Scott Mcclellan on The Huffington Post

Jim Kennedy: Senator Lieberman: The Joe I Know

2009-12-18T13:35:27Z

As someone who worked for Joe Lieberman for more than 17 years, I'm often asked these days, "What's wrong with your old boss?" Even some fellow former "Lieberstaffers" have been privately critical of his recent actions on health care reform and worried about the effect on his legacy.

I understand the concerns and to some extent I agree with the critique of his position on the topic (at my age, a Medicare buy-in sounds pretty darn appealing). But in hearing pundits question Senator Lieberman's motivations, often suggesting it arises out of a "bitterness" over what happened in his 2004 presidential and 2006 senatorial campaigns, I feel compelled to talk about the Joe I know.

The Joe I know is not a bitter man, driven by pique over political slights. He can be a stubborn man, yes, prone to charting his own course (his favorite song is Frank Sinatra's "My Way"). But to paraphrase an old political quote, stubbornness in the defense of principle is no vice.

The Joe I know stubbornly refused to proceed with a vote on Clarence Thomas until a woman named Anita Hill had a chance to testify before Congress. His principled stance, so frustrating to conservatives at the time, gave Prof. Hill the opportunity to make her serious concerns about the Supreme Court nominee known.

The Joe I know stubbornly refused to go along with the majority of his party and conventional political wisdom and instead supported the first Gulf War, which was not only the right thing to do for America, it helped keep the door open for Democrats to recapture the White House in 1992.

The Joe I know stubbornly refused to accept compromise over the issue of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, drawing a "line in the tundra" and threatening a filibuster to preserve a great national heritage. His fervent support for the wilderness area was loudly denounced by then-Governor Sarah Palin.

The Joe I know always puts his faith and his family above politics, often to the annoyance of a media advisor like me. In a political neighborhood where the most dangerous place to stand is between a Senator and a camera, more times than I can remember I had to turn down major media invites because my boss wanted to be home with his wife and daughter, or it was the Sabbath.

I do not always agree with Senator Lieberman. I believe he was wrong in criticizing Barack Obama at the Republican Convention, and at other times in recent years. I've felt he chose the wrong words or the wrong venue to express his point of view, causing unnecessary headaches for him and problems for the Democratic Party. He's made mistakes in how he has talked about health care too. Though at the end of the day, a decent bill will pass (politics is about not letting the perfect be the enemy of the not-too-shabby) and Republicans will have precious little to campaign against next year (as former Senator Bob Kerrey argues here). A decent policy and political foundation will be in place upon which further improvements can be built.

My view of Senator Lieberman is admittedly clouded by personal friendship and gratitude (in the school of political loyalty I'm a little closer to the teachings of Prof. Rosemary Woods than, say, Prof. Scott McClellan). But here's a prediction: there will come a time in the next year or two when Joe Lieberman will take a stubborn and principled stand in defense of a great progressive cause.

Then it will be the right wing's turn to call him bitter, or worse. But to me, he'll just be the Joe I know.

Jim Kennedy served as a spokesman and speechwriter for Joe Lieberman between 1980 and 1997.

Andy Ostroy: Fox News "Can't Get a Straight Answer" from White House

2009-08-17T11:38:26Z

During the administration of President George W. Bush, reporters at the daily White House briefings were routinely dismissed, disrespected and lied to as press secretaries Ari Fleischer, Scott McClellan, Tony Snow and then Dana Perilo arrogantly refused to answer tough questions on hot-button issues such as Iraq, Katrina, CIA leaks, illegal wiretapping and torture. Bush himself was dismissive and showed a general disdain for the media during his press conferences, on the few occasions he actually held them. He often ridiculed and chastised reporters who pushed his many buttons a little too far, ignoring their questions with a smug "I'm just not gonna answer you," as he did with NBC's David Gregory in one such notable and highly contested exchange.

To be sure, the Bush administration was the most secretive in history, blatantly marginalizing and demeaning the press as it cavalierly reshaped American politics and national security with relative media impunity.

And now the hypocritical Republican crybabies at Fox are outraged over a heated exchange last Thursday between President Barack Obama's press secretary Robert Gibbs and their White House correspondent, Major Garrett, over unsolicited emails allegedly being sent out by the White House to shore up support for Obama's health care reform. It seems like this is all the network can talk about since, incredulously asking "Where are all the other reporters? Why are we the only ones digging into this issue?

Email spamming? Are they for real? Where was Fox News and Major Garrett as thousands of U.S. soldiers were dying, and tens of thousands more injured and maimed, in Bush's unjust Iraq war? Where was Fox and Garrett as Bush, Cheney, Rove and Scooter Libby were outing CIA agent Valerie Plame and putting her and other agency operatives in danger as retribution over her husband Joe Wilson's 2003 NY Times op-ed "What I Didn't Find in Africa" (regarding the bogus claim about Saddam selling yellow cake uranium to Niger). Where was Fox and Garrett as Bush embarrassed and humiliated the U.S. by botching the post-Katrina rescue and recovery? Where was Fox and Garrett during the Abu Ghraib crimes and the Bushies' contention that only a "few rogue soldiers" were responsible? Where were Fox and Garrett when Bush was breaking FISA laws so he could spy on whoever the hell he wanted? Where were the tough questions then? Where was Fox and Garrett's outrage then? Where was the respect for the Constitution and the rule of law then? Where was the concern over Americans' right to privacy then? Spamming has them fired up? Cheney please....

Cheney's "Privileged" Interview Already Leaked By Personal Lawyer

2009-07-07T10:22:11Z

You know how Obama's DOJ claims that we can't see Cheney's interview with Patrick Fitzgerald because it's privileged? Well, Dick Cheney's lawyer already leaked the so-called privileged contents three years ago.

Nick Turse: Where Are They Now?

2009-06-18T14:34:58Z

Crossposted with TomDispatch.com

Ex-Bush Loyalists Cash In

In May, the U.S. economy lost 345,000 nonfarm jobs, pushing the unemployment rate from 8.9% to 9.4%. According to official statistics, 14.5 million Americans are now looking for work and, as a recent headline at Time.com put it, "The jobs aren't coming back anytime soon." In fact, a team of economists at the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank recently reported that "the level of labor market slack could be higher by the end of 2009 than at any other time in the post-World War Two period."

The news, however, is not altogether grim. While times are especially tough for teenagers (22.7% jobless rate) and blacks (14.9% jobless rate), one group is doing remarkably well. I'm talking about former members of the Bush administration who are taking up prestigious academic posts, inking lucrative book deals, signing up with speakers bureaus, joining big-time law firms and top public relations agencies, and grabbing spots on corporate boards of directors. While their high-priced wars, ruinous economic policies, and shredding of economic safety nets have proved disastrous for so many, for them the economic outlook remains bright and jobs are seemingly plentiful. In fact, many of them have performed the eye-opening feat of securing two or more potentially lucrative revenue streams at once during these tough financial times.

While it would likely take a small book to catalogue the fates of all former "loyal Bushies," a look at just a few of these fortunate folks indicates that not everybody was harmed by the Bush era.

The Memoirists

Many of the top figures of the Bush years are joining the ranks of (or reaffirming their credentials as) men and women of letters. Following in the footsteps of 2003-2006 White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, who wrote the tell-some exposé, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception, is former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (2001-2006). Now penning his life story for Sentinel, a conservative imprint of the Penguin Group, he has announced that he is forgoing an advance and donating all proceeds to charity. Similarly, 2006-2009 Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is reportedly donating the "author's profits" from his forthcoming "insider's account of [his] experiences as Treasury Secretary." Many other former colleagues are, however, apparently intent on cashing in on their public service.

Last month, the New York Times reported that Rumsfeld's long-time pal, former Vice President Dick Cheney, "is actively shopping a memoir about his life in politics and service in four presidential administrations" and seeking multi-millions. In the same way, back in 2007, Bush's right-hand man Karl Rove, aka his "brain," agreed, for a reported seven figures, to write a memoir for Simon & Schuster's conservative imprint Threshold. Earlier this year, Bush's first term National Security Advisor and second term Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, signed a gaudy three-book deal, reportedly worth at least $2.5 million, with Random House's Crown imprint.

Following her to Crown (also the publisher of Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope) was former President Bush himself. His book, tentatively titled Decision Points, will reportedly recount "a dozen of the most interesting and important decisions in the former President's personal and political life" for a cool $7 million. Former First Lady Laura Bush has already inked a book deal with Scribner reportedly worth $3.5-5 million.

Only one prominent Bush loyalist who cared to try appears to have been unable to cash-in. In late 2008, the Wall Street Journal's Evan Perez reported that Alberto Gonzales, former White House counsel (2001-2005) and attorney general (2005-2007), "said he is writing a book to set the record straight about his controversial tenure as a senior official in the Bush administration," but could interest no publisher in the manuscript. This followed an earlier report in the New York Times that Gonzales had been "unable to interest law firms in adding his name to their roster..."

Law and Orders

One Bush administration lawyer who did land a job with a law firm was Gonzales's successor, Attorney General Michael Mukasey (2007-2009), who became a partner at Debevoise & Plimpton, a firm "offering sophisticated legal services" which "places the highest value on collaboration and interdisciplinary cooperation in order to provide clients with seamless representation across practice areas and across continents."

Tommy Thompson, Bush's Secretary of Health and Human Services from 2001-2005, is now a partner with Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld where he "focuses on developing solutions for clients in the health care industry, as well as for companies doing business in the public sector." Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security from 2005-2009, is serving as "senior of counsel," and a "member of the White Collar Defense and Investigations practice group" at the firm of Covington & Burling.

Meanwhile, Harriet Miers, who served Bush from 2001-2007 as Staff Secretary, Deputy Chief of Staff, and Counsel to the President -- and whose Supreme Court bid crashed and burned in 2005 -- returned to Locke, Lord, Bissell & Liddell in May 2007 to serve as a member of the law firm's "Litigation and Public Policy sections." That firm is also home to Karin Torgerson, a partner who served as Special Assistant to President George W. Bush, one of several White House positions she held from 2003-2005.

Speak Easy

In addition to his book-writing duties, former President Bush recently signed on with the Washington Speakers Bureau, which already represents his wife. The Bureau is to arrange lucrative speeches for him worldwide. In fact, just last month, the New York Times reported that the former president had "earned more than an estimated $150,000" to "discuss national and international policy" alongside fellow former President Bill Clinton at the Metro Toronto Convention Center.

Together the Bushes joined a speakers' roster of former administration heavyweights, including Richard Armitage (Deputy Secretary of State, 2001-2005), John Bolton (U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, 2005-2006), Andrew Card (White House Chief of Staff, 2001-2006), Ari Fleischer (White House Press Secretary, 2001-2003), Michael Mukasey, Colin Powell (Secretary of State, 2001-2005), Condoleezza Rice, Tom Ridge (Secretary of Homeland Security, 2003-2005), Donald Rumsfeld, and John Snow (Secretary of the Treasury, 2003-2006), as well as Bush family consigliere James Baker III.

Meanwhile, at Leading Authorities, another top-of-the-line speakers bureau, the list of ex-Bush loyalists includes Dan Bartlett (Counselor to the President, 2002-2007), Christopher Cox (Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, 2005-2009), Ed Gillespie (Counselor to the President, 2007-2009), Porter Goss (Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, 2005-2006), Stephen Hadley (National Security Advisor, 2005-2009), Michael Hayden (Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, 2006-2009), Keith Hennessey (Director of the National Economic Council, 2007-2009), Dana Perino (White House Press Secretary, 2007-2009), and Margaret Spellings (Secretary of Education, 2005-2009).

A third lecturers' stable, the Leigh Bureau, boasts John Negroponte who served Bush as Ambassador to the United Nations, Ambassador to Iraq, Director of National Intelligence, and Deputy Secretary of State.

Talking Heads and Lobbyists

Some Bush loyalists have nabbed other sorts of speaking gigs. Karl Rove, for one, took a job as an analyst for Fox News. (He also writes a weekly op-ed for the Wall Street Journal and, in 2007, signed a two-year deal to be a columnist for Newsweek magazine.)

Ari Fleischer was hired as a media consultant to the Green Bay Packers in 2008 and serves as the president of Ari Fleischer Communications, Inc., which bills itself as a "unique media training and consultancy company [that] brings to the world of sports the lessons of how to successfully handle the toughest situations with the most aggressive reporters." (Clients reportedly include Major League Baseball, the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, and "several other leading sports figures.")

Many more Bush loyalists, however, are involved in another lucrative form of communication. For example, Michael Chertoff quickly launched the Chertoff Group, a consulting firm that "will advise clients on a range of security concerns, including cyber security, terrorism, fraud, border protection and supply-chain security." Tom Ridge, when not serving as a keynote-speaker-for-hire (as he did recently at the 2009 CoBank Energy Directors Conference in Colorado Springs, Colorado) is now a security and crisis-management consultant for his own firm, Ridge Global, whose self-professed "expertise encompasses risk management and global trade security, leadership guidance and strategic business generation, event security, crisis management and communications, campus security, technology innovation and integration and more."

In fact, a recent analysis by USA TODAY found that "more than one in four members of President George W. Bush's Cabinet have landed jobs with consulting or lobbying firms in which they can help clients navigate the departments they once oversaw." And it's not just heads of executive departments like Homeland Security who are cashing in.

John Ashcroft (Attorney General, 2001-2005) co-founded the Ashcroft Group, a strategic consulting firm that advises and invests "in companies in the security and law enforcement marketplaces." Not surprisingly, the firm has become a home for Bush loyalists like Juleanna Glover, who served on the senior staffs of then President-elect George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, and was then "the registered U.S. government affairs advisor for Iraq's first post-Saddam Hussein ambassador to the United States."

Recently, according to the Quad City Times, Jim Nussle, Bush's director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (2007-2009) "formed a company that will offer consulting, government relations and lobbying services." The Nussle Group, its website proclaims, "specializes in recruiting a talented team and developing creative solutions to assist clients in navigating the complicated and challenging intersections of public policy, government relations, public relations, international relations and politics."

According to his company bio, the senior policy director at lobbying powerhouse Dutko Worldwide, Gene Hickok, "joined the George W. Bush Administration as Under Secretary of Education. He became Deputy Secretary in 2003 [and] was an architect of the No Child Left Behind Act." And he isn't alone. Kent Sholars, a Senior Associate at Dutko, "was a political appointee during both terms of the administration of George W. Bush, serving as the Confidential Assistant to the Controller for the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in Washington, DC," while Karen Yeager, a Dutko vice president, "serve[d] in the White House for President Bush in 2001."

Spin-Mistresses

Karen Hughes helped George W. Bush get elected in 2000 and, for the first two years of his first term, served him as a "counselor." In 2002, she left the White House to spend more time with her family in Texas. In 2004, however, she was back at work on Bush's campaign and then, in 2005, signed on as an undersecretary of state. In 2007, she left again, the White House said, "to spend more time with her family." Nonetheless, in 2008, she was in an office yet again, this time as Global Vice Chair at public relations giant Burson-Marsteller. In 2009, she was joined there by former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, who now serves as Chief Issues Counselor for the company in the U.S.

Here, too, Michael Chertoff has gotten into the act. The announcement of the formation of the Chertoff Group, wrote the Wall Street Journal, "was made by the communications firm Burson-Marsteller, which said it formed an alliance with Mr. Chertoff."

Board to Death

Bush Administration officials have also been popping up on various boards of directors. Richard Armitage is perhaps typical. He sits on the board at military-corporate complex member ManTech International. He also serves on the boards of oil giant ConocoPhillips, "pharmaceutical and cosmeceutical" company Transcu Ltd., and his own firm, Armitage International, which, according to its website, provides "multinational clients with critical support in the areas of international business development, strategic planning, and problem-solving."

In April, chemical giant DuPont announced that Samuel Bodman, Secretary of Energy from 2005-2009 (and before that, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, 2004-2005, and Deputy Secretary of the Department of Commerce, 2001-2004) had been elected to its board of directors.

That same month, former CIA chief Michael Hayden became a member of the Board of Directors of the National Interest Security Company, an "information technology, information management, and management technology consulting services" provider serving the U.S. Intelligence Community and the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Energy. There, Hayden joined fellow former administration cronies Henry A. Crumpton (Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the State Department, 2005-2007) and Donald Kerr (Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, 2007-2009).

Meanwhile, Andrew Card not only serves on the board of directors of railroad giant Union Pacific, but has also turned up on the board of directors of the George W. Bush Presidential Library Foundation.

In the Tank

If you can't get a gig at a law firm, a PR agency, or on a corporate board of directors, there are always the nation's think-tanks to fall back into -- and they've become a shelter for more than a few Bush administration refugees in the Obama era. For example, after serving as a Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Adviser in the Bush administration, Elliott Abrams has now joined the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) as senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies.

Alongside Abrams at CFR are a number of officials who served during the Bush years, including Evan Feigenbaum, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and the Maldives; Paul Lettow, former senior adviser to the Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs and the Senior Director for Strategic Planning and Institutional Reform on the National Security Council staff; and Dan Senor, an administration foreign policy advisor and senior advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.

Meanwhile, the conservative Heritage Foundation is not surprisingly housing a large contingent of Bush loyalists, including Becky Norton Dunlop, who served as the chairperson of the Federal Services Impasse Panel (which handles disputes between government agencies and labor unions); Kim R. Holmes, Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs; Terry Miller, ambassador to the United Nations Economic and Social Council; Peter Brookes, Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary for Asian and Pacific Affairs; and Mike Gonzalez who, in 2005, left the Wall Street Journal to join the Bush administration where, according to his Heritage Foundation bio, he "wrote speeches for Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox, then moved to the State Department in 2006 as communications adviser and speechwriter on European and Eurasian affairs" and even "helped craft an op-ed column... which appeared throughout Europe under the bylines of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates."

Ivory Tower Power

While Gates stayed on to work for President Barack Obama, Rice is pursuing many different career paths. In addition to the lucrative book contracts and the speakers bureau gigs, she inked a deal for the William Morris Agency to represent her for "business initiatives in media, sports and communications." Rice also returned, as a professor of political science, to her old stomping grounds at Stanford University, where she had long taught and also, from 1993-1999, served as provost. Presumably in her spare time, she serves as the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy at Stanford's conservative Hoover Institution.

Rice is actually following in the footsteps of Rumsfeld who served a stint, beginning in 2007, as "a distinguished visiting fellow" at the Hoover Institution. But Stanford is hardly the only academic bastion of former Bush-ites. For example, this year, John Negroponte headed back to his old alma mater, Yale University, to become the "Brady-Johnson Distinguished Senior Research Fellow in Grand Strategy and Lecturer in International Affairs at the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies."

"Torture memo" author John Yoo, who served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice from 2001-2003, is, of course, a professor of law at the School of Law of that bastion of leftist radicalism, the University of California at Berkeley. (As Liliana Segura of AlterNet recently reported, he also just landed a gig as a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer.)

Hope on the Horizon

Last year, for many Americans, Barack Obama became synonymous with hope. (And last year, Obama's The Audacity of Hope as well as his Dreams from My Father earned him an eye-popping $2.4 million in royalties.) This year, for struggling job-hunters nationwide, it's former Bush administration officials who offer a glimmer of hope in tough economic times. Their ease in finding gainful employment suggests that, even if your prior work has been judged ruinous by many and been roundly repudiated, there's still hope for you on the job front.

Even former Vice President Cheney, a man about whom 55% of Americans hold an unfavorable opinion, has realistic prospects of receiving a multimillion dollar book deal. After all, his former boss is viewed unfavorably by 57% of Americans and look how he's done.

Since most jobless Americans don't have nearly the unfavorable polling numbers of Bush or Cheney, nor do they face the distant threat of possible war crimes prosecutions like John Yoo, they should perk up. Maybe the problem is that none of them have signed up with the right speakers bureau to discuss their disastrous life circumstances. Maybe they haven't had that extra little bit of help tweaking their book proposals for their proposed tell-littles and tell-nones. Maybe they hadn't thought to check with Burson-Marsteller, just in case a few top slots with grandiose titles are still open. Maybe the Hoover Institution will now extend distinguished visiting fellowships to a few of the residents of modern-day Hoovervilles.

With only former Attorney General Gonzales still out of work, grant the men and women of the Bush administration one thing: the best unemployment rate in the land. In but a few short months, they've managed to prove that, no matter how spectacularly you fail, those inside-the-Beltway never have to tighten a belt. In our world, they will always fail upwards -- generally in lucrative, prestigious, and glamorous ways.

Nick Turse is the associate editor of TomDispatch.com and the recent winner of a Ridenhour Prize for Reportorial Distinction as well as a James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, In These Times, and regularly at TomDispatch. A paperback edition of his book, The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives (Metropolitan Books), an exploration of the new military-corporate complex in America, has recently been published. His website is Nick Turse.com.

Larry Gellman: Lenin Rules!

2009-04-22T11:54:37Z

I have really been struggling lately to figure out what in the world has happened to my Republican friends who used to make so much sense and to the so-called cable news channels which have become more and more of an oxymoron. But I struggle no more.

I now realize that what appears on the surface to be self-destructive insanity is really just a posthumous victory lap being run by that great champion of the Right--Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

It was Lenin, after all, who almost 100 years ago stated what has become the mantra of the angry Right and the deluded media nearly a century later:

A lie told often enough becomes the truth

It's ironic but appropriate that at a time when Right wing leaders are comparing Obama to Mussolini, Hitler, and Marx that the GOP should get in on the historical bandwagon. And it couldn't come at a better time. With the Republican Party leaderless and falling in popularity, the Right is in desperate need of a philosophical guru with a solid resume and a recognizable name.

Actually, the first sign of the GOP's modeling of Lenin appeared during the 2000 Republican presidential primary campaign in South Carolina when "Bush's Brain" Karl Rove launched a massive phone smear campaign against John McCain during which callers told the locals that McCain had fathered a black baby. In fact, McCain and his wife had adopted a child from Bangladesh.

When caught in the lie, instead of apologizing and stopping the calls, Turd Blossom (as his boss affectionately referred to him) Rove ordered his charges to just keep smilin' and dialin' and repeating the lies with greater conviction than ever. Bush knocked McCain out of the race and thus a movement was born.

Once elected, Bush carried Lenin's formula to new levels. He assured us that Iraq was involved in 9/11 and had tried to procure nuclear fuel from Niger long after he knew that neither statement was true. He talked about Pat Tillman's heroic death at the hands of a hostile enemy for weeks after he was told that Tillman was killed by friendly fire. He assured us that Americans don't torture--even as he insisted we needed to keep doing it. He promised us that no American need worry about abuse of warrantless wiretaps--even as he claimed they were essential. It was Lenin's model--lie, and if you get caught, keep lying. No apologies, no shame, just lies.

That's a mini recap. Everyone but Dick Cheney now knows all that stuff. But it helps explain a lot.

Otherwise one might think that the clowns who now call themselves leaders of the GOP came up with this whole idea about lying and lying some more on their own. It is comforting to know they're just copying their gurus Lenin and Rove.

So when President Obama insists on not bailing out bankrupt banks or car makers without getting rid of bad management or limiting executive pay and Republicans accuse him of nationalizing American business or being a socialist--now I know they're not stupid, they're just lying.

And when they say that Obama is raising all our taxes when he's actually cutting them for all but a handful of the wealthiest Americans, I am comforted that they're not confused. They're just doing what Rove did when he assured Scott McClellan and the American people that old Turd Blossom had nothing to do with the outing of Valerie Plame.

I no longer worry about those who still believe that Obama is a secret Muslim or that he is not an American. They are just angry hateful people who lie to give their screeds a thin patina of respectability--very thin.

And when my Republican friends call for a teabagging party (I'm not even going to go there) and complain that we're being taxed to death at the very time when taxes have never been lower in our lifetimes, I don't even bother trying to straighten them out any more. Because I know they are not misinformed--they are just lying and lying and lying and lying.

Actually, most Americans know they're lying too. That's why while the Right claims that there is a revolution afoot and the common folk are mad as hell, polls continue to show that Obama's popularity is rising toward 70 percent while the popularity of Republicans is at a 30-year low. Those same polls show that three times as many of us believe the country is now on the right track as felt that way six months ago. That doesn't sound or feel much like a revolution to me.

Based on those polls and common sense, it seems that Lenin's mantra might not be working so well in an age of blogging, the Internet, Google, fact-checking, Wikopedia, and YouTube. It's really a shame. Now, after honing the art of lying and denial to a perfect science, my Right wing friends might have to look for another approach.

So much to do and so little time. No one ever said it would be fair.

Charles Karel Bouley: Listen to We, the People, Not They, the Obstructionists

2009-02-05T13:51:27Z

Why on Earth are we listening to, encouraging, giving air time to or paying one bit of attention to anything a Republican Senator or Congressperson has to say that seeks to repeat past mistakes or tactics? I'm sorry, I'm tired of all this bi-partisan crap. That party, the party of historical non inclusion, of institutionalized bigotry, of fringe religious hatred does not get to magically revamp its image by electing an African American to lead it and pleading for cooperation while being obstructionists and while their members compare their party to an insurgency like the Taliban (Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas).

Neoconservative values, views and proponents are a conquered people. We beat you. You lost. Your views, your dogmas, your complete and blatant disregard for America or its people for your own greed and agendas...that LOST. So we beat you out with our votes, rightfully, because you were destroying the American spirit and America itself.

So, who cares what their wants or plans are? Look where their wants, desires and plans have gotten us. And if they had such innovative, country-saving ideas, where were they a year ago?

They wanted the war. They marched for it, pleaded for it, ran on it, campaigned for it, voted for it every single time, supported their President as they called any dissenters unAmerican and NOW they want civility and cooperation?

Say it with me, Poppycock.

The war is the major economic issue of our time. Not corporate greed. Not lobbyist. Not Wall Street. One of the largest drains on the US Economy is, continues to be, our empire building and the wars we are waging. Iraq is not over. We are still there and that's still $8-$10 billion a month. Even for 18 months that's almost $200 billion. They're screaming about $200 million or so for the Arts in the new Stimulus Package or other hot-button programs that account for less than one percent of the now $800 billion plus dollar package but $10 billion a month, sustained, is OK?

$800 billion. That's a lot. Not as much as we're going to spend on, say it with me, Iraq.

It's the war, stupid. Must I scream it? It's the WAR STUPID.

George W. Bush bankrupted America by letting his friends rape our country for eight years on Wall Street and in the Green Zone, Billions of dollars are missing from Iraq, just plain missing, like the bail out money we just gave to the banks by their own admissions. Billions more have been shot on programs that didn't work, rebuilding that never happened.

And we're now broke and are no safer. Case in point:

CNN reported on February 5, 2009: " WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Over the last several weeks a growing number of al Qaeda operatives have entered Yemen from Saudi Arabia and have established a renewed network that potentially threatens U.S. and Saudi targets in the region, both U.S. and Yemeni officials have told CNN.

Both U.S. officials said one of the major concerns is that a number of al Qaeda operatives have crossed the border from Saudi Arabia since a Saudi crackdown has stepped up. Al Qaeda, he said appears to be looking for a new place in the immediate area where it can still operate."

First of all, I have said from the beginning that Iraq was not the center of Al Qaeda nor was it the home of those that attacked us, it was and is Saudi Arabia. I have screamed on radio for years that the Saudi's look the other way as extremism and anti-Western sentiments are taught openly. And now look, the stream of "terrorists" is coming from where? Saudi Arabia.

Oh, but they've started a crackdown. Now? Eight years after 9/11. Geez, thanks.

So Republicans and their dirty little war bankrupted us and put us in harm's way. And now those same Republicans, or newly elected ones, are helping Rush Limbaugh get his wish by making Obama and America fail.

These people need to sit down and shut up and act like a conquered people. Maybe open casinos. But shut up. Let Obama lead, which means FOLLOW. For a change, follow a leader in the right direction, not off a cliff. Give it your all. Or get out. Make your opinions known, but then, sit down and realize your time is not now, it was then, and then sucked.

The time for civility (and this is directed to Obama as well) is over not beginning. The fact that these people are not being tried for War Crimes, destruction of a nation, every kind of ethics violations known to man or womankind and asked to either leave the country in exile or go on trial at the Hague should be enough. The fact that the Republican party is even still viewed as a credible political entity and not just a corrupt group of profiteers that should be disbanded and thrown out of the people's house all together amazes me (counting the total number of indictments, ethics violations or scandals in the Bush administration now replaces sheep for many while trying to go off to sleep).

And why we chose this moment in time to change the way we treat a conquered party or people is beyond me and probably upsetting to some American Indians or ANY minority in this country that has had to take a back seat while the ruling party ran their country in to the ground.

It's time we let people in Washington DC run amok, people that want to do good for a change. Let them spend away on things like Los Angeles' Subway to the Sea or any number of "shovel ready" projects of the future. Let them redesign our power grid. And yes, let them give money to the arts and education instead of to defense funding for a change.

And let's not let an agency that some deem unConstitutional in the first place, the IRS, be the arbiter of all people moral. I don't care who had what tax problems, can they bring health care to every American? Can they govern? Screwing the IRS is one thing, screwing the nation, another. Focus people, focus. If the only thing Democrats do is screw up on their taxes, consider yourself lucky after the last eight years.

And where were these voices of dissent and caution with George W. Bush as he spent more than any president before him, incurred more debt, created wars for profit and vanity, didn't fulfill one real promise he made, grew the government more than any other...where were they as he ignored Katrina, as he appropriated billions to remove a dictator that meant us no harm?

And where was this newly emboldened media, grilling Robert Gibbs each day as CNN and MSNBC and others now televise the daily press briefing...where was the curiosity and relentless grilling of Scott McClellan or Tony Snow or any of Bush's mouthpieces? Where was the broadcasting of everything Bush did, the scrutiny? The press has already asked for an apology from Obama over the Daschle incident and no Cindy Sheehan couldn't even get an a small chat.

So media, check yourself as well. Quit putting microphones in front of Republican spokespeople of any kind, from "political analyst" to the "strategists" or even the politicians if all they can do is bitch and moan and complain. Get over it. We heard your arguments and voted against them.

The media, the politicians and our three branches of government need to remember that we spoke and we were loud and clear in our message.

Now let Obama change things. Get out of his way. If he fails, we'll take him to task. But I guarantee, NOTHING he does, NOTHING you could consent to Congress or Senate, could do as much damage to our country as what you consented to and did prior to his getting in to DC.

Remember that.

Scott McClellan: White House Press Briefing Is Obsolete

2009-01-31T19:35:38Z

Asked by TNR to offer some advice to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, former Press Secretary Scott McClellan makes the provocative suggestion that the whole briefing ritual is passe:

Danny Groner: Hudson Crash Required Journalists to Collaborate

2009-01-19T12:47:00Z

Probably the most powerful picture that emerged after a plane crashed into the Hudson River last week was a photo taken by a regular citizen. It was captured at a moment immediately after the crash occurred by a passenger aboard one of the rescuing ferries. At that time, chances were that none of the mainstream media outlets were present at the scene and, if they were, they may not have had such close proximity to get such an impressive shot.

To put that in perspective, this photo was actually forwarded to me before the media got wind of the photo's existence. It was sent to me in an e-mail inside the first hour after the flight's landing as a picture that a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend took. Then I started to see it all over the Internet in subsequent hours, as it quickly became the eminent display of the "controlled chaos" that took place in the moments after the crash.

This episode may be the best proof yet that citizen journalism is not only here to stay and can also be essential. I have no doubt that camera people from the Associated Press would have captured equally compelling pictures that told similar tales. But in this case, they were overshadowed by a man, his digital camera and a free Twitter account.

When I decided to head on over to the crash site, I didn't go intending to be another citizen journalist. I went because I was curious to see how the site was being run in the aftermath. I wanted to watch the way officials coordinated all the different people - passengers, rescue teams, witnesses, reporters, medics and passers by.

I arrived there at around 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, roughly an hour after the plane had unexpectedly and miraculously landed in the Hudson. By then, all of the passengers had been rescued, the plane had reportedly drifted a mile away, and police were beginning to section off areas on the pier in order to create efficiency and order.

I decided to huddle in with the press. I tried to blend in as best as I could, even pulling out a pen and paper from my pocket and pretending to jot down notes. For about an hour, I stood in the cold with reporters outside the New York Waterway Ferry Terminal waiting for more information. During that hour, I learned a lot about how news reporters put together a breaking news story.

Several years ago, I spent a morning in the White House press room where I got to hear the morning briefing delivered by then White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan. As soon as the briefing wrapped up, reporters raced back to their tiny offices inside the back of the press room and began to type out their stories. The goal was to beat the other guys by a matter of seconds, to be the first to get the story out there.

On Thursday evening, though, the feel was extremely different. Interest was at its peak. Of all the places one could have been during that hour, standing outside the Ferry Terminal was probably among the least productive and least informative. You see, officials were busy with two concerns then: First, emergency medical teams and police were trying to organize the area to allow ambulances through. And second, the rest of the workers were setting up for a 5:30 press conference to be delivered by Governor Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg.

Nobody was talking to the press before the inevitable press conference. There was no useful information emanating from sources of any kind. I watched as stressed reporters collaborated with each other to learn the latest news, relying on one another to help them stay up to date on what was happening.

An ABC reporter told a team of other reporters when the Terminal we stood outside was officially announced as the central headquarters. I eavesdropped on a conversation between two others about where the plane was at that time and what was being done about it. And I listened in on a NYT reporter as he called his news desk every couple of minutes asking them for any news. These reporters were just standing in the cold, as their camera persons looked for decent angles, and waiting to be called inside for the press conference that couldn't come fast enough.

I was struck by how well the reporters performed their jobs during that high-pressured afternoon and night. When there wasn't much to go on, they turned to each other to fill in the blanks. They credited other sources when needed. If one of them posted something, everyone had it within minutes. It was very much a communal project to ensure that all the information was immediate and accurate.

Even inside the crowd of reporters on Thursday, there was a sense of the same "controlled chaos" that defined the successful rescue. While citizen journalists may have gotten to the story first, mainstream journalists pulled off some tricks of their own. At a tense moment when I can assure you nothing was being reported, these journalists made something out of nothing.

Former Bush Aide: 'Mission Accomplished Banner Was My Fault'

2009-01-13T14:25:20Z

At his news conference yesterday, President Bush said the decision to put a "Mission Accomplished" banner on the aircraft carrier where he gave a speech following the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a "mistake."

It was not his mistake, however, according to CBS News political analyst Dan Bartlett, a former senior advisor to Mr. Bush. Asked this morning by Harry Smith, co-anchor of CBS' The Early Show, who was responsible for the banner - Smith pointed out that both the Navy and former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan have taken the blame in the past - Bartlett said that it was actually his call.

Andrew Foster Altschul: A Challenge to Publishers: Say No to Gonzo

2009-01-03T13:31:18Z

2008 was kind of a rough year for American publishers, culminating in the bloodbaths of November and December which saw hundreds of firings, major restructuring at Random House, and a crisis at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt which may yet prove fatal. Industry professionals are understandably looking for a silver bullet to reverse the trend: a new blockbuster from Dan Brown? A trilogy of teen sorcerer novels from Jhumpa Lahiri? Saddam Hussein's memoir, written from beyond the grave?

But what if the answer lies not in finding the right book to publish but in finding the right book not to publish?

That book just might be the memoir-in-progress by former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

We all know the drill: disgraced Bush insider-cum-war-criminal licks his wounds for a year or two, then publishes a "tell-all" that either tells us what we already knew (cf. Scott McClellan's What Happened, which shocked the world by revealing that the White House had lied about its justifications for invading Iraq) or blames everyone else for what happened (cf. George Tenet's At the Center of the Storm, which excuses its author for his "slam dunk" comment by writing off its context as a mere "marketing meeting"). Prurient readers, believing mistakenly that they've breached the wall of executive secrecy, buy truckloads of the slimy documents, and the morally deficient scoundrel makes a ton of money and hits the lecture-and-talk-show circuit to make a ton more.

The list is disgracefully long: Paul Bremer, David Frum, Ari Fleischer, Karen Hughes, Paul O'Neill, John Yoo, a parade of mediocres, ideologues, and dupes cashing in on their blindness and cowardice. In many cases the author has been applauded, and handsomely remunerated, for the "scathing indictment" of the administration and for the candor he has so courageously displayed now that he's out of the administration and has absolutely nothing to lose (the main exception being Hughes, who still seems to see her former boss as a cross between John Wayne and Paddington Bear). We roll out the red carpet and fluff the seat cushions on Larry King, rather than measuring the writer for an orange jumpsuit and sending him off to a CIA black site for processing.

And the trend is likely to continue after Inauguration Day, as more brave souls decide to blow the whistle now that the whistle has retired comfortably to Crawford. Donald Rumsfeld's book is on its way, and Laura Bush is auditioning editors in the East Wing.

Here's the publishing industry's chance to regain some dignity and credibility by refusing to give a platform to one of the administration's most ardent bootlickers, a man who helped justify torture, undermined the Geneva Conventions, defended spying on American citizens, fired U.S. attorneys who wouldn't toe the Bush line, presided over a thorough politicizing of the Justice Department, and repeatedly lied under oath to Congress. Gonzales has been a major player not only in an eight-year subversion of the American judicial and political systems, but in a war that has claimed the lives of 4,000 U.S. soldiers and half a million Iraqis, and led to the dislocation of several million and the detention without Habeas Corpus of thousands of others.

And he has the gall to tell The Wall Street Journal, "I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror."

Leaving aside the question of what punishment is deserved by this man, we can all agree that what he does not deserve is a book deal. Whether to point fingers at others or defend his own rectitude, anything Alberto Gonzales has to say now can and should be said under oath.

Now, I understand this is a tough pill for the publishing industry to swallow. Though some might believe that the industry's mission is to produce and disseminate works of literary and/or historical merit, the truth is of course that its real purpose, like that of any industry, is to make money. Publishers can't be expected to be guardians of the nation's morality or taste any more than, say, pornographers or auto executives can. Why else would there be rumors of a $7 million advance for the memoirs of Sarah Palin, a woman whose every utterance is a calamity of both syntax and rational thought, and whose only true achievement has been to spend $150,000 on clothes? Why else is there already a book by Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, a.k.a. "Joe the Plumber," a man whose keen insight into American values was honed while practicing a trade for which he was not licensed?

The unpleasant truth is that there's a market for this crap. People will buy just about anything that smells of controversy, and if the public wants to believe they're learning something new or valuable or even remotely connected to the truth, it's hard to begrudge publishers for reaping the profit.

Still, there are limits, as when HarperCollins canceled the publication of If I Did It, O.J. Simpson's quasi-psychotic volume of filth about how he "hypothetically" could have murdered two people he probably did murder. Even Rupert Murdoch, never one to put ethics before profit, balked at this steaming turd; a month later Judith Regan, who bought the book, was out of a job.

As horrific as O.J.'s deeds were, as nauseating as his public behavior in the years since, he can't hold a candle to Fredo, as the President calls him, who has aided and abetted the torture of thousands and the murder of hundreds of thousands and can still ask, in apparent indignation, "What is it that I did that is so fundamentally wrong?"

Then there are the liars, the list of recent "memoirs" canceled in the eleventh hour when they turned out to be hoaxes. Say what you will about Margaret B. Jones or Herman Rosenblat, at least they were never sworn in before Congress.

So there's precedent, and what I'm asking is that publishers stick to their guns (at the moment, no one has bid on Gonzales's scribbles) and resist the cynical sirens in Sales and Marketing. In fact, how about a moratorium on memoirs by Bush insiders not currently residing in the Hague? The temptation is enormous, as the industry tries to find a parachute to stop its current freefall, and any potentially high-profile book looks like a ripcord. It's counterintuitive to walk away from a potential goldmine. But every industry has to draw a line, and the publishing industry's line should be drawn at mass murderers.

Which brings me back to saving the publishing industry. Frankly, it's a longshot. Publishers are in deep trouble, and it's going to take a while to dig their way out. Dan Brown ain't gonna do it, and neither are the hordes of reprobates scurrying off the decks of the U.S.S. George W. Bush. Focusing on blockbusters, to the detriment of America's public discourse and literary traditions, is part of what got publishers into this mess. By racing to sign the author with the juiciest gossip, the dirtiest secrets, the most fantastic life story, without regard for the truth or for the consequences of validating the actions of criminals, the industry has cheapened its brand and endangered the loyalties of intelligent readers. Rebuilding their image as serious curators and promoters of our culture seems like a worthwhile way to spend their time in the wilderness. When they get out, they'll be able to claim not just the public's money, but its respect.

Monroe Price: Sarah Palin: the All-in-One Reality TV Show

2008-12-07T19:26:06Z

It's hard to have yet another Sarah Palin epiphany, but that's what happened as I was drifting happily through a conference called "Reality Worlds," organized at the Annenberg School for Communication by Marwan Kraidy and Katherine Sender.

Scholars devoted to the genre were generating all sorts of theories about these relatively inexpensive and ubiquitous program efforts. But what occurred to me (and undoubtedly has occurred to others) is how Palin's trajectory through the political campaign approximates the rhythm of makeover and other reality TV shows.

Palin is one-person reiteration of everything from "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" (early round dismissal?) up through and including "Survivor."

And then now, there's the story of Palin and her hair stylists, including Amy Strozzi, who received over $40,000 and was awarded an Emmy for her work on the show "So You Think You Can Dance." Shades of "Making the Cut," "Million Dollar $alon,"and "Top Hair."

Palin wasn't even mentioned in the Annenberg talks, but her arc during the campaign could have been a subtext for all the scholarly presentations.

Laura Grindstaff, for example, a professor at the University of California, hit a kind of proverbial Palin nail on the head when she spoke about how these shows seek out a center of American life, and engage in what she called the "production of ordinariness" through reality television.

Grindstaff was talking particularly about an MTV series called "Sorority Life" which chronicles the life of pledges as they move towards acceptance and initiation. I didn't ask, but it seemed to me that one could call Palin, whatever else she was, a kind of initiate, a rushee who among other things had to go through a process of hazing (did she make it? You be the judge.).

At the Philadelphia event, I talked with a very helpful Penn graduate student, Rebecca Pardo, who, like a lot of modern young scholars, has a slight and admirable obsession with "reality" filtered through this art form. She loves the work of Nicholas Couldry (a professor at Goldsmiths in London) and sees Palin as the embodiment of what Couldry has called the Myth of the Mediated Center.

Pardo also put me on to Justin Wolfe, who blogs about "The Hills," a reality show about life in 90210, hedonistic and pragmatic California. Wolfe has written , without, blogwise, using capital letters, about Palin and the process of candidate selection in reality shows:

"it's funny because the way sarah palin was chosen is, in many ways, just like the way heidi montag was chosen for the hills. if you strip all the fame away from heidi montag, if we pretend that she's just a normal girl what's special about her, what sets her apart? nothing, really, she's just normal. kind of pretty, sort of ambitious, but mostly normal. and, without the magic ticket she was given into the world of celebrity, into the show, that's how she would've probably stayed, a normal girl from a small town in colorado. If course, that's the Sarah Palin narrative, too: plucked from the relative obscurity of the alaskan wilderness into the national spotlight, with the barest of real experience or qualifications but with scads of those particular qualities that resonate with the american public: personality, relatability, normality.

"

As on some reality shows (take "Project Runway" for example), Palin was subjected to ingenious and daunting tests that would raise public anticipation about the outcome--triumph or failure. Would she make it to the next round? When Sarah met Katie Couric, it could have been one of these "tests" revealed to the contestant ("for your next challenge, you must go one on one with a noted anchor-person who will ask you questions you may have no way of answering"). Palin's life was a series of created melodramas with accompanying anxieties and the imminent apprehension of failure.

No reality show is complete without the backroom drama, as "Dancing With the Stars," illustrates through the elaborate process of trying to turn someone quite ordinary (in some respects) into the surprisingly gifted (the Pygmalion moment, the alchemy of transformation). Can you really make this person rhumba? Can he or she be trained to be a cook or a business executive (or an expert on foreign affairs)? We were all on pins and needles to see if this process would work with Sarah.

My mind drifted to one of my favorite shows I never watched in entirety: "Ladette to Lady," the story of a group of relatively inexperienced young women,who are given an old-fashioned five-week course in learning how to behave like a real lady. They are sent to Eggleston Hall, an English finishing school.

There was a lot of Ladette to Lady in the Palin tale, though Palin was not a Ladette, by any stretch. And the Republican National Committee wasn't Eggleston.

You could say that this wasn't a real reality show because it didn't have the panel of judges requisite in some versions. But I think of that curious crew of indifferent panelists Wolf Blitzer oddly and unrealistically named "the best political team on television." They could just as well have had cards and numbers; and Sarah (holding Todd's hand tightly) might have been seen on camera -- like frightened ice-skaters -- waiting for the results in an isolated room.

Zala Volcic, a Slovenian now living in Brisbane spoke, at the Annenberg conference (part of Professor Barbie Zelizer's Annenberg Scholars Program in Culture and Communications Program) about That's Me, a Big Brother style Balkan reality TV show which mixed roommates from all over the former Yugoslavia. The show was designed to "negotiate the struggles among religious, ethnic and national groups that still plague the region." That's Me was supposed to smooth conflict, and did not necessarily succeed. This was reality show as social engineering. Think Palin: The Message, energizing the base.

There was much talk at the Annenberg workshop about "parenting" as a persistent theme in reality shows. Mark Anthony Neal, the Duke scholar of hip-hop, gave an exuberant talk on Snoop Dog and his program called "Fatherhood." There and on so many other shows, the fragile nature of parenting--and the possibility of failing and the complexities of succeeding--were tracked.

Of course, the Sarah candidacy--right out of the box--was about mothering in American society--mothering and having a career, mothering and the extraordinary decisions about a child with Downs Syndrome, parenting and an unmarried daughter who discovers pregnancy--it goes on and on.

Much of reality television scholarship is about voting habits of the committed viewers. Stephen Coleman (Leeds), the guru of Big Brother voting, has concluded that there's not a gulf between those who vote in "real" elections and those who vote in "reality" elections. Aswin Punathambekar of the University of Michigan probably had a slightly different view. He spoke, movingly, about the temporarily intense political activity and rampant mobile phone voting in North-East India for the Indian Idol candidacy of Amit Paul.

And then, of course, there were the clothes. Palin and her relationship to clothing is Reality TV writ large. It's the epitome of the "makeover" story. One can think of the RNC operatives as channeling "What Not to Wear", the British show with Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine, even including those choice bits of surveillance where Trinny and Susannah view videos of the poor subject.

It's a small and maybe obvious epiphany--The Palin campaign as all reality shows rolled into one. The Annenberg conference luxuriated in phrases that resonated with the campaign like "cult of the commonplace." But mostly, it was interesting to see, through the Reality TV Show lens, what the Republicans -- McCain and Palin's handlers or the audiences reacting to her so enthusiastically -- were actually doing, thinking and reflecting this summer and fall.

Arianna Huffington: The Winners and Losers of Campaign '08

2008-11-06T15:57:33Z

WINNERS:

The Davids - Axelrod and Plouffe: they spearheaded a near flawless campaign.

Katie Couric: her multi-part interview with Sarah Palin was the turning point in how the country saw Palin -- and by extension John McCain. And she did it in a way that left no room for accusations of being unfair or playing "Gotcha!"

Colin Powell, Scott McClellan, Ken Adelman, Chris Buckley, Kenneth Duberstein, et al: crossing party lines to endorse the eventual winner can't hurt the rep.

Saturday Night Live: went from "Is that still on?" to Must See TV (or, at least, Must See on YouTubeTV)

Tina Fey: her take on Palin was pitch perfect; a comedy mugging for the ages. And with Palin's obvious weight loss during the campaign, she ended up looking more and more like her 30 Rock doppelganger.

Sarah Palin: lost an election but there has to be a reality show in her future.

Michelle Obama: smarts, grace, style, charm, and a serious "good mommy" vibe -- she's got the whole package.

The View: went from gal chat to political headline maker.

MSNBC: Keith, Rachel, Chris... they sent a collective tingle went up the leg of progressive viewers everywhere.

The Internet: click here.

LOSERS:

Joe Lieberman: failed to deliver Democrats, independents, or Jews. And on the way to losing his committee chairmanships.

Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Dick Morris, and hate-mongers everywhere: the stink didn't stick to Obama but it stuck to them.

Bill Clinton: it's gonna take a lot of work to repair the rep.

John McCain: see Bill Clinton.

Liddy Dole: see Clinton and McCain. Her "Godless" ad will be taught in What Not To Do poli sci classes for a century.

George W. Bush: the repudiation of his presidency was overwhelming and across-the-board.

The Republican Party: the emptiness of its philosophic underpinnings was exposed for all to see.

Joe the Plumber: the clock just hit 15 minutes, and the wakeup call will not be pleasant. Joe the Plumber, meet Clara Peller ("Where's the beef?!").

Okay, these are my picks... what are yours? Please post your winners and losers in the comments section below.

If you are in the San Francisco area, I will be speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit on Friday, November 7th.

McClellan Endorses Obama

2008-10-23T18:45:12Z

NEW YORK — Scott McClellan, President Bush's former press secretary, says he is backing Barack Obama for president.

McClellan made the endorsement during a taping of Comedian D.L. Hughley's new show that is premiering on CNN this weekend. The former Bush administration official said he wanted to support the candidate that has the best chance for changing the way Washington works and getting things done.

Michael Seitzman: Ellen Degeneres Is Married. And I Don't Care.

2008-10-22T18:27:51Z

I saw a clip of Ellen Degeneres today, so upset she had trouble catching her breath. Why was she so upset? Because the vice presidential candidate of the party of small government, of states rights, of "getting government out of your way," thinks that defining marriage is more important than that all-important issue of abortion. That's right, Sarah Palin has said that abortion should be decided at the state level, but apparently the definition of marriage is so important that it requires that the United States Congress rewrite the Constitution.

I don't know Ellen, I've never met Ellen, I don't even watch Ellen. One of the things I do know about Ellen is that she's married. Ellen fell in love with another human being and she promised to love, honor and cherish that human being for the rest of her life. I'm very happy for her. Thrilled for her, in fact. But, mostly, I don't care. It doesn't change my life one bit. Not at all. It certainly doesn't change the way I feel about my wife or my marriage. And that's exactly how it should be.

There is not a culture on earth, not a culture in history that hasn't created and replicated an elaborate celebration for marriage. We use traditional vows or we write our own, we have bridesmaids and groomsmen, we use priests or rabbis or clerics or our college roommate ordained for a dollar on the internet. We arrive by limo, parachute and elephant. We dance in circles, sing in ancient languages, and throw bouquets. We embarrass ourselves silly and we love every minute of it. And why? Why do we do it? Why do we create so much hoopla over two people promising to love each other? Because, like ducks and wolves and lions, we are creatures who mate for life. Because we know how rare love is, how hard it is to find someone who we can love and who loves us back, and because most of us are such a pain in the ass to live with that the mere fact that anyone is willing to put up with us deserves a party.

Maybe sometimes this marriage thing doesn't work out, but the mere hope that it will, the mere assumption that it could, brings us back every time. We stream into our churches and synagogues, mosques and cathedrals to watch the people we love shout it at the top of their lungs. And let me tell you this, if you love someone enough to pledge your devotion to them until the end of time in front of everyone that means anything to you, then there is only one thing the rest of us should do. Applaud.

We shouldn't be deciding who can and who can't be in love, who can and who can't declare their love before their God, and who can and can't declare their love before their society and their government. Love is too rare to limit it, too elusive to rein it in, and too important to want to.

And for you Californians, VOTE NO ON PROP 8.

Alaska Funded Palin Kids' Travel

2008-10-21T22:01:19Z

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin charged the state for her children to travel with her, including to events where they were not invited, and later amended expense reports to specify that they were on official business.

The charges included costs for hotel and commercial flights for three daughters to join Palin to watch their father in a snowmobile race, and a trip to New York, where the governor attended a five-hour conference and stayed with 17-year-old Bristol for five days and four nights in a luxury hotel.

Palin And Husband Will Meet With Troopergate Investigator This Week

2008-10-19T23:34:52Z

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her husband will meet this week with an investigator determining whether she violated state ethics law when firing her public safety director.

Thomas Van Flein, the attorney for both Sarah and Todd Palin, said Sunday the separate depositions by an attorney for the Alaska Personnel Board will be held out of state. The investigator, Timothy Petumenos, will fly to meet the Palins.

Disgrasian: Palin Likens Her Supporters to the Worst Fans in Baseball

2008-10-09T12:28:51Z

As if I needed one more reason to loathe Sarah Palin, here's another: she likened the Republican presidential ticket to the Tampa Bay Rays Tuesday in Jacksonville, FL, saying in her distinctive Alaskanasal, "The people in this area know a little something about turning an underdog into a victor, and we're counting on you to help us do that November 4."

(The Rays -- who dropped the "Devil" from their name this year -- had their first winning season in their eleven-year history in '08 and are moving on to the American League Championship Series to face my Sox, last year's World Series champs.)

But, you know, sports allegiances aside, Palin may have a point. Tampa Bay has the second-lowest payroll in Major League Baseball, and the other teams remaining in the playoffs have spent two to three times the money that they have. And they've only ever finished out of last place twice in team history. So they are underdogs. And, like Palin, the Rays are young, as a franchise and in terms of the average age of their starting line-up.

Although I wonder if Palin would be so quick to compare her ticket and its supporters to the Tampa Bay Rays and their fans if someone had actually briefed her on the fact that the ray have the shittiest fans in baseball. Last month, when Tampa Bay held the best record in the bigs, their fans turned out in record-low numbers. Typically, there are as many fans rooting for the opposing team at Tropicana Field as there are fans root-root-rooting for the home team. And that's when there are fans attending at all; the Rays rank a dismal 26th among 30 teams in fan attendance, averaging crowds of 21,459 in a 36,048-seat stadium. As a point of comparison, the Red Sox have sold out every home game since 2003 and Fenway is already sold out for next season.

So, if this is the kind of support Palin is "counting on" to make her and McCain "victors" in November, all I can say is, Bless her stupid heart.

Watch the full clip here:

Susan Straight: Palin et al: Please Talk About Corn

2008-09-16T16:25:34Z

On Friday night, Sarah Palin appeared on television as part of her interview series with Charles Gibson. I finally sat down to watch this woman, who is said to represent an average mother, like me. But since my youngest was having her thirteenth birthday party, three teenage girls watched with me. It was not pretty.
"So, wait - she doesn't have to actually answer the question?" one said, when Ms. Palin repeatedly deflected Gibson's queries. "We always have to answer the question."
"Wait - people actually want to wear their hair like that?" another girl said. "How do you get it to puff up like that?"
My daughter looked at me and we both burst out laughing. "Jackie Kennedy's hair is just naturally stiff," she said. We were both remembering the line of one of our favorite screen moms - John Travolta as the mother in Hairspray, refusing to believe that hairspray was necessary for a First Lady beehive.
But after we were done laughing, I waited. I waited for Governor Palin to say anything new and substantial, to offer specifics on the economy, especially, since she's a fellow mom. On Saturday, as she campaigned in Nevada, I couldn't believe she was still talking about the plane and the bridge. And today, in Denver, it is still the same plane, the same bridge, and the same old story. Her.
All I can say - as a single mother of three teenagers who has no plane, not much lipstick, and no moose - is that I wish she'd talk about corn.
Because I went to the store this week and peanut butter was $7. Not a huge industrial size. Not anything special or organic. It was Jif, Creamy, ordinary size. The kind I've been buying for nineteen years, since my first kid was born.
A loaf of ordinary bread was $3.29. Milk was $3.99. And Wesson corn oil - the most ordinary thing, the one we use to fry fish for tacos - was $6.99.
I almost cried. A woman in front of me was actually teary eyed. She had four kids. She looked at the five magazine covers near the checkout with Sarah Palin on the cover and shook her head. "Those glasses. I wonder how much they cost," she said.
I realized the story is still solely about Palin, her life, her clothes, her family, and not really about the rest of us at all.

**

We have some striking parallels, as American women. I'm 47; she's 44. She married her high school sweetheart, who was a basketball player; I married my high school sweetheart, who was a basketball player (though I met him in junior high, which is often embarrassing and parochial to admit). She has three daughters, and so do I. Two of hers are 17 and 14 year; two of mine are 17 and 13.
I probably beat her on municipal loyalty, though - I live three blocks from the hospital where I was born.
But I'm not a hockey mom. I live in southern California, where yesterday it was still 102 degrees here in Riverside. We don't have much ice. I've been a basketball mom - including administrative booster club jobs - for nine years. I've been a PTA mom and a school volunteer.
I also work every day, and after twenty years of teaching at the same university, I have pretty good hours - usually 9-3. So I'm the mom whose house kids come to early, before school, and stay late, after school. I have a foot in so many camps I feel like a centipede. A centipede who goes through three to four loaves of bread a week, with all those kids around. And a lot of peanut butter.
Look - among mothers like me, it's not always a good thing to trumpet how being a PTA mom prepared someone for political office. Some PTA moms have been nice to us. But many have been the kind who made us feel like we were never doing enough, and two in particular ruined the budget and camaraderie of my local elementary school. They are still famous in my neighborhood for making other mothers cry. The meaner one ran for city council here, immediately after her tenure. She lost.

**

I saw parts of Governor Palin's first, historic speech, the one that was supposed to make me feel as if she represented me. It was a Wednesday night, remember? I was spraying weeds outside, and hanging up laundry, and came in periodically to check the screen. People were saying a lot about Palin's family, and her clothes. I sprayed more weeds and came in, finished, to wash my hands.
My seventeen-year-old daughter sat on the couch, doing homework. My thirteen-year-old was beside her, doing homework.
I stood and stared at the screen. Palin was talking about being a hockey mom, selling a plane, getting rid of a driver and a chef, and saying no thanks to a bridge. OK. Not much to relate to for me. She made me feel a little small. I liked her jacket, though.
In that perfectly deadpan voice of a seventeen year old, my daughter said, "I thought she was supposed to be hot."
Ouch. I am the usual recipient of that withering tone.
But then she said, "Are those her kids? Is that her older daughter?"
Yes.
"Shouldn't they be in school? It's Wednesday. Isn't she a senior?"
My thirteen-year-old said, "Is that her youngest daughter?"
Yes.
"Isn't it - like, eleven at night there? And she has to hold the baby? She must be tired. And isn't she missing school, too?"
That was the sole extent of their comments.
But I realized all we were hearing about was Palin - her family, her life, and her story. And that's all we've continued to hear about. Her story, and little else. Nobody's talking about corn, or college, or immigration, or desperation.

**

On Sunday, I taught early morning Sunday School, and only had three little girls. One was visiting our church, so I asked about her family. She told me she had five brothers and sisters, and she was staying with one of our church families.
Before service, I talked to my friend S, whose son just had shoulder surgery, whose husband remains out of work after applying for five different teaching jobs. She had taken in the little girl, whose father was losing his small three-bedroom house that weekend, unable to make the payments. He, his wife, his own mother, and all six kids had to find an apartment to rent.
This is how things are for so many of us.
I asked S if she'd seen Governor Palin's speech, or subsequent interviews, and she laughed. "When would I have done that?" she said. "We've been crazy at my house, just trying to keep up."
Not a single one of my women friends - all mothers - have heard any of the speeches or interviews. At work, my friend N, an academic advisor, said, "Speech? I have a 102 fever and I'm still coming in because we're so shorthanded. I was asleep last night."
My kids' godmother, D, who is an accountant in Pennsylvania, said, "Speech? I worked really late, and then the Baltimore office called with some crisis. By the time that was over, I watched Bones."
I called my friend T, a supervisor at the IRS, who laughed. "Watch that? Girl, I had so much to do after work I wasn't even home yet."
At the post office, my friend Y, who works the counter, frowned and looked puzzled. "Oh, that. We're shortstaffed this week, so I had to work til 8. And my daughter has an early class, so I went straight to bed."
At the grocery store, my friend L, a checker, rolled her eyes at me. "Susan, I've been working swing shift for so long, I don't know when I've watched TV. Please."
But my neighbor watched part of Palin's speech, including her statement that parents of disabled children would have a voice in Washington. "She doesn't speak for me," she said vehemently. "She doesn't live anything like we do." S and her husband are in dire straits. The California budget stalemate means that her husband, a principal at our local adult school, had no job all summer. The school was closed, for the first time in its history (depriving low income youth, dropouts, and non-native speakers their chance at classes, by the way). And S, whose nineteen-year-old son has severe autism, hasn't been away from him for more than a few hours for months, since he doesn't qualify anymore for respite care or even a social worker.
My eldest daughter hasn't watched any of it, which surprised me, since she's usually obsessed with politics, as a History and African American studies major at a college in Ohio. "Who has time to sit in front of the TV like that?" she said when she called. She'd had a meeting about her tutoring project, where she helps junior high kids with history twice a week. She's excited about Teach America all of a sudden. Her college was the first to admit African-Americans, and to admit women. Social causes and community service are passions for most students. Instead, she talked about JFK's politics, having been obsessed with that presidency for years.
When I hung up, I remembered that Barack Obama's campaign talked about community service for tuition credit, among other things. College costs have spiraled out of reach for nearly every parent I know. No one seems to be paying attention to the fact that National Direct Student Loans, which were underwritten by the federal government for decades and sent me, my ex-husband, and countless others to college, were eliminated under Republican administration years ago. Most grants are gone, too. Now, my daughter is offered a high-interest private loan, and she has no choice but to take that. I started a college fund for each child when she was born, but given today's stock market free-fall, I nearly cried today when I realized how much her fund lost today, and her tuition bill is due in two weeks.
Scholarships and tuition credit are the only way many American will be able to send kids for higher education. I'll have two in college next year, and one in high school. The thought brings me to my knees at night, when I pray - yes, I pray, as a Methodist, which seems to be a distinctly unglamorous denomination these days.
(Apparently "end of days" is a major tenet of Sarah Palin's evangelical faith, but I can't quite bring myself to imagine that my three daughters - the fervent loves of my life - wouldn't have this world to live in. I won't think that way. Why work for Teach America and to make the world a better place if it will be gone in thirty years? My kids and I just do stuff like rebuild houses in Gulfport and raise money for Heifer Project. Pretty dull, in comparison.)
Last week I wanted Governor Palin, and everyone else, to talk about rising college costs - and corn. Corn meaning ethanol and crops and even food shortages around the world. Immigration. And maybe someone could pay attention to the fact that here, in California, we still have no budget. One of my students came by Friday - he's worried, as they all are, because no one can be offered a teaching position until the budget is passed, and classes start next week. My neighbors are suffering. This is a county with one of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation, and the highest gas prices.
And peanut butter is $7. I didn't have a coupon.
But Saturday she said it again. The plane, the bridge. I don't care about the plane. My van is fourteen years old. I don't care about the lipstick - be serious. I don't care about the moose. We have five chickens, because we like having the eggs, along with fertilizer for my vegetable garden, and they're eating table scraps because chicken feed has gone up so high. That's cracked corn.
We don't have moose at our grocery store, so I don't care if she shoots one.
The moose and plane and bridge are autobiography, and ego. This cannot be the only story, because times are too hard for that.
Very soon, I hope we can talk about something beyond the autobiography of Sarah Palin. (The per-diem story, where she got paid to stay in her own house, was appallingly funny, though. I can't imagine someone paying me to stay here, on my block where the aircraft is the police helicopter, in my house with all these animals and kids and the bathroom to clean.)
I hope tomorrow someone talks about corn.

Susan Straight's most recent novels are about motherhood - Highwire Moon about an American foster mother and a Mexican immigrant mother, and A Million Nightingales about a freed slave who must buy her own son.

Wayne Besen: Rick Warren's Carnival of Confession

2008-08-20T14:46:19Z

The Washington pundits who brought us George W. Bush's presidency and the Iraq fiasco have reached a consensus that John McCain came across as "more presidential" at mega church pastor Rick Warren's faith forum. This conclusion is true if we are still defining "presidential" as a cocksure windbag who bonds with the common people by pandering to the lowest common denominator.

On cue, the media judged the candidates by how fun they'd be at a barbecue. McCain was lauded as a "commanding figure" while Obama was derided for coming across as "professorial." In today's politics, if you demonstrate your I.Q. your career may be through and a candidate can now admit having smoked marijuana, but not that he has experimented with arugula.

In 2000, the media gave Bush an easy ride because he was affable, but have learned nothing after his presidency turned out to be laughable. We watched Bush strut in his flight suit on an aircraft carrier with a gigantic banner claiming "Mission Accomplished." When it was clear that the mission had hardly begun, Bush thumped his chest and challenged the insurgents to "bring it on." Well, they obliged and now thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis are dead.

After nearly eight years of alienating the world with cowboy diplomacy, the media portrays Obama's tendency to be humble as a political stumble. Meanwhile, McCain talks tough to the Russians as they continue to rush into Georgia. At the forum, without hesitation he said he is going to defeat evil. But how does he plan to make good on his shallow sound bite with our military tied up in Iraq and our economy on the rocks?

Vladimir Putin has shrugged off the McCain crowd, essentially saying, "You and what army is going to stop us?" McCain must be acting like a galloping stallion because he knows of secret battalions that can be called on to defends the budding democracies in the Caucasus region.

At the forum, McCain also got a big hand by vowing to continue Bush's policy of ensuring that tycoons can live nearly tax free. Such economic policies combined with Republican deregulation have sold out our country and helped fuel the rise of China -- which not only has more gold medals, but owns much of America's gold. Perhaps, McCain remains so bubbly and blissfully unaware of the housing bubble because he has several million-dollar homes. Yet, the media still builds him up as the common man ready to storm the gates, even though he has more in common with Bill Gates.

Of course, the enablers of America's decline are Evangelical Christians who eschew their economic interests in favor of their bizarre moral fetishes. This penchant for the puritanical was exemplified by Warren's voyeuristic question asking each candidate, "What would be the greatest moral failure in your life."

Predictably, this carnival of confession and moral spectacle accomplished nothing and failed to reveal any juicy new "sins" that were not already on public record. Fresh from discussing the implosion of his marriage -- a huge biblical abomination -- McCain spoke out against gay people marrying. In the backdrop of this event was a low level controversy where Jonathan Crutchley, the co-founder of the gay cruising site Man Hunt, gave a $2,300 donation to McCain. This was odd, considering McCain reconfirmed at the forum that he favored Supreme Court judges who had cast votes to outlaw sodomy -- the very Man Hunt product that had made Crutchley rich.

Horrified, the other Man Hunt co-founder, Larry Basile, pressured Crutchley to resign as chairman of the company. While Crutchly has been reined in, a new Harris Poll shows that Obama has only 68-percent of the GLBT vote.

Sadly, 2008 is looking much like the last two elections, where a compliant media joins forces with chest thumping evangelicals and closeted homosexuals to further degrade America's greatness. If McCain is inaugurated, we will all be invited to the barbecue on his million-dollar Arizona ranch, blissfully unaware that our future is the roasting pig with a rotten apple sticking out of its bloated mouth.

Of course, the further we sink into irrelevancy, the more faith forums we will see -- even as the rest of the world loses faith in our ability to lead the world. While Rick Warren is an improvement over Focus on the Family's James Dobson, he must teach evangelicals there is a better way than the selfishness of modern conservatism, or it will go down as his biggest moral failure.

Scott McClellan To Obama: Don't Investigate Us

2008-08-20T09:30:14Z

There may not be second acts in America, but White House-press-secretary-turned-best-selling-memoirist Scott McClellan is looking for a third. ...

And yet, when asked what advice he would give to a President Barack Obama or Democratic Congress on the matter of handling former Bush officials, McClellan speaks now of the perils of probing the past.

"If Obama were to win," he said last week, "that would be an issue his administration would have to face early ... because he's pledging to be a uniter, not a divider -- without saying those exact words we campaigned on in 2000. He's pledging to change the way Washington works, and if Congress were to pursue that, it would be very divisive."

He continued: "That could be very problematic for his presidency right off the start."

Steve Clemons: Wrong...Wrong...Wrong: Obama Lets Muslim Advisor Resign

2008-08-06T12:09:18Z

Will anyone notice? Barack Obama's team just threw its key Muslim advisor under the bus.

Barack Obama needs to make a statement loudly, clearly, and with passion that he embraces Muslims as much as any other Americans of Christian, Buddhist, Jewish or other religious persuasions. It wouldn't hurt for him to embrace devout secularists like me for that matter.

But I'm irritated and saddened by news that Barack Obama's Muslim-outreach coordinator, Mazen Asbahi, has resigned "amid questions about his 'involvement' in an Islamic investment fund and various Islamic groups."

Let's tally up Obama's Muslim outreach record:

~ Obama campaign apparatchiks ask young Muslim women not to stand in photo with Obama because of head scarves (Obama campaign later apologizes).

~ Barack Obama gives AIPAC speech that manages to run to the right of President Bush and Israel Prime Minister Ohlmert in demanding that "Jerusalem must not be divided." (Obama later recants after the fact)

~ Barack Obama not only terminates Middle East advisor Robert Malley from his team because of Malley's views that Hamas should be engaged -- but his spokesman, Bill Burton, states that not only is Rob Malley no longer advising Obama "but will never advise Obama." That's running the bus over someone and then backing it up to make sure that Malley doesn't survive and has no chance in an Obama administration. I like to remind folks that Paul Volcker and Ted Sorensen signed the same letter Malley did but have thus far missed the campaign guillotine.

~ Barack Obama gives an inspirational speech to more than 200,000 Germans in Berlin calling for a "World Without Walls." But Obama is silent in Israel when it is the wall dividing Israelis and Palestinians that is becoming an increasingly worse and impactful global ulcer.

~ Barack Obama spends 30 plus hours in Israel and 45 minutes in Ramallah during his recent trip and meets many Iraelis who have been pro-settilement expansion, solidly violating international law and US policy. Some on Obama's advisory team turn a blind eye to Israel's expanding settlements and continue to be associated with and meet with settlement zealots -- but Obama keeps ALL of these people on his team.

~ Barack Obama accepts the resignation of a mainstream Arab-American lawyer from his advisory team because eight years ago, Mazen Asbahi served on a board "for a few weeks" that included a muslim fundamentalist imam from Illinois. Asbahi resigned from the board. . .eight years ago.

What? Wait? Obama has had a many years long relationship with Jeremiah Wright -- and sat on a board with William Ayers -- NEITHER of which I think are disqualifiers for Obama's candidacy... and yet Obama's political team and Obama himself did not demand from Asbahi that he stay on the team, stand his ground, and fight back against the vile right-wing hit on him and his credibility?!

I think that this is outrageous -- and those on the left who appreciate Obama and what he may mean for this country must become as tenaciously committed to what is right and what is good -- and fighting for that -- because those on the other side of these debates are trying to compel Obama to dilute himself.

Zalmay Khalilzad is an effective and popular MUSLIM Ambassador of the United States to the United Nations. We need more Muslims in our diplomatic corps. We need Muslims on the Supreme Court. We need more Muslims like Keith Ellison in the US Senate and House of Representatives.

Obama should say it. Convince the American public that he's not setting up a zero sum game between Muslims on one side and Christians and Jews on the other.

Obama is a Christian. I get that. I'm a secularist hard core -- but I won't stand by to watch more good people be flushed down the political drain because they are Muslims trying to work for a balanced and level playing field in America.

This resignation by Asbahi stinks -- and Obama and his team should immediately call him back and help him stand up to anti-Muslimism in America.

-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note

Linda Milazzo: CNN Anchor Slams Impeachment as "Kabuki Theatre"

2008-07-30T10:24:23Z

Those familiar with cable news television understand that several programs -- even entire networks -- broadcast from a particular bias. Keith Olbermann's Countdown on MSNBC is left leaning, as is Dan Abrams' Verdict. Olbermann has become famous for his highly crafted "Special Comments" which take aim at conservatives from George W. Bush to Rudolf Giuliani. CNN has Glenn Beck and Lou Dobbs -- both of whom use vitriol to attack various factions of the political world. Beck goes after so-called liberals. Dobbs is an equal opportunity attacker who assaults the Bush administration, members of Congress and ethnic groups from his prejudiced perspective. FOX has an entire network, with anchors like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, who routinely lambaste the left. Each of these pundits, or performers, are known for their ideological leanings. Those who watch their programs do so presupposing the bias they will see.

Until recently, it had seemed that most of the clearly biased shows on cable news television had been publicly outed as leaning left or leaning right. But on Friday, viewers learned there was yet another conservative Republican show, as vitriolic as FOX, airing nightly on CNN. That show is Election Center, hosted by former NBC performer, Campbell Brown. Election Center, which began airing last January with original anchor John Roberts, is billed as "the network's daily examination of news from the campaign trail that combines CNN's unrivaled field reporting and analysis with state-of-the-art broadcasting technology."

It might be that providing "unrivaled reporting and analysis" was the original intent of CNN when Election Center first aired with John Roberts. Roberts doesn't conflate reporting with agenda. However, CNN chose a less balanced and more ideological path for the show when it brought on conservative Bush supporter, Campbell Brown, as Election Center's new anchor. If Brown's conservative leanings weren't all that obvious in the beginning, that all changed on Friday when Brown and CNN Headline News anchor, Erica Hill, virulently mocked the House Judiciary Committee for holding a hearing on impeachment. After Brown and Hill's searing attack on the Democrats, any sense of legitimacy Brown had tried to muster instantly fell away. Because of Brown and Hill's over-the-top trashing of the Congressional impeachment hearing, CNN's Election Center has devolved into the lowest form of "spin." It's lost all credibility.

Witness for yourselves -- in video (above) and in text (below) the slanted performance by CNN anchors, Brown and Hill, on a show that advertises its "unrivaled field reporting and analysis":

C. Brown: You might have thought there was big news on Capitol Hill today. Democrats were talking about impeaching the president. But actually it was all just stagecraft. And Erica Hill is here. Tell us about this piece of Kabuki theatre, Erica.

E. Hill: Oh and Campbell, theatre it was. Today's House Judiciary Committee Hearing was officially billed as "an examination of executive power and its constitutional limitations." And from the beginning it was pretty clear this was all just stagecraft in what one Republican lawmaker deemed impeachment light. The Democratic leadership made it clear impeachment is not on the table at this hearing today for two reasons: not only is there not enough time left in President Bush's term but also they know any impeachment hearings at this point could cause a major backlash against the Party come November. So if you can't impeach, why not vent? And that is exactly what they did. Take a listen.

(Democratic Congress members denounce George W. Bush. Erica Hill mocks rules established for the Hearing...)

C. Brown: (giggling) Oooh that's a good one. Who knew? Alright so this is really just stagecraft -- not to mention a real waste of taxpayer money and Congress' time.

E. Hill: (mocking) A waste of our money?

C. Brown: Did any Republicans even bother to show up for it?

E. Hill: Actually a few did. Most Republican lawmakers boycotted the hearing but a few were there and those who did attend as you can imagine were downright disgusted.

(...Republican Congressmen Lamar Smith and Trent Franks denounce Democrats and the Hearing...)

E. Hill: Well it turns out Representative Lamar Smith was right. There was no impeachment hearing that came out of it. As for the President today -- clearly not too worried about this Hearing. He was in Peoria, Illinois, as you can see here -- kissin' babies, smilin' -- taking pictures -- not a care in the world. Check out that guy [a baby pictured with President Bush] with his little shades on. Cute.

C. Brown: Cute baby.

E. Hill: I can't get my kid to wear them.

C. Brown: (approving hand gesture and smile) And there's the President. Good stuff tonight! Erica Hill -- as always, thanks.

In some instances in broadcast journalism -- or in what passes for broadcast journalism -- there is room for interpretation. But in this high-pitched giddy exchange between Brown and Hill, the bias is unmistakeable. They never offer the possibility that the Congressional Hearing is legitimate -- even though the Committee heard testimony from Constitutional scholars, renowned legal experts, and current and former members of Congress. They never offer that the People's business is being addressed or that there exists a Constitutional mandate for the Legislative Branch to assess and monitor the deeds and acts of the Executive. In their ideological disposal of the rule of law, Brown and Hill use the CNN pulpit to dissuade viewers from any real understanding of what the Hearing was addressing and why Democrats, and some Republicans, believed the Hearing should be held.

Where was the journalism? Where was the reporting and analysis? Do pejoratives like "stagecraft," "Kabuki theatre," and "a waste of taxpayer money" rise to constructive criticism for CNN?

To those who monitor cable news television and the personalities it employs, the fact that Campbell Brown is a Republican is no revelation. She's married to FOX News contributor, Dan Senor, who also served as spokesman for George W. Bush's failed Coalition Provisional Authority, which early on controlled and mismanaged Iraq. Senor was also George W. Bush's Deputy Press Secretary under Scott McClellan. He is currently a founding partner of the global investment group, Rosemont Capital, and a former investment professional at the Carlyle Group -- along with George Herbert Walker Bush, James Baker, and other prominent Republicans. Dan Senor is a high power player in conservative Republican politics and in the world of global finance. While Senor's wife, Campbell Brown, doesn't lay public claim to being a conservative Republican, her ideological bent is clear to those who watch her perform. But after Friday's performance with Erica Hill, Mrs. Brown-Senor's Republican agenda will be crystal clear to all.

The harm Brown and Hill caused on Friday by not honestly informing their viewers of what was truly going on in the Judiciary Committee hearing is shameful proof of cable news' dereliction and wanton abuse of the public's airwaves. For me, these abuses of broadcast privileges by depriving the public of its 'right to know' are tantamount to crime. As for CNN, its self-exaltation as the "most trusted name in news" is as much an assault on reality as FOX's claim of "fair and balanced." Broadcast journalism has hit an all time low.

For those who believe as I do that Campbell Brown knowingly and wantonly went beyond the bounds of legitimate journalism and should be removed as host of Election Center, please email CNN as quickly as possible at the following addresses:

CNN Election Center:
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form4.html?125

CNN Anderson Cooper 360:
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?10

Bill O'Reilly Gets Apology From Scott McClellan (VIDEO)

2008-07-30T09:49:06Z

Former White House Press Secretary said recently that the Bush administration fed talking points to Fox News. O'Reilly knows for a fact that this can't possibly be true, so he called McClellan a liar. McClellan actually apologized, but O'Reilly stuck to his principles and refused to make nice. Keith Olbermann analyzes:

Bill O'Reilly Takes On Scott McClellan Over Talking Points Claim, McClellan Backs Down

2008-07-29T10:49:32Z

Update: Scott McClellan appeared on Bill O'Reilly's radio show to apologize for alleging that the White House fed him talking points (via ThinkProgress):

The truth is I messed up. I was specifically not trying to single anyone out, including you. But the way a couple of the questions were phrased in that interview along with my response left things open to interpretation and I should not have let that happen. ... I understand why you got upset. ... You're the Big Kahuna at Fox News, and some people tried to paint in a black and white term through a preconceived notion.

Listen (via Johnny Dollar):

Original Post: Bill O'Reilly took on Scott McClellan on Monday night's "O'Reilly Factor" over claims made last week on "Hardball" that McClellan and the Bush White House would funnel talking points to the Fox News host (and his colleague, Sean Hannity).

After calling McClellan a "liar" and an "idiot" on his radio show Monday, O'Reilly promised to have some fun with the former White House Press Secretary on his TV show that night.

"Scott McClellan continues to sell his book on NBC News," O'Reilly said. "The two look to be partners in this enterprise.

"I never once received a talking point from the White House, so McClellan is NOT TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT ME!" O'Reilly continued. "Should I be angry? Nah. But I have to call a lie a lie, especially because this garbage was picked up by CNN."

O'Reilly ended his rant with a bit of bravado, saying, "By the way, McClellan would never dare say that to my face."

Watch:

From Fox News, 7/28

Watch the full McClellan "Hardball" interview here:

Steve Young: Scott McClellan: White House Fed Fox News Talking Points

2008-07-26T09:16:06Z

"I've been here from the beginning, and have never seen a White House "talking points." -- And I don't know anyone else who's seen one either. I asked senior management if they have ever seen a White House talking points. No one had." Bill O'Reilly reacting to Dan Rather's accusation that FoxNews gets White House Talking Points. 12/06.

"There were (FOX) commentators and pundits who were useful to the White House." Former Bush White House Press Secretary, Scott McClellan, Hardball, 7/24/08

Talking Point: An idea which may or may not be factual, meant to provide the most effective attack to saturate discourse and frame a debate. When used politically, the purpose is to propagandize by continuous repetition within media outlets until accepted as fact.

Similar to how the Communist news outlet, Pravda, and Nazi propaganda chief, Josef Goebbels, offered information to the Folks™, Scott McClellan admitted that Bush White House used Fox commentators as their spokespeople feeding them what they wanted the Folks™ to believe. At least that's what Scott McClellan now has acknowledeged.

For those of you not as politically savvy as your typical FoxNews viewer, here's the technical way talking points work: The Bush White House told Fox News what to say and Fox News said it.

For example, let's say the Bush White House wanted to lead the Folks™ to believe that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9-11. They would send a note to Fox News and...READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE.

Steve Young blogs at steveyoungonpolitics.com