I saw President Obama talking to Katie Couric before the Super Bowl, and I didn't breathe for a few minutes as I took in what he was proposing. I guess they are spooked by the losses of the mythical independent voters in recent polling, but even if that's the case, it's a horrible idea from my perspective.

President Obama said Sunday that he would convene a half-day bipartisan health-care session at the White House to be televised live this month, a high-profile gambit that will allow Americans to watch as Democrats and Republicans try to break their political impasse.

Mr. Obama made the announcement in an interview on CBS during the Super Bowl pre-game show, capitalizing on a vast television audience. He set out a plan that would put Republicans on the spot to offer their own ideas on health care and show whether both sides are willing to work together.

“I want to come back and have a large meeting, Republicans and Democrats, to go through systematically all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward,” Mr. Obama said in the interview from the White House Library.

Mr. Obama challenged Republicans to attend the meeting with their plans for lowering the cost of health insurance and expanding coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans. Republican leaders said they welcomed the opportunity and called on Democrats to start the debate from scratch, which the president said he would not do.

I understand the strategy behind them doing this, but the country is too polarized at this point to really turn perceptions enough to make any difference.

This will accomplish nothing except to possibly empower Republican obstructionists even more. They will tell us what wonderful new ideas they have and that if only Obama opened up competition in all the states, it would solve all the problems in health care. Here's Crying Boehner's response:

"The best way to start on real, bipartisan reform would be to scrap those bills and focus on the kind of step-by-step improvements that will lower health care costs and expand access. The House Republican alternative, which would lower premiums by up to 10 percent while increasing access for Americans without health insurance, would be a solid starting point. I look forward to discussing these issues with the Democratic Leadership and the President."

America didn't elect President Obama so that Republicans could rule the legislative process, but through the guidance of David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel, that's what's happening now. There is no way Republicans will sign on to anything at this point unless the president gives in to all of their demands.

Funny thing how Obama keeps reaching out to the other side instead of his own. I'd much rather have a liberal blogger meeting with President Obama instead of having to endure this.

Digby also adds a lot to this discussion and brings a really smart observation to the discussion. Much sharper than what you'd hear from the MSM.

It's fascinating, of course, because it's gossip and because some in the White House and others close to the administration have decided to try to dethrone these four. The courtiers are rebelling...read on

UPDATE: And here comes the reinforcements. There's and article in FT.com that says the Chicago team is hurting the Obama White House and I can't disagree on that one.

Financial Times Washington Bureau Chief Edward Luce has written a granularly informed insider account about those who hold the keys to the inner most sanctum of Obama Land -- Rahm Emanuel, Robert Gibbs, Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod.

--
The article goes on to document how people like Health Secretary and former Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius were kept off television -- along with others like Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Add to this others that Luce does not name -- including important voices like Paul Volcker and Austan Goolsbee on Obama's economic team, who saw their public voices choked off by a media-dominating Lawrencean Summers with support from Robert Gibbs and Rahm Emanuel.

I've been complaining about the lack of surrogate speakers to go out and sell his ideas and the lack of a cohesive legislative strategy and that's been a huge problem also. Read the piece---it's very good. Oh, and Obama is the president and isn't a child so he still has the ultimate say.

I suppose the president is doing this as political cover for the eventual use of reconciliation. But I suspect he really thinks he's going to change the way things work in Congress -- either he's crazy, or a genius. Personally, I wish he'd give up trying to be the Great Mediator and just ram through his agenda - the same way George Bush did with much less public support:

President Obama moved to jump-start the stalled health-care debate Sunday, inviting Republicans in Congress to participate in a bipartisan, half-day televised summit on the subject this month.

The president made the offer in an interview with CBS News anchor Katie Couric hours before the network televised the Super Bowl.

Obama challenged Republicans, who have been largely unified in opposing his proposals, to bring their best ideas for how to cover more Americans and fix the health insurance system to the public discussion.

"I want to consult closely with our Republican colleagues," Obama said. "What I want to do is to ask them to put their ideas on the table. . . . I want to come back and have a large meeting, Republicans and Democrats, to go through, systematically, all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward."

The invitation to meet together on Feb. 25 -- and to do so live in front of the American public -- represents an effort by Obama to hit the reset button on the top domestic priority of his first year in office. It also reflects a recognition that he must have at least some Republican support if he hopes to see health-care reform pass.

[...] GOP leaders on Sunday said they welcomed the outreach but called it evidence that Obama knows he must start over if he wants to earn their support going forward.

Katie Couric interviewed a few teabaggers to get to the bottom of their beliefs, because generally the media hasn't bothered to check them out like we have.

Digby explains:

Katie Couric sits down with a couple of teabaggers to find out what they really believe. And it turns out that they believe in individual liberty, fiscal responsibility, free markets, limited government, low taxes, a strong national defense and protecting our borders against the immigrant invasion. They think the government has usurped the constitution and see themselves as uber-patriots fulfilling the founders' intent. They believe fervently in American exceptionalism and that the nation is under mortal threat from foreign enemies without and traitors within. They are divided on social issues but insist that they are irrelevant to their movement --- they repeat Republican talking points verbatim but insist they are not Republicans. In other words they are standard issue conservative movement wingnuts without the cross.

If you don't want to bother listening to them, you can just listen to Glenn Beck and you'll get the picture. These guys aren't as entertaining but he's obviously their leader.

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This is the right wing I grew up with --- before the God Squad was recruited and turned the movement into the panty sniffing morals police. I know them very well. They are racists and conspiracy mongers and they have absolutely no business being anywhere near real power. The Big Money boyz know they have nothing to fear from them --- indeed, they sponsor them. They are good Republicans even if they don't know it.

Either they are lying that they aren't conservatives or just plain ignorant about their beliefs. I believe it's a little of both. Some really just found politics and have been brainwashed to hate the government because they saw what happened under George Bush. President Obama's first year has been for the most part to try and save the country from conservatism and then try to pass health care. We might terribly dislike the approach he's taken towards these problems, but that's it in the nutshell.

The teabaggers are an extension of movement conservatism, and especially its long use of the politics of resentment. That started with Goldwater and morphed into the New Right and then Abramoff and Norquists' College Republicans. They've always found it useful to stor up right-wing populism. Their idea that left-wing libertarians can join with them is absurd in any meaningful way; the Tea Party exists for one reason, to attack the left. I will change my mind if and when the Tea Party movement does one thing that actually hurts conservatism and conservative politicians when it counts. I'm not holding my breath.

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January 06, 2010 NBC Jay Leno Show

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From Fox News Watch the panel has a nice 'fair and balanced' discussion on media bias, using of course Brent Bozell's winger site the Media Research Center as their guide for what to point to as their proof that the media has a liberal bias. I'm quite sure Bozell doesn't consider all the garbage Fox pumps out day after day as any sign that there might be just a slight conservative bias out there to counter whatever they manage to find from the other media outlets.

They show a clip of Katie Couric sucking up to President Obama which won Bozell's 'Let us Fluff Your Pillow Award' and cite an article by JokeLine in Time Magazine on Obama's first 100 days in office as two examples of bias towards Obama. When Dana Perino is asked to compare those stories to the kind of coverage Bush received here's how she responds:

Perino: Well there is no comparison and I gave up a long time ago as a Republican thinking that we were going to get comparable type of coverage. There are though--a lot of Democrats will tell you that President Bush got a lot of fawning coverage after 9-11 and obviously that swung back the other way. But I always say if you are, if you're looking for communications advice, ask a Republican because they've had to try so much harder.

Scott: To be fair Ellis, you think there's a quote from a conservative member of the media that deserves to be (crosstalk)

Henican: Those are two icky examples. I mean I wouldn't want to be caught on tape saying either of those things.

Scott: Icky.

Henican: But yeah, come on. Let's be honest though. There is some pretty awful stuff on the other side and I did a little poking around and how's this one from Limbaugh, right? You know he said a few things. He said we've been told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles because his father was black. And that's pretty awful.

Perino: Okay, that isn't... I would never say something like that, but Limbaugh doesn't pretend to be a... objective journalist. Okay? And Katie Couric does.

Henican: And there's a variety of quotes we can pull from any of those venues. But listen, people have asked stupid stuff in both directions. Let's admit that.

Lowry: What's different Ellis is one he's not supposed to be an objective reporter. Two if you go to the Media Research web site and look at...

Henican: An objective organization right?

Lowry: and look at every single video clip from the inauguration and in your words, icky, every single one of them is icky from every single major media outlet. They were in love with this guy. And they still are most of them.

So Perino thinks as long as you're not pretending to be objective, it’s alright to say the most foul, racist crap imaginable with sexual references to boot about the President, and Rich Lowry thinks that The Media Research Center’s video collection is a fair and balanced look at the media coverage of President Obama, and obviously doesn’t consider Fox News or right wing talk radio a 'major media outlet'.

I’m so glad sweet little Dana Perino at least qualified her defense of Limbaugh with saying that she wouldn’t have said it herself. Well, that makes your defense of his statement much better Dana. I'm sure Perino also doesn't think any of the negative coverage Bush got in the press was deserved but we'll never get any honest discussion on that on Fox News either. I assume playing apologist for him is at least paying well for her along with the rest of the Bush lackey's that keep showing up on my television screen on all of the networks.

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Sarah Palin thinks she's got it covered now in explaining why she did so badly when interviewed by actual journalists in her failed vice-presidential campaign last year. She went on The O'Reilly Factor last night and told BillO that a simple foreign-policy question like Charles Gibson's query about the Bush Doctrine was just a "gotcha technique" by the liberal media (instead of a routine question intended to ascertain her bearings on foreign policy).

And Katie Couric? That was just a reaction to Katie's snotty questions:

O'Reilly: Katie Couric's a different story. Katie Couric asked you an easy question and you booted it, governor.

Palin: I sure did.

[Plays video]

COURIC: What newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this — to stay informed and to understand the world?

PALIN: I’ve read most of them again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media —

COURIC: But what ones specifically? I’m curious.

PALIN: Um, all of them ...

O'Reilly: Why did you boot it? I mean, if somebody asks what do you read, I say I read the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, I could reel them off in my sleep, you couldn't do it.

Palin: Well, of course I could. Of course I could.

O'Reilly: Well, why didn't you?

Palin: It's ridiculous to suggest that or say I couldn't tell people what I read. Because by that point already, although it was relatively early in that multi-segmented interview with Katie Couric -- it was, it was quite obvious that it was going to be a bit of an annoying interview with a badgering of the questions. It seemed to me that she didn't know anything about Alaska, about my job as governor, about my accomplishments as mayor or governor, my record. And a question like that, though, yeah, I booted it, I screwed up, I should have been more patient and more gracious in my answer, it seemed to me the question was more along the lines of -- Do you read? How do you stay in touch with the real world?

O'Reilly: See, that was your inexperience.

Palin: It was my inexperience with having to deal with a condescending, badgering line of questioning. No -- no reflection at all on my inexperience in terms of administrative record or accomplishments or vision for America.

Pardon me while I call b-llsh-t. "What kinds of things do you read?" is a stock question of the political journalist when querying candidates, particularly those new on the scene. And as you can see from watching the clip that O'Reilly shows, there was nothing high-handed or suggestive of "Do you read?" in Couric's question.

You can watch the longer clip of this portion of the interview here. Palin is not bridling at Couric's arrogance -- she's drawing a blank and reaching for straws.

But in Palinopia, of course, she's just being "human." And I guess that's right, to an extent -- since prevaricating and dodging and making up lame excuses is part of the human condition too. Just not a very attractive or inspiring one.

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Watching Sarah Palin being interviewed is always a little like watching an incoherent art-student film or something from a William S. Burroughs fantasy. It obviously comes from a completely different planet in a different quadrant of the universe.

For example, among the things you learned by watching Palin on Sean Hannity's Fox News show last night were the following nuggets:

-- Palin still is unhappy with the McCain campaign for not having smeared Barack Obama enough with phony association-game stuff about Bill Ayers and Rev. Wright -- you know, issues Americans really cared about.

-- She seems to have been watching a lot of Glenn Beck, though, because she practically repeats Beck's favorite talking points about Obama's supposedly nefarious associations.

-- Palin says "it wasn't negative campaigning and it wasn't off-base to call someone out on their associations." Hmmmm. Well, when Max Blumenthal and I did just that with Palin over her lengthy far-right associations, she completely freaked out.

-- Obama is "dithering" in Afghanistan. And evidently, if Palin were president, the only people she would listen to regarding the use of troops would be generals. Civilian advisers? Fuggedaboutit.

-- The reason she "blew" the question in the Katie Couric interview about what she read? She was irked by Couric's "arrogance." Apparently it's arrogant of media folk to ask national politicians softball questions that every other politico on the planet can readily answer.

-- What does she read? The first publication she cites is NewsMax. Yep, that NewsMax: The folks who, in the late 1990s, were peddling "Y2K apocalypse" theories and Clinton "New World Order" conspiracy theories. The same NewsMax that recently published a piece extolling the virtues of a military coup in order to remove Obama.

One thing that I think will become obvious in the coming weeks: Palin will not risk any more Katie Couric interviews. She will be completely ensconced only with friendly interviewers like Hannity. Oprah will have been her most risky interview.

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On his Fox News show last night, Glenn Beck launched his latest campaign to unseat a member of the Obama White House: Valerie Jarrett, one of the president's closest advisers and a close friend of Michelle Obama as well.

Beck in fact devoted over 20 minutes of his opening segment to attacking Jarrett. He not only puts Jarrett at the center of the controversies Beck has managed to stir up and force resignations, but he says Jarrett is the reason the Obamas are flying to Denmark to lobby for Chicago as the host city for the 2016 Olympics.

It's straight out of black-helicoptersville, of course. But this has never stopped Beck in the past. Indeed, it's been the key to his success so far.

Somehow, I don't think Jarrett is going to be as easy to throw under the bus as Van Jones was. Now we may get to see, finally, how this White House responds to these kinds of attacks -- other than rank capitulation.

In the meantime, has anyone noticed yet that all of Beck's targets to date have been black?

I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

Just like it was coincidence that Beck couldn't explain to Katie Couric the meaning of "white culture":

UPDATE: White House blogger Jesse Lee has posted a factual response pointing out how reality-deprived Beck's attacks are.

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Katie Couric asks Glenn Beck about the Tea Baggers he's stirring up at the rallies and whether that bothers him, his comment saying the President is a racist and his comment about poisoning Nancy Pelosi and hitting Charlie Rangel over the head with a shovel. Beck of course shows no remorse for the protesters behavior.

As to the racism comment he says he was sorry for the "way it was phrased" but says "it is a serious question" that he thinks needs "serious discussion".

He asks Couric is she's "ever asked Jon Stewart that question" in response to the Pelosi/Rangel question. Glenn, I don't think Jon Stewart has ever joked about poisoning Nancy Pelosi or hitting Charlie Rangel over the head with a shovel.

Dave N.: It's clear that Beck isn't about to apologize for calling President Obama a racist, because he believes it's true. And you can see, from watching his show this past month, that proving this thesis -- that Obama's radical anti-white racism is driving him to remake the USA as a communist/socialist state -- is his ongoing enterprise.

But even more noxious is his claim that he's bothered by people carrying Obama-as-Hitler signs -- a little, anyway:

Couric: When you see posters -- I'm curious -- of President Obama dressed like an African tribesman --

Beck: Haven't seen those.

[We call BS on this. Everyone's seen those.]

Couric: Or poster of President Obama with a Hitler mustache. I'm curious -- are you comfortable with that? Does that make you uncomfortable?

Beck: I'm as comfortable with that as I was when they -- the people who were marching against the war were doing it to George W. Bush.

Besides the starkly higher proportion of Obama-Hitler signs, there's one really big difference between them: There weren't any leading figures on the left -- particularly not any with a popular cable show -- telling their audiences of millions that Bush was bringing fascism to America.

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Bill O'Reilly, last night on his Fox News show, discussing Sarah Palin:

O'Reilly: The perception that the governor is dumb comes almost exclusively from the left, does it not?

Well, no doubt there are a lot of people on the left who consider Sarah Palin dumb. But they're hardly alone.

Peggy Noonan:

In television interviews she was out of her depth in a shallow pool. She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn't say what she read because she didn't read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity. She experienced criticism as both partisan and cruel because she could see no truth in any of it. She wasn't thoughtful enough to know she wasn't thoughtful enough. Her presentation up to the end has been scattered, illogical, manipulative and self-referential to the point of self-reverence. "I'm not wired that way," "I'm not a quitter," "I'm standing up for our values." I'm, I'm, I'm.

Kathleen Parker:

Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

... If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

Parker again:

Of course, there’s a difference between a lack of polish and a lack of coherence. Some of Palin’s interview responses can’t even be critiqued on their merits because they’re so nonsensical. “Let Sarah be Sarah” has become the latest rallying cry among my colleagues on the right. She’ll be fine if we just leave her alone, they say. Between prayers, I might add.

David Frum:

I think Sarah Palin was a huge mistake...Americans can be pretty jokey about their government when times are good, but when times are bad, they want to know do -- can you do the job? And when you have a candidate who so obviously has never thought about any of the issues that are going to be important to the next administration and whose knowledge is so shallow, it makes people -- it doesn't just make people offended, it makes them afraid.

David Brooks:

[Sarah Palin] represents a fatal cancer to the Republican party. When I first started in journalism, I worked at the National Review for Bill Buckley. And Buckley famously said he'd rather be ruled by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty. But he didn't think those were the only two options. He thought it was important to have people on the conservative side who celebrated ideas, who celebrated learning. And his whole life was based on that, and that was also true for a lot of the other conservatives in the Reagan era. Reagan had an immense faith in the power of ideas. But there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I'm afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices. I think President Bush has those prejudices.

You don't have to be a liberal to conclude that Sarah Palin is not what they call "the sharpest tool in the shed" back in Alaska. You just have to be someone not consuming the Republican Clap Louder Kool Aid.

Attempting the political equivalent of relaunching the Hindenburg, soon-to-be former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin hosted ABC, Fox News, CNN, Time, the AP and other media outlets while fishing Tuesday. But even as she proclaimed of her abrupt resignation, "politically speaking, if I die, I die," Palin reminded Americans once again why she so deserves that fate.

By claiming the nonexistent "Department of Law" in Washington would protect her from the kind of ethics woes she encountered in Alaska, Palin demonstrated her continuing ignorance of American government and public policy alike. Of course, it's far from the first time.

Here, then, is a look back at Sarah Palin's Greatest Hits:

"I think on a national level, your department of law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we've been charged with and automatically throw them out." (July 7, 2009.)

"It's all for Alaska." (Asked by Time why she resigned, July 7, 2009).

"In what respect, Charlie?" (Asked by ABC's Charles Gibson if she agreed with the Bush Doctrine, September 11, 2008.)

"Let me speak specifically about a credential that I do bring to this table, Charlie, and that's with the energy independence that I've been working on for these years as the governor of this state that produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy..." (Misunderstanding Alaska's 3.5% share of U.S. domestic energy production, September 11, 2008.)

"We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America." (October 16, 2008.)

"A task that is from God." (On the war in Iraq, June 8, 2008.)

"I think God's will has to be done, in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that." (June 8, 2008.)

"To me, it motivates us, makes us work that much harder. And it also strengthens my faith, because I'm going to know, at the end of the day, putting this in God's hands, that the right thing for America will be done at the end of the day on Nov. 4. So I'm not discouraged at all." (Asked if she was discouraged by polls showing the McCain-Palin ticket trailing, October 22, 2008.)

"As for that VP talk all the time, I'll tell you, I still can't answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day?" (August 1, 2008.)

"That's something that Piper would ask me!...[T]hey're in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom." (asked by third grader Brandon Garcia what the Vice President does, October 20, 2008.)

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h/t The HuffPo:

David Letterman had CBS News anchor Katie Couric doubled over with laughter when he referred to Rush Limbaugh as a "bonehead" and described his shirt-unbuttoned appearance at the recent CPAC conference as that of an "East European gangster."

Well at least Letterman's not cow-towing to Limbaugh but Katie's sounds disappointed she might not get her interview with him. Cry me a river. Rush might get a little less free air time to bloviate.

  Jon Stewart recaps Sarah Palin's excruciating interview with Katie Couric.

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Couric: But [Rick Davis] still has a stake in [his lobbying company] so isn't that a conflict of interest?

Palin: [Blank look on face]

Stewart: If you look closely in the reflection of her glasses, I think it says buffering...buffering...buffering... I love this show -- it's like the first season of Lost, only it makes less sense.

  She really is George Bush in lipstick. Katie Couric asks Palin another one of those "gotcha" questions, this time about which publications she reads to learn about the world.

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COURIC: And when it comes to establishing, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and understand the world?

PALIN: I've read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.

COURIC: Like what ones specifically?

PALIN:  Umm... all of them. Any of them that have been in front of me over all these years.

COURIC: Can you name any of them?

PALIN: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news... Alaska isn't a foreign country where it's kind of suggested it seems like, wow how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, DC may be thinking and doing, when you live up there in Alaska. Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.

Good Lord. Put this poor woman out of her misery already. 

DIGG IT!

UPDATE: Glenn gets it.

In order to learn the source of her political knowledge, Katie Couric asked her three times what specific newspapers she read prior to being selected as Vice President, and Palin -- after trying to answer a couple times with her trademark rambling incoherence ("all of 'em, any of 'em that have been in front of me all these years . . . a vast variety") -- abruptly decided that the question was an elitist, condescending East Coast media assault on Alaska and chided Couric accordingly, without answering. How could you mock that other than by repeating it verbatim?

UPDATE II: Holy crap. It completely slipped my mind that Plain has a degree in journalism. Yes, someone who studied journalism can't name a single magazine or newspaper.