between the two.

Jon Meacham, a fascinating political story.

MEACHAM: Oh.

GREGORY: They were together in the '90s, after the 2000 race they were estranged for a while. They seem to be back together again.

MEACHAM: Yeah. It, it's the new--it's like the Bush-Clinton "Brokeback Mountain." You know, we're back, we're back to that. I, I think the--what's so terrific, in a way, is Clinton was able to get these reporters out. That's a very serious matter. We are--North Korea is a, a, a foe of almost epic--possibly epic dimensions, and anything that gets us in there to get a sense of who these people really are is a good thing. Sending the--sending Bill Clinton, whose emotional intelligence is off the charts, was really lucky for us. If anyone can come back and paint a character sketch of what's going on with those people, it'll be Bill Clinton. And I just want to say, if, if it's all right...

GREGORY: Sure.

MEACHAM: ...there are two places where this is going on right now. Newsweek has a correspondent, Maziar Bahari, who is being held in custody without access to a lawyer and without a formal charge in Iran. There are a number of show trials going on in Iran as that regime, like the North Korean regime, tries to hold onto power. And would urge all of us to pay attention to the situation in Iran, in that we have people who are being held without due process, which is personally tragic but also a significant political story, because it's about a regime trying to fight history.

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August 06, 2009 CBS Late Show

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Laura Ling: Thirty hours ago, Euna Lee and I were prisoners in North Korea. We feared that at any moment we could be prisoners in a hard labor camp. Then suddenly we were told that we were going to a meeting. We were taken to a location and when we walked through the doors, we saw standing before us President Bill Clinton. We were shocked, but we knew instantly in our hearts that the nightmare of our lives was finally coming to an end. And now we stand here home and free.

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Rachel Maddow takes a look back at the history of fake-grassroots protests that have been orchestrated by the GOP in the past, and the debacle that was the "Brooks Brothers Riot" during the Bush v Gore 2000 election recount.

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While discussing the magnificent come back the GOP is about to make during the mid-term elections in Pat's mind, Pat Buchanan compares Al Gore's views on climate change to the birthers. Thankfully Joe Conason was there to remind us just how bad it is for the Republican party to be listening to the likes of Pat Buchanan when Tweety would let him get a word in edgewise.

KT Tunstall--Black Horse and the Cherry Tree

No, no, no, no, these are not the ones for me. I'm looking at the bobblehead parade and I'm wondering how much more decisively Obama would have to have won before David Gregory would stop inviting the non-President of the United States John McCain as a guest. I mean, how many times did Tim Russert have on Al Gore or John Kerry during GWB's terms? It would be one thing if Gregory mentioned the absolute idiocy of bringing Sarah Palin to the national attention, but you know he'd never do that.

Elsewhere along the dial, the prevailing topics are Sonia Sotomayor's upcoming nomination hearings and of course, health care. If you want a good laugh, you may want to check C-Span, where their "Newsmakers" show will highlight two Republican representatives (Burgess-TX, Cassidy-LA), who will map out the Republican health care plans. One would presume it would be a VERY short program: "Privatize! We don't wanna be no socialist country!" Done.

ABC's "This Week" - Sens. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Dan Rather, Joan Biskupic, Helene Cooper, Pete Williams. Topics: How will Sonia Sotomayor change the U.S. Supreme Court if she is confirmed? How has President Obama made himself so effective at absorbing shocks? Will the Republicans support a health care bill with new taxes? YES: 7 NO: 5; Will Republicans unite as a bloc to oppose any health care reform bill? YES: 9 NO: 3.

CNN's "State of the Union/Reliable Sources" - Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius; Sens. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., Judd Gregg, R-N.H., Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Kent Conrad, D-N.D.; Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Pa.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - U.S. Secretary of Treasury Tim Geithner on the economic crisis. Did those green shoots we were seeing turn brown? And is Geithner doing enough to fix the problem? Plus, one of the biggest thorns in Prime Minister Putin's side. Obama quietly met with him in Russia this week. You'll hear from the leader of the Russian opposition, Boris Nemtsov.

"Fox News Sunday" - Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and John Cornyn, R-Texas; Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va.

So what's catching your eye this morning?

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(Sen. Al Gore with Rep. John Moss - Next time you're digging around the National Archives, thank the guy on the right.)

On March 30, 1965, California Representative John Moss introduced legislation in Congress that would give the public access to the inner workings of the government. It was met with a lot of resistance. LBJ swore to veto it if it arrived on his desk. The idea that a government that was transparent, that actually would be accountable, where the press would actually have access to documents seemed very abstract to some.

And it wasn't until 1966, when LBJ had a change of heart (or a change of some provisions in the bill) that The Freedom of Information Act was finally signed into law.

A lot of attempts have been made to stymie the law, including a Bush Executive Order which rendered it null for the better part of 8 years. Still, the bill came from someplace and it was someone's idea that the people were entitled to know the truth.

So here is a report by Fred Morrison from March 30, 1965, outlining the reactions on Capitol Hill to the newly introduced bill.

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North Korea found two U.S. journalists it has held since March guilty of illegal entry and sentenced them to 12 years hard labor, its official KCNA news agency said on Monday.

The journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, of U.S. media outlet Current TV, were arrested while working on a story near the border between North Korea and China. Their trial opened on Thursday.

"The trial confirmed the grave crime they committed against the Korean nation and their illegal border crossing as they had already been indicted and sentenced each of them to 12 years of reform through labor," KCNA said in a brief dispatch.

There just aren't words to express my anger and frustration for Lee and Ling. Al Gore, whose CurrentTV has remained curiously silent on Lee and Ling's plight, may go to Pyongyang to negotiate for their release:

The United States might send former US vice president Al Gore to Pyongyang in order to negotiate the release of two American journalists on trial in North Korea for illegal entry.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly did not rule out such a possibility when asked if it would make sense to send Gore, who is chairman of the California station Current TV, which employs the two journalists.

"It's a very, very sensitive issue, I'm not going to go into it," Kelly told reporters who pressed him on the matter.

"This is such a sensitive issue, I'm just not going to go into those kinds of discussions that we may or may not have had," he added when asked whether Gore himself had raised the matter with the State Department.

"The bottom line is that these two young women should be released but I'm not going to go into any kind of details on what we will or won't do," Kelly said when asked again if it would help to send Gore.

The Petition Site has a petition you can sign (and a Facebook group you can join) to ask the State Department to bring Lee and Ling home.

Either this will turn out to be a bold, brilliant move - or a disaster that will set the cause back for a long time. Here's hoping they pull it off:

Eight and a half years after their epic partisan battle over the fate of the 2000 presidential election, the lawyers David Boies and Theodore B. Olson appeared on the same team on Wednesday as co-counsel in a federal lawsuit that has nothing to do with hanging chads, butterfly ballots or Electoral College votes.

Their mutual goal: overturning Proposition 8, California’s freshly affirmed ban on same-sex marriage. It is a fight that jolted many gay rights advocates — and irritated more than a few — but that Mr. Boies and Mr. Olson said was important enough to, temporarily at least, set aside their political differences.

“Ted and I, as everybody knows, have been on different sides in court on a couple of issues,” said Mr. Boies, who represented Al Gore in Bush v. Gore, the contested 2000 vote count in Florida in which Mr. Olson prevailed for George W. Bush. “But this is not something that is a partisan issue. This is something that is a civil rights issue.”

The duo’s complaint, filed last week in Federal District Court in San Francisco on behalf of two gay couples and formally announced Wednesday at a news conference in Los Angeles, argues against Proposition 8 on the basis of federal constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process.

In the end, the two lawyers suggested, the case might take them, again, to the United States Supreme Court. While neither man claimed any special connection to the gay community — they are working “partially pro-bono,” Mr. Olson said — both said they had been touched by the stories of the same-sex couples unable to marry in California.

“If you look into the eyes and hearts of people who are gay and talk to them about this issue, that reinforces in the most powerful way possible the fact that these individuals deserve to be treated equally,” Mr. Olson said at the news conference.

“I couldn’t have said it better,” said Mr. Boies, patting Mr. Olson on the back.

Not everyone in the gay rights movement, however, was thrilled by the sudden intervention of the two limelight-grabbing but otherwise untested players in the bruising battle over Proposition 8. Some expressed confusion at the men’s motives and outright annoyance at the possibility that a loss before the Supreme Court could spoil the chances of future lawsuits on behalf of same-sex marriage.

“It’s not something that didn’t occur to us,” Matt Coles, the director of the LGBT project at the American Civil Liberties Union, said of filing a federal lawsuit. “Federal court? Wow. Never thought of that.”

But Mr. Olson said that their lawsuit — which also seeks an injunction blocking the marriage ban until the matter can be resolved — fell squarely in the tradition of landmark cases like Brown v. Board of Education.

“Creating a second class of citizens is discrimination, plain and simple,” said Mr. Olson, who served as solicitor general under Mr. Bush. “The Constitution of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Abraham Lincoln does not permit it.”

Well, folks, they've done it again. Cable news has now elevated Dick Cheney to a place as high as our new commander in chief.

WTF is wrong with these people? When Al Gore gave speeches after a few years, they would be broadcast on CSPAN because the Bushies were in charge, but obviously the networks want this to be the tale of the Duel Between Dick Cheney and Barack Obama. One is a disgraced former vice president, a torture lover who lied us into two wars and has a lower approval rating than people who identify as Republicans, vs. President Barack Obama, one of the most popular leaders of the free world and the man in charge of cleaning up the mess Cheney and Bush left in their wake.

Greg Sargent:

Looks like Dick Cheney’s big national security speech at the American Enterprise Institute tomorrow is going to get wall-to-wall cable coverage — giving a major assist to those who hope that his speech will be seen as “dueling” with the one that Obama is planning to give on the same topic tomorrow.

Both CNN and MSNBC will be carrying Cheney’s speech live tomorrow, in addition to carrying Obama’s, spokespeople for both networks confirm to me, barring the intrusion of some major news event. Fox News will certainly be all over the Cheney speech tomorrow — a major cataclysm couldn’t tear them away from such a big moment. So that means roadblocked cable coverage for Cheney.

Obama is set to deliver his big speech on national security at 10 A.M. Cheney’s is set to follow at 10:45. Politico framed the story of tomorrow’s speeches in advance in a piece called: “Barack Obama, Dick Cheney plan dueling speeches.”
This, naturally, raised some hackles on the left, where people pointed out that Obama is the Commander in Chief, meaning his national security views have real-world significance, while Dick Cheney is a private citizen who only has his reputation at stake.

In other words, goes this argument, their speeches will only be “dueling” if folks in the media make the decision to present them that way. Republicans, meanwhile, hope that coverage does proceed along these lines, helping to elevate Cheney and taking down Obama a peg or two.

Greg Sargent does a wonderful job as usual. Looks like the cable newsmen have already made the call.

Cheney's speech is a side show at a carnival act because the Republicans would rather try to rebrand the Democratic party as socialists while President Obama's words impact the entire world, but the media heads are only looking for their favorite selling point: "Conflict"
Yes, that sounds about equal. They want this to be Frazier and Ali, but it's about a liar and a sadist getting free airtime to attack a president who is trying to restore the country's footing after eight years of "compassionate conservatism." Wars, death, torture, wiretapping, loyalty oaths and moles planted in every department of the government which includes the OLC (the arm of the government that the Bushies used to try and give them legal cover for the crimes they committed) are part of Cheney's legacy. Isn't this just what the country needs? To hear a man trying to repair a record of death and destruction with blood dripping from his hands. To be continued....

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May 15, 2009 CNN's American Morning:

ROBERTS: As you know, the most recent former Vice President Dick Cheney has come out quite strongly against the Obama administration, saying that its policies have left America less safe than it was during the Bush administration.

You were a big critic of the previous administration, particularly in the run-up to the war and thereafter. What do you think of Vice President Cheney's statements that the Obama administration's policies are leaving this country less safe?

GORE: Well, obviously, I strongly disagree.

And, you know, I waited two years after I left office to make statements that were critical, and then of the policy. You know, you talk about somebody that shouldn't be talking about making the country less safe, invading a country that did not attack us and posed no serious threat to us at all. You know, he can speak for himself.

And I have a feeling that members of his own party wish that he would not do that. But I'll let that be an argument between him and them.

ROBERTS: Are you suggesting that it's unusual for a former vice president, former administration official that high-ranking to come out this early in a new administration and be this critical?

GORE: You know, look, that's a judgment call and he's made his judgment. He has become, in many ways, the leading spokesman for his party during this period of time. And the message is one that he's deciding to deliver.

Look, I'm going to focus on trying to build bipartisan alliances around this country for American leadership to solve the climate crisis. And I don't want to get dragged into an argument with Dick Cheney about what he's getting into. I'm just going to let him speak for himself.

ROBERTS: Oh, Mr. Vice President, you know I would never try to do that with you.

Electric Politics: Russ Baker talks about his new book, "Family of Secrets," a thoughtful, massively researched look at Bush family political intrigue.

Senate Guru: Quick Hits

Politics In the Zeros: Systematic fraud at public pension funds

Papamoka Straight Talk: Boston Racist Talk Radio

Needlenose : Six years after "Mission Accomplished," why is Obama pretending there's still a mission?

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: NYT public editor dances around the truth...Call the Waaambulance ...AP mocks Al Gore's lack of ignorance...Pentagon Pundits still thriving at NBC...A savvy fraud...David Gregory's locution...Another reason why WaPo sucks ...Shepard Smith is Shrill...If only these people weren't here...Who betrayed 'Objective' journalism?...Long road to a Pulitzer...The meaning of 'dissent'...Millionaire outrage...Torture Pimps...Yeah, what Billy said... NPR hackery...