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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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Rachel Maddow reports on some breaking news from The New York Times-Brother of Afghan Leader Is Said to Be on C.I.A. Payroll:

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.

The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home.

The financial ties and close working relationship between the intelligence agency and Mr. Karzai raise significant questions about America’s war strategy, which is currently under review at the White House.

The ties to Mr. Karzai have created deep divisions within the Obama administration. The critics say the ties complicate America’s increasingly tense relationship with President Hamid Karzai, who has struggled to build sustained popularity among Afghans and has long been portrayed by the Taliban as an American puppet. The C.I.A.’s practices also suggest that the United States is not doing everything in its power to stamp out the lucrative Afghan drug trade, a major source of revenue for the Taliban.

More broadly, some American officials argue that the reliance on Ahmed Wali Karzai, the most powerful figure in a large area of southern Afghanistan where the Taliban insurgency is strongest, undermines the American push to develop an effective central government that can maintain law and order and eventually allow the United States to withdraw.

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Steve Hynd has more over at Newshoggers--Karzai's Narco-Trafficking Brother Is On CIA's Payroll

The New York Times, in what must be a measure of how sure they are of their information, rolled out the big guns today - Filkins, Mazzetti and Risen - to write the story of how Afghan president Hamid Karzai's brother has been on the CIA payroll for years. [...]

What the CIA has done, and done for most of the last eight years apparently, directly undermines any population-centric counter-insurgency that was ever possible in Afghanistan. The leaking of its ties to Karzai's brother is a disaster of nightmare proportions for any chance of COIN success there, the icing on the cake. Added to all the other factors - the election, the civilians bombed, the abysmal state of the Afghan security forces, the very fact of a foreign occupation - the occupation has passed its tipping point for sure. [...]

Although that will be bolting stable doors after the horses have all bolted. It's a pity in many ways that this will land on Obama's doorstep when it was obviously a Bush administration initiative. My advice to the current White House would be to forget about the usual "we don't comment on intelligence operations" bulls**t. We're talking a potential Iran/Contra level mess here - spill the beans.

No More Mister Nice Blog: Concern trolling for the rich.

Anonymous Liberal: The party of one idea.

Pam's House Blend: Gay is a choice, but religion is not?

Words of Power: Too big to fail?

Bic's Place: That's a socialist mop.

Guest post by Batocchio. Temporarily e-mail tips to batocchio9 AT yahoo DOT com.

Does anything illustrate the bubble some people live in better than this New York Times column?

BEATING up on the wealthy seems to be the order of day. I suspected that. But a recent Wealth Matters column touched a particularly raw nerve. It looked at how even people with sizable fortunes were concerned about money in this recession and the impact that could have on the rest of us.

Readers rejected the attempt to understand the concerns of the rich.

“That’s so stupid that you ought to be slapped for it,” one woman wrote. My favorite began: “Bowties and Reaganomics are for losers. You can cry for the rich all you want, the rest of us will be happy to see them get taxed.”

The vehemence in these e-mail messages made me wonder why so many people were furious at those who had more than they did.

Uh, because we're paying for it when we're out of work and don't have affordable health care?

And why are the rich shouldering the blame for a collective run of bad decision-making? After all, many of the rich got there through hard work. And plenty of not-so-rich people bought homes, cars and electronics they could not afford and then defaulted on the debt, contributing to the crash last year.

"Collective run of bad decision-making"? Let's back up there a minute, pal. As anyone with half a brain knows (yes, even people who write for the New York Times), the financial services industry pushed our country over the economic brink through an assortment of unethical and illegal practices. Someone maxing out their Visa is not exactly in the same category; they merely bought the crack. Wall Street marketed and sold the crack. See the difference?

But in this recession, anger flows one way. Eric Dammann, a Manhattan psychoanalyst, theorizes that a lot of people are angry that the rules of the game seem to have changed.

“There’s always been envy and hatred toward the rich, but there was also a strong undercurrent of admiration that was holding these people up as a goal,” Mr. Dammann said. “This time it’s different because it feels like it’s a closed club and the rich have an unfair advantage.”

Gee, ya think? When corporate gains are privatized and losses are socialized, you think maybe the working people have finally had enough of picking up the slack? Can you say "market manipulation"? Can you say "front running"?

What is troubling is that the anger has hardened for some into a suspicion that all wealthy people are motivated purely by self-interest, said Brad Klontz, a financial psychologist in Hawaii and a co-author of the forthcoming book, “Mind Over Money: Overcoming the Money Disorders That Threaten Our Financial Health” (Random House).

“The script goes like this: Money is bad, rich people are shallow and greedy, and people become rich by taking advantage of others,” Mr. Klontz said. “But the same people who say money is bad say money is connected to their self-worth — they wished they had it and you didn’t.”

Would you like me to explain the difference, Brad? People who have earned their money through providing a service or product, people who hire others and treat them fairly - we still admire those wealthy people. We'd like to be like them.

Wall St. traders - bloodsucking scum who, as Elizabeth Warren puts it, made their money through selling "tricks and traps" - tricks and traps that destroyed our economy and sent them running to Washington with their hands out - those wealthy people can kiss our collective grits.

Go read the rest. It's all about how "good" wealthy people are suffering by association, how they do their fair share, they fund scholarships, live "modest" lives...

Let's be blunt, shall we, Mr. and Mrs. Wealthy Person? You get hefty tax write-offs for those donations. Yes, you like the feeling of helping, but you really like the tax write-offs - and your pictures in the society pages. Wealthy people haven't been paying their fair share of taxes for a really long time, but like to think they're "giving back" quite enough through supporting charities. (Oh, and it's voluntary. Unlike the banking bailout the rest of us are paying for.)

You're not giving back anywhere near what you're taking. Seen the pictures on the news of Americans lining up like cattle for free health care? That's our reality. So if you really want to help, start lobbying to change the tax laws. Support real healthcare reform.

Because for some odd reason, they don't pay much attention to us.

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This post should have gone up the other day, but I accidentally deleted it. Anyway, many Republicans in Congress think that the teabaggers are just your average extreme wingnut who has been radicalized by FOX, but still loves them their conservatives.

Well, Lindsey Graham got a taste of what has been going on far more times than the media will ever mention. Part of the teabagger base has no love for the warmongering Bushies either. They are too ignorant to apply the same rules for Beck and Hannity because they need leaders to focus their hatred for them, but Lindsey does not have such a luxury. They want the country to be made up of militia-style right wingers that are heavily armed and want no part of the black president.

Brad Johnson fills us in.

Right-wing activists across the nation are enraged by Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) decision to work with Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) to craft comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation. In an op-ed published in Sunday’s New York Times, Graham and Kerry discussed their agreement on a framework for mandatory global warming pollution reductions linked to government support for the nuclear, coal, and natural gas industries. The Natural Resource Defense Council’s Dan Lashof embraced the announcement as a “game changer.” Bill Scher noted that Graham has “crossed the climate Rubicon,” abandoning denialist conservative activists by recognizing the threat of global warming and working with Democrats.
--
Graham held a town hall meeting in Greenville, South Carolina in which local Tea Party activists accused him of “going to bed with John Kerry” and making a “pact with the devil,” accusations which generated tremendous applause by the assembled crowd. This unhinged response is reflected in the conservative blogosphere, where Graham has been called a “fake Republican,” “RINO” (Republican in name only), a “traitor,” “disgrace,” “asshat,” “democrat in drag,” and a “wussypants, girly-man, half-a-sissy”

You can expect this behavior for a long time. If Dick Armey were still part of the Republican congress, he too would be getting the same treatment if he tried to help solve some problems facing America today with any Democratic politician. Instead, he's out there helping organize these characters -- at the behest of the insurance companies. Guys like Graham get to deal with the beast they've unleashed.

Joe Nocera, who writes the Executive Suite column for the New York Times, has done an interesting thing today. He 1) points out banks are lying about their involvement in subprime mortgages, he 2) notes that Barney Frank is absolutely wrong to defend them and 3) offers documents that support his claim. This is something we used to call "journalism," and I'm happy to see it:

“There has not been a case made that there is an enforcement problem with banks,” Edward Yingling, the head of the American Bankers Association, said last week. “There is a problem with enforcement on nonbanks.”

As I wrote in my column last week, this has become something of a mantra for the banking industry. We aren’t the ones who brought the world to the brink of financial disaster, they proclaim. It was those awful nonbanks, the mortgage brokers and originators, who peddled those terrible subprime loans to unsuspecting or unsophisticated consumers. They’re the ones who need to be regulated!

Apparently, when you say something long enough and loud enough, people start to believe it, even when it defies reality. Here, for instance, is the normally skeptical Barney Frank on the subject: “What happened was an explosion of loans being made outside of the regular banking system. It was largely the unregulated sector of the lending industry and the underregulated and the lightly regulated that did that.”

To which I can now triumphantly reply: Oh, really???

Last weekend, after the column was published, an angry mortgage broker — someone who felt she and her ilk were being unfairly scapegoated by the banking industry — sent me a series of rather eye-opening documents. They were a series of fliers and advertisements that had been sent to her office (and mortgage brokers all over the country) from JPMorgan Chase, advertising their latest wares. They were dated 2005, which was before the subprime mortgage boom got completely out of control. They’re still pretty sobering.

“The Top 10 Reasons to Choose Chase for All Your Subprime Needs,” screams the headline on the first one. Another was titled, “Chase No Doc,” and described the criteria for a borrower to receive a so-called no-document loan. “Got Bank Statements?” asked a third flier. “Get Approved!” In a number of the fliers, Chase makes it clear to the mortgage brokers that the bank doesn’t need income or job verification — it just needs to look at a handful of old bank statements.

“There were mortgage brokers who acted unethically, absolutely,” my source told me when I called her on Monday. (She asked to remain anonymous because she still has to work with JPMorgan Chase and the other big banks.) “But where do you think mortgage brokers were getting the subprime mortgages they were selling to customers? From the big banks, that’s where. Chase, Bank of America — they were all doing it.” So enough already about how the banks weren’t the problem. Of course they were. Here’s the evidence, right here. Read ’em and weep.

It's pretty clear that any health care "reform" bill will be a sorry compromise between what the New York Times on Sunday so delicately calls "organized interests."

This is important, because as you may have figured out, we're the only non-organized interest. No one is inviting us to the table to have a reasonable discussion (and no, allowing us to leave comments on the White House website is not a "discussion.") That means the proposals that are most likely to cut costs and improve efficiency are least likely to remain, and the ones most likely to remain are the ones that stick it to us.

For now, that seems inevitable. Although Congress does have its inspirational members, the legislative body is still a wholly-owned subsidiary of the banking and insurance industries. We're more likely to see progress in legislative tweaks after the bill is finally passed:

WASHINGTON — As the health care debate moves to the floor of Congress, most of the serious proposals to fulfill President Obama’s original vow to curb costs have fallen victim to organized interests and parochial politics.

Peter R. Orszag, the White House budget director, says containing costs will be a priority as health care legislation advances.

And now the last two initiatives with real bite that are still in contention — a scaled-back “Cadillac tax” on high-cost health plans and a nonpartisan Medicare budget-cutting commission — are under furious assault.

Most economists’ favorite idea for slowing the growth of health care spending was ending the income tax exemption for employer-paid health insurance to make lower-cost plans more attractive. But that would hurt workers with big benefit plans, and a labor-union lobbying blitz helped kill that idea by the Fourth of July.

Lobbying by doctors, hospitals and other health care providers, meanwhile, dimmed the prospects of various proposals to cut into their incomes, including allowing government negotiation of Medicare drug prices and creating a government insurer with the muscle to lower fee payments.

“The lobbyists are winning,” said Representative Jim Cooper, a conservative Tennessee Democrat who teaches health policy.

Total health care costs in the last 20 years have doubled to about 16 percent of the economy, with no signs of tapering. Along with universal coverage, Mr. Obama has made controlling those costs a central pillar of his health care overhaul, calling the current course “unsustainable.” The effort is a pivotal test of his campaign promise to break the stranglehold of special interests.

In his weekly radio address on Saturday, Mr. Obama applauded the bill set for a vote next week in the Senate Finance Committee. “By attacking waste and fraud within the system,” he said, “it will slow the growth in health care costs, without adding a dime to our deficits.”

In an interview, Peter R. Orszag, the White House budget director and the official most associated with the drive to cut costs, singled out the proposed Medicare commission and the “Cadillac tax” as evidence of progress. “A key priority now,” Mr. Orszag said, “is to make sure cost containment holds up as we move through the legislative process."

Neither element appears in any of the other four health care bills on Capitol Hill, and both face dug-in resistance in the House.

Although the bills contain other measures aimed at medical costs, most of the surviving ones do not antagonize any organized interest. Among them are voluntary efficiency measures like encouraging the coordination of medical records, disseminating information comparing the effectiveness of treatments and various pilot projects.

White House officials argue that in any case it is prudent to start with such tests, and that many could be expanded to more comprehensive programs. But their real impact is hard to gauge, and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office assigns them little weight. (The budget office credited the Finance Committee bill with reducing the federal deficit, but how much it will slow the growth of total public and private health spending is another question.)

The tax on gold-plated insurance plans is the last vestige of most economists’ favorite idea, eliminating the tax exemption for employer plans. The finance bill would impose a 40 percent excise tax on insurance plans that cost more than $8,000 a year for an individual or $21,000 for a family.

The bill has aroused the frantic opposition of labor and business lobbyists who appear to have found friends in the Capitol. On Wednesday, 157 House Democrats — a majority of the party — signed a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi opposing the tax.

“It has no legs in the House,” said Representative Pete Stark, the California Democrat who is chairman of the health subcommittee of the tax-writing panel.

The proposed Medicare commission, aimed at providers instead of consumers, is becoming a case study in the political difficulty of reducing medical payments.

The commission was intended to side-step the interest-group pressure that often stymies Congress. Modeled after the nonpartisan commission for military base closings, it would present a roster of Medicare cuts that Congress could block only with legislation.

But along the way, the White House and the Senate Finance Committee have cut deals for political support with lobbyists that may circumscribe the cost cuts, potentially including the recommendations of the commission.

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From The Rachel Maddow Show Oct. 7, 2009. Yet another shoe drops on Sen. John Ensign. We just had the news on Tom Coburn apparently negotiating bribes for Sen. Ensign, and now this.

MADDOW: We begin with a follow up to Sen. John Ensign’s failed attempt to avoid the media at all costs. You know that Sen. Ensign revealed back in June that he had had an affair with a campaign staffer. A campaign staffer who was married to a man named Doug Hampton. Doug Hampton worked in Sen. Ensign’s senate office. Here was the failed media avoidance indecent.

[…]

“I never talked to Doug Hampton about any of that stuff.” The question was Sen. Ensign did you ever meet with Doug Hampton after you got him a lobbying job. “No, I never met with Doug Hampton about any of that stuff.”

What you just saw was CNN’s Dana Bash and her producer confronting John Ensign outside his office in Washington D.C. yesterday. They’re trying to ask the senator this. What was your involvement with Doug Hampton after you convinced companies to hire him as a lobbyist? It’s an important question because former staffers are required by law to wait a year before lobbying their old bosses.

And the answer that Ensign gave in this interview was zilch, nada, none. He said he had no contact with Doug Hampton on any lobbying matters.

[…]

“I never met with him on any of that lobbying stuff.” Well the New York Times today looked into the veracity of this statement and they found an uh-oh.

Interviews and documents, however, show that Mr. Ensign had lunch in the Senate dining room in March with Mr. Hampton and executives from Allegiant Air to discuss aviation issues. That lunch took place on the same day that the airline executives, in a meeting arranged by Mr. Ensign, spoke with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood about a dispute with a foreign carrier and other issues.

Allegiant Air being one of Mr. Hampton’s clients on whose behalf he lobbied.

BASH: Is there anything else that you... are you considering resigning?

ENSIGN: I am focused on doing my work. I'm going to continue to focus on doing my work.

MADDOW: And so too will everyone else senator-- We will all be focusing on your work. Particularly the work we now think you did with your mistress’ husband/former staffer/illegal lobbyist.

Following in the footsteps of the Washingtn Post, The NY Times mad fools of themselves when they suddenly decided that Glenn Beck and his right wing cohorts like Andrew Breitbart are credible news sources.
Eric Boehlert explains in his excellent article: The NY Times' pointless pursuit of right-wing "buzz" stories

Jill Abramson, the managing editor for news, agreed with me that the paper was "slow off the mark," and blamed "insufficient tuned-in-ness to the issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio." She and Bill Keller, the executive editor, said last week that they would now assign an editor to monitor opinion media and brief them frequently on bubbling controversies.

-- New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt, September 26 column [emphasis added]

Talk about great timing!

Just after The New York Times announced it would appoint somebody to monitor the partisan opinion media more closely, and right after editors were chastened for reacting too slowly to buzzworthy news scoops launched by the conservative media, the right-wing press went into overdrive last week.

Like a proud peacock showing off its feathers, the right-wing media was in full bloom, showing the Times all the tricks that have made the movement's trade so renowned. There was outright lying, lying by omission, attempted guilt-by-association, U.S.-bashing, hateful smear campaigns (lots of those), fearmongering, incompetence, and just batshit crazy stuff. (Did I mention the heavy dose of crazy?) All the key notes were hit -- and in just one epic week. I hope the Times is enjoying its new-found, front-row seat to the right-wing media's slow-motion crack-up...read on

Please read the entire article for a list of lies the right has been pimping. Does the media really have to ask why Americans don't trust the traditional media as much anymore? When the Washington Post and the NY Times turn to FOX Noise for what the now seem to believe is legitimate news sourcing one has to wonder what ever happened to the meaning of the word "journalism." Acorn, dudes!

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The New York Times revealed that Sen. John Ensign may have ignored laws when giving preferential treatment to a lobbyist that was the husband of his former lover. Fellow Republican Senator Jon Kyl refused to defend Ensign when given a chance Sunday.

Another Republican Senator, Tom Coburn, was caught lying about his role in negotiating payments to the family of Ensign's mistress.

Sen. Barbara Boxer confirmed that the Senate Ethic Committee had opened an investigation into Ensign's actions. "We will look at all aspects of this case, as we do whenever there is a case before us, and try to get to the bottom of it as quickly as we can in fairness to all," Boxer told CNN's John King.

You think you've seen conflicts of interest with Disney owning ABC? You ain't seen nothing yet. Imagine the same people who brought you Comcast just sort of ... massaging the media message in favor of their own corporate strategy. Yes, the same people who charge you for service calls for their unreliable cable will be in charge of the news coverage. Oh boy, what could be better?

NBC Universal executives declined to deny a report Wednesday night that Comcast, the cable giant, is in talks to buy the television and movie company from General Electric.

Comcast also did not deny the report that bankers for the two sides discussed a possible deal Tuesday in New York.

Such talks often lead nowhere, but rumors have circulated for months that GE might be looking to unload the news and entertainment company. NBC is stuck in fourth place among broadcast networks, and Universal Studios is enduring a rough movie season.

"We have no comment," NBC Executive Vice President Allison Gollust said.

Comcast spokeswoman D'Arcy Rudnay also would not address the reported talks. "While we don't comment on M&A [mergers and acquisitions] rumors, the report that Comcast has a deal to purchase NBC Universal is inaccurate," Rudnay told Bloomberg News.

That, however, was not what was reported by TheWrap.com, a Hollywood-based Web site founded by former Washington Post and New York Times reporter Sharon Waxman. That account cited sources who have knowledge of the talks.

[...] TheWrap's report comes as merger talks on Wall Street have heated up in recent weeks, after nearly coming to a standstill amid the global financial crisis.

If the reported discussions lead to a sale, it will give Comcast an enormous amount of content for its distribution pipeline. The takeover also would mean a new owner for NBC News, MSNBC and CNBC, as well as the Spanish-language Telemundo network and USA and Bravo cable channels. In 2004, Comcast tried to buy the Walt Disney Co., which owns ABC, but eventually withdrew its unsolicited, $56 billion bid.

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(John Daly - insisted on calling Hunter S. Thompsons writing style "Bongo Journalism")

In lieu of the recent Senate Bill that questions validity of citizen bloggers, I went back to a National Town Meeting broadcast from 1974 to hear what the status of the media was then. It wasn't that much better, particularly if you were judged to be in the "alternative media" which meant the Underground press back then. However, in all fairness, in 1974 Broadcast news departments were ten times the size they are now. The hours spent on documentaries and special news programming was huge and newspapers offered a plethora of in-depth reports and daily investigative journalism. Unrecognizable from what they are today.

The panel on this broadcast consisted of Pat Buchanan, Richard Harwood of The Washington Post, Richard Goodwin of Rolling Stone and Thomas Asher of the Media Access Project. The program was moderated (and somewhat mangled) by , former newscaster for ABC and CBS, game show host and professional personality.

The subject was "Critiquing The Media" and of course Buchanan spends much time railing against the injustices of the "librul media" and complaining about imbalance. This coming from a man who was deeply entrenched in the Nixon White House.

The subject of Hunter S. Thompson comes up and that's when Daly lets his disconnect be known. Unable to say the words "gonzo Journalism" he insists on a variation of either Bongo and Bonzo Journalism and dismisses it, as does Buchanan who dismisses Rolling Stone in general as no representation of actual news reporting - the only news to be had was from The New York Times or The Washington Post and perhaps Time Magazine.

Richard Goodwin: “I’m not in favor of fictional journalism, and the headline I gave an example, is not intended as fiction, but as fact. I think one of the problems that you have is, even use of the word fact and what constitutes a fact. You’re talking about convictions, attitudes, opinions, judgments. These aren’t facts in the sense that a glass of water is a fact. They require that you impose your own judgment. Somebody says something; is he lying, does he mean it, is it true? And simply to say that he said it, in itself is an assertion, at least to the people who read it, that perhaps or probably what he said is true. It’s a fact that he said it, but he may not be speaking facts or the truth. And unfortunately, most things, most interesting or complicated things in the world are not very, it’s not often easy to decide what the facts are without bringing to it a set of values and personal convictions. And if you withdraw from that you allow those who make the presentation to you to determine what the truth is . . .”

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RNC chair Michael Steele doesn't think the White House is asking New York governor David Paterson not to run for reelection because he's black -- but Steele is injecting the question of race into the discussion. The White House asked Patterson to drop out, according to a report in The New York Times.

"I found that to be stunning, that the White House would send word to one of only two black governors in the country not to run for reelection," Steele told CBS' Bob Schieffer.

Dear Time Magazine:

Four years ago, I dropped what had been nearly a lifelong subscription to your publication, because on the 10th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, you devoted not a single word to that event -- but instead devoted your cover to Ann Coulter, a woman who only a year before that had uttered the infamous line, "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building."

And you know what? I really haven't missed it since.

Lately you've been sending me e-mails imploring me to renew my subscription. "David, we want you back!" is the message line.

I've just been deleting them. Though I admit I've paused once or twice and reconsidered.

But now, after running a cream-puff profile of Glenn Beck that makes the Coulter profile look hard-hitting in comparison, I just have two words:

Bite me.

Jamison Foser at Media Matters has the ultimate evisceration of this piece of journalistic garbage. Charles Kaiser e-mails the author of the piece, who reveals he doesn't watch much cable and really hardly knows anything about the subject he was assigned to write about.

So please, go away. And no more whimpering about why no one wants to read established media publications anymore.

Signed, your ex-subscriber, Dave

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Howard Kurtz asks his panel of the editor of The New York Times Week in Review and The New York Times Book Review Sam Tanenhaus, the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody and the Washington Post's Ceci Connolly what they think of the right wing's preemptive freak out over President Obama's speech to school children last week.

Tanenhaus says it is an indication of what he calls "the death of conservatism" which is the theme and name of his book.

Brody thinks the President has a "perception problem". Hmmmm.... I wonder what might have contributed to that. The media overplaying the right wing screechers that should otherwise be dismissed couldn't have possibly contributed to that, could it David?

And Ceci Connolly says the "media are addicted to conflict". And don't blame them for feeding us crap on a daily basis since that 24 hour news cycle is so hard to fill up. Well here's a thought. Why not fill it with something besides crap? Somehow Amy Goodman manages to find an hours worth of news every day that you guys can't find the time to report on in that 24 hour cycle. Imagine that. I would imagine that a good deal of our readers here at Crooks and Liars could recommend more stories that are worth reporting on than there would be time for in the 24 hour news cycle, even on a "slow day".

I'd like to think that Sam Tanenhaus' observation is the correct one and that this over the top rhetoric does mean the death of the conservative movement, but our "mainstream media" along with a lot of other powerful forces are going to do their best to make sure it doesn't happen any time soon.

Transcript below the fold.

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