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Microsoft, News Corp Have Talked About De-Indexing From Google

2009-11-23T00:36:55Z

Microsoft has had discussions with News Corp over a plan that would involve the media company's being paid to "de-index" its news websites from Google, setting the scene for a search engine battle that could offer a ray of light to the newspaper industry.

Newspaper Circulation May Be Worse Than It Looks

2009-11-22T23:15:49Z

SAN FRANCISCO — While U.S. newspapers are losing subscribers at a staggering rate, a few dailies stand out because their circulation is rising. But they aren't necessarily selling more copies.

Here's why: Since April 1, new auditing rules have made it easier for newspapers to count a reader as a paying customer.

These looser standards are especially helpful to a newspaper if it sells an "electronic edition." That can include a subscriber-only Web site, such as what The Wall Street Journal has, or it can be a digital replica of a newspaper's printed product. Several dozen publications, including USA Today, sell access to these daily "e-editions" that show how the news was laid out in print.

Under the new auditing standards, if a newspaper sells a "bundled" subscription to both the print and electronic editions, the publication is often allowed to count that subscriber twice.

If not for these rules, the industry's numbers would look even worse. Average weekday circulation at 379 U.S. newspapers fell 10.6 percent during the six months ending in September. That was the steepest decline ever recorded by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the organization that verifies how many people are paying to read publications.

It's not clear what the numbers would have been under the old auditing standards. But the effects of the new rules were widespread. There were 59 newspapers that listed at least 5,000 electronic editions in their weekday circulations, according to an Associated Press review of the figures filed with the ABC for the April-September period. In all but a few instances, the number of electronic subscribers was substantially higher than a year ago.

The decline in newspaper circulation has several causes. Many publications have intentionally reduced the range of their deliveries, cutting out exurbs or distant parts of their states where they sold relatively few copies. Higher prices for home delivery and newsstand copies also have driven some readers away. Publishers are betting they can keep their most loyal readers and are charging them more to help offset their crumbling ad sales – the main source of newspaper revenue.

Nevertheless, many newspapers are still offering discounts to bolster their circulation so they don't risk losing even more advertising revenue. The size of the audience is one factor marketers consider when they buy ads.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal was among the newspapers whose weekday circulation rose from the same time last year. Nevada's largest newspaper saw its average weekday circulation rise 6.6 percent, or nearly 11,000 subscribers, to 175,841. It was a remarkable improvement, given that weekday sales of its print edition fell by 12,000 copies and Las Vegas ranks among the cities hardest hit by the Great Recession.

How did it happen? The Review-Journal's circulation this year included 23,132 electronic editions compared with just 511 at the same time last year.

The big difference didn't occur because that many more people suddenly decided to buy the Review-Journal's digital replica of its print edition.

The change happened because the price the newspaper was charging for the online replica – it costs print customers an extra 50 cents per week – hadn't been high enough to qualify as paid circulation until the ABC's April change. That let newspapers define their paying readers as anyone who spends at least a penny for a copy. Previously, a newspaper copy had to sell for at least 25 percent of the basic price to qualify as paid circulation.

The ABC said it changed the rules to reduce its auditing costs and "provide greater pricing and marketing flexibility" for publishers.

Steve Coffeen, the Review-Journal's circulation director, said it makes sense to count the bundled subscriptions twice, as well as other people buying the electronic edition at a sharp discount, because it provides a complete picture of the newspaper's paying audience. Advertisers generally prize readers who pay for a publication, reasoning they are more likely to peruse it.

"It's important to show advertisers we are fighting the good fight and using other platforms to reach readers," Coffeen said.

That rationale makes sense to Randy Novak, director of newspaper strategy for NSA Media, one of the nation's largest buyers of newspaper ads. He doesn't see much difference between readers who are getting the newspaper at a deep discount or the standard price. He wants to reach people who care enough about the newspaper to be willing to pay for it at all.

However, another big buyer of newspaper ads says the new ABC rules made the reported circulation numbers less credible.

"You really have to do your homework now and ask newspapers about how much double counting is going on," said Allison Howald, U.S. director of print investment at PHD Media.

A surge in digital sales propelled the York Daily Record in Pennsylvania to a 16.5 percent increase in weekday circulation – the highest among dailies selling at least 50,000 copies. The Daily Record listed 10,073 electronic editions in its latest circulation of 55,370. At the same time last year it counted just 42 electronic editions in its circulation of 47,549.

In most cases, the electronic edition is a replica of the printed product, right down to the ads. The technology even makes it possible to simulate the act of turning the pages of a paper edition. Most electronic editions are sold at a small fraction of the price for the printed edition, partly because publishers don't have to pay for newsprint or fuel to deliver the copy.

Web subscriptions were pivotal in The Wall Street Journal's growth over the past decade. The digital sales are the main reason that the Journal surpassed USA Today as the top-selling U.S. newspaper in the April-September period. USA Today, owned by Gannett Co., still holds the edge in print circulation.

The Journal charges its print subscribers an additional 40 cents per week for unrestricted access to its Web site. Journal spokesman Robert Christie wouldn't comment on whether the new rules for counting subscribers contributed to a 14 percent increase in the newspaper's 407,002 digital subscribers. Including the print side, the Journal's total circulation edged up by just 0.6 percent to 2.02 million.

"We followed the ABC's rules and methodology," Christie said.

Some newspapers that posted circulation gains say they are picking up readers who feel abandoned by bigger publications. Cutbacks at newspapers in Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., and Nashville, Tenn., contributed to most of the 2 percent increase at the 70,000-circulation Chattanooga Times Free Press in Tennessee, said Publisher Tom Griscom. "We are keeping an eye on print and not letting it drift away," Griscom said.

A reduced emphasis on print at The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press, which now deliver to homes only three days a week, also helped Michigan's Oakland Press increase its weekday circulation 7 percent to 68,067. But electronic sales were the main factor. The newspaper listed 6,500 more electronic editions in its latest circulation numbers than it did a year ago, offsetting a slight decline in print.

Danny Groner: Just Days Apart, New York Times Mourns Two John J. O'Connors

2009-11-22T22:48:40Z

Chalk it up to a coincidence, but within the span of a week the New York Times ran obituaries for two people named John J. O'Connor.

The first announced the death of the husband of former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who retired from the Supreme Court to care for him. That O'Connor, more widely known as John Jay O'Connor, died of complications of Alzheimer's disease on Wednesday, November 11. He was 79.

Then, just two days later, former NYT television critic John J. O'Connor died of lung cancer. He was 76. The Times ran an obituary for their O'Connor a few days afterward.

These aren't the only John J. O'Connors to be memorialized in the Times pages. The international food marketer died in 1996 at age 65 of complications from heart surgery. Back in 1904, the Times marked the death of a bishop with the name (cause of death unspecified).

There does seem to be a strong history of the Irish-named John J. O'Connors to make names for themselves as members of the Church. The Spokane Daily Chronicle reported the death of a priest with the name in 1966, victim of a heart attack.

But not all John J. O'Connors are spiritual advisers, civic leaders or prolific reviewers. There's always a fallback profession for those with the strikingly common name: funeral attendant.

Murray Fromson: Letter From London

2009-11-22T21:56:22Z

It is amazing how a presidential junket and the meanderings of a silly little woman with pretensions to the White House can bump a war off the front pages or as the lead stories of broadcast news. President Obama, for instance, was attempting to show the better side of our country to Japan, Indonesia and China. But in Tokyo, he also observed the traditional protocol of bowing to the Emperor of Japan. That prompted the rightwing nuts in America's cable land to go ga-ga as if it was the important news of the day. Then suddenly, the fate of our heroic Marines in Afghanistan vanished from the news as Sarah Palin mouthed off to Oprah Winfrey and a bundle of other cable TV shows. Even the conventional network newscasts could not resist the temptation of giving her free air time to answer patsy questions. Palin's publisher offered America more than a million copies of a ghost-written memoir that was bound to end up on the remainder shelves within days. Indeed it was, for $4.95 each after one week of sales.

C'mon America. Can we not get real? Can "we," I mean Republicans as well as Democrats, conservatives as well as liberals, seriously entertain the notion of Sarah Palin as the GOP's presidential nominee or, heaven forbid, even the occupant of the White House? Is there truly a segment of society so ideologically warped to believe it? Hopefully, we are passed that.

But several weeks ago, returning to the Mother Country after an absence of many years, it was re-assuring to be back in Britain, confronted by a fresh dose of reality. The question in every London newspaper the past several weeks was whether President Obama will or should intensify the war in Afghanistan by providing 40 thousand more American troops on the ground, as their general in charge has insisted was a necessity.

It reminded me of the extent to which wars have plagued Britain throughout history. In the 19th Century, they failed to conquer Afghanistan. In the first ten days of this November in London, the atmosphere was bathed in red as countless men and women wore paper poppies on their lapels or blouses to mark Armistice Day and remember those who served in World War I. Newspapers and television newscasts conveyed scenes of countless cemeteries or of scenes depicting the great retreat from Dunkirk in 1940. Loved ones or surviving veterans paid their last respects to those who gave their lives in both World Wars I and II as well as Korea. On the first day of the visit with my wife, we were confronted by a half page spread in the Guardian, depicting veterans of Britain's Second Battalion of The Rifles. The three most prominent soldiers in the color photograph, dressed in their combat uniforms and wearing black berets, sitting in wheelchairs, were amputees. Two of them had lost both legs and the third soldier, one limb. Behind them was a crowd, smiling and obviously proud to welcome home the warriors. It was a chilling reminder of the fact that not only American fighting men were enduring the cost of serving in Afghanistan.

At the New London Theater, we were among other theatergoers who sat transfixed by a unique play entitled War Horse. Its staging recaptured memories of the First World War through the imaginative use of puppets. The storyline was based on a children's novel, but it was the staging that provided such a remarkable interpretation. Unquestionably, it will be a major attraction when it reaches Broadway next year. War Horse has played to two sold-out runs at the National Theater before moving to the New London. Its focus was on the story of a young boy who went to Europe in search of his horse that had been confiscated by the British Army for the war on the continent in Europe. Only readers of Barbara Tuchman's historic rendition of the so-called Great War, The Guns of August, can truly appreciate the scope of the conflict that was re-enacted on the stage. It was fought with artillery, tanks and poison gas that claimed the lives of millions of soldiers and, in effect, tore the hearts out of three generations of men from Britain, France and Germany.

At the Frontline Club one evening, a journalists' gathering place in central London, a large audience met to discuss Afghanistan. It lasted for some two hours. A panel included a BBC foreign correspondent, a veteran Afghan television producer with a long list of credits in British television, a professor at London University and an Oxford-educated woman who had recently completed two years in Afghanistan for Human Rights Watch. At best, their overall perception was one of skepticism about the future.

Their impressions, reinforced by London newspaper after London newspaper, raised the question of whether the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan was winnable or should even be pursued. Clearly, that debate has been just as intense across the Atlantic as it has been in America. But it also was clear that only when President Obama renders a final decision on whether to increase the U.S. troop level on the battlefield will the story assume a new dimension and how Afghanistan is perceived or conveniently forgotten.

Glenn Beck Has A 'Plan' To Sell Books With March On Washington On The Anniversary Of MLK Speech

2009-11-22T18:20:11Z

Yesterday, while promoting his latest book at "a festive campaign-style rally" in The Villages in Florida, Fox News host Glenn Beck announced that he was crafting "a 100 year plan" that will be "radical" and will "restore our nation to the maximum freedoms we were supposed to have been protecting."

Martha Stewart Calls Sarah Palin 'Boring And Dangerous' (VIDEO)

2009-11-22T16:37:06Z

By now everyone is getting a word in on Sarah Palin, including Martha Stewart, who used some tough language to describe Palin. Stewart made it clear to CNN HLN's Showbiz Tonight producer Jenny D'Attoma that she's not a big fan:

"She's very boring to me, very boring. And a very, to me, kind of a dangerous person. I mean, she's dangerous. She speaks, she's, she's so confused. And anyone like that in government is a real problem."

Watch D'Attoma's interview with Stewart:

TV SoundOff: Sunday Talking Heads

2009-11-22T14:09:48Z

Hello there and welcome to your Sunday Morning Liveblog of the weekly political chatfests, which, like midnight basketball, occupies the time of pundits and newspeople who would inevitably be off doing something dangerous to us or to one another. My name is Jason. Today we begin with a programming note: there will be no liveblog next Sunday. EVERYONE PANIC, I GUESS!

No, seriously, I will be spending my morning staring at a bleak landscape where everyone is an amoral, hellbound jerk and where something bleak and irrational lurks around every turn, but I am referring to the New Jersey Turnpike, which is kind of like MEET THE PRESS if MEET THE PRESS offered you occasional opportunities to stop and have Cinnabon.

What should you do while I am speeding my way...to DELAWARE, LAND OF TOLL BOOTHS? Well, you might consider reconnecting with loved ones, or reconnecting with sleep, or reconnecting with Dilaudid...anything that's not watching Bill Kristol reflect on the true meaning of Thanksgiving. Don't do it. Stay in bed, and be satisfied for once. You followed this recipe to cook your turkey, didn't you? Good. Then you are an American hero.

Anyway, as always, you should feel free to leave a comment, or send an email. You can also take the opportunity to involve yourself somehow in whatever useless stuff I put up on Twitter, because why not!

Okay. Let's get on with it.

FOX NEWS SUNDAY

Today! Woo! Health care! I think I heard something about this. Lamar Alexander and Kit Bond and Debbie Stabenow AND Arlen Specter? Glad this is not a stag film!

Anyway, the Senate voted to allow themselves to talk about the health care bill. Lamar Alexander says he'll "beat the bill" by scaring people with talk of "medical ghettos." He's counting on everyone staying medically gentrified. It is apparently "arrogance" to think we can fix health care "all at once" says Lamar Alexander, who probably wants a LOLSURGE in Afghanistan. Anyway, Stabenow says that "doing nothing is not an option," and that "at the end of the day, we will be together." OH MAYBE THIS IS A STAG FILM. "AARP is with us." LEMON PARTY!

Mammograms! Will people not be allowed to have them? Kit Bond says people should be worried. But they shouldn't! This panel isn't "playing around with excessive government control," they just made recommendations based on scientific findings. Bond continues to say that seniors will die as well.

Wallace wants to bring Arlen Specter into the conversation, to talk about his mammogram, apparently? He points out that the legislation provides for mammograms and pap smears and all sorts of fun tests, none of which a woman ever wants to be in the middle of, look up, and see that Arlen Specter is performing, at that very moment. Specter says, "the one option we don't have is the option of doing nothing." But that's the most public option of all!

Wallace wants Specter to name another Congress that has cut Medicare by such a significant amount. He can't! BURN! Specter says there will be commissions and crap set up so that some other entity will have to face to choice of reining in Medicare costs -- which must be done, anyway.

Wallace kicks it back to Bond, pointing out that the CBO scoring does indicate that the Senate bill will reduce the deficit, to which Bond rattles off two big calls in the game of Beltway Blather Bingo. "I don't think one out of ten Americans believe that" -- which has no bearing on the facts of the matter. Then: "David Broder wrote a great column." Wrong. David Broder never writes great columns. A David Broder column about a Quinnipiac poll is the most awful piece of writing that anyone can imagine. David Broder is long past the day where he should have been shipped off to some lonely tundra to be eaten by ice wolves. Seriously, anyone who respects Broder needs to be trepanned.

Debbie Stabenow is now saying something, about mammograms, and the Stupak amendment, which she wants to see changed. Kit Bond says "Bernie Madoff would envy the fact" that the health care legislation would collect taxes in advance of paying out services. You'll forgive me if I don't find that unusual. People start businesses with lines of credit and take time to start earning a profit all the time. Anyway, I think Bernie Madoff would envy just about anything right now.

Kit Bond and Debbie Stabenow just had a spat over tax credits for small businesses, which Stabenow says are great, and Bond says are a scam. There's something depressing about watching the elderly pretend to get bellicose.

Bond also is mad about Obama for "dithering" on Afghanistan, but he has clearly never read Stanley McChrystal's report, because he thinks it "laid out a strategy" when really what it did was ask for a new strategy to be created. Bond straight up doesn't know what he's talking about. He and his staff of apparent dumbasses should read it. It's not 2,000 pages long.

Ohh, Specter is a little pissed about not getting to talk. "Why Chris, I guess you forgot I was on the program." Then he talks for about a million boring years.

Apparently, Fox is going to talk about the BREAST CANCER DEATH PANELS or something. Dr. Bernadine Healy is here to talk about it, and she says that ladies should start getting screened at age 40 and have it done every year. Ignore the new guidelines! As for the pap smears, the new guidelines are "responsible and reasonable." So, there you have it! NOT AFRAID TO BE SERVICEY!

Shall we commence with the demagoguery? Healy sort of begs off, saying only that the task force involved does public policy modeling and has no experience with "hands on patient care." She says that THIS WILL BE CODIFIED INTO LAW!! Experts! Making guidelines! Like Stalin did! Anyway, you should watch out for the HIDDEN GOVERNMENT RATIONING. It's apparently far more nefarious than the current OUT IN THE OPEN GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE RATIONING, where millions of Americans don't get a ration at all and millions more get a ration until they get sick and really need it.

Panel time, with Ann Kornblut and her Eyes Of Pure Need filling in for Juan Williams. Hume says that Congress is caterwauling about Geithner. He also talks about "calls to audit the Fed." Has he not heard that the Grayson-Paul Amendment passed? Anyway, the panel is very sad, now, that everyone is being mean to Tim Geithner. Liasson says that everyone will be talking about jobs, now. Forever. And the deficits. Kristol reminds us again that health care reform will destroy jobs, forever, and turn the world into a bleak place, like the New Jersey turnpike.

Kornblut says that "we're going to hear nothing but this Jobs Summit for the next few weeks." I guess that's because the Jobs Summit will be releasing it's new book, GOING ROGUE, by the JOBS SUMMIT.

Now Brit Hume is mad about something! That guy!

Mara Liasson is impressed with the fact that health care keeps moving forward, but will eventually have to force women to be pregnant, at all times, and the public option will have to be turned into a memory. In the end, the conference committee will pass a get well card, and insurance companies will make more money, and every single one of these turds will get re-elected, forever.

Ann Kornblut is staring at Bill Kristol, thinking, "I can fix him!" YOU CAN'T, ANN! Hold out for someone who loves you for you.

Now, they will yammer about foreign policy. The trip to Asia? TOTAL FAIL, APPARENTLY. There's this terrible "diminished role of the U.S." because, as Hume believes, Obama is solely responsible for the economic straits we're in, and is too polite. Hume says that we need to be a lot more unreasonable and bellicose so that we can threaten foreign powers into accepting a position of burden on our behalf for nothing in return. Kristol, of course, is apoplectic, and doesn't know why Obama didn't destroy Chinese Communism singlehandedly.

Anyway, Iran, they are intransigent? And that's because Obama wanted to maybe have diplomatic talks with all sorts of nations? But really, we should be dropping our awesome new bunker busting bombs on Iranian dissidents. Hume repeats that we need to be a lot more unreasonable and bellicose to make Iran heel. Liasson says that "at some point you need to move to Plan B."

Anyway, I guess we should be bombing more people? It's hard to say what policy solutions just got advocated. But obviously, the White House should have been able to terraform China into democracy on their first trip.

HA! So, the Club For Growth is the "Power Player of the Week," because they failed to win an election in the 23rd District of New York. It's worth mentioning that they lost for many reasons, not the least of which is they sat around the final week of the election congratulating each other while Bill Owens was running a traditional Get Out The Vote operation. Anyway: POWER PLAYERS.

THIS WEEK, WITH GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS

What a great montage of Senators gesticulating! You would almost believe that actual adult democracy happens in this country!

Tom Coburn is on, today? The Senate is literally mounting a Sunday morning charisma offensive. This panel is Marsha Blackburn, Ben "Ralph Wiggum" Nelson, Tom Coburn, and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. So, that makes ONE person who thinks all Americans should have health care. Great!

Nelson leads things off: "FIRE IS BURNY AND IT MAKES ME SAD." GS asks about filibustering, and Nelson replies: "SOMETIMES KITTY IS BITEY!"

Tom Coburn decided not to have some poor Senate page read the bill out loud because that would have required the GOP to sit in the chamber all weekend long, reading to each other, while the Democrats retreated to coke-and-masturbation domes to eat kalamata olives off one anothers backs, which is some REAL EYES WIDE SHUT NONSENSE, I can tell you. Your eyes will never unsee that shizz.

Did you know that Coburn is a close personal friend of Obama, for some reason? That friendship sure paid dividends!

Debbie W-S says that the House bill and the Senate bill are similar enough that they will find a way to reconcile themselves to each other, if not make out in the rain for seven consecutive minutes, like Ryan Gosling and Rachael McAdams. Coburn looks on thoughtfully, wondering why he's never even invited to his own party's coke-and-masturbation dome. Marsha Blackburn is blonde and pretty and has a voice that sounds like sloe gin fizz as she lies and fearmongers. She touts the GOP health bill, which is a great great bill if you figure out a way to never get sick or never get old.

And now: LADY FIGHT! Debbie W-S and Blackburn are cold talking over each other. WHERE IS BART STUPAK WHEN YOU NEED SOMEONE TO CALM THIS FEMININE HYSTERIA, WITH INVASIVE LAWS.

Ben Nelson adds: "I HEAR BABIES COME FROM CLOUDS!"

Debbie W-S says, "I don't want to speak for Senator Nelson." And that's good, but it would be nice if she could, after the discussion was over, help the Senator get out of the Newseum. I hear that Nelson has been working very hard at mastering stairs, but he's like, ON THE FOURTH FLOOR!

Coburn says that there are "eleven studies out" that say the health care reform bill will raise premiums, Debbie W-S says, uhm, "Differences of opinion exist." Also: insurance company bureaucrats are getting between patients and doctors, to beat the band.

This discussion is going about as well as I suspected, with everyone yelling at Debbie W-S for daring to suggest that insurance companies aren't awesome.

Marsha Blackburn has actually read the part of the bill that makes her scared about the mammograms. Debbie W-S says, uhm: no, that does not provide for the BOSOMPOCALYPSE, and "for the first time, you are politicizing breast cancer." It does make you wonder why we haven't politicized breast cancer before! Coburn says: these guidelines make sense from a cost standpoint, but not for a patient standpoint, BLAH GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE. I wonder if he thinks the War in Afghanistan makes sense from a "cost standpoint."

Nelson adds: "NOW THE TREES ARE SAD, BECAUSE IT'S WINTER!"

George Stephanopoulos needs to ask Tom Coburn about John Ensign and his sex scandals because they are both roommates in the C Street House for Christian Sexytime, where everyone is having an affair and pleasuring themselves to various Psalms, at all hours, drenching their domicile in the heady scent of musk and desperation. But because George is such an awesome reporter, he APOLOGIZES for having to ask the question. OHH, SORRY SENATOR COBURN, IF THE JOURNALISM CAUSES YOU ANY BOTHER, BUT I HAVE TO ASK YOU A HARD QUESTION NOW, GOD I WISH I DIDN'T! If I were the host of the show, my first question to Coburn would be: "You smell very fresh this morning! What soap do you use, Senator Coburn, to get rid of the stench of Astroglide?"

Anyway, let's panel! With George Will and Robert Reich and Walter Isaacson and Liz Cheney! GS correctly identifies Keep America Safe as a "Republican advocacy organization," which makes Cheney pout that it's a "national security advocacy" organization that wouldn't actually secure anybody.

Tim Geithner is making everyone personally unemployed, with his crapulence. George Will says Geithner "ran into a buzzstorm." WHAT IS A BUZZSTORM? Will touts Ron Paul for getting a bill passed to audit the Fed.

Robert Reich says that Washington is filled with the Men Who Stare At Scapegoats. They, then, get caught in the BUZZSTORM. I get the feeling that no one is bringing their A-Game, the week before Thanksgiving.

Isaacson says Geithner is getting a bad rap, and also that his wife was taking money out of their bank last year, because of bank runs? Liz Cheney, of course, says that the stimulus package emboldened terrorists, and we will all soon die when KSM unleashes his hypnobeams upon New York City. Reich says that the stimulus should have been bigger, better, and not stuffed with useless tax breaks. Will says it's ironic that the White House is touting the success of the stimulus while suggesting that a third one is needed. Reich totally disagrees with Will on the net effect of the stimulus, and GS pulls out some graphic analysis that indicates that there has, at least been a net positive impact. Liz Cheney says we need a "private sector driven stimulus."

Robert Reich attempts to build the case for running high short term deficits, while reforming entitlement programs when the economy is healthy, but now we have to talk about China! Will says that if Bush had gone to China and gotten nothing, "this town would be incandescent." But this town is incadescent over this China trip! And anyway, China owns our ass because of a ton of terrible economic policies. Cheney says that "it's another foreign trip that's style over substance," where, again, "substance" equals "the naive insistence that everyone should do what we want, or else!"

Cheney thrusts her teeny fists vainly heavenward and says, "We are more powerful than China!" This causes my wife to nearly snork scrambled egg through her nasal passages, with laughter. Can we just have George Will and Robert Reich debate things, please? And Walter Isaacson? You are snoozeville! Yes, Liz Cheney! Interrupt Walter Isaacson. I approve of you doing that! KEEP AMERICA SAFE FROM WALTER ISAACSON AND HIS BORING STORIES ABOUT ANDREW JACKSON, GAH.

George Will and Liz Cheney are battling over Afghanistan. Will says, "The danger is that the president is going to be seen as escalating this war, he'll do it half-heartedly, with his heart not in it, he will lose his party, and he'll be supported by Republicans of the stripe of Liz Cheney, and that's not a sustainable path.

Cheney insists that Obama needs to "follow the strategy laid out be General McChrystal." BUT THAT STRATEGY WAS THIS: "Hey! Things are all shithouse here! Could you guys maybe come up with a new strategy? Because DAMN THIS COUNTRY IS BONKERS." General McChrystal is getting precisely what he asked for! Liz Cheney's objection is simply that Obama hasn't sent 80,000 magical troops, ginned out of the ether, and dropped them on the Hindu Kush, to bomb terrorists who all live in Pakistan now.

Here's more on EVERYONE TALKING ABOUT TROOP SURGES WITHOUT ACCOUNTING FOR THE FACT THAT WE WILL HAVE TO MAKE SOLDIERS, WITH WITCHCRAFT, IN ORDER TO DO IT.

GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!

FIRST SARAH PALIN MENTION OF SUNDAY! DRINK. Walter Isaacson is all: I HAVE A BOOK, TOO. A SERIOUS ONE. Why won't anyone buy his dull book? He's such a scintillating raconteur!

MEET THE PRESS

Fun fact! Last night, I led a discussion about what "pony play" is, over drinks, and you really cannot convince me that it would not have garnered higher network ratings than this show, which is now the only thing standing in the way between me having a Thanksgiving break from David Gregory.

The president may be back from the actual Asia, but there's no escaping the awesomeness of this Asia:

I'd rather just pull awesome YouTube videos than subject anyone to this show! You know that Joe Lieberman is on today? JOE LIEBERMAN! Gah. Heaven knows I'm miserable now.

Dr. Nancy is on? OH YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME.

Ugh, so, anyway, MEET THE PRESS.

Senator Durbin calls yesterday's vote "an amazing victory for the president." WOO YEAH, THE SENATE WILL DELIBERATE FOR WEEKS, MITT ROMNEY CAN SUCK IT, OBAMA FOREVS! Huh, what? Anyway, Kay Bailey Hutchison says, NO THIS IS A DISASTER FOR THE COUNTRY! The Mayans predicted that there would not be enough GOP input in the health care bill and then GOD WOULD SMITE YOU.

God, you know? It's so hard to imagine this country could have been founded had David Gregory been a prominent American, centuries ago.

Anyway, Dianne Feinstein is a big fan of the bill, and voting for the bill, and debating the bill, and reconciling the bill, and most of all getting re-elected.

Joe Lieberman said he wants to "begin debating health care reform" but that he "doesn't think that anybody thinks this bill will pass." Anyway, he will destroy the public option that Americans want. He doesn't really understand what the public option does. He calls it out, on one hand, for not doing more to insure people or get them health care, BUT HE DOESN'T WANT TO DO THOSE THINGS EITHER! He's also worried about costs, but what he wants done with the bill isn't to control costs.

Matt Yglesias offers the criticism, for all seasons, on this:

It's also worth emphasizing that while only the House-style public option will save a lot of money, even the relatively weak public option from the Reid draft would save money relative to doing what Lieberman wants. He's talking about filibustering a deficit-reducing bill in order to try to remove a cost-reducing provision, and doing so on grounds of fiscal probity. It's ludicrous, and the political reporters covering him need to point this out.

I'd ask Lieberman that question! And then my follow-up would be to smash a grapefruit on his face, Jimmy Cagney style! I'd have grapefruit for everyone on this damned show. The show would be called, MEET THE GRAPEFRUIT HURTLING TOWARD YOUR DUMB FACE, YOU USELESS NINNY.

Gregory asks, "WHAT ABOUT WARS?" Lieberman says, oh well, I wanted to have tax programs to pay for it. Gregory responds, so you think the wars should be paid for? And Lieberman says, absolutely, and somehow it doesn't occur to David Gregory to ask BY WHAT MAGIC WE INTEND TO DO THAT.

This panel is filibustering my life! David Gregory thinks it is significant that Americans think it won't cut costs than the fact that experts in the field say it will. Someone, somewhere, in the world is always gathering together to say something dumb or uninformed or half-assed...it isn't always "an interesting point of view." SOMETIMES IT IS JUST STUPID.

Lieberman says that the CBO says that the public option will charge more than private insurers. And that's true! But people who don't have access to the private insurance will suddenly have access to insurance. What's the point of a more affordable product that you aren't allowed to purchase? WOW, FREEDOM WOULD BE AWESOME IF THE PREVAILING AUTHORITY WOULD LET ME HAVE SOME.

Meanwhile, everyone be hatin' on Tim Geithner! Here's a long video of Geithner hate porn! REMIND ME WHAT POST YOU WERE HOLDING, says the Congressman who probably sat their, with his junk in his hand, as the government passed all sorts of laws that made the economic collapse possible! I LOVE WHEN SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS AND VAPIDITY FORM IN THE LARNYX OF A CONGRESSCRITTER!

If this panel died in a plane crash, Don McLean would write a seven minute song about how rock music was awesome again! LOOK AT THE LEVEE, IT'S SO WET, AND YET IT'S NOT FAILING.

Kay Bailey Hutchison thinks it's CRAZY to try to pass a health care bill when the economy is bad and people are unemployed. We should obviously wait until the economy is healthier and people are back at work, at which point it will still be crazy to pass a health care reform bill.

Gregory wants to know if Geithner should resign, but what's Hutchison supposed to say? She's been selling out to Wall Street, he's been selling out to Wall Street. She needs people to be mad at the Obama administration, but not so angry that it will endganger the longstanding relationship between people in Congress and people in Wall Street. Gregory presses, though: "Do you think he should keep his job?" KBH replies, "Well, look, we shouldn't keep our jobs, either." Actually, that's exactly right!

Before KBH and DiFi can have an interesting debate on costs that might be clarifying, Gregory changes topics to Afghanistan. "Let's all keep to this study in happy dilettantism!"

ARGH. Joe Lieberman! The "surge" in Afghanistan will NOT BE THE SAME AS THE ONE IN IRAQ.

A critical point: Afghanistan's "surge" won't be like the one in Iraq. As Ackerman points out: "Unlike Iraq, Afghanistan's escalation is being talked about in terms of not being a one-time surge, where when the initial brigades used for escalation go home, the whole thing goes back to where it was before, but a sustained escalation whereby new brigades have to come in and relieve the ones that go home initially."

Now they are all talking about a Charles Krauthammer column? FAST FOWARD.

KBH says that the mammogram guidelines are "the beginning of rationing," which is weird, because health care rationing is EVERYWHERE in America, especially if you are poor, and can only go to CVS for their health care.

Did you know that somehow, more people are watching this show than any other Sunday Morning talk show? It's true. And I am one of them, and for that, I am very sorry. The Nielsen people really should have a calculation for "conscientious objectors," like me, who have to watch the show, but wish the Vogons would come and destroy it to build an interstellar highway.

One thing that will be great about the health care bill getting either passed, or watered down into nothingness, is that MSNBC will hopefully cancel the Dr. Nancy show, where lately she's been goin' crazy over the way tweens are way into vampires.

I wonder when someone is going to point out that for all her alarmism over how these new non-binding guidelines about mammograms are rationing, Marsha Blackburn doesn't want to actually help make mammography more widely available or more affordable.

Boy, looking at Nancy Brinker, I wonder what she has to say about the "Botox tax!" Her face has literally been frozen into a plasticine rictus. She is fascinating to look at. I think their might be a series of Nancy Brinker nesting dolls inside Nancy Brinker!

Anyway, Dr. Nancy says that the task force was given an assignment to examine the issue as "scientists," and they came back with results and opinions, like scientists often do. "This week, I believe we through the scientists under the bus," and then goes on to suggest that maybe the media shouldn't take a quick glance at scientific findings and always move to their default position, which is to set buildings on fire and arrange high-stakes political demolition derbies between demogogues.

"We are on the verge of becoming a scientifically illiterate country," Snyderman says. ON THE VERGE? We teach SORCERY as an equivalent scientific alternative to evolution! We make fun of volcano monitoring!

Oh,. and Robert Byrd is still in Congress! No one sees that as a problem: that a bunch of old men who are scared of the noises that microwave ovens make and who pee their own pants everytime there's a voice vote are in charge of every important committee in Washington.

Wait, is that it? I'm already to the part where MEET THE PRESS celebrates the show it used to be in lieu of proffering any vital content, relevant to our lives right now. What's the point of this?

MEET THE PRESS: 57 YEARS AGO, WE SOMEHOW MANAGED TO POINT A TEEVEE CAMERA AT ROBERT BYRD. THIS WAS A TREMENDOUS ACCOMPLISHMENT, FOR WHICH NBC NEWS DESERVES HANDJOBS, ALWAYS.

Anyway, STOP, CLICK, DELETE FROM TIVO. The one thing I will give this Sunday props for is for making scant mention of Sarah Palin, this is as it should be, because she remains terrified to come on these shows and submit to questions, even though it's painfully clear they will coddle her like a quail egg.

OK, WOW. That's that We'll return in two weeks for more of these long, dark Sunday mornings of the soul. I hope everyone has safe travels and a great Thanksgiving this weekend.

Arianna Huffington: Sunday Roundup

2009-11-22T08:55:28Z

Misrepresenting what I said during an appearance on Countdown this week, NewsBusters claims that I'm trying to deny Glenn Beck his "constitutionally protected free speech." Wrong. What I said is that words have tremendous power -- they can inspire and they can incite. There's a reason you can't shout "fire" in a crowded theater. But even though Glenn Beck is shouting "fire" in a crowded, anxious country, I specifically said that the right response to his steady stream of lies, hate, and race-baiting -- all served up with a not-very-subtle undercurrent of violence -- is to put unrelenting pressure on his advertisers and his bosses. Pressure works. CNN dropped Lou Dobbs. I'm actually of two minds when it comes to Beck. Part of me resents spending even a second of my life thinking about him. But part of me recognizes that he's too dangerous to ignore.

Frank Rich: Sarah Palin, The Pit Bull In The China Shop

2009-11-22T06:12:15Z

AT last the American right and left have one issue they unequivocally agree on: You don't actually have to read Sarah Palin's book to have an opinion about it.

Tom Friedman Explains Causes Of America's 'Sub-Optimal Solutions' (VIDEO)

2009-11-22T05:22:12Z

New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman is worried that America is producing "sub-optimal solutions" to big problems like global warming, an education system in decline and a weak economy.

The author of Hot, Flat, and Crowded appeared on The Charlie Rose Show on Friday night to discuss President Obama's recent trip to Asia, and more specifically China. Friedman lamented the failure of US governance and the "forces of paralysis" that surround President Obama. He is worried that China's streamlined, one-party system will be in a better place to implement solutions to large global problems more quickly than the US.

Holding us back, Friedman argues, is a political system too closely connected with money and well-funded interests. Gerrymandering on the part of politicians makes it so that our leaders practically pick us, not the other way around. Friedman also thinks cable news television distorts the truth and that the internet (at its worst) can be a terrible thing for our nation's politics. He also says American businesses have gone AWOL, and hover over America, participating only when it suits their industry's needs.

Friedman says that better citizens--not politicians--can solve our nation's problems.

WATCH:

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Glenn Beck As Political Organizer: Fox News Host Sponsoring 7 Conventions

2009-11-22T03:32:11Z

Glenn Beck, the popular and outspoken Fox News host, says he wants to go beyond broadcasting his opinions and start rallying his political base -- formerly known as his audience -- to take action.

David Vines: If It Were Me, I'd Be Embarrassed

2009-11-21T18:50:00Z

It's nice to see that even after the election, conservatives are still playing the "liberal gotcha media" card every time they expose themselves as being shamefully ignorant regarding the issues they care about most.

Last Wednesday, a media firestorm erupted after a seventeen-year-old girl named Jackie was interviewed by MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell while standing in line during Sarah Palin's Michigan book signing. Jackie, wearing a shirt that read, "The US government handed out $700 billion in Wall Street bailouts and all I got was this lousy t-shirt," was caught off-guard when O'Donnell informed her that Sarah Palin was on record as supporting the bailout.

You can see the exchange below:

It didn't take long for Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck to feature this clip on their respective shows and praise Jackie while condemning O'Donnell for her pesky questions backed up by fact-based research. Then, Jackie was given a platform to tell her side of the story by the blog, Red White & Conservative.

To summarize:

This all started as me, a young 17 year old American going to see a woman I admire and turned into this crazy event hah I'll start at the very beginning.

She had me read my shirt and then proceeded to ask me "Did you know Sarah Palin supported the bailout" to be 100% honest I was like, are you kidding me? She is trying to use my shirt against me. I was so shocked by the craftiness she had that I was truly stumped. I asked her where she got her fact and she read her little note. Then she asked me what I liked about Sarah, and I talked about the Constitution.

In one day I met a role model, and met the liberal media and their crafty schemes. I fell prey to liberal bias, but I'd like to think I did an okay job.

As a fellow high school senior, I feel a strong urge to respond.

This notion that a reporter is being "crafty" and "biased" when they correct factually inaccurate statements is ridiculous. Sure, Jackie might have a point if O'Donnell ran up to her at random and stuck a microphone in her face as she was walking down the street, but that was not the case. This girl was at the book signing of a prominent politician, wore a t-shirt indicating that she had strong political views, agreed to be interviewed, and failed to answer a very simple and straightforward question.

The job of a good reporter is not to ask softball questions or cast everybody they speak to in a positive light. A reporter's job is to collect facts and seek the truth. So, while some may object to O'Donnell's speaking to a seventeen-year-old girl, nobody can accuse her of reporting anything but the facts.

Which brings me to my final point: Jackie is seventeen-years-old, she's not seven.

In her piece for Red White & Conservative, she feels the need to drive home the fact that she's only seventeen four separate times, as if that were some sort of defense.

Now, I understand that much of the electorate is made up of low information voters who don't closely follow politics. That's fine -- it's not ideal, but it's perfectly understandable.

But according to her school profile, Jackie is very politically involved. She is an intern with the Michigan Republican Party and is clearly excited and passionate about what her political "role model," Former-Governor Palin, represents. And yet, when she cannot correctly identify one of Palin's most basic political positions, she plays the victim and blames everybody but herself.

Then, conservative members of the media take the bait and praise her as some sort of Republican hero. They are more than happy to glorify this culture of ignorance and hide behind the veil of "elitism" and "media bias" when anyone approaches them with facts.

All I can say is that if Glenn Beck had heard me express my political views and then assumed that I was a thirteen-year-old, I would not lift the paper bag off my head for quite some time.

Fred Schulte, Senior Reporter For HuffPost Investigative Fund, Talks Digitizing Medical Records On NPR (AUDIO)

2009-11-21T17:56:33Z

Fred Schulte, a senior reporter for the Huffington Post Investigative Fund, talked with NPR's Scott Simon Saturday morning about the overlooked technology companies that stand to make huge profits in the push to digitize the nation's medical records.

"The government's $45 billion plan to jump-start a national shift to electronic medical records has touched off a gold rush among scores of technology firms - even as many experts question whether the benefits of the products are being oversold," Schulte writes in an article on the digitization of medical records, on the Huffington Post Investigative Fund.

"There's a sort of a gold rush going on," Schulte explained on NPR's Weekend Edition. "Some of the biggest companies in the world--Microsoft, Dell, Google--all of these huge tech companies are very interested in the billions of dollars that is going to derive from health care in cyberspace."

"There are cash registers ringing," Schulte said.

The Huffington Post Investigative Fund's examination of the medical records business is ongoing. Click here to follow the coverage, and listen to the full interview below.

Bill Moyers Plays LBJ Tapes, Draws Similarities With Obama And Afghanistan War

2009-11-21T17:13:26Z

On Friday night, Bill Moyers played clips from the Lyndon B. Johnson tapes on his PBS television show. Moyers drew correlations between the factors facing President Johnson in his decision to send more troops to Vietnam, and President Obama's conundrum with respect to the war in Afghanistan.

From his closing statement:

Now in a different world, at a different time, and with a different president, we face the prospect of enlarging a different war. But once again we're fighting in remote provinces against an enemy who can bleed us slowly and wait us out, because he will still be there when we are gone.
Once again, we are caught between warring factions in a country where other foreign powers fail before us. Once again, every setback brings a call for more troops, although no one can say how long they will be there or what it means to win. Once again, the government we are trying to help is hopelessly corrupt and incompetent.

And once again, a President pushing for critical change at home is being pressured to stop dithering, be tough, show he's got the guts, by sending young people seven thousand miles from home to fight and die, while their own country is coming apart.

View Moyer's introduction to the tapes below, and visit his website to watch the entire program.

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Earl Ofari Hutchinson: The Beck Bash Has Worked Wonders -- for Beck

2009-11-21T05:24:18Z

Glenn Beck loves every minute of the Beck bash. In recent days he's gotten a rock star mob welcome in South Carolina and Washington. He'd get the same fan mob turnout in dozens of other cities that he chose to travel to. His ratings have soared through the roof. He's even made the reigning King of TV right side chatter O'Reilly nervous. Beck is simply the hottest ticket item on the national scene now, and for that he can thank progressives, liberal Democrats, and through the backdoor, President Obama.

None of them learned a thing from attacking Limbaugh and the Fox Network. The thing was that the more you bash, savage, pick at and ridicule a media outlet or a gimmicky talk show host you do what ad people, P.R. flacks, agencies, and sponsors drool over, and sink a mini- king's ransom into. That is to inflate, hype, and pump up a product. In this case the product is Beck.

The Limbaugh fiasco was the first big tip that when the right side talk gabbers are twisted into a public punching bag the predictable happens. Obama played into Limbaugh's once pudgy hands in January when he tried to shoo GOP House reps away from him and then watched as Limbaugh's ratings soared to the sky. Radio affiliates that carry Limbaugh's syndicated show were in ecstasy at his ratings sky rocket. Limbaugh quickly saw the goldmine in the backdoor endorsement from Obama and mined it for all it was worth. His ratings haven't dipped a digit since then.

Worse, the attack made Limbaugh a near mythic figure to millions, put terror and a stiffened spine into GOP self-doubters and conciliators to oppose any and everything that Obama proposes. It even swelled the number and stiffened the spine of Red Dog Democrats to do pretty much the same. It gave the legion of Obama baiters and loathers a massive and fresh stockpile ammunition to blast him on the airwaves, in chat rooms, websites, and even more despicably in race baiting cartoons, emails, Facebook and Twitter posts.

Beck is Limbaugh and Sarah Palin all over again. His mug is plastered over major magazine covers and he's the topic of incessant chatter in news columns and features. The goofball satire and inane pummeling of him by Jon Stewart and the bevy of comics has inflated his image and worth even higher. The Palin attack analogy is just as fitting. The more hammer blow political shots, SNL and late night comic running jokes, and Party (both) regulars slough her off, the higher her star has risen.

There's now a Palin sighting everywhere. The haplessly inept former Alaska governor and VP candidate is a media hot ticket item; a multi-millionaire; and a rallying point for millions of Christian fundamentalist, rightside zanies and disgruntled GOP conservatives who detest Obama's policies. Even more incredible, she's the populist front runner for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination.

Beck, like Limbaugh, Palin and Fox, is grinning from ear to ear at his new found ratings bonanza, swelling bank account, and media and fan adulation. And why wouldn't he? The Beck bash has worked wonders for him.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book, How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press) will be released in January 2010.