Blather

I didn't watch This Week live, but I looked at a lot of it on the ABC News site. Paul Krugman halfheartedly backed O., but also asked him to be stronger. Roger Ailes said the Prez just had to go into a dark room and talk to himself. He also told a story of being in the WH and seeing Reagan and Tip O'Neill telling Irish jokes with drinks in their hand and assuming they had just cut a deal. George Will said O. had deliberately distorted the SCOTUS decision and also said that O> could easily cut a health plan deal with Rep. Tim Ryan from the Baltimore meeting. m Arianna H. said O. was missing all the big points, insusting that "the middle class is in trouble." Duh, baby.

More Arianna: "I mean, if you look at the latest Brookings report about the rise of poverty in the suburb, about the fact now that we have one in eight people whose mortgages are under water, who can't pay their credit card bills, this is a major, major problem that the administration is not seriously addressing it." Again, duh, complete with Brookings quote. Later, she drops names fom Davos.

And, finally, Roger, first, then Arianna: "And that's, you know, there are ways. If he wants to invite the four Republicans and four Democrats over to the Super Bowl and say, come on, guys, we've got to get some jobs...

(CROSSTALK)

HUFFINGTON: He tried to do that. He wasted three months...

AILES: No, that's the way it gets done.

This statement from Baltimore may sound like blah-blah-blah, but listen carefully:



Now, here's the point. These are serious times, and what's required by all of us -- Democrats and Republicans -- is to do what's right for our country, even if it's not always what's best for our politics. I know it may be heresy to say this, but there are things more important than good poll numbers. And on this no one can accuse me of not living by my principles. (Laughter.) A middle class that's back on its feet, an economy that lifts everybody up, an America that's ascendant in the world -- that's more important than winning an election. Our future shouldn't be shaped by what's best for our politics; our politics should be shaped by what's best for our future.

A Novel Idea

Taking his cue from the Republicans who voted against their own idea for s debt commission, Dana Milbank suggests maybe O. would be better off with a GOP majority. Something just short of a joke.

Barbara Walters has Scott Brown tomorrow as she guest anchors This Week. Formidable.

The Lion's Den

The New York Timescalled it polite venting. MSNBC did a two hour special and called it remarkable. I thought it was pretty good theater, and I think the republicans are intellectual lightweights but effective streetfighters.

"I can look you in the eye and tell you we have not been obstructionists." Whether voters accept that claim, offered by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, Utah freshman, will determine the outcome of this year's elections. The president went to the Republican conference in Baltimore to pin the gridlock button on his opponents. He did it very effectively, and he he cleverly made them keep the cameras rolling.

FNC cut away to go on the attack, but on their site coverage is balanced.

Old Phoebe

”How do you know you’re going to do something until you do it?” Holden Caulfield. (not Barack Obama).

It's more than 50 years since I read Catcher in the Rye, but I still remember my reaction to Phoebe, Holden's archetype of all that is good, pure, wise. His 10 year-old sister, who knows the difference between a good movie and a bad one, and always knows exactly what you're talking about. She hates that Holden got kickEd out of school again. When she packs to go with her brother on his runaway, he decides they both need to stay and grow up, but she follows him to the zoo. As she joins the perpetual motion of the merry-go-round in her blue coat ...Holden is... for once... happy.

THE THING WITH KIDS IS, IF THEY WANT TO GRAB FOR THE GOLD RING, YOU HAVE TO LET THEM DO IT, AND NOT SAY ANYTHING. IF THEY FALL OFF, THEY FALL OFF, BUT IT'S BAD IF YOU SAY ANYTHING TO THEM.

-- J.D. Salinger, 1919-2010

onion viii

security

we refocused on terrorism. examples.

al-qaeda captures

troop increase in aafghanistan gets only polite applause.

Iraq; make no mistake, this war is ending and all of our troops are coming home.

support for troops.

threat of nuclear weapons.

nuclear summit in DC in april

isolation of iran
they will face growing consequences. that is a promise.

where's Haiti?

here's haiti. c/a of haiti prez.one sentence.

other rights issues.

equality. if u abide by law u should be protected by it.

hate crimes.promises to end anti-gay discrimination in military.

equal pay for women.

immigration.

in the end, it's our ideals, our values.

unfortunately americans have lost faith in big institutions.

examples.

no wonder there's so much cynicism out there.

i never suggested the change would be easy or i could do it alone.

stir passion controversy.

Generations have done what was hard.

what keeps be going is despite setbacks that fundamental decency lives on.

the spirit that has sustained us 2 centuries lives in you.

u dont quit. i dont quit!

onion vii

limitations on lobbyists.

socks it to SCOTUS, sitting right in front of him.

asks all earmarks on single website before vote.

reform how we work with one another.

We cant have perpetual campaign, cant obstruct every single vote.

division and distrust.

dems in majority shouldnt 'run for the hills.'

jst saying no may be good politics, not leadership.

onion vi

health insurance reform (dems huzzah)

let's clear a few things up.

it's not good politics.

he makes the case. I will, not walk away from these people and neither should the people in this chamber (some republicans applaud.) Don't walk away from reform. let's get it done.

Fiscal hole. Political posturing. Let me set record straight.

2000 surplus, when i took over projected 8 trillion. recession 3 more. all before i walked in door. we've added a trillion.

we should tighten our belts.

i'm proposing 3 years freeze (one guy applauded!) he says he'll enforce by veto. line by line, budget, already 20 billion next year.

bipartisan deficit commission. medicare, medicaid, soc. sec. executive order.

restore pay as you go.

rebuts left and right arguments against budget cutting.

tired battles that have dominated for decades.

let's try common sense.

DEFICIT OF TRUST

give our people the government they deserve.

onion v

china germany india not waiting. I dont want second place for USA

it's time to get serious.

financial reform.by executive order.

guard against recklessness that nearly brought down economy. separate investment/risks. he'll keep sending it back till they get it right

clean energy jobs. examples.

nuclear power: gop loves it.

offshore drilling. gop loves

climate bill: gop sits, but they applaud economic consequences.

exports. double in 5 yrs for 2 million jobs. seek new markets aggressively. enforce.

education. we only reward success. in 21 c. best anti-poverty program is world class education.

tuition grants. nobody should go broke because they chose to go to college.

onion iv

30 billion from bailout to small businesses. Also small business tax credit. Eliminate capital gains.

Work today for infrastructure of tomorrow.

Fast trains. Clean energy projects. Tampa fast train. Slash tax breaks who ship jobs abroad (general applause)

House already passed some of this. Pelosi beams. Appeals to senate.

People are hurting. I want a jobs bill on my desk.

But that won't solve 7 million lost jobs.

We cant take another "lost decade"

Onion iii

We've spent most of the monies we got from the biggest banks.

I propose fee, that if they can afford bonuses, they can afford modest fee. STANDING O.

We cut taxes. (Lists them) Dems standing O, not GOP but Boehner laughs.

Haven't raised Income Tax by a dime.

There are 2 millions who wouldn't be working without them. (Lists them)

Made possible by Recovery Act, stimulus bill.

Gives small business anecdotal tales.

For every success story there are others.

Calls for jobs bill, and says businesses make jobs, especially small ones. Lots of applause.

JOBS BILL gets biggest ovation.

Onion II

9:00

On NBC now.

9:05

9:07

POTUS enters Dems fill first row. Kelly O' Donnell says they turned the heat down, and the GOP has been told to mind their manners. He of course has to get in a very early mention of Haiti.

SPEECH BEGINS

Our progress was not inevitable. Bull Run Omaha Beach. Crash. Bloody Sunday. Tested strength of our union. America prevailed because we moved forward as one nation. We must move forward. I took office at brink of depression. One year later worst has passed but devastation remains. Compounds family problems of decades.

I know the anxieties that are out there right now. This is why I ran.

The toughest letters are written by children.

For them change has not come fast enough. Why washington has been unable or unwilling. What American people hope, deserve, that we we work through our differences.

People share a stubborn resilience in face of adversity.

One letter, we are strained but hopeful

I have never been more hopeful than I am about america's future than i am tonight.

Taste of the Onion

8:58

What will the President find as he peels it back, or will he -- and we -- just cry?

Will the republicans clap, ever? Or stand up, ever? Will some nutbag shout out, a la Joe Wilson? Where will Scott Brown sit? Will he even be there?

I think the punditocracy is rooting for O. to fail, but the People, even the angry ones, still want him to succeed.

It jobs, jobs, jobs, as everybody says.

8:55 The First Lady enters.

8:57 The Cabinet, sans HRC. Matthews is calling for Geithner's head. Not soon Chris. Orsag enters, tongues wag.

8:59

Tempest in a Tea Pot II

The New Yorker has thre most comprehensive piece yet about Tea Partyism.

But Ben McGrath's takeout, while is seems to touch just about all of the bases, ultimately crosses the plate about a dozen times without ever scoring. The Sorel cartoon is great as you'd expect, although McGrath actually disconnects the Fox Newser from the grassroots movement.

We do hear about Rick Santelli, who I guess started it. Beck added the "9/12" notion, which I find particularly obnoxious. We hear about wrestling mogul Linda McMahon. Historical references abound: FDR, Andrew Jackson, the Know Nothings, Irish immigrants, William Jenning Bryan, Lyndon LaRouche, Martin Luther King --- they're all thrown against the journalistic wall like so much paint or spaghetti. Creationism gets a longish treatment, but the connection seems tenuously drawn.

Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey is now a self proclaimed Tea-man, and McGrath talks to him. But the mass of the movement,the article claims, is made up of much littler people than Dick Armey. A pregnant if show-offy quote: "The blogosphere can make trained foot soldiers of us all, with or without corporate funding" (cf. US Supreme Court: Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission).

There's a long excursus on an upstate New York congressional election that the tea party backed candidate lost, from which McGrath draws the lesson that the GOP can't ignore them.

The story ends with a meeting of tea party followers in Brooklyn, just a few blocks from The Menace's lair, whence I write.

Maybe I'll start a Coffee House Movement.

By the way, the conservative tea party is already showing signs of bitterness over charging too much to attend next month's scheduled convention and over Sarah Palin's fee to speeak there.

Tempest in a Tea Pot

The New Yorker has the most comprehensive piece yet about Tea Partyism.

But Ben McGrath's takeout, while is seems to touch just about all of the bases, ultimately crosses the plate about a dozen times without ever scoring. The Sorel cartoon is great as you'd expect, although McGrath actually disconnects the Fox Newser from the grassroots movement.

We do hear about Rick Santelli, who I guess started it. Beck added the "9/12" notion, which I find particularly obnoxious. We hear about wrestling mogul Linda McMahon. Historical references abound: FDR, Andrew Jackson, the Know Nothings, Irish immigrants, William Jenning Bryan, Lyndon LaRouche, Martin Luther King --- they're all thrown against the journalistic wall like so much paint or spaghetti. Creationism gets a longish treatment, but the connection seems tenuously drawn.

Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey is now a self proclaimed Tea-man, and McGrath talks to him. But the mass of the movement,the article claims, is made up of much littler people than Dick Armey. A pregnant if show-offy quote: "The blogosphere can make trained foot soldiers of us all, with or without corporate funding" (cf. US Supreme Court: Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission).

There's a long excursus on an upstate New York congressional election that the tea party backed candidate lost, from which McGrath draws the lesson that the GOP can't ignore them.

The story ends with a meeting of tea party followers in Brooklyn, just a few blocks from The Menace's lair, whence I write.

Maybe I'll start a Coffee House Movement.

By the way, the conservative tea party is already showing signs of bitterness over charging too much to attend next month's scheduled convention and over Sarah Palin's fee to speak there.

Four Good Years?

The President tells Diane sawyer he'd rather

The Wall St. Journal
catalogues the Left's grievances with Rahm Emanuel.

All prelude to Wednesday's State of the Union, which will include a deficit cutting proposal and middle class tax credits. On the other hand, it may omit climate change altogether (the hand of Emanuel?). Health care reform? No answers.

Thw SOU will be picked over by everybody.

Wait Till Next Year

God, Peyton Manning is good. And even though my beloved Jets lost, it was nice to see the sterling performance of the second generation Haitian receiver, Pierre Garcon.

Looks like Bernanke will stay. At some point, Obama's got to do something to shake up his financial team. At some point, he's got to do do something to shake up something.

Obama is sounding so weak. Check out the WP


There's a new tape purported to be from "Osama to Obama" threatening attacks if the US continues to back Israel.

The confirmed death toll in Port-au-Prince alone has gone over 150,000. The telethon raised $57 m.

Danse Macabre

Frank Rich comes to bury Caesar. In today's Times. Using contemporary argot, he says it's time to "reboot."


Try as i might, I can't think of a way to save health care reform, but lo and behold, David Ignatius in the WP comes up with some ideas that amount to administering health care through Medicare and Medicaid according to quality considerations. Good stuff. Of course, expanding Medicare is he last thing the Republicans will consider.

But I am very pessimistic, about health care, about Obama, about everything. The only tune i hear is the Danse Macabre.

Supremes Sing A Baaaaaad Song

Due to technical difficulties, this is brief.


Here's what the president said. I was not going to say it better.
With its ruling today, the Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics. It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.

This ruling gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington -- while undermining the influence of average Americans who make small contributions to support their preferred candidates.

That's why I am instructing my Administration to get to work immediately with Congress on this issue. We are going to talk with bipartisan Congressional leaders to develop a forceful response to this decision. The public interest requires nothing less.

And here's a neat one from The Scotus Blog

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens may have had his tongue in his cheek, or perhaps wanted merely to taunt the majority, when he wrote in Thursday’s opinion on the role of corporations in national politics: “Under the majority’s view, I suppose it may be a First Amendment problem that corporations are not permitted to vote, given that voting is, among other things, a form of speech.” It is a tantalizing notion.



Read the NY Times editorial, which starts like this:

With a single, disastrous 5-to-4 ruling, the Supreme Court has thrust politics back to the robber-baron era of the 19th century.


BUT, it is possible that this will usher in a new political era with some interesting twists. What happens if, for example, a lot of Latino corporations, companies, organizations and unions raise a pile of money for a pro-immigration candidate? That would be different.

49+51=100 (Maybe. Probably Not)

Obama Reacts to Brown's Victory Stephanopoulos and Obama)

What does it mean? Not clear. Huffington says the Reform Law will be scaled back, retaining prior conditions, kids on parents' coverage, help for small businesses and low-incomes and quality Medicare.

The battle will be over the insurance companies. They won the last round. It's conceivable they'll lose this time.

SIDECAR

Kent Conrad (D-N-D) has always been against reconciliation, but now he's tentatively for what's called the reconciliation "sidecar" whereby the Senate version and the fixes are passed at the same time.

And Howard Dean is going a little crazy: “We’ve got to be tougher," Dean quipped. "I’ve said the Democrats are not tough enough. Bush would have had the health care bill done a long time ago. He would have gone through reconciliation." Sure.

Reconciliation is a budgetary trick, and who says the Dems can get 51 votes, which would now be the magic number? Using reconciliation is subject to the various restrictions of the Byrd Resolution, which Sen. Byrd himself invoked to block Bill and Hillary Clinton's health care.

I think it's kind of important that not too many lawmakers, Republican or Democrat, actually like either bill, so maybe the incremental approach is best, especially if the insurance lobby is semi-neutralized.

Using reconciliation to reintroduce the public option , as the Progressive Change Campaign Committee petitioned today, is tricky, because they'd have to prove it wouldn't increase the deficit beyond ten years.

Despite what Gibbs said about getting it done, and Barney Frank changing his mind, you still have Webb, McCaskill, and certainly others saying go slow. Trying to get the Senate Bill through unchanged is probably not going to work.

The problem with the incremental approach is it requires Republican support, of which so far there has been ... none.

Now remember, one place where they already have progressive health care laws is ... Massachusetts. Voters there didn't vote against the national bills because they don't like them. They do like them. But they see the debate in Washington as a big waste of time compared to what really counts. And what really counts is ... jobs.

So the onus on the Administration is to figure out some way to get health care out of the way in order to focus on jobs. But, the trouble is, that means Stimulus II. See if a Republican (or Joe Lieberman) will vote for that.

Maybe Sen. Brown will.

Which seems to leave us ... nowhere.

Populist Victory

I'm not going to write up Massachusetts till it's done, but at this moment it certainly looks bad for Martha Coakley, and pretty much everybody blames her for an atrocious campaign, blame she seems to very much deserve.

The big question is what does this mean for President Obama.

Okay, it's over. Because everybody's been seeing it coming, it's not a surprise.

But it's still a shock really.

The big problem was, as everybody says, that Coakley took it for granted. The other big thing was the growth of Independents.

But, say what you will, this is not good news for Barack Obama, who went to Boston on Sunday.

This guy Scott Brown seems to be pretty much of an idiot. But by targeting Big Government, he seems to have been singing the right song. Why? I think it's pretty obviously about jobs and the economy. It's not completely logical, but it works as an argument. The fact is, Big Government is the answer, not the problem. Jobs have to be created, and the new senator doesn't have the right message for that. It just sounded right.

They may call it Tea Party, but Right Wing Populism won in Massachusetts.

NBC's Man in Haiti, and America's

I've worked a lot with Lester Holt and not only is he an impeccable anchor and a resourceful reporter, he's an upstanding guy.

Tonight on "Countdown", Keith Olbermann quoted a military guy as saying that 200, 000 people had died. From Haiti, Lester told Keith, that he didn't believe any of the numbers, that with the whole country buried there was no way to be sure of anything. He also pointed out that not one persona had said anything negative to him or begged him for anything.

Two people have taken what I regard as a wholesome attitude toward this incomprehensible tragedy: Lester and Bill Clinton, who emphasized tonight in his interviews with Holt that this is a global, not a US effort.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Last Hours for Martha Coakley

Well, the Jets beat the Chargers, maybe Martha Coakley can beat Scott Brown in the Massachusetts Special Election. CNN claims that White House aides are already conceding the race to Brown. Obama went up there this afternoon and got badly heckled by pro-lifers.





But pro-lifers are hardly a majority in Massachusetts and invoking Ted Kennedy at the last moment will have an impact.

I give it to Coakley by at least a few points.

Sez here.

The Odor of Unnecessary Death

A report from the scene by the BBC:

AT THE SCENE

Matt Frei, Port-au-Prince

No-one is in charge. The president is sleeping at the airport with quite a few journalists and aid workers.

Earlier this morning, I stood on top of the rubble of the Supreme Court, the Foreign Ministry, the Interior Ministry and the Senate - where a few senators had been killed when the quake hit. Their bodies have been dragged out and put in body bags. The representatives of state are literally lying on the pavement slowly rotting away.

This is a citizenry left to its own extremely meagre resources. You've got ordinary people trying to administer IV drips to their family members who are slowly dying, but not a single doctor or nurse at the general hospital.

Meanwhile our presidents united in an effort to raise private funds, as they did after the tsunami.

__________________________________________________

And Secretary of State Clinton is now on the ground in Haiti, and the president has just announced that he will be going, and that the US will be donating "hundreds of billions." (Despite Rush Limbaugh who has finally slipped away to sea.)

Remember that Haiti was crushingly poor to begin with. Remember also that the islands of Indonesia have seen clear signs of recovery after the tsunami. Both Bill and Hillary Clinton have talked of a Haitian road to recovery. And George W. Bush said today:

“The Haitian people have got a tough journey, yet it's amazing how terrible tragedies can bring out the best of the human spirit. We've all seen that firsthand when American citizens responded to the tsunami or to Katrina or to the earthquake in Pakistan. And President Clinton and I are going to work to tap that same spirit of giving to help our brothers and sisters in the Caribbean.”

With hundreds of thosands dead, that may sound foolishly hopeful, but remember, the deaths came out of nowhere. It is called an act of God. But rebuilding will be an act of humans.

Sez here.

COAKLEY IN CRISIS

Scott Brown was a nobody State Senator in Massachusetts a year ago. When he decided to be the GOP candidate to take the U.S. Senate of the late Ted Kennedy, he was given little chance to defeat the State Attorney General Martha Coakley, a prosecutor for almost 25 years. She beat her Republican opponent in the AG race in 2006 with 73% of the vote.

But Coakley seems to have badly underestimated her opponent whom she now trails in the same polls she once led by 30 points.

Now it's time to get out the big guns. Former president Clinton was in Boston Friday night, and President Obama will be there Sunday. This is a risky gamble on the President's part, as The Boston Globe points out.

Obama took Massachusetts with 62% of the vote in 2008. He's not going to want Coakley to lose.

This shows how carefully the Democrats must choose their candidates going forward.

Sez here.

Reassuring Voice

BILL CLINTON, who will now be joined as special envoy to Haiti by George W. Bush, was so strong with Brian on Nightly tonight. In his afterlife, Clinton has become invaluable.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#34868199

All the evening news shows were excellent tonight. Just as our country comes through at times of disaster, so too does our journalism. The Times was less thorough than it used to be though.

Disaster TV

NBC did the best job on the nightly news, managing to get up a live signal during their hourlong show. Katie said hi and bye, but Brian had content with Ann, Al, and Kerry Sanders, and did his own intro on the West Coast feed. It was mainly a technical feat though, since they were confined to the airport. NBC and ABC did hour shows, wheereas CBS went to The Insider after a half hour.

Stephanopoulos had Bill Clinton, Special Envoy to Haiti, but that figures. NBC had the invaluable Bob Bazell on medical issues and Andrea Mitchell on DC angles, including an interview with Colin Powell.

The Nightly News site gives a list of charitable organizations active in Haiti.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34835099/ns/nightly_news/

Jay, Conan, Dave and Sarah: The Show of Shows.

First of all, you've got to understand that NBC really is thinking of putting The Biggest Loser on at 10 pm:

And Conan really did address his statement to "People of Earth," which is just his humor, but he's also riffing, healthily on the grandiosity of this whole story and the unbelievable amounts of money involved. Likewise, the hint of megalomania in O'Brien's description of his show as "the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting."

Here's the way it's gonna work for Sarah palin on Fox. She's going to be an analyst, but O'Reillyand the others will always set her up as a politician, e.g.

O'R:

"Obviously folks are watching Fox News far more than they watch these pin heads. You are the former governor of Alaska, former vice presidential candidate. You are a politician. You are a mom. You are an American. What is the threat?"

SP:

"They don't like the message," she said. "They don't like the common sense conservative solutions that I think I represent and articulate as I explain what I believe are solutions to the great challenges facing America. They don't like to hear it."

CLASSIC FOX WE-THEY!!!

But I don't think she was very good. Solve the economy by getting out of the way of the private sector, financial sanctions against Iran, attack Harry Reid. Nothing very new. Then The Factor chyroned John Heilemann with Steve Schmidt's name. It was a mess, I don't see her making it on Fox and they will hurt her politically.

Sez here.

Who Knew?

Idiots dominate.

Rev. King said "negro", but then Stokely Carmichael, Jesse Jackson and others came along and insisted on "black" or "African-American". That was about 40 years ago, when Sen. Majority Leader HARRY REID was last awake.

MARK MC GWIRE admits he broke the HR record while using steroids. I wonder if Barry Bonds ever will?

NBC may not be able to produce enough episodes of Dateline in time to replace Leno at 10 pm, so they may use the Biggest Loser instead. They could get somebody from JEFF GASPIN to play the lead.

Roger & Me

The Front Page treatment given to Roger Ailes in the Sunday edition of The New York Times makes one ask what's in it for The Times. The size of the picture alone is worthy of the aftermath of a terrorist explosion.

Roger is tremendously successful and powerful, facts the paper easily quantifies: he made $23 million last year; Fox news is thought to make more money than CNN, MSNBC, and the three big broadcast news shows combined.

I worked for Ailes during the brief tenure of America's Talking, a round-the-clock cable channel he launched under the auspices of NBC in 1994 and that lasted until 1996 when Roger lost the channel position to NBC News and its then president, Andy Lack. After that defeat, Ailes got the Fox job from Rupert Murdoch, and after early struggles went on to the huge success the channel enjoys today. The Fox News Channel regularly beats CNN, MSNBC and Headline News in the cable news ratings. In fact, FNC often wins by breathtaking margins. (As I've said, you can't beat Fox at its own game.)

America's Talking, on the other hand was always a colossal failure. NBC chairman Bob Wright wanted to ax it, but much more important, Jack Welch -- who loved Roger -- once told an NBC News Vice-president, "nobody watches it."

And no wonder. Here's the lineup:

AMERICA'S TALKING A.M. -- A pretty standard morning show with the execrable Steve Doocy as weatherman.
AM I NUTS? -- Hosted by a shrink (with glasses) and a therapist (with legs).
WHAT'S NEW? -- A gadget show.
BREAK A LEG -- An entertainment show, hosted by an amateur who won a contest to get the gig.
ALIVE AND WELLNESS -- Alternative Medicine, hosted by a well-known local news anchor.
ASK E.JEAN -- advice columnist E.Jean Carroll.
HAVE A HEART --a write-in charity show.
PORK -- Host-driven exposes of government waste.
AT IN DEPTH -- With Terry Anzur in L.A. And Christopher Matthews in D.C. They later had a not-so-amicable divorce. John Gibson replaced Chris from NJ and Terry stayed on for a while. Chris got a show of his own, which he still has under the name Hardball. I was the divorce mediator and the bruises have never healed.

Roger also started his own show, a one-on-one interview called Straight Forward, which is probably the phrase he would most like as a self-description.

Before the network went on, Roger called the staff into a retreat and explained the logic of this particular set of shows. To tell the truth, it was brilliant, though also self-absorbed and somewhat whacko.

Andy Friendly, erstwhile King World and CNBC exec, once said famously of Ailes: "Roger stabs you in the front."

"My first qualification," Roger tells The Times, "is I didn't go to Columbia Journalism School."

I did, and it was a pretty ordinary collection of people, not the effete snobs Ailes seems to be imagining. He goes on to say, "there are no parties in this town that I want to go to." I don't believe that. I've seen Roger at parties. He enjoys the attention.

Roger is living proof of something I've always believed: that envy is at leasts as great a driving force ass pride, and even greed.

The Times chronicles some of Roger's paranoia over physical attack. He also manages his business paranoiacally. We Senior Producers at A-T were constantly being summoned into the office of Chief Exec Beth Tilson (now Mrs. Ailes) for crisis meetings with Roger, who was not physically present but was on the car phone between A-T headquarters in Fort Lee NJ and the Manhattan offices of the Rush Limbaugh radio show, which Roger also produced. It was like Charile's Angels, with Beth playing all three angels. The agenda was often some quite minuscule personnel issue. I don't know if he still micromanages like that, but he certainly did then, threatening to punish the slightest real or imagined malfeasance. Sometimes the matter at hand was political (sometimes racist), even though A-T had much lss of a political agenda than FNC.

The Times cites Roger's claim that his credo is God, family, country. When I worked for him, he was having an affair with his much younger aide-de-camp, which is not exactly the stuff of Tiger Woods, but I didn't find it to be behavior befitting a choirboy either.

Roger's credo is that of the hardhat son of an Akron (actually Warren, Ohio) plant foreman. Nothing wrong with that.

Bluntly, Roger is fat. When he got engaged to Beth, he lost a drastic amount of weight which he couldn't keep off. She loves him anyhow, and he gave her two small newspapers upstate to publish, a job she's quite capable of doing very well.

I've never been able to figure out why A-T failed so badly while FNC has succeeded so admirably. "Fair and balanced" does have something to do with it, but the real difference, I think, is Roger brought his design guy over with him and hired a guy from one of the newsmagazines to run his newsroom. A dose of professionalism to supplant the amateur hour quality of A-T.

Also, he now worked for Rupert, who knew a lot more about running a journalistic empire than Andy Lack ever did. Lack was a disaster, and Ted Turner had long since lost his competitive edge.

I didn't move to Fox. Instead I was Executive Editor of MSNBC for 10 years. During the critical years when Fox leapt past us, we were sloppy while they executed almost perfectly.

Now that's all different (I've retired) and MSNBC does a much better job. But also the two channels have split left/right and the talk show format lends itself better to Beck, O'Reilly and Hannity than to Matthews, Olbermann and Maddow.

Of course, from my current perch, I find it hard to abide any of them.

Late Night Lunacy

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/arts/television/09leno.html?hp


Jeff Zucker, widely hailed as a genius ever since becoming Executive Producer of the TODAY Show in his mid-twenties all the way to his recent appointment to continue as CEO of NBC Universal after it gets taken over by Comcast, said at an investors' conference last September that his network would give Leno plenty of time to establish himself in Prime Time. "We're going to judge this on 52 weeks,"Zucker said. Leno's been on at 10 pm for just 17 weeks, and it drastically cut into local news ratings, which is wher affiliated stations make their money. NBC is now going through the painful process of going back on the Leno plan, to which a fool would have given little chance of success.

Given Mr. Zucker's career path, he'll probably get a raise and promotion for acting quickly.

Most of the criticism of the Leno plan is directed at the programming philosophy that went into it, neglecting to observe that it's a lousy show.

But now it get's really messy. The plan is to put Jay back to 11.35 for a half hour (presumably leaving his salary untouched), and giving Conan 12.05 to 1 am.

Trouble is, O'Brien is leaking that he is not buying into into the deal, and Fox is bruiting it about that they love Conan. Leno has joked about how the weather is fine at Fox this time of year. Bill Carter and Brian Stelter of The Times say these guys make a combined $50 million a year. And O'Brien has been widening his margin over Letterman.

Zucker's biggest achievement to date was kicking NBC down from first to fourth in the overall ratings. He may be topping himself with this fracas.

Waiting on the Tablet

I am reminded that I had the first tablet, The Newton -- a clever Apple monicker. I also had the first Palm Pilot. But I'm still looking forward to the new Tablet or iSlate coming out the end of the month. But it's going to cost $800 and I'm not entirely sure what -- in retirement -- I'm going to do with it. I'll certainly check it out to see if it helps me write my book. But I know I'll take a lot of time before I buy one. It doubles as a reader. That could be an incentive.

Democrats Exit

Dodd may not matter, but Dorgan does, and the whole atmosphere is getting murkier for O.and Co.

But the GM guy claims he can turn a profit this year. And as we all know, as GM goes so goes the nation.

Screw Up

If the Christmas day almost bomber incident was a "screw up" as the president says it was, then it seems to me somebody should take the rap.

Great news. I'm cancer free. The doc thought these tumors he removed from my bladder were malignant and he gave me chemo, which it turns out I didn't need. The biopsy was negative and once again I'm recurrence free as I have been every time. Hurrah.

To: Brit Hume

Brit Hume's homily, repeated on O'Reilly tonight, advising Tiger Woods to foreswear his native Buddhism and "turn to Christianity." He also told Bill that this was not proselytizing.

Hume s ays Jesus Christ offers something "Tiger Woods badly needs.", which Buddhism does not.

Here is what Buddhism does offer:


Essentials of Buddhism

Four Noble Truths

1. Suffering exists
2. Suffering arises from attachment to desires
3. Suffering ceases when attachment to desire ceases
4. Freedom from suffering is possible by practicing the Eightfold Path

Noble Eightfold Path

Three Qualities Eightfold Path


Wisdom (panna) Right View
Right Thought
Morality (sila) Right Speech
Right Action
Right Livelihood
Meditation (samadhi) Right Effort
Right Mindfulness
Right Contemplation



Three Characteristics of Existence

1. Transiency (anicca)
2. Sorrow (dukkha)
3. Selflessness (anatta)

Hindrances

1. Sensuous lust
2. Aversion and ill will
3. Sloth and torpor
4. Restlessness and worry
5. Sceptical doubt

Factors of Enlightenment

1. Mindfulness
2. Investigation
3. Energy
4. Rapture
5. Tranquility
6. Concentration
7. Equanimity

I really think the Buddha has TW covered better than JC.

Plus the obvious question: where the fuck does Brit Hume get off???

Brief Birthday Encounters

I had a great day. Lunch with my dear friend Jane at the restaurant of the Modern, a nod to the water lilies, and the inevitable hello to Jane's sleeping gypsy.

Matt and I had pizza at Grimaldi's (the best), and then the absolutely superb Kneehigh Theater's musical adaptation of David Leans 1945 movie, Brief Encounter, Noel Coward's adaptation of his own play, Still Life, well worth the cold walk down to St. Ann's Warehouse. A treat.

It's been extended but maybe too late to get tix. In time for my birthday though. A great one.

Birthday Boy

My 68th Birthday tomorrow. 20 years sober. On chemo for bladder cancer. My memoir is underway.

My New Year's resolutions: keep up the blog and get readers. Write the memoir. Reach out.

No Fireworks

At South Street. Slippery streets. North Korea makes peaceful noises. Russia puts a minimum price on vodka.

Have a great, happy, peaceful year everybody.