“Soy Un Perdedor, I’m A Loser Baby, So Why Don’t You Kill Me?”… Wait, Wrong Beck

David Carr at NYT:

Almost every time I flipped on television last week, there was a deeply angry guy on a running tirade about the conspiracies afoot, the enemies around all corners, and how he alone seemed to understand what was under way.

While it’s true that Charlie Sheen sucked up a lot of airtime last week, I’d been watching Glenn Beck, the Fox News host who invoked Hezbollah, socialists, the price of gas, Shariah law, George Soros, Planned Parenthood, and, yes, Charlie Sheen, as he predicted a coming apocalypse.

Mr. Beck, a conservative Jeremiah and talk-radio phenomenon, burst into television prominence in 2009 by taking the forsaken 5 p.m. slot on Fox News and turning it into a juggernaut. A conjurer of conspiracies who spotted sedition everywhere he looked, Mr. Beck struck a big chord and ended up on the cover of Time magazine and The New York Times Magazine, and held rallies all over the country that were mobbed with acolytes. He achieved unheard-of ratings, swamped the competition and at times seemed to threaten the dominion of Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity at Fox.

But a funny thing happened on the way from the revolution. Since last August, when he summoned more than 100,000 followers to the Washington mall for the “Restoring Honor” rally, Mr. Beck has lost over a third of his audience on Fox — a greater percentage drop than other hosts at Fox. True, he fell from the great heights of the health care debate in January 2010, but there has been worrisome erosion — more than one million viewers — especially in the younger demographic.

He still has numbers that just about any cable news host would envy and, with about two million viewers a night, outdraws all his competition combined. But the erosion is significant enough that Fox News officials are willing to say — anonymously, of course; they don’t want to be identified as criticizing the talent — that they are looking at the end of his contract in December and contemplating life without Mr. Beck.

Ryan Witt at The Examiner:

Today Beck was not on his radio show, but his substitute claimed that the New York Times article was just “wishful thinking” and that Beck and Fox News are, in fact, on good terms.  Beck’s website The Blaze is running an article at the top of their home page which makes fun of Carr’s article.  However, none of the factual assertions in Carr’s article are actually refuted The Blaze response.

Of course, the one group who actually knows the truth are the executive of Fox News.  Thus far no one at Fox News has released a statement either confirming or denying Beck contract, or Carr’s claims that the network is thinking about dumping Beck.  Fox News normally offers a strong defense of their own employees.  Fox News President Roger Ailes has been known to send out memos stressing the need fo unity among their employees.  By not saying anything at all, the silence of Fox News executives may speak louder than words.

Matt Schneider at Mediaite:

However, Carr later points out that Beck “still has numbers that just about any cable news host would envy and, with about two million viewers a night, outdraws all his competition combined.” One might think that would be the beginning and the end of the speculation, since what more should a television show be expected to do besides get more eyeballs watching them than any other show? However, Carr raises a separate intriguing point: not only does Fox not need Beck to continue to be successful, but Beck doesn’t really need Fox either. Therefore, unless both sides are completely happy with the relationship, maybe a separation is possible?

Then, just in case the article is completely wrong, Carr mentions “But the partnership, which has been good for both parties, may yet be repaired.” In other words, yes Beck and Fox News can survive without one another, but since the relationship is highly profitable and consistently headline generating for all involved, might Carr’s conjecture be nothing more than an attempt to stir the pot?

Chris Rovzar at New York Magazine:

Beck, Carr guesses, is narrowing his audience down to only the diehards — because most people don’t want to hear about how the world is going to end. Not only because it’s depressing, but also since the world is not going to end. While other Fox News hosts like Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity are lecturing to an audience that believes in America, Beck is talking to people who don’t believe in anything — except, perhaps, God and the end of days.

Carr spoke with several Fox News executives who said (on background, of course) that “they are looking at the end of his contract in December and contemplating life without Mr. Beck.” One Fox development VP is on record saying they’ve tried to get Beck to make his show cheerier. But no one, not even Fox’s crack publicity team, is quoted defending the controversial host — or insisting that his contract will be renewed. Which means that Beck, who can see doom in every shadow, is probably getting this message loud and clear: Something could very well come to an end within the year, and it won’t necessarily be the world.

Don Suber:

Yes. He has “made it difficult for Fox to hang onto its credibility as a news network.”

How about Rick Sanchez’s anti-Semitic spew when CNN canceled his show?

How about CNN’s Operation Tailwinds story?

How about CNN hiring Client No. 9 to begin with?

And speaking of news credibility,. there were never 300 asdvertisers of the Glenn Beck show to “fled.”

There are only about a dozen minutes of advertising a show.

Any media expert knows this. Any amateur knows this. Apparently David Carr does not.

And left out of David Carr’s story is the fact that the White House — through New York Times darling Van Jones — organized an advertising boycott.

Of people who don’t advertise on the Glenn Beck show.

The more the media dumps on Fox News over gnats while allowing CNN’s elephants to escape, the less unbiased the media look.

From Lucianne Goldberg: “David Carr (NYT) goes after Beck’s followers. Later tweets Beck’s audience is ‘a lot more sophisticated than people think’.”

Keep thinking you know it all, lefties.

Oliver Willis:

Beck’s problem is that he took the “oooh I’m scared of Obama (and his black skin)” sentiment and thought it was a way to make himself into a national leader of more than just a fringe of the fringe. As a result, he’s made his conspiracies even more ridiculous and tried the patience of even the tinfoil-hat brigade.

DADT Dead, And Only Seventeen Years Old

Scott Wong at Politico:

The Senate voted Saturday to repeal the ban on gays in the military, marking a major victory for gay rights and an impending end to the 17-year old “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

The bill now heads to President Barack Obama, who plans to sign it into law, overturning what repeal advocates believed was a discriminatory policy that has unfairly ended the careers of thousands of gay members of the military.

The 65-31 Senate vote marked a historic — and emotional — moment for the gay-rights movement and handed Obama a surprising political triumph in the closing days of the 111th Congress. The legislation had been left for dead as recently as last week when Senate Republicans blocked efforts to advance it. But on final passage, the bill won the support of eight Republicans, an unexpectedly high total.

Paul Mirengoff at Powerline:

Earlier in the day, the Senate voted 63-33 to invoke cloture. Six Republicans voted in favor of doing so: Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Mark Kirik, Scott Brown, Lisa Murkowski, and George Voinovich. On the final vote, two conservatives, John Ensign and Richard Burr, joined in to support repeal.

Of that entire group, the only Senator whose view on the subject I credit even slightly is Scott Brown, who has served for 30 years in the National Guard. But Brown must run for re-election in left-liberal Massachusetts. And, political calculation aside, I do not credit Brown’s views nearly as much as those of, for example, John McCain, a true expert in military affairs whose son serves in the Marines and opposes repeal.

It’s clear to me that there will come a day when DADT can be repealed without an appreciable risk to the military and its personnel, such as the risk described by Gen. James Amos, Commandant of the Marines, of American soldiers dying on the battlefield as a result of the decrease in unit cohesion he thinks repeal will produce. The testimony of Gen. Amos, and the data contained in the Pentagon’s study showing the views of the people who actually fight for this country, led me to conclude that day has not yet arrived.

Andrew Sullivan:

It’s been more than three decades since Leonard Matlovich appeared on the cover of Time magazine. It’s been more than two decades since this struggle began to reach the realm of political possibility. From the painful non-compromise of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, through the big increase in discharges under president Clinton, via the wars and civil marriage breakthroughs of the first decade of the 21st Century to the calm and reasoned Pentagon report of December 2010, the path has been uneven. We need to remember this. We need to remember constantly that any civil rights movement will be beset with reversals, with dark periods, with moments when the intensity of the despair breaks the hardiest of souls.

But we should also note that what won in the end was facts and testimony and truth. There is no rational basis to keep qualified and dedicated gays from serving in the military. It was confidence in this truth – not assertion of any special identity or special rights – that carried us forward. And the revelation of the actual lives and records of gay servicemembers – all of whom came out of the closet and risked their livelihoods to testify to the truth – has sunk in widely and deeply. These men and women had the courage to serve their country and then the courage to risk their careers, promotions, pensions, salaries and, in some cases, lives to bring this day about. They represent an often silent majority of gay men and women who simply want to belong to the families and country and churches and communities they love, and to contribute to them without having to lie about themselves. This, in the end, was not about the right to be gay, but the right to serve America. Like all great civil rights movements, it is in the end about giving, not taking.

William Kristol at The Weekly Standard:

Now that the lame duck Democratic Congress has repealed Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT), the new Congress will have to see to it that the Obama administration manages the implementation of repeal responsibly, and that the concerns of military leaders and troops are taken seriously. But over the next two years Congress can do something else. It can take an interest in ensuring that discrimination against ROTC on college campuses ends.

Though ROTC was kicked off campuses like Harvard, Yale and Columbia before gays in the military was ever an issue, DADT became the excuse offered by those universities in recent years for continuing to discriminate against ROTC. The excuse is gone. One trusts the presidents and trustees of colleges that have been keeping ROTC at arm’s length, allegedly because of DADT, will move posthaste to ensure a hearty welcome and full equality for ROTC at their universities. One would expect that patriotic alumni of those universities would insist on quick action. One would hope that prominent individuals, like Yale alum Joe Lieberman, who played so crucial a role in ending DADT, would lose no time in writing president Richard Levin to urge the re-installing of ROTC at Yale, that Crimson alums like Chuck Schumer will be in touch with Harvard president Drew Faust, and that Columbia graduate Barack Obama will weigh in with Fair Columbia’s Lee Bolling

Doug Mataconis

Bryan Fischer:

It’s past time for a litmus test for Republican candidates. This debacle shows what happens when party leaders are careless about the allegiance of candidates to the fundamental conservative principles expressed in the party’s own platform.

Character-driven officers and chaplains will eventually be forced out of the military en masse, potential recruits will stay away in droves, and re-enlistments will eventually drop like a rock.

The draft will return with a vengeance and out of necessity. What young man wants to voluntarily join an outfit that will force him to shower naked with males who have a sexual interest in him and just might molest him while he sleeps in his bunk

This isn’t a game, and the military should never be used, as is now being done, for massive social re-engineering. The new Marine motto: “The Few, the Proud, the Sexually Twisted.” Good luck selling that to strong young males who would otherwise love to defend their country. What virile young man wants to serve in a military like that?

If the president and the Democrats wanted to purposely weaken and eventually destroy the United States of America, they could not have picked a more efficient strategy to make it happen.

Rarely can you point to a moment in time when a nation consigned itself to the scrap heap of history. Today, when the Senate normalized sexual perversion in the military, was that moment for the United States. If historians want a fixed marker pointing to the instant the United States sealed its own demise, they just found it.

It won’t happen overnight, but happen it will.

And Republicans did not just stand around and watch as our military was shredded before their very eyes, they helped it happen. Shame on them all.

Confederate Yankee:

Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association wrote that, either fearing that the most combat-hardened military in world history is ripe for the picking, or perhaps, he’s just guilty of a little fantasizing of his own.

His is an absurd position, one that portrays gay soldiers as uncontrollable rutting beasts, and our straight servicemen as docile sheep waiting to raped. Such a point of view is hysterical and illogical and shows that those holding such views think very little of the professionalism of all soldiers regardless of their sexual preference.

It also taps into a deep-seated phobia that some seem to have that homosexuality is a communicable disease, and that soldiers that serve with gay soldiers could be “turned gay.”

I wish I was joking, but the folks who hold these views are dead serious. Some are borderline frantic, apparently unaware that tens of thousands of gays serve in the military right now. This kind of freakish paranoia brings out the worse in some people, and in some, it simply seems to be striking fears that their own sexuality isn’t quite as black and white as they profess it to be.

I find a gay soldier willing to sacrifice his life for my family’s safety to be on much firmer moral ground than a sputtering viper like Fischer the serves up division and fear.

Perhaps that is the greatest irony; a professed Christian, Fischer certainly seems to be batting for the other team.

Oliver Willis:

Finally, the idiotic and anti-freedom “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy has been rightfully placed in history’s dustbin. Sure, it took too long to happen and shouldn’t have been in place in the first place (lasting all the way to the 21st century!) but at the end of the day it will be signed into law by President Obama and that’s a good thing.

Kudos to Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid for this passage, and even to the Republicans who kept their promise for a change and voted for repeal.

Getting rid of discriminatory policies like this are part of the neverending American move towards progress and while regressive demagogues like John McCain and Louie Gohmert will always do the best they can to halt the inevtiable – they will ultimately be defeated.

America just got better.

Joe Klein at Swampland at Time:

McCain distinguished himself doubly this weekend, opposing the Dream Act and leading the opposition to “Don’t Ask,” despite the very public positions of his wife and daughter on the other side of the issue. I used to know a different John McCain, the guy who proposed comprehensive immigration reform with Ted Kennedy, the guy–a conservative, to be sure, but an honorable one–who refused to indulge in the hateful strictures of his party’s extremists. His public fall has been spectacular, a consequence of politics–he “needed” to be reelected–and personal pique. He’s a bitter man now, who can barely tolerate the fact that he lost to Barack Obama. But he lost for an obvious reason: his campaign proved him to be puerile and feckless, a politician who panicked when the heat was on during the financial collapse, a trigger-happy gambler who chose an incompetent for his vice president. He has made quite a show ever since of demonstrating his petulance and lack of grace.

What a guy.

The Blogosphere Wrestles With The Confederacy Again

Katharine Q. Seelye at NYT:

The Civil War, the most wrenching and bloody episode in American history, may not seem like much of a cause for celebration, especially in the South.

And yet, as the 150th anniversary of the four-year conflict gets under way, some groups in the old Confederacy are planning at least a certain amount of hoopla, chiefly around the glory days of secession, when 11 states declared their sovereignty under a banner of states’ rights and broke from the union.

The events include a “secession ball” in the former slave port of Charleston (“a joyous night of music, dancing, food and drink,” says the invitation), which will be replicated on a smaller scale in other cities. A parade is being planned in Montgomery, Ala., along with a mock swearing-in of Jefferson Davis as president of the Confederacy.

In addition, the Sons of Confederate Veterans and some of its local chapters are preparing various television commercials that they hope to show next year. “All we wanted was to be left alone to govern ourselves,” says one ad from the group’s Georgia Division.

That some — even now — are honoring secession, with barely a nod to the role of slavery, underscores how divisive a topic the war remains, with Americans continuing to debate its causes, its meaning and its legacy.

“We in the South, who have been kicked around for an awfully long time and are accused of being racist, we would just like the truth to be known,” said Michael Givens, commander-in-chief of the Sons, explaining the reason for the television ads. While there were many causes of the war, he said, “our people were only fighting to protect themselves from an invasion and for their independence.”

Not everyone is on board with this program, of course. The N.A.A.C.P., for one, plans to protest some of these events, saying that celebrating secession is tantamount to celebrating slavery.

“I can only imagine what kind of celebration they would have if they had won,” said Lonnie Randolph, president of the South Carolina N.A.A.C.P.

He said he was dumbfounded by “all of this glamorization and sanitization of what really happened.” When Southerners refer to states’ rights, he said, “they are really talking about their idea of one right — to buy and sell human beings.”

Oliver Willis:

God, these people are absolute morons. The Confederacy was an act of war against America, no better than Al Qaeda – probably worse because these people were American citizens. There are those who wish for the history books to expunge their vile legacy, for future generations to lose the collective memory of the people who ripped America apart. They want the future to be ignorant of the confederacy’s love of free labor on the backs of enslaved blacks.

We can’t let that happen.

Jamelle Bouie at Tapped:

In Montgomery, Alabama — at one time, a hotbed of violence in defense of apartheid — neo-Confederate sympathizers are celebrating the anniversary with a parade, as well as a “mock swearing-in” of Jefferson Davis, the sole president of the Confederacy. Incidentally, this is what Davis — senator from Mississippi — had to say about the prospect of secession, in the final months of 1860, shortly before his state left the Union in rebellion:

“The recent declaration of the candidate and leaders of the Black Republican Party must suffice to convince many who have formerly doubted the purpose to attack the institution of slavery in the states. The undying opposition to slavery in the United States means war upon it, where it is, not where it is not.”

A few weeks later, on January 9, 1861, Mississippi issued its ordinance of secession:

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

Ta-Nehisi Coates:

t really annoys me the that Times used someone who they felt they had to ID as a “liberal sociologist” to counter Antley. Far better to simply quote from the founding documents which those 170 people authored. In that way we can get some sense of precisely what they were risking their lives for, and the exact nature of the fortune they were protecting:

We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof. The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”

This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.

The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States. The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution.

The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution.

The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be “to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions.

The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor. We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States.

Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself.

A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety. On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.

I think we need to be absolutely clear that 150 years after the defeat of one of the Confederacy, there are still creationists who seek to celebrate the treasonous attempt to raise an entire country based on the ownership of people.

Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money:

On one level, however, the people who say that the war was about “states’ rights” are correct, if we use revealed preferences to define “states’ rights” as “federal enforcement of the rights of racial minorities is illegitimate, while federal powers that might serve or protect the interests of wealthy southern whites should be interpreted as expansively as possible.” I think Ulysses S. Grant’s acid response to the idea that Southern opposition to Reconstruction reflected a principled resistance to the use of federal military authority characterizes actually existing doctrines of “states’ rights” nicely:

During my two terms of office the whole Democratic press, and the morbidly honest and “reformatory” portion of the Republican press, thought it horrible to keep U.S. troops stationed in the Southern States, and when they were called upon to protect the lives of negroes — as much citizens under the Constitution as if their skins were white — the country was scarcely large enough to hold the sound of indignation belched forth by them for some years. Now, however, there is no hesitation about exhausting the whole power of the government to suppress a strike on the slightest intimation that danger threatens.

Lizardbreath:

I think what gets to me is the Orwellian nature of it all; that it’s a power play. If Confederate-worshippers can make it seem aggressively impolite to insist on straightforwardly, obviously true historical facts, then we can’t rely on facts to establish anything, which is exactly how politics has been feeling lately. Not, of course, that stamping out Civil War revisionism solves anything, but it’d make me feel better.

Steven L. Taylor:

I can’t imagine that most people, in the south or not, will be commemorating secession.  I will, however, state that many of these sentiments are held in at least a vague way by a lot of people in the Deep South.  To wit:   the notion that the war was about “states rights” and self-defense.  I, for one, think that that is a lie that many Americans tell themselves* about the war because they don’t want to fully face up to the notion that the most fundamental right in question was the right for one set of human beings to hold another set of human beings as property.   There is a great deal of pressure to want to find some mental gymnastics to allow for pride about one’s heritage, and it is far easier to cleave to the notion that one’s forbearers were principled about the rights of their states than it is to admit that they were defending a specific political economy that required slave labor.  If anyone has doubts that slavery was central to secession, I would point the reader to a post I wrote on this topic earlier this year:  Confederate Heritage and History Month.  It really is impossible to argue from the facts that the main reason for secession was anything other than slavery.

I will further say this:  there is far too little shame associated with the CSA than there ought to be.  The continued popularity of the Confederate Battle Flag as an adornment on automobiles and clothing attest to that fact.  Or, for that matter, the notion that many politicians still extol things like Confederate Heritage Month and the aforementioned battle flag.**  Certainly I know plenty of people, including students and people I know in various walks of life, who adhere to the notion that there is a “real history of the South” that is not properly taught.

One of the weirder aspects of all of this discussion to me is that the South is also the part of the country that considers itself the most patriotic vis-à-vis the United States of America and which venerates the US flag and the Constitution as near sacred items.  As such, one would think that such deep belief in exceptional nature of the USA would translate into some reevaluation of the meaning of secession and the Civil War.***  Indeed, one would think that any given Southern patriot would look back on the history of 150 years ago and have a profound sense of relief that the entire CSA experiment failed.  And, further, that the notion of dividing the United States was a horrible idea.  And yet, I don’t think much thought goes into it.

Alex Eichler at The Atlantic with more.

The Tide Is High

Henry K. Lee at San Francisco Gate:

Convicted felon Byron Williams loaded up his mother’s Toyota Tundra with guns, strapped on his body armor and headed to San Francisco late Saturday night with one thing in mind: to kill workers at the American Civil Liberties Union and an environmental foundation, prosecutors say.

Williams, an anti-government zealot on parole for bank robbery, had hoped to “start a revolution” with the bloodshed at the ACLU and the Tides Foundation in San Francisco, authorities said.

But before he made it to the city, Williams was stopped at early Sunday by California Highway Patrol officers for speeding and driving erratically on westbound Interstate 580 west of Grand Avenue in Oakland.

Police say he then initiated a chaotic, 12-minute gunbattle with officers, firing a 9mm handgun, a .308-caliber rifle and a shotgun. He reloaded his weapons when he ran out of ammunition and stopped only after officers shot him in areas of his body not covered by his bullet-resistant vest, authorities said.

Jillian Rayfield at Talking Points Memo:

The Tides Foundation, which prosecutors in California say was among the targets of the anti-government unemployed carpenter Byron Williams before he got into a chaotic shootout with several law enforcement officers Sunday, is also a favorite topic of Fox News host Glenn Beck.

Beginning in 2009 (and as recently as last week), Beck has repeatedly included the group — along with ACORN, the SEIU and George Soros — in his cabal of liberals and liberal organizations that are supposedly agents of President Obama’s plan to spread Marxist and socialist ideas throughout the United States.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that Beck necessarily inspired or influenced Williams’ alleged plan to attack the Tides Foundation. But the group has been something of a whipping boy for Beck over the last year.

Oliver Willis

Teddy Partridge at Firedoglake:

The Tides Center, located at the Presidio, is essentially an aggregator of wealthy heirs’ money, who want to do good but would rather not be bothered doing the due diligence responsible philanthropy requires nowadays. They do that homework, and meet their donors’ overall goals without bothering them with the specifics of each beneficiary’s every operation.

They also provide spectacular conference center space — I attended great day-long team-building exercises when working for a non-profit San Francisco AIDS service organization, thanks to a colleague’s wife who worked at Tides — with quiet and peaceful views of the Golden Gate bridge. Contemplative, dedicated to social justice, low-profile, but essentially a capacity-building, incubator-providing, infrastructure-enabling clearing house for do-good inherited wealth: here’s Tides’ mission statement, from their website.

Our mission is to partner with philanthropists, foundations, activists, and organizations across the country and across the globe to promote economic justice, robust democratic processes, and the opportunity to live in a healthy and sustainable environment where human rights are preserved and protected.

Scary, right?

Michael Wolraich:

Why did Williams target a little-known non-profit in order to incite a revolution? Just ask Fox News…

Of course, the good folks of Fox News don’t want violence. Glenn Beck, for example, has admonished his audience, “If you ever hear someone thinking about or talking about turning violent, it is your patriotic duty to stop them. The only way to save our republic is to remain peaceful–forceful but peaceful.”

Beck has also denied that his dire prophesies of communist revolution and totalitarian oppression encourage violence. Comparing himself to a flight attendant, he explained:

Blaming TV or radio hosts for the nutjob who killed three Pittsburgh police officers over the weekend is like blaming a flight attendant after a terrorist takes down a plane. In other words: Giving passengers a safety talk to prepare them for a worst-case scenario doesn’t mean you are responsible should a terrorist make that worst-case scenario happen. One person is providing important information. The other is a nutjob who would’ve acted no matter what.

Beck’s analogy isn’t quite right, however. He hasn’t been calmly telling the passengers where to find their life jackets and thanking them for flying with Fox News. He has been hysterically shouting, “THE PILOT IS TRYING TO CRASH THE PLANE! WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!” For example, here is a “safety talk” that Beck delivered to his Fox News passengers a few months after he invoked the flight attendant defense:

I told you yesterday buckle up your seatbelt, America. Find the exit. There’s one here, here and here. Find the exit closest to you and prepare for a crash-landing because this plane is coming down because the pilot is intentionally steering it into the trees…They are taking you to a place to be slaughtered.

That’s some safety talk. A safety talk like that might lead some passengers to do more than just buckle their seat belts. It might even lead some “nutjob” to shout, “Let’s roll!” and rush the cockpit.

Justin Elliott at Salon:

Here’s what Beck said about Tides on July 13, five days before the shooting:

Well, they [progressives] have the education system. They have the media. They have the capitalist system. What do you think the Tides Foundation was? They infiltrate and they saw under Ronald Reagan that capitalists were not for all of this nonsense, so they infiltrated.

Here’s another typical Tides diversion from Beck’s April 27 show, in which the foundation served as a link in a chain connecting the White House and domestic terrorists:

The Joyce Foundation, which gives money to the Tides Foundation — John Ayers, the brother of Bill Ayers, Wade Rathke. On the board between ’03 and ’08 was Valerie Jarrett. She is in the White House now. She was also with the Fed in Chicago at the same time she was on this board.

Tides spokeswoman Christine Coleman told Salon that “after comments [about Tides] on Glenn Beck, similar things pop up on the right-wing blogosphere.” So clearly there is an echo-chamber effect here, with Beck the driving force.

No one’s saying that Beck is advocating violence or that anyone who watches Fox will be whipped up into a frenzy to hunt out left-wingers. But there’s a real possibility that Williams heard about Tides on Beck’s show.

A spokesman for Beck declined to comment on the Williams case.

Steve Benen:

Remarkably, no one was killed, though Williams was firing a rifle with ammunition that “could penetrate ballistic body armor and vehicles, police said.” He was in court yesterday, and will face all kinds of criminal charges, including the attempted murder of four police officers.

But stepping back, every time there’s violence like this, I’m reminded of the concerns raised by the Department of Homeland Security last year, about potentially violent anti-government extremists — concerns that appear increasingly prescient.

These examples of politically-motivated attacks seem to keep piling up. Just this year, John Patrick Bedell opened fire at the Pentagon; Joe Stack flew an airplane into a building; Jerry Kane Jr. and his son killed two police officers in Arkansas; and the Hutaree Militia terrorist plot was uncovered. Last year, James von Brunn opened fire at the Holocaust memorial museum; Richard Poplawski gunned down three police officers in Pittsburgh, in part because he feared the non-existent “Obama gun ban”; and Dr. George Tiller was assassinated. In 2008, Jim David Adkisson opened fire in a Unitarian church in Tennessee, in part because of his “hatred of the liberal movement.”

Let there be no doubt: deranged madmen are responsible for their own violent actions. But in the wake of these attacks, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to wish that some of the leading far-right voices would lower the rhetorical temperature a bit, helping to cool the tempers of those who might be inclined to hurt others.

Kipling And Teasing The Panther

Heather Horn at The Atlantic:

The Atlantic Wire likes to keep tabs on its beloved Atlantic 50. On Wednesday, Entertainment Weekly picked up the video trailer for an upcoming book, a thriller written by Glenn Beck (number seven on the list). Keith Stastkiewicz says the book, which will be released June 15, “is about twenty-something named Noah Gardner who finds himself in the midst of a massive fight to protect the country he loves from nefarious forces that threaten to corrupt it.” Points if you can get that from the video

Meredith Jessup at Townhall:

“The Overton Window” is set to be released June 15.  Meanwhile, the Left is already bashing it, despite rave reviews from authors such as Vince Flynn (love him!), Brad Meltzer and Nelson DeMille.

PS–the poem featured in Beck’s trailer is this one by Rudyard Kipling, despite folks on the Left claiming that each “over-the-top-line” was written by Beck himself.

Richard Lawson at Gawker:

Crazy conspiracy-cruller Glenn Beck has a new novel, The Overton Window, coming out very soon. And now, because I guess this is what we do these days, there is a trailer. For a book. It’s just one long, scary quote.

The quote is from “The Gods of the Copybook Headings,” a wacky poem by Rudyard Kipling. It speaks of terrible things that happen after “social progress,” which Glenn “Walking Knish” Beck really hates. Mostly, though, it is about dog vomit. Yayyyy, dog vomit.

E.D. Kain at The League:

The odd poetry in the trailer is from Rudyard Kipling’s poem, The Gods of the Copybook Headings – a rather odd choice for Beck, but what do I know? Either way, pasting the last two stanzas a Kipling poem into a book trailer is certainly a bold move. I hope they make it into a film so that we can get the entire poem in there.

Ben Dimiero and Simon Maloy at Media Matters:

The opening lines of Glenn Beck’s yet-to-be-released novel, The Overton Window, read as follows: “Most people think about age and experience in terms of years, but it’s really only moments that define us.”

In a quirk of convenience, this line also describes the best way to deconstruct The Overton Window, a copy of which Media Matters obtained and read — nay, devoured — with great relish. As we slogged through its many plot holes, ridiculous narrative devices, and long-winded limited-government sermonizing passed off as dialogue, we singled out ten moments that define The Overton Window as the truly and remarkably awful novel that it is.

First, a quick summation of the plot, such as it is. The protagonist, Noah Gardner, works for an impossibly powerful public relations firm in Manhattan that has been the driving force behind pretty much every political and cultural movement of the 20th century. Their latest and grandest scheme is the culmination of a lengthy plot to change the United States into some sort of ill-defined progressive plutocracy, and the catalyst for this change is a nuclear explosion that will occur outside the home-state office of “the current U.S. Senate majority leader,” which happens to be at the same address as Harry Reid’s Las Vegas offices. The nuclear attack is to be blamed on the Founders Keepers, a Tea Party-like group — led by Noah’s love interest, Molly Ross — that is working to foil the plot.

1. Rule number one is: “Don’t tease the panther”

Noah and Molly find themselves in bed together early in the book after a harrowing experience at a Founders’ Keepers rally. They agree to sleep in bed together because Molly is too scared to sleep at home, but Molly insists that nothing sexual will take place. Noah agrees, on the condition that she “not do anything sexy.” She presses her cold feet against his legs, and Noah responds:

“Suit yourself, lady. I’m telling you right now, you made the rules, but you’re playing with fire here. I’ve got some rules, too, and rule number one is, don’t tease the panther.“

Oliver Willis

Dennis DiClaudio at Indecision Forever

It appears as though Glenn Beck is making the leap from bestselling author of paranoid political opinion to bestselling author of paranoid political fiction. That’s right, he’s about to release a new book Kevin Grisham-esque thriller called The Overton Window, after a political theory popular amongst libertarians about the shifting range of what is considered acceptable political policy. (You know how Glenn Beck likes to read big piles of prop books, right?)Obviously, this is hilarious news. And there is a 112 percent chance that I will be “reading” the audiobook version of this book for the same reason that I am “reading” the audiobook version of the Left Behind series. Because life is too short to not subject oneself to third-grade-reading-level unintentional self-satire. I am not made of stone, people.

However, a lot of people are justifiably making fun of this book for unjustifiable reasons. The just-released trailer for this book (Yep! A trailer for the book!) features the excerpt from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The Gods of the Copybook Headings“…

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

These verses — which, I’m assuming people think was written by Beck — are supposed proof of how crazy and, um, poemy the book is gonna be. As if there’s any fucking chance in the world that Glenn Beck is capable of writing anything even approaching the level of quality. Has anybody ever seen this person talk? If that poem is reprinted in the book, I guaran-fucking-tee it will be the stand-out section by about six orders of magnitude.

UPDATE: Steve Krakauer and Glynnis MacNicol at Mediaite

John J. Miller at The Corner

Jim Newell at Gawker

Hamsher V. Weigel: Brought To You By The Words “Serious Union Thuggery”

Dave Weigel at The Washington Independent:

UPDATE: This post was originally titled “Tea Partiers Working With Firedoglake on HCR Whip Count.” After I posted it, Kathryn Serkes e-mailed me to say that she didn’t mean to imply that Firedoglake’s Jane Hamsher used the phrase “union thuggery. Serkes also disputed my description of her as a “Tea Partier,” but I really used that because this was a Tea Party rally, and she was an organizer of it. She also argued that there was a difference between working with Hamsher and working “with Firedoglake.” I agree, and none of the links below are meant to imply that other FDL bloggers have any connection to Tea Parties.]

I spoke to Kathryn A. Serkes of the Doctor Patient Medical Association at this morning’s rally against the health care bill, after Serkes had addressed the smallish crowd.

“I’m in contact with folks on the progressive side,” said Serkes. “They’re saying right now that Pelosi’s almost there with the votes. What they’re saying is that there’s some serious arm-twisting — their words were union thuggery. One progressive source told me that there was serious union thuggery this weekend, targeting Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.).”

Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake:

Dave Weigel isn’t a journalist, he’s a smear-monger that makes things up and projects his own fantasies onto his stories

[…]

I know Katherine, we were on MSNBC together and we’ve spoken about working on the pot legalization measure in California in the future.    She tells me that when Weigel approached her and asked her who her “source” was, she didn’t say. He said “It’s Jane Hamsher, isn’t it…I’ve been around.” According to Katherine, she didn’t respond.

Weigel decided to print his own suspicions as fact, and didn’t bother to contact me for confirmation. It’s a pattern with him.

Weigel goes on to accuse me of using the words “union thuggery,” in quotes.  He completely put words in my mouth.  That is a totally fabricated quote.

I’m not “working” with the tea partiers on health care. But Weigel doesn’t care about the truth — any reporter would’ve contacted me first before printing something like that. He’s just a fantasist printing propaganda, and the Washington Independent has no higher standards than to print it.

I guess trading in political smears is something their donors approve of.

Weigel responds:

I’m more interested in Serkes’ response to my post in an email — she now says that she did not mean to attribute “union thuggery” to Hamsher, and because Hamsher denies saying that, I’ll update my original post. But I am disappointed that Hamsher would use such personal insults and fabricate quotes to make me look like a liar.

Here is the relevant part of my conversation with Serkes. I was recording the rally, so I have audio to back up this transcript.

SERKES: They’re saying that there’s some serious arm-twisting, and their words were union thuggery.

ME: Who’s the they?

SERKES: The progressive side. A progressive source told me that there was serious union thuggery going on this weekend.

ME: Is this the Firedoglake folks?

SERKES: It’s Jane. You’re figured it out.

ME: I’m not new at this.

SERKES: She said they were after Altmire this weekend. Yeah, because Jane and I last talked Saturday.

As I said, Serkes no longer stands by her attribution of “union thuggery” to Hamsher, so I will correct that. I apologize to Jane Hamsher for not giving her more time to respond to my email. When Serkes spoke to me, it seemed clear that she was characterizing her conversation with Hamsher and recalled “union thuggery” enough to use it twice and, twice, attribute it that way. But that is not what she meant to say.

As for Hamsher’s insults of me and my publication — which she supports with fabricated quotes — I’d welcome an apology and a retraction.

By the way, by “I’m not new at this,” I meant I’ve been covering this stuff closely and know that Hamsher has made some high-profile team-ups with conservative activists such as Grover Norquist. And I’d argue that figuring this stuff out, and getting people to name sources, is absolutely the work of a journalist.

Doug J.:

I know, I know, those hippies aren’t going to punch themselves. Well, the rats aren’t going to fuck themselves either. And I suspect that’s what the FDL “whip count” is all about.

I apologize if I seem angry and incoherent here. I used to run with an FDL crowd and what’s happening now makes me ashamed. It’s getting damn near how I feel about the Catholic Church.

Dennis G:

Somehow, I am not surprised that somebody who would work with Grover Norquist to promote the idea that poor people getting loans caused the financial meltdown would work with Dick Armey’s AstroTurf TeaBaggers to try and kill HCR.

If the news about Kucinich turns out to be true, we can expect Red Queen Jane to be calling for his head by noon. (Update: As DougJ pointed out, the Red Queen is already calling for his head)

We need to pass HCR because it will make Jane and Grover cry.

Oliver Willis:

Remember, they’re the real liberals, right?

Sir Charles at Cogitamus:

Most of the liberal community has figured out that passing health care reform, even in an imperfect form, is both a political and policy imperative.  Not so Hamsher, whose crusade against the current bill has reached the point that she will happily climb into bed with even the most repellent right wingers if she thinks it will serve her monomaniacal quest.  And apparently she will engage in union bashing as well (although Serkes now denies that Hamsher used the words “union thuggery”), which is really rich for someone who is more progressive than thou — maybe she could get together with Mickey Kaus.

A couple of months back I had dinner with Rick Perlstein and Dave Weigel. Rick had been impressed with Weigel’s reporting on the Tea Partiers and sought him out to get his sense of the movement — and I got to tag along.  I came away impressed with Weigel’s obvious dedication to reporting this story and the degree to which he had quickly immersed himself in this political subculture.  He also apparently has a pretty good sense for where Hamsher is coming from these days.

R.I.P. Jon Swift/Al Weisel

Jon Swift’s blog

mlfcyw at Swift’s last blog post:

I don’t know how else to tell you all who love this blog. I am Jon Swift’s Mom and I guess I’m going to OUT him. He was Al Weisel, my beloved son. Al was on his way to his father’s funeral in VA when he suffered 2 aortic aneurysms, a leaky aortic valve and an aortic artery dissection from his heart to his pelvis. He had 3 major surgeries within 24 hours and sometime during those surgeries also suffered a severe stroke. We, his 2 sisters, his brother, his partner and his best friend since he was 9 years old were with him as he took his last breath. We have all lost a shining start who warmed our hearts, tormented us and made us laugh as he giggled at our pulling something over on us. He passed away on February 27, 2010. My beloved child will live on in so many hearts. I miss him more than I can say. If you are on Facebook, go to organizations and join “Friends of Al Weisel, Unite!” It will give you just a taste of how special he was. Farewell, Jon (Al)

Tom Watson:

The great Jon Swift has died. That’s the “blogging” angle to a personal tragedy. In reality, the voice of Jon Swift – the hilarious faux conservative blogger whose talent and passion were evident in every post – belonged to Al Weisel, a sweet and good-natured journalist who happened to be the college roommate of my once-and-future collaborator Jason Chervokas.

I didn’t know him well, but Al graciously agreed to be part of my little newcritics experiment of a couple of years back and his presence at some of our New York gatherings was generous, friendly, and low key – though the humor could sometimes be appropriately biting.

[…]

Al Weisel was the political poser’s worst enemy as Jon Swift, but he was also a good guy to hang around the pub with and commiserate over New York’s shrinking freelance rates. Gone all too soon, he’ll be truly missed by many.

UPDATE: There’s a Facebook group.

Jill at Feministe:

Jon was one of the first bloggers to link to my writing, and was always very supportive of feminist bloggers. His writing was consistently incisive, intelligent and hilarious.

He was a good one, and he will be missed.

Steve Hynd at Newshoggers:

Al was a good blog-buddy to all of the Newshoggers crew and our condolences go out to his family. He will be sorely missed.

Al, you’ll always be an A-Lister to us.

Oliver Willis

UPDATE: Ann Althouse

James Joyner

James Wolcott

Ed Morrissey

Instapundit

Tbogg

Sadly, No

Melissa McEwan at Shakesville

Jason Chervokas

Put Your Hand In The Hand

David Weigel at Washington Independent:

Sarah Palin took the stage of the National Tea Party Convention to a thundering ovation, which she cut down quickly by praising “anyone who serves in uniform or has served in uniform” and diving right into her speech.

“I am a supporter of this movement. I believe in this movement,” said Palin. “America is ready for another revolution.”

Palin adroitly rewrote the history of the past three months of elections, giving the Tea Party movement credit for Scott Brown’s election in Massachusetts and calling the White House “0 for 3″ in recent elections — leaving out the New York special election where her candidate, the Conservative Party’s Doug Hoffman, lost in a last-minute upset.

“You know,” said Palin of Brown, “he was just a guy with a truck, and a passion to serve his country,” said Palin. Brown, however, was a state senator and state representative whose campaign staffers cut their teeth with Mitt Romney.

Nodding at the much-discussed question of whether this speech would make Palin the “leader” of the Tea Party movement, she said that the activists did not have a “king or queen.” At the same time, she called for “contested primaries,” calling them a strength of democracy — nodding at her fairly controversial endorsements of Hoffman and Rand Paul.

Palin swung quickly and heavily to foreign policy, with a litany of attacks on Obama — from his “personality”-based diplomacy to giving “Constitutional rights” to “homicide bombers,” using a term that’s rarely heard outside of Fox News, where she is a contributor.

When she moved back to domestic policy, Palin delved again and again into stories that are familiar to political junkies and Tea Party activists. “How’s that hopey-changey thing working out for ya?” said Palin, paraphrasing a slogan made popular on Tea Party t-shirts.” She mocked the stimulus package — the speech was heavy on mockery — by leaning slightly down and saying “nobody messes with Joe,” quoting a comment President Obama made that has been more or less forgotten outside of Tea Party circles.

Robert Costa at National Review:

On policy matters, Palin’s speech was wide-ranging. She spoke out in favor of a “pro-market agenda” and tax cuts. “Get government out of the way,” she said. “If they would do this, our economy would roar back to life.” On health care, Palin criticized the special deals in the Senate, railing against the “Cornhusker Kickback” and the “Louisiana Purchase.” A bipartisan bill, with tort reform, she said, is needed, as is a “start over” on negotiations. She also praised Rep. Bart Stupak (D., Mich.) for “standing up” for the sanctity of life during the health-care debate and joked about how C-SPAN was “welcome” to cover the tea party, but not welcome to broadcast the White House and congressional deliberations.

When it came to fiscal policy, Palin called President Obama’s proposed 2011 budget “immoral” for heaping trillions onto the national debt. Increasing the deficit, she said, is “generational theft,” “makes us less free,” and “should tick us off.” Kill the “second stimulus,” she advised, and “beware that it is being billed as a jobs bill.” Palin also criticized the administration for being unable to handle multiple policy issues simultaneously: “If you can’t ride two horses at once, you shouldn’t be in the circus,” she said, to laughs.

National-security issues featured prominently. “National security — that’s one place where you got to call it like it is,” Palin said. She expressed displeasure at the “disturbing” way in which the Obama administration treated the failed Christmas bomb plot of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab — as a “crime spree” and not as an “act of war.” That kind of thinking, she said, is what helped lead to September 11.

“Treating this like a mere law-enforcement matter places our country at great risk because that’s not how radical Islamic extremists are looking at this,” Palin said.  “They know we’re at war, and to win that war we need a commander in chief, not a professor of law standing at the lectern.” The administration, she worried, uses “misguided thinking” and believes that foreign policy can be “managed through the politics of personality.”

Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic:

Sarah Palin Gave A Campaign Speech

And that’s pretty much all you need to know. So much of a campaign speech was it that I am revising upward my estimate of the chances she runs for president in 2012. So much so that I am evaluating my basic Palin assumption, which is that she has decided not to run for office.  Nominally the speech was a rallying cry for the Tea Party movement, but it was really an “I Told You So” series of verbal slings at President Obama, his budget, his national security policies and his liberalism.

Oliver Willis:

Yeah, the teleprompter stuff was already dumb (I’d like to see some conservative pols handle an unscripted session like Obama did with the House GOP), but after seeing dear Sarah read off her hand at the teabag convention, that talking point should die.

It should be noted that in this speech Palin referred to President Obama as a “guy with a teleprompter”. Irony.

UPDATE: If you don’t mind, please Digg this

(via)

* Updated to indicate that Sarah Palin whipped out her “palm pilot” during the Q&A session and not during the speech (where she used note cards, AKA an analog teleprompter)

Andrew Sullivan:

I was too busy tapping away at my laptop to notice this little high-school trick. Having mocked president Obama for using a TelePrompter – not long after he made mincemeat of Republicans with no such TelePrompter at their retreat – she had to scribble down her priorities as president on her palm for the truly tough-as-nails Q and A she had to endure for ten minutes or so last night.

Written on her hand:

“Energy”

“Budget [crossed out] (Cuts)”

“Tax”

“Lift American spirits”

My favorite detail is “[Budget] Cuts”. Which just about sums up the real Tea Party agenda on spending. But it also suggests that she was told in advance of the questions she would be asked, one of which was what would be you priorities if you were elected president? Now think about this: she had to write on her hand her priorities as president.

I stand by my belief that none of this matters to the people who support her, and that she remains a very potent, content-free and destructive force in American politics.

Stephen Spruiell at National Review:

I’m trying really hard to figure out why certain left-wing blogs are treating this picture of Sarah Palin reading notes off her hand as some kind of major coup. The notes she had written are “Energy,” “[illegible],” Taxes,” and “Lift America’s spirits.” That’s some cheat sheet.

I get that it’s a sort of “turnabout is fair play” from the set that must be very annoyed by now at all the prompter jokes. But it misses the point of why the prompter jokes have caught on. A prompter feeds your remarks to you word for word. The idea that you would need such a device to talk to a room full of sixth graders or a meeting of your own staff is funny.

On another level, the prompter jokes took off because they reinforce the substantive argument that Obama is in over his head, because they indicate that he can’t perform the the presidency’s basic public-speaking duties without a major safety net. I’m not sure what substantive argument Palin’s hand-notes are supposed to underline, and I suspect it’s not an argument so much as an attitude. The attitude would be that writing on your hand is dumb and low-class. On the left, where this opinion of Palin already prevails, anything which reinforces it will be picked up and cheerfully passed around. And, to the extent that anyone not on the left notices this giddy snobbery, it will play to Palin’s strengths.

Ann Althouse:

Like the theory that she was told “the questions” in advance. And she had the answer to one question written on her hand? Of course, she had the words on her hand for some reason. I think the most obvious theory is that these were themes she could always find a way to, whatever the question. When in doubt, bring it around to your specialty, energy, go with the main theme tax cuts, or fall back on lifting America’s spirits — some of that good old Morning-in-America/Hope-and-Change inspiration that people lap up so gratefully.

Steve Benen:

Now, I don’t want to make too much of this, but there are a couple of reasons why this is at least mildly interesting.

First, if Palin is going mock the president for using a teleprompter while giving speeches, it’s probably not a good idea to act like an unprepared 14-year-old, scribbling answers to easy questions on her hand. It doesn’t exactly scream “presidential material.”

Second, that she wrote notes at all suggests Palin was aware of the questions in advance. She obviously couldn’t prepare answers unless she knew what she’d be asked. If so, think about what that tells us about her readiness — Sarah Palin was afraid questions from Tea Party activists might be too difficult.

I realize her fans tend to be pretty far gone, but reasonable people should agree that this is at least a little scary.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin

Gateway Pundit

Faiz Shakir at Think Progress

Maria Applebum, You Gotta Put Me On

Nico Pitney at HuffPo:

Earlier today, MSNBC’s Carlos Watson hosted Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) and CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo for a discussion on health care.

At one point, Bartiromo was critical of the government-managed health care system in the United Kingdom. “How do I know the quality [of health care in the United States] is not going to suffer” with a public option? she asked.

Rep. Weiner reminded her that there already is government-managed health care in the United States — namely, Medicare, the system created for Americans 65 years and older — and that patients with Medicare report very high satisfaction rates.

Bartiromo’s response to this argument was a true head-scratcher. In a mocking tone, she pressed the congressman: “How come you don’t use it [Medicare]? You don’t have it. How come you don’t have it?”

Rep. Weiner, who turns 45 this week, tried to walk Bartiromo through it. “Because I’m not 65.” But she was insistent. “Yeah… c’mon!” she exclaimed, laughing incredulously.

Ezra Klein:

Here’s the transcript:

REP. WEINER: Listen, Carlos talks about Canada. You talk about Europe. Let’s talk about the United States of America, Medicare —

MS. BARTIROMO: You have to look at where there are public plans.

REP. WEINER: No. No. The United States of America, 40 percent of all tax dollars go through a public plan. Ask your parent or grandparent, ask your neighbor whether they’re satisfied with Medicare. Now, there’s a funding problem, but the quality of care is terrific. You get complete choice and go anywhere you want. Don’t look at —

MS. BARTIROMO: How come you don’t use it? You don’t have it. How come you don’t have it?

REP. WEINER: Because I’m not 65. I would love it.

MS. BARTIROMO: Yeah, come on.

Yeah. Come on.

Oliver Willis

John Cole:

None of this gets Team Obama or the Democrats off the hook for doing such a terrible job with this debate so far, but at the same time, I’m not sure you get anything done when one side is just intent on blowing things up, and the media in this country has really turned into a failed experiment. No matter what channel you turn to, you are exposed to outright liars, political hacks, or in the case of Bartiromo and others, just complete fools who are in so far over their head that they don’t even have any idea how much they don’t know.

Atrios

Brian Beutler at TPM:

Obviously, the real punchline is that many of the people criticizing the Democrats’ health care plan don’t have the foggiest idea how any of it works. And Bartiromo in particular reveals–however inadvertently–that she thinks elements of the proposal make perfect sense. Yes, she’s wrong to assume Weiner could buy into Medicare, and she’s wrong to assume that he chooses not to because the coverage is sub-par. But ironically, the idea that Weiner should be able to buy into Medicare seems totally uncontroversial to her. And that, of course, is the whole point of the public option.

Wonkette:

FAMOUS CNBC LADY LITERALLY HAS NO IDEA WHAT SHE IS TALKING ABOUT: We know that most of you people like to spend your entire “workdays” watching the television channel for rich people, CNBC, so as to stay a step ahead of your fellow investors in the ultra-competitive “Who can lose most of America’s wealth the quickest?” financial game, so we feel obligated to present you with a modest caveat to keep in mind: one of the channel’s most well-known hosts, Maria Bartiromo, has no idea what Medicare is. She does not understand why 44-year-old Rep. Anthony Weiner doesn’t currently “use” Medicare himself, if he thinks so highly of it. Disturbing.

Bill’s Excellent Adventure

Top Of The Ticket in La Times:

Finally, the Obama administration has figured out how to take advantage of former President Clinton‘s skills as a savvy political negotiator. We hope.

The 42nd president landed today in North Korea to negotiate the release of the two American journalists who were arrested in March while trying to report on the trafficking of women along the China-North Korea border. Working for Al Gore’s Current TV — a cable television network that allows viewers to contribute stories — Laura Ling and Euna Lee were convicted in June of “grave crimes” and sentenced to 12 years in the notorious North Korean labor camps.

The Obama administration considered sending other envoys, according to the Washington Post, which quoted Asian expert Chris Nelson as saying Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry was on the short list. Others had no doubt lobbied for New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who negotiated the release of other Americans from oppressive regimes. Some even thought Al Gore, Clinton’s vice president, might have been a logical choice. CNN reports the North Koreans vetoed them.

Kathryn Jean Lopez at The Corner:

Statement by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs

“While this solely private mission to secure the release of two Americans is on the ground, we will have no comment. We do not want to jeopardize the success of former President Clinton’s mission.”

Patricia Murphy in Politics Daily:

The New York Times reports that the former president flew yesterday to North Korea in an unmarked jet and was greeted on the Pyongyang tarmac by both a young Korean girl, bearing a bouquet of white flowers, as well as North Korea’s chief nuclear negotiator, Kim Kye-gwan. The presence of the negotiator raised hopes that Clinton would also be able to open a dialogue about the North’s escalating nuclear program. In May, the government conducted its second nuclear test and then launched several ballistic missiles. The journalists’ capture was seen as a part of an overall campaign to force the West into engagement.

Oliver Willis

Jason Zengerle in TNR:

I’m sure the North Koreans would have pressed the nuclear issue with any visiting American representative, but the fact that the rep is Clinton–former president and husband of the current Secretary of State–does make this a bigger gamble for the Obama administration. After all, not many people would have believed the U.S. was rewarding bad behavior if it was Bill Richardson making this visit to Pyongyang.

Jim Geraghty at NRO:

If Bill Clinton can secure the release of the two women taken hostage by the regime in Pyongyang, it will be fantastic news, and worth every awkward “Bill Clinton Goes to North Korea for Women” headline.

Still, one can’t help but wonder how the Secretary of State feels at this moment. First her duties are limited by a slew of special envoys; now her husband is given responsibility for the most tense and dramatic diplomatic mission of this young presidency.

Taylor Marsh

Jules Crittenden:

It would be fun to make him watch some Marilyn Monroe flicks with Dear Geezer, too, lots of good American presidential immorality irony there, maybe with the “Happy Birthday Mr President” footage as a short before the main feature, only Beloved Bouffant’s been a little sickly lately and might not up to a movie marathon. Too bad, because Glorious Safari Suit’s so … ronery. One thing Bill, just because you’re out of the country, someplace where no one knows you, don’t, whatever you do …

[…] The United States, as reported at the NYT link above, is eager to avoid linkage between the release of the captured journos and any of the other myriad issues. Good luck with that. And Bill’s track record in negotiations with the Norks … not so good. Last time, they got the aid and the nukes. However, it may be that giving them Bill to play with for a while will satisfy them. Hope so. As ill-advised as skulking around the North Korean border is, the Gore news agency in sending Laura Ling and Euna Lee into harm’s way was at least trying to address a real menace to the planet.

UPDATE: NK pardons the journalists

TPM

HuffPo

The Corner

UPDATE #2: Allah Pundit:

Normally I’d dismiss the idea of Clinton apologizing for the crime of journalism as North Korean propaganda, but after today’s betrayal of democracy, I’m not so sure. Exit question one: The media’s bound to greet this with another round of “Hillary marginalized!” stories, but isn’t it better that Obama sent a private citizen than the secretary of state? The difficulty here was giving Kim enough to get the journalists back without giving him so much that it would sacrifice the prestige of the U.S. government. Having the head of the State Department jet off to Pyongyang to beg for mercy would have been humiliating. Having the Clenis do it — well, who cares? Exit question two: Any hawk worth his or her salt will bristle at the thought of Kim being “rewarded” for kidnapping journalists with a state visit by a former C-in-C, but isn’t that perfectly consistent with our North Korea policy? They’re a major threat to launch a regional war but they’re also oddly easily placated by sporadic attention (and food assistance, natch) from the United States. A state visit every 10-12 years to keep Kim stable-ish and out of our hair seems like a bargain as a way to buy time until the regime eventually implodes.

Fred Kaplan in Slate

UPDATE #3: Ben Armbruster at Think Progress

John Podhoretz in Commentary

Michael Crowley at TNR

UPDATE #4: James Joyner

UPDATE #5: Daniel Drezner and David Frum on Bloggingheads