There are, perhaps, only a few jobs for which you truly cannot prepare, but just leap in and do.

One of those jobs has to be President of the United States. No matter how much you think you've learned--be it in the Senate like Barack Obama, or as the governor of a state, like George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, or even as Vice President, like George HW Bush and Lyndon Johnson--the American presidency is a whole other animal. Often insulated and isolated from those who put you in office, the American president must juggle political, economic, foreign, security and partisan interests to lead the Executive Branch--and the free world--to the best of their abilities.

Obviously, some presidencies are more successful than others.

As journalists assigned to cover the White House, Craig Crawford of CQ Politics and Helen Thomas of the Hearst News Syndicate, together share decades of observing from the White House Press Room. They have watched and noted each success and each blunder. Helen Thomas has covered more presidents than any other present journalist, starting with JFK in 1960, but her career really began in 1945 during Roosevelt's administration. Craig Crawford, who actually interned as a college student in Jimmy Carter's press office, began covering presidential campaigns in 1988 with Ronald Reagan. So there's no shortage of presidential triumphs and stumbles between them, and it is that experience they have collated to create Listen Up, Mr. President: Everything You Always Wanted Your President to Know and Do, where they share the attributes of successful presidencies by looking at the choices made by predecessors: from Clinton's prickly and sometimes overly hostile handling of the press to JFK's deft deflectons with humor, from Johnson's brave stance on civil rights, knowing the political costs to him and his party to Reagan's Cold War fight, which alienated him with his conservative base when he began negotiating nuclear disarmament with Gorbachev.

Every presidency is marked with mistakes as the president navigates this unbelievably difficult and occasionally thankless job, but Helen and Craig have listed some basic principles which, if followed, should make any future president successful, such as finding trustworthy advisers, remembering they are not above the law, be honest, have the courage to do the hard thing and keep a clear vision.

I'm happy to have Craig Crawford here with us today to discuss his book, Listen Up, Mr. President: Everything You Always Wanted Your President to Know and Do. Please join us to chat on what makes for a successful American presidency.

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Former Vice President Dick Cheney has gone too far with his latest attack against President Barack Obama, according to Sen. Carl Levin. "The comments of the former vice president were totally out of bounds. I don't think he has any credibility left with the American people," Levin told Fox News' Chris Wallace.

Cheney accused Obama of "dithering" on making a decision to send more troops to Afghanistan during a speech in D.C. Wednesday. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs rejected that criticism Thursday.

"What Vice President Cheney calls dithering, President Obama calls his solemn responsibility to the men and women in uniform and to the American public," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. "I think we've all seen what happens when somebody doesn't take that responsibility seriously."

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(An Eisenhower Press Conference - cheerfully referred to as Old Bubblehead)

I'm trying to do the math here. The tape says this is Press Conference Number 68. It's from May 11, 1955 - Eisenhower has been in office since January 1953. So as best as I can round it out, that's about one Press Conference every two weeks. I've spoken with several people who were with the White House Press Corps at the time and they honestly did refer to Eisenhower as "Old Bubblehead" - I'm not making it up.

I wonder if he was guilty of being overexposed?

At any rate - two subjects were covered:

First was The Big 4 Summit back when only four countries were considered worth getting together. Times have changed.

Pres. Eisenhower: “I would think the most important thing to possibly be done at such a meeting would be to define the lines or directions in which we commonly would want our Foreign Ministers to work to see if there’s any opportunity to relieve the tensions in the world. And beyond that, I don’t think you can possibly say what the subjects would be. Certainly there would be no agenda except in the most generalized form, to talk about a general group of subjects . No agenda in the sense that Foreign Ministers would normally meet.”

A sort of summit to sit around and talk about what they're going to sit around and talk about.

The other important topic in this press conference was the newly introduced Polio Vaccine which had been temporarily held up by reports of Polio outbreaks among people who got the vaccine.

1955 was the year the Salk Polio Vaccine was made public. People don't talk about Polio that much anymore, as it has been all but eradicated. But in the 1950s it was scary, especially if you were a kid.

The one thing that struck me was the civility of the press - not much in the way of screaming. Fancy that.

The Villagers always find a way to attack progressives. Here's NBC's 'First Read,' that Chuck Todd is all about says this:

*** Fixing the public option fetish: But the speech also will be a failure if progressives -- Obama’s second audience tonight -- are still obsessing over the public option a week from now. We've said this before and we'll say it again: Obama never made the public option the focus of his health-care ideas, in the primaries or in general election. In fact, he never uttered the words "public option" or "public plan" in his big campaign speeches on health care. But there is no doubt that the public option has fired up the left, and how he sells them near-universal coverage and lower costs -- even if it means no public plan -- could very well be the trickiest part of tonight's speech. Indeed, that the White House allowed this to become the be-all, end-all on the left ("Public option or die!") remains a mystery. On TODAY this morning, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that “there can be no reform without adequate choice and competition,” but didn’t say that choice and competition had to come from a public option.

You will never hear anything like this said about conservatives. Passionately supporting a piece of legislation that we consider vital to real health care reform is now considered a fetish by NBC. WTF is that?
Craig Crawford:

NBC News calls the public option a "fetish." Providing insurance to Americans who cannot afford or obtain coverage is a fetish? A fetish? Have things gone so awry that health care for all is considered a deviant concept. Seems to me that big media's knee-jerk defense of the status quo is the real fetish.

Craig nails it...in a good way that is and without a spanking reference that would be considered un-serious by the beltway elite.

I wonder when it's going to sink into Max Baucus's thick skull that Republicans aren't going to make a deal because as a party, they simply aren't interested in solving the problems of healthcare.

Maybe I'm giving Max too much credit for trying, and he knows exactly what he's doing. Because his latest proposal is a Kabuki dance of a bill that won't really help people. In fact, we'd be paying obscene amounts of money for a plan that doesn't really cover anything.

Bug - or feature?

WASHINGTON — In a last effort to give the Senate a bipartisan health care bill, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee circulated a comprehensive proposal on Sunday to overhaul the health care system and proposed a new fee on insurance companies to help pay for coverage of the uninsured.

The proposal is the culmination of more than a year of work by the chairman, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana. A similar fee was proposed by several liberal Democrats in July. In making it part of his proposal, Mr. Baucus may help cover the costs of the bill but also risks alienating Republicans whom he is trying to win over. Mr. Baucus is struggling to forge a bipartisan consensus among 6 of the 23 senators on his committee before President Obama puts new pressure on lawmakers in an address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday evening.

The proposal by Mr. Baucus does not include a public option, or a government-run insurance plan, to compete with private insurers, as many Democrats want.

This is Max trying to sidestep the charge of taxing workers on their benefits. But of course, there's nothing in the bill to prevent insurance companies from simply jacking up the premiums to cover their losses. Oh, and there's also this:

Mr. Baucus’s plan, expected to cost $850 billion to $900 billion over 10 years, would tax insurance companies on their most expensive health care policies. The hope is that employers would buy cheaper, less generous coverage for employees, thereby reducing the overuse of medical services.

Yeah, because that's the real problem. We all use our health coverage too much.

Max's bill is real horror show for working people. Is this the legislation that's supposed to scare the Republicans into supporting reform? Because it looks like something they'd dream up:

Another section of Mr. Baucus’s proposal would help pay insurance premiums, co-payments and deductibles for people with incomes less than 300 percent of the poverty level ($66,150 for a family of four). It would also provide some protection for people with incomes from 300 percent to 400 percent of the poverty level (up to $88,200 for a family of four), so they would generally not have to pay more than 13 percent of their income in premiums.

[...] Mr. Baucus would impose limits on out-of-pocket medical costs — the co-payments, deductibles and similar charges for covered items and services. The limits would be $11,900 a year for a family and $5,950 for an individual. The comparable numbers in the House bill are $10,000 and $5,000.

What they want is the illusion of a bill that won't actually help anyone. Where do they think all this money's going to come from, especially with a U-6 of more than 15%? Is this going to help anyone get care they need? Hardly.

In the meantime, Max, people like this are literally dying to get health insurance for their families.

Anything You Can Do from Annie, Get Your Gun (1950)

It's the closest approximation of the Sunday shows I can think of right now: Annie Oakley and Frank Butler trying to one-up each other, screaming face to face and fighting about nothing of substance. Although I can't complain this week that the Democrats are non-existent or out-numbered (and hooray! the Obama administration has figured out they need to be out there too), my feeling is that the discussion will not be any more substantive than Annie and Frank's. WH Spokesperson Robert Gibbs will be on This Week, Senior Adviser David Axelrod will be on Meet the Press and Education Secretary Arne Duncan will be on Face the Nation, presumably to discuss the latest GOP hissy fit du jour of Obama's planned speech to students. But we'll also get lots of health care jabs as well, with Dr. Thomas Frieden of CDC on State of the Union and Howard Dean and Newt Gingrich on Fox News Sunday.

ABC's "This Week" - White House press secretary Robert Gibbs; former Sens. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Bob Dole, R-Kan.; Reps. Mike Pence, R-Ind., and Maxine Waters, D-Calif.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - David Axelrod, White House senior adviser; Rudy Giuliani, former New York City mayor; Harold Ford Jr., Democratic Leadership Council chairman.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Eugene Robinson, Katty Kay, Gloria Borger and Michael Duffy. Topics: How does President Obama need to reset the health care debate? Should Ted Kennedy have shown more public penance for Chappaquiddick? Meter Questions: Will outspoken fringe players dominate GOP for the rest of Obama's term? YES: 9 NO: 3;
If unemployment is still high next year, will Obama revise his tax proposals? YES: 11 No: 1.

CNN's "State of the Union" - Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Gov. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn.; Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Ben Nelson, D-Neb.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - Some of our greatest hits: First, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on the limits of American power. Then former New York State governor Elliot Spitzer's unique perspective on the financial crisis and the Dalai Lama's perspective on the world.

"Fox News Sunday" - Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.; Howard Dean, former national Democratic Party chairman; John Podesta, head of the Center for American Progress; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.

So, what's catching your eye this morning?

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August 19, 2009 News Corp

VAN SUSTEREN: Voters want answers on health care. What they don't want is for the Democrats to go it alone. Now, according to one poll, 59 percent of people say Congress should not approve a health care plan if it's not bipartisan. But will the Democrats go it alone anyway, shut Republicans out of the health care debate? The New York Times reports that Democrats do not think the GOP is going to cooperate on health care reform. The Times quotes White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel as saying, "The Republican leadership has made a strategic decision that defeating President Obama's health care proposal is more important for their political goals than solving the health insurance problems that Americans face every day."

In a press briefing today, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs pulled back from the report.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We are focused on a process that continues in the Senate with both parties. The president again met with Senator Baucus on Friday in Montana, and they discussed the progress that was being made among Democrats and Republicans on the Finance Committee. That's our focus.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAN SUSTEREN: Senator Chuck Grassley is ranking Republican member of the "Gang of six," a bipartisan group of senators working for a deal in the Senate on the health care bill. and according to The New York Times, the White House sees criticism by Senator Grassley as a sign there is little hope of reaching a bipartisan deal. Is that true?

Senator Grassley joins us live. Good evening, Senator. And is there little hope of a bipartisan deal, sir?

SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY (R), IOWA: I haven't given up yet, and I haven't said anything new since we adjourned for the summer break that I've been saying for the last three months. So for the White House to draw any conclusions other than what I've told the president right to his face -- and I've said a couple things that are very important, and I've said them before. I've told him for several weeks that, number one, it would really help get bipartisanship if he would make a statement that he would sign a bill that didn't have a public option, or what some of us call a government-run health plan, in it.

And the second one was, in response to a question he asked me about would I be (ph) three or four Republicans going along with the Democrats to make a bipartisan issue, and on that issue, I answered him the same way I've been telling a lot of people for three or four months, that I would not go along because that's not bipartisan.

What you have to have when you're rejiggering one sixth of our U.S. economy, and when you're dealing with health care because that's life-and- death issue for every American, affecting every American citizen, it's got to be done with lots of Democrats and a lot of Republicans, and that's bipartisanship. And it's my responsibility to do something that would get broad support among Republicans, and it's Senator Baucus's Republican to get something that would get broad support among Democrats.

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There have been a number of right wing protesters showing up at Democratic town hall meetings with guns over the past couple of weeks, even at events held by President Obama. Many have made note that countless people were shoved into cages called "free speech zones," or arrested at events held by former president George Bush for merely wearing anti-Bush t-shirts, yet people have been allowed to openly carry loaded weapons while protesting against Obama, for the most part without incident. How many of you have either posted or said aloud something along the lines of the following statement:

Can you imagine what would would have happened if a protester had brought a loaded gun to a Bush event?

Of course, that protester would have been tased, beaten, arrested and labeled a terrorist -- but times have changed:

Armed men seen mixing with protesters outside recent events held by President Obama acted within the law, the White House said Tuesday, attempting to allay fears of a security threat.

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said people are entitled to carry weapons outside such events if local laws allow it. "There are laws that govern firearms that are done state or locally," he said. "Those laws don't change when the president comes to your state or locality."

Not everyone agrees:

"What Gibbs said is wrong," said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "Individuals carrying loaded weapons at these events require constant attention from police and Secret Service officers. It's crazy to bring a gun to these events. It endangers everybody." Read on...

Personally, I believe it's just a matter of time before one of these gun-toting, Fox News-inspired whackjobs take a shot at the president or a Democratic member of Congress.

Newt advises Sarah (h/t Blue Gal. Click here for larger.)

Can you believe it? I'm actually looking forward to this morning's shows. No, not George Snufflupagus on This Week or William the Bloody on Fox News Sunday, but our very own Rachel Maddow is subbing for David Gregory is on the panel opposite Dick Armey on Meet the Press. Rachel has been relentless in the last couple of weeks on the astroturfing of FreedomWorks, so this promises to be a lot of fun. Around the dial, it's all about the health care reform bill, with HHS Sec. Kathleen Sebelius on This Week and State of the Union, Robert Gibbs on Face the Nation and executives from the AMA and AARP on Fox News Sunday. Arlen Specter will be on This Week, to share his take on the recent Town Hall shout fests. Fareed Zakaria will continue his interview Sec of State Hillary Clinton and you can bet her defensive responses in Africa will definitely be brought up.

ABC's "This Week" - Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius; Sens. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - White House press secretary Robert Gibbs; former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.; former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - FreedomWorks chairman and former Rep. Dick Armey, R-Texas; Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.; former Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D.; R. Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.; Gov. Bill Ritter, D-Colo.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Rick Stengel, Trish Regan, John Heilemann, Kathleen Parker. Topics: Has the domestic "change" President Obama promised stalled? How has Woodstock in 1969 impacted the politics of the past forty years? Meter Questions: Will outspoken fringe players dominate GOP for the rest of Obama's term? YES: 9 NO: 3; If unemployment is still high next year, will Obama revise his tax proposals? YES: 11 NO: 1.

CNN's "State of the Union" - Sebelius; Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo.; Reps. Mike Ross, D-Ark., Tom Price, R-Ga., and Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - The first television interview with Michael Oren as Israel's new Ambassador to the United States. Plus, the Prime Minister of Kenya and an unusual event in Nairobi featuring Hillary Clinton and Fareed.

"Fox News Sunday" - Sens. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and Richard Shelby, R-Ala.; J. James Rohack, president of the American Medical Association; John Rother, executive vice president for policy and strategy at AARP.

So, what's catching your eye this morning?

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August 07, 2009 FOX & Friends

Heather:

Fox and Friends edits down Robert Gibbs statement on whether the White House is "collecting names" into a sound byte where he says it's "to get misinformation". Geez these people take their audience for idiots since he was very obviously cut off mid-sentence.

Steve Benen's got more on this nonsense.

It's a shame yet another conspiracy theory reached the White House briefing room. ABC News' Jake Tapper reports this afternoon:

Asked about Cornyn's letter on Thursday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, "nobody is collecting names."

The blog and tips email was because, Gibbs said, "we have seen, and as I've discussed from this podium, a lot of misinformation around health care reform. Some of it I think spread purposely. We have used on many occasions the Web site to debunk things that are simply not true. We ask people if they have questions about health care reform and about what they're hearing about its affects on them, to let us know and we'd provide them information to show that that wasn't true."

Continued Gibbs: "but nobody is collecting names."

Well, no, of course not. The very idea that the White House would be "collecting names" is about as legitimate as the idea that the president is a not a natural-born citizen. As nutty Republican conspiracy theories go, this was even more headache-inducing than most.

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I want to know why these right wingers and Fox News were never whipped into a frenzy when the Congress passed the Patriot Act, or when we found out the telecom companies were data mining everyone in the United States. It's somehow completely lost on Steve Doocy and his guests that George Bush already did this, but no one ever accused Doocy of being very bright.

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Even after admitting the involvement of groups like Right Principles and other lobbyists groups, Dobbs and Crowley attempt to paint the movement as grass roots, rather than being funded by the insurance and health care industries. Dobbs and Crowley also ignore that groups like CPR are now taking credit for ginning up the outbursts at the town hall rallies.

DOBBS: Joining me now for more our senior political analyst Candy Crowley -- Candy, what do you make of these protests and we just heard Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, obviously mocking these people and saying fairly straightforwardly that this is organized protests. Is that true?

CROWLEY: Well, listen, there is no doubt there are a lot of conservative groups out there who are using their Web sites to encourage people to go to their town hall meetings. But this is not some subterranean movement that they don't want people to know about. And there are groups that you heard of before, some of them well heeled, Conservatives for Patient's Rights.

They've had a number of ads against a sort of Obama style health care reform. They are now on their Web site trying to reach out to some of these groups -- the tea party people that we saw on tax day. Others are saying, you know, here's where the town hall meetings are and schedules like that. There's another group, Family Research Council, Tony Perkins, I'm sure you're familiar with that...

DOBBS: Sure.

CROWLEY: ... is a conservative social group. If you go on that Web site, you can see indeed where there are town hall meetings. Now, there's also an interesting place called Right Principles and I just talked to the head of that group. Now -- and his name is Robert McDuffie and he wrote a memo that has gone all over the Web about how to rock the town hall meeting. And it's very lengthy and it says, you know, go in there and stand up, you know...

DOBBS: Does it suggest whether that be a Democratic or Republican town hall meeting?

CROWLEY: It does not, but this is a group that's definitely protesting the current form of health care reform, as they see it. And he said -- and I said, so, you're starting this movement. He said you know anybody that thinks that a guy sitting in Connecticut with a Web site can influence someone in Texas to go to a town hall meeting, you know, is crazy.

I wrote this for -- he says he wrote it for grassroots activists in Connecticut. He is indeed connected to those -- was a volunteer for those who put together the tea party on tax day. And he said, but you know -- he sort of tapped into -- he said you know people come to him and say I write my congressman and then I get back a letter that doesn't even respond or I get back a letter like I'm on the other side.

And he said he just feels his frustration, so they all sort of say this is not some big master plan, but it is a loosely knit group of various conservatives who are -- the insurance industry also sending a representative to 30 states trying to urge people sympathetic to them to go to these town hall meetings, so yes there is this -- there are lots of groups out there doing this.

But it doesn't seem to be some master plan of sending people who don't understand what they're talking about. They're trying to urge like-minded people to go to these town hall meetings, which they say is what town hall meetings are about.

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I love navel-gazing on the part of the media, where they decide collectively that they were right to create a meme which takes over the media. On this weekend's The Chris Matthews Show, pundits Howard Fineman, Michael Duffy and Ceci Connolly agree that it was appropriate for them to ask President Obama about the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., because "it's an important issue."

MATTHEWS: It’s all about identity politics again, and at the same time these people on the far, far right are talking about whether he’s a citizen or not, this comes up.

DUFFY: And when the White House Press Secretary calls it a ‘distraction’, you know it was a mistake. And his mistake was pretty simple, which was that he didn’t really have all the facts, and was not in a position to talk about it. He was right to take it up, because it is an issue that is important, and it’s one in which he is completely versed, and you can see from the rest of his statement, that he knows exactly what to say. But I also think it came at the end of that press conference, which was about a completely different subject, and I think he was a little punchy by then. He was talking about you know what would happen to him in the White House, and it was a joke and he kind of lost the seriousness of the moment and I think got off track…

MATTHEWS: Yeah, I agree with that, the moment was important. I think he was a little angry, a little fatigued. These guys get up at five in the morning and this was eight at night. Is this going to be around a while?

Get the meme? Obama the angry black man being asked to speak on behalf of the entire African American community--and you know he is versed in this. Howard Fineman sort of treads along the edges of why even asking Obama his opinion of Gates' arrest was racist (because, honestly, can you imagine the media doing this to President McCain, had he won? I don't think so), without fully realizing it:

FINEMAN: ...(T)he progress that he made—the Sotomayor nomination—she did convince people, by her bearing, by her knowledge, by her experience, that she was eminently qualified and in that sense, was beyond this. Both of her race, but beyond it. This is not what Barack Obama’s political advisors wanted him to be doing up there. Because it turns it into a racial conversation, per se, at a time when he’s being president of all the country. And trying to be president of all the country and this feeds into the narrative of what I call the RNC—the Rush Newt Cheney RNC—which is all about fear, accusation and division. Barack Obama as president has to be about national unity.

Apparently to Howard, Barack Obama has been doing a good job up until this point of not making white Americans realize that he's African American and making them feel comfortable with other people of color. But now, Howard's worried that Obama has lost his white constituency:

FINEMAN: He went to great lengths as a candidate, to say that he could be president of all America. He understood all the different cultures and wanted to learn about all the different cultures of America. This kind of thing sets him back with working class whites.

Sigh. Can I remind you bobbleheads that it was YOU collectively that raised this subject? This was a local issue, albeit with a semi-famous person involved. This is not a federal issue, nor did it need to be addressed by the President of the United States, especially since the only justification for it is that Obama and Gates outwardly share a skin color (although both are of mixed-race heritage). Isn't it reasonable to assume that the President of the United States has enough on his plate without being thrust the mantle of spokesman for the entire African American community and trying to make white people more comfortable with the age-old issue of racial profiling?

As far as Gates is concerned, there was no clear cut right or wrong on his arrest; both sides escalated the situation beyond where it should have gone. But in terms of pulling Barack Obama into the debate and letting it take over the news cycles for days and days when very real issues (um Afghanistan, any one? Health care reform? The economy? Any of those ring a bell?) are left undiscussed is simply giving red meat to the right wingers eager to derail any actual progress in this country. And the responsibility for that falls on bobbleheads like these clowns, not Obama.

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Fox News is airing a new commercial on their station that frankly had me almost throwing up in my mouth a little when I saw it. Fox has decided to roll out their full list of regular pundits to espouse the network's journalistic integrity and "core principles". No...I'm not joking.

Here are some of the "principles" they claim Fox News promotes: civility, mutual respect, strengthening our diverse society by striving for unity, tolerance, open debate and civil discourse.

Yeah, that's exactly what I think of when I see the likes of Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly screaming over one of their guests. Or Glenn Beck riding that crazy train off into the horizon. Or Laura Ingraham on one of her hate filled screeds that's akin to listening to finger nails on a chalk board.

And for a real hoot, check out the ticker that's running below the ad. Breaking News!!... Fox News realizes that Helen Thomas exists and actually cares about what she has to say now that it's criticism of the Obama administration.

I love Helen to death, but her whining about Nico Pitney getting a question from the White House sounds like sour grapes to me from a typical Villager. There's plenty to complain about besides a blogger getting to ask one lousy question that's wrong with that White House press corps if she wants to go on a rant about what's wrong with our media.

I think this Fox Nation ad could use a better description than the one I came up with for the video and the post. I'd love to hear suggestions from the readers here who by and large are always more creative than I am when it comes to these things. We've done some "write your own caption posts". I'll gladly have this be a "write your own video description" instead. Submissions welcomed if you'd care to give all of us a laugh.

And of course, now the Republicans will accuse Obama of imposing a litmus test, since anything he does is evil:

The White House scrambled yesterday to assuage worries from liberal groups about Judge Sonia Sotomayor's scant record on abortion rights, delivering strong but vague assurances that the Supreme Court nominee agrees with President Obama's belief in constitutional protections for a woman's right to the procedure.

Facing concerns about the issue from supporters rather than detractors, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama did not ask Sotomayor specifically about abortion rights during their interview. But Gibbs indicated that the White House is nonetheless sure she agrees with the constitutional underpinnings of Roe v. Wade, which 36 years ago provided abortion rights nationwide.

"In their discussions, they talked about the theory of constitutional interpretation, generally, including her views on unenumerated rights in the Constitution and the theory of settled law," Gibbs said. "He left very comfortable with her interpretation of the Constitution being similar to that of his."

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Senator Dodd just got his first primary opponent yesterday when virtual unknown Merrick Alpert announced his candidacy at his home. Alpert has no prior experience but apparently has the money to burn. A few hours later he would go on Fox News, where his appearance was more important than a White house press briefing going on at the same time. Alpert's talking points in this clip are straight out of the republican handbook. Earlier in the day he called Chris Dodd "Bambi", and that Dodd was part of the "culture of corruption" in Washington.

Dodd also has to contend with two real republican weasels who are vying for his job in the U.S. Senate.

Should be an interesting 18 months until the election. Or as one CT journalist succinctly put it,

"Somewhere, Glenn Beck and Rob Simmons are smiling."