Yesterday First Lady Michelle Obama and Jill Biden appeared at the last NASCAR race of the season to serve as co-grand marshals and shout “Gentlemen, start your engines!” The appearance was part of the Joining Forces initiative and yesterday, according to the White House, FLOTUS was joined by “5,000 active duty and retired military personnel and families and thousands of NASCAR fans” and was loudly booed when her name was announced over the loud speakers.

Mediaite writes:

At an event with such an apparently unifying theme, the crowd’s reaction was an ugly reminder of how personally some have taken the political divisions in our country.

It’s not a recent occurrence, and to my memory, this is the first time that a Democrat has been publicly booed. I certainly don’t recall progressive media condemning how Sarah Palin was booed at a hockey game in Philadelphia:

For those who argue that “Palin wasn’t a First Lady,” what about when progressives booed George Bush at Obama’s inauguration?

Chris Matthews, who recently blasted Obama, seems to have made the only condemnation of the thousands booing.

I’ve always said that respect for public office is a two-way street, and the ultimate failure of this is when the individual holding said office doesn’t themselves demonstrate respect for it.

Is it really a surprise that after three-and-a-half years of being demonized by the party of the President and First Lady (when they aren’t doing the demonizing themselves) that Americans would issue a frosty reception? This is the same President that called Americans “bitter clingers” [their emphasis]:

And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

If we’re to discuss manners, I’d say here are several instances where etiquette was breached. If we’re to discuss manners, I’d say etiquette was also breached with the White House’s sanctioning via a corrupt DOJ the murder of border agents with our own federally-funded guns program, Fast and Furious. If manners are sacred, then I’d say etiquette was defiled when the White House took half-a-billion dollars of public money and funneled it to a failing green energy company belonging to his biggest fundraising bundler. I see little in the way of headlines concerning these.

Frankly, I’ll not be lectured to about civility by people who endorse this:

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As America passed with solemn tribute the murder of 3000 citizens 10 years after September 11th, 2001, social media networks, like Facebook, were filled with tributes, thanks, passages from the bible, and pleas.  Amongst those pleas, that we spend no time on 9/11 engaging in politics.  We have many days ahead to talk about our ideas, our ideals, our desires for America and the best course of action for America.  9/11 is just not the day for politics.

And, as Americans, we watched the tributes on Saturday at Shanksville, PA.  And again, the social media networks were filled with video and audio from the day.  Specifically, people marveled at the words of former Presidents Bush and Clinton.  For whatever we think of their politics, their time in office or their time out of office, they understood what we understand – now was not the time for politics or pettiness.  9/11 is something we, as a nation, survived together.  We lost, we suffered, we felt anger, we are still angry.  But we survived.  For all of our problems, the republic is still here.

Yet, there are those who don’t understand.  Who don’t have the basic humanity one assumes would exists in the hearts and souls of Americans.  Who think their lofty position has entrusted upon them a higher intelligence, when all they have is farcical audacity and, indeed, deep seeded hate.  One of those is Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize winning Economist who fancies himself an intellectual.  As America has learned, we need people of intellect.  Pseudo-intellectuals always lead to unmitigated disaster.

From Krugman’s blog in The New York Times:

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. Te atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

Krugman didn’t get the memo about how to act on 9/11. (As if a memo on how to be a human being is actually necessary!)  It’s like he’s wearing a clown costume to a funeral.  Because Krugman is a clown, and 9/11 is a funeral. To start, Krugman’s elitism makes him think that he knows what people in America are thinking.  His elitism has also immediately turned 9/11 in to a class war.  People on the “right” know that what happened after 9/11 was deeply shameful?  This isn’t true about people on the left? Actually, this isn’t true at all!  It is a simpleton’s strawman argument to force through a failed meme – the left is more compassionate than the right. (A meme that is also destroyed by posting such a hateful, thoughtless article on September 11th.)

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No surprise here, the National Association of Broadcasters is applauding the efforts of those who covered Hurricane Irene over the weekend.

Forget the fact that the broadcasters did what they do best, which is to exaggerate, the NAB sees it as a “remarkable” job done by those doing the reporting.

Yes, there were some great moments, but overall, the extensive coverage was not warranted and those who covered it, know it. But when you’re in that culture you get along, or you are forced out and they will find a “team player” who can drive the viewers to the next newscast by embellishing.

I could go through the long list of foolish live shots with a bush blowing in the breeze in the background and the reporter preaching doom and gloom. I’ve been through those live shots myself and have always worked to maintain perspective and tell it like it is. I always felt my obligation was to first be honest with the viewer. In fact, broadcasters will never admit this publically, but many of them think this coverage was silly. I’ve talked to them about it. It’s a running joke in newsrooms that when rain falls everybody must freak out and make the coverage bigger than life. You do it because consultants tell you their research says everybody in your town (this could be any town) feels weather is the most important element in the newscast. Perhaps it is, but a tropical storm did not warrant the coverage given. In isolated cases, yes, but overall—it did not. Irene was still being called a hurricane long after she had been downgraded to a tropical storm. Oh well—didn’t have time to change those scripts and the graphics.

I’m all in favor of proper warnings—you can even be overly cautious, if you’d like, but to keep up the hype with 2-3 foot swells “crashing” on to an empty, sandy beach, is a little much.

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Perhaps using a preemptive strike to help combat the May jobs report to be released on Friday, MSNBC has already found an excuse for lost jobs, and an increased unemployment rate: storms, tornadoes, and flooding.  According to a business report:

…homes or places of business have been destroyed in this year’s wave of storms, tornadoes and flooding. That means thousands of workers in the South and Midwest could be out of work for some time, potentially pushing up the nation’s jobless rate and further taxing financially strapped state unemployment funds.

Yet in 2004, when reporting on an October jobs report in which hiring had increased at the fastest pace in seven months, MSNBC somehow managed to find analysts who said the jump in hiring was due mainly to another form of natural disaster: hurricanes.  The business report at that time read:

Some analysts were skeptical about the latest surge of hiring, pointing out that much of the unusually large jump in October stemmed from cleanup and rebuilding in Florida and other states that were ravaged by four hurricanes…

That assessment is buoyed by an accompanying CNBC video (seen below) in which Senior Economics Reporter, Steve Liesman, asks President Bush’s economic adviser, Gregory Mankiw, about the “Hurricane Effect” on a jobs report: (more…)

From the “figures lie, but liars figure” department we find that left-leaning cable newser MSNBC reported that the main reason Obama’s job stats are tumbling and unemployment is so high is because of the harsh tornado season and other natural disasters we have been experiencing over the first half of 2011. Yet, hypocritically, if we take a peak back to the unemployment rates reported by MSNBC in 2004, during Bush’s era, his jump in hiring was called false because of — you guessed it — hurricanes and other natural disasters.

That’s right, folks, MSNBC is using natural disasters to explain away Obama’s high unemployment rates when they used the very same excuse, natural disasters, to say that Bush’s rise in employment was false.

Talk about tailoring the “news” to fit the ideological objective that MSNBC wants to push, eh?

Rusty Weiss has a lot of details from Monday, but I want to focus on two examples.

On Monday, MSNBC contributor Eve Tahmincioglu lamented that, “Disasters wipe out jobs along with lives .” In her piece, Tahmincioglu blamed job loss directly on the tornadoes and floods that have bedeviled the central US.

The hardest-hit states already are seeing claims pour in for unemployment benefits. Since a deadly wave of tornadoes swept through Tuscaloosa, Ala., and other Southeast towns in late April, more than 6,000 people have applied for disaster-related jobless benefits, said Tom Surtees, director of the Alabama Department of Industrial Relations. Typically about 24,000 people file for jobless benefits each month in the state, where the jobless rate is 9.3 percent, a bit above the national average.

Might make sense, of course. If your towns have been wiped out by natural disasters, well, it might stand to reason that jobs would be wiped out, too. This might help explain the sad jobs picture during this, the Obama administration. MSNBC would love if it were that simple, love to have something other than Obama to blame for the high unemployment figures, certainly. (more…)

Thank you, Mr. President. Osama bin Laden is finally gone. Dead. With a bullet in his head. A fitting end to the evil mastermind behind 9/11 – the worst terrorist attack on our own soil in our country’s history.

Last week, after experiencing your lowest approval ratings ever, you finally received a big bump in the polls and praise from all corners – among them your fellow Democrats and even conservative Republicans on FOX. That is not hard to understand. They want to be on the opposite side of anything starting with ‘Osama’ and ends with ‘Bin Laden.’ In this case, that would be you, Mr. President. And, of course, there are your friends in the biased mainstream media.

Apparently, the media believe that you did more than telling your military advisers, “OK, yeah, just go ahead.” Much more.

They way the media portrays it – it was your overarching philosophy in the War on Terror, your courage since 9/11, and your experience in military tactical strategy that saved the day. After all, former President George Bush and the post 9/11 intelligence infrastructure he created were so yesterday. And, really, who cares that the waterboarding stuff you have been condemning as torture actually worked?

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Never before in history has a superpower lost control of such vast amounts of such sensitive information — data that can help paint a picture of the foundation upon which US foreign policy is built. Never before has the trust America’s partners have in the country been as badly shaken.

- Der Spiegel

I’m currently reading Gray Lady Down, an interesting look at the domino effect on journalism starting with one-time flagship, the NYT. Of course, the book’s author and I (during my interview with him for my daily show) disagree on the premise that the NYT practices what one could consider “objective journalism” without chuckling, but it’s an interesting look at numerous examples of how the NYT dropped the ball, changed up its newsrooms, and how other newspapers followed suit.

This is why I found the NYT piece on President Obama and the latest Wikileaks treason so fascinating. Despite this massively embarrassing information leak embroiling the administration in a foreign policy scandal (one in which officials not only created not-so-flattering nicknames for foreign leaders, but wrote them down), the NYT still managed glowing words about their champion.

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Bush Derangement Syndrome is rampant this week, triggered by the release of former President George W. Bush’s book Decision Points.  I’m almost waiting for George Soros to jump back onto CNN and compare the former President with the Nazi regime again.

Big Journalism editor Dana Loesch points out the comical hypocrisy going on over at the Huffington Post.  While several of the tabloid-like site’s contributors have been criticizing one thing or another about the book, one in particular is prattling on about what he dubs as plagiarism in Decision Points.  Let’s just say, if you’re going to snitch, at least make sure your own crib’s in order.  Dana reminds readers that Arianna Huffington is herself no stranger to plagiarism.

Besides, a closer look at the post reveals more about the post’s author, Ryan Grim, than it does anything else.  Grim seems barely able to temper his disdain for the former President as he inventories a barrage of so-called “for instances”, like this one. [emphasis Grim's]

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It was only a matter of time before the nutroots at Huffington Post would resort to desperation and utter ridiculousness in their frenzied Bush-bashing; behold, the unintentionally comical headline atop Huffington Post:

Before we go into the nitty gritty, can I just note the delicious irony of a website of repeatedly accused plagiarist like Arianna Huffington – who settled out of court for, what else, plagiarism! – falsely accusing another of plagiarism? Remember this?

Seemingly plagiarizing Larry King transcripts so she could crow about having a Clooney byline. The result was an embarrassing smackdown from an A-list celebrity and loss of credibility.

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Michael Gerson became the latest former Bush operative to escalate the post election war on the tea party and Sarah Palin in his Washington Post column “The GOP’s Sarah Palin Problem.”  He mangles the facts terribly, even blaming Palin and Senator Jim DeMint for Sharon Angle’s ill-fated nomination in spite of the fact neither endorsed Angle until after she won the nomination.  Doug Brady dismantled effectively the rest of Gerson’s specious argument at Conservatives4Palin.  But most ironic was his closing statement that “the leading figure of the Tea Party movement seems increasingly indifferent to Republican fortunes and increasingly tolerant of disturbing extremism.”

I wonder how it comports with President Bush that just as he comes forth from seclusion to begin his book tour and rehab his image with the public and perhaps with conservatives, a number of his former operatives like Gerson have been reminding everyone of their war on the tea party and Sarah Palin.  While Bush’s big government policies might be excused, generously, given his wartime presidency and small mandate as the best conservatives could have hoped for at the time, those who once believed he was only compromising conservatism out of circumstantial necessity have become rapidly disabused of such notions.  The risk for the president is that conservatives become much less generous in those presumptions and excuses the more his operatives refuse to allow the Republican Party to move on.

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It’s amazing to me that liberals can’t assume responsibility without pointing at Fox as though Fox has anything to do with Olbermann’s insubordination. Howard Kurtz this weekend:

“Well if you look at Fox News you have some of the most prominent contributors on that network, Karl Rove raised almost 40 – 5o million dollars for an independent group that aided Republicans in this 2010 midterm cycle, dick morris raised money spoke on behalf of Republicans, and even Sean Hannity who is a host obviously of a nighttime show on Fox he has spoken at Republican fundraisers. All those infractions in my view … are worse than what Olbermann did … if you’re going to criticize that sort of thing … you can’t run around and do that same thing yourself.”

And if they had been at MSNBC they would have been violating policy, the policy which dictates that you can be as slanted to the left as you want in your broadcasted content and pretend that it’s objective – and you can pretend impartiality because there exists a policy that prevents identification of such by prohibiting campaign contributions.

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It’s been widely reported that the President’s impending trip to Mumbai, first by an Indian newspaper:

The US would be spending a whopping $200 million (Rs. 900 crore approx) per day on President Barack Obama’s visit to the city.

“The huge amount of around $200 million would be spent on security, stay and other aspects of the Presidential visit,” a top official of the Maharashtra Government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit said.

About 3,000 people including Secret Service agents, US government officials and journalists would accompany the President. Several officials from the White House and US security agencies are already here for the past one week with helicopters, a ship and high-end security instruments.

Another Indian paper reports:

US President Barack Obama’s trip to India next month is set to be the biggest ever by any US president in terms of the protocol and logistics.

[...]

Obama’s visit is historic in terms of logistics which is the largest ever for a visiting US president. The presidential entourage will have 40 aircraft, including the Air Force One that will ferry the president. There will be six armoured cars, including the Barack Mobile, a Cadillac.

The Cadillac limousine is equipped with a mini communication centre to enable Obama to be in touch with the White House, US vice president and the US strategic command.

Yes, that’s forty aircraft.

Necessary security aside, is it also necessary to take three thousand people with him?

Media Matters lazily exercised a journalistic muscle, asked the White House, then wildly supported the non-answer the White House gave: (more…)

Nothing like a little new media joust on a Saturday afternoon in the fall. Josh Marshall on both Obama and Bill Clinton today at TPM:

Being president is hard. Being president two years into your first term is hard. And being at the center of the polarizing political storm — as Obama is today and Clinton was 16 years ago — tends to wipe the political genius and midas touch and all the other good stuff right off of you. 10% unemployment doesn’t make you look that good either.

This isn’t justifying any mistakes. But I’m surprised how short the memories are of many people who do this political analysis thing for a living.

Josh Marshall on then President George Bush at TPM, Oct 1, 2004 – short memories, indeed, or selective, perhaps. Then, again,  maybe he was simply being prescient given where Obama finds himself today.

I think we all know that the presidency is tremendously hard work, even for a president like this one who keeps notoriously light hours. It’s amazing to look back at the way the office ages the men who occupy it. But worn out and complaining isn’t exactly presidential or an example of strong leadership. No one’s making him be president after all. Maybe it’s time to move on. He’s punched his ticket. He can move on to the next gig.

A major provision of the “Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002″, aka McCain-Feingold, was largely dismissed by the Supreme Court on January 21, 2010. President Obama’s reaction was swift and almost comically over the top.

With its ruling today, the Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics. It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans. This ruling gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington–while undermining the influence of average Americans who make small contributions to support their preferred candidates. That’s why I am instructing my Administration to get to work immediately with Congress on this issue. We are going to talk with bipartisan Congressional leaders to develop a forceful response to this decision. The public interest requires nothing less.

Uh-oh! Whenever they use the term “bipartisan” you know they’re trying to sucker us. It’s become as transparent as their disingenuous names for bills like the so called “Stimulus” which was supposed to fund “shovel ready jobs” and instead went to non-existent zip codes. Our unemployment rate went up dramatically.

But why is Obama so upset about the decision? He’s upset by unions and special interests donating large sums of money to candidates? This is the president who took $60 million from SEIU members and was visited by its head, Andy Stern, more than any other person last year. Obama’s “outrage” deserves a closer look. (more…)

There are many things on the World Wide Web that are not suitable for public viewing but that should be required viewing for journalists and political figures to alert them to the horrors that exist in some parts of the world. This should not be to incite but rather to rinse away their naïveté in dealing with a hostile culture and our potential enemies.

It is apparent that the mainstream media has no interest in covering stories that shed an unfavorable side of Islam and, frankly, this smacks of cowardice.

The elite will instead claim that the “vast majority” of Muslims are peace-loving and are just as horrified at the acts of a small number of radical terrorists.  That may very well be true but even a fraction of a billion is a very large number and that number is growing and gaining influence around the world thanks to the stupidity and cowardice of what should be called the “lamestream” press and those in our government today.

The Internet bloggers are doing the nasty job of covering the world of Islamic jihadists and it is truly chilling. The video of Daniel Pearl’s beheading could not be shown on the public airwaves but was easily available on the web. Gruesome as it was it cannot compare with this video of children training for Jihad beheading a man all the while praising Allah. (more…)