News Hounds: Hannity, Colmes, Coulter, (and the most ineffectual Democrat spokesman of all time) OR 'Maybe These Relentless Neopundit Attacks on Edwards Merit Giving Him a Second Look'

Via Andrew Sullivan, Matthew Dessem on The Ancient Art of Making Lists

I'm from Bristol, so I know from whence the Monkey speaks.

Dems: Why be so skittish at the mention of terror? H/T Sandy.

This is the very first review of David Lynch's 'Inland Empire' that bothers to focus on what the movie actually looks like. Thank you, Dennis Lym, for focusing.

Winding out the week...

For my money, there is no better MSM blog for tips on under-reported and/or context-free news than Dan Froomkin's White House Watch (even though Dan takes more time off than the president). His latest piece is The Lost Year.

I would be remiss if I didn't share this link to the Comic Curmudgeon, the site that I always reward myself with after a hard day of slaving over a hot keyboard. Today, Zippy spirals downward and The Shocker just stands there.

And of course, a shout out to my fellow Aristocrats - Sandy, Paul, and Blue Gal. (Oops, sorry ya bastidz, I just ran out of links).

Guest blogged by Mark Hoback of The Aristocrats.

UPDATE from Blue Gal: Mike his own self returns tomorrow, after the female Crooks and Liars staffers check him jealously for Joe Cocker groupie hickeys. We hear the "Hymn 4 My Soul" European Tour was amazing! (But we're glad to have you home, Mike honey.)

OpenLeft:

So I'm reading Jamison Foser's usual excellent column at Media Matters discussing why John Edwards' $400 haircut is always in the news, and I come upon this really interesting nugget. According to the Providence Journal's Tom Mooney, apparently, NBC Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski was paid $30,000 to give a speech for the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, a speech in which he bashed Edwards for the haircut incident. Let's leave aside Miklaszewski's Bushnik 'the enemy is patient and America has a short attention span' wingnut rhetoric, and focus on a very specific practice going on here known in the industry as 'buckraking'.

Buckraking is the practice whereby a journalist is paid to speak to a business or right-wing group for large sums of money, and buckraking is a serious offense (it's also apparently against NBC's corporate policy). [..]

Did Miklaszewski break company policy by accepting this speaking fee? It certainly would seem he did (he's listed as a speaker for hire on speaker provider Barber and Associates' web site). Chris Matthews fell into a bit of hot water last year for apparently accepting speaking fees from special interest corporate groups, and Rick Kaplan, then MSNBC's President, made it clear that the policy for news anchors at NBC was that buckraking would result in firing.

During Hardball's love in with Ann Coulter----Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of John Edwards called in and asked her to stop lowering the bar with personal attacks in our country's political debate. Coulter was not ready for this one...

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Coulter denies attacking Edwards on GMA (Coulter:...if I’m going to say anything about John Edwards in the future, I’ll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot.”) and then talks over her as Elizabeth tries to get through...She tells Ann that her ilk debases political dialogue---Oh, really? Ann tries to spin it that Edwards is telling her to stop talking which is of course---wrong. Elizabeth also tells her that she's the mother of the son who died and called her out on Coulter's column that said this about John Edwards:

If you want points for not using your son's death politically, don't you have to take down all those "Ask me about my son's death in a horrific car accident" bumper stickers?

Ann's defense is that she wrote it three years ago....

Think Progress has got it too...

NEWSWEEK:

It’s hard to say which is worse news for Republicans: that George W. Bush now has the worst approval rating of an American president in a generation, or that he seems to be dragging every ’08 Republican presidential candidate down with him. But According to the new NEWSWEEK Poll, the public’s approval of Bush has sunk to 28 percent, an all-time low for this president in our poll[..].

While the poll has some high marks for Clinton, it's not all good news. Though the New York senator and former first lady aims to project an aura of inevitability that she will win the Democratic nomination, Obama beats the leading Republicans by larger margins than any other Democrat: besting Giuliani 50 to 43 percent, among registered voters; beating McCain 52 to 39 percent, and defeating Romney 58 percent to 29 percent.

Like Obama, Edwards defeats the Republicans by larger margins than Clinton does: the former Democratic vice-presidential nominee outdistances Giuliani by six points, McCain by 10 and Romney by 37, the largest lead in any of the head-to-head matchups. Meanwhile, Sen. Clinton wins 49 percent to 46 percent against Giuliani, well within the poll's margin of error; 50 to 44 against McCain; and 57 to 35 against Romney.

My buddy, SteveAudio, noticed that the media was only too happy to pick up the John Edwards's $400 haircut for all it was worth, analyzing it and dissecting it to make judgments on Edwards and Democrats alike. However, the media has been curiously disinterested in making the same kind of scrutiny to the purchases made by the Bushes.

alicublog: The moratorium on Elizabeth Edwards criticism has ended...

F.A.I.R. Imus has a long history of racism but the parade of media luminaries who have appeared on his show have rarely raised questions about the show's bigotry.  And explain this to me, why do UNITED STATES SENATORS appear on this daily slimathon?  Should we really be surprised at this latest symptom of the breakdown of civilized discourse when the Bush Crime Family, their right wing spear carriers, and the MSM routinely accuse other citizens of treason for merely criticizing elected public officials?

Martini Republic: An even more serious crisis looms in Iraq as tens of thousands take to the streets to protest US occupation

AlterNet: We don't just torture them, we torture us!

Booman Tribune: A lot of hot air devoted to fund raising, who's up, who's down...where's the beef?

And Doctor Biobrain's Response Is...on conservative authenticity

Boy, is this sure to ruffle some Christian feathers. Paging Mr. Donohue... Mr. Donohue...

WaPo :

Filmmakers and researchers on Monday unveiled two ancient stone boxes they said may have once contained the remains of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, but several scholars derided the claims made in a new documentary as unfounded and contradictory to basic Christian beliefs.

"The Lost Tomb of Jesus," produced by Oscar-winning director James Cameron and scheduled to air March 4 on the Discovery Channel, argues that 10 small caskets, called ossuaries, discovered in 1980 in a Jerusalem suburb may have held the bones of Jesus and his family.

One of the caskets even bears the title, "Judah, son of Jesus," hinting that Jesus may have had a son, according to the film. The claim that Jesus even had an ossuary contradicts the Christian belief that he was resurrected and ascended to heaven. Read more...

David Edwards of RawStory compares CNN and FOX's coverage of the story. For more about the show, visit the website at Discovery.com.

Morning, C&L junkies -- great to be over here saying hello again. Promised the ever-wonderful John Amato that I would give you all a heads up on the Sunday gabfests. It's that time of day. Fresh cuppa coffee. A read through of the latest in news and blogs. And the excited anticipation of who will be on what Sunday morning news show.

Or not. Just in case, though, the Sunday Talking Head line-up is up for your perusal here.

There are some surprises on the line-up listings this morning. The most surprising thing? Actual, honest-to-goodness liberals are booked for this morning. The fact that Carl Levin and Jimmy Carter and John Edwards are all on programs today? It sure looks like the booking folks have realized that Democrats are good for business these days. Must be those rising ratings for Olbermann.

Also, if you have a few good thoughts to spare, Steve Gilliard could use them. Get well soon, Steve! And now, another cuppa coffee...

TV Newser:

The network is working with the Nevada Democratic Party and the Western Majority Project to host the debate, "which is expected to attract the top Democratic contenders for President," the press release says. It will air live on FNC and FNR on Aug. 14 in Reno.

One question: WHY?!?!?!?! Why on Earth would Democratic candidates agree to go on a channel that admits they are the propaganda wing for the White House? This really IS letting the other side frame the debate.

Can you imagine what kinds of questions Obama, Clinton, Edwards and the others would have to field? Who will they get to moderate: Sean Hannity or Brit Hume?

Bill Donohue's milking the Edwards Bloggers story for all its worth and manufactured outrage made me think of this classic Tom Tomorrow cartoon.

And C&Ler BTL in the comments points us to the breaking news of the death today of a woman we all should honor.