NYT Column Gives Needed Perspective on Russert's Death
A column by David Carr at the front of today's NYT business section offers valuable perspective on the untimely passing of Tim Russert. In particular, it places his death in the broader context of the...
View ArticleCountdown with Keith Olbermann - July 29, 2008
It's 98 days until the election, and I realized this morning that I left a very important item off the "list" for male F.O.O. - a cod piece and/or athletic supporter. 'Nuff said!Last night, I alluded...
View ArticleCountdown with Keith Olbermann - July 30, 2008
It's 97 days until the general election, and today we were greeted with the news of Britney Spears & Paris Hilton in an anti - Obama ad, TurdBlossom held in contempt of Congress, but there won't be...
View Article"DH"ing for PastorDan Part Deux - Righteous (?) Anger
Thank you allSO MUCH for your support, kudos, & kind words last week & tonight. Next Sunday, we return you to your regularly scheduled "programming." :D
View ArticleThe Andreasen Files
MSNBC President Phil Griffin drinks Electric Kool-aid, selling out his Viewers to the RNC by Suz Andreasen, Spetember 9, 2008Dear MSNBC President Phil Griffin,Are you insane? Olbermann and Matthews are...
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My Katie Couric fantasy (with photos)
I woke up this morning in a sweat, the hot passionate images of Katie still filling my brain. Was it a dream? Or was it a blissful memory, suppressed but oh-so-real, just now bubbling to the surface of...
View ArticleRoosevelt's 1942 tax proposal and patriotism
In June of 2006 I did this post about Roosevelt's 1942 tax proposal.Given the back and forth regarding Biden's statement that it would be patriotic for wealthy Americans to chip in more to help our...
View ArticleThe Other Joe: McCain and Palin Resurrect McCarthy's Attacks
Just over fifty years ago, Joseph McCarthy attacked Edward R. Murrow with some of the exact same language that John McCain and Sarah Palin are using today to attack Barack Obama.In these chilling...
View ArticleUnAmerican & Proud of It! - Countdown with Keith Olbermann - Oct. 20, 2008
I know some of you here are big Family Guy fans, I am a HUGEFamily Guy fan - all 5'2" of me, & Keith Olbermann is an ENORMOUS (according to David Letterman, anyway) Family Guy fan. Last night's...
View ArticleObama Backs Delay for Digital TV Conversion
As a follow-on to Mangala's diary from earlier today, "Another ATTACK on the POOR: Digital TV Conversion", the New York Times is reporting the Obama team has quickly backed-up the advice of the...
View ArticleCountdown with Keith Olbermann - Mar. 9, 2009
We've got whiplashian (yep, made up that word) events for "this day in history." On one side, on this date in 2007, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller acknowledged the...
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Countdown with Keith Olbermann - Apr. 27, 2009
It's been 5 days since the Mannity offered to be waterboarded for an organization to help military families. I guess I can be charitable & assume the Mannity's been under a rock for a few days, so...
View ArticleYou probably think this song is about you
It's been a few months now since John Stewart's face-off with CNBC's Jim Cramer. We've moved on, of course, but that interview remains one of the best modern examples of a journalist effectively...
View ArticleUncle Walter Sometimes Stung
The main thing to remember about Walter Cronkite is not why he was beloved, but why he was hated.The media, by which people only started to mean "television" in the 1960s, did not do much to revivify...
View ArticleRIP Walter Cronkite, Rest In Peace
This will be kind of short, but I just want/need to say this.There was a time in my life where I wanted to be a journalist. In graduate school I got a grad assistance job for the Manship Chair at LSU....
View ArticleUncle Walter, We Hardly Knew Ye (w/poll)
http://www.cspan.org/... I did not see this diaried today, but C-Span has the Walter Cronkite memorial service on. These weird media days, wherein correspondents and talking heads tell us how we...
View ArticleHold Max Baucus Accountable c/o PCCC/DFA (with Action & Poll)
I'm sure many of you know about the ads that the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America have cobbled together to put pressure on key Senators (i.e. Ben Nelson, Charles...
View ArticleCheney Certainly Didn't 'Dither' During Vietnam - He Hauled Ass
BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREECheney Certainly Didn't 'Dither' During Vietnam - He Hauled AssWhere is Dick Cheney's shame? And where is the shame of the people who are supposed to be covering...
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Countdown with Keith Olbermann - Mar. 9, 2010
Good good evening! Don't forget to spread the word about the new diary logo "contest." I want people to be able to vote on lots of ideas, and I've been seeing MANY potential logo ideas here in the last...
View ArticleWatching Cartoons
A person could blog while on short trip to Florida, certainly, but it is too hard to study Red Sox minor leaguers and observe whether Tim Wakefield can actually get off the mound, while considering...
View ArticleYou Say You Want Keith Olbermann But What You Really Want is Sean Hannity
I was this close to writing my third ever diary last night (Based on reader response, I'm batting .500) defending Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, and to a lesser extent Chris Matthews and Howard...
View ArticleTed Koppel And The Real Death Of "Real News"
During my suspension weekend before last I got an email from the delightfully and improbably named Autumn Brewington, inviting me to contribute an Op-Ed piece to The Washington Post on the topic of...
View ArticleKeith's Special Comment Tonight Got Me Thinking
Funny as it might be, I have a graduate degree in journalism. Each night when Keith signs off his show with "good night and good luck" I always smile. It is kind of a long story why. But maybe a good...
View ArticleHave people noted KO's link to a "Bring KO Back" Facebook page?
I've seen God knows how many diaries here since his termination. I've yet to see one, however, that notes this Facebook page link of KO's. It has been noted on FDL in some detail (I didn't find this...
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The Rachel Maddow Show - Apr. 25, 2011
After my craptacular day, I just have this to say.
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U.S. Government Spying Over The Centuries
I know a something about the works of Andrew Bacevich and Stephen Kinzer and hold them in highest regard. Andrew Bacevich is author and professor at Boston University. Stephen Kinzer is author of...
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June 8, 2017: Bernie Sanders Is Discovered To Have Been Elected President...
In an unprecedented event, two legendary newsmen rose up out of their graves to announce that former Senator Bernie Sanders (D Vermont) had been elected the 45th president of the United States seven...
View ArticleAppeasing the Ignorati
The GOP sinks in brainlessness and bile.Any sufficiently shameless and ambitious politician knows that a smoothly delivered fabrication on live television impresses millions more than will read the...
View ArticleOnce and For All, Mika - It's Not Trump's Access To Your Show That We All...
The following scenario has been playing out once a week or so in recent months.Donald Trump calls into Morning Joe. He makes several statements that are so transparently false that a 6th grader would...
View Article"How should we report on a duplicitous demagogue?"
We have finally reached the point where journalists are wrestling with how to fulfill their professional responsibilities when dealing with Donald Trump. The question I used for my subject appears in...
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To #SaveMyHouse donors + #FridayRoundup News & Politics (new series)
Hi Community!I wrote this story Swallowing my pride to ask for help. #foreclosure on Friday on Tuesday, this week.In my comments I noted that I had written the story as clickbait to get more people to...
View ArticleMartha Raddatz Slams Trump On Rigged Elections: 'A Fundamental Challenge To A...
I added the video below. H/T to peagreen.Watch it now. Powerful stuff from Martha Raddatz.Martha Raddatz does what journalists like Edward R. Murrow did many years ago. She actually understands the...
View ArticleTrust Requires Ethics
A recent New York Times editorial, Truth and Lies in the Age of Trump, took up, again, the issue of truth vs. lies, the denial and denigration of facts, or whose reality do Trump supporters live in....
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The media's point of no return
I have been thinking of this diary for months. Even before November 8 I had this vision in my head of what the media was doing. After the Democratic convention and post-pussygate, Hillary looked like...
View ArticleWhat news outlet will dare to lose money like they used to?
Just a short piece; a little food for thought.When I was a kid you could turn on the evening news on any major network and get pretty much the same story. You watched the guy who appealed to you the...
View ArticleGeorge Clooney channels Murrow, "Love trumps hate"
Friday night, George Clooney accepted an honorary Cesar (French equivalent of the Oscar) in Paris. He used his acceptance speech to talk about “when America was great and news wasn’t fake”, and quoted...
View ArticleThe GOP Just Learned Something (and Got it Wrong)
Amazing! The GOP just learned something! But they got it wrong.A recent post called “DNC’s Angry Appeal to ‘Become a Factivist’” showed up in the frightening but somehow funny Word Net Daily (WND). The...
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Stupid Watergate Is Heating Up As Spies in the Campaign Evaporate - Sunday's...
Welcome to the Sunday edition of Good News Roundup. tRump was rage tweeting around his 114th round of golf yesterday. He’s usually only this unhinged right before another embarrassing revelation...
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An International Clown, a National Disgrace, tRump's Welcome Has Worn Thin -...
Welcome to the Sunday edition of Good News Roundup.In case you are new, this is a place to leverage good news to offset the bad and to inspire ourselves to fight on. Our focus is on stories that are...
View ArticleNew York Times headline glorifies Wisconsin power grab by Republicans
How could this headline be approved by the New York Times, as the Republican assault against our democracy develops in Wisconsin?xYour Wisconsin coverage, and particularly its headlines, just keeps...
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Stupidity on Parade - Tuesday's Good News Roundup, July 2nd, 2019
I’m not sure about other folks, but I absolutely despise being lied to. I don’t know anyone who is an actual fan. From projection to puffery; from concealing crimes to creating chaos, the constant...
View ArticleBeto O’Rourke blasts question by press: ‘What do you think? You know the sh*t...
When I read Beto O’Rourke’s reply to a question by a reporter if he thought Trump could do anything to make things better now, he passionately questioned how the press is reporting on this “president”....
View ArticleKamala Harris calls out Trump golfing during emergencies, as media fails...
Donald Trump said he canceled his trip to Poland to monitor the hurricane. Not surprisingly, here he is spending his 227th day at one of his golf clubs:xPresident Trump golfing at Trump National Golf...
View ArticleThe Democratic Debate Bookends
This past Thursday the Democratic debate unfolded pretty much as most had expected it to. There was neither fizzle nor bang. Just a steady drum beat of the stands that we had heard from the candidates...
View ArticleRegarding the Unhinged Pompeo Verbal Assault on Mary Louise Kelly:
I’m pretty sure the meltdown that SoS Mike Pompeo had tonight after NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly publicly handed him his right testicle in an egg cup (which, by itself will go down in the Annals of...
View ArticleTrump Confused Edward R. Murrow and Winston Churchill
The debunking of Trump’s speech segment about Winston Churchill in WWII has been explored. Never in the field of speech making has so much so wrong in so few words been said.As the British government...
View Article04/25 Malaria and Carnations
So hey, it's World Malaria Day, created by WHO, which seemingly would like to see something done about malaria; as well as Malaria Awareness Day, created by GW Bush which is a bit of pious twaddle...
View ArticleTV: The medium is the message, the massage, and the metaphor for social...
The defamation lawsuits against Fox News have put a huge "told you so" on a trend in American society accelerating since at least the 1930s when that era's radio became a major outlet for religious...
View ArticleThe Lesley Stahl-MTG Interview That Could Have Been
I used to be in the news business. From 1991 to 1992, I was the Entertainment Reporter on Channel 13 in Los Angeles. I know that news is storytelling, and the most important decision for any news story...
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