Latest Blogs
NY Times Can Keep A Secret After All
By now, you may have actually believed the typical NY Times line that they have to disclose everything, secret prisons, NSA tactics, interrogation tactics, because the public has the right to know everything and information has to be free, despite the risks it puts on our military or citizens. What you probably didn't know is that David Rohde, a NY Times reporter, had been held by kidnappers in…
Obama Speaks at Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner
President Obama spoke at the 65th Annual Radio and Television Correspondents Association Dinner Friday evening, and the guffaws from the crowd at times were funnier than his material.Of course, this wasn't surprising for as he noted early in his monologue, he was speaking in front of the very people who made him a celebrity.Yes, it was an evening filled with the President unashamedly talking…
Bloomberg's Unchallenging Obama Interview: No Mention of Cratering Col
Maybe reporters Brian Faler or Nicholas Johnston at Bloomberg asked Barack Obama some really challenging questions when they had a chance to interview the President at the White House. Maybe they even did some basic fact-checking. If so, there's precious little evidence of either in their June 16 report.They allowed the president to blame most of the current year's deficit on George W. Bush. They…
Joe Scarborough Conservative Bashing Book Tour Flops Bigtime
Updated below.Your humble correspondent feels obligated to warn you about the article you are about to see. It is a harsh but brutally honest review written by Brian Maloney of The Radio Equalizer about Joe Scarborough's new book, The Last Best Hope: Restoring Conservatism and America's Promise. Certain members of the reading audience may experience a strange tingling sensation while reading the…
Change You Can't Breathe In
Riding on a waning crest of bringing change to the United States and cleaning up the environment, Barack Obama is going head to head against Barbara Boxer on a big issue. There are 44 coal ash dumps that have been designated as a "high hazard" to the public. They contain arsenic and heavy metals from coal plants. Barbara Boxer has seen the list and wants to make it public, whereas Barack Obama…
BBC's Kay Denounces 'Demonizing' of Public Option as 'Some Sort of Ste
Sticking up for European socialism, Friday night on HBO's Real Time, BBC America's Katty Kay contended the “idea of demonizing” a “public option” for U.S. health care “as some sort of step toward socialism -- it just seems to me so out of touch with reality.” That's because “in Britain we have a purely public plan and even the Conservative Party calls it one of our great national treasures,”…
'Apparent' or 'Clear'? AFP Waters Down Iranian Diplomat's Statement On
Question: How do you water down the possible significance of a statement by an Iranian diplomat?Answer: Wait for an AFP journalist to revise a previous raw report.A short unbylined dispatch from the wire service reported that the diplomat "apparently misspoke" when he said that Iran has "the right to a nuclear weapon" not long after the incident occurred. (Dictionary.com tells us that "Used…
ABC Promises 'Tough Questions' for Obama in 'Television Event
Friday's World News carried a 15-second promo, the first I've seen, for Wednesday night's controversial prime time special, “Questions for the President: Prescription for America.” Over video of President Barack Obama, ABC exulted in how “Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer take you inside his house” for “a television event” where “President Obama answers all of your tough questions about your health…
Matthews: 'Reparations Make Sense
Does my headline bury the lede? On the one hand, it's catchy to hear Chris Matthews proclaim his belief that reparations for slavery "make sense." But in the grand scheme of things, one more liberal pundit coming out for reparations might be small potatoes. Perhaps the bigger story was the statement on this evening's Hardball by Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC). The former head of the Congressional…
Internal Friction at MSNBC? Joe Scarborough Cancels Appearance on Ed S
You could see this one coming."Morning Joe" co-host Joe Scarborough was due to appear on MSNBC colleague Ed Schultz's "The Ed Show" on Tuesday, in apparent reciprocity after Schultz was on "Morning Joe" that day.But Scarborough canceled his appearance, Schultz told a caller to his radio show Tuesday, with Schultz saying he wasn't sure why.Here's how Schultz described it after initially speaking…
Politico Writer Health Care Advice to Obama: Ignore CBO
Julian E. Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, wrote an incredibly bizarre article for Politico. He accurately declares that the biggest problem for the Obama administration's health care plan probably wouldn't be Republicans but the assessment by the Congressional Budget Office warning of a trillion dollar cost of the proposal. Zelizer's solution? Just…