Hello, everyone, and welcome again to your Sunday Morning liveblog of quickly typed summations of political teevee mush. My name is Jason, and while today the Marine Corps Marathon runners are running by my window in the morning sun, we've actually had some strange weather lately and I have ended up under it. So bear with me today! This could be rough. Also, Rick Perry is giving an interview! That also could get weird.

As per usual, enjoy at your leisure! Feel free to send an email, meet up with one another in the comment streams, or follow me on Twitter for later, when you want to note my exasperation with Washington's football team.

There will be times where you will have to wait for the liveblog to update, because I am watching this on TiVo. While you wait, here are some interesting things to read.

"How Occupy Wall Street Cost Me My Job." An unexpected companion piece to last week's "How Occupy Wall Street Is Like the Internet." Public radio is no place for a woman with opinions, or journalists who believe that it's wrong to create a mortgage-backed security filled with loans you know are going to fail so that you can sell it to a client who isn't aware that you sabotaged it by intentionally picking the misleadingly rated loans most likely to be defaulted upon. (It's really sad, considering the fact that if journalists cannot just say that it's wrong to create a mortgage-backed security filled with loans you know are going to fail so that you can sell it to a client who isn't aware that you sabotaged it by intentionally picking the misleadingly rated loans most likely to be defaulted upon, then what is the point of journalism?

"One Google Books To Rule Them All?" Maria Bustillos on copyright controversy, clashing principles, and the future of reading.

"What the Costumes Reveal," is that the employees of the Steven J. Baum Foreclosure Mill are degenerates.

FOX NEWS SUNDAY

Chris Wallace is in Austin, Texas today, and yes, I'm jealous, because there is music and mole sauce everywhere down there. There, he's got Rick Perry, chilling in the Texas State History museum.

Speaking of history, Wallace points out that way back when, Perry used to lead in these here polls, now he's gunning for an "I participated" trophy. How is he rebooting himself? He says that for the first eight weeks, he just introduced himself to America, and it's only natural, I guess, that you come to hate Rick Perry after he's been at you for two months. However, in the past two months, people are starting to "put the meat on the bone," he says. HEY, Y'ALL, BRING Y'ALLS BONES OVER HERE, OL' RICK PERRY GOTS SOME MEAT TO PUT ON IT. That "meat" involves energy and a tax plan and energy and energy and did we mention energy? Also, my tax plan? Yeah, it's awesome, everyone will have to do their taxes twice, under my administration, to make sure I ain't screwin' ya! MEAT ON THA BONE.

Wallace, he don't want to focus on the past two weeks. He wants to hear about that time Rick Perry burst on the scene, took the lead, and promptly shot wet poots from his hind end at debates and stuff. "I may end up being a pretty good debater when it's all said and done," he says. (He does realize that "debater" isn't a job, right? Like, you don't get good at spelling bees and go on to have a career in them.)

"Nobody's been stronger on immigration than I have," he says, and actually, the policies for which he's gotten batted about the head for maintaining are quite sensible. The GOP base doesn't feel that way.

Wallace doesn't understand why Rick Perry would skip the debates, because they are just awesome. Perry points out that there are way too many of them and he is right! He says that he's rather "get out and talk to people and lay out his ideas." You know, without having seven other people telling you you're wrong and that's stupid and go back to Texas and nanny nanny boo boo.

Wallace says that conservatives are worried he won't be able to compete on the same stage as Perry. Perry says don't worry, he'll draw a "bright line" of comparison between the two and paint Obama as a job destroyer and a guy who recklessly ends unpopular wars. (What's pretty funny is that in his first ad, Perry makes a firm promise to be a worse job creator than Obama.)

Wallace points out that Perry's plan "blows a hole in the deficit," and Perry says that you need to consider the spending cuts. Plus you get to do your taxes on a postcard, as well as the old way because you'll want to know if Perry is screwing you on the new plan. Perry says that lobbyists will hate his plan, but only if it passes in the form Perry intends, and it won't because lobbyists are better at their jobs than Perry is at his.

Wallace points out that his plan requires people to do their taxes over and over again to see which one has a better bottom line, but Perry says he's pretty sure most Americans will opt for his postcard plan. That would be a big mistake, most Americans!

Wallace points out that even the Heritage Foundation avers that tax cuts rarely pay for themselves, to which Perry says, "What's wrong with lower revenue?" Well, you know, the government does have to pay for those wars you don't want to end...so.

Wallace brings up the issue of fairness in his plan, and how the wealthy make off like bandits. Perry says "everybody gets a tax cut here." Wrong. As you can see above, a substantial number of people don't get a tax cut under his plan. (Maybe he counts them by pretending that being able to opt out of his plan represents a tax cut for the people smart enough to not get screwed by him.) But you have to give the wealthy money, so that they can hire people. Here, a wealthy person disagrees with this take:

First let me note that I am not part of the yacht and private jet set, which represents an even smaller subset of incomes than mine. The threshold for inclusion in the top 1% of income earners in 2008, the most recent year for which published data is available from the IRS, was $380,354, enough for an extraordinary life but nowhere near enough for a harbor berth in St. Moritz. Nevertheless, I am - for now - comfortably ensconced in that demographic. Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan would save me roughly $400,000 a year in taxes, and President Obama's tax proposals would cost me more than $100,000, yet I support the latter and consider the former laughable.

Thus you can imagine my amazement this summer when I watched the Republicans in Congress push the United States to the brink of default - and the world to the brink of ruin - over whether to repeal a portion of the Bush tax cuts and raise my taxes by 3.5%. I know a lot of people with high incomes and even the conservatives among them were confused by that sequence of events. Here is a secret about rich people: we wouldn't have noticed a 3.5% tax increase. That is not only because there isn't a material difference between having $1 million and $965,000, which is obvious, but also because most of us don't actually know how much money we are going to make in a given year. Most income at that level is the result of profits rather than salary, whether it comes in the form of bonuses, stock options, partnership distributions, dividends or capital gains. Profits are unpredictable and they tend to vary wildly. At my own firm, the general rule of thumb is that if we are within 5% of our budget for the year, everyone is happy and no one complains. A variation of 3.5% is merely a random blip.

I was not amazed but disgusted when John Boehner and his crew tried to justify the extremity of their position by rebranding the wealthy as "job creators." While true in a very basic sense, it obscures the fact that jobs are a cost that is voluntarily incurred only as a result of demand. Hiring has no correlation at all to profits or to income - none. Let me keep more of my money without increasing customer demand and I will do just that - keep it. Perhaps I will spend a little more of it, though probably not, but even if I do it won't help the economy very much. Here is another secret of the well-to-do: we don't really buy much more stuff than everyone else. It may be more expensive stuff, sure, but I don't buy cars, or appliances, or furniture, or anything else more frequently than the average consumer. The things I do spend more money on are services such as travel, entertainment, restaurants and landscaping, none of which generate well-paying middle class jobs. There, in a nutshell, is the sad explanation of what has happened to the American economy over the last 25 years of "trickle down" economics.

Wallace asks for Perry to clarify this, that the wealthy will do better. Perry won't admit this. But he doesn't want class warfare!

Perry says that Americans are sick of watching people get jobs through the government, apparently! Paid for by the stimulus package that American voters wanted. I'm sort of not following this argument, but that's probably because I can read a poll that says that Americans want the government to do something about unemployment and not draw a bunch of obtuse conclusions about it -- like, "the American people want us to push the nation into default and destroy the world economy if we don't make some sort of deal over raising the debt ceiling -- some sort of deal over the process by which we pay for the things we've already happily bought -- for the first time ever in American history."

Wallace notes that Perry is committing himself to cutting a quarter of the Federal budget, so he wants to know what "hard choices" he'll make. "Tell me what programs that people count on -- not 'waste and fraud' -- that you would cut." Perry says that he would, uhm...combine two parts of the Department of Education and save $25 trillion. Wallace is all, huh, that can't be right. And Perry says, whoops, I meant "$25 billion." To which Wallace points out isn't but a drop in the bucket, and now Perry's mad because he asked for an example. He did! He wanted a courageous one! I mean Ron Paul will walk up to strangers on the street and tell them he'll cut the whole danged Department! Perry ain't even the biggest budget cutter in Texas!

Wow, it took me a long time to liveblog the first fifteen minutes of this. Like I said, I am not feeling that great! Will try to do better.

Perry says that this past year in Texas, they cut spending and there were a lot of people who said "that the world was going to come to an end," and did it? Fires blazed out of control all across Texas, that's all!

Chris Wallace gets to Perry's job promise, and Chris Wallace is honestly HILARIOUS. "Governor Perry...two and a half million jobs is TERRIBLE!" Perry looks as if this is the first time anyone has told him this. Wallace says that we'd need 6 million jobs over that four year term just to stay ahead of population growth. Perry has a choice here, he can say that the 2.5 million is based on a realistic view of the economy and how stuck it is, or he can basically say, "Uhm, how many jobs is 'not terrible?' I PROMISE THAT. 2.5 trillion jobs for everybody! In my administration, we'll be giving entry level clerical jobs to sea otters, it will be awesome."

Yeah, until the sea otters conquer humanity! YOU'RE LETTING THEM RIGHT IN THE DOOR, PERRY!

Perry opts to say, that it's "amazing for anyone to say that 2.5 million jobs" is bad. So he went with the third choice: "Wha?"

Perry says we need to give the American people confidence! Hey America, get excited! Rick Perry will be a terrible job creator!

"How do you answer that question?" Wallace asks. "2.5 million jobs would not keep abreast of population growth. The unemployment rate would increase under this plan?" Perry says that he doesn't believe that. "It's false on its face." What's false? Are there not more people entering the work force every month? Or does "2.5 million" somehow equal another, larger number? Is Perry proposing to make millions of college graduates disappear into the ether, or will 2,500,000 equal 15,000,000 in his administration?

Perry says that if he promised 10.5 million jobs, people would say he's not being realistic, and he won't let people "talk his plan down." HIS TERRIBLE, INADEQUATE PLAN.

Perry says that it's terrible that Obama has ended the Iraq War. "The idea that a commander in chief could stand up and signal to the enemy a date certain of which we're going to pull our troops out, I think is irresponsible." AGH. IDIOT. Here's how that went, for the 900th time! There was a Status Of Forces Agreement. It was agreed to by President Bush and the Iraqi government. President Obama was bound by it. Only the Iraqi government could alter it. We lobbied for an alteration, and didn't get what we wanted, so we're back to following the SOFA as agreed to back then. Nobody signaled anything to an enemy, beyond the agreement etched over three years ago. That's it. Get a grip!

Perry: "You need to be talking to your commanders in the field, you need to be talking to experts."

Ha, okay.

OBAMA: Hey, Commanders, is this status of forces agreement dealie real?

COMMANDERS: Yes.

OBAMA: Okay, thanks!

Perry says that we need to finish out mission in Iraq and Afghanistan, whatever that is!

Perry says that states should be in the business of energy subsidies, but Wallace points out that he sought a subsidy for a nuclear power plant in Texas. Perry admits to seeking it, but "from a general standpoint," he thinks it's wrong. There are just some "specific" instances where he sets his principles aside, I guess. (Why not just say that the Federal government has a role to play, and as long as they do so productively, we'll be fine?)

What does Perry think of Mitt Romney? Perry says he doesn't know him very well. "We served together as governors." Wallace is like, "COME ON, DUDE." Perry says that he's been a "consistent conservative" and Mitt hasn't. (Of course, how would Perry govern Massachusetts?)

Perry says that the race isn't settled, and that voters in the early states will like his tax plan more than Romney and Cain's and eventually come back to him. "I feel pretty comfortable where I'll be on Election Day." (He does know that "Election Day" in this context is about two months away, right?) Perry says he's learned that it's "a marathon, not a sprint," and that getting in late had its drawbacks. He is confident that he will "get out of the hole" polling wise, mainly because of his "warchest" -- which is the best thing he's got going for him, and the area in which he cannot compete with Cain.

But still, LOL, because he's currently behind Bachmann!

Wallace points out that only Mitt Romney hasn't come on Fox News Sunday, and basically says: "COME ON, MITTENS."

Panel time, with Brit Hume and Mara Liasson and Dana Perino and Juan Williams, who didn't get to go to Austin with Wallace, ha ha, losers.

Hume says that the new initiatives that the White House are exploring could help a little bit politically, but in the big picture, they won't make much difference to the big picture. He points out, correctly, that when Clinton undertook similar moves in 1996, the economy was doing much better. Liasson says that the American people understand that executive orders won't alter the trajectory, but that what he's stuck with because of Congress. "He's has a substantive agenda," says Liasson, "It just couldn't get passed."

Perino says there's not much sensible political strategy in "talking down" the country. She also insists that the President got everything he wanted from Congress during the first two years, but this isn't true. Numerous bills made it through the House only to get hung in a Senate filibuster, and the stimulus package itself, was basically undermined by Senators like Ben Nelson and Evan Bayh and Joe Lieberman. I don't think you can glibly blame the GOP 100% of the time for the White House's inability to get what it wanted, but let's not go too far in the other direction and suggest that he did!

Williams says that Obama can run against a "do nothing Congress," because Congressional approval is 9%. But as Hume points out, it's going to be hard to connect "MITT ROMNEY" or "RICK PERRY" to "CONGRESS." Those guys are going to bitch about Congress, too! Liasson says that Obama will run a campaign of comparisons between himself and the eventual nominee.

More panel! Ol' Mitt, he's flipping and a flopping again, this time on climate change.

"I think we would all agree that Romney's biggest potential liability is his reputation as a flip-flopper," says Wallace. Of course, let's be fair, there's one big flip-flop he shouldn't have had to make -- support for his own health care reform. But yeah, Ol' Mittens, he flips harder and faster than the Olympic vault competition.

Hume says, "I think it's his single biggest problem." Okay, good analysis! Aren't we glad we woke up for this?

Apparently, Jon Huntsman called Romney a "perfectly lubricated weather vane." If only! Mitt doesn't touch the hard stuff!

Is Herman Cain for real? Perino says yes, and that he's finally raising money. Then she says something about Bachmann and Santorum that doesn't make sense in context? I guess she means that they can stumble on further down the road and not drop out, because of all the debates.

What about all the gaffes he's made? Williams says Wallace is right when he points out that people seem to be more forgiving of Cain, because they understand he's not a seasoned politician. His lack of polished answers, and occasional missteps, the theory goes, makes him more endearing. "I think for the moment, he's on a roll. The establishment doesn't see it, but I think the voters see it."

FACE THE NATION

Well, while we're on the topic of Herman Cain, let's switch over to The Schieffer Show, on CBS, because Bob's got Cain today.

Schieffer: "The idea that [Herman Cain] is leading in the polls does take a little getting used to." But Bob's gonna give it a try!

Schieffer sets the stage: fresh Des Moines Register poll -- we got Cain at 23%, Romney at 22%, Ron Paul at 12%. Ron Paul always seems to be at 12% lately! Bachmann is actually back in fourth place. Jon Huntsman is getting 1%. Huntsman always seems to be at 1%, always!

Cain says that he thinks he's "connecting with the people," and he's been on the trail, sort of, for over a year. So has Rick Santorum, but the advantage that Cain has over Santorum is that he doesn't come across like some creepy character from the series DEXTER.

How much of Cain's success be attributed to the fact that Republicans don't like Mitt Romney, for being the flip-floppingest flopper of flips ever? Cain says that he doesn't think that's the "driving force." Rather, he thinks that his speeches are just awesome. He talks, and people freak out, and start feeling awesome.

But Schieffer points out that conservative establishment types haven't exactly cottoned to his "9-9-9 Plan," and that he's already had to make a change to it -- making it a "9-0-9 Plan" because the poor were getting fleeced. Does this mean he might have to "go back to the drawing board? Cain says "absolutely not," and goes on to insist that the zeroing out of that one part isn't a change, at all, it was always in there. Sure, he just didn't want anyone to know, because Americans love plot twists! OMG HERMAN CAIN FOUND THE HATCH!

"It was misreported that we changed it," he says, apparently expecting reporters to be clairvoyant.

Schieffer asks if poor and middle income earners won't still have to pay more in taxes when they go to the store to buy school clothes for their kids and what not. It's a well phrased example from Schieffer, who's anticipating an answer on new versus used goods. Cain, however, insists that the overall prices of good will drop because "9-9-9" eliminates "invisible taxes."

This, Cain says, is the hardest part of the plan to sell. Yes, evidently!

Now we'll talk about the weird campaign ad. And Schieffer is the guy to go at this hard, because he hates cigarettes and he hates cancer. "I have to ask," he says, "What is the point of that? Having a man smoke a cigarette?" And Schieffer bites down on the word cigarette like he just asked, "What is the point of that? Having a man participate in a cockfight?"

Cain says that "one of the themes" in the campaign is "let Herman be Herman," and Mark Block is a smoker and you've got to "let Mark be Mark," and that means you HAVE TO PUT IT IN A CAMPAIGN AD. If someone at the Herman Cain campaign likes eating whipped cream right from the can, PUT IT IN AN AD. If someone at the Herman Cain campaign likes masturbating to NPR's "Car Talk," PUT IT IN AN AD. If someone at the Herman Cain campaign can't leave their home in the morning without first rolling around naked on a pile of peanut butter sandwiches because if he doesn't, the cobras will come, PUT IT IN AN AD. Let people be people. Strange, strange people.

"This wasn't intended to send any subliminal signal whatsoever," Cain says. Sweetie, no one in the world thinks you are that sophisticated!

Schieffer says that the ad makes it seem like it's cool to smoke. "No it does not," Cain says, "all it says is that Mark Block smokes." I'll admit, no one in the world is going to start smoking because Herman Cain's dodgy looking chief of staff smokes.

This is actually getting crazy. Cain is now explaining that he "respects" Mark Block as a smoker, because "he never smokes around me" and "he goes outside to smoke." I mean, that's awesome! But Herman, you have to understand, you are on FACE THE NATION, and people are tuning in to hear about your presidential campaign, and because YOU CHOSE to run an ad in which this guy is smoking, that's what we're talking about! I mean, is it vital to the nation's future for you to come on teevee and say, "My fellow Americans, I want you to know that Mark Block smokes, and that's okay, that's who he is. But I promise you, America! When Herman Cain is President! Mark Block will continue! To smoke! OUTSIDE!"

"It was meant to be informative," Cain says. Because that's what's been holding the nation's economy back! We've been too uncertain as to whether this guy we've never heard of smokes or not!

"It's not funny to me," Schieffer says, "I am a cancer survivor, like you. And it was smoking related. And I don't think it serves the country well -- and this is an editorial opinion, here -- to show someone smoking a cigarette. You're the frontrunner now, and it seems to me that you would have the responsibility not to take that kind of a tone...that you would want to raise the level of the campaign."

If Schieffer was a woman who worked in public radio, he'd be fired for having that editorial opinion and not keeping it a closely guarded secret!

"We will do that Bob," Cain says, "And I do respect your objection to the ad...it was not intended to offend anyone."

"Will you take the ad down," Schieffer asks.

Cain points out that it's on the internet, not teevee, and now it's impossible. "We could take it off of our website," he says, but it's already on a bunch of others. I mean, you could still make the gesture, Herman. Nothing's stopping you from being the guy who'll stop propagating the ad.

Schieffer asks if he'd ever thought of doing an ad encouraging young people to not smoke. Cain says he'd have no problem. Schieffer: "Say it right now." HAHA. THIS IS AWESOME. BOB SCHIEFFER IS MY SPIRIT ANIMAL. Cain says, "Young people of America! Do not smoke! It is hazardous, it is dangerous to your health. Don't smoke." Schieffer: "It is not a cool thing to do." Cain: "It is not a cool thing to do." Bob Schieffer is straight up using his anti-smoking Jedi mind powers, y'all!

Finally! That long discussion is over, and it could have been avoided if Cain had just not put a superfluous shot of some guy smoking in a web ad!

Gary L. emails me with a really good question:

Why won't somebody ask Cain that if he is President and he brings in his 9-9-9 plan, is he going to lower the prices at all his Pizza places? Because he seems to think prices are going to drop everywhere.

That would be an excellent question, because the pizza delivery business involves a lot of different products and a supply chain that ends with a dude driving his own car around. It's potentially subject to all sorts of market fluctuations, from the prices of gas to the price of milk, and there's a ton of different line items on the cost side of a pizza. But Cain should be familiar with that stuff, right? I'd love for him to track the changes in prices he's talking about in those terms. That's just brilliant, Gary.

Schieffer wants to know if he is kidding about the electric border fence at the border or not. Cain says that you need to secure the border with a fence, but it doesn't have to be electric. "That was an over-exaggeration."

What about the moat, with alligators? "That was totally in jest," he says. "That would be very expensive," Schieffer says. But so would any kind of fence! Unless we line the border with used lawn furniture.

"I am pro-life from conception, period," he says. No exceptions. Does that include rape and incest and health of the mother? Yes. Cain is in favor of incest babies toddling around, and women being traumatized for their entire lives, unless of course they die of pre-ecclampsia. Would he be entirely against Planned Parenthood offering women advice, and the answer is no, because "sincere counselors" of women aren't all hung up on women being healthy or treated as something other than chattel. The only advice women should be getting are from centers that urge women to submit their bodies to the State, like good little brood-mares.

What's the most pressing foreign policy problem? Cain says it's "lack of clarity with regards to our relationship with other countries."

"For the President to announce that we will draw down troop in Iraq by a date certain just leaves a power vacuum in Iraq." GOOD LORD, MAN. The announcement of the draw down was made BEFORE OBAMA WAS PRESIDENT. And the power vacuum in Iraq was CREATED BY THE INVASION ITSELF.

Schieffer points out that it was Bush that struck the deal by agreeing to the SOFA.

"Well that's fine," Cain says, "But a responsible Commander in Chief would have asked commanders on the ground 'should we continue with this, or should we modify it.'"

Ha, okay. Let's imagine this:

OBAMA: Should we continue with the Status of Forces Agreement?

COMMANDERS: Yeah, probably, since we agreed to it.

OBAMA: Can we modify it?

COMMANDERS: Only the Iraqi government can modify it. I mean, did you read the Status Of Forces Agreement?

SHORTER CAIN: There just should have been a different outcome in Iraq, and Obama clearly wasn't WISHING FOR IT HARD ENOUGH. What kind of President doesn't clap harder to save Tinkerbell?

Cain: "President Obama changes a lot of other things that Bush did." Hey, yeah, that's true! And I'm pretty sure that in none of those cases, did Obama say, "Oh, hey, I'm going to go ahead and abrogate an international agreement, for no reason!"

Cain promises that he will, as President, renege on international agreements that he doesn't like, because that aids "clarity."

John Dickerson is here now, lately returned from Iowa. "How goes the news in Des Moines?" asks Schieffer. "Aye, lend me thine ears, Bob," says Dickerson, "We are now in a steady relationship with Herman Cain." Iowa is going to the harvest dance with Herman Cain!

"For the non-Mitt Romney spot, there isn't anyone left," Dickerson says.

But can he survive some of these gaffes? Dickerson says one of his former aides told him, "If you let [Cain] talk long enough, he'll talk himself out of his own position."

Dickerson: "Rick Santorum is always quick to point out the mistakes of others." This is probably why people don't like him very much! Who votes for the town scold! Yeah, I definitely want my president to be the guy who's got his eye on my keyhole, waiting for me to do something he doesn't like.

Voters in Iowa, Dickerson says, are happy to forgive Cain's lapses, because they know where he stands, even if Cain can't articulate it. There's that lenient standard for the guy who's not a career politician, again!

Dickerson points out that Peter Hart focus group, where a bunch of people besotted with Cain nevertheless could not raise their hand to support the idea of Cain becoming President. That suggests that there's a "Dated Cain, Married Mitt" thing going on.

Dude. One of y'all should start selling "Dated Cain, Married Mitt" shirts, right now, on the internet.

Dickerson says that in CBS' latest poll, 8 in 10 Republicans are still shopping. Rick Perry, he says, needs to reintroduce himself as a true conservative, but it's a lot of work.

Schieffer says that he loved this last World Series, even though his team lost. (I also loved this last World Series, though admittedly, my favorite team won.)

THIS WEEK WITH CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR

Today, Michele Bachmann joins the show, along with Bill Gates. What a study in contrasts! But first, we hear from Jake Tapper, reporting from Kabul on the recent suicide bombing which claimed seventeen lives. Tapper: "U.S. forces call this latest Taliban attack a 'sign of desperation,' but that seems debatable: Taliban attacks here in Kabul are getting more brazen and more deadly."

ABC News, in recapping the latest Des Moines register poll, leaves off Jon Huntsman. So, look for his daughters to have some angry tweets about that. "Why won't you report on our father's near one percent?"

This week spends the next few minutes recapping the week on the campaign trail, but I'm going to assume that you guys have already read the one that Elyse Siegel and I did.

I just realized that Chris Wallace never asked Perry about the birther stuff. Oh well! I guess that was too much to expect.

Finally, Michele Bachmann is here, and she says, "Good morning" to Amanpour as if she expected to be talking to someone else this morning.

Amanpour asks if it will take a "miracle to resurrect" her campaign. WILL SHE ROLL AWAY THE STONE? Bachmann says that she needs to remind everyone that she won the Iowa Straw Poll "in less time" than any other candidate, whatever that means, and that she's doing what she needs to do in Iowa. "Meeting people, multiple times." Eating their pie. Mowing their lawns. She's not "worried about the day-to-day snapshots" and she's doing the "fundamentals." Tax lawyer. Job creator. Tip of the spear. It's like she's read the rules of the Michele Bachmann Drinking Game and wants to get us all good and soused really early.

Is Iowa a "must win" state? Bachmann says she's focused on the schedule, and that includes New Hampshire and South Carolina.

"But is it a must win for you?" asks Amanpour.

[pause] "Well we're focused on it!"

"What would happen if you didn't win there? How could you rationalize going forward?"

"Really, right now what's important is the positive message we're putting out," she says. Tip of the spear. Lead person fighting Obamacare. "I don't flip-flop, I stand strong on issues and I fight." And she loses, time and again.

Amanpour points out that she's called the Iranian assassination plot against a Saudi diplomat an "act of war," so how will she retaliate? Bachmann says that she wouldn't "take her eye off Iran seeking a nuclear weapon" and would "take everything at our disposal to ensure they don't get one." But how would she retaliate against an act of war. "I would consider the use of everything," she says, as long as it "was in our vital national interest." Bachmann, as always, tries to shoehorn too much critique into her statements. She wants to allude to Robert Gates saying that Libya was not in our "vital national interests," but it's beside the point here! Clearly retaliating in an "act of war" in some fashion would be in our interests. This is where losing Ed Rollins really costs Bachmann -- seasoned managers know where to make edits. Bachmann needs to "murder her darlings." Take it from someone who has the same problem!

But she would consider the use of everything at least! We'd use force, we'd use butter, we'd use handshakes, we'd use the new Colson Whitehead zombie novel, we'd use feelings, and crock pot recipes, and prayer, and soup, and Robitussin, and the new Nicki Minaj single, and crocheted Christmas ornaments, and In-and-Out Burger, and Florida manatees.

Would President Bachmann have wanted tens of thousands of dead people in Benghazi? Basically, yes, because it wasn't in our vital national interests. Still, she's right that Congress should have played a role in overseeing another use of force, and that regime change in Libya doesn't necessarily mean a benefit for America. I wish she'd had that attitude about Iraq, where the same rules apply to this day.

Is it her position that it wasn't worth it? "The last chapter has not been written, this is a snapshot in time." Well, you have to give that one to Bachmann. That's absolutely right.

Amanpour wants to point out that there weren't 59,000 people from Yemen and Syria who came across the border last year, but actually, eleven Yemenis and 5 Syrians among 59,000 people in total. What is Bachmann going to do?

She could go with:

A: "If you diagram my sentence, you'll see it's not clear cut what I was implying."

B: "Yes, but the way I say it stirs up Islamaphobia, really effectively!"

C: "I can't believe that you reporters pay so much attention to things I say as a presidential candidate, what is wrong with you?"

She should really just go with "A," I mean, I didn't think she was implying that 59,000 Yemenis came across the border.

"In the full context of my remarks, I did not state that 59,000 came solely from state sponsors of terrorism." So: A. "I said it included among them are." Such as. Maps such as.

This really does seem like a waste of journalistic resources, clearing up this point that maybe didn't need clearing up in the first place.

This is better: Amanpour wants to know why she is accusing Rick Perry of stealing her tax plan when "he's talking about a flat tax and you're not really."

(Also, what is her tax plan? In one debate she said people should keep every dollar they earned, period. In another, she said that more people needed to pay income taxes. Is it possible to "steal" her tax plan? By the way, she has not, technically, come out with a tax plan yet!)

"My tax plan is unique from all the other plans in that I call for all Americans to pay something in taxes." She goes on to say that 51% of Americans don't pay income taxes and this needs to change because everyone needs to pay something. Of course, EVERYONE DOES PAY SOMETHING -- everyone pays sales tax, and payroll tax, and there are all sorts of fees baked in to daily life, so it's hardly worth mentioning that some people do not pay income taxes. Those that don't have a reason why not! They are RETIRED. Or they make so little income that it's not worth taking a portion. Or they are small children.

But here's the thing, if Bachmann's plan is "unique from all the other plans" then how has Rick Perry stolen it? "Hey, I decided to write a book/cook a meal/make a website about this." "Oh, awesome. I'm going to write a book/cook a meal/make a website about something totally different." "WHAT?! NO FAIR! THAT WAS MY IDEA, TO HAVE AN IDEA."

Then she goes on to say that she stole her idea from Reagan. SHE IS THE ONLY PERSON WHO IS ALLOWED TO DO THAT. I've still no idea what, if anything, Rick Perry is supposed to have stolen from her, but that's where we're going to leave things.

Why not bring up what caused her entire New Hampshire staff to quit this week?

Panel time, with George Will, Cokie Roberts, Austan Goolsbee, and Ron Brownstein.

Can Herman Cain keep up the momentum? Will says, "Not if the future is like the past." Cain needs to be able to organize the hell out of Iowa to win those caucuses. Roberts calls Cain the "non-Romney of the week." Goolsbee makes the case that Cain isn't just an anti-Romney -- he's perceived as having a new idea...almost being a new idea, really, that's captivated voters.

Now, the man who inspired one of the best band names in the history of punk rock, Dick Armey, is suddenly here to offer up his thought-farts on the issue of Herman Cain. Does he like Herman Cain? Armey begins by saying, "Welleaghaagghhaaahhgghhouugh" and then slowly, some English words form as the speech center of his brain wins the Game Of Thrones between itself and the great grey brain fog. Cain, he says, has got authenticity. "Ceci n'est pas une Mitt Romnie." He also has a "personal record that no one else can match." And this is indeed true. No one in the rest of the field can lay claim to being the 73rd person to solve the conundrum of how to get pizza from a stove to a hungry customer using some sort of automotive device. CAN'T MATCH THAT.

"Is he now it for you?" Armey says that "it's a long term process" and "we enjoy having people in the process." That's great that they agree to support what's long been decided will happen.

Roberts wants to know if he's really just waiting for Perry. Armey essentially says yes. Roberts says, see, he said yes.

"The only person who can stop Mitt Romney is Romney," says Will, who wrote a column about his terrible flip-flops this week.

"Can we just assert that these debates are preposterous distractions from the nation's understanding," says Will. YES. Let us assert that. Why haven't we chased these pre-primary debate organizers back into the hell-trenches from which they have come, bearing "questions from this one dude on twitter."

Brownstein points out that the debates are replacing the fundraising that typically keeps people in the race. (He is basically saying that politics have become like reality television. As if you didn't know this.)

Goolsbee says that the "flat tax" is the tax version of "bringing back the leisure suit." Armey says, "That's ordinary poppycock." Goolsbee says, "Well, I appreciate that." And now he's touting the tax plans of Eastern Europe. Because that's how you'd like to live, like they do in Bratislava.

Brownstein points out that Mitt Romney himself took out an ad that called the flat tax a "tax cut for fat cats." MITT ROMNEY SHOULD DECLARE CLASS WAR AGAINST HIMSELF.

Now, Christiane Amanpour will talk to Bill Gates, for some reason. Does he "buy the notion" that there is "class warfare" in the United States? No, he says, because no one is shooting at each other. (Unless you count a Marine being shot with a tear gas canister, and then the people who come to render first aid to the Marine getting shot with another tear gas canister, and then that Marine almost dying, and being forced now to recover from a major head injury.)

Does he support the Buffet rule? Gates...I think...does? He says, "I can't imagine these millionaires and billionaires barricading the streets because they have to pay 5% more in taxes." There is a case to be made, he says, for taxes to be more progressive, but he's not clear on whether the Buffet rule, though he says he's generically predisposed to the rich paying more.

Does Gates support for education square with the college dropouts -- like him -- that pervade the tech industry. In so many words, yes. People need to find their own route, and we should expand our capacity to provide training for people to do all sorts of jobs. There's something in there about doing drugs and going to India. And "we need to take lessons about generosity...and carry them forward," by continuing to invest in the developing world, despite the economic crisis.

AMANPOUR: You were on Capitol Hill. What sort of a welcome did you get?

GATES: They do have a tough constraint. And so the question of should these monies that help the poorest, that enhance national security, should they be cut more than other things? Should they be cut equally? Or should they be preserved? That's, you know, something that they're having to think about. And, you know, I'm reminding them that every dollar makes a huge difference.

AMANPOUR: When President Obama says it's time to do nation-building here at home, what's your answer to that?

GATES: Well, I think, absolutely, the United States has to go back and look at what's going on with our education system, what's going on with our medical costs, what's going on with our infrastructure, our energy, our R&D. There's some very important things. Which is why 99 percent of the budget will -- will focus domestically.

There's a question, as you do that, the U.S. lead role in helping the very poorest, get them vaccines and those things, should you do your nation-building by causing more of those people to die or should you maintain at least at the level you promised, that you went out and said that the Vaccine Fund, the Global Fund, we will put this money in are those promises going to be met? And that's really at risk right now.

What was up with that outpouring of grief when Steve Jobs died? Gates says it's because Jobs did a "fantastic job" with transforming technology in a wide variety of areas..." the Internet, the personal computer, the phone, the way you can deal with information." How does he react to Jobs' book, in which Gates is said to be "unimaginative, had never invented anything and shamelessly ripped off other people's ideas."

GATES: Well, Steve and I worked together, you know, creation -- creating the Mac. We had more people on it, did the key software for it. So over the course of, you know, the 30 years we worked together, you know, he said a lot of very nice things about me and he said a lot of tough things.

I mean he faced, several times at Apple, the fact that their products were so premium priced that they literally might not stay in the marketplace. So the fact that we were succeeding with high volume products, you know, including a range of prices, because of the way we worked with multiple companies, it's tough.

And so the fact that, you know, at various times, he felt beleaguered, he felt like he was -- he was the good guy and we were the bad guys, you know, very understandable. I, you know, respect Steve. We got to work together. We spurred each other on, even as competitors. None of that bothers me at all.

Terrific. You know what else I bet cushions the blow? Stacks and stacks of sweet-ass cash.

Okay, so, that's where we'll call a halt to this today. Thanks for tuning in. A brief programming note, this November, there will be two Sundays with no liveblog: November 13th and November 27th. We shall somehow overcome this! In the meanwhile, have a great week!

["Here Are Some Thoughts I Had For America!" is a column that grinds up only the very finest American punditry and pontificating of the past week through a complicated process of recombination in order to create a fulsome catechism of bourgeois thought.]

Has anyone else been noticing that we are, as a society, inundated by a river of words? It is a noise from which one cannot escape. Words and phrases and clauses are everywhere, droning on and on and on and on, seemingly without end.

Hey! Why are you reaching for the mouse to click "close tab" in that ironic fashion? Stop that! Can't you see I'm making a rather excellent point about the modern condition, once again?

This all finally hit home when I was standing on the moving sidewalk at the airport. There I was, in deep contemplation, pondering why we don't have first- or, at the very least, business-class moving sidewalks, when I heard a voice overhead intoning -- rather impersonally, I hasten to add -- "The moving sidewalk is coming to an end. Please look down." My immediate thought was, "Is this really necessary?" I daresay that I mastered the art of ambulation a long time ago, and frankly, my understanding of eschatology goes all the way back to Saint Augustine. (I never undertake air travel without a copy of On the Catechising of the Uninstructed by my side.)

My point is this: there is too much noise, noise, noise. And I grow weary of it. I realize that this is a big reason that I have, in recent weeks, written about the indignity of having to share space in the city with Occupy Wall Street, who simply will not bear their perceived abuses in stoic silence. But I shan't pick on Occupy Wall Street this week. In fact, I'll have you know that I am willing and able to defend them against the charges that they are anti-Semitic. As the 56,823rd person to note that the Zuccotti Square gathering rather happily celebrated Simchat Torah, I believe that I can be considered the leading authority on the lack of anti-Semitism in this movement. (Don't get me wrong, these people are, in nearly all other dimensions, thoroughly detestable.)

With some regret, however, I feel like I must criticize President Barack Obama for being a leading contributor to the erratic, clangorous tintamarre that currently mars the body politic. I say "with some regret," because as you know, when Obama appeared on the scene, I got behind him. Close behind him. Uncomfortably close behind him. By Jove, I had resolved that if I had the chance to butter my lips with the sweat that pooled in the divot in the small of his back, I was not going to miss out!

See, I thought that Barack Obama understood that we are a center-right nation, with two political parties -- one that works hard to accommodate millionaires, and another that works hard to accommodate all of this accommodation, occasionally getting to expand the franchise of marriage to gay people if there was good money behind it. When Obama came to office, I knew that he wouldn't be the sort of president that sought to make the poor understand that they should be embarrassed to not be millionaires -- the country was in a bit of a tough spot, economically. I understood that he had to give the people some hope to cling to, quietly.

I was shocked to discover that he didn't intend to provide the middle and working class with hope at all. Rather, he somehow got it in his head that he needed to provide the middle and working classes with some kind of policy that -- get this! -- addressed their problems. I was flabbergasted, and of course, this idea didn't work. People argue with me all the time that these things didn't work because centrist Democrats and the Republican minority watered down these policies and lustily obstructed them, respectively. But as I tell those sorts of people, that's the point! You're supposed to listen to centrist Democrats and the Republican minority! And now, Congress has a nine percent approval rating for some reason. It's a mess!

Obama is campaigning these days as the populist fighter, the scourge of the privileged class. And that's caused many people to actually develop a set of expectations that he will do something to alleviate their problems. Where he once sought merely to produce a free-floating cloud of catch-all inspiration that -- take it from me, a man who frequently hovered above the waistband of his slacks -- should have been more than enough succor for the discontented, it now seems as if he is going to run some sort of negative campaign, in which he actually complains that his opponents are part of some sort of like-minded cabal that have strategically prevented the public interest from being fully served in order to reconsolidate power. All wrong!

Look: in order for Democrats to win elections in this climate they must -- I repeat, MUST -- defuse the Big Government/Small Government ideological debate. Poll after poll reveals that Americans are clamoring for the government to do something about unemployment, and I have decided that what they really mean to say is that they want a small government that doesn't actually attempt to specifically address structural inequities through policy. It's no coincidence, I think, that this is precisely the way I feel about the matter.

So this distressing amplification of common people and their tiresome complaints are a direct result of Obama forgetting these very basic things about American politics. What he seems to be doing is making an attempt to portray himself as some sort of fighter that champions a "base." And that is something that's really only okay for Republicans to do.

Oh, it's also okay for Bibi Netanyahu to do it -- but that's sort of the same concept.

INSPIRED BY:
The Fighter Fallacy [David Brooks @ New York Times]
Inundated by a river of words [George Will @ Washington Post]
Where are the anti-Semites of Occupy Wall Street? [Richard Cohen @ Washington Post]

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

What does one do when one learns that one is -- how shall I put this? Universally hated? Despised beyond measure by everyone? Faced on a daily basis with a public that would cheer the sight of you and all you colleagues stripped naked and horsewhipped the length of Pennsylvania Avenue? Well, if you are the U.S. Congress -- currently holding strong at a 9 percent approval rating in a world where I'm guessing that at least five percent of the public would allow themselves to have a pig's bladder full of live wasps thrown at their face at least once, just to try it -- you could decide that you are going to start doing the opposite of whatever it is you're doing now.

But why make an effort when you can just make a bunch of glum jokes about it, instead? Via Politico:

Sen. Lindsey Graham is so embarrassed about the 9 percent approval rating -- released Tuesday night in a New York Times/CBS poll -- that he's going incognito.

"It's so bad sometimes I tell people I'm a lawyer," the South Carolina Republican told POLITICO on Wednesday. "I don't want to be associated with a body that in the eyes of your fellow citizens seems to be dysfunctional. It matters to me."

"We're below sharks and contract killers," added freshman Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.).

Yesterday, Sen. John McCain was sounding a similar refrain, joking on Twitter that the 9% approval ratings meant that they were "down to paid staffers and blood relatives." How similar a refrain was it? So similar that Daily Intel's Dan Amira found 26 examples of McCain making this joke, dating back to May of 2006.

Seems to me that round about the seventeenth time you've joked about how incapable you are of doing anything that people don't hate, it sort of becomes incumbent on you to try to do something about it. And since none of these guys want to resign, today -- which is an option! -- I'm going to generously assume that they actually want to work within the system to improve the way their institution is viewed by the public.

Graham himself seems to suggest that such a path is open:

While Obama has shaped the early part of his presidential campaign around attacking a dysfunctional Congress, his approval numbers aren't great either, sitting at a glum 46 percent, with 38 percent approving of his handling of the economy.

But 38 percent believe Obama has a clear plan for job creation, compared to just 20 percent for Hill Republicans.

Compared to Congress, "he's a rock star," Graham declared.

[...]

"There's always been a healthy disdain for political institutions," Graham said. "But when it becomes unhealthy is when 91 percent of the country believes that the Congress is detached from reality."

I've been taking the pulse of the public for a long time, and I can state pretty definitively that the reason why "91 percent of the country believes that the Congress is detached from reality" is because that's precisely the way Congress behaves. For years, in poll after poll, the public has been sending Congress a strong message, as pure as a toot from Gabriel's horn: "We want you to focus on unemployment. We do not share your obsession with the federal deficit. Stop working on that! You hear me? Wait -- hold on...what are you doing? You're threatening to not raise the debt ceiling, and plunge the global economy into default? Have you guys lost your everloving minds? Listen here, you..."

And the rest of that is basically unprintable. But here we have this jobs plan that voters and economists seem to like -- and it's just sitting there. That alone makes the president look like a "rock star," in comparison to all of the glum Congresscritters trying to mine some sympathy in this race-to-the-gallows comedy competition.

Lindsey, listen to me. I know that many of your colleagues see the American Jobs Act as something that's intended as a cheap, election year wedge-gimmick. Brother, I can get cynical with the best of them. I'm not going to call you insane for thinking that it's been offered up for no other reason than to paint you guys in the worst possible light come 2012.

Here's what I don't understand -- why haven't you called its bluff? If the White House's jobs plan proves to be junk, everyone's going to blame the White House. If it proves to be effective, you get to share in the victory. Either way, you get to defuse the criticism that y'all are a bunch of dyed-in-the-wool obstructionists, which has sort of been your cynical game over the past year. Let's face it: when Obama said that he couldn't run against a do-nothing Congress if Congress actually managed to do something, he sort of gave away the game.

This is just an idea I had. If you can do better, by all means, have at it, Mr. 9%.

READ THE WHOLE THING:
Even Congress hates Congress [Politico]

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Over at The New York Times, Nicholas Kristof has enunciated an excellent defense of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, aimed at dispelling the notion that the Occupiers are some single-minded mass movement targeting the capitalist system for destruction. In fact, Kristof says, "while alarmists seem to think that the movement is a 'mob' trying to overthrow capitalism, one can make a case that, on the contrary, it highlights the need to restore basic capitalist principles like accountability."

Kristof says that what Occupy Wall Street represents is "a chance to save capitalism from crony capitalists" and an entrenched system of "government-backed featherbed[ding]" that amounts to "socialism for tycoons and capitalism for the rest of us." As Kristof notes, he's seen this before: Years of covering the '90s-era Asian financial crisis brought Kristof face-to-face with the same critique. It's now unspooling in the United States and having its own deleterious effects, such as the near-intractable income inequality that was, at long last, reported on fully this week (perhaps thanks to the presence of the Occupiers themselves).

Kristof's right to suggest that the Occupiers aren't "half-naked Communists aiming to bring down the American economic system." This isn't the "Project Mayhem" of Chuck Palahniuk novels -- we're talking about a movement that's spurring people to move their money from "too big to fail" banks into credit unions. That's not exactly "smash the system." That's more like a group of people seeking out a means to maximize their power within the system, or using consumer choice to preserve, enhance and improve the best parts of the system. As Matt Taibbi notes in a fitting companion piece to Kristof's, "These people aren't protesting money. They're not protesting banking. They're protesting corruption on Wall Street."

Taibbi calls them "cheaters," Kristof calls them "cronies," but the concept of "corruption" is intrinsic to both critiques. In fact, one could well argue that the truest evidence of Wall Street corruption is the fact that prior to the economic collapse, what Wall Street was practicing wasn't really "capitalism" at all.

And here, Kristof absolutely nails it:

Capitalism is so successful an economic system partly because of an internal discipline that allows for loss and even bankruptcy. It's the possibility of failure that creates the opportunity for triumph. Yet many of America's major banks are too big to fail, so they can privatize profits while socializing risk.

Way back when Julie Satow and I were attempting to explain the role the credit derivatives and AIG played in destroying our future, there was one question that resonated with me: What happened to that elementary ingredient of capitalism known as risk? If you want to tell the story of what was going on prior to September of 2008 in one sentence, here you go: Wall Street came to believe that they had finally figured out how to rid themselves of risk -- that "possibility of failure" -- entirely, and thus outsmart capitalism. (Calvin Trillin puts this more artfully than I ever could, here.) Firm in that belief, they bet and they hedged and they overleveraged themselves to the point of pure abuse.

But as we all saw in the fall of 2008, the risk never went away. Rather, it was lying in wait to provide us with a dramatic demonstration of the folly of forgetting about risk. It was very quickly revealed that the pure product of Wall Street's easy-money casino game was actually a coiled-up cock-up cobra ready to bite the global economy in the face, and when it bit, it plunged the global economic system to the brink of calamity.

There are a lot of ways to tell the story about how the world was saved, but the Occupy Wall Street is starting to remind the world of one narrative in particular. When everything seemed ready to collapse, there was one group of people left in this world who had enough cred on the street to save the day -- the American taxpayers. They were the only people left in whom anyone would put their full faith and credit as a sure thing. And it's easy to see why, seeing as they had built the greatest nation on earth out of their combined blood, sweat and tears.

It was the American taxpayers who went to war, on everyone's behalf, with that dread cobra, and they sacrificed $4.7 trillion of their own money to bring everyone back from the brink. That's $4.7 trillion that the American taxpayer willingly parted with, money that could have been put to any other priority. There's still about a trillion and half that hasn't even been returned -- but that's not where our focus should be. Our focus should be on the other scars left by that sacrifice. A massive unemployment crisis, people being kicked out of their homes, college graduates leaving their institutions of higher learning without a clear grasp on a future and saddled with debt (because that's what they were told to do to get ahead in this world) -- that's where our focus should have been, but wasn't, until those folks started gathering in the streets.

Three years later, if you even allude to that sacrifice, you still elicit from all sides the cry of "class warfare." And I'll admit, it's a pretty seductive metaphor. Not long ago, my counter to that charge was to point out that the Occupiers were an encampment of casualties and refugees from the last class war. But I've since realized that while this is a good, glib line, the politics are too convenient. In reality, the people of Occupy Wall Street are the people who fought the last war on everyone's behalf. They are a neglected band of veterans from the Battle To Save The Global Economy. They're attempting to remind America that we all fought on the same side.

And, yes, as Kristof suggests, they are asking for accountability. From cronies, from cheaters -- if you really want to know who owes us accountability, go ahead and read this "Cheat Sheet" from ProPublica. All the devils are there.

Naturally, the Wall Street gentry want to get back to the old way of doing business, and they're calling for further deregulation and less oversight of their activities. They scoff at the notion that our bailout of their failure requires them to return to making productive investments in their saviors' futures. And they flaunt the fact that they've reneged on the social contract, using our bailout money to procure an army of lobbyists to return things to the status quo ante.

Three years on, Wall Street still believes they're smart enough to beat capitalism. But they should really stroll down to Zuccotti Park and take stock of the weakened and demoralized army that won't be strong enough to rescue them when they fuck up again.

READ THE WHOLE THING:
Crony Capitalism Comes Home [Nick Kristof @ New York Times]
Wall Street Isn't Winning -- It's Cheating [Taibblog]
Cheat Sheet: What's Happened to the Big Players in the Financial Crisis [ProPublica]

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

As you've probably already heard, the Oakland Police Department went to war last night with the citizens participating in the Occupy Oakland demonstration, turning Frank Ogawa Plaza and its immediate environs into a terrifying zone of tear gas and rubber bullets. By the way, as Erik Oster of the Faster Times reports, the Oakland PD "initially denied the use of rubber bullets, only recently admitting to the use of 'non-lethal rounds' (now that there is evidence of it all over the Internet)."

Which brings me to my next point! On Tuesday night, as this conflict raged on the streets of Oakland, Calif., the Internet was very quickly swamped with images of the melee, especially on the Tumblr platform, which the Occupy activists have made good use of since these demonstrations began. Yet somehow, faced with all of the images that were available to them, the Washington Post made an odd decision to use this AP image to go along with their page A3 brief on what everyone knew last night to be a violent confrontation:

Because if there's one thing the members of the Oakland Police Department have demonstrated a strong affection for in the past 24 hours, it's kittens. (Coming in second: tear gas, obviously.)

The choice struck many observers as odd -- if by "odd" we mean "indicative of journalistic malpractice." And, indeed, beyond the wide variety of images that circulated on Tumblr Tuesday night, the AP itself had several photographs available that more accurately depicted the night's mayhem:

And, as the Washington City Paper's Shani Hilton points out, the Washington Post's online coverage didn't opt to sugarcoat what had happened.

Well, after taking heat from the public over its choice of photos, the Washington Post's editors bravely decided to pass the buck and get photo editor Carol McKay "to explain the thinking behind the image she chose." Her explanation reads as follows:

When I was looking at the Tuesday wire service photographs from the Oakland City Hall grounds, the violent protest images were not in the mix because that confrontation had not yet occurred. The late-night, violent protest was in response to the Tuesday eviction by the Oakland police.

Even though the story, written later in the evening, included information about the arrests and tear gas, no news images had moved by our production deadline, probably because Oakland is on Pacific time--a three-hour difference.

The photograph was chosen because it was a visual "moment" in time showing a police officer doing something interesting--not just walking through tents and trash. The wire service images that moved overnight and this morning offer a much different look at last night's protest.

As noted above, the inability to find "violent protest images" was more related to a dearth of willpower to actually obtain one and not, as McKay explains, a scarcity of material. But even if we lay that aside, if the story "included information about the arrests and tear gas," how is it possible to conclude that an image of a cop petting a kitten is appropriate? Faced with that story, what would lead a photo editor to surmise that the cat photo was the ideal example of a "police officer doing something interesting"? It would seem evident on its face that the police were doing a lot of things that were far more interesting Tuesday night.

Better no image at all, I'd say. Nevertheless, I suppose it is nice that the Washington Post at least recognized that this was a matter that required a public explanation. I was just looking for something more like: "We're sorry for doing such an embarrassingly terrible job in our news coverage, and we'll try to do better in the future."

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

I'm sure you remember where you were when you heard that Bank Of America announced that after receiving taxpayer bailouts, it was going to institute a $5 monthly fee for the privilege of using your debit card. "Well, that's exactly why I saved Bank Of America in 2008," you probably said, because you are a Good American. "I look forward to my new negative-interest checking account," you probably added.

Well, apparently you Good Americans are in short supply, because according to Bloomberg News this morning, BofA Chief Executive Officer Brian T. Moynihan has been inundated by a bunch of Negative Nancies, and the experience has left him feeling "incensed."

Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Officer Brian T. Moynihan said he's "incensed" by public criticism of his company and is pushing back by reminding local leaders of its contributions to their economies.

Moynihan, 52, told employees in a global town hall meeting last week from the firm's Charlotte, North Carolina, headquarters that the "place to win the battle" over the bank's battered public image is at the state and municipal level.

[...]

"I, like you, get a little incensed when you think about how much good all of you do, whether it's volunteer hours, charitable giving we do, serving clients and customers well," Moynihan said during the Oct. 18 gathering. To the bank's critics, he said, "You ought to think a little about that before you start yelling at us."

Right! Did any of these complainers even "think" before they started "yelling" at Bank of America? Actually, as Bloomberg goes on to report, they may have spent some time contemplating the fact that "Bank of America ranked lowest in a 24-bank survey of small business customer satisfaction from J.D. Power and Associates this month," or that "Bank of America was named the country's second-worst company by Consumerist.com after BP Plc, the firm blamed for the worst U.S. offshore oil spill."

Why was Consumerist so hard on Bank Of America? Well, perhaps after doing a little bit of thinking, they realized, "Oh, hey, we've published tons of pieces attesting to Bank Of America's awfulness! Like the time the bank got an address wrong and foreclosed on the wrong home. Or the time they made mortgage payment demands from someone who wasn't their customer. Or the time they threatened a customer with foreclosure if he didn't make a prompt payment of $0.00. I mean, I could go on and on.

In fact, I think I will! Other Bank of America Greatest Hits include giving the same account number to two different people (isn't that a basic thing that banks are supposed to be able to handle?); opening credit card accounts for people who don't ask for them; "hindering" a federal review of FHA-insured housing loans; and two class-action suits -- one settled, one pending -- that arose when indifference to customer satisfaction crossed the line into grifterdom.

And of course, there was this delightful story:

But Brian T. Moynihan is done being persecuted, so now he's going to institute company-wide reforms to upgrade customer service at all levels cuddle up to state and municipal pols to remind them of all the good that BofA does in their communities to their campaign coffers. Although, for what it's worth, Moynihan did tell the attendees of an October 5 conference in Washington that he "wanted to stay away from the politics."

Ha, ha, sure!

READ THE WHOLE THING:
'Incensed' Moynihan Pushes Back at BofA's Critics With Localized Campaign [Bloomberg]

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Hello, hooray, good morning, and welcome to the October 23rd edition of whatever this is! My name is Jason, and I make this quickly typed log of snap judgments about Sunday morning political blah-blah on only a few hours of sleep and barely adequately caffeinated. Today is October 23rd, which means I start my fifth year at the Huffington Post today. On this occasion, I feel like it's time I recognized our wonderful copyeditors. Copyeditors! Lo, I know I do not make things easy on you. I know that more often than not, you have to wade waist deep in words cut clean from my id, which is not what you signed up for, or learned to contend with in school. Thanks for bearing with me, all these years.

With that out of the way, it is time to begin. As always, you are welcome to send me an email, or strike up a conversation in the comments stream, or, if you've a glutton for punishment, follow me on Twitter.

As always, the liveblog will be published as soon as I've typed something, so, from time to time, you may find yourself at an abrupt end, waiting for me to add on. While you wait, here are some things I thought you might like to read.

"How Occupy Wall Street Is Like the Internet," by Conor Friedersdorf. The incredibly true story of an idea that became a rallying cry half a world away. And, hey, there's a political movement that's making placards out of stuff that Conor says on the internet? Sometimes, I think I'm going to enjoy the future.

"Student loan debts crush an entire generation," by Alex Pareene. Why are the folks behind the Washington Post running what amounts to a massive educational scam on vulnerable Americans? Probably they're just horrible human beings!

"Ohio's War on the Middle Class," by Mac McClelland. Super heroine and journalist Mac McClelland went back home for a month to chronicle the effects of the terrible economy. If you missed her blogging, her feature story on the journey has all the good stuff.

(I really think the most appropriate song here is "Bloodbuzz, Ohio," by the National...probably the best post-crash rock song we have right now.)

FOX NEWS SUNDAY

Hillary Clinton will be full-Ginsburging it today, Michele Bachmann will be similarly unavoidable, and Lindsey Graham is here to despair of the fact that a war has "ended."

"Plus, the Romney/Perry matchup gets physical," says Chris Wallace, firing the imagination!

First, though, Hillary Clinton is in Uzbekistan, which if you recall is not Herman Cain's favorite place in the world, to talk about all of the international goings on -- Ghadafi being killed, and troops in Iraq coming back home. Right off the bat, I'm glad we'll no longer have to worry about all the different spelling variations of Ghadafi's name.

Wallace asks, "Why is Obama pulling all of our troops out of Iraq?" Lord, give me strength, this will also be one of the last days I'll sit wondering why people like Chris Wallace are so dense that they have to keep asking this question. To review, there's a Status of Forces Agreement that we signed with the Iraqi government, which dictated this exact withdrawal, down to the day. It dates back to the Bush administration. It can only be changed by the Iraqi government. It's just amazing how the media has been able to get away with not knowing this important material fact.

Anyway, in so many words, Clinton explains the above to Wallace. Because this is politics, she calls it a "bipartisan" agreement. She explains that what the Iraqis allow for is a "support and training mission" and a "robust diplomatic presence." Wallace asks why the U.S. was in negotiations with the Iraqi government to leave more troops in Iraq. The second answer is the same as the first! That's who you negotiate with, under the SOFA! "Iraq is a sovereign, independent nation," Clinton points out.

Wallace points out that Iraq could descend into sectarian violence, which doesn't sound like the type of thing that I want our soldiers caught in the middle of, frankly. He also notes the influence of Iran. Lots of people are going to note that. People will say "Iran won the Iraq war." My darlings, the increased influence of Iran is the most predictable natural consequence of the invasion itself. When it began, you should have mused, "Oh, well, this is going to definitely strengthen Iran's influence in Iraq." I would have guaranteed you that result from day one. I feel bad for people who honestly are surprised that things played out that way.

Clinton says that the point of our involvement in Iraq was "to create the opportunity for Iraqis to have their own future." "That is what we were there for," Clinton says. Well, actually it had something to do with WMDs and an imminent threat of nuclear terrorism and September 11th. But Clinton has been helping to author the "official history" of the Iraq War right along. That's "bipartisan," too. This big lie, I mean.

On to Libya! Wallace wants to know if she feels bad for joking about Ghadafi's death, and I mean, if that's something people need to feel bad about, Twitter is going to have to apologize. She says that she welcomes any investigation into whether Ghadafi's death was a war crime. She won't comment on quipping about Ghadafi's death. She also thinks that Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al-Megrahi, aka the "Lockerbie Bomber," aka another one of these mad Libyan terrorist wankers, should be returned to a Scottish prison.

Clinton says that we have a policy of "Fight, Talk, and Build" with the Haqqani network, which is probably the diplomatic equivalent of "F--k, Marry, Kill."

Why intervene in Uganda and Libya but not Syria, Wallace wonders. I wonder that myself! Clinton says that Obama's "smart leadership is finally paying off" and that it's a "complex world" and we have to make "the right decision" on a case by case basis. In Syria, she says, we are "strongly supporting a change from Assad." It's kind of like you might "strongly support" the San Diego Chargers, but not actually try to help the San Diego Chargers avoid being killed by a regime of autocratic fanatics.

Now here's Lindsey "Jowly Dave Foley" Graham. He says that Obama is terrible! We need lots of troops in Iraq. He's thrown Israel under the bus! (Under that bus, the Israelis found a cache of state of the art bunker buster bombs giftwrapped for them, by the way, because Obama treats them SO TERRIBLY!)

Wallace points out that a lot of bad people are dead -- Ghadafi, Al-Awlaki, and bin Laden -- and Graham says, sure, good job, with the disappointment of a man who clearly thought he'd be masturbating to those events and now can't enjoy them because he's such a clapped-out partisan hack. He says that Obama "failed to close the deal in Iraq" by following the exact guidelines set forth in the Status Of Forces Agreement that was crafted by President Bush. (John McCain will sing a similar sad refrain on THIS WEEK this morning. McCain and Graham are Washington's two most dedicated Status Of Forces Agreement denialists, and the sight of either is now downright sad.)

Ha, Graham met with a bunch of Iraqis, including al Maliki, begging them to let troops stay in Iraq forever and ever. And he says that they all "suggested" that they might allow it. But, ha-ha, in the end they didn't. Graham is really, really depressed about this. I just want to point out to the mothers and fathers of troops who have been doing umpteen tours of duty in Iraq that Lindsay Graham is just personally devastated that your kids won't be doing several more.

Everybody go read We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People by Peter Van Buren and Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War by Matt Gallagher, please!

As for Libya -- the cost-effective, casualty-free but Constitutionally suspect mission that ended in Ghadafi's death -- Graham thinks that Obama was terrible and he's sad that France had the lead. By not unleashing our air power as fully as we could, he says, the NATO air force was weaker. Maybe! Still pretty awesomely effective, though.

And Graham is also sad that Obama seems slightly more interested in the rule of law, and doesn't like sending as many people to secret prisons to be tortured and eventually detained forever. I mean, he still seems to like some of that stuff, Linds!

"Iran is the biggest winner in this," Graham says. Like I said, was he not aware that this would be the result of the invasion itself? The poor man.

Graham says that he would have defended Obama if he'd left 15,000 troops in Iraq. (15,000!) That is of course a huge lie! Leave 15,000, and you're a traitor for not leaving 20,000. Graham is equally despondent that the 2012 field doesn't seem as bloodthirsty and irrational as he'd like them to be. (This is what's gotten Mitt Romney -- for saying, "It's time for us to bring our troops home as soon as we possibly can, consistent with the word that comes to our generals that we can hand the country over to the Taliban military in a way that they're able to defend themselves. Excuse me, the Afghan military to defend themselves from the Taliban. That's an important distinction." -- labeled an "isolationist.")

Okay, so, here's Michele Bachmann, who is close to the end, as far as her candidacy goes.

Naturally, she doesn't like the Iraq War, because "we have nothing to show for it." She's sad that we haven't left troops behind. The example she likes to use is that we'll now have more troops in Honduras than we will in Iraq, but that seems like an easy fix to me! LET'S WITHDRAW OUR TROOPS FROM HONDURAS!

"Iran will have a clear hand and a clear field to exude their dominance," says Bachmann, referring to the fait accompli that dates back to the first day of the invasion of Iraq.

Bachmann stands by the decision to not go into Libya, because we don't have control over who comes to power in Libya. Wallace says he's confused, because isn't the world better with no Ghadafi? Bachmann says sure, but there are weapons missing now, and no one knows who the new people running Libya are, and "the devil you know is better than the devil you don't"...which sort of indicates that she WOULD rather have Ghadafi in power.

Bachmann is going to flatten taxes and simplify taxes and abolish the tax codes and have "flat tax codes that are simple" with her "very fair and very simple flat tax that will abolish the tax code." Flat fair simple tax abolish flat fair abolish!

Bachmann is troubled by Herman Cain's confused position on abortion, because why shouldn't the president issue personal directives over every pregnancy in America! Those are our precious bodily fluids, and Bachmann will personally govern them.

"We certainly don't want to see terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed released from Guantanamo Bay," she says. Wait. Who's releasing him? You mean, sending him in chains to stand trial and then winning a slam dunk case against him and then subsequently sending him in chains to a supermax prison to live for the rest of his life? That's "releasing?" That's actually Bachmann saying, "I just bet KSM has some secret X-Men powers!"

Finally, Wallace brings up her staffers in New Hampshire quitting, and wonders if she isn't just "all in in Iowa." She says that she's spent lots of New Hampshire and will spend more time there, but Iowa is "number one!" So she's staying.

"We'll see you on the campaign trail," says Wallace. Not if you aren't looking for her in Iowa you won't!

Panel time now, with Brit Hume and David Drucker and Kimberly Strassel and Juan Williams.

Hume isn't quite sure how Iraq will end up. Drucker says that if Iran ends up a major player in Iraq it will be a major failure. Iran has been a major player on Iraq for years and years and years already! My God, is there no one who understands this! I am so glad I did not wake up determined to play my "Who doesn't realize that Iran filled the power vacuum in Iraq a long time ago" drinking game. (I mean...I'm sorry I didn't wake up determined to play that.)

Williams says, "the idea that Iran will just dominate Iraq now is mistaken." Oh, he shall be the most disappointed of all!

Hume says that we should have started fighting in Libya much sooner. We also should have killed Ghadafi with MUCH MORE DEATH! Also, why did no one yell, and make their face red? "BLLEEEEERRRGGGGGGHHH!!!!! LIIIIIBBBBBBYAAAAA!" Obama should have yelled, for two months straight, whilst stabbing Ghadafi in effigy in front of the Washington monument.

Strassel agrees: if we'd gotten involved earlier, many fewer Libyan rebels would have been killed. You have to say it that way because no Americans died. Of course, you know why you just can't make America responsible for the deaths of Libyan rebels? BECAUSE THEY WERE LIBYAN REBELS.

Hume hates leading from behind! Spend blood and treasure! I'm guessing he also hates large structural deficits. Cut more Medicare benefits!

More paneling! Mitt Romney and Rick Perry almost killed one another, in a flesh re-enactment of the final fight scene in the movie REAL STEEL (I'm guessing, haven't seen it, Mitt's candidacy is all the robot boxing I can take at the moment). Why didn't Obama establish a no fly zone over the debate, someone could have been killed!

Nevertheless, can Cain stay on top? Strassel says that Cain is not getting hammered, because of his standing in the poll. That analysis is for everyone who just woke up from a tow year coma.

Williams points out that Romney still considers Perry his rival, and doesn't take Cain all that seriously. That's probably correct. Perry has got money, Cain doesn't. Perry has an organization, Cain doesn't. So Perry is the more serious threat.

I'll be interested if anyone on any of today's Sunday shows points out the obvious -- that the way the primary calendar is now set, it favors the possibility that Romney will win the nomination very quickly.

Hume is pretty sure that Perry made a "double blunder" by taking a "cheap shot" at Mitt for his "sanctuary mansions" where undocumented immigrants tended the lawn and the flowers and kept all the paving stones clean for his lordship. I think that Perry will say, "Snack on it, Hume," because the big victory in that exchange was all Perry's, as he got Romney to say, "So, we went to the company...and we said, look, you can’t have illegals working on our property. I’m running for office for Pete’s sake. I can’t have illegals.”

FOR PETE'S SAKE, WHAT WILL PETE THINK?

Williams immediately points that out, and Hume says, "That wasn't the most artful way of putting it." You mean, the way he put it -- ordinarily it would be okay but not when I'm running for office -- wasn't artful? I'd say not! The problem is, it was honest.

Wallace quips, "Let me in let you in on a little secret, we (the media) don't want an Obama-Romney race for the next year." Well, y'alls best get down to undermining Romney like crazy, then!

FACE THE NATION

Basically, we have the same agenda as Fox News Sunday, except we have Rick Santorum in the house along with Michele Bachmann, because why not give more of the bottom tier a chance to shine!

As far as Iraq goes, Schieffer notes that the deal that was struck that has resulted in our troops coming home from Iraq was etched by the Bush administration. Bachmann, however, says that Obama's been in office and has had "plenty of time to deal with the situation" and "events change on the ground." But one of the events that didn't change on the ground was the Status Of Forces Agreement! "This has been more politically based than military-based," she says. Well, sure! But the "political" part comes when Obama asks for a cookie for doing the thing he was compelled to do as if it were his idea. If you really want to make a cutting political charge against the White House on this issue, it would actually behoove you accept the premise that the withdrawal is a de facto condition of the SOFA.

Bachmann makes her "Honduras has more troops/Iran will exert their dominance" point again, and again, I'll point out that we can withdraw our troops from Honduras tomorrow -- this sounds like an excellent idea! -- and everyone should have accepted the fact that the invasion and occupation was going to strengthen Iran's hand in the region, as I did, one the invasion was underway.

Schieffer points out that the Iraqis don't want us there, so, "how can you really help people who don't want your help?" Very good point, as remaining in Iraq in violation of the SOFA would have likely fanned the flames if insurgents.

And, yes, I know how ridiculous it is to constantly be referring to the Status of Forces Agreement as a SOFA. Maybe it makes me feel a little better than somehow, some fluffy piece of living room furniture from SCAN is holding a tiny part of the world together. It's very Douglas Adams, I think.

Anyway, Bachmann responds by saying that the problem is "we have put a lot of deposit into Iraq," and "to think that we are so disrespected and they have so little fear of the United States that there would be nothing we would gain from this..."

Wow. Just...wow. We expended so much money, trying to prove to Iraq that they should "fear" us! THEY NEED TO GIVE US SOMETHING IN EXCHANGE FOR THIS DEMONSTRATION OF EXCEPTIONALISM.

Poor Michele! Like Ted Leo sings, "You didn't think they could hate you, now did you?"

"I believe that Iraq should reimburse the United States fully for the amount of money we have spent to liberate these people," Bachmann says, because she is EFFING NUTS.

Michele Bachmann says that "it seems that General Axelrod" is making the decision to withdraw the troops. Yes, according to the agreement. But it's not like the administration didn't seek a way to keep troops in Iraq. As Schieffer explains to Bachmann, the Iraqis -- who are the sole party that can authorize a change to the SOFA -- said that troops could remain, but they would not be granted legal immunity. That was a non-starter, in the eyes of the Obama administration, and so there was no deal. But all of this wheeling and dealing nevertheless hewed very specifically by the conditions laid down by the Bush administration.

Bachmann's response to whether she'd allow the troops to be subject to those conditions is "No, no president could." So what's the problem here? Bachmann says that "We are there as the nation who liberated these people and that's the thanks we are getting." YES, MICHELE, THERE IS YOUR THANKS.

Schieffer points out that Ghadafi and Al-Awlaki and bin Laden are all dead, so doesn't the White House deserve some credit? Bachmann says that the world is better off without these people, but she opposes us fighting in Libya and Uganda.

Andrew Sullivan was speaking some free-range, grass-fed truth, by the way, when he said: "To rid the world of Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki and Moammar Qaddafi within six months: if Obama were a Republican, he'd be on Mount Rushmore by now."

God help me, I know I should treat this matter with the seriousness it deserves, but I do laugh every time Bachmann says, "The MANPADs are missing!" Sorry, everyone.

Rick Santorum is here, now, and his campaign has decided to light him, rather eerily and poorly from in front and below. The result is that until he actually MOVED, which wasn't for like, ten seconds, I wasn't sure if that was the actual Rick Santorum or a cardboard cutout of Rick Santorum that you would pose for a picture with, were there anyone in America who'd be interested in posing for a picture with a cardboard Rick Santorum. "Oh, yeah, me and your Aunt Hattie and all the cousins went to Harrisburg, and we had so much fun, although cousin Josie got a bit a tummyache after having that milkshake, and we had to go back to the Radisson to let her take a nap. Oh, but before we went back, look at these hilarious pictures we took! Oh, it looks like we're standing right next to the actual Rick Santorum, doesn't it! You don't know Rick Santorum? Oh, Maude, you should Google him, and find out, because you'll see why this is so hilarious!"

Schieffer tells Santorum that he finds it hard to believe that any President would leave troops there without immunity. Santorum says that it's a shame we have a President that wasn't able to set his own conditions and influence the Iraqi government to change their minds. The next question, of course, should be, "What would you have done to get Iraq to agree to a new set of conditions, Rick?"

Schieffer instead presses on why we would stay in a country that doesn't want us there. Santorum, of course, is terribly surprised that Iran has "broadened its sphere of influence." As I've been saying, "LOL, you ignorant, Rick. You ignorant."

Schieffer points out that Obama has killed a lot of very bad people. Santorum says that "You're not looking at the central core element," which is Iran. And also Syria. And so we should go to war with Syria?

"Would you send American troops to Syria then?" asks Schieffer.

"I'm not saying we should be sending American troops," says Ricky, who says we "should be working vehemently and vigorously with the Syrians and going after Assad in every way, covertly or otherwise." So, basically, we need to go all Green Lantern Power Ring on Syria -- just get vehement! And vigilant! Really squinch up our faces as if we're trying to pass a tainted cantaloupe through our bowels! And, failing that, order up some super-spy assassinations! Doesn't Obama know that solving these problems is so easy!

Does Santorum think Herman Cain is "for real" and a "conservative?" Santorum says that he admits that Herman Cain exists on the physical plane with the rest of us, but he supported the Wall Street bailout, and that makes him not conservative. (The Wall Street bailout, like the Status of Forces Agreement, was minted under a conservative administration, just saying.)

Could Santorum support Romney or Cain if they won the nomination? Yes, he says. He could even support Ron Paul, though Paul's foreign policy has given Santorum "indigestion." Yes. Santorum's convictions are thoroughly fungible. No worries! He'll sell out when the time comes! (Thing is, who'll be buying?)

Roundtable discussion time with CBS political analyst John Dickerson and Romney flack Kevin Madden are here. Apparently they asked a Perry flack to attend this discussion also, but Perry don't play that game. Anyway, first they will talk about Condi Rice's new book. Apparently, she wasn't as listened to as she could have been, in the Bush White House. Dickerson says, though, that the book shows that the most important thing the President does on a daily basis is meet with advisers and manage a team.

Rice also discloses in her book that she's lost confidence in Donald Rumsfeld by the end of her tenure, which proves once and for all that Rice has sentience. (Though let's face it, there were some plants -- hydrangeas mostly, but also some creeping vines and mosses -- that had also evolved to the point where they did not have confidence in Rumsfeld, either.

Well, what about 2012? Will Romney win, even though he's not exciting, to anyone? Madden gives a long answer about polls and competitors and Romney's ability to remain resilient and "hold his own," so the answer is yes, everyone will be stuck with Romney, and like it, because really, the GOP voters want to beat Obama.

Dickerson says that Romney's electability is getting people to give him a second look, but Romney is a "stainless steel" candidate -- no ability to form a human connection. I still think, however, that one day, as Romney scours over the surface of this trash planet, he will finally meet Eve and fall in love -- or at least, a biometric subroutine that approximates "love" sufficiently enough for Romney's neural network to understand.

Dickerson says that Cain is "for real," in that voters are suddenly excited about him and Cain is able to manufacture that personal "spark" with people. But there's no organization. "He's been to Iowa a couple of times, but not enough."

MEET THE PRESS

The death panel is REAL and it will be found on Meet The Press today, as David Brooks and Andrea Mitchell and Harold Ford, Jr. and Jack Welch, and really, I hope for your sake that you do not watch and instead imagine that the four of them are here to perform their new act, "The Aristocrats!" for David Gregory, because one thing that's less soul-destroying that the thought of these four talking about the political horse race, and -- heaven forbid -- the middle class, is the thought of these four getting naked and pulling out the clamps and the hot butter to spread all over their _____________ while Mitchell hovers over Brooks' face and ___________ in his ___________ as Welch and Ford ____________ to each other's ______________ and _____________ in a complicated bit of choreography staged to Ray Parker Jr.'s "Ghostbusters" theme, where every time Parker sings, "WHO YOU GONNA CALL?" Welch responds by ______________ inside Ford's ____________ to the point that you wonder, "I never thought a duodenum could take that kind of pressure!" And then the whole thing moves to the four allowing Gregory to eat ____________ off of Brooks' flaming _________ as the other three perform something called "Halftime Show At the Prison Yachtzee Tournament" in Thailand, where suddenly you don't know where Welch's ___________begins and Mitchell's _____________ ends and you don't care, because by now your eyes need to be bleached, if not fully "Oedipus Wrecked," if you know what I mean, and you'd best because the finale is a full-on historical re-enactment of the Fall of Thebes using only their ___________ and their __________ and their ___________, which somehow they've all stretched up OVER THEIR HEADS LIKE reverse hoodies, and Gregory draws little Disney faces on them, and then the whole thing collapses in a heap of _______________ and tangled __________ and ___________dripping off of every surface.

Also, Hillary Clinton and Ron Paul are here! And, thanks again, copyeditors!

Hillary Clinton is here, and there's something weird with the feed...are they shooting this in 3-D? Did they slather the lens in vaseline? Don't know! Regardless, Clinton says that combat troops were always getting on up out of Iraq and it would be happening according to the SOFA. (The new frame of this, is that Obama showed "leadership" by following the strict instructions he had to follow, and, I mean, when he makes coffee according to the instructions on the coffee maker, is that "leadership?" I don't think so! But then again, if the Status Of Forces Agreement was written by the people from IKEA, and came with some weird pictures that looked like interpretative dance and a bunch of Allen Wrenches and the instructions to "Make yourself two people," then maybe I can see my way clear to calling it "leadership." I'd like to have more praise heaped on me for the computer desk I assembled, at any rate!)

"We had to support a training mission in Colombia for many years," says Clinton, making a comparison to what might happen now, adding that no one should imagine that we won't give Iraq the help they want (which doesn't seem to be very much).

Does Clinton stand by her vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq? Clinton says that "this is the time to look forward" and she'll leave it to history to judge whether she made the right decision. "Was the war worth it?" Clinton says that "we'll have to wait a long time" for that to be determined, but that Iraqis and now Libyans have opportunities they didn't have before and she's glad that the United States stood on the right side (which, let's recall was originally the "side" of, "We must go and stop Saddam Hussein from using these weapons of mass destruction which we promise he is planning to use in the nest five minutes, OMFG!").

Segue now, to Libya. Clinton says again that she'd support an investigation into the circumstances of Gadhafi's death. Such an investigation, she says, will help establish democratic institutions and respect for the rule of law, so really, we should think of this as the prettiest drag-a-bullet-ridden-corpse-through-the-streets situation of all time!

As for our relationship with Pakistan, Clinton says we've had intense and candid and frank and open and sincere and serious and frowny and super-big-time-for-real-we-mean-it talks with Pakistani officials, where we've stressed the importance of eliminating terrorist safe havens (like Pakistan's intelligence agencies!) and recognize what's going on in Afghanistan, in terms of reconciliation.

Gregory asks if Hillary Clinton thinks the 2012 GOP field is fielding anyone who is serious about foreign policy, but he does so in such a way -- he brings in the old 3am phone call ad -- that essentially renders the question a bunch of slop. All for the sake of being the sexiest, savviest, rosy-cheekedest wittle Sunday show host in the big wide world! Clinton says Obama "has passed with flying colors every leadership challenge" -- citing the success in Libya and capping bin laden and getting out of Iraq. "I could go on and on," she says, implying that the field of opponents have not "grasped" either the "threats" or "opportunities" out there in the world to the extent Obama has.

So, breaking, the Secretary of State thinks the administration she works for is doing great!

Here's Ron Paul, presidential candidate and friend to the be-blimped. Gregory wants to know how draconian cuts in government spending won't hurt anybody, and Paul says that the money will all go back to the people. Gregory points out that sometimes there are nuclear meltdowns and what not, and Pail says that he'll shift money in order to deal with that -- he just personally believes that "runaway entitlement spending" is directly fueling a "sovereign debt crisis."

Would Paul abolish federal student aid? Paul says, eventually, but not right away because it would shock the system. Paul says that as costs go up, the quality of education has gone down. I'll give him points for insight here -- we're entering an era where it's so relatively cost-free to acquire knowledge, that something has to change -- if higher education just becomes a debt trap you have to enter into in order to receive what amounts to a license to use the knowledge you've acquired, that's just an intolerable set of conditions.

Ron Paul bottom lines what should have been done in the housing crisis/Wall Street collapse: "It should have had a sharp correction because it was artificially manipulated. You -- once you get this distortion you have to correct the mistake. So you do what we did in 1921. You allow the correction to occur. In one year you go back to work. If you keep transferring the debt from the private owners or the pseudo private owners, the Fannie Maes and the Freddie Macs that participated in the bankruptcy, you bail them out and you bail out the banks and you bail out the Wall Streeters, you dump all this debt on the people."

On to foreign policy. Paul doesn't think that troops will actually leave Iraq, that there will be a shift to CIA and contractors and he's probably correct. "Occupation is the key word," he says. "The Turks have already put troops into Iraq. Turks are now allying with the Iranians because there's civil strife up there. That is a consequence." I'll point out that Paul is so far the only person today to acknowledge that Iran's strengthened hand is a "consequence" of the invasion and occupation.

He also points out, "Ironically, there were no al Qaeda in Iraq, and there are now."

Paul admits that one thing he did vote for is going after bin Laden after 9-11, but he didn't sign up for invading and occupying multiple countries. "When it started lingering I argued against occupation, against the war, and I reintroduced the notion of a letter of mark and reprisal and targeting one individual rather than saying, 'We're gonna declare war against the world.' And now we're in all these countries and it's an endless fight and there's no end in sight."

Does the U.S. have a moral authority to lead on humanitarian crises? No. Whoever wants to help people can volunteer and go help, but the Constitution does not allow for sanctioned involvement in such things. Paul says that our "drone war" is "illegal," full stop.

PAUL: Why do you think people hate us? Because there's so much collateral damage. You see, "Oh, this is a bad guy. We'll drop a bomb in him and kill him." Well, we might hit him. We might miss him. We might hit another car. And then you kill 10 other people. Who would we do if they did that to us? We would be a little upset if China did that to us, wouldn't we?

Aye, verily, but then China doesn't have "American exceptionalism," do they? That's why when China waterboards someone it's "torture," and when we waterboard someone it's "freedom."

Paul says that the odds are terribly remote that Iran will ever attack Israel, because Israel has a raft of nukes that will end life in Iran instantaneously.

Paul would scrap the tax code altogether, because "taxation is theft." "The income tax," in Paul's opinion, is premised on the notion that the Federal government owns everyone's money and will take what they like from it.

Paul says that he would preserve entitlements by freezing, through monetary policy, the cost of living, and then steadily raising the retirement age. Good luck with that.

Ha, ha:

GREGORY: Let me ask you about politicians and this primary fight. You've said you were disgusted by some of the debates that you've been engaged in now. What's turned you off?

PAUL: Well, I guess it's the uselessness of some of this rhetoric. I mean arguing over who mows with Mitt Romney's lawn? I mean -- in the midst of a crisis?

The life of a second tier candidate: you don't get to exclusively talk about your candidacy, you have to help the media assert the favorites they've picked out by answering questions about them. Paul pointing out that the major media discussion of the 2012 race is, at its root, moronic, as about as well as you can fare.

"This is serious!" he urges, to David Gregory. Oh, man, Dr. Paul good luck cracking that nut!

Paul explicates the differences between Obama and Romney, the two most likely candidates, and to his mind, they're the same.

But my point is would there be a change in foreign policy? No. There would not be. Would either one of 'em work on a true audit of the Fed and a change in monetary policy that the Federal Reserve can't monetize debt? No. Would they address the entitlement system? Would they ever address either, one, that we should have concern about our debt and cut something like a trillion dollars because we're on the road to fiscal insanity and a breakdown of the world financial market? No. There would not be a significant difference between the two, although on the edges maybe I think -- Mitt Romney now is probably very sincere about his right-to-life issue and probably on the tax issues there would be some differences. But the big issues, the big policies regardless -- I mean -- Obama was elected as a peace candidate and expanded the war. And he goes into the war without even Congressional approval. I mean when -- when the Republicans get in and they're against -- you know, regulations, they give you No Child Left Behind, prescription drug programs and Sarbanes-Oxley.

Paul forges common cause between the "Occupiers" and the "Tea Party," saying that both are saying "enough is enough."

Sadly, now we have to go to this terrible roundtable discussion.

Is this a big moment for Obama, on foreign policy? Mitchell says it's a big moment that may not last, and that Libya may devolved but you can't fault the White House. "Leading from behind turned out to be very smart," she says. In Iraq, she says that the problem ahead will be whether or not Iraq descends into civil war.

Jack Welch, who is years past his prime and looks dazed, as if he was hit in the face with a shovel fifteen seconds before the lights went up, says, "I mean if he has success in this Iraq pull back it will be very helpful to him." Oh, so "success" is "helpful?" Good to know. Great insight, as always. Superlative. I'm finally glad Philo Farnsworth invented the effing television.

Brooks thinks there could be a crisis in the next year! Unless there isn't one!

Ford is all: "OMG, Obama, so awesome at the foreign policy! Wow. But what about the plight of the American family." That's Mr. I get driven everywhere in Manhattan by limousine, namechecking the "American family."

But let's not linger too long on the underclass, lest some reporting of their condition break out! Instead, here's Mitt Romney and Rick Perry fighting! Look at those two oligopolobots, daintily mussing each other's suits!

What has Jack Welch learned? That people fight, in elections. Mitchell says that people are focused on "income disparities" and "their looking for leadership," and I think that also includes a media that would rather report on the Romney-Perry fight club and not on income disparity.

OH NO, BROOKS HAS GIVEN ROMNEY A B-MINUS! A hit! A very palpable hit! The dread PASSING GRADE. Heavens to Betsy Fischer!

David Gregory is complimenting Jack Welch for his tweet during last week's Meet The Press, in which he said, of Herman Cain, "His no BS clarity is so refreshing." Again, that's the brilliant Jack Welch! On Herman Cain! And his "no BS clarity!" It isn't Herman Cain's who's put out an economic plan that all economists find to be a disaster, and which Cain refuses to show the math used to arrive at his claims, and which was forged by secret advisors, of whom only "Rich Lowrie of Cleveland, Ohio" can be named, for fear of...I don't know what? I tell you what, I want to meet the man or woman who has kept Jack Welch away from three-card monte games all his life, because GOOD LORD.

Welch says that Cain has a "spark" and he's "captured the imagination" of people whether you like 9-9-9 or "think it has 9-9-9 holes in it." But wait! Do you think it has "9-9-9 holes in it?" If you do, why are you praising the guy for capturing the imagination? "Oh, man, that con man took my home and my life's savings but wow did he ever INSPIRE ME!"

Ford thinks that Cain did an excellent job in the debate where Mitt Romney totally owned him. Also he thinks that the President should "project strength" and then everyone will be so suffused with confidence that job creation will begin, through magic!

David Brooks does not think that Obama can win appealing to liberals, and so he really should return to being a lesser version of Mitt Romney, to impress people.

Jack Welch says that Obama can "do a lot for the economy." Here are the lot of things he can do:

1. Drill for oil.
2. "Drive that posture."
3. End all regulations. (People die in mining accidents = more job openings.)
4. He hates the fact that the administration has taken steps to end the practice of employers posting job openings that specifically indicate that they will not consider unemployed people as applicants.
5. "You gotta get a more positive framework."

So Jack Welch will save the economy through off-shore oil disasters and positive thinking and "driving that posture."

Ford also says that Obama's "poss-terr" has been bad. He's too mean to corporations! Who have made record profits!

Brooks: "I think Obama understands. You gotta do the long-term things. Get the fundamental institutions right, which is what Herman Cain understands with the big plan."

Aksdfjkafdgjadljasdfjklsd.

"Dropping Simpson-Bowles was a massive mistake," says Welch, who seems to not understand that there's no such thing as "Simpson Bowles!" The Simpson-Bowles commission failed to agree on a plan! THEY FAILED TO COME TO TERMS ON A PLAN! There was nothing for Obama to "drop!" And no one on this panel seems to understand this. My God, these people are just THICK.

Ha, ha. Welch says the Republican plan is "create jobs" and "unleash the economy." WOW. I never thought of that! Just WILLING A BETTER ECONOMY INTO EXISTENCE.

Brooks: "I still think that's insufficient."

Aksdfjkafdgjadljasdfjklsd!

I literally cannot bear to watch a single second further. I am so glad that none of you had to sit through that.

Okay, I am now a little intellectually shell-shocked. I feel like by brain just voided decades of acquired knowledge onto my lap and I'll have to spend the rest of the day delicately un-Jengaing my mind. I hope that the rest of you go out and have a wonderful Sunday, and have a terrific week on top of that. We'll see you back here next week. Maybe it won't be so bad! (SPOILER ALERT: It probably will, though, sorry.)

["Here Are Some Thoughts I Had For America!" is a column that grinds up only the very finest American punditry and pontificating of the past week through a complicated process of recombination in order to create a fulsome catechism of bourgeois thought.]

You know, I'm proud to have my nation compared to Slovakia. I'm pleased that the new head of state in Peru -- Ol' What's His Name -- is tamping down the leftist rhetoric and embracing the investor class, rather than flamboyantly consolidating his own power, like the guy who runs Brazil. And rather than concern myself with the soggy sleep-ins and warmed-over anarchism of Occupy Wall Street, I'm sending some money to Somalia, because despite the fact that the Somalians are dirt poor, they have their priorities right. Rather than organize for relief of the destitute, they did something that was in our best interests. They demonstrated against an offshoot of al Qaeda, which heretofore was and forever hence will never be on our list of strategic priorities.

But I will send them a few dollars, and you know why? They make me feel good. They take my mind off the hardship that I see all around me and ridicule. I'm glad that, somewhere in this world, there are some poor people who understand that the best thing they can do is warm my heart, just a bit. Those Somalians, they understand their role within the Great Chain of Being -- it's the austerity of their lives that allows the best rest of us to feel the richness of our own. And that gives me the opportunity to share this inspiring good news with you. That's called "paying it forward," from the slums of Mogadishu to your home. Those Somalians have a job to do, and they do it well.

By contrast, these Occupy Wall Streeters continue to Occupy far too many of my thoughts, contributing nothing but sputter and clutter. Unlike the noble Somalian paupers, these wretches don't seem to care about making anybody feel good about themselves. The people who do the work on Wall Street? Well, I know them. I work alongside them. We come together to provide many fabulous educational opportunities at America's best for-profit colleges. These occupiers don't seem to appreciate any of that!

Naturally, I blame Obama. By referring to decent men and women as fat cats, and constantly seeking to return the tax rates of millionaires and billionaires to Clinton-era levels (and by opposing our great for-profit colleges as if they were actually debt-trap sinkholes), he's done as much as anyone to fan the flames of populist anger. And for what reason? As one person said on the television the other day: "At this point, who can even remember who took worthless subprime mortgages and knowingly bundled them as mortgage derivatives so they could be sold, rebundled and resold to pension funds and banks around the world until -- because this entire scheme is a castle of sand and shit -- it inevitably collapsed, annihilating $17 trillion, [the] national economy, centuries-old financial institutions, and the life savings of untold millions of Americans?"

All the same, I am, by my very nature, a seeker after truth. So I gave these demonstrators a fair hearing. I sent one of my best guys down to the Occupy Wall Street encampment, and he reported back that this movement just embodies values that are just plain radical and dangerously out of touch with the respectable Americans I imagine to be centrists. True, we found out that over two-thirds of the people my man spoke with would not ever consider using violence to achieve their ends, but another way of looking at that is that nearly one-third would!

And yes, I've heard that other people have done similar surveys and found these demonstrators to be fairly non-elite, not as poor as one might imagine, only a little more unemployed than the rest of the nation, and that the vast majority consider themselves to be politically independent. There are others who suggest that the people of this city, by huge margins, look favorably upon this movement and that the protesters enjoy broad support across the nation as well. But those surveys employ tricks like "a larger sample size than the one I used" and "professional polling techniques." Well, I can see right through that.

Look, my point is this: If you spend too much time occupied with this loud and distracting protest movement, you'll just be missing the rest of a nation that I'm sure is undergoing some sort of very quiet and very well-behaved transformation that I'm sure will work out just fine for everyone. I understand that Americans are still roiled by those bailouts. They feel that way because, despite the fact that Tim Geithner has assured us that TARP was super successful, the people who really broke the system never got punished.

And by "the people who really broke the system," I am, of course, referring to auto workers, teachers, firefighters, policemen and other public sector teat-suckers. But we don't march around in the streets and risk getting trench foot in public parks to correct this -- we quietly use the system to squeeze from these people the pint of blood that they owe us, like civilized people.

Oh, you say that I have erroneously fingered Brazil as a state run by a man who is flamboyantly consolidating his own power, when I meant Venezuela? Well, if you're right, I'm sure one of my best people will fix it. He's got a job to do, and he does it well. Leaves me more time to think pretty!

Anyway, viva Somalia!

INSPIRED BY:
Good News! No, Really! [Bill Keller @ New York Times]
What are those OWS people so angry about? [Glenn Greenwald @ Salon]
34 Ways to Solve our Fiscal Crisis [The Fiscal Times]
Student loan debts crush an entire generation [Alex Pareene @ Salon]
The Exasperation of the Democratic Billionaire [Wall Street Journal]
Polling the Occupy Wall Street Crowd [Wall Street Journal]
The Great Restoration [David Brooks @ New York Times]

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has canceled a speech he planned to give at the University of Pennsylvania on income inequality, due to the fact that many people who currently earn unequal incomes decided to attend. Because who knows? The subject matter may have been of particular interest to them, or something? Jake Sherman reports for Politico:

The Virginia Republican's speech was preempted by protests from liberal groups and unions, who were set to start demonstrating well before the scheduled 4:30 p,m, start time of Cantor's address.

Cantor's office was told that only the university community would be invited to attend the event, but Capitol Police informed the majority leader's office Thursday night that the first 300 people in line would be allowed in. The Daily Pennsylvanian, the campus paper, reported that protestors were allowed to move from the street onto Penn's campus hours before the speech was slated to begin. The college paper reported that protestors were planning to be there as early as 9 a.m.

According to the report, Cantor had presumed that the speech would be something exclusively for the University of Pennsylvania community -- specifically, as Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring described, "students, faculty, alumni, and other[s]." But according to The Hill, "Cantor's office also said it learned Thursday night that university security planned to allow the first 300 people in line to attend the speech, regardless of affiliation, raising the possibility that Cantor would be addressing a room full of protesters."

The Daily Pennsylvanian reports that events such as these are typically open to the general public:

Penn spokesman Ron Ozio said in a statement that Wharton’s speaker series “is typically open to the general public, and that is how the event with Majority Leader Cantor was billed. We very much regret if there was any misunderstanding with the Majority Leader’s office on the staging of his presentation.”

The statement also said that “Wharton deeply regrets that the event […] has been cancelled. The University community was looking forward to hearing Majority Leader Cantor’s comments on important public issues, and we hope there will be another opportunity for him to speak on campus.”

The speech was to be titled "A Fair Shot at the American Dream and Economic Growth." That's an odd subject to discuss exclusively in front of the University of Pennsylvania community, seeing as the fact that their status as students or alumni or professors at an elite Ivy League institution probably lends them the necessary insight to know they've all essentially received a "fair shot" at the "American dream."

But the ongoing Occupy Philadelphia demonstrations are what tore it for Cantor, who decried the movement at this month's Value Voters Summit. In a speech at that venue, Cantor said that he was growing "increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country. And believe it or not, some in this town have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans." As Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" pointed out, that's a pretty ironic stance for Cantor to take, given the fact that when the Tea Party was the hot new thing in public protest, Cantor was giddily encouraging "mobs" to "pit themselves against Americans."

At any rate, now nobody gets to hear what this brave man has to say about how to get a fair shot at the American Dream, so you lose again, poors!

UPDATE, 3:47pm: We take that back! Here you can read Eric Cantor's remarks as prepared for delivery. This will definitely become the new version of The Secret.

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The Wall Street Journal reports today that the EU is "leaning toward proposing a ban on the issuing of sovereign credit ratings for countries in bailout talks." The EU's internal market commissioner, Michel Barnier, says that he thinks "it's legitimate to have a special treatment when a country is in negotiation or is covered by an international solidarity program with the IMF," and, indeed, new IMF chief Christine Lagarde has signaled that she believes it's appropriate for the EU to "prevent ratings for bailout countries."

As the EU has been "tightening rules on rating agencies progressively since the financial crisis," according to the Journal, with a new set of proposals on the matter scheduled to be made in early November, odds are decent that this will emerge as the consensus view. However, there are dissenting opinions, and, as Reuters' Ryan McCarthy points out, they are "hilarious":

"If ratings are banned, it will make it difficult for investors to assess the risk when a country returns to the bond market."

That's from economist Marchel Alexandrovich, and if you want to know why he should consider taking that act on the road, let's flash back to this piece from Shahien Nasiripour from September of 2009 -- one year after the global financial crisis:

Analysts at the three biggest credit rating agencies who gave positive, investment-grade ratings to AIG and Lehman Brothers up until their collapse have not been fired or disciplined, the heads of the agencies admitted at a Congressional hearing today.

Moody's, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch Ratings all maintained at least A ratings on AIG and Lehman Brothers up until mid-September of last year. Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy Sept. 15; the federal government provided AIG with its first of four multibillion-dollar bailouts the next day.

[...]

At the hearing today, the exchange between [Representative Jackie] Speier and the agency chiefs was particularly contentious.

"You had rated AIG and Lehman Brothers as AAA, AA minutes before they were collapsing. After they did fail, did you take any action against those analysts who had rated them?" Speier asked. "Did you fire them? Did you suspend them? Did you take any actions against those who had put that kind of a remarkable grade on products that were junk?"

McDaniel answered first. "No, we did not fire any of the analysts involved in either AIG or Lehman," he replied.

"LOL," is what I believe the Internet would tend to say to all of this.

The Wall Street Journal reports, "There was no immediate comment from Fitch, S&P or Moody's."

Yeah, I wouldn't think so!

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UPDATE, 10.22: NPR, having failed to pressure WDAV into getting rid of Lisa Simeone as the host of "World Of Opera," has gone ahead and done the next best thing. The AP reports that NPR "will no longer distribute the member station-produced program "World of Opera" to about 60 stations across the country." WDAV will distribute the show themselves. These are some extraordinary measures that NPR has taken to ensure that the people who use their airwaves to discuss opera do not have any evident political opinions.

---

Lisa Simeone, a freelance content provider for a pair of radio shows that are broadcast by National Public Radio, is under fire today for her tangential participation in the OccupyDC movement. Simeone, who has worked in radio for over two decades, is the host of a WDAV radio show called "World Of Opera," and a freelancer for a program called "Soundprint". She also participates in an activist organization called "Stop The Machine," which is part of the broader Occupy movement.

Simeone has, for a long time, blended her love for grassroots political activism with her talent for radio, without anyone objecting. Her involvement in the Occupy movement, however, seems to have been deemed by NPR to be a bridge too far. That NPR has a history of hasty personnel decisions and a pathological aversion to their employees being publicly exposed as having opinions surely does not help.

Sure enough, the hammer is being lowered, and it's being lowered rather awkwardly. Simeone, as it happens, is not an NPR employee, so what appears to be happening is that they are putting pressure on her employers to get rid of her. Wednesday night, she was fired from "Soundprint," despite the fact that the show isn't produced by NPR. According to reports, Simeone was read the NPR code of ethics at the time of her dismissal.

But NPR was pretty hot to get Simeone dismissed from "World of Opera" as well, and until this afternoon, Simeone had to await word on whether she'd continue to be allowed to fully exercise her rights while simultaneously continuing to appreciate opera on the radio. (Erik Wemple gives good comedy on how Simeone's politics could creep into her coverage of opera.)

This morning, NPR posted a "clarification" on their website regarding the matter which suggested that the screws were being put to WDAV:

We recently learned of World of Opera host Lisa Simeone's participation in an Occupy DC group. World of Opera is produced by WDAV, a music and arts station based in Davidson, North Carolina. The program is distributed by NPR. Lisa is not an employee of NPR or of WDAV; she is a freelancer with the station.

We're in conversations with WDAV about how they intend to handle this. We of course take this issue very seriously.

That we're even having a conversation of the political leanings of someone who hosts a program on opera enthusiasm basically precludes the possibility that anyone is taking anything "very seriously." And, indeed, when we reached out to NPR's Director of Media Relations, Anna Christopher Bross, the task of taking it seriously became even harder. In an interview with the Huffington Post, Bross essentially admitted that she'd never actually verified whether Simeone was a "spokesperson" for "Stop The Machine" at all, and that NPR's actions were prompted solely on hearsay.

"It seems from media reports that she's a spokesperson for 'October 2011' [a Stop the Machine campaign]," Bross said. When asked why she would characterize Simeone as a "spokesperson," Bross reiterated, "We said 'spokesperson' because she was quoted as a spokesperson in many media reports and then other press said she had functioned in a spokesperson role."

When we asked what "other press" had made these claims, Bross replied, "I don't know."

Officials at WDAV radio in Davidson, North Carolina, who produce "World Of Opera," have resisted the pressure to fire Simeone. WDAV's Lisa Gray wrote that Simeone "is an independent contractor of WDAV Classical Public Radio" and that her "activities outside of this job are not in violation of any of WDAV's employee codes and have had no effect on her job performance ... Ms. Simeone remains the host of World of Opera."

Simeone offered a rebuttal to NPR for the Baltimore Sun's David Zurawik:

"I'm not an NPR employee ... I'm a freelancer. NPR doesn't pay me. I'm also not a news reporter. I don't cover politics. I've never brought a whiff of my political activities into the work I've done for NPR World of Opera. What is NPR afraid I'll do -- insert a seditious comment into a synopsis of Madame Butterfly?"

In an interview with the Huffington Post, Simeone was just as emphatic.

"My work has never suffered or betrayed my political activities," she said. "Nobody has anything to complain about with regard to my work. What I'm doing on my own free time was exercising my right as an American citizen -- not harming any of these entities."

Simeone is at a loss as to why "Soundprint" deemed it necessary to fire her: "It's a documentary series. It consists of half-hour documentaries acquired from producers all over the world on all kinds of subjects. Two documentaries in one hour. My job was to listen to the documentaries and write an introduction. I was expected in my introduction to express a point of view. That's a whole other irony. I've never hidden my political views. It's not really a surprise where I stand politically. I haven't lied."

As far as her involvement with the Occupy demonstrations, Simeone sums it up like this: "I did a lot of chanting ... I did interviews with the press." When she spoke to the media about Stop the Machine's "October 2011" campaign, she would identify herself as a member of the steering committee, not a spokesperson. And she didn't camp out: "I'm a wimp and I need to sleep on a bed."

Soundprint's Moira Rankin doesn't see it that way.

"Lisa is taking a leadership role, acting as a spokesperson as well as being on the steering committee. That is fine to do whatever she thinks is important. However it's not compatible with being the host of documentary series on public radio," said Rankin. "Our programs are broadcast over NPR. The listener doesn't understand the difference between the host of a show on NPR and the host of Soundprint."

She apparently takes a dim view of her listeners' intelligence.

Rankin continued: "We are not a news program. We try to give context to the news. We do like to have writers have strong points of view when they are writing. That doesn't mean they are writing from a political angle."

Of Simeone, she says, "She's a very good writer, a very good presence on public radio. That's not the issue. The issue is the integrity of what we put out every week. I agree that she should have full exercise of [her rights to assemble and demonstrate] but that doesn't mean that she can also be a journalist."

NPR has an ethics policy for its journalists that precludes them from participating in "public relations work, paid or unpaid."

NPR's Bross told the Huffington Post, "Other public radio people have read and used NPRs code of ethics because its a very strong code of ethics."

There are, however, allowable exceptions, "for certain volunteer nonprofit, nonpartisan activities, such as participating in the work of a church, synagogue or other institution of worship, or a charitable organization, so long as this would not conflict with the interests of NPR [and WAMU] in reporting on activities related to that institution or organization." (Presumably, NPR's frequent pledge drives are also an allowable exception to the ban on public relations work as well.)

But NPR has to have known that Simeone has been a longtime political activist. She's been upfront about her involvement with Stop The Machine since she joined up. Her bio on the organization's website reads: "Lisa Simeone is a proud loudmouthed feminist and rabble-rouser. Her husband wonders whether her love of natty dressing might interfere with her participation in the revolution." Along with other members, like Andy Shallal, David Swanson, and Chris Hedges, Simeone cut a video, announcing that she'd be participating in D.C. demonstrations.

And back in March of this year, she was arrested while participating in an anti-war demonstration in front of the White House. No one seems to have been particularly bothered by that event at the time, and in all likelihood, it's because of the reputation she's earned for herself. Over at Poynter, Julie Moos points to this 1994 piece from the Baltimore Sun, titled "The familiar tones of Lisa Simeone rise in protest," that emphasizes how Simeone managed to develop a reputation for balancing these two parts of her life":

In the four weeks since Baltimore County Judge Robert E. Cahill sentenced a man to 18 months in jail for killing his wife hours after finding her in bed with another man, Ms. Simeone has helped organize demonstrations at both the Towson courthouse and a judicial conference on domestic violence and discussed the case on her weekly interview program with Johns Hopkins professor Mark Crispin Miller.

She was even more outraged 18 months ago when Baltimore County Judge Thomas J. Bollinger granted probation before judgment to a man found guilty of raping an unconscious 18-year-old. That case prompted Ms. Simeone to found a Baltimore chapter of the Women's Action Coalition.

[...]

On the air, Simeone hardly comes across as some raving ideologue. Her dulcet tones, which have wafted over Baltimore's airwaves for more than a decade, have won her quite a following -- including some people who disagree strongly with her views, but appreciate her voice and her taste in music.

"She is someone blessed with a tremendous warm voice and manner and a good knowledge of classical music," says conservative talk-radio host Ron Smith of WBAL, praising Simeone for restricting her views to her interview program. "She doesn't directly espouse her views on the air that I've ever heard. You only hear about them when you read about them."

"I like her. I think she's really fun," says Les Kinsolving of WCBM radio, whose conservative credentials would seem to put him at odds with someone like Simeone. "She's very attractive and fiery and fun. She's a very colorful person and I enjoy her."

So Simeone is well known for being a grass-roots activist and a talented radio presenter, two sides that she's successfully kept compartmentalized to everyone's satisfaction, until now. Given how much of her identity is tied to activism, it's simply not credible that any of her employers could have been ignorant of her involvement in these causes.

Speaking with Zurawik, Simeone also noted the existence of a double standard:

"This sudden concern with my political activities is also surprising in light of the fact that Mara Liaason reports on politics for NPR yet appears as a commentator on FoxTV, Scott Simon hosts an NPR news show yet writes political op-eds for national newspapers, Cokie Roberts reports on politics for NPR yet accepts large speaking fees from businesses. Does NPR also send out 'Communications Alerts' about their activities?"

I'm guessing that no one has an objection to Liasson, Simon, or Roberts because they successfully project an air of indifference over the plight of people who are economically dislocated.

NPR has had a troubled history in dealing with the way the human beings they employ tend to have opinions. When Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert brought their "Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear" to the District of Columbia, NPR employees were not allowed to participate, lest they become publicly exposed as people who like jokes, or performances from The Roots. As Danny Shea reported at the time:

NPR has reminded its employees that they are not allowed to participate in the upcoming rallies led by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

"NPR journalists may not participate in marches and rallies involving causes or issues that NPR covers, nor should they sign petitions or otherwise lend their name to such causes, or contribute money to them," Senior Vice President for News, Ellen Weiss, wrote in a memo Wednesday morning. "This restriction applies to the upcoming John [sic] Stewart and Stephen Colbert rallies."

NPR CEO Vivian Schiller forwarded the memo, sent initially to news staff, to the entire organization, telling employees that the note applied to "digital, programming/AIR, legal and communications" employees in addition to the news staff.

"However, no matter where you work at NPR you should be very mindful that you represent the organization and its news coverage in the eyes of your friends, neighbors and others," Schiller continued. "So please think twice about the message you may be sending about our objectivity before you attend a rally or post a bumper sticker or yard sign. We are all NPR."

And NPR has a similarly checkered past when it comes to dealing with the personnel decisions that arise as a result of their policy against opinions. When Juan Williams was cashiered for making remarks on "The O'Reilly Factor" about airplane passengers in "Muslim garb," it was done in an extremely unprofessional manner: over the phone, without Williams being allowed to speak in his own defense. (Why NPR could not have simply offered a countering opinion to Williams' own, continues to be confusing. It suggests that they were motivated more out of a dislike of Williams, and less out of a concern that Muslims should be allowed to travel on airplanes.)

Simeone plans to continue to participate in the demonstrations in Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., regardless of how NPR feels about it.

"I'm not an NPR journalist," she said. "I wasn't covering any of these issues for NPR. I was just an aware citizen."

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Last month, we made note of the fact that a schism had erupted in the wild world of Birtherism, with a breakaway faction turning their lunacy on Florida senator and frequent-object-of-presidential-speculation Marco Rubio (R) and the WorldNetDaily set objecting to Rubio's victimization. Well, over at Naked DC, Liz Mair points to this article in today's St. Petersburg Times that reports that not only does Rubio remain a target of birther babble, but they've expanded their reach:

“It’s nothing to do with him personally. But you can’t change the rules because you like a certain person. Then you have no rules,” said New Jersey lawyer Mario Apuzzo.

Forget about allegedly Photoshopped birth certificates; the activists are not challenging whether Rubio was born in Miami. Rather, they say Rubio is ineligible under Article 2 of the Constitution, which says “no person except a natural born citizen … shall be eligible to the Office of President.”

The rub is that “natural born citizen” was never defined.

The birthers rely on writings at the time of the formation of the republic and references in court cases since then to contend that “natural born” means a person born to U.S. citizens. Rubio was born in 1971 at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, his office said, but his parents did not become citizens until 1975.

"The birthers say Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, whose parents are from India and were not citizens at the time of his birth, is also unqualified," according to this report.

So, the bipartisan aspect of birtherism continues to develop, though it's hard to award points for consistency when the only consistent thing is dementia.

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Two weeks ago, as the rest of the media struggled to surmise what the "demands" of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators were, I offered that their agenda -- for lack of a better term -- seemed to begin with two demands. The first was "acknowledge our existence." The second was "make a nominal investment to covering what is happening in our lives." Historically, this has been a tall order -- if there's one thing the media has excelled at in the past few years, it's been ignoring the multiple crises in which the larger population of ordinary Americans find themselves embroiled, specifically income inequality and unemployment. But there's evidence that the Occupy Wall Street movement is actually starting to change this, and that the media is starting to pay attention.

I'll direct your attention to some sharp work by Zaid Jelani over at Think Progress, who did a spotlight survey of two months worth of cable news coverage looking for what subjects dominated the airwaves. He begins in July 2011, where "the word 'debt' was mentioned more than 7,000 times on MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News, and 'unemployed' was only mentioned 75 times."

One day, we're going to look back on the late spring/early summer as a time of widespread journalistic failure. At the time, the Beltway Deficit Feedback Loop was running at maximum speed and the obsession was deeply entrenched. The absurd notion that a political party could attempt to leverage demands by threatening to send the United States into default and set off a cataclysm within the interconnected global economy therefore got covered as just another interesting point of view, rather than pure sociopathy. At the time, it was increasingly common to see ordinary Americans, expressing themselves through polls, urging action on the unemployment crisis. But it was just as common for the press to juke the stats to fit their preferred narrative -- and at the time, the press was freebasing pure, uncut deficit hysteria.

The National Journal noted the extremity of this media obsession with a chart of their own:

Back then, even some people who were willing to mildly criticize the media on this score ended up choking on apologies and excuses. The best the Atlantic's Derek Thompson could offer was: "The press was partly complicit in this fade-out effect. But it's hard to blame the media too much for resisting to write feverishly about nonexistent efforts to fix a static unemployment problem." Translation: if lawmakers aren't doing anything to fix unemployment, it's hard to make a story out of it, and we're not willing to try.

With lawmakers diddling one another in deficit committees and members of the media denying their own agency, someone had to step up. And that someone ended up being the Occupy Wall Street movement. Their human-flesh social network took up physical space on the ground and started telling their own stories, using Tumblr as their means of aggregation. So we flash ahead to Jelani's analysis of cable news coverage from the past seven days, and voila -- suddenly it's starting to align with the sentiment that was too easily dismissed when it showed up in polls several months ago:

A ThinkProgress review of the same three networks between Oct. 10 and Oct. 16 finds that the word "debt" only netted 398 mentions, while "occupy" grabbed 1,278, Wall Street netted 2,378, and jobs got 2,738.

The clearest affirmation of the idea that this movement has sparked a change in coverage came in the run-up to last night's CNN debate, when David Gergen opined, "These Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, and they're spreading, they're starting to be taken more seriously by the mainstream media. They're starting to put on the table the issue of inequality ... I think it's a legitimate set of conversations." My immediate thought was, "Hooray! It's finally 'legitimate' for the media to discuss something that's been a crippling problem in the country for the past few years!"

Nevertheless, all of this points to the fact that the Occupy Wall Street protesters can already consider themselves to be something of a success. It takes a mighty force to interrupt the media's preferred narrative, and for the moment, they are it.

READ THE WHOLE THING:
CHART: Thanks To The 99 Percent Movement, Media Finally Covering Jobs Crisis And Marginalizing Deficit Hysteria [ThinkProgress]

RELATED:
Occupy Wall Street Protests Are Focusing Attention On Inequality [Matt Yglesias]

PREVIOUSLY, on the HUFFINGTON POST:
The Media Has Abandoned Covering The Nation's Massive Unemployment Crisis

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Over at the Plum Line, Greg Sargent makes an earnest plea for the media to examine the two competing job plans -- the White House's "American Jobs Act" and the Senate GOP's "Real American Jobs Act" -- and answer a basic question about it:

In the view of experts, are both parties making a serious and legitimate contribution to the debate over what to do about a severe national crisis that's causing suffering among millions and millions of Americans? Or is only one party making a real contribution to that debate?

Well, just off the top of the dome, the fact that the GOP named their bill the "Real American Jobs Act" sort of gives away the game, doesn't it? The weird sense of juvenile competition and lack of originality in response is pretty telling. It calls to mind the famous Adams Morgan Pizza Shop Signage Wars, in which two competing purveyors of "jumbo slices" got into a death match with signs that read "Original Jumbo Slice" and "Real Original Jumbo Slice" (all the while failing to factor in the fact that each of their pizzas represented a Category 4 Gastric Disaster).

Beyond that, I'll point out that if you're like Menzie Chinn of Econbrowser and you follow the wrong link to the "Real American Jobs Act," you end up on a page that looks like this:

So, yeah, it's pretty clear which jobs bill is the serious one. But Sargent wonders why basic facts about the competing plans aren't just being reported "in every single news story about the ongoing jobs debate," with a particular interest in obtaining some independent expertise examining the GOP's plan to the same extent that the "American Jobs Act" was scrutinized. Wouldn't it be worthwhile to simply take all of the information that Sargent's gathered on the two plans, and compare them side by side? Well, good news then, because I went ahead and did that for you.

Okay, full disclosure, the final line of that chart is my own conclusion, but it's really not that far off from Sargent's most compelling hypothesis for why the comparative coverage of the two "jobs plans" seems so out of whack:

Reporters and editors don't take the GOP jobs plan seriously enough to have it evaluated by independent experts. But if this is the case, isn't this something readers and viewers should know about? News consumers who read or view stories about the GOP jobs plan without being told this vital information risk coming away thinking that both sides are making an equally serious contribution to the debate. If reporters and editors don't believe this, isn't that pertinent info for their customers?

The thing is, I think that the press sincerely believes they are serving their customers well -- it's just that they believe their customers want to passively sample horse-race political stenography, as opposed to informed conclusions about how distinct policy alternatives impact the lives of ordinary people. They believe that their "consumers" want "the view from nowhere," and this is how that works.

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]