Monday Open Thread
Are you ready for Monday? Are you ready for Thursday’s Drinking Liberally at the Homegrown Cafe?
Let’s talk about Faux News, since they can’t seem to stop talking about themselves. Faux deployed the blondes to whine about Faux News victimhood. There was the inexplicably popular Laura Ingraham on ABC’s This Week With George Stephanopolous:
Ingraham argued that “a lot of people are saying” that the Obama administration is more “impassioned about” Fox News than “other threats to the United States, whether economic threats or real threats, Islamic jihadists.”
Ingraham didn’t say who these “people” are who are “saying” this, but apparently, there are “a lot” of them. (When right-wing media personalities appear on mainstream outlets, they do this quite a bit — they don’t want to say crazy things on their own behalf, so they attribute nonsensical ideas to vague and undefined groups of “a lot of people,” who do not appear to exist in reality.)
Even Stephanopoulos seemed incredulous about the observation, saying, “You don’t believe that they’ve been softer on Islamic jihadists than they have on Fox News. Come on.” Ingraham, dropping the pretense of passing along the thoughts of “a lot of people,” insisted she hasn’t seen White House officials “talk about other real threats in the same coordinated and sophisticated way as they’re going after” Fox News.
John Podesta responded that Ingraham might be right “when the drones start flying over Fox News.”
Dana Perino and Chris Wallace had a wankfest on Fox News Sunday:
Former Bush press secretary Dana Perino sharply criticized the Obama administration’s tactics and expressed absolute shock at the example the United States was setting for “the free press in emerging democracies,” comparing the criticisms of Fox News to when “Hugo Chavez shuts down television stations”:
PERINO: That was a coordinated, calculated attack. It was unbecoming. And if you look at some of the coverage of what mainstream media covers when, for example, somebody like a Hugo Chavez shuts down television stations, he calls them illegitimate.
Now, I’m not suggesting that this White House believes that they are going to come over here and shut down Fox News. But they are defining a narrative in their first year, and it’s going to be very hard to recover from it. […]
Through our State Department, we are trying to help emerging democracies get journalists and government officials to talk to one another, because freedom of the press is essential to any democracy. Believe me, they are watching this, and they have — surely are raising questions.
Tags: Open Thread
The Christian Science Monitor has a good sketch of Abdullah Abdullah who is currently running for President of Afghanistan.
Ick Factor Alert
From Political Wire:
“Perhaps not the great love story that we hoped, but maybe a great love story nonetheless.”
— John Edwards, quoted by his wife Elizabeth in an interview with WJLA-TV.
In other news…
Harry Reid is holding a press conference today to announce the merged Senate bill. The WSJ says that it will include the opt-out public option. I guess that means they have dumped Snowe? Good, it’s ridiculous to tailor a bill to get one Senator’s support.
In the NJ governor’s race, there’s a new poll that gives Corzine a 9% lead over Christie.
Yes, that poll is an outlier, but as other polls come out later this week, we shall see.
Also, did everyone see Dan Pfieffer’s post on The White House Blog?
Yeah, the 3:15 press conference is where the rubber finally meets the road. If the opt-out is in the bill, and considering that the House bill is likely to have a robust public option, then we might actually get meaningful health insurance reform.
Without, I might add, much help from an overly-cautious White House. Wassup with that?
And, yes, I saw Dan Pfeiffer’s post. Talk about mustering up a decided lack of enthusiasm…
Still, if it gets done, plenty of praise to go around. Even for electorally-embattled Harry Reid.
I’m not sure what’s up with WH and the public option. I think Harry Reid knew that he needed a P.O. to help with his election chances back in Nevada.
Just a comment on the NJ Poll. That poll does look like an outlier.
However, in recent years, unpopular (and undistinguished) D’s have virtually always surged to leads as Election Day approaches. It is as if the polls give voters the opportunity to vent against the status quo but, when matched up against the Chris Christies of the world, they hold their collective noses and come home.
The fact that the D’s have switched to GOTV mode makes clear that they think they’ll win if D and R voter enthusiasm are roughly equal.
Man, what a time to be a NJ resident. 😥
– Corzine or Christie or Daggett 😥
– Rendell bends the River Authorities over and ACE slaps it balls on top of NJ (and DE for that matter) 😥
– NJ appears to be targeted to get the brunt of those dredging spoils 😥
– You have to pay a toll to leave the state by car 😥
Billy Carter Gas Station to become national historic site. h/t CQ Politics
Maybe I’ll point my pickup towards Plains and head on down thar to git me some of that Billy Beer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Beer
Thinking I will come as a token to symbolize my status among the DLers.
Of course, now that Mrs Smitty was told she has a meeting for the next stage production on Thursday night, I don’t know what the eff I will be doing.
Bring the kids. 😉
Hmm…I guess I could teach them to drive over the next couple of days.
I KID!!!
If that’s what you’re going for, Smitty, I looked for a Michael Steele mask, but couldn’t find one. On second thought, some might find it offensive. You know, you pretending to be a guy, pretending to be a black guy.
You don’t need to teach them everything. Just teach one how to use the wheel and another the pedals. You’ll be fine. Or fined.
As the mother of an approaching 16 year old, driver’s ed student… Scott, Smitty, wanna teach my son how to drive? 👿
You know, you pretending to be a guy…
I say, “damnnnnnnn…”
It’s always funny how you put voices (implied voices, I guess, since we are on a blog) with whatever image of a face/body your imagination creates and then, without fail almost every time, you are always shocked at the reality.
Last time I checked, I didn’t have a need to pretend to be a guy. Oh wait, hang on a second. Hmm…nope. Don’t need to pretend! 😀
Rule #1 — Everyone else on the road is an idiot.
Rule #2 — Yellow lights are for suckers.
Rule #3 — One hand to drive, one hand to text. Simple math.
Rule #4 — As far as Mom knows, you don’t mind not being the fastest car on the road.
Do I get the job? Luckily, I won’t have to worry about my daughter. She won’t have to drive until she’s in grad school and starts dating.
LOL! Grad school? Aiming high on all counts. Love it! Sigh, I remember the days I thought like you. BTW, you forgot… the left lane is mine, everyone else needs to move the eff over!
Sorry, Smitty, didn’t mean to impugn your manhood. Should have been “pretending to be a guy who is pretending to be …” Anyway, it’s just a joke, and not meant to be taken literally, like “Blessed are the cheesemakers.” (Sorry, spent all of last week watching the Monty Python documentary)
Also, I promise that’s the last reference I’ll ever make to your manhood.
Oh, please don’t promise that, Scott. Besides, Smitty is very secure. His wife is beautiful. He lives vicariously through that! 😉
Okay, Smitty’s cute too!
Wow, P. If she read this blog (hell, ANY blog), then you just may have a chance there for her to not go to her thing and green light me to go. Alas, she doesn’t read any blogs, so all that flattery just goes for naught…although I sure to hell appreciate it! 😉
Oh, and Scott, my manhood appreciates it, too!
Smitty, that’s what email is for. D’oh! I expect to see you Thursday.
Especially since Thursday is Free Beer for Smitty Day!
If I make it down, I’ll pitch in for a Free Beer for Smitty Day present. Now, what to get him. I don’t even know his size…
Large.
Sometimes one just has to slap their hand to their forehead and say, “WTF!” Apparently there is a controversy about this PSU football shirt looking like a cross reported by Faux News. Okay, not a controversy since only 6 complaints have been lodged about this shirt. Sometimes, I think Fox News just goes around looking to manufacture outrage.
So, all this conversation earlier about my manhood and Geek shouts out “Large.” Ah yes, timing is always everything.
TMI
TMI? Talk to Geek! I try to keep that stuff humble!
Thursday Drinking Liberally at the Homegrown Cafe? Cool.
Classic – “On the August 18 edition of Hannity, Frank Luntz explained to Sean Hannity that “If you call it a public option, the American people are split,” but “if you call it the government option, the public is overwhelmingly against it.” Hannity replied that “from now on, I’m going to call it the government option.”
Today Fox News started using that term in thier “news” reports.
RNC outreach to the miscegenists in their coalition.
Be sure to read the whole thing. Remember how MoveOn had the contestant video comparing Bush to Hitler up for a hot minute? Then withdrew it and fell all over themselves apologizing? The picture is not gone from the RNC website apparently, but anyone think that these guys might actually apologize?
Maybe it would just be easier to point out when Republicans aren’t racist bigots? Just sayin’
Pandora and Cassandra, you are mistaken. It’s just the act of a crank. Just like the watermelon email, the Jewish banker email, the great white hope comment, the “other dark meat” video, the 44 president email, the get over slavery comment, comparing Michelle Obama to a gorilla, taxing aspirin, the newsletter showing Obama surrounded by fried chicken and watermelons, and a congressman calling Obama “boy”. All of these are just oddities. It has nothing to do with being Republcian.
The Congressman who called Obama “uppity.” The portrait of the presidents that had Obama as only eyes.
UI, I thought about linking to all of these pieces of racist crap from Republicans, but I thought nah, they’ve already got enough play.
nemski,
You would have been busy all night.