Good morning, one and all, and welcome to Sunday, where Sunday Morning Teevee Shows are beaming at my face as I cower from the Dantean levels of heat and humidity that lie in wait for me just outside my door. My name is Jason, hello! Today we shall have, I believe, Newt Gingrich and Howard Dean, yelling at each other, the Tim Geithner Dance Party, and the last day of Jake Tapper as host of This Week.
A plug! Do you like the MAD MEN, premiering tonight? Do you like books? Would you like to be able to discuss MAD MEN as the water cooler/opium hookah/cat-o-nine tails vending machine with your friends, loved ones, and private dancers who dance for money and will do what you want them to do with a degree of historical expertise? Then you should buy Natasha Vargas-Cooper's Mad Men Unbuttoned. Now! Go do it!
A programming note! There are going to be two Sundays I won't be around to liveblog. Sorry! You'll get through somehow! One of those Sundays is next Sunday. It's going to be okay, I promise.
As always you can leave a comment, or send an email, or follow me on the Twitters. Let's start this nonsense.
FOX NEWS SUNDAY
OMG what do you think Newt Gingrich and Howard Deam are going to say about the upcoming elections? You think they'll say something like, "Well you know the party out of power in the White House tends to do very well, historically," and then the other will say, "It's really hard to defend these kinds of Congressional majorities and dumb to expect they'll last forever," and then just move on to talk about important issues?
Sigh. Probably not! But first we'll talk about Shirley Sherrod, who was stupidly fired, in the stupidest "spectre of race" firing since that guy in the DC government used the word "niggardly" and everyone just about flat lost their minds, because suddenly words had no meaning and everyone was a junior etymologist.
But Newt thought it was awesome that Sherrod got fired. What does he say now? What he says is that he's a raging git: "I was operating in the context of the Secretary of Agriculture firing her, and there was no reason to disbelieve the clip." I do not think this is how "belief" is supposed to work? You are supposed to form your own ideas? Maybe the newly Catholic Gingrich has mistaken Tom Vilsack for the Pope? Anyway, this is Obama's fault (and it is!). But it Gingrich's fault that he was wrong, calling someone a vicious racist, not the Obama administration.
Wallace calls out Gingrich on being quick to call people racist. He doesn't seem to understand that Gingrich simply believes racism is something that happens to white people, exclusively, at least to the extent that he's willing to speak out on it.
Oooh. Howard Dean goes off. Stipulating that neither Gingrich or Wallace is racist, he goes on to say that Fox News "did something racist" by not getting to the bottom of the clip and for pimping "this Black Panther crap." "The Tea Party called out its racist fringe and the Republican party needs to stop appealing to its racist fringe. Fox News is what did that."
Wallace says, well, it was the Obama administration that fired Sherrod before her "name was ever mentioned on Fox News Channel." It showed up often after that. For what it's worth, Dean is making a mistake raising the specter of Glenn Beck here -- Beck actually opposed Sherrod's firing. Shepard Smith got this right, too. That said, the Fox News Channel does have enough cotton-headed nimrods on the television who can't be counted on to handle important matters responsibly. Here's a complete rundown on that.
Wallace makes a good point that the Obama administration needs to not act like keeping news off the Glenn Beck show is a national priority. Dean is right that the original clip SHOULD HAVE BEEN PLAYED BY NOBODY WITHOUT EXPLORING ITS PROVENANCE.
Newt: EVERYONE IS RACIST! How will Obama face the Iranians if he can't face Glenn Beck?
I'm pretty sure you aren't allowed to cripple Glenn Beck with economic sanctions or keep military intervention "on the table." But anyway! The Obama administration should seriously just not pay any mind to what's going on at the Glenn Beck show, anymore than they should worry about what Cirque de Soleil is doing.
Does Dean think Congressional Democrats have been too timid? He says health care was a "disappointment" but that FinReg was "good." But the major stuff, the "change," the pre-eminence of lobbyists, is "not supposed to be going on." He cites Tom Perriello, and says that he may win re-election by a hair because he has convictions and he practices them and he doesn't lie about them and he doesn't behave like getting re-elected is his first and only job.
Gingrich obviously doesn't like the president's policies and wants the Bush tax cuts extended, along with a lot of other pro-cyclical policies that will exacerbate and extend the downturn. Dean says that the stimulus has done some good, and the CBO agrees. Dean says "everyone needs to put something on the table" as far as paying down the debt, and thinks that the Clinton-era level of taxation will hurt the economy.
Dean doesn't mince words on Rangel: the process is working, it looks like Rangel may have done things that should get him thrown out of Congress, if he did them then he will get thrown out of Congress, Luke Russert will be vindicated, and one of Congress' most regrettable hairstyles will fade from memory.
Will Newt run for President? Is he just playing the candidate card? He says, wait till February or March. Dean says, "Whatever you think of Newt Gingrich" he has "ideas." (See, I don't think he's had many in a while? But I guess when you are being compared to John Boehner, you just look really good.)
Now Jesse Jackson is here, to talk about race and Sherrod. Jackson basically gets the lead-up right: ongoing back and forth between the NAACP and the Tea Party instilled the need in America's morons to prove that blacks were as racist as white just as fast as they could, the clip hit, an avalanche of media went bonkers, and the White House flipped their lid instead of taking a moment to figure it out.
That leads to a string of sentences I don't understand, but it involves the Huffington Post and clouds and rain and I guess we're a "conglomerate of blogs" that's preventing the White House from "changing the culture of Washington." Sorry, Washington!
Has the White House been too timid? Jackson says that the White House gets attacked all the time, and gets hit by racial attacks everytime they they to do something for the underserved.
Is it a mistake to keep Obama out of "conversations about race?" Jackson says the conversations are unavoidable. Was it a mistake for Jackson to get into a "conversation about LeBron James?" "To me, it looked like Dred Scott," Jackson says. I'm pretty sure Dred Scott wasn't that good a rebounder.
Panel time, with Hume and Liasson and Kristol and Williams!
Hume says that the Sherrod story would make a wonderful farce! He also seems to think that the Breitbart clip contained the redemption story, and it just got overlooked by everyone. No, no. It ends abruptly. In the words of one conservative blogger who watched the clip: "I want to know. Because it seemed like Sherrod was heading somewhere with that story, and the edit does not let us get there. I want the rest of the story before I start passing judgment on it."
Liasson says that every journalistic entity who played the tape without checking it, including Fox, is guilty, everyone who jumped the gun -- the NAACP and the White House -- are guilty. "It was a sorry spectacle from A to Z." Kristol thinks it's dumb and "pathetic" that the White House acted as if keeping a story off the Glenn Beck show was a national priority and I agree with him.
NOW BRIT HUME IS TALKING VERY QUIETLY. Welcome to "The Quiet Storm," with Brit Hume. THIS IS A WHISPERY COMMENT FROM BRIT HUME BECAUSE RACE STUFF MAKES HIM UNCOMFORTABLE AND SAD.
Liasson says that there will have to be some sort of deal over taxes and tax cuts because everyone is caught between pretending to care about deficits, when really nobody does. Did I provide this link about the Bush tax cuts last Sunday? I can't remember. I saw INCEPTION between then and now and it sort of UNWOUND my brain a little bit.
Anyway, Brit Hume doesn't think taxes should be raised when the economy is struggling. Later, when the economy is fine, he won't think taxes should be raised either. Juan Williams tries to point out what Obama's tax policy actually is. Hume's response is to throw down a whole ton of Galtian nonsense, about job creation. My RSS feed was resurrecting old-content this past Friday, but it very fortuitously revived this Moe Tkacik piece that is hilariously relevant to the discussion.
Now let's watch Chris Matthews wrestle with racial issues!
THE CHRIS MATTHEWS SHOW
Oh, I forget that this show has gotten new furniture and it is really uncomfortable looking now because none of the guests are used to it. So, we have John Heilemann, Amy Walter, Cynthia Tucker, and Howard Fineman.
So, remember how Barack Obama had an exciting campaign and the way a presidential campaign allows a guy to project a lot of hopes for the future on people, and then you come to Washington DC and discover that all the relevant Congressional commitees are chaired by 80 year old men who are afraid of of VCRs? Good times! Well, President Obama's campaign really stoked that for all it's worth, but, as it turns out, Ben Nelson is still here and stuff! Shouldn't someone have put Ben Nelson in a petting zoo?
Okay, that's not really the question. But Heilemann thinks it's too late to get the youngs to the polls for the 2010 election, because the youngs are like "OBAMA WOO!" but then someone comes along and says, "Can I interest you in a John Boccieri, Democrat from Ohio?" and the youngs are all, "SORRY, LISTENING TO SLEIGH BELLS, OMGZ!"
Sleigh Bells, admittedly, are awesome, and sure, some of their songs could get elected. But it's just too hard to listen to the record all the way through, over and over again, so I'm not sure that America is ready for a Sleigh Bells platform. A School Of Seven Bells platform is another story.
But I digress! Democrats are going to hate this election, right? Tucker says that it was sort of stupid to think that Obama was going to make the 2010 election as exciting as his own election, because Tyler Perry voted for Obama and is apparently all: "Whatever, I voted that one time, didn't it work? Damn I'm bored now!"
Fineman says that right now the Dems are going to try to depress the turnout amoing independents by pointing out how awful Sharron Angle is. Heilemann agrees, and says if you can't get someone to say "yes" to you, get them to say "no," to someone else. "There's a word for that," Matthews says, "voter suppression." First: that's two words. Second, that's not voter suppression. Voter suppression is when you physically keep people from voting. This is called: "Make the climate such a thoroughgoing, cynical, shitshow that everyone gives up and doesn't vote."
Howard Fineman says that Democrats know they are going to lose and are trying to minimize their losses. This is surprising, I'm sure, to someone!
Chris Matthews seems to be surprised by the rather obvious observation that the GOP can win in 2010 without an agenda. As Martin points out, this worked very well for the Democrats in 2006! In 21st century America, the best position to run in is the default position. That's where we're at, circa now.
For some reason, Chris Matthews is showing an old Sarah Silverman video from 2008. This show really has no rules, at all!
That was a really interesting ad for Lunesta! And now, we're back to talking about Wave Elections. Chris is into the Waves! On the other hand, the king of the beach will be determined in a Wavves Election:
And now, Chris will fill out the discussion with video clips of previous elections, and dumb questions to his panel. "Howard, define a wave!" A wave represents national sentiments that grow and grow and for some reason the media misses them entirely until election day. JUST KIDDING. FINEMAN DIDN'T SAY THAT, DUH!
Walters says that it's more like a tornado, in that lots of people die and there's wanton destruction and yet, somehow, CHRIS SHAYS STILL STANDS! How did Chris Shays do that? He's just awful, I guess!
Fineman says that Robert Gibbs comments that the Dems could lose the House was "designed as an alarm." Hey, my alarm clock is also designed as an alarm! But it doesn't do me any good if it goes off months after I was supposed to wake up. He also says that Gibbs' comments were designed to focus the mind, like in INCEPTION. That was a really good movie, by the way!
Stuff Chris Matthews doesn't know: 1) That Sarah Silverman clip is old and not really relevant to the media cycle today. 2) Bloomberg might run for president, if Romney or Palin runs! 3) Wisconsin! Russ Feingold. It's close! 4) People may run away from Obama, unless they don't? And James Clyburn is the go to guy as far as "In case you need a black Democrat to stump for you break glass." AND THEN NICE OLD JAMES CLYBURN IS COVERED IN GLASS SHARDS, ARE YOU HAPPY NOW? 5) James Rendell says some stuff about politics that doesn't make sense to anyone but Ed Rendell.
The "big question" is will Bill Clinton be the cheerleader this year? Heilemann says the White House wants him out there. Walter agrees but wonders what Clinton will do to make voters happy. (Hmmmm!) Tucker says Clinton is a good surrogate. Fineman says that Obama needs the Clinton's help, but will be hesitant to praise them (BECAUSE HE ONCE RAN FOR OFFICE AGAINST HILLARY CLINTON, DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THAT???)
THIS WEEK
So, the This Week! Today is the last day of the interim period, presided over by Jake Tapper after that weird period where a bunch of different people got to host the show. Next week, Christiane Amanpour takes the reigns. Obviously, this is exciting, because Amanpour is a great reporter and an important historical figure, frankly!
But I'm not totally ready to see this interim period end, actually! The past few months have been a pretty exciting period in the life of this show. I've pointed it out enough times to know that merely enumerating the things they've done -- up their social media game, gotten Politifact's help with after-action factchecking, expanded and extended the diversity of the panels, etc. -- doesn't really do the effort justice.
Let's just say this: these Sunday shows can be dreadfully formulaic. And they can be ridiculously inflexible. And for years, it was pretty clear to me that the producers of these shows hadn't really thought of their viewers for a long time. ABC News took a period of uncertainty and turned it into a period of opportunity. Instead of polishing their old formula and staying true to ancient codes, they adopted an open-source mentality. I liken it to what the kids of my dad's generation did with cars, and what people to this day do with computers: they took a look at the box that the factory produced, and said, "I bet I can make this run faster."
Tapper, along with Rick Klein at the Note and probably a ton of producers whose names I don't know (certainly you can credit all of the other Political Punch bloggers for playing a part), really took to the project with enthusiasm. They had a good thing going, collectively and individually, that they could have ridden along with. Instead, they got into the grits of their operation a little bit, and before you knew it, they were elbows-up in gears and grease. And when Tapper hit the Colbert Report to talk about bringing on Politifact, sure, he was very serious about it -- but there was a little trace of that sly, teenage enthusiasm that comes with exploring boundaries and feeling like something new is going to bring good things in its wake.
Since then, This Week has the odd ratings victories over Meet The Press, so the work hasn't gone unnoticed. (An underappreciated point -- by yours truly -- is that This Week has Sunday's WORST lead in by a country mile: Clear Skies America or whatever the hell it's called. If MTP had it as it's lead in, we'd see some different numbers, I'm sure.)
What people should learn from this: Jailbreak your OS. Open your codes. Don't treat your formula as a sacred text.
It's been a great period. It sort of began with Jay Rosen suggesting that the Sunday Shows needed a fix. Tapper and company really took it to heart. But they had real fun taking it to heart, and you can tell. And Rosen's prescriptives are best approached by those who are willing to whistle a happy tune while doing so. I hope that spirit continues, and today, This Week gets to ride out in the pimp spot.
EVEN THOUGH I HAVE TO LISTEN TO TIM GEITHNER!
So, okay: what is the administration going to do about the Bush tax cuts? If they stay there will be trouble, if they go, there will be...well "political trouble." Geithner says that it's responsible to let the cuts expire on the top two percent of the country, and will not negatively impact growth. Geithner says that they will cut taxes for everyone else and extend the "Make Work Pay" tax break. Thanks for that, by the way. I'm sorry I used it to pay down debt, Tim. I know you'd rather I spent that in a frenzy of wild living.
Will the votes be there to pass this? Geithner says absolutely. What about keeping the Bush tax cuts around for another year, just for fun? "I don't believe we should, I don't believe we will."
But what other tools remain to jump start the economy? Geithner says there's a small biz package in the works that Congress hasn't done anything with. He also says that the private sector is hiring people -- ghosts, maybe? -- and that it needs to happen at a faster pace.
Unemployment benefits: is it more fiscally responsible to have spending cuts alongside their enactment? Geithner says that he thinks that unemployment should be treated as an emergency. (I worry that the "emergency" treatment is what allows Ben Bernanke the leeway to do nothing about unemployment.)
Onto FinReg. Tapper goes there: Why should we now trust regulators who so often allowed failure to happen on their watch? Geithner says that the rules do not rest on the wisdom of regulators. They are just so wonderfully strong on their very own! Could Geithner have stopped the financial collapse with the new FinReg? Geithner says it would have "caused much less damage."
What about Elizabeth Warren? Does Geithner support her to run the Consumer Protection Agency? Hmmm, what's the longest answer Geithner can give, while simultaneously saying, "No, I do not support her!"
She is a enormously effective advocate for reform. Probably the most effective advocate for reform for consumers for consumer protection in the country. She has huge credibility and she played a decisive role in helping make the public case for reform and she was early on this, way ahead of everybody else.
Jason, wouldn't you like to covered in leeches?
Leeches are enormously effective at sucking. Probably the most effective suckers that you can find in local swamps. They are renowned for their ability to suck and their sucking has even been thought to have medicinal value. Long before we got here, people had respect for leeches.
Now, ask yourself: Did I just come out in favor of being covered in leeches?
(AND BY THE WAY NO I AM NOT COMPARING ELIZABETH WARREN TO LEECHES. I've met E-Dubs, and she is straight up awesome, and I'd have her run this town like Jay-Z if it were up to me.)
Anyway, THAT'S A DECISION THE PRESIDENT WILL MAKE...
Geithner says he bears no personal animus to Warren, as if I really give a shit about that.
What about the bonuses?
TAPPER: Ken Feinberg issued a report including that U.S. banks paid out $1.6 billion in unwanted -- unwarranted bonuses to top earners during the height of the meltdown. Seventeen banks made these payouts after getting TARP funds, after getting bailout funds.
GEITHNER: It's a -- you know, it really is an incredible thing. And that's what he reminded of which is in early '09, on the basis of performance in '08, in the middle of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, firms that had taken support from the government because they could not manage without it still paid out substantial sums of money to people who made the decisions that caused the crisis.TAPPER: Is there nothing that can be done about this?
GEITHNER: Well, you know, he spoke to that earlier this week. What he did do, though, and this was enormously effective was he went and used the authority he had to change behavior going forward. So you didn't have taxpayers' money after he had that authority go to enrich the people that had brought the system to the edge of collapse. Now, what he's also done and what our responsibility is to make sure these firms can never again go back to paying their executives to take risks that could imperil the stability of the country as a whole, the economy as a whole. So, he's done a great job. Very tough judgments. Limited authority in some cases, but he uses authority very well.
But why didn't banks have to "take haircuts" as the automakers did, when they got bailed out. Geithner says that this is what FinReg is about: "We did not have a similar process that could deal with the failure of large financial institutions. That was a tragic failure for the country because what it meant is when firms like AIG or Lehman or Bear Stearns manage themselves to the point where they could not survive without the government, we had no tools like bankruptcy to force them to restructure and protect the taxpayer from losses."
Hmmm. AIG and Lehman and Bear. One of those things is not like the other!
Jake uses the term "kerfuffle!" I LOVE THE WORD KERFUFFLE. So should you! Let's not have some big folderol or hullabaloo about it, okay!
Apropos of nothing other than it just came across my Twitter, here's a joke that Peter Sagal made that I wish I'd have been smart enough to make: "Someone suggested Sarah Palin use a thesarus and she told them those were extinct."
Here's Chris Christie, governor of the Dirty Jerz! How does he see his victory? He says that there were some powerful platitudes about spending and taxes and the size of government that need to be endlessly repeated.
To that point, Christie has been a-touting the closure of an $11 billion deficit. This is all super complicated, so I'll just put up the transcript, rather than summarize, sorry:
TAPPER: Now, Patrick Murray, director of polling at Monmouth University, says, quote, "That's a nice talking point, but it's absolutely untrue. There are a lot of legal obligations that the state has that the governor just simply ignored." And the Star-Ledger reported, "Budget analysts say the $11 billion deficit was closed largely by avoiding massive costs. The budget skipped a $3.1 billion payment to the pension fund, continuing a decade-long pattern Christie had criticized, and did not pay $1.7 billion to schools under the state's formula for education aid."
So these billions that you're not funding, are you doing this just by executive fiat? How does this work? Because they're legal obligations, right?
CHRISTIE: No, listen, the legislature passed this budget. The budget I presented on March 16th has $11 billion in less spending than was projected to be done through the Corzine administration. And so Patrick Murray is a pollster, and he's OK as a pollster, but he's not going to be all that great as a governor, because what we did here was we took $1.7 billion less in education funding. Well, a billion of that was federal stimulus money that had been spent in one year by the Corzine administration, and we were left with $1 billion hole. Really what we did was we reduced it by about $820 million in educational spending.
They made across the board cuts, okay! And next, we're going to start cutting pensions! After taxing new Jerseyans halfway to death during their lives, why not end them early! What are the Pine Barrens for, if not to crawl off into and die when you become superfluous to society's needs?
Glad the Star-Ledger is getting some love, though!
Tapper points out that people's property taxes are still going to go up. Is that even possible in New Jersey?
Someone needs to explain the two-percent property cap to me? Because it seems to me to be entirely meaningless, that the last property tax increase would still be feasible with this supposed cap?
Anyway, Chris Christie also hates teachers, and doesn't seem to understand why they should be well-compensated. If they know up front that the pay isn't good, why are they complaining? Maybe the governor of New Jersey should be salaried at the minimum wage, plus tips, because surely someone will come along and DO IT FOR THE LOVE.
Christie says, "I respect the teaching profession, because I am a product of it." AND NOW I THINK LESS OF NEW JERSEY'S SCHOOLS.
CHRISTIE: But here's what we can't have any longer: We can't have one sector of our society sheltered from the ravages of the recession at the cost to the people who have been hurt by the recession the most.
You mean, Wall Street? Because seriously, if you think people were SHELTERING THEMSELVES FROM ECONOMIC HARM BY BECOMING PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS.
Teacher's unions demand raises and get free health benefits, and right away I'm wondering if New Jersey's elected officials have taken pay cuts or are willing to seek out new alternatives to health care. (Leeches?)
Christie says he's not looking to jump up into a crazy "REPEAL THE HEALTH CARE" lawsuit (which is smart, since it's a pointless waste of money for a guy who wants everyone to take haircuts).
Christie has nothing unique to say about immigration reform, other than to say that he's watched some teevee stories about it. He also says of stimulus: short-term benefit, long-term loser. Snooki/JERSEY SHORE, however: big loser for Jersey and not accurate.
Okay, well, glad we took the time for that! I want Moe Tkacik to interview Chris Christie for AOL Daily Finance.
Panel time! And it would be the classic panel arrangement of Donaldson-Roberts-Brazile-Will except Will is off somewhere musing about baseball or yelling at pants and in his place is Stephen Hayes.
Shirley Sherrod up in this piece! I was watching the White House briefing when Tapper was all, "Shirley is watching you on CNN right now, want to offer a shout-out?" And our whole office was like, "DAMN! CNN HAS A NEW BUSINESS MODEL! Live shots of people that other news organizations are talking about, simultaneously!"
Actually, first, we'll talk about Tim Geithner and the Bush tax cuts. Hayes says there will be a fight, and predicts the Ben Nelsonning of America will continue until we are all dead. Brazile thinks that Obama has to put his own stamp on taxes -- a new package that focuses on the middle class and small biz. It would be a good idea for us to be talking about some "Obama tax cuts" instead of the "Bush tax cuts," don't you think?
Donaldson says a case can be made to leave everything as is until the economy recovers, but notes that the same opposition would form in that instance as well.
Meanwhile the economy is "unusually uncertain" to Ben Bernanke. Donaldson thinks we'll be fine. Hayes thinks the numbers are mixed. Hayes doesn't want taxes to be raised during a recession! Obviously, we should wait until the recession is over, and at that point, Hayes will also be against raising taxes.
Hayes: "Most of the wealthy are small business owners." Donaldson: "Wrong!" And Jake, for one last time, orders the Politifact bat signal to be lit up in the sky.
Brazile dumps all over the people who jumped the gun on Shirley Sherrod -- from the White House, to the media, to the NAACP, all of whom went stone crazy. A key line: "I'm ashamed that so many people failed to even Google her name."
Roberts says that only the White House had the power to fire her, so they bear the "most culpability, by a long shot." I can get behind the "most" but not the "long shot," by a long shot!. Donaldson says that the president needs to straight up put the Becks and Breitbarts on fade, citing FDR's famed "judge me by the enemies I've made."
There is this whole conversation about race, and it's well nigh unlivebloggable, because it does not have a throughline. It is a disconnected pastiche of people trying to talk about something important. The highlights:
--Hayes thinks it's not nice to always be branding Republicans as racist, or bringing Republicans into the discussion at all!
--But Bill O'Reilly wanted Sherrod to be fired!
--But Tom Vilsack actually fired her!
--Cokie Roberts says Eric Holder was right to call us a nation of cowards!
--Cokie Roberts had a cross burned on her yard! (!!!)
--BUT HAYES HATES WHEN PEOPLE SAY MEAN THINGS ABOUT REPUBLICANS!
--Jake: "Is it racist to say someone is a racist?"
--My wife: "It's still totally cool to vilify liberals though!"
--Brazile: BIRTHERS NEED TO CHILL.
--Sherrod: Andrew Breitbart is crazy.
--Brazile: BREITBART FROM RESIGN.
--Everyone else on the panel laughs and says, "RESIGN FROM WHAT?" Donaldson: "The human race?"
--Brazile: Maybe the discussion should not start in the White House.
--Roberts: No, no, let's have the President be the teacher in chief.
Me: I don't know, Cokie, et al! I don't need Barack Obama to teach me something that Shirley Sherrod has already taught me. You just get some people some jobs!
The youngs today: they are basically rocking out to Big Boi and Jay Electronica and Janelle Monae and buying Old Spice from a hot African-American model, and I don't know what's wrong with all of the rest of the world, but the one thing that seems to really help this nation's problem with race is that EVERY YEAR, MORE RACISTS DIE THAN ARE BORN. If Andrew Breitbart wants to preside over a media empire, he'd better get his shit straightened out. If he wants to lead a shrinking, shrill, rump, he's doing all the right things.
A child born today has about an 80% chance of growing up and wondering WHAT ON EARTH WAS WRONG WITH US, BACK IN THE OUGHTS AND TWEENS OF THE 21ST CENTURY.
All right! Peace out to This Week. Peace out to the lot of you. Again, this vehicle will be unmanned next Sunday, but will return on August 8th. Then I'll be gone again the 15th. This is all pretty confusing, I know! But it will be okay. I think?