- John Hawkins points out MSNBC‘s David Shuster isn’t alone.
We all know by now about the controversy surrounding MSNBC’s David Shuster and his allegation that Chelsea Clinton was being “pimped” by her family in order to drum up support for her mother. He’s apologized twice, been suspended, and along with that rec’d a strong rebuke from Senator Clinton herself.
Someone else who has apologized on behalf of MSNBC is none other than Shuster’s hero and Nutroots fave Keith Olbermann. johnny dollar over at Olbermann Watch has a special remix video of Olby’s apology, in which he first praises Shuster before issuing the apology. Mixed within the video are clips of Shuster which prove Olby’s praise is unfounded, as well as a clip towards the end of Olby himself accusing President Bush of “pimping” General David Petraeus – an accusation he made September 20, 2007.
Of course, the reason the Democrats don’t take offense is they benefited from it. He who has ears to hear…
- James Joyner is asking where Hillary got her $5 million. That’s OK, so is Newsweek. It’ll be interesting to watch John McCain squirm when he’s asked how this $5 million got in under McCain Fiengold. It’s already interesting, to a point, given we now have the press openly questioning the Clintons…. at least, the ones who have come out and challenged the coronation of Princess Hillary. I can’t think of a better indication of a left in turmoil than the press actually reporting on the misdeeds of Democrats in an election year.
- Speaking of Hillary Clinton, David’s already mentioned the bit with her campaign shakeup. One simply doesn’t shake things up in the campaign at this late date. Not if success is on the menu. As an example of things going the other way, John Kerry did a shakeup last cycle, if I recall rightly. December, I think. But in any event what I find interesting is Hillary’s choice to run her campaign… Maggie Williams. This is someone who has a very questionable record, legally. For example, she’s up to her armpits in the Johnny Chung funding scandal. Her testimony was investigated by the Justice Dept. She is unshakably loyal to Clinton, which to my mind means she’s more likley to be involved in extra legality in support of that loyalty… Example, Chung. She strikes me as an idealist whose sense of right and wrong got lost along the way to wherever it is she thinks she’s going. Idealism has given way to knee-breaking pragmatism. I’ve no doubt she’ll serve Hillary’s power quest well. But given the excesses she’s already demonstrated, it seems to me she bears watching by the legal authorities, particularly the FEC.
- And why did Hillary pick just now to remove Patti Solis Doyle? Not, I as has been suggested, because Hilly lost the three states over the weekend, I think. Rather, that removal occurred because of the polling trends we’re starting to see… polling trends which suggest that even with the Super-delegates in Clintonista control, we’re going to see Barrack Obama in a rather unambiguous delegate lead by midweek. (Some reports today already had that situation, based on the counts from Maine.)
- And why is Obama surging? Well, Hillary Clinton, herself, is the most obvious answer, of course, but it goes a little deeper. I suspect and suppose that what we’re seeing is a cult of personality surrounding Obama. Consider the personality cult surrounding Ron Paul. I have always supposed that the personality cult is why Paul does so well among certain fringe groups… an attraction which has nothing to do with his stated policy pronouncements at any given moment. That cult puts together an unshakable minority… around 8% or so of voters. I have recently begun to see Obama reaping the same fruit from his own supporters. The reason for the disparity in numbers between Paul and Obama, given their similar approaches in personality projection, is that the liberal mindset has always been more prone to such personality cults. Which would also tend to explain why Paul does so well among the mindless liberals who’ve been following him around like little lost puppy dogs. I expect as reality dawns on these, they’ll be Obama voters.
- Dodd Harris reports at OTB that Scotland Yard has completed it’s investigation of the Bhutto murder, and concludes that the Pakistani authorities got this one right. Readers may recall I suggested they would, the day after the killing. I am sympathetic to Mrs Bhutto’s supporters, but as I said at the time, Pervez Musharraf isn’t your enemy, here.
- Neal Boortz suggests that McCain said many of the right things at CPAC. And Neal’s correct, he did. He made a plausible case for himself… if you discount his history. I will not, barring something he manages to do or utter which will over-ride and smooth over those previous words and deeds. I suspect a number of other people will be thinking the same way, which in turn will affect the turnout come November. And yes, I know, President Bush says McCain’s a “True Conservative”. However, perspective becomes an issue. Longtime reaaders of this blog know I consider Bush to be a centrist at best… and McCain lost to Bush in 2000, because he came down to the LEFT of Mr. Bush. To claim he’s a conservative now, requires the willing suspension of disbelief. Or something.
- I see Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager has quit after her recent losses. That’s unfair, I think. There are just some places you cannot sell manure.
- Vinyl making a comeback? Well, no, not really… but there’s an upswing going on. And while records may be making a bit of a surge, the major labels are going Bye Bye, says Variety. It’s taken a while, but finally we’re starting to see major inroads on the monopoly of the major labels… took almost 30 years to do it. And you know what? Given the attitude of the Majors, more power to the indies, I say.
- And what’s this I hear about WXRT/93.1 in Chicago? Say what you want about Clear Channel, but for my money the bigger problem is CBS radio though I suppose it’d be fair to say Corporate Radio is the issue… Entercom is pulling the same stunt here in Rochester at 96.5/WCMF. Local radio as such is falling to the corporate mentality, as I predicted it would when I left the business years ago. Much as the big labels in Music, radio is suffering under a corporate illness. All thta’s left is to wait for it to burn down, and hope that the independent owners can make a comeback from the ashes that the corporates leave behind them once they figure out they’re losing money the way they’re going and start selling off broadcast properties. Don’t misunderstand; I’m all for profit. But central control is not the way to run things… in government… or in radio. You’ve got talented people working for you in all these markets. Why aim for the ‘corporate’ sound when what they’ve been doing for generations at the local level served the needs of the listeners?
- AI can’t leave it that negative… so, some good news from the broadcasting world; Scott Fybush over at the Northeast Radio Watch advises us that all the signals brought down by that snow and wind in Scranton when WNEP’s tower gave up, are back on, if at somewhat reduced coverage. Given they only had less than a year to operate it, I don’t know why, but WNEP also replaced the analog transmitter that got destroyed when the tower fell on the transmitter building. I gather they picked up a used one with somewhat less power than their original one. Likely, someone’s spare.
- Crazy Uncle Hugo is reportedly threatening cutting off oil sales to the US? Yeah, right, Hugo. Like you can afford that income loss? Face it, Hugo. You screwed up. And just for point of reference, it’s not like you can sell your oil to anyone else… Nobody else can refine the stuff.
Single numbers here in Rochester last night. THe kind of weather that gives brass simian statuettes their status of legend. the Wasn’t much warmer most of the day. As David already noted,and as a result of the weather, we had a 36 car pileup on I-390 perhaps 5 miles south of here… a stretch I drive on daily. One fatality. 24 others were in the hospital, of those 6 were T and R. Whiteouts caused it, mostly. It’s right along by the airport there, and that’s a bad stretch when the snow blows from the northeast as it did today. That and stupid driving, from what I saw of it. Only thing that kept more people from getting killed is they were already on around 40 instead of the posted 55 because of the snow issues. And guess what the young woman who died was driving? Yep… a sub-compact. Just think about all the fuel she was saving. Matter of fact, I’m hearing unconfirmed reports from those who saw it, that suggest all the injuries in this accident were limited to the smaller cars. Work it out, America. This ain’t rocket science. I see Chuck Simmins has a post up about his involvement. Note my comments there.- Mona Charen, about McCain, last Friday:
One lady wrote that she would never vote for him as “He is the most disloyal, ill-tempered man and he brings out the worse in all of us….” Several readers made the point that after decades of suffering abuse at McCain’s hands, conservatives are not going to fall into line for him now, no matter what blandishments he offers. I know how they feel. The problem with McCain is not just that he strays. George Bush has strayed from conservatism, too. So has Fred Thompson. Certainly Mitt Romney has as well. But Sen. McCain has a knack for saying things in just the tones and accents that liberals prefer. In 2000, he condemned the late Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as “agents of intolerance.” In 2004, when Sen. John Kerry was getting his comeuppance from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, vets who had known him during the war and couldn’t remain silent as the Democratic nominee distorted his war record, McCain weighed in by calling the Swift Boaters “dishonorable and dishonest.” When the Bush Administration was being vilified as a nest of Torquemadas for using waterboarding on three occasions, McCain came forward to condemn waterboarding as torture.
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Profit is a four-letter word in the McCain vocabulary, whether applied to “Big Pharma” or other businesses.
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McCain reaches too hard and too transparently to turn everything into a contest about military service. When Romney observed that Bob Dole wouldn’t necessarily be the one he’d want an endorsement from, McCain pronounced himself “very sad and disappointed to see that kind of comment about a person who was an American war hero”Quite. (You may recall I commented that John McCain was starting to sound rather suspiciously like John Kerry.) The point I’m making here is the problems with McCain as a Republican candidate are quite real… and his supporters ignore these problems at their peril.
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