Franken Sense

..I am doing MSNBC tomorrow (Thursday) from New York at 4:00 PM, Eastern

WRITER'S NOTE. SINCE THIS COLUMN FIRST APPEARED A WEEK AGO, NEW POLL NUMBERS HAVE COME OUT WHICH ADD EMPHASIS

^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<^

LOUSY ECONOMY THREATENS DEMOCRATS
By BOB FRANKEN@=

^C.2010 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON-The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

How many times have we heard that one? But when we consider the country’s financial plight, that’s a cliche that is right on the money, literally,

So was James “Ragin’ Cajun” Carville back in 1992 when he posted the sign in the Bill Clinton for President campaign headquarters that read: “It’s the Economy, Stupid.”

When the two of us talked the other day, strategist-commentator Carville showed that 18 years later he hadn’t lost a quip: “More than ever, it’s the economy, stupid.”

The polls certainly bear him out. . . .ALL of them. Gallup was typical, reporting Wednesday that more than 62 percent of respondents listed economic problems as “extremely important,” ahead of anything else.

That’s why President Obama, in his Iraq mission-whatever speech, pivoted to the financial bad news and told his television audience: “Today, our most urgent task is to restore our economy, and put the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs back to work.”

Obviously it’s urgent for his fellow Democrats, many of whom are trying to keep their jobs after the Nov. 2 congressional elections. The economy is like a raw wound that just won’t adequately heal.

Unemployment is chronic. Whatever the precise number in any given report, it translates to about one in ten people out of work. Those who do the hiring are not hiring. As a result, they become part of the self-generating downdraft, the ill wind sweeping over nearly every indicator.

The National Association of Realtors reports that existing home sales dropped an astounding 27 per cent from the end of June through July. That’s the biggest one month drop since they began keeping records in 1999—and the Association’s Chief Economist Lawrence Yun predicts that “a soft sales pace likely will continue for several months.” And car sales were just as dismal. Autodata Corp.measured the worst August in 28 years.

Total economic growth? Estimates of the already paltry uptick from the last quarter have been revised downward by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The yo-yo stock market spends much of its time in the “sleeper” position. (For those who are not yo-yo aficionados, the “sleeper” position is at the bottom of the string where it just spins.)

Even the country’s birth rate is the lowest in a century and, sure enough, the National Center for Health Statistics attributes that to worries about affording a kid.

I'm on MSNBC this morning, (Monday) at 9:30, Eastern

I'm on MSNBC tomorrow morning (Sunday) at 10:30 and 11:30 Eastern

Writers note: Since this was filed last week (the delay is required) Lisa Murkowski has conceded in Alaska which adds emphasis to the points raised here.

^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<^

THE MUDDLED ELECTION STORY

By BOB FRANKEN@=

^C.2010 Hearst Newspapers@=

WASHINGTON It's hard to get a handle on this year's political drama. Here's a shocker: There isn't one. Yet.

It's a work in progress and anyone who spouts the conventional wisdom of the moment does it at their own peril. We don't yet know if it will turn out to be anti-incumbent, anti-Obama, anti-Democratic. . . or if the voters are just plain mad in general.

Florida's confused primary is a case in point (I know, I know, who ever heard of a confused election in Florida?)

We can start with Charlie Crist. He didn't have a victory party Tuesday night because, well, he doesn't have a party and didn't have a victory.

Since the Florida governor-turned-U.S.-Senate candidate has turned himself inside-out to avoid having the job done for him, he doesn't get his fight for survival until November.

Crist, who was elected governor four years ago as a Republican, now is seeking the Senate seat as an independent because polls earlier this year showed that he was a likely loser in the Republican primary against way more-conservative Marco Rubio.

The Democrats nominated the son of an iconic congresswoman and four-year House member, Kendrick Meek. Meek beat the really rich guy, Jeff Greene, to win the Democratic nomination which sets up the three-way Senate contest in November: Republican Rubio, Democrat Meek and Independent Crist.

In the Republican gubernatorial contest, another of the super wealthy, former hospital executive Rick Scott, defeated Bill McCollum, the state's attorney general.

We can look at the very opposite corner of the country to Alaska to see that the nationwide narrative is all over the map. There, incumbent Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who goes beyond establishment into dynasty, is now in a role reversal. She is struggling to come from behind against upstart challenger Joe Miller in the Republican Senate primary.

The plot thickens because another main character is Sarah Palin and her Tea Partiers.

I'm on MSNBC Sunday, August 29 at 9:30 AM, Eastern

^THE APATHETIC REGULATORS@<

^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<

^By BOB FRANKEN@=

^C.2010 Hearst Newspapers@=

WASHINGTON _ In our supposedly open system of government, the fact is that we often don’t get to see where the meaningful action takes place.

Oh sure, we watch and shake our heads at the contortions of our politicians getting twisted into knots in Congress and the White House. At least we see some of it.

But even after legislation is passed and signed, it then heads to the federal agencies whose job it is to decide how these new laws will be put into practice.

A recent investigative story written by Stewart Powell, Richard Dunham and Spencer Gaffney of the Hearst Newspapers Washington bureau examines how the bureaucrats answer far too much to lobbyists. Before they're through whittling away, the agencies have sometimes shaved the stated purpose of the law to nothing or even turned it inside out. They sabotage any chance of effectively enforcing what's left on the bones.

Full disclosure: This column is written for the Hearst News Service, independent of the news report, which was also written for Hearst. The article stands on its own as a piece of original journalism that does a great public service. It is based on in-depth reporting on the hows and whys of the cozy relationship between regulators and regulates and it gets to the shadow reality of the federal government.

The Hearst article goes into great detail about the revolving doors and big money that help the oil and gas industry keep federal officials at bay. Of the 694 lobbyists registered for the energy lobby, 434 of them have previously been federal employees.

And it's a two-way street. The Hearst piece points out that ``agency officials often are recruited from the very industries they are mandated to regulate.’’ Combine that with the heavy loads of cash used to, ah, persuade members of Congress to underfund, understaff and undermine effective enforcement, it’s not hard to see how various industries can simply flout the intent of the law.

So let's get this straight Sarah (may I call you Sarah?). You fiercely defend talk show host Laura Schlessinger's repeated use the "N-word" on her radio program because of her First Amendment protections but oppose the exercise of Muslims'First Amendment rights to build a Mosque near the 9/11 site.

To review the recent Palin Twittergrams: re:Schlessinger: "Don't retreat...reload!" (What does that even mean?) and her constitutional privileges "ceased 2exist thx 2activists trying 2silence her" (which is almost 2cute, but hey, the Freedom of Expression she cites for Schlessinger applies 2her2.)

But when the Mamma Grizzly roared from her cave at Fox News about the lower Manhattan Islamic Center, that was a "stab in the heart" which didn't deserve the Freedom of Religion in that same very same opening sentence in the Bill of Rights.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

It almost fits into one of Palin's beloved Twitter messages. In a tweetshell it guarantees the rights 2worship, 2speak freely, 2report the news, 2peaceably assemble and petition.

It's time for us to admit it. Americans...at least a lot of us, simply don't like Muslims very much. A lot has been made of the recent CNN survey about that proposed mosque at the 9/11site. Politicians, particularly those on the right, have jumped all over the 68 per cent negative response when respondents were asked whether they favored or opposed constructing that particular Islamic Center. But a new one gives the more complete picture.

Time Magazine's brand new poll gets to much more relevant fundamental issue when it shows that a full 43 per cent disapproval of Islam...not the proposed New York mosque but the religion itself.

The demagogues know that full well. But they've gotten a free pass. They've been allowed to tiptoe around our ugly true feelings and declare they are for religious diversity and all that good stuff, just against the mosque on that particular site..."sacred ground" that it is.

That is a subterfuge and they know it. Saddest of all, they've been able to terrify some candidates who are otherwise more measured but are are now showing just how craven someone can get when he's running running for his political life, say in Nevada.

By the way, the Time Magazine poll does not reflect a spike resulting from the curren controversy. Gallup last January got an identical result: 43 percent acknowledged "a little prejudice" against Muslims.

Those are the ones who OPENLY admitted their feelings. Surveys like this are incomplete because so many prefer to camouflage their true feelings, out of embarrassment or a lack of self-awareness. Even so 31 per cent acknowledged their view of Islam in its entirety was "not favorable at all"

Back in 2006, still another poll listed 38 per cent saying they would never vote for a Muslim president. We've all seen the fruits of that one, with many of President Obama's opponents getting good traction with their claim he's really a Muslim by birth and upbringing. And a new Pew poll shows that one in five believes that, thanks to incessant continuous use of the "Big Lie" tactic by the blogger blatherers, toxic talk radio hosts, Fox fantasy peddlers and so many others on the
wrong-headed Right. on talk Radio and Fox.

Copyrighted by Hearst-New York Times News Service
August 11, 2010

The indicators are so dismal for Democrats that they couldn’t be blamed if they decided to forfeit the November elections.

The immortal words of one of their own, James Carville, are being thrown right back in their faces by Republicans. Of course, I mean Carville’s 1992 declaration: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

If today’s economic situation is not in the tank, it sure looks like it may be teetering on the edge again. Pessimism reigns. The newest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that nearly two-thirds of those polled are depressed about the perceived recession.

As much as Democrats would still like to blame George W. Bush, he’s no longer president, a job that is also known as the “Blame-Taker-in Chief.” And the poll numbers show that.

Six in 10 feel President Obama’s economic policies have fallen short. This is not exactly a hospitable environment for those in his own party, struggling to keep Republicans from taking control of Congress.

There is one number that gives Democrats a glimmer of hope. That’s the puny 24 percent of voters who give the Republicans a positive mark, a new low for the Wall Street Journal’s survey. But even that glimmer is tarnished for the Democrats by their own 33 percent rating, which is pretty close to their historic bottom.

Democratic pollster Peter Hart, a member of the team that conducted the Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, suggested that widespread public frustration was symbolized by the JetBlue flight attendant who used the emergency slide to jump out of his plane after it landed at Kennedy Airport following a confrontation with a passenger.

The November balloting is the “JetBlue election,” Hart said. “Everyone’s hurling invective and they’re all taking the emergency exit.

So the Republicans smell blood—and their base is stoked by their passionate belief that the country is heading toward socialistic ruin. As for the Democratic base, it’s disgruntled with little to get gruntled about. . . .or get revved up enough to vote.

This is directed at all the people who claim they are all for the First Amendment rights of the Muslims who want to construct a Mosque at the 9/11 site but insist it's an "Insult" to build it there, a "stab in the heart" as Sarah Palin puts it, for the millions who have intense feelings about the September 11th attacks. More than one politician cries out that the proposed Islamic center would violate "sacred ground".

Question: What do you think about the plans of Glenn Beck to hold a "Restoring Honor" rally at the Lincoln Memorial? Did I mention it is scheduled 47 years to the day after Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" rally on the very same spot?

To millions, that location on that date is also "Sacred aground", which will be defiled by Beck and his followers.

Glenn Beck, as we all are painfully aware is wildly popular with millions who are attracted to his rants about, among other things, race. Unfortunately his tirades are also seen by non-followers as insensitive to say the least. His attacks on "social justice" and "economic justice" and his description of President Obama as a man with a "deep seated hatred for white people or the white culture" are regarded by some as more than a few as code words for white supremacists.

For President Obama, there is no vacation from vacillation. By the time he got to the beach this weekend, the controversy over his Friday speech seemingly supporting the proposed mosque at the 9/11 site, left him so rattled, he could hardly wait to to put on his flip flops.

Even the hastily arranged Gulf vacation itself was more of a placation, as in placating those who complained his family time off had not included the BP besieged Gulf shores, making his ringing words of support ring hollow.

Soon after he arrived he hastened to hollow out his words from the evening before, at the White House dinner marking the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

"Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country" he declared, "And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances."

Right away, the opposition's usual suspects were foaming at the mouth. That was hardy a surprise, considering their close attention to polls like CNN's which showed a 68 per cent nationwide disapproval of the religious center.

House Republican Leader John Boehner: "This is not an issue of law, whether religious freedom or local zoning. This is a basic issue of respect for a tragic moment in our history."

And of course we heard from the REAL Republican leader Sarah Palin. . She, or one of her peeps tweeted "We all know that they have the right to do it, but should they".

We also must not overlook the man who jealously WANTS to be the GOP leader, Newt Gingrich. He pounced too, by accusing Obama of "pandering to radical Islam". Gingrich knows from pandering.

Those of us who are somewhat past puberty remember the Summer of Love. How much we recall depends on what we each ingested recreationally but the consensus is that it did happen.

It defined a generation, but for those who missed out, a little background: It was actually spread over two years of sex-drug-and-rock-and-roll...from the 1967 release of the Beatles' incredible ``Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’’ album to the musical glory and excess at Woodstock in 1969.

The epicenter of this earthquake was San Francisco, specifically in the neighborhood around Haight and Ashbury streets, which became a magnet for all things hippie, a beacon for romanticized tolerance.

Sadly, the flowers in the air have turned poisonous. In the bad trip to Now, the times have been a-changin' and here we are in the Summer of Hate.

Instead of New Agers, it's the Dark Agers who have the spotlight. Rather than Aquarius, it's scariness for them.

They are having a field day. As the political slime season unfolds, they can target gays and Muslims and immigrants of color. The news has already handed them a trifecta of winning issues, if by ``winning’’ you mean stuff that can be exploited by shameless panderers.

Their latest ``victory’’ came in California, where a federal judge has overturned the state's ban on gay marriage. And, yes, the loss IS a victory in the wrong-is-right world of politics, because it sends juices flowing through narrow minds.

Copyright by Hearst-New York Times News Service
August 4, 2010

To even write the word risks immediate rejection by readers or a sudden daze. But here we go: Deficit.

Before the eyes start to glaze, consider the latest projections from the Obama administration. The federal budget deficit this year will be nearly $1.5 trillion.

That’s trillion, with a capital ‘T” — and that stands for “Trouble.” That’s not music, man, it’s a dire warning of national ruin.

The numbers are staggering. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that in just nine years if we stay on course, the national debt will consume more than 3 percent of GDP, more than double the percentage this year.

The gross domestic product index measures everything American workers produce. That 3 percent — $700 billion — will go into the debt sinkhole.

Put another way, the CBO predicts that interest payments on the national debt will make up 14 percent of overall federal spending in 2020, fourth behind defense, Social Security and Medicare.

Public debt owned by foreigners comprises about 50 percent of the total. So almost half the interest payments now leave the country. That will grow dramatically as interest rates inevitably rise.

Unless drastic action is taken — and soon — calamity is just down the road. At some point we will no longer be able to continue our Ponzi-like borrowing. The standard of living for all of us will go right into the toilet. And yet the subject bores us. We have deficit-attention disorder.

No stimulant is going to help with this one unless we give it to those who somehow make doomsaying boring.

They are largely people who have spent an entire lifetime studying the stupefying intricacies of budgeting and they want to flog the rest of us with convoluted charts and incomprehensible jargon.

I'm on MSNBC tomorrow morning (Saturday) sometime during the 11:00 AM Eastern hour

Copyright Hearst-New York Times News Service
July 28, 2010

Let's get this straight: The biggies at the White House and Pentagon charge that the massive WikiLeaks about the Afghanistan misadventure are harmful to the national interest.

At the same time, the President's mouthpiece, Robert, Gibbs insists there are "no new revelations."

Will someone explain, then, why they're harmful?

For that matter will someone explain why "no new revelations" are classified "secret" in the first place?

Actually, allow me: Secrecy is a disease that spreads to nearly all those who are infected by a security clearance. They are suddenly consumed by a desire to look down upon us mere mortals who are not part of the in-crowd.

Imagine their fury, when their power trip is interrupted. Some begin foaming at the mouth. Phrases spew out like "criminal act," "danger to U.S. personnel" and "exposing sources and methods."

They say very little about possible criminal acts by those whose conduct is shown to be deadly or embarrassing and crudely covered up. They have even less comment concerning what it shows about how the war in Afghanistan has been conducted and whether we should even stay there.

Copyright Hearst-New York Times News Service
July 21, 2010

As everybody knows, the next election campaign begins the day after results are in from the last one. In fact it probably doesn't wait till morning.

Those of us who study the science of politics understand that there is an immutable Law of Gravity at work: What goes up must come down.

Just watch President Obama and his party's backup singers in Congress. While the Republican chorus has been belting out the same melody from the git-go, a song with one word "NO!!!" the Democrats usually sound like they were matched up by E DIS-Harmony.

This Washington netherworld also is controlled by another principle, the D4 rule, as in Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don't (DODO). Which explains why, when Mr. Smith comes to Washington these days, or Ms. Jones, or Mr. Obama, whatever he or she does causes his or her popularity to drop. (See the Law of Gravity.)

When Obama and his White House entourage keep his bold promises like health care reform or a financial crackdown, he is vilified by those on the other side who insist he is leading us all down the road to godless communism. At the same time, his so-called allies are complaining that the reforms are empty.

And when Obama holds back on something like, say, closing down the Guantanamo Bay Devil's Island, he is battered on the left as a wimp and hammered on the right as a softy by all those in NIMBYland, as in: Not In My Back Yard.

July 18, 2010--Copyright Hearst-New York Times News Service
Bob Franken: The games that spies play
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What do we call it when a defector goes back? Is that a DE-defector? It can usually be called defective intelligence.

The most recent case in point is the Iranian physicist who U.S. officials insist voluntarily bailed out on his country and took what appeared to be nuclear secrets with him.

Now he's gone back—contending that he had been kidnapped in Saudi Arabia, while the Americans insist he is motivated by fears for family that he left behind.

Whichever, it's an embarrassing story of dueling video tapes all by him and now his "escape." And it's not the first time this kind of thing has happened.

When it comes to spy games, Wisconsin Avenue in northwest Washington is apparently the happenin' street. That's where we'll find the diplomatic storefront office that the Pakistani diplomatic service uses to represent Iran's interests in the United States, since there are no direct U.S.-Iranian relations. And that's where Shahram Amiri ducked in last Monday so he could hustle back home, leaving some red faces behind.

Twenty-five years ago, just a few blocks down Wisconsin at what was then the Au Pied de Cochon restaurant, there had been a similar embarrassment.
Does anybody remember Vitaly Yurchenko? You can bet they do at the CIA. Yurchenko was a KGB higher up who seemed to switch sides in 1985, in Rome.

He certainly convinced his western handlers he was legit, probably because he subsequently exposed some major league communist spies in the U.S.

Apparently this was a ruse. A few months later, Yurchenko was having dinner and told the man guarding him he wanted to take a walk.

His walk took him just a few blocks up Wisconsin Avenue to the new Soviet Embassy where he held a news conference before hightailing it back to Moscow.

Who knew Steve Jobs had so much in common with Sarah Palin? Or Michelle Bachmann or the others shouting from their Tea cups.

All of them despise the media for daring to shed harsh light on their crusades as they crush anyone in their way who might want to erect a few barriers of truth to confront their steamrollers

These hated troublemakers are the ones who insist on asking the tough questions and reporting the embarrassing answers and/or deceptions from those politicians and entrepreneurs who have gotten used to spreading their messages with no resistance whatsoever.

As the cliche goes, if the reflection is ugly, they want to break the mirror . In Jobs' case, when his corporate hands are caught in the IPhone 4 "Death Position", blocking the antenna which causes the embarrassing loss of cellphone reception, he bitterly hurls attacks at the journalist pests, saying "...when you see someone get successful, you just want to tear it down".

It's really tough on a guy when his bullying and PR manipulation suddenly isn't enough. Just ask Palin, who at all costs avoids all but sycophantic news situations these days and stays largely behind the bunkers with her Fox Friendlies, where she can "refudiate" the "Lamebrain Media".

Rep. Michelle Bachmann, another one rising on the Right's risers sings an even harsher tune for her choir entitled the "Treason Media". And let's not forget those Senate candidates Sharron Angle (T-Nevada) and Rand Paul (T-Kentucky) who are ducking further contact with anyone who might cause them to trip over their own oversimplifications.

Copyright Hearst

July 10, 2010
Bob Franken: Can we vote for "none of the above"?

Proposition 14 is an idea whose time would seem to have come.

Prop 14, California's just-passed referendum, would mostly remove political parties from the primaries and set up a general election between the two highest primary election vote-getters, regardless of their affiliation.

It sounds radical, but it doesn't go anywhere near far enough. We're still left with a Tweedle Dee Dee and Tweedle Dee Dum choice between least undesirable candidates.

There is another possibility: "Vote No." Over time there have been a few attempts to make that happen. One proposal that's rattled around would offer a "None of the Above" option. And if that won, there would be a new election.
Of course, the problem is that "None of the Above" would almost always win, so we'd never be able to form a government. That just won't cut it—no matter what the Tea Partiers think.

So what are we to do? How about trying some astounding new approaches? How about a political process that values honest discussions about our limitations and the muck that we're in?

That mess has been caused by those with little regard for the damage they do when they raise high expectations and then expediently drop them.

In the process, they shatter what few illusions remain. Our entire system can only work if the citizens believe it can. Cynicism is like acid. It's not much of a leap to the conclusion that "Of the People, By the People and For the People" has been replaced by "For the Wealthy, For the Powerful, For the Corrupt."

Every couple of years, somebody promises to change all that. And every time people start feeling suckered when their latest hope gets swallowed by entrenched reality. Think of Charlie Brown who annually would let Lucy convince him that this time she would hold the football. Sure enough, though, when he'd make a run at it, she would pull it away at the last minute and he'd fall flat on his back.

But government is not peanuts. It's trillions of dollars that so many believe is wasted and our sense of community gets frittered away.

Shouldn't we remember that, by definition, clandestine agents like to skulk in the dark shadows, jealously guarding the secrecy of their creepy creeping? So mightn't we want to be just a tad suspicious about the clamor of publicity concerning the recent espionage game playing.

Suddenly, the spy biz has become show biz. About all we haven't seen of that suburban ring is a program called "The Real Russian Housewives". And one has to believe that Playboy and/or Hustler have been in touch with the redhead. I see a centerfold coming.

Of course, they'll need to shoot it in Moscow, or somewhere, because that's where the ring members are taking up residence, now that they have been deported, uprooted from being embedded in our bedroom communities.

Their charade could hardly be called "Deep Cover". Given the superficiality of the 'burbs, "Shallow Cover" seems more appropriate. And these moles were removed by the FBI, not the usual lawn care service.

But you know the whole story. And there can be only one explanation for that: it's phony. It's gotta be made up. It is either a concoction of the news networks, looking for something to over-cover when even the President Obama show seems to have gone on hiatus.

Shouldn't we remember that, by definition, clandestine agents like to skulk in the dark shadows, jealously guarding the secrecy of their creepy creeping? So mightn't we want to be just a tad suspicious about the clamor of publicity concerning the recent espionage game playing.

Suddenly, the spy biz has become show biz. About all we haven't seen of that suburban ring is a program called "The Real Russian Housewives". And one has to believe that Playboy and/or Hustler have been in touch with the redhead. I see a centerfold coming.

Of course, they'll need to shoot it in Moscow, or somewhere, because that's where the ring members are taking up residence, now that they have been deported, uprooted from being embedded in our bedroom communities.

Their charade could hardly be called "Deep Cover". Given the superficiality of the 'burbs, "Shallow Cover" seems more appropriate. And these moles were removed by the FBI, not the usual lawn care service.

But you know the whole story. And there can be only one explanation for that: it's phony. It's gotta be made up. It is either a concoction of the news networks, looking for something to over-cover when even the President Obama show seems to have gone on hiatus.

BOB FRANKEN JOINS HEARST NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON – Former CNN reporter Bob Franken has joined Hearst Newspapers where he will write a weekly Washington-based column for the Hearst News Service, starting July 8.

During his 20-plus-year career at CNN, Franken served as the network’s Capitol Hill correspondent, Supreme Court reporter, White House reporter and covered many major stories including the 9/11 attacks, two Iraq Wars, the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and presidential and congressional campaigns.

A native of Baltimore, Franken began his broadcast career in Marshfield, Wis. He later worked in Charleston, W. Va., Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio, where reporters were required to shoot their own video.

Franken joined NBC in 1980 and moved to CBS in 1983, which brought him to Washington. He worked for CNN from 1986 to 2007.

Richard S. Dunham, Washington bureau chief for Hearst Newspapers, in announcing Franken’s new position, said: ``Bob is a perceptive observer of the Washington scene, with a sense of humor and a distinctly outside-the-Beltway perspective.’’

@<

For further information: Chuck Lewis, 202-263-6411

The items would have appeared in the employment sections of the Moscow Times or Moscow News...in those papers because they're published in English: "Help Wanted. Men and women to live in the United States. Duties include doing whatever it takes to have children set up a life in comfortable suburbs, and make friends with officials. Send resumes and salary requirements (dollars, not rubles) to Vladimir Putin, at the Kremlin." Talk about truly "Classified Ads".

There was probably no shortage of takers, but they could have saved a lot of the moving expense if they'd simply run the same employment ads here in the US. If it sounds like a nice cushy gig, it is. In this country,we call people like that "lobbyists"

One can't help but wonder why the SVR, which is what they call the KGB these days, would spend so much time and money on gaining information that is widely available on the internet, and communicating with equipment that is far less exotic that many IPad apps.

One can only conclude that in Russia, just like this nation, there are still a lot of cold warriors longing for the good old days before they became irrelevant...well almost irrelevant. They do pop up all the time on TV as foreign policy and national security experts.

It looks like a lot of these Soviet throwbacks still have their government jobs, just like their American counterparts. Without a doubt, they have their own civil service protections too. They are known as "apparatchiks" over there, here we call them "bureaucrats". For too many of either, the imperative is to preserve the old rigid ways of thinking and doing things and of course, their positions.

If, in fact, we do get to look back after death, Robert Byrd would probably be proud that his came on a day when the United States Senate was once again playing one of its most primal roles.

He had after all, spent more than half a lifetime jealously defending the rules, peculiarities and turf of the Senate and protecting against almost any smart alecky attempt at reform.

He succumbed in the predawn hours of a morning when the Senate was scheduled to begin exercising its Constitutional mandate to give "Advice and Consent". Using the current media construct, this is Day One of the hearings leading up to a vote on whether to confirm Elena Kagan, the President's nominee to join the Supreme Court.

It's pure Separation of Powers, the kind of stuff which would make Senator Byrd swell with pride. Unfortunately these hearings are a showcase of another Senate tradition: bombast.

Day One is devoted to opening statements from committee members. This is where they display an amazing talent to use a lot of words to say very little.

After each and every speaker gives a verbal homage to their "Dear Friend" Senator Byrd, and maybe even brush away a tear or two, they then get on to the partisan business at hand, in the inimitable way of the Senate.

It doesn't take a clairvoyant to predict the speeches. Democrats and Republicans alike are predicatbly embracing this opportunity to "examine her record" and engage in an "open discussion about issues". Never mind that there won't be anything of the sort, that's what they always say.

The Dems are ready to embrace Kagan's brilliance and accomplishments and maybe laud the fact she will bring a fresh perspective to the court since she comes from "outside the judicial" monastery, because she's never been a judge.

Don't you just love all the writers, like me, who find it necessary to add a "Full Disclosure", which is supposed to provide absolute honesty about a potential conflict-of-interest?

Of course, a really FULL disclosure would go something like this: "Full disclosure, this reporter is advocating this point of view because it will make him a ton of money". Or "...because he is being blackmailed into saying it by someone who has pictures of him with a hooker". Or my personal favorite" "Full disclosure. I have no earthly idea what I'm talking about"

This one will fall short of that (I hope, anyway) but it may surprise you: "Full disclosure: Geraldo Rivera and I are friends of long standing". At least we have been until now, because I want to take issue with his Fox News appearance where he strongly criticized Michael Hastings for repeating the incendiary comments by General Stanley McChrystal and his aides that got Gen. McChrystal fired.

Geraldo contends Hastings and the magazine were out of line, that, given his access, there should have been "a cone of privilege (Geraldo's words) that kept the bitter snarkiness about the President and the chain-of-command confidential. "If it's not on the record", Rivera continued, "It's off the record", meaning, I suppose, that these defiant statements should have been kept confidential because the smart alecks didn't know better.

The generals have been having a wild time of it lately. It was just a little over a week ago that Gen. David Petraeus, the head of Central Command physically passed outy right there for the world to see as he testified before a congressional committee. Now it's Gen. Stanley McChrystal's turn to collapse...or least for his career to. Petraeus apparently had not had enough liquids. McChrystal was done in because he and his aides spouted off in front of a reporter.

We all know the story by now. For reasons beyond comprehension, McChrystal and his fellow high ranking smart alecks let the Rolling Stone writer listen in as they trashed just about everyone in the civilian chain of Afghanistan command...most memorably the Vice President, who will forevermore be known as Mr. "Bite Me".In the end,it was McChrystal who got bitten...chewed up and spit out. He's relieved of his command, replaced by none other than Gen. Petraeus, who could have been excused if he had fainted again, from shock. There he was, comfortably ensconced at CENTCOM headquarters in Tampa and now he's on his way back to Kabul.

Memo to Television executives and speech agencies: Stanley McChrystal is suddenly available for work as a military affairs commentator, with a Special Ops, uh, specialty. He is probably not the guy to give the most expert analysis of politics and definitely not press relations, but the fallen high and mighty seem to hold a special TV news fascination. Just ask Eliot Spitzer. But I digress...

Back at the Situation Room, once they shooed out Wolf Blitzer, the President convened a strategy session. It probably ought to be called a "Cut the Crap" meeting. He should have no problem looking for someone's "ass to kick", since just about everyone involved seems to be running in different directions. If they dumped on the enemy as much as they have each other, the Taliban would be long gone from the region and so would the United States. Perhaps one of the top ranking diplomats should also go...replaced by say, Rahm Emanuel.

Among the first things we need to determine is whether Vice President "Bite Me" considers this a "Big F______ing deal". "Bite Me" is the name an aide to Afghanistan military commander General Stanley McChrystal gave to Mr. Biden if we are to believe a new piece in Rolling Stone by freelance reporter Michael Hastings,. Hastings was apparently given close access to McChrystal and his crew and it is certainly a big F____ing deal for them.

The piece, set for release Friday, calls McChrystal "The Runaway General". Well, he's crawling away from Afghanistan, back to DC. He has been jerked back after accomplishing what many thought was impossible. Apparently the article with all its contemptuous quotes about damn near the entire national security team has made the President...dare I say it...ANGRY!! He's so mad that his press guy won't even rule out the possibility that he'll be fired.

It won't be hard to spot Gen. McChrystal on the way to his White House grovel. He'll be the guy in the perfectly pressed uniform with the red face above all those stars on his shoulder. As for firing him , the President will have a balancing act to perform here.

On the one hand, this won't be the first time that McChrystal has been borderline insubordinate with him. The last time, we can recall, Obama yanked him from London to Copenhagen so he could be pictured getting the "Let's Remember Who's Commander-in-Chief" lecture. Apparently, it didn't take. Add to that, the fact that things are not going all that well in Afghanistan and some in this administration might regard this less as a crisis than an opportunity to toss the guy overboard

On the other side of this double-edged sword, cutting him loose would mean getting rid of the guy who developed the master plan for Afghanistan the President has chosen to follow just as it goes into high gear. Besides, McChrystal seems to be about the only person in the US government these days who gets along well with the country's President Hamid Karzai, and doesn't consider him a dangerous cuckoo-bird.

As important as all that, there is also the Douglas MacArthur-Harry Truman lesson. MacArthur was another big Mac, with an ego to match, who as UN Commander in Korea, in 1951, unleashed his own criticisms of the President and his policies. Truman didn't wait long. Very quickly Gen. Mac Arthur became the FORMER UN Commander and just as quickly, the wildly popular general (he had been a World War 2 hero) became a martyr. The firestorm brought all the Truman-haters out of the woodwork and did serious damage to the administration.

Like many reporters I can read upside down. It’s a skill that’s useful when you want to sneak a peek at stuff an unwary official or politician leaves naked on his desk or nude notes on his lap.

Back in my TV puberty in Cleveland, a presidential candidate came to town and was sitting down with the usual rotation of local yokel anchor types, like me, who could be expected to ask puffball questions and get canned non-answers.

The aforementioned candidate’s staff (his identity doesn’t matter) had prepared his crib sheet and he carelessly left it sitting there for me to, uh, crib.. I could see he was going to wow me (the sheet included my name) and the audience with specific figures about the area’s unemployment rate, and industries,so no matter what my inquiry he’d work them into his answer.

I hated that. So I began by saying “Senator _______, the unemployment rate here is (whatever his sheet said it was) and the (ditto) industry here has been particularly hard hit….” Then I continued with my question. The poor guy had nothing to say. The response was so generic, he didn’t even bother to use my name.

Now in today’s sophisticated world of message manipulation, the politicians’ media adviser brains have made damned sure their clients hide anything they don’t want the upside-down-reading-scumbag-
reporter to see. (Is “scumbag-reporter” a redundancy?).

In fact the cleverest of the clever in this battle of deceit will sometimes place papers on their client’s desk they DO want us to see…misleading us into believing we’re pulling a fast one when we’re not the puller but the pullEE.

A variation on that would be the talking point. Those are exactly what they sound like: Words created by party leaders and their handlers that are to be mindlessly repeated to make sure that A) their puppets stay on message and B) they look like they know what they’re talking about.

Which brings me to Dylan Ratigan, the puppet disrupter of MSNBC, and his quote “Racists and talking points piss me off”.

( Full disclosure: I never met the guy, never been on his show, although I do show up on MS. Full enough?).

Ratigan was explaining the browbeating he gave Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz

(Wasserman-Schultz and I have met but when we did she was looking over my shoulder as she said “Nice to see you”).

The first order of business will be deciding what to call that 20 billion dollar BP compensation fund. How about "A Start". As in, 20 billion doesn't begin to cover the liability for the careless disregard for anything but profit that caused such devastating losses in the Gulf of Mexico region including the loss of life. It'll take more than any financial penalty to achieve a just result.

The contemptuous disregard for minimal safety procedures was brought on by pressure from the very top of the company. It was the never-ending demand to minimize expenses and maximize profits which borders on criminal negligence. In fact, it crosses the line and serious consideration has to be given to the prosecution of those responsible, from top to bottom.

While we're at it,BP, lose the ads. We don't need those absurd attempts to depict recovery efforts as some benign corporate act. That's not image making, that's image faking.

For that matter, we would probably be better off without any from the energy industry. Those commercials we see that present big oil as protecting our interests are nothing more than propaganda disguising campaigns that try and rachet up opposition to new taxes on the industry and the obscene income its gets because of its stranglehold on all of us. It is, after all, a cartel that feeds our addiction to oil and gasoline,

The industry can save a lot of money so why does't it simply control the law the old fashioned way...by bribing politicians with campaign contributions and threatening them if they don't, uh, rig things.

Let's face it: Their conduct is so egregious they've even made President Obama mad. So, now BP executives had to do a "perp walk where ameras couldshow them trudging into the White House to ratify their new fund.

It's paid for, by cutting out dividends to stockholders. Of course it is. So many of them are small time investors, who count on the dividends for much of their income. A lot of pensioners are now going to do without,just like all those people in the Gulf...the ones that the company chairman called the "small people" Now we know why he's so reclusive.

All I can say is thank heaven for my DVR. Otherwise I would have missed the first couple of innings of the Washington Nationals game. And for what? For President Obama throwing puffballs in his first play from the Oval office.

There he was. The President of the United States, in the Oval Office, telling us he was mad a heck. He couldn't even work up a "mad as hell", as he assured us he simply will "refuse" to let this destructive oil spill destroy the Gulf way of life.

And what was with his rambling about how they "bless the fleet" down there? Maybe it had something to do with his meeting with the BP executives. Maybe its the ceremonial blessing of their fleet of corporate jets, the ones that whisk them to and from their mansions in the Hamptons (You want to stop the oil gusher? Just let the first tar balls reach the Hampton's beaches. Then we'll have results!)

Quick: What's the difference between this disaster and Hurricane Katrina? Katrina was caused by an act of God. The BP destruction was caused by oil company executives who think they're Gods. That's who the President has invited over to the White House. Presumably they won't be sitting down for a beer.

The time has come to consider a federal takeover of South Carolina's election apparatus. Well it would be if we could do that.

Can we? Probably not.The Constitution gets snitty about that kind of thing. But SHOULD we? Definitely.

Citizens there are disenfranchised by the unrelentingly dirty politics that seem to be as much a part of the state's fabric as textile plants. The big difference is the factories have shut down...the rotten campaign tactics certainly have not.

Ask Nikki Haley, the new GOP nominee for Governor. She beat out the good old boys only because they went too far with their charges that a couple of their guys had been bad old boys with her.

Of course, it didn't hurt that Sarah Palin came riding in to her rescue. I have had a lot to say about Palin's simple-minded demagoguery, but she must be given credit for symbolizing this simple message: "Cut the Sexist Crap".

It resonated. For reasons easily understood, the South Carolina Republicans were tired of all the fooling around about fooling around.

There is a growing belief, for instance, that the guy who is now the Democratic nominee for US Senate was a GOP plant.

Not only does Alvin Greene seem to have no access to money, but also to reality. How he could have won the primary says a lot about the hapless Democrats. How he could even run might say a lot about Republicans, who have played this racial ringer game in elections past.

Let's be clear: I treasure the Brits. Just like our leaders always say, it's a "Special Relationship". Like so many on this side of The Pond, I pretentiously mimic their affectations, up to, and including calling the Atlantic Ocean "The Pond".

I get a huge kick out of the way they talk, even though they are incapable of correctly pronouncing my name They can't say "Bob". No matter how hard they try, it comes out somewhere between "Bub" and "Boob". And "Pentagon" is "Pentagin". Professor Henry Higgins had a good question when he asked "Why can't the English learn to speak"?. Maybe it has to do with their stiff upper lips. But hey, you gotta love 'em.

But this time they've gone from understatement to overboard. Suddenly, all the US anger at BP, once called British Petroleum is being taken as an affront in the UK.

How dare us get so crude about the crude oil fouling an entire region of our country, courtesy of BP? How could we get so worked up over the company's, dare I say, dithering?

British Petroleum is already showing how it plans "make it right" for the desperate Gulf region residents and businesspeople, who are drowning in oil. Already, the lifelines are so entangled in impossible procedures and other delays that any rescue will come long after these hard luck victims have gone under.

In other words, there seems to be much more corporate concern over preserving the financial health of the company than that of those who were simply going about their business while the renegade drillers carelessly set off their calamitous gusher. Chances are those life-sustaining businesses will be wiped out while the procedural obstacle block meaningful assistance till it's too late.

Note to BP: Get rid of those ads, and probably the CEO. Both are looking so ludicrous they've become laughingstocks. The money can be put to much better use than smarmy PR.

Speaking of image making vis-a-vis actually doing stuff, President Obama already knows whose "ass to kick" as he elegantly put it during his Matt Lauer "Today Show" interview. That approach to dealing with the buttheads is long overdue. We know who the targets should be...the ones who keep promising to "make it right". A good way to kick ass would be to kick their asses out of the "make it right " process. BP's money but someone else controlling how's it's dispersed.

Who could have ever imagined this happening in the old puckered up Dixie, where even the mildest swear word would bring pursed lips and warnings about Judgment Day?

And who in a thousand years, actually make that a hundred 45 years since the end of the Civil War, who could have imagined that South Carolina, which still holds fond memories of a plantation life, would be on the verge of making the GOP nominee a woman who isn't lily white.

Rep. Nikki Haley is of Indian descent, in fact an opponent called her a "raghead". It used to be, nobody would have even noticed such racist comments. Now they have caused an uproar and mainly oozed all over the idiot who used the word. Call that progress.

But that pales against the really big deal in South Carolina. Ms. Haley has not once, but twice, had to deny claims from men who claimed to have had extra-marital affairs with her. We can't tell whether these guys really did sleep with her or whether it was only their fantasies, but what has happened since is truly the stuff of dreams.

I am on "White House Chronicle" again this Friday, Saturday and/or Sunday, depending on your preferred station.

Let's be blunt: President Barack Obama is struggling with a growing perception that he and his people are in over their heads.

It may be unfair, given opponents who decided on an unprecedented strategy of unyielding resistance. They have shamelessly sabotaged almost any progress or possible success for this administration.

But how do they get away with it? Shouldn't effective politicians be able to roll over those in the other side of the partisan blockades?

It may also be that the Obama communications team does a lousy job of, uh, communicating. The message about what accomplishments there have been has been drowned out by the loud braying of opportunistic politicians and commentators on the Right sidelines.

How is it that Press Secretary Robert Gibbs looks so much like he has his hands tied at the very same time he swings wildly at any questioner? That can't be possible. Can it?

But forget about surrogates, isn't it ultimately the Chief Executive, who should speak softly and carry a big fly swatter?

Unfortunately, this President only seems to have gotten the "speak softly" part down. It's hard to be "No Drama Obama" in such a theatre of the absurd.

No matter how many times his handlers feed pliant reporters some story about how he glowered behind closed doors or snapped "Plug the damned hole" in a snitty moment, it still seems like just a moment...that this is a man who doesn't instill fear when he needs to.

So every time, he clenches his jaw and makes another "No More Mr. Nice Guy" speech everyone yawns and says, "Yeah, whatever". As a result, in spite of the promise of "Change you can believe in", it looks like things are basically UNchanged.

I'm on "White House Chronicle" this Friday, Saturday and/or Sunday. It depends on the station.

They are the free marketeers, those who advocate that corporations should be free-to- cheat-and-harm and-do-whatever-the-hell-they-
want. They are the ones who wring their hands in op-eds and on cable news, easy "gets" for the bookers and editors who need to fill time or column inches or their own pages on Facebook and their own fund raising blogs.

Sad to say it's hard to refute one of their main propaganda points: Regulation doesn't work. It doesn't but it should. We don't need to look very far to see the mortal danger of uninhibited commerce. We can compile a long list of examples from the news...a list of companies where any concern for the lives and welfare of everyone else has been overridden by careless and shameless greed..

It includes, of course, British Petroleum, Toyota, Johnson and Johnson, and it's subsidiary that makes CHILDREN'S health care products.

Let's not forget the bankers and other money changers, the health insurance companies, at least one coal company.

They are all regulated to some degree, at least theoretically. The problem is that in practice, the agencies that are supposed to oversee them have been often paralyzed, compromised by a culture that condones slothfulness and even corruption. We can easily come up with a list here with initials: MMS, which stands for Minerals Management Service, but we know its real MISmanagement.
NHTSA...the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, where the "T" obviously did NOT mean "Toyota" safety.

How sad it is that the energy company enablers in our government don't determine that the Gulf coast is "Too Big to Fail". Maybe then they would stop dithering and take whatever decisive action necessary to prevent further ecological and economic destruction.

We could call it Tar Prevention, "TARP". But instead of throwing money at the corporate offenders, the taxpayers would immediately seize the whatever assets of British Petroleum it will take to effectively and quickly jam a cork in this devastating diarrhea.

Sorry if that seems impolite, but what better way to describe how the fouling of so many beaches and marshes, to say nothing of the lives of those who rely on their precious section of Mother Earth.

Yes, I know. You don't just take over an oil company. For starters they're all more powerful than any government... at any levels, federal, state or local.

It would take uncharacteristically bold action by the President. This would have to be far beyond the photo ops of his determined expression and clenched jaw. The leaks (pardon the expression) from aides informing us he's in his No-More-Mr-Nice-Guy-I-Really-Mean-It-This-Time mode just aren't enough, not even when he's quoted as snapping "Plug the damned hole". He'll have to BE a decisive leader, not just play one on TV.

He needs to demand whatever takeover authority he requires from Congress: Big problem: Many members have been bought off by the energy companies.

Let's thank the Washington Post and reporters T.W. Farnam and Carol Leonnig for an comment that speaks volumes about a political system in the United States that is bought and paid for.

In their Saturday story "PACs betting on GOP takeover", one of them got a quote from Rep. Greg Walden who is Deputy Chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee. He's not just a House member, but a party fundraiser, who says that in pitching corporate givers to spread some of their wealth to his side "I tell them 'I understand you have to give money to Democrats, but I want to be back in the majority'" "'You don't have to give (this Democrat) $5000. Give them $2000. You can give $3000 elsewhere. Now let me show you some open seats where you can make an investment in a Republican candidate you will like"

"INVEST"???!!! What the hell does that mean? What is the return on that investment? We know the answer. It is favored treatment for the "investor" by the investee. And it is as close to a sure thing as you can get. Particularly when you diversify your holdings.

Toss a teeny bit of your riches into what we euphemistically call "campaign contributions", what others might label "legalized bribery. Make sure you spread it around, to Republicans and Democrats alike, to officeholders and challengers alike, hedging your bets with both sides. Reap huge rewards.

It's kind of a protection racket. Slip a few bucks to them and your elected officials will make sure your wealth is unmolested by those troublemakers who might have the audacity to try and set some limits on the way you accumulate it.

Not only that, but you get to munch little shrimp balls with the present or future officeholder you've purchased, and watch ballgames and rock concerts with them from the sky boxes you maintain because you're so civic minded.

I'm on "White House Chronicles this Friday, Saturday or Sunday, depending on the station. Check local listings

Will someone please tell me why there is so much attention paid to the newly announced scientific development, where researchers, using computers, were able to create synthetic life? What's the big deal? We've had synthetic life in Washington like forever.

How real could it be here when we find out some of our Senators have never used an ATM? Ben Nelson, D-Nebraska, for one, told the Omaha World Herald this week "It's true, I don't know how to use one". He isn't great at withdrawing his own money, in other words, just spending ours.

It shouldn't surprise anyone who watches our leaders flounder around. The first impression anyone gets is that they are really out of touch. It's also the second impression...the 10th, the billionth. If you don't believe me, just ask anyone with the Tea Party.

The problem is that this fuddy-dudiness plays right into the Right's hands...gives grist to the mill of the Regressives, who want to impose their simplistic approaches to life in the early 21st century and take us back to the Dark Ages.

What they don't know as they take their easy shots at entrenched Washington is that there is one thing the robotic inhabitants are good at and that is craftiness. All the experience with intrigue allows them to take the occasional new savior who comes expecting to shake things up and chew him or her up then spit him or her out.

That is unless the novice doesn't do it to him or herself. The latest case, is a Him...Rand Paul, the newbie from Kentucky. Just one day after he rubbed Senate Minority Leader and state icon Mitch McConnell's nose in whatever was lurking in the bluegrass, Paul stepped in it himself.

Instead of preaching to his usual choir, this time he was trying his chant on Rachel Maddow of MSNBC. She's a hellaciously good interviewer. Before they were done, he was. He had taken his philosophy to its logical extension and suggested that the limited government he constantly preaches about should be so limited it shouldn't have power to enforce civil rights in privately owned establishments...if the owner wanted to segregate and discriminate, so be it.

So many questions: Will Arlen Specter switch back to the Republicans? Will this setback cramp his style when it comes to asking really inane questions this summer at the Judiciary Committee hearings for the season's Supreme Court nominee. I guarantee you, we're going to miss his loopy musing.

Moving right along: Does Super Tuesday winner Ron Paul Kentucky Derby as an "R" for Republican or a "T" in November's Kentucky Derby? Does he now plan to kiss the hand of godfather Mitch McConnell or continue to tell McConnell just what it is he can kiss?

As for the Democrats, will Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama promise Democratic candidates they will not campaign for them and, in fact, deny knowing them?

This is not the year of the establishment it seems. The sad irony is that it's the real establishment that stands to maintain its absolute power as all us dupes fight among ourselves.

It's the bankers and investment rulers who benefit from the anti-regulation fervor, by sapping the strength out of those trying to thwart the loopholes that suck the juices out finance reform legislation.

There was a time in the not so distant past when some of us thought that "sexual orientation" was a briefing on getting it on...you know, those classes in high school we loved to attend where the prune faced teacher told us about the birds and the bees, until some puckered up parents group would scorch the board of education.

But now we find it's really about the Supreme Court and TV shows and politicians pandering to those who cling to their neanderthal cruel values. It's about who is doing it with whom...particularly if its the birds and the birds or bees and the bees.

I really don't understand why homosexuals are now called "gay" since the whole debate about the subject is so dreary and so unnecessary.

Here's how absurd it's gotten: There's this sleazy whisper campaign by some political opponents of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan who are slinking in the shadows of the low road and spreading the rumor that she's...well you know...a lesbian.

For starters, let me be clear. I don't give a damn if she prefers the intimate company of other women...couldn't care less. But her friends have been popping up all over to "defend" Kagan as hetro. They feel compelled to because it would be naïve to think that most are blase about the matter, no matter how much it really doesn't matter.

Here's a badly needed Miranda Advisory for all the political and pundit blowhards: "You have the right to remain silent. Use it".

It would be particularly worthwhile right now if it was taken to heart by all the opportunists who are trying to exploit fear by wildly criticizing officials who Mirandize suspected terrorists in their custody, even the US citizens.

They know such simple-mindedness is gets voters riled up, which is the way they play the game. Never mind that Constitutional rights are not games.

Sad to say, political sport has put Attorney General Eric Holder and his boss, President Obama on the defensive. They are running in reverse as they once again heed the call of political expedience even when it comes to eroding the 5th Amendment.

As fundamental as our country's protections against self-incrimination would seem to be, the landmark 1966 ruling upholding an individual's right to an attorney and to stay silent under police questioning was only decided in a 5 to 4 decision of the Supreme Court. The majority opinion by Chief Justice Earl Warren cited "menacing police procedures", such as "beating, hanging, whipping and...sustained and protracted questioning incommunicado in order to extort confessions"

Today anyone who watches "Law and Order" knows how the Miranda recitation has become a mechanical part of any arrest, cast in law enforcement concrete and public opinion bedrock.

Still, never underestimate the power of the desperately irresponsible to push the correct hot buttons. So if the likes of Sen. John McCain are involved in a dangerously close re-election bid, it's irresistibly easy for them to try and squeeze out a few right wing votes by attacking authorities for reciting the Miranda warning to accused terrorists.

It is appropriate they waited for Vice President Biden to be back in town before President Obama announced Elena Kagan as his nominee to replace Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court. This is, after all, a big deal. Besides, Kagan had been an advisor to then-Senator Biden.

OK. she's Ivy League...formerly Dean at Harvard Law even...but let's not hold that against her. Harvard Law graduate Barack Obama is not the first president to apparently believe that only the Ivies are worthy sources of justices, as evidenced by the fact that when she's confirmed, SCOTUS will be All-Ivy-All-The-Time.

At least while she was deaning there Kagan did try and keep military recruiters out as an objection to the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy. The fact that conservatives will go bananas over that during Senate consideration will be fun to watch. She was also, as the President pointed out, a real consensus builder, someone with "an appreciation for diverse views, described a shaving an "openness to a broad array of viewpoints".

She would become the youngest member of the court at age 50, which, as we all know, is the "new 30". But this child prodigy has accumulated a distinguished fast-track record...and not just the Harvard thing. She's Solicitor General currently, often called the Supremes' "10th Justice".

She got off to one hell of a start, clerking for the titan Thurgood Marshall and she's had various policy roles at high levels of the Clinton administration. Still her critics are already charging she has a relatively thin resume and can be expected to hammer at that.

What does look good on a CV is an entry like "She plays well with others". Kagan is one of those...someone who can argue without fighting...who achieves compromise and most importantly, has a sense of humor. That alone sets her apart from most the people in this city of sharp ambitions and dull people.

She's never been a judge...which can be construed as a good thing because every one of the other justices did come up through the judicial farm system. It'll be good to have someone who didn't.

Yeah yeah, I know: The polls say that people would prefer someone with judge experience, but why is that essential? At the lower bench levels one must follow the dictates from on high. Kagan and the gang are the on high...the dictators, not the dictatees.

Clare Boothe Luce left an amazing legacy...several in fact. But none has been more lasting than her maxim "No good deed goes unpunished". It is a monument to the seeming futility of good intentions. By now, we can all concoct our own platitudes of pointlessness. I know I have:

While failure might breed success, success certainly breeds failure.

Organizations inevitably undermine their aims and ultimately themselves

No good reform won't be corrupted

And today's morsel from the cockeyed pessimist:

No language won't be perverted.

As we know, there are people who have made a lucrative career out of that last one. They are able to take the semantic purpose of a word or phrase and twist it completely around.

Some, like my super spinnerman friend Frank Luntz have turned this into a lucrative art form. But he's hardly alone in this pursuit of distortion.

I'm on MSNBC today (Wednesday) during the 3:00 PM, Eastern hour

I've been having this dream. It's so far-fetched that I am reluctant to talk about it. Not even to a therapist. It's too wacky.

In my dream, they arrested this extremist who had tried to blow up Times Square in New York. That's not the craziest part. Scary that only bonehead luck prevented a tragic disaster but not the most ridiculous.

Nor is the fact that since the guy was a naturalized US citizen, officials read him his Miranda rights shortly after they took him into custody. That made obvious sense and never mind that he was originally from Pakistan, from which he had just returned. He is suspected of being part of a foreign terrorist plot.

Here comes the really loopy part, but it seems so real: Senator John McCain is publicly saying that the guy should not have been read his rights, that it was a "serious mistake". He was appearing on "Imus in the Morning" which just goes to show the tricks my subconscious is playing on me.

Isn't McCain the guy who fancies himself a "maverick", someone willing to go against the grain of Republican orthodoxy, unintimidated by the majority of arch-conservatives who have routinely tried to banish him from the fold?

It couldn't be that this brave man is reduced to folding under an onslaught from the Tea Party wing and a tough primary race...that he is ready to say anything that will please those hellbent on making the GOP the TP. That's gotta be wild fantasy.

About that proposed Continental-United Airlines merger. My latest struggles as a passenger on another airline, American, offer evidence that while the players are congratulating themselves for their humongous financial deal, we need to make sure this really isn't another raw deal for the passengers.

American is not up their at the top of my favorites right now. Going to Miami last week, I got in 11 hours late. Coming back, eight hours. In both cases, the reasons were mechanical breakdowns, which raises questions in my mind about the quality of maintenance and/or the condition of the fleet.

What makes this noteworthy is that's it quite ordinary, no matter which airline. That is particularly true of the so-called "legacy" ones like American, along with Continental and United.

A huge reason for the lengthy delays we so routinely suffer is that there no flights on which to re book within a semi-reasonable time. The ever-consolidating airlines cut flights, increase fares, charge onerous fees for checked baggage and whatever else they can squeeze out of us. They leave their abused customers in the lurch, or in this case, the concourse, trying to re book.

To their credit, the executives of the new Continental-United behemoth make no bones about the fact that less competition will mean higher they can charge higher prices for fewer flights. Doesn't that simply make things worse?

It is true that the upstarts of today, Jet Blue, Southwest, Air Tran, give the big guys fits, but not enough to relieve the giants' smothering dominance.

How many of us would like to voluntarily place ourselves on a No-Fly list? Wishful thinking. Unfortunately, we all sometimes have to get from here to beyond driving distances

is it any wonder we don't trust the experts? Time after time we get snookered by the promises from them: "There will be a sufficient supply of vaccine, in plenty of time". "These drugs are safe and effective". "It is a completely safe investment, Triple A". "Your home will continue to appreciate in value"

And now a really big whopper: ..."due to the distance from shore and the response capabilities no significant adverse impacts are expected".

That last one was courtesy of British Petroleum company just 14 months ago, telling regulators and the rest of us that one of its gargantuan oil rigs, aptly named Deepwater Horizon, 48 miles off the Louisiana shore, was nothing to worry about.

Just tell that to the residents and industries back on land and in the fishing waters who face a "significant adverse impact" which is one way of describing an ecologic and economic calamity. BP's response to the runaway gusher thousands of feet undersea has been pathetically inadequate, even with massive government help. Gee. What a surprise.

And now, a massive oil glob is threatening to smother much of the Gulf coastline and entire industries that employ thousands upon thousands. It could well be a catastrophe.

Now the Coast Guard Commandant admits "We're breaking new ground here. It's hard to write a plan for...what could never be in a plan, what you couldn't anticipate". Which begs the question why in heavens name were regulators and the politicians so quick to accept BP's assurances ".

What an interesting juxtaposition in the Senate Tuesday. At that hearing of the Investigation Subcommittee the parade of insolent Goldman Sachs gangbangers basically made it clear they were way higher and mightier than the peoples' elected officials of any government.

In effect, they told astonished committee members that concepts such as honesty and ethics, and certainly shame, were alien in Goldman snake pits. All that mattered, as they peddled their indecipherable and deceptive exotic mortgage packages, was that they added new profits to their pile of ill gotten gains.

Meanwhile, over on the Senate floor, the Republicans once again were blocking the Financial Reform legislation, which, among other things, would establish requirements and oversight for the very derivatives Goldman Sachs and the other hustlers in their cabals used in their elaborate and massive financial flim flams.

While the debate raged on over regulation and what to do about companies deemed "too big to fail", the Goldman executives were presenting a strong case for the argument that there should really be laws against organizations that are too big to succeed.

Back in history, a President or two, along with some concerned members of Congress and a few judges, concluded that certain companies had become so huge they could crush the economy, squash competition and pulverize any efforts to hold them legally accountable. So they broke them up.

How quaint. After the last several decades of mergers and the other wheeling dealings, the so-called free market is not free, but under the control of a few behemoths who believe they don't really have to answer to anyone. The fact is, they're usually right.

What an interesting juxtaposition in the Senate Tuesday. At that hearing of the Investigation Subcommittee the parade of insolent Goldman Sachs gangbangers basically made it clear they were way higher and mightier than the peoples' elected officials of any government.

In effect, they told astonished committee members that concepts such as honesty and ethics, and certainly shame, were alien in Goldman snake pits. All that mattered, as they peddled their indecipherable and deceptive exotic mortgage packages, was that they added new profits to their pile of ill gotten gains.

Meanwhile, over on the Senate floor, the Republicans once again were blocking the Financial Reform legislation, which, among other things, would establish requirements and oversight for the very derivatives Goldman Sachs and the other hustlers in their cabals used in their elaborate and massive financial flim flams.

While the debate raged on over regulation and what to do about companies deemed "too big to fail", the Goldman executives were presenting a strong case for the argument that there should really be laws against organizations that are too big to succeed.

Back in history, a President or two, along with some concerned members of Congress and a few judges, concluded that certain companies had become so huge they could crush the economy, squash competition and pulverize any efforts to hold them legally accountable. So they broke them up.

How quaint. After the last several decades of mergers and the other wheeling dealings, the so-called free market is not free, but under the control of a few behemoths who believe they don't really have to answer to anyone. The fact is, they're usually right.

Imagine. At the very time the White House is pushing real hard for tougher regulations on the banking and finance industries, Security and Exchange Commission, the SEC's Democratic majority decides to initiate a tough enforcement action against Goldman Sachs, the most profitable and most controversial firm on Wall Street.

The charge is that the investment titan committed fraud when it created and peddled exotic securities, while at the same time, surreptitiously taking investment positions based on inside knowledge these mortgage packages would probably crater.

So let's see: Just as the administration and the Republican advocates for the big money club start their battle over new regulations, the agency headed by an Obama appointee lowers the boom on the most high profile member of the club.

Coincidence? Certainly Goldman Sachs supporters don't think so, particularly since the company insists it did absolutely nothing wrong. In spite of denials from the President on down that there is any connection, they believe this just another Washington game of DC Pool, a bank shot at the bankers.

And speaking of Pool, how about that cesspool at the SEC? It turns out, that some of their employees over there, including some of the high level ones, spent huge chunks of their too-little workday watching pornography on their computers.

One might assume they these government protectors were getting, uh, relief, from the mind-numbing details of the chicanery that was causing our economic collapse.

Whatever else one says about Barack Obama we can all agree that this is a man who battles to this day to overcome the disadvantages of his youth.

I refer of course to his Ivy League education. We can certainly admire his commitment to mingle with the common folk, even as we witness his struggles with the sense of superiority that for many graduates is Harvard's legacy. Or Yale's, or Princeton's or the other Ivy Ivory towers.

They also join one hell of a network and tend to stay clustered around each other after school. Look no further than the ultimate alumni Ivy Ivory Tower, the Supreme Court. All eight Justices the retiring John Paul Stevens leaves behind belong to the club. Every one has that world class education and a world view that it fostered.

For some it may seem to be a trivial reason but others feel that there is a crying need for diversity on the court, for someone who got his or her education and outlook from some other elite institution of learning. Yes, shocking though it may seem, there are other "elites"...like say the Universities of Texas or Chicago (where the President got back in touch).

What a coincidence: aren't those the two schools with whom Judge Diane Wood is associated? She is one prospect for nomination to the court who has no Ivy on her CV.

Still that's not the reason President Obama, even though they both professored at the University of Chicago.

Diane Wood is one of the most openly liberal of the candidates on the President's short list. Given the extreme agenda of the SCOTUS right wing members, the only way to maintain any sense of balance and continue the Stevens legacy is to fill the open slot with someone who will fiercely protect the left flank.

The other wing is already well represented by Justices Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito and usually Kennedy.

The VAT and the Flat: Bad ideas whose times have come. Again. It's that tax season of our lives when we're all miffed about what the IRS squeezes out of us, enforcing an absurdly complicated and grossly unfair set of rules. We're feeling might victimized.

TO THE RESCUE!!! Here they come...that cavalry of economists and other self-appointed experts, blowing not only their own horns, but trumpeting their simple plan to
A) Replace the foul system with one that's fair and oh yeah,
B) Get themselves on cable news to talk about VAT and Flat.

The problem is that a Value Added Tax and a Flat Tax are both inherently UNfair. They appeal to the wealthy and their political enablers because their simplicity can hide a fundamental flaw: Everybody pays the same. Rich or poor. It's the same old Regressive vs Progressive debate with different sound bites.

Sad to say, the desire to make everything simple is like honey that attracts the political wannabes and intimidates even those who are in power, like say President Obama, who refuses to flat out dismiss the VAT-Flat idea.

In the case of the VAT, a so-called Consumption Tax, really just a multilevel Sales Tax, we all pay the same amount for what we buy. Levies are imposed on suppliers, and producers or manufacturers, along with retailers, who pass them all onto, you guessed it, the consumer. We all are docked the same percentage.

The Flat Tax operates on the same principle. In this case we lump all our income together, doing away with virtually all deductions, report that figure on a one-size-fits-all form and again pay the same percentage to Uncle.

There could be several reasons the Republicans are cooling their jets and peeking out from their bunkers where they had dug in for another fight-to-the-death against anything Obama. It's possible they decided this time to play along because it was good for the nation. Theoretically possible.

More likely, they probably realize that an overt battle against Financial Reform could contribute to their deaths...they'd end up fighting for their political lives this time, not the President and his Democratic buddies.

One can only assume their consultants started screaming bloody murder when the GOP congressional leaders made it clear they were digging in again to oppose new regulation.

Their pollsters know their "No Way in Hell" position alongside the bankers and corporate titans could be overrun by the millions out there who are disgusted at how the All-Too-Free Market system has allowed unrestrained plunderers to abscond with their money. That explains why their usual solid wall defending the moneyed special interests is a bit porous. So this could well be a tactical retreat.

Furthermore they know that they don't have enough time to spread the emotional distortions and outright lies they utilized so effectively to whip up the irrational frenzy they created over health care and stymie more sweeping change.

It's amazing how crazed people get anytime somebody says "Do you want bureaucrats to get between you and your (name it)?". It's the red meat that sends red-blooded Americans into a frenzied red state of mind.

Actually, I'm confused: If we so identify that color with conservatism, why did we call the Communists "Reds"? Given all the cries of Socialism and other name calling, are we now in a situation where our Reds are accusing opponents of being Reds? Just wondering.

Silly as that is, it's no more so than the "Do you want a bureaucrat to get between you and yada yada yada...". It was a killer argument against truly effective health care reform and now it's being trotted out by those opposed to meaningful protections against the anything-goes financial industry.

The latest version from the banking and Wall Street bloats along with their Republican blusters always goes something like this: "Regulation will add a layer of rules that will stifle business..." Obviously, it's just a variation of the "Do you want a bureaucrat..." mantra.

There is another way to pose the question. Actually there several:

"Do you want Massey Coal to get between miners and their survival?"

"Do you want Toyota to get between you and your driving safety?"

Here's one we should have asked:
"Do you want insurance companies to get between you and your doctor?"

And the ones we need to ask now:
"Do you want the same people whose gross incompetence and astounding greed stand between you and your money, able to take it away from you in the same deceitful ways?" "Do we consumers want to go on being defrauded by so many companies that abuse the free market system?" "In commerce is it every man and woman for him or herself, or should we be a nation of laws?"

Not only is the Tea Party Right...often far Right, it's also right. It is motivated largely by anger and there's plenty to be angry about. Unfortunately it's also wrong.

The fury and desperation that fuels those who have rallied to this movement is misplaced. Their proper targets should be those in the corporate-finance power structure whose insatiable greed caused a near collapse of the economy and a full collapse of the lives and well-being of the millions whose money they squandered.

Instead their rage is aimed at government regulators and efforts to give them real power to bring the corruption under control. They have been oh-so-cleverly manipulated by organizers (The Tea Party branches claim to be spontaneous but that just isn't so) who are financed by some of the very big money interests who have gotten us into our mess.

They have been successful in deflecting the Tea-Partiers' rage away from the bad guys those who might help put a stop to their cheating, meaning the regulators. It's similar to the way the wealthy keep the lawmakers at bay by using a tiny part of their riches in the form of campaign contributions to coerce them and/or sweet talk them away from creating sensible rules of conduct for playing with other peoples' money.

I'm on"White House Chronicles" tonight (Friday), Saturday and/or Sunday, depending on the station. Check the local listings

I'm on "White House Chronicles" again. Depending on the market, it shows tonight (Friday) and/or over the weekend. Check local listings.

Sometimes, when something is so outrageous, I prefer to take a breath and hold off writing something even though it means I am a little late for the immediacy and instant gratification that is so essential in these hyper-cyber times.

This is one of those occasions. After thinking things over, I am moderating what I want to say.

What the HELL, Governor McDonnell!!??? WTH?!!!

Damn. Leaving any mention of slavery out if your proclamation commemorating Virginia's "Confederate History Month"" is not an "omission" as you are now calling it, it is plain old racism. You belated reversal and belated acknowledgment that slavery may have been a teensy weensy problem, one that "...may have left a stain on the soul of this state and nation" was clearly a political expedient, a hasty retreat. So apology not accepted. It goes beyond insensitive.

Governor McDonnell, This is no better than Germany deciding to proclaim a "World War Two History Month" with no mention of the Holocaust.
Normally, comparisons to the Nazis in public debate are overwrought, but this time your "major omission", as you hastened to call it, cannot be forgiven. It's not like the abomination of slavery was a secret.

We're seeing a lot of Don Blankenship on TV. Again. He's the CEO of Massey Energy, owner of the mine where at least 25 died underground in a "horrific" explosion Monday, the worst US coal disaster of its kind in a quarter century.

Typically, Blankenship is not shying away from publicity. So now we see him deflect charges Massey's egregious record of safety violations at its Upper Big Branch mine might well have caused a buildup of dangerous methane gas that blew up.

We've seen Blankenship before. He had a similar role after 12 died in the Sago Mine disaster of 2006.

He is no shrinking violet, to say the least. After all, it was Don Blankenship whose company was facing a 50 million dollar lawsuit, who spent three million to unseat a justice on the West Virginia Supreme Court who was considered unfavorable to Massey.

It was such a blatant abuse that last year, the US Supreme Court ruled the bought-and-paid-for West Virginia justice had to remove himself from the case.

Perhaps, it's time for Don Blankenship to get involved with the courts again. This time, as a defendant. The charge: Murder. Specifically Negligent Homicide, called "Involuntary Manslaughter" in West Virginia.

This is the state's legal definition: "Involuntary Manslaughter involves the accidental causing of death of another person, although unintended, which death is the proximate result of negligence so gross, wanton and culpable as to show a reckless disregard for human life."

It happened decades ago but it remains one of my favorite moments on television ever.

The guests on the "Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson were the young comedian Richard Pryor and an amazing 80-plus year old news personality, Dorothy Fuldheim, who will still going strong as a commentator on Cleveland TV.

This night, in the '70's, she was lamenting the old days when, as she reminisced, "There was music, dancing..."

That's when Pryor interrupted: "And lynching."

I'm thinking of that delicious exchange as I read the Washington Post story about its own poll about the attitudes of the most adamant opponents of health care reform...the Tea Partiers and their ilk.

They believe the just passed legislation is symptomatic of an overall decline in the United States. They are convinced we are in a free fall, losing our freedoms to government control.

They mourn the glories of the nation's past. The Post quotes one poll respondent talking about the happy days of his youth: "I grew up in the 50's", he said, "That was a wonderful time. Nobody was getting rich, nobody was doing everything big. But it was 'Ozzie and Harriet', 'Leave it to Beaver'-type stuff"

All I can think of is Richard Pryor interrupting with "...and lynching".

It is no accident that the overwhelming majority of the arch conservatives in this country are white (full disclosure, so am I). Frankly, they/we have lost some of the automatic advantage we had a generation ago before the wars for equality and fairness had begun.

Speaking of fairness, it should be noted that Pryor is useful to this conversation. because he literally went up in the flames of drug abuse. So, he also symbolizes the excesses that accompanied the progress we've made.

Let's bend over backwards to be fair to Newt Gingrich. He contends his comments were misconstrued.

The Washington Post suggested that in warning Democrats they'd pay a huge political price for health care reform he was saying it would be similar to the huge success the Republicans had achieved when they exploited the resentment of bigots and extremists after landmark civil rights legislation passed in the 60's.

Gingrich contends that his observation that Democrats “... will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years” was not meant to directly address the civil rights laws. It was taken out of context, he insists.

What a pity. Because he would have been right. Not just "right" as in conservative, which he is, of course, but "right" as in correct, which he often is not. This time he would have had things nailed if he didn't back off the comments that would have accurately described the sorry history of the GOP in the last 40 years or so.

That's when it made such huge gains by constructing a "Southern Strategy", which was just the polite term for the politics of racism. It was designed to appeal to the passions of prejudice among the whites who were already riled up over the loss of their precious system of segregation.

They felt betrayed by the Democrats and Republicans were only too happy to swoop in and fan the flames of racism. It worked. The "Solid South" went from solid D to solid R as the D's came to represent hated DEsegregation and the R's Resistance.

It was a losing battle in reality but in politics, a winner for Republicans. For many it is still being fought today. Look at the phony baloney lawsuits some of them are filing now, challenging the power of the federal government to regulate health care. They are making the same states rights claims their unethical ancestors contrived in the 50's to create a bogus legal justification for racial segregation. They knew better then, they know better now. But you gotta keep the Base happy with its base instincts.

For those of us who agree that the attention paid to the attire of women politicians is a subtle form of sexism let's focus instead on what John McCain was wearing when Sarah Palin appeared with him in Tucson.

His blue blazer and light shirt were the perfect complement to his ruddy complexion...the man is VERY white. The coat reflected the kind of conservatism he likes to convey...sensible.

But not too sensible. There's that "Maverick" pose he likes to assume when it serves his purposes. That's what he was communicating with the open collar. No fuddy duddy tie here. That's for back in Washington, you know, the Washington he's never really be been a part of...and never mind that he is always one of the Sunday talk shows' easiest "gets".

Nope. Right now he's running for his political life against one of those extremist radio talk show hosts who serve as the mind of Republicans wherever they spew their hatefulness.

J.D. Hayworth is scaring the bejesus out of McCain. The former Congressman is close to toppling the Washington legend Senator McCain denies being, making points with his self-description as the "consistent conservative". That, obviously, is opposed to the inconsistent John McCain who bedevils so many on the right fringe with his erratic side trips into accommodation with the enemy. There are no adversaries anymore just blood enemies.

For those of us who agree that the attention paid to the attire of women politicians is a subtle form of sexism let's focus instead on what John McCain was wearing when Sarah Palin appeared with him in Tucson.

His blue blazer and light shirt were the perfect complement to his ruddy complexion...the man is VERY white. The coat reflected the kind of conservatism he likes to convey...sensible.

But not too sensible. There's that "Maverick" pose he likes to assume when it serves his purposes. That's what he was communicating with the open collar. No fuddy duddy tie here. That's for back in Washington, you know, the Washington he's never really be been a part of...and never mind that he is always one of the Sunday talk shows' easiest "gets".

Nope. Right now he's running for his political life against one of those extremist radio talk show hosts who serve as the mind of Republicans wherever they spew their hatefulness.

J.D. Hayworth is scaring the bejesus out of McCain. The former Congressman is close to toppling the Washington legend Senator McCain denies being, making points with his self-description as the "consistent conservative". That, obviously, is opposed to the inconsistent John McCain who bedevils so many on the right fringe with his erratic side trips into accommodation with the enemy. There are no adversaries anymore just blood enemies.

This is what is so ignorant about the claim health care reform represents a government takeover of private enterprise and by extension the United States' way of life: It is actually the opposite.

What just passed was a victory for corporate America, in this case the insurance companies, and by extension the free market system. That is, if you mean free to continue their cheating, profiteering ways.

Primarily we should be furious about their collusion with the pathetic politicians who do their bidding. They thwart effective change for small change and do the bidding of their wealthy patrons. What survives is meaningless mush.

By rejecting any effective public option, we are still at the medical mercy of the greedy ones. They get to set almost all the rules and cleverly sidestep the few new ones a writhing Congress did pass. All they did was to gloss over the reality we're still at the mercy of bottom line feeding corporations.

They literally couldn't care less if we live or die, or are healthy, as long as they have great quarterly reports.

Nevertheless, let's repeat loud and clear: Violence is wrong. And it is stupid. People who resort to it have ignorance as a pre-existing condition.

Having said that, our resentment is justified, just misplaced. We have been had all right. Not by those who want to regulate commerce, but by those who have taken advantage of the lack of restrictions to engaged in financial abuse and what amounts to legalized thievery.

We should be downright bitter about how the banks, the investment houses the industrialists have manipulated the system with its lack of restraints. They have cheated us out of our hard-earned money or frittered it away with their grandiose incompetence.

We should be outraged at how they mightily resist even minimally cooperating with efforts to let the people they've left desperate even keep a roof over their heads.

I have always believed when someone hits you or spits on you, you should turn the other cheek. That will fake out the assailant and then you beat him to a pulp.

But that's me. Congressman Emanuel Cleaver believes otherwise. He didn't hit back. More power to him. But he also didn't have the crazed Tea Party guy who spat on him arrested and charged to the full extent of the law.

Assaulting a House member is probably good for about five years in the slammer and good for society. Instead, because of misguided magnanimity on Rep. Cleaver's part, his assailant was allowed to go scott-free.

That lack of common sense is now reverberating across the country. It has emboldened the pathetic punks who are resorting to vandalism and anonymous threats.

Let's be blunt. They are morons. The democratic process is beyond their comprehension. Issues like health care reform far too complicated for their pea brains. So when they dimly perceive that they haven't gotten their way they lash out, storm troopers for cynical politicians who will do anything to regain power, including knowingly whipping up a frenzy.

Forgive still another sports cliche, but oftentimes it's true that the "Best Defense is a Good Offense". As an example in a contract negotiation sometimes the best way to get someone to stop making ridiculous lowball offers is to respond each time, not by reducing your price but by raising it.

In the same way then, maybe the way to confront those who are hellbent on repealing health care reform through politics and destructive legal action is again not by resisting them but instead hammering them aggressive tactics, raising the stakes.

They want to repeal the health care compromise? Sure. Submit legislation that would replace it with a Public Option, one that would take the big steps that would really reform the system instead of something that tippy toes like this one does.

If you're going to create a frenzy on the right anyway, why not give them good reason to act in such ignorant and bigoted ways? Let's face it, their strings are so easily by the Status Quo puppeteers that we may as well go all out and manipulate all their fears and prejudices.

History has shown how easy it is to push the buttons of those only looking for a pretext to openly express their social hatreds. So let's give them one, a health care bill with teeth...not the current change that nibbles at the edges.

Forgive the self-indulgent self-flagellation, but it's time to own up. I was wrong. I was one of the many Washington Lemmings who had abandoned any prospect of real change once the Massachusetts rats had jumped the Democratic ship.

Do you know the sound that Washington Lemmings make as they move in a mass? We murmur. And as we marched in lock step through the snows of February we were all murmuring "Health Care Reform is Dead. Health Care Reform is Dead". Murmuring hell: We were shouting it from the cable news rooftops!

Well that turned out to be just another snow job. Over at the White House Mess, the chefs whipped up a mess of gumption and soon the President and his fellow Democrats on the Hill did a turnaround and began their relentless March march to history.

Which brings it back those of us in the murmuring class. Obviously we need to fill the space with something so now we can be heard predicting in unison that the health care plan will be the defining issue of the November election.

After all, that's what the politicians are telling us. And if you can't believe them and us, who can you believe? This, so we chant, will be the signature issue all the way till November...and yes, you can murmur and chant at the same time.

Well, I must DEmur. That probably means I'll have my Pundit card pulled, my Lemming parade permit revoked. Nevertheless, I cannot agree that any issue...ANY issue can hold our attention for nearly seven months. Seven minutes yes, maybe even seven days. But seven months? You gotta be kidding.

A very wise colleague of mine once observed that we in media "Can only over-cover one issue at a time". It's a variation of Andy Warhol's "15 Minutes of Fame". Health care reform has had damn near 15 months! It's way into "Enough Already!!"

I'm still trying to sort out the significance of those racist and homophobic actions by those Tea Party demonstrators at the Capitol this weekend. Or if there was any significance.

Instead of tea and biscuits, we got a serving of tea and bigots. And once they hurled their vile rants and expectorants ...yes, one frenzied slug even spat on an African-American Congressman...they became irrelevant to the health care debate.

For the protesters, it was all over but the shouting. As isolated as their organizers insisted they were, the moronic incidents discredited whatever points they were trying to make.

All they did was provide a photo opportunity-opportunity for Democratic leaders, who could lock arms and use the powerful symbolism of the civil rights movement to make their final case for health care reform.

So what did the frenzied hatred mean? Did it represent the true feelings of the loud majority in the crowd? They say it did not...just isolated incidents. So maybe it was a sign of progress.

Update: My appearances on the MSNBC coverage of today's (Sunday's) Health Care March Madness now begin this afternoon in the 1:00 EDT hour
and continue through the final outcome

I'm part of the play-by-play team for MSNBC during Sunday's House Health Care games coverage beginning at 2 PM, Eastern

What a terrible choice House members will have to make this weekend. No, not whether to vote up or down on health care reform, but whether to watch CBS and that the NCAA basketball tournament or turn on the news channels for that other March Madness.

It's a dilemma for all of us. Imagine how President Obama must feel. Already he has had to cancel his Asia vacation because of health care, although come to think of it, maybe that was just a handy excuse for him to stay home to watch some hoops.

As everyone in Washington goes through THEIR hoops, we can all benefit from some viewing tips for those who tune into the Congressional tourney. First of all, ignore the fact that Republicans are crying "FOUL!!" They're playing only defense, their Point Guard John Bonner is finger pointing from the sidelines. The Democrats are fighting their usual ferocious intramural battles.

There are still Single Payer players, some side-skirmishes over Abortion, Blue Dog fights, and heaven knows what else going on in the House gym. By the way, is it true that the gym's theme song is "Y-M-C-A"?

Back in the White House clubhouse, head coach Obama and his assistant Joe Biden, looking for a win after his embarrassing Mideast tour, are going crazy with their remotes. They switch back and forth, back and forth, from basketball to wrestling, coming up with every kind of arm twisting you can imagine. And probably a few you cannot. Unless you are Rahm Emanuel. In the House gym.

From what we understand the President's brackets have already been obliterated by the Friday night first round . Come to think of it we probably need some brackets for the Rollerball in the Capitol.

The big problem though is that if health care loses in the House the tournament is over. So to construct brackets, we have to assume it will pass. Even then, don't be surprised if the game goes far into overtime. If it does survive the action picks up next week in the Reconciliation Regional.

Those who have lived Inside-the-Beltway for awhile, know that just a couple years back, taxicabs here operated in a "Zone" system. The District was divided into these sections and your fare was based on how creative your driver was in getting you from one point to another. Most of official Washington was in Zone 1.

Which brings us to the latest storm over the Health Care legislation and the gasps of outrage from Republicans because Congressional Democrats are trying to grease passage with a clever parliamentary maneuver called "Self-Enacting" vote on the legislation. What it amounts to is one vote on the bill not two.

I don't know how to break this to anyone, but this is not just Inside-the Beltway stuff, this is Inside-Cab-Zone-One. It's way beyond the rest of the nation's slightest interest.

Let's face it, most believe their Capital is on some other planet, populated by sub humans who are trying to destroy everyone else and speak gibberish. Is there anything about the war over a "Self-Enacting" tactic or "Deem Pass" legislation that would cause them to change their minds? Or even give a Deem.

I'll be taking my act to MSNBC this afternoon (Wednesday) at 3:30, Eastern

What is the most amazing is how the Republicans can keep a straight face when they argue the Democrats' use of Reconciliation to try and pass Health Care Reform will destroy Congressional bi-partisanship forevermore. In fact, it's surprising that when they tell that whopper, their noses don't grow.

WHAT bi-partisanship, for cryin' out loud? The GOP has become the NOP, usually voting "NO" as a single flock of automatons against just about anything on the White House wish list.

If one of them, in a rare, weak moment of concern for the country, dares to stray for a brief instant, he or she is, in effect, immediately waterboarded...nearly drowned in a gush of scalding tea, while the party zealots carve the letters "RINO" on their foreheads.

Thus vilified as "Republicans In Name Only", they are cast out, shunned, condemned to eternal damnation. If not eternal, it's at least until their vote is needed the next time around.

It is particularly ludicrous that Senator Lindsey Graham would go on one of the Sunday game shows to insist that the D's Reconciliation maneuvers would "...destroy the ability of this country to work together for a very long time".

Setting aside how dopey it is to worry about something that is so long gone, what makes Senator Graham's comments particularly bizzare is that he is one of those who carries the scarlet "RINO" on his forehead, branded because he has had the audacity to work across the aisle on national security issues. So feel free to question the heartfelt sincerity of his remarks.

Instead of considering this a political controversy, let's make it personal. Forget Liz Cheney and Fox News. Let's suppose YOU are charged with a violent felony and face years in prison. You'd sure want an attorney. Right? The best you can get.

But let's suppose the particular crime is one that everyone despises so much that they assume anyone accused of it is guilty and deserves the harshest treatment...including you.

Even though they claim to reject anything that could be construed as a kangaroo court, this time, the people do NOT believe you deserve a vigorous legal defense in court, and in fact they condemn any lawyer who would represent you.

They don't consider the possibility they could be railroaded if they ran seriously afoul of the wrong law and THEY couldn't get a decent attorney because all had been intimidated by the possibility they would be vilified if they took on cases that were unpopular.

Even though legal profession considers the universal right to a vigorous defense to be a grand tradition, fundamental to the sacred presumption of innocence, no lawyer would take you on as a client, out of fear he or she would be hounded by political opportunists for the rest of his or her career.

It's obvious where this is going and for some the reaction is "This is different". "After all", they're saying, "I'm not a terrorist. I deserve my rights. They don't. A lawyer should be proud to represent me but ashamed to defend them. Those who do must be identified and rooted out."

That describes the rationale of Liz's Lynch Mob. Through her "Keep America Safe" faux organization, which could be better described as "Keep America Safe for Demagoguery", Liz Cheney, the daughter-of, is demonstrating that when it comes to dangerous fear-mongering and an authoritarian view of government, her father can be proud of his kid.

Sometimes we can find laughs in obscure places. An example would be the "Corrections" section of a newspaper, particularly one of those high and mighty ones like the Washington Post or New York Times.

Take this item in the Thursday Washpost:

"A Nightclubs listing in the March 5 Weekend section misstated the name of a band performing Thursday at J.V.'S Restaurant in Falls Church. The band is Johnny and the Rebels, not Johnny and the Relics".

And here I thought the band maybe played Classic Rock. Or maybe, here in the nation's capitol, it was a group of big time players in government and politics. Because this is certainly the place to find relics.

Take the Supremes. No, not the singing group...that's what those of us who are among the DC hip call the justices of the Supreme Court. Maybe, come to think of it, that's who the Post meant by "Johnny (Chief Justice John Roberts) and the Relics".

Not that the Judicial branch is one, but certainly the views of Roberts and his SCOTUS legal rationales would..they speak the language of modern mores like Latin does. The corporate campaign finance ruling that inspired the Sam Alito sideshow at the State of the Union address is just one case in point.

For that matter, we can probably put the State of the Union tradition into the "Relic" file. If it ever did serve any purpose it certainly doesn't anymore. All it really does these days is offer a showcase into a system that clings to out-of-touch ways that have been so distorted by modern day hustlers that nothing could possibly be accomplished.

It's a shame Eric Massa is leaving when he is. Never mind the definite impression he's a wacko, lying sleaze bag; what causes him to stand out in Washington is his acknowledged experience with the "Tickle Fight". He's a regular old Elmo.

By now, we all have heard that's all he was doing to prompt charges he had groped staff members. So at the very moment Democrats are groping for some way to pass health care reform, he bails, just when his expertise would be useful.

Now that he's a former member of Congress and before he goes into rehab, so he can run for re-election, he would be tremendously useful as a TV analyst. He could provide the insider's view on all the moves during the ticklish legislative process ahead and the naked politics in and out of the shower room.

Who knew there were so many Congressional emperors with no clothes on? Sort of makes one long for the days when we compared lawmaking and sausage. At least both would grind something out. Now things have ground to a halt.

Here's how we get things moving. How about a full fledged tickle fight in public. Let's invite C-Span in to see everything. We should place cameras everywhere, including the Capitol gyms.

We probably should assign one to simply follow Rahm Emanuel around to watch all of his moves and, just as important, listen to his every subtle persuasion. That way, we don't have to hear what he's thinking via his favored reporters. We can get it straight from the horse's...uh...mouth.

So let's get this straight: Following embarrassing disclosures of some Democrats' ethics problems, the conservatives are dumping all over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who, after all, had promised to "clean the swamp" of Congress.

AND: At the very same time, they are sliming her for cleaning the swamp of some muck, Congressman Eric Massa.

Here's what's so strange: Even though he's a hated "D" just like Pelosi, Massa has still mastered the far right. The extremist commentators like Glenn Beck along with the other usual opportunists, have embraced him as a cruel sacrifice for the Speaker's cutthroat politics.

That's because he suddenly claimed his party's leaders forced him out of office simply because he was a vote against the President's health care reform, which is hanging by a thread.

Never mind that before Massa declared himself the victim of vile conduct he acknowledged he was the victimizer...engaging in vile conduct with a staffer. In fact, the Washington Post is now reporting this may be even more of an "EWWWWWW" story. The Post reports Massa might already be under investigation on charges he was groping male staffers from just about the moment he took office a year ago. And as the day has gone on, conservatives are bailing on him.

So let's get this straight: Following embarrassing disclosures of some Democrats' ethics problems, the conservatives are dumping all over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who, after all, had promised to "clean the swamp" of Congress.

AND: At the very same time, they are sliming her for cleaning the swamp of some muck, Congressman Eric Massa.

Here's what's so strange: Even though he's a hated "D" just like Pelosi, Massa has still mastered the far right. The extremist commentators like Beck and Limbaugh, along with the other usual opportunists, have embraced him as a cruel sacrifice for the Speaker's cutthroat politics.

They are there for him, loudly parroting his sudden claim his party's leaders forced him out of office simply because he was a vote against the President's health care reform, which is hanging by a thread.

Never mind that before Massa declared himself the victim of vile conduct he acknowledged he was the victimizer...engaging in vile conduct with a staffer.

You know how it is when a couple is going through a divorce. So often the friends feel obligated to choose sides. Sure you do. Larry David did a program about it. That's where I plagiarized the idea. With great "Enthusiasm" I might add. But I digress.

This split-up is happening right now with the disintegration of the Rahm Emanuel-David Axelrod marriage-of-convenience which is agonizingly playing out for all the world to see...at least those in the world who read the New York Times and Washington Post.

The Post went first...shamelessly turning into what could only be called the "Emanuel Manual". There was one article after another about how the beleaguered White House Chief-of-Staff had been done wrong.

Now it's the Times' turn. And sure enough, true to the spirit of competition, it has now become the Axelrod Almanac". There it was on the front page: a love feast called "White House Message Maven Finds Fingers Pointing at Him". Since we're talking Emanuel, as the adversary, it's easy to imagine which finger. But again, a digression.

For those who have tried to ignore this foolishness until now, a brief catch-up: Various Rahm Emanuel supporters have gone on background to complain things are not going well for the Obama presidency because Emanuel doesn't always get his way about how things are done.

He was talking about his last ditch attempt to resurrect health care reform, but the more expansive issue President Obama raised is the more valid one: Does the government have the "...ability to solve any problem".

Put it another way: Has the personal ambition of too many individuals holding power and influenced consumed their ability to act for the common good? Does their shameless demagoguery that so poisons the atmosphere reason is smothered.

And while we're at it, have the never ending disclosures of financial and sex scandals worn down our system to the point it's too sick to get anything done. Speaking of sick, are we all too sick and tired of all this to rally around any constructive effort to change?

How sad these questions are. But how valid they are too. Let's take the money and the fooling around: Every day, we hear that one of our esteemed office holders is caught in the wrong pocket or the wrong pants. It's usually petty and pathetic, but it's cumulative. How sad it is we've come to accept it as inevitable which reinforces a pervasive disbelief in our system.

What's to believe in? Our lives have been badly damaged by those who caused a near crash with their greedy financial schemes. Most avoid prosecution simply by using small parts of their ill gotten gain to pay off those who make the laws.

So we are a disgusted nation, one where scared citizens can easily be whipped up by wild distortion. Agents for the obscenely profitable insurance companies find they can thwart any efforts at curbing their excesses by labeling Health Care Reform "Socialism". Modern day reactionaries can level accusations of terrorist sympathy against Justice Department officials who before they came into government, were only doing their time-honored job as lawyers representing detainees against the excesses of the previous administration.

How about some reflections on Senator Jim Bunning, without any clever references to his past life as a major league all-star pitcher? Wouldn’t that be different? Wouldn’t that be refreshing? OK then: No baseball metaphors.

So:
It looks like Bunning has such a hatred for his own team’s quarterback, Mitch McConnell, that he tried to sack him. At the same time, he fumbled the ball and allowed the bitter rival team to score an easy touchdown.

He broke his own side’s serve, because he was way out of bounds. His power play failed miserably

It was a slam dunk for the Democrats, who have been complaining that, for over a year, his fellow Republicans have been doing nothing but trying to block their shots. Bunning committed a flagrant foul (basketball, not that other sport). Come to think of it, it was a technical non-foul because he was following the rules. Score one for those who think the Senate game needs to be changed.

What's so remarkable about this latest wet-kiss Washington Post article about White House Chief-of-Staff Rahm Emanuel, is that it is appearing at all, on the front page, no less. That and the fact there are none of the newspaper's trademark typos or grammatical errors.

It's the second piece in a couple weeks. As the often profane Emanuel might say "What the #@*! is THAT about?!!" When did the Post become the Emanuel Manual? Why is there a another piece that stoutly defends Rahmbo from the backstabbing and even front-stabbing that inevitably results when an administration stumbles.

The story-line is the same: If the rank amateurs in the White House would only have listened to him, they could have avoided the Laurel and Hardy comedy of errors that has left them in this fine mess. But noooooo...on signature issues they often moved wildly instead of wily, ignoring Emanuel's counsel.

So the administration is in deep @*#! on so many fronts; health care, civilian trials for terrorists and Guanatamo. By all appearances many of those responsible would like to dig out and shovel the @*#! onto Emanuel,. He is, after all, the man in charge of keeping up the Obama presidency's triumphant starting momentum. Aren't honeymoons supposed to last forever?

This one has not. Obviously. Just as obviously, Emanuel's momma didn't raise no fools. She raised some hard@## brawlers, but no fools. So, it would not be unreasonable to expect that Rahm is fighting back to save his @##. Nor is it unreasonable to expect that he would take advantage of his media-handling skills to get his message out (Full disclosure: Over time, I've dealt with him. He plays reporters as well as anyone).

Why is it that they are so easily scorned and so effectively intimidated? Why is it that the common-sense wishes of the vast majorities of Americans are always suppressed as they trudge the middle-of-the-road...drowned out by the noisy bombs fired from the political fringes.

As the man in "The Graduate" said to Dustin Hoffman's character "I've got one word for you." Except, unlike the movie, it's not "Plastic" although that still would describe a lot of our leaders.

The word is "Passion". The extremists have it, the moderates don't. Until they do, the "Silent Majority" will continue to be drowned out by "Noisy Minority".

The big problem is that at first glance, "Passion" and "Moderate" appear to mutually exclusive concepts. But do they need to be?

Is it possible that someone might have an intense desire to improve society or is emotionally pumped by the Competition of Ideas"? Sure it is. Then why do those who enjoy the heat of intelligent jousting leave the battlefield to the simple-minded extremists?

What is so strange is how easily the huge Middle can be shoved to the sideline. Heat and light always trump substance. Reasoning together can be tedious.

So we watch as those in charge operate behind bunkers separated by barbed sound bites and shameless distortions from the fundamentalists on either side. Common sense is the No Man's Land (Yeah, I know, No PERSONS' Land).

Was that great Reality Television or what? What a gimmick: Stuff as many stuffy people into a stuffy room, let them say some stuff. Then, at the end if the season we can decide who is voted out. Actually, maybe it was a game show. Or situation comity.

Whatever. It was gripping TV. Chances are, though, there should be subtitles, because all of the contestants were talking in Washingtonspeak, an obsolete language, where most of the words translate into the exact opposite of what normal people think they mean.

This is just a small sample:

HUMANSPEAK. WASHINGTONSPEAK
Civility. Insincerity
Bipartisan. Obsolete
Discussion. Sound bites
Reconciliation. Irreconcilable Differences

That last one is the key. "Reconciliation" as in ramming Health Care through Congress using an arcane legislative process that allows Democrats, with their majority, to ignore the minority Republicans' squeals of outrage as they get steamrollered.
But before he can say "No More Mr. Nice Guy", Master-Of-Ceremonies Obama needed to be able to declare "Well I tried". Hence the Made-For-Tv-Stay-On-The-Script marathon.

Mindful of the public disgust over the political infection that paralyzes Washington, both sides needed to pretend they wanted to reason together. There are some obvious cures for what ails them, such as talking TO each other instead of AT but unfortunately, the "Competition of Ideas" is complicated. Simple minded phrase-mongering and gimmickry are scintillating so right now our leaders are sticking with "Bloodsport".

"Sorry guys,

We apologize"

"Sorry". By now we're sorry we ever heard the word. From Tiger, to Toyota to even DC City Councilman, former Mayor and non-stop delinquent Marion Barry, they're all "sorry"

After rigidly controlling its corporate and product reputation for decades, Toyota is suddenly as out of control as their deadly cars. But now the lid has been wrenched off of their Pandora's box which is spewing vile revelations...the kind that cause many to believe the company values profits over human life

At the behest of their patron Dick Cheney, John Yoo, now a law professor and Jay Bybee, who has become a federal judge called "Your Honor", enthusiastically stretched the limits with their memos that brushed aside human rights traditions and common decency with their twisted logic. They also swept away any pretense that the U-S was a country that, by definition, always stood/stands on the high road.

Either television's star is rising again or this is the final nova, exploding into the Internet black hole. It doesn't matter. Forget prime time. Stay glued to your sets for the Daytime Olympics. Or at least set your DVR.

The television spectacular began last Friday, as we cringed while watching that golf automaton mechanically recite the contrite words and phrases his advisers had programmed into him. It was eerily amazing to see how human he almost seemed to be.

On Tuesday, we can observe Toyota's dynastic leader and the members of his court while they do the same kind of thing as they try and prove that their conduct has not been INhuman. In this instance the charges are that what Whooziz did to a few dozen groupies, Toyota did to millions of customers.

In between the ritual apologies worthy of Brenda Lee, we can be entertained by the chorus of sound bites, delivered by opportunistic members of the Congressional committees, with their twaddles flapping in full outrage.

They will probably drown out any real truth, such as explanations about newly revealed documents. There are memos that seem to illustrate how the company's government relations people could thwart meaningful regulatory action that might have prevented so many deaths in their careening out-of-control cars.

Have you ever watched a football game, where the two sides continuously fumble and throw interceptions and blow their opportunities by repeatedly turning over to each other?

Have you ever sat through nine innings of inept baseball where both teams combine bad pitching and fielding errors to hand the lead back and forth?

Or the basketball game with airballs and traveling on both sides of the court? You get the idea. Bear with me, because as always, sports is an easy metaphor for that other team hot potato competition, Politiball. And I'm not even talking about Tiger Woods.

This is about the conservative comeback. Are you noticing how they've resumed a ferocious offense? This year's CPAC meeting is almost a celebration of the cheerleaders, as the old vets perform their old tricks.

There was Mitt Romney still trying to turn white bread into red meat. There was Dick Cheney, giving the same pro-torture, anti-Constitution speech. Add to the lineup the rookie, Marco Rubio, trying to outdo Cheney as he vies to become the new Senator from Guantanamo. All of them Palin comparison to Sarah, who wasn't there, but if she was paying attention she could learn a thing or two or more.

What a contrast to just a year ago when the liberals were running all over them, led by new President Barack Obama and his huge Democratic offensive line on Capitol Hill.

He and they made all their gains after the GOPs spent about four years showing how shoddy their team was, which was just the opportunity the Dems needed.

We have deteriorated. The old “Do Nothing Congress” has crumbled into “PLEASE Do Nothing” the best we can hope for is gridlock. The Olympic organizers in Vancouver must really envy Washington, not just for our snow, but our downhill slide.

Is it only now that Evan Bayh has seen the light of our darkness? He has spent his whole life in this mud pit. His father, Birch Bayh, was a Senate legend who was unseated by Dan Quayle, for crying out loud. So the kid has always known what he got into.

Fairly, or unfairly, Quayle was viewed as a lightweight, who not only knocked out a heavyweight, but went on to be Vice President.

Anybody who believes Sarah Palin could never be elected President should remember Dan Quayle, who was a heartbeat away. In fact, bitter Democrats point another “Son Of”, George Bush, the 2nd.

So don’t rule P
alin out, no matter how many think she’s an unqualified bubble head. Bayh, meanwhile, seems to have ruled himself out.

Imagine his frustration: He has always been a bit charisma-challenged. So he chose to cast himself as someone who moved deliberately. That simply doesn’t hack it. We live in a media-charged world where instant gratification is the only gratification,

"Cut costs at all costs". If there is any holy gospel in the corporate world, that's it. The god of profits is worshiped by the high priests, and highly paid by the way, who endlessly chant "Cut costs at all costs", or words to that effect.

Their salvation through destruction is camouflaged in expressions like "Efficiencies" and "Synergies" and "Workforce Reductions" and "Belt Tightening" and "Outsourcing" and "Consolidations" and a big one, "Mergers", where companies get larger and smaller at the same time.

They exact a terrible human price for their greed every time they toss millions into the rubble with one layoff after another. In the process, their once-successful businesses are ground into failure as their product and reputation earned over decades are frittered away leaving empt shells. .

The shell game is hardly unique to the US. It's played all over the world. The latest case in point is Toyota. It's still unclear when the auto manufacturer's legendary quality became a myth...a fiction that persisted as the reality of deterioration was obscured in the haze of image management.

Bigger Bigger Bigger" became the Toyota plan instead of "Better Better Better". The company kept spreading out and spreading thin, until it reached the breaking point. "Breaking Point" means being found out, inevitably getting caught when shoddiness and deception can no longer be hidden and come crashing down on the carefully cultivated "brand"

As for the consumers, so many companies in effect tell them to "Like it or lump it". Their claims of support for customers are bogus.

What better way to be snowbound than snuggling to watch me on "White House Chronicles" this Friday, Saturday or Sunday? Check local listings and experience the glow

There are at least three reasons the polls show the number of those who consider Sarah Palin unqualified for high office keeps growing.

*She's an acquired taste that hasn't been acquired yet

*She gets a relentless raw deal from the commie-pinko media

*She's unqualified

Whichever, Sarah Palin is one of those public personalities who makes everyone's blood boil. In disgust or adoration.

Without a doubt she has become the queen of the mainstream fringe, in fact she's become perhaps the leading symbol. Her cutie pie cattiness has overwhelmed Glenn Beck's irrational rants.

And before we dismiss Palin and her devout followers as some sort of splinter group, let's not for get that by comparison, her opponents are loosely packed sawdust...flying around every which way. Liberals and the others she scornfully calls "Elitists" are anything but elite when it comes to getting their acts together.

You haven't seen infighting until you watch psychotherapists and others who worship at the mental health altar, argue over the DSM, That's the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders...call it "Psychobabble for Professionals". With all the bickering over an updated version, these people could definitely use some counselling.

It could be called a "raging" controversy, but the experts want to change "Raging" to "Temper Dysregulation Disorder With Dysphoria". A bad temper is a disorder. Can't wait to see the pharmaceutical ads for that one.

Here's a question: Is "S and M" in the DSM? Yes indeedy. The authors probably don't say so, but it's widespread in the world of politics. What else would explain the motivation of those who engage in this tortuous process or those of us who voluntarily watch. What else would explain the cruelty of those who ridicule Sarah Palin for needing a hand? For that matter, who else would use such a shameless cheap shot line like that, other than someone who has what the DSM labels an "Antisocial Personality Disorder" But enough about me.

The publication could be a manual for politics: "Psychosis": A distorted view of reality. Check...along with the subcategory "Delusional" They both explain the current insane ranting about "Bipartisanship". It's a figment of the imagination people, It doesn't exist anymore! Get over it!

Let's be blunt. 173 Toyota dealers in the United States are plain and simply un-American. They are the members of their association that covers five southeastern states, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina and South Carolina, that have decided to pull their advertising from ABC affiliates in their coverage area. Why? Because ABC news has been giving what they've determined to be "excessive stories on the Toyota issues.". As I said, un-American.

They have decided they will use their economic clout to try and coerce the network into lightening up its investigation into the severe safety problems that have been discovered in their lethal product and suggestions of a coverup. These guys don't seem to understand that their advertising buy does not give them the right to blackmail a news medium's coverage.

They probably don't comprehend why they should be ashamed. The usual justification, when advertisers try to apply this kind of suppression is that they are not required to financially support anyone who is making their lives miserable. While that's true, it also demonstrates that they simply don't understand, or don't care enough about this country's free press values. It's sometimes and inconvenient bargain: If we are to have commercial TV as opposed to government-controlled media , sponsors are not allowed to substitute their own control.

No heart attack from digging out. That was a good thing but there was little to do but to spend the weekend mostly hunkered down inside. There were no newspapers, no delivery, but who missed them? We could read them just as easily on line. And then, those of us who didn't lose power had plenty of TV to help pass the time.

As the anchors and frozen reporters repeated ad nauseum what we already knew...that it sucked outside...it would not have been much of a surprise to see a crawl at the top or bottom of the screen informing that the meeting of the Global Warming Action Group had been cancelled. But the weather coverage was just one of the highlights.

Obviously the best television of all was provided by that entertainment superstar In Nashville. Of course that would be Sarah Palin, who brought her song-and-dance act to the Tea Party Departed-From Reality show. How fitting it was that she was at Opryland to perform her version of "Achy Breaky Heart. She called it"Hopey Changey Stuff"

Besides her relentless criticism of President Obama, she also made it clear she's after his job, telling Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday "It would be absurd to not consider what it is that I can potentially do to help our country".

An absurd idea? Not at all? A possible Palin presidency? You betcha. Scary. Happily there was more escapism on the telly.

There was this football thing, the Super Bowl. It was a terrific one at that...complete with the big upset win by the underdog Saints that came with such symbolism. We could all share in the "Laissez les bon temps roulez" post celebration by those who still struggle with the hard times in Katrina-ravaged New Orleans.

The inspiring "Who Dat" team even made the embarrassing Who group bearable at halftime. Besides, the Super Bowl is way more than what we see on the field. There are the many contests within the contest, where the competition is brutal. Sponsors, for instance, pay ridiculous amounts of money in the fierce battle for attention between their commercials. It's hard to declare a winner this year, difficult to choose between the surprise of Tim Tebow's mother being tackled in that insipid anti-abortion ad or the astonishment of Leno, Letterman and Oprah in their Super promotional spot.

There are other things to talk about in DC than just the weather, and I will be tomorrow (Sunday) morning on MSNBC at 9:00 Eastern

All those who are focusing on the T-Party movement with all it's fervor for rattling the Washington cage this weekend, are missing the really important event that was the main focus in DC.

Of course that would be the big "P" party. For "Panda" of course. It too was a movement and it also involved a cage. This "P" party, along with a second one in Atlanta, was not just a sad farewell, but one hell of a metaphor.

The pandas you see were headed back to China. On loan and now called back. So many in this country had come to rely on them for so much and suddenly, reality, and Beijing, wrenched them away.

Tai Shan was not the only panda at the National Zoo. He leaves his parents behind, at least for a few months, until their lease also expires and we could also lose them. But Tai Shan was an American creation, or would it be better to say "PROcreation".

No matter. Even though the nation's capital went bonkers when he was born two-and-a-half years ago, so small he was nicknamed "Butterstick", and unleashing millions of "Aaaaaaawwwwww"s, he's out of here. He was always an American dream owned by China, which was now taking him back. Talk about the analogist's dream.

Back before a couple of conglomerates took over nearly all the stations with their vanilla play lists and avatar disc jockeys, radio used to have personalities who had, if you can imagine, PERSONALITIES.

They reflected the taste of their individual communities. Often bad taste, to be sure, but their banter and particularly the music they played reflected the characteristics and peculiarities of their metro areas. And no market was more peculiar than Washington.

It still is of course, and it's a crying shame the locally-based DJ's are not with us these days, what with the emergence of that singing group we hear constantly. You know the one I mean: The SPINNERS.

They're unique in that instead of being a choir, they sing to their choirs. They're always available for party gatherings with their party lines. Their biggest hit, "Message of the Day" is adapted to every situation. Any issue.

Like any other song and dance act they need their composers, and The Spinners have many of them. But none has gotten more prosperous and generated more publicity for himself than that Spinner guru Frank Luntz.

Full disclosure: Frank is a long time friend of mine and might continue to be in spite of what I'm saying here. We go back almost as far as the days when he was designing semantics for the 1994 long shot Republicans ...the ones who rolled over the Democrats and took over Congress.

16 years later, they are salivating at the possibility the Democrats will hand it to them once again and Frank is still writing their march music.

His stock and trade is lyrics. He's a memo machine, making tons of money showering corporate clients with insights into the words they should choose when making their case. For fun and the TV exposure he loves, he still loyally creates material for the Republican Spinners, the amen chorus that gave him his first big break.

They are salivating once again at the possibility the Democrats will hand it to them once again and Frank is still writing their march music.

You can be sure that some enterprising TV executive, somewhere, is going to take advantage of this. In about a year, the station's newscast, featuring the latest perky, sparkling anchorwoman, will open with "Here She Comes, Miss Amerrrrrrica"

Cue Caressa Cameron, who follows in the long line of beauty pageant contestants. who felt that looks and personality were all anyone needed to report on the tough issues of the day. Any fool can do it.

Journalism? Facts? Experience? Who needs them when you've got cute? What does it matter that the nation is drowning in a sea of ignorance, misinformation and oversimplification? Who cares if our clever operators are able to manipulate and distort issues with little chance of being exposed on yuck-it-up shows at 11 PM or 10:00, depending on your time zone?

Forget about that. Television's owners managers and cursed consultants couldn't care less about informing the public. The name of the game is ratings delivered by gimmicks and anchors who are 8 by 10 glossies.

Maybe popular thinking is wrong. It's entirely possible that when President Obama advocated doing away with "Don't Ask, Don't Tell the other night, the Joint Chiefs of Staff generals were not being stoic, they were stunned...too panicked to move. It wasn't military bearing, it was fear

Why? It's not as if the President was proposing that the services' Chaplain be required to perform gay marriages, simply that we get real about the present policy about the non-straight orientation in our armed forces, which is basically "If You Got It, Don't Flaunt It".

And speaking of Gay Marriage, why in the world is it even a controversy to say nothing of one that causes apoplexy like few others?

What is it that causes so many enraged people to make it their business to harshly judge what is none of their business...the private sex of anyone else? How could it be a button the demagogue can so easily push to such political advantage?

When you think about it, too many don't think, they react with all the fury their ignorance and intolerance can inflame.

Maybe this is a primitive aversion to any sex that doesn't produce babies. That is an explanation given for the marriage uproar. It's also an excuse that's riddled with inconsistency unless the opponents also want to ban the matrimony of couples who will be childless by choice or medical circumstance.

Now I get it. Now I understand why so many of the Supreme Court Justices are bitterly opposed to television cameras. They are worried people will see them make fools of themselves.

Samuel Alito probably learned an important life lesson on Wednesday night. The man definitely needs to stay out of sight. Because he just can't control himself.

He made that obvious by mouthing off after President Obama raised Cain about the corporate spending decision. While it wasn't Joe Wilson shouting "You Lie, visibly mumbling "Not true" is almost as bush league, which is probably apt since Alito was a Bush appointee.

People can argue whether the President's remarks were a bit tacky, under the circumstances, but hey, Justice Alito, if you can't take the heat, stay in your ivory tower.

There was much in common with the two events. One was in San Francisco, the other DC but they were similarly preceded by an inordinate amount of hype. They each had become ritual.

Jobs was a main focus in both cases. But where Steve Jobs often deals with long lines at his stores, for Barack Obama it’s long lines at the Unemployment offices.

The Apple CEO was presenting something new. The U-S Chief executive also had a new twist of two, but, for the most part, he was repackaging the same product he unveiled a year ago. A lot of it didn’t work, so he was trying to defend it just as more and more have decided they’re not buying.

Jobs was there after having obvious success with health care. Obama…well we all know that story. His reform is on life support.

The IPad unveiling revealed the latest from an organization that’s a highly effective well-organized machine always on the front edge of hip. The State of the Union? It was Washington. What more does one have to say? After just a year, the President seemed to have all his hipness drained out of him.

As always, it's called the "State of the Union" speech but if we're being real about this, it is the "State of Barack Obama's Presidency" address, or in legislative terminology the "Obama Recovery Act".

You get the picture. By the time he begins, we know what the president is going to say and who will be sitting in the upper deck listening.

Everyone thinks it's a big waste of time...certainly the TV networks who could be making more money on their OTHER reality shows. About the only good television in this one comes from the shots of the audience.

That's where we can watch the expressionless expressions on the Republicans' faces when Mr. Obama delivers his applause lines (The way things have been going his staff might have to pipe in some canned cheering.)

We might also be treated to some jeering from the GOP side of the aisle. For that matter, some of the hecklers might be Democrats.

It would probably mean a lot more if President Obama let it all hang out with a "TRUE State of the Union" address. This is how that might go:

"Mr. Vice President, Madame Speaker, my fellow Americans: Let's be honest. The State of the Union is in a sorry state. What UNION? No longer can we agree on much of anything.

"Let's take health care reform. How obvious does it need to be that our medical system is sliding straight down the tubes and taking the economy with it. But the few who benefit from the status quo found it remarkably easy to push the hot buttons of our most right wing instincts and distort every initiative.

"That sent each and every one of you Senators and Congresspeople scrambling for cover. 'Bold' is not a word that normally comes to mind when I think of you guys.

"'Selfish' is. As in 'Selfish Politics' as opposed to the national interest. (A shout is heard) Oh for crying out loud, shut up Joe. Who NEEDS your heckling. You too Michele Bachman.

I'm on MSNBC tomorrow morning (Wednesday) at 10:30, Eastern to preview the State of the Union speech

Never forget one of nature's immutable laws: "If Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining That Means Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud". At least that's the case when it comes to Washington's nature.

Let's take the thunderbolt from Boston that seems to have shocked the lethargic White House into the realization the voters' anger and fear require jolting action.

Beginning the day after the election that sent a Republican from Massachusetts, of all places, President Obama has switched into his "No More Mr. Nice Guy" mode. Gone is that Joe Cool stuff. The new Message of the Day is that it's time to turn up the temperature. Call that a Silver Lining.

Unfortunately, the sharper focus on the economy is clouded by the unavoidable suspicion it's more sound bite than anything else, more motion than movement toward truly unraveling the tangled mess that endangers the party in power.

We are being showered by a sudden flurry of proposals at the White House. Unfortunately some are widely considered to belong in the Snow Job category.

Let's take the tax credit for employers who hire people. That's an idea that was rejected last year because it would be so easy for the deceptive corporate types (pardon the redundancy) to manipulate. They could layoff workers, for example, just before re hiring them back to get their gift from the federal government. It was too hard too swallow the first time around, but it's being regurgitated again.

"DIVIDE AND CONQUER" POLITICS

One more thought on the Supreme Court ruling that corporations have the 1st Amendment right to free expression and are therefore able to spend on campaigns as if they were individuals.

It's a human right. Right? Actually that's the flaw in the decision: Humans have hearts. Corporations decidedly do not. As we've witnessed in the massive waves of layoffs to protect profits, in the despicable tactics of those in the big bank and finance companies, in the contemptible treatment of customers with health problems by the insurance companies, they are heart-LESS.

Their interest is not the common good. Their only concern is hoarding as much as they can for the few at the top of their executive garbage pile. Everyone else be damned.

And if any upstarts in government try to make any waves, the company lobbyist enforcers can calm the turbulence and drown the troublemakers with money that's now even easier to spread over the waters.

So what are the rest of us to do? There is only one answer. That would be to unite in outrage and organize mass pressure groups to scare the hell out of those in power.. to let those desperate to keep political office know that they will be thrown out if they don't pay attention to the true needs of their populations.

We've already seen it work with the "Tea Party" movement. The problem is that one is fueled largely by right-wing, simple-minded ignorance. It is organized by people who want to keep any meaningful protest DISorganized and maintain the status quo that pays them so well.

It's a classic "Divide and Conquer" strategy, backed by those who want to divide their riches with as few others as possible. To accomplish that they keep those fed up fighting among themselves, calling each other names, instead of coming together and channeling "I'm Mad as Hell and I'm Not Going to Take It Anymore" passion into meaningful action.

The Massachusetts election certainly represented that kind of valid resentment. The sad thing is the voters there may have added another person to the Senate who is part of the problem, someone who can be counted on to thwart desperately needed health care reform, for instance.

Ben Bernanke's reappointment to head the Fed looked for awhile like it might go down in flames because of the widespread bitter feelings about way the fat cats are once again gobbling public trillions, while everyone else starves.

I'm on "White House Chronicles", this Friday, Saturday and/or Sunday. Check local listings.

THE SUPREME POLITICAL COMMERCIALS

At least the Supremes latest hit is a blow for honesty. The 5-4 ruling that corporations (and unions) can directly spend their mega bucks for the ads that can distort the elections means they can have their way without having to jump through all the phony hoops they had to to maintain the pretense they weren't doing that anyway.

What a victory for the Republicans. On those rare occasions that the Democrats don't just hand them an election, like the freebie they gave away in Massachusetts, the GOP can buy it, now that there is easier access to the coffers of their patrons. They'll get whatever they need simply by reminding them how they always protect their interests.

For those attempting to keep the rich and powerful in line, it will be like herding fat cats, but at least the record will be set straight. The conservatives on the high court prevailed with the ruling that these artificial restrictions on campaign finance violated the Oligarchs' First Amendment Free Speech rights.

Never mind the argument it was really their Bought-and-Paid-For rights. The long long debate is over. So it's time to contemplate the commercials the different companies will create so they can sell the gullible voters the same way they do when they hustle their products.

Can you see the spots now? Geico cavemen will endorse those whose policies hearken back to the Stone Age.

Apparently, after his Massachusetts humiliation, President Obama has seen the light and he's heading back to the future...back to 1992 and that mantra "It's the Economy Stupid".

His peeps aren't saying so, but it looks like they're about jettison health care and cave, after telling us that comprehensive reform was vital to the nation and engaging the opposition in a brutal political war.

Now, however they want to couch it, it appears they're preparing to beat a hasty retreat, looking for some face-saving way out while leaving the millions of uninsured to fend for themselves.

Sure they got their butts kicked Tuesday and they truly do need to be much much less "stupid" about the economy. But should that mean they should abandon health care as a lost cause. Why not take one last, principled stand? Instead of looking for an easy way out of their war with the Republicans, why not take it to them?

Let us not forget that even with their carelessness and ineptitude in
blowing Massachusetts and their Senate super majority with it, Democrats will continue to have their plain old regular one. It'll still be substantial,59 to 41, meaning that they can pass a bill once it comes to a vote.

They have tons of wiggle room. Even if nine defect, Vice President Biden can cast the tiebreaker. This means they can tell the joe Liebermans and Ben Nelsons exactly where they can stick their outlandish demands.

A big test would be whether trembling House and Senate Democrats were up to this fight and even capable of agreeing on a single piece of legislation that actually accomplishes something. The alternative would be to scatter as they encounter more GOP lockstep opposition.

For the sake of discussion, let's assume House leaders can herd their cats long enough to pass the newly reconciled bill. Then it's on to
the Senate.

It's safe to assume that all of the Republicans there, including the new guy, will continue to dig in their heels. That means Democrats cannot get to the magic number of 60 for Cloture, which means they cannot stop debate. So LET THE GAMES BEGIN!!

It'll be time for the aforementioned Majority to call the aforementioned Minority's bluff. If they do the American people can witness a grotesque honest-to-God Filibuster where the opposition tries to talk the legislation to death, or each other.

Taking full advantage of the absurd Senate rules that the Segregationists
utilized in times past, the GOPs would block final consideration with floor speeches and parliamentary tactics. The Democrats would have to match them bluster-for-bluster.

It would be a Bombast Marathon...droning around the clock, seven days a week where the esteemed members could talk till they dropped, or until they realized that the people had decided they were a bunch of pompous out-of-touch buffoons.

Actually, they already had that kind of opinion of the Democrats after watching all their sleazy wheeling-and-dealing to create a passable health care bill. A final battle could at least expose the Republicans to some of the scorn.

Maybe, just maybe, they would blink. In that case, Health Care would get its up-or-down after nearly a year's warfare that revealed how UN-united the United States can be.

As I get directions from my car’s GPS, I often wonder what the turn-by-turn instructions would be like if the woman inside the device had emotional issues like:

Narcissism: “I don’t care which way you turn, It’s all about me” (A lot of us TV types own this one).

Then there’s

Multiple Personality Disorder: “Turn left! Turn right! Go straight! Go back!”

Let’s not forget

Clinical Depression: “It doesn’t matter which way you go, you’re not going to get where you want to anyway”

Which finally gets me to the point; which is the Massachusetts election which embarrassing coincides with the one year anniversary of the Obama presidency. As in why did anyone bother to hope things would be different?

Depressives are ecstatic. Nothing is more exhilarating than the words “I TOLD you so!!” It has taken exactly one year for them to be joined in despair by everyone in the Democratic party who believed there would be change they could believe in. They’re feeling might SHORT-changed about now.

Depending on their level of militancy, issues, the President has either overplayed or underplayed the party’s agenda right into the toilet.

Their Washington anniversary party has been cancelled because word got out about another gate crasher. This one is not one of the Salahis or Carlos Allen. His name is Scott Brown.

Unlike the others he has an invitation, provided by the people of Massachusetts to come here and rain on the Obama parade, which will now come to a complete halt.

They had met with the current occupant in their old digs in the Oval office Saturday. After that, there they were on five of the Washington Sunday Game shows…the usual drill.

Bill Clinton and George Bush the Younger are singing the same tune at the behest of the latest leader of the band. They’re bringing the ultimate prestige of their exclusive Chief Executives Club to the crisis in Haiti at the behest of the newest member, Barack Obama.

They’ll be very visible careening to and fro, and taking advantage, behind-the-scenes, of their unique connections to their old heads-of state buddies as well as their big-money groupies.

It probably would take something like an earthquake to get these two guys together. Other than being former leaders of the free world, they don’t really have a lot in common. That, and the fact they’re both sometime-ardent political enemies of Obama.

But he should give them plenty to gossip about when they fill the awkward gaps in conversation while they are forced together in various Green Rooms and private jets.

“It was bound to happen”. Bush begins the small talk. “Barack started out as King of the World, just a year ago. It seemed like everybody was united, celebrating his historic accomplishment”

“Well, George,” says Clinton, “I recall that you didn’t have that experience. At least half the country felt you had stolen the election in Florida. I personally didn’t care, because I thought that Al Gore was a wooden twit. But as I glumly stood on your inauguration stand, I sure didn’t look out on a sea of proud Americans the way Barack Obama did”

You gotta hand it to those executives of TV stations in and around Massachusetts. Somehow, they have managed to rake in extra millions of dollars in political ads.

Panicky Democrats and their supporters are suddenly pumping in the big bucks to rescue a Senate race that was considered such a forgone victory for their party less than a month ago.

Republicans are doing the same thing as they smell blood in the Bay State waters, and a chance to hugely embarrass the Dems where it is deep blue, a wrenching mortification considering they would be taking away the seat that was Edward Kennedy's for 47 years until his death last August.

In addition, a GOP victory would likely mean the defeat of health care reform, a humiliation that could weaken the Presidency of Barrack Obama or at the very least fire up the Republican steam rollers as they try and flatten the Democrats in November. Right now a Republican takeover in either house of Congress looks highly unlikely. But then, so did the possibility of the Democrats blowing the Massachusetts special election.

For TV stations, it's all good. The higher stakes mean wall-to-wall campaign ads...paid advertising. For that matter all media will benefit, even the newspapers that are left.

Wow! Let’s hear it for Michael Chertoff!! The former Homeland Security appears on the same day in the “Corrections” boxes of both “papers-of-record”, the New York Times and Washington Post.

Let’s see: After a lot of criticism that stories about Chertoff’s stated support for full body scanners neglected to mention he now represents a company that manufactures the peeping Tom devices, the Times states “That connection should have been noted in the articles”

Let’s remember how Albert Einstein defined insanity: ” Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”. It doesn’t take an Einstein to surmise that as long-standing champions of free market anarchy, Tim Geithner and Lawrence Summers, the Obama administration’s main financial policy guys, are suddenly the best ones to apply effective controls.

The Post, meanwhile, had a “Clarification” since it had already reported the business relationship. It self-flaggelated for not pointing out the Chertoff Group had “previously disclosed” it.

Having trouble following all this? Don’t we all. The never-ending incestuous relationship between ex-regulators and regulatees is a blur. And there’s not much we can do to end it, or to answer doubters who worry that officeholders may tailor their policies to benefit prospective employers once the government gig is over.

There is probably no Constitutional way to eliminate all the detours around any pitiful barriers erected in this outbound lane to private sector prosperity. HOWEVER: There is a way to shut down the parts of the two-way-street that are incoming.

A President simply should not appoint his top economic people, for instance, from the ranks of those who enthusiastically helped create the disastrous mess they are now put in place to clean up. Why would they suddenly come up with regulations they successfully thwarted for their entire professional lives.

The President's image purveyors were quick to remind us yesterday that he spent a very long day bouncing between endless White House meetings. His Chief Executive concentration was constantly switched back and forth from the huge obstacles still confronting a final push for Health Care legislation and, of course, the unimaginable disaster in Haiti.

Surely, as he shuffled from one room to the other, he could not ignore the context, the relative magnitude of each. Maybe we should all take a moment to think about that.

It's worth comparing the miseries of health care and the other economic inequities in the United States to catastrophe in a nearby country where thousands upon thousands have died, where maybe millions walk around desperately missing the miseries that are part of their everyday existence. At least their struggles were part of a routine that has literally been crushed and swallowed up by uncontrollable forces.

Decent health care? Few Haitians had it in normal circumstances...they died from diarrhea and other scourges we don't even think about here. Now, what little treatment and sanitation infrastructure there was, is obliterated. The injured, the weakened, can only be left to die in the streets by dazed passersby who are helpless.

As terrible as the lives of so many medically deprived are left by the unequally distributed system is here and as truly important as it is to make the first paltry improvements, none of that compares to the unspeakable desperation and deprivation in Port-Au-Prince.

Perhaps it occurred to others that Washington provided another context on Tuesday. How cynically lucky the major bankers were. The first hearings, where they had the audacity to condescendingly defend their gross compensation and minimize their colossal business mistakes, got little of the scornful attention they deserved.

Maybe this is the year. After all the decades of lip-service to the idea of third party or independent candidates, perhaps the time has come. Heaven knows the Democrats and Republicans have done their part to make the idea appealing.

The two major parties have way more in common than their loyalists would like to admit. There is jealousy, dogmatic infighting, downright buffoonery. Then we have egotistical turf battles, corruption, incompetence and general chaos. And let's not forget the lineup of mediocre or worse hacks the Big Two select as candidates. For those who celebrate bi-partisanship, there is plenty of it.

For those non-partisans, there is frequently little to do but look on in disgust and hold their noses when they vote. Or vote "No" by staying home.

Think what you will about President Obama. As Candidate Obama he seemed to offer something new. Whether he has lived up to his promise is the subject of intense debate these days with many feeling like they were had.

In any case, he's not on any ballots this year. Instead, its hundreds of lesser lights from the party organizations, offering what all-too-many consider to be dismal choices...the bore versus the extremist, the bland versus the nutcase.

No wonder large percentages reject The Dem and Gop labels. They are unwilling to choose between parties which have demonstrated that about all they're good at is fundraising.

Maybe it's gotten obvious enough that alternatives would have a fighting chance. The self-proclaimed "Independents" might actually be able to overcome the Big Two's organized money machines. They could also find supporters with the wherewithal and expertise to successfully challenge the unfair monopolistic legal obstacles that often make it so hard for an outsider to take on the entrenched ballot system.

Sometimes its interesting to watch controversy careen in unexpected directions. The clumsy Harry Reid comments on race and Barack Obama are a case in point.

On day one the story was that Reid's favorable description of Obama as "light-skinned" was moronic. But now for all the liberal thinkers in the political and media world, even those who regularly raise the white bigotry alarms, the message of the day is that Reid, in his awkward way, was simply telling the truth: Light skin trumps dark.

Who knew this colorism hierarchy even had a name? It's called a "Pigmentocracy", which makes sense, I suppose. It's present not only between races but within.

Among blacks, we're told, lighter is better. We accept that as a given, which is the collective tenor of the Reid Reports-Day Two.

Here's an idea for Day Three. Shouldn't there be a discussion about the unfairness of all this? After all, in the same way that we condemn whites who look down on all people of color, shouldn't we also reject those non-whites who do the same thing to people of MORE color?

I'm on MSNBC tomorrow morning (Tuesday), at 10:30, Eastern

Experience is constantly given short shrift. All too often, the ones who don't have it belittle the value of life and work's hard lessons.

But sometimes those who have accumulated them haven't learned as much as they should. The comments by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in 2008 that Barack Obama would succeed because he was "light-skinned" with "no Negro dialect" are a case in point.

His remarks were disclosed in an about-to-be-released new book "Game Change", by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. Once they became public, Reid immediately apologized profusely, but he's not the only offender.

Then candidate Joe Biden's description of Obama as "An African-American who is articulate and bright and clean..." would certainly fit the bill. So would the barbs from former President Bill Clinton during the campaign that caused such an uproar for suggestions of bigotry.

All reflect the awkwardness with race that afflicts whites from the last generation who witnessed and supported the wrenching transition for blacks from oppression part way to mainstream inclusion.

By the way, the comparisons between the opinion expressed by Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid and a line that resulted in the downfall of Republican Leader Trent Lott in 2002 are partisan nonsense.

Let's recall that Lott was bemoaning the fact that Strom Thurmond hadn't been elected President when Thurmond ran in 1948, as an arch-segregationist. Reid was complimenting the African-American who was running for President, in a remarkably clumsy fashion, to be sure. But he didn't seem to be pining for the good old days of American apartheid in the way Lott seemed to be.

Still he and all those who took part in the movement, or at least didn't stand in the way, continue to struggle with nuanced stereotypes and misunderstandings that were considered fact just a few decades ago.

So there was President Obama with his stern face on, telling the world still again that the system failed, trying to assure one and all he is serious "...less interested in placing blame than I am in correcting these mistakes".

But isn't a little blame in order? The one thing the "Underwear Bomber" accomplished with his inept attempt to cause calamity is that his blundering was easily matched by those whose job it is to see these kinds of things coming. They are, after all in charge of the sprawling, gazillion dollars apparatus that is supposed to "connect the dots".

By now, are we all tired of that expression "Connect the Dots"?. We get it, there was an inexcusable disconnect in the wild and wacky world of national security.

But let's use the cliche to make an even more expansive point. Let's connect the dots about the way our overseers throughout government fail in that regard, and not only that, manage to stick around or even get promoted...just like in private business.

Regrettably, the grossly ineffective at the top of the public sector can cause widespread disaster with their mismanagement. Not only are we witnessing that here but clearly it was the case with our financial collapse.

The very people who should have seen the obvious signs of massive greedy carelessness and bubble bursting ahead have not only escaped being called to account for their failures, they are now in charge of the agencies that are supposed to make things right.

The General Motors people have to cringe every time they hear the term "Cadillac Insurance". After all, it is only because of taxpayer billions that GM has so far avoided being flushed down the toilet bowl of history. The last thing the company needs is being associated with the health insurance corporations who make up one of the few industries held in more contempt than theirs.

But while the customers of the auto companies were able to get government money in the "Cash for Clunkers" program, the President and the Senate want to tax those policyholders who get a slightly higher quality clunker in these so-called "Cadillac" plans.

Never mind that the idea is the very one about which candidate Barack Obama ripped apart candidate John McCain. Now President Obama and the Senate Democrats are ripping it off because heaven forbid they'd otherwise have to finance some of the health care reforms with a higher levy on the wealthy.

Sometimes it's really hard to tell these guys apart from the Republicans. The difference is that the GOP makes no bones about being a tax haven for the rich. The Democrats like to pretend they represent the little guy.

So why do so many of them resist a surcharge on millionaires to make sure everyone has access to what should be an inherent right to adequate medical treatment?

I have always resolved that I’d never write about my dog. Too self-indulgent, to say nothing of too chiche-ish. So let’s consider this the first resolution I’m breaking in the new year.

It’s OK though. This is about his obvious similarity to Congress. Because, all you have to do is offer members a few scraps and he or she will do whatever you want.

It explains how the loud snarling about of health care reform has been reduced to a whimper. It also makes it clear that financial regulation will have most its teeth removed…the same for Cap and Trade…anything that can threaten those who control that kibble we know as campaign contributions.

It is true a few members of a breed in the House and Senate are alpha dogs so powerful they can turn up their noses at these tidbits in disdain. They are the such well established leaders they only follow their beliefs.

Jim DeMint may have become one of those 50 monkeys at a typewriter who has actually come up with something. Usually, he just spews out garbled slime that serves no other purpose than to add to the highly partisan incoherence. This time, he may have landed on a valid target...Errol Southers.

As galling as it may be, perhaps he's actually correct when he says there should be no rush, that Senators need to think a little bit longer before they decide whether to confirm Southers as the best person to head the Transportation Security Agency. Not that he had nailed the correct reasons. Senator DeMint's motivation, after all, was blatant obstructionism of the most Republican kind. He claimed it had to do with the possibility that Southers might allow TSA employes to unionize, which, to the GOP base, is akin to Satanism.

But now, thanks to the Washington Post, we are reminded that Southers' past provides a bona fide excuse to give DeMint's fellow Senators pause. Southers admits that a long time ago, 20 years, in fact, that as an FBI Agent, he collected some background police data on his estranged wife's boyfriend.

Granted two decades is way in the past. And granted, there were extenuating circumstances and granted. Southers owned up to it then and now, and took his punishment at the time. Still, this is more than a commonplace egregious offense. A law enforcement officer, sneaking unauthorized peeks into into confidential information, for any purpose other than utmost official necessity is, probably beyond, as the Catholics would put it, a Mortal Sin. This is right down there in the vicinity of Original Sin.

Don't you get a kick out of us? Isn't it cute how we pretend we have any clue whatsoever how the 2010 mid-term elections will go?

By definition we cannot predict the surprises that will intercede in the next 11 months. They could very well dominate the agenda as the voters' "be-all-end-alls" by the time November rolls around when they decide between their Congressional and statehouse candidates and, just as importantly, the two parties.

Still, it's the end of the year. Wherever we turn someone has come up with a List. Except me. If I don't come with something I'll lose my Pundit Permit. We can't have that, now can we? So to prevent anything of the sort, let's catalogue some of the invective we can expect that Republicans and Democrats will try and use to heap scorn on each other when they inevitably go more and more negative to try to make their followers give a damn.

Watch me try to be lucid on MSNBC Friday morning at 7:00 and 11:00 AM Eastern and start your New Year off wrong.

So let's get this straight: Federal officials say they had responded to modesty concerns by blurring out the images of those airport security devices that see beneath a traveler's clothing.

But doesn't that also defeat the purpose of these "Body Scanners", which is to detect what danger might be hidden under the layers...not to obscure them?

Don't you just hate it that those troublesome privacy advocates raise a ruckus about the obvious potential for abuse and embarrassment? They get in the way of those who only want to protect us from dangerous terrorist lunatics.

Well here's another idea that might enhance that effort. Let's work on the ridiculous incompetence that pervades the ranks of those who have mismanaged their billions of dollars and near authoritarian powers.

For starters, we probably should no longer accept as a given that their Orwellian computer networks don't communicate with each other, unless it is to mistakenly list innocent people on their watch lists. Why should that be something that we tolerate?

It's still another "Cool Hand Luke" situation. As in "What we have" is a "Failure to Communicate". Or as our cool hand President prefers to call it "A Systemic Failure".

The problem with that description is it would require some sort of "system". A typical dictionary defines "system" as "...an instrumentality that combines interrelated interacting artifacts designed to work as a coherent entity".

The problem is that word "coherent". You can't have coherence if one part doesn't communicate with the other. What you have is chaos which is all too easy for deadly dangerous maniacs to exploit.

Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and all the rest, need to watch their backs, as they make their thinly disguised runs for their party's presidential nomination (make that "anorexically disguised). While they might present themselves as the champions of Dark Ages Republicans there is someone else out there who personifies everything the national GOP stands for. It can be completely summed up in three words: "Destroy Obama's Presidency".

The leader of that band is not Palin nor Gingrich, shameless partisans though they may be. The Obstructionist-in-Chief title goes to Jim DeMint, R (of course), South Carolina. You had probably figured that out, now hadn't you?.

This is the guy, after all, who had summed up his view of health care reform as nothing more than an opportunity to severely weaken the President. That's it. He made no bones about it. His exact words were "If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.”

As much as that endeared him to the Base's basest instincts, Jim DeMint wasn't about to rest on those laurels. After all, almost no Republican is backing health care reform. So DeMint realizes he must always come up with other ways to stand out by standing in the way. And he has found quite a few.

C-Span is showing that panel of top financial reporters I moderated at UVa. Next 4:15 PM today (Tuesday) on CSPAN2, but many repeats on all its networks

T'is the days after Christmas and all through the nation,
Too many still face unemployed desperation.

The contrived cheer of yuletide, it could not make thing rosier,
In the home of the family that's facing foreclosure.

After gifts and a meal that they got from some charity,
Grim fears of the future rushed back with new clarity.

We must not allow this season's disguise,
To cover shamed bleakness in so many's lives.

"Seasons greetings", whatever, can be hard to swallow
For those millions whose prospects are nothing but hollow.

I'm on "White House Chronicles" this weekend, starting tonight (Friday) depending on the station. Check local listings.

We need to cut Michael Steele some slack.. If someone is willing to pay him big bucks to make a speech, he'd be a fool to say no. True, he has gotten into trouble about some of the dopey things he's said, but he may as well make some money for them.

It's not that there's a conflict of interest, Democrats, in particular should realize that. They constantly charge that GOP chairman Steele heads a party that always favors the wealthy...those who can afford to pay for his words of wisdom.

Oh yeah, full disclosure: I give a paid speech once in awhile, would love to make more. Mine aren't a conflict of interest either. What interest?

But we're talking about Michael Steele. He already gives his critics plenty to complain about. Some of his statements, for instance, as party Chair, about health care, and other issues, have been widely considered to be emotional panderings, exaggerations and outright, shameless distortions.

He has time and again gotten in trouble with his base when he has shot from the hip and hit himself. But again, if someone wants to shell out thousands to hear him say something outrageous, why should anyone complain.

Remember the late George Carlin's routine where the "Hippy Dippy Weatherman" reports that radar pinpoints a line of thundershowers? He goes on to say that radar also shows Russian missiles heading our way "So don't sweat the thundershowers".

This is similar. There are urgent predictions that unless there is meaningful health care reform, the nation will soon face a medical emergency.

But there are also dire warnings that doing too-little-too-late about global warming will mean the world will be overrun both by floods and drought. So, as our prophet George Carlin might have said, Don't sweat health care.

The good news is these alarms is only based on the belief our politicians are unable or unwilling to make the tough, unselfish decisions needed to save the future. The bad news is that appears to be a valid premise.

As fundamentally important as it is the global warming drama is still not worth watching. Right now the best show in town features our esteemed leaders thrashing around on health care.

On one side, we have Republicans. Their only motivation is taking down President Obama by sabotaging any reform, no matter how urgently its needed to turn back a national crisis. Now we can witness them throwing childish tantrums because they haven't been entirely successful. So far

On the other we have the Democrats, so desperate to avoid humiliating defeat that they make devilish deals just to come up with something, anything, they can pass and pass off as health care reform.

Remember during the early primaries when the moderator would present some question and ask the gaggle of candidates for a demeaning show of hands? Well, not to be outdone in the Asinine department let's have another one.

How many have gotten seasonal cards that include a note from the senders chronicling their families' past year? Raise those hands.

Ah. Most of you. Now. How many welcome those personal reports? It looks like about half of you. Which is no surprise. Some love them, some consider them way more than they want to know.

Since most didn't get a card from the Obamas this year, we can only wonder if they included a perky report to fill in everyone who thought they had dropped out of sight and wondered what was going on in their lives:

"Michelle, Malia, Sasha and I send Seasons Greetings and a wish that you enjoy a prosperous New Year, in contrast to the desperation you've been experiencing.

In contrast to your months and months of unemployment and the foreclosure, I took on a new job and the entire family moved into a new house.

It's beautiful, although it's a little over-decorated. On the plus-side it does have a mother-in-law suite which has come in handy, and I use one of the rooms as a home office.

Telecommuting is great particularly since I still get to travel a lot. What I don't understand is why everyone complains about the Washington area traffic jams. Whenever any of us takes a drive, we just zip right to our destination.

Obviously the first decision had to do with our daughters education. We weren't about to expose them to the public system. Obviously. So it came down to home or private schooling.

Our biggest concern was the socialization. Would the girls be denied the necessary interaction with other children from a diverse background? Finally we decided to risk it and take our chances with a private education. Already they have both begun the networking that will be so valuable later in life.

There are certain cliches that can get really really irritating. It's a condition called Platitudinous Badditudinous Attitudinous and it flares up each and every time someone says "We shouldn't make the perfect the enemy of the good". Some sort of ridicule is in order, like maybe a "Kick me" sign.

We usually hear it these days from those trying to gut health care reform, leaving an almost empty shell. Offender also include or Democratic leaders who are desperately trying to avoid the embarrassment of outright defeat which would probably devastate their party to say nothing of its President.

So they are bargaining away, trying to protect themselves by caving in to each and every special interest group but one, the American people. In particular, they are frittering away the changes that would force the insurance companies to act responsibly.

As we approach the final days after a year of false hopes and bitter debate we find the Senate bargainers all too willing to jettison the best chances to create competition in the industry, particularly the Public Option.

Do you want a bureaucrat to get between you and your doctor?” It’s the mantra of Republicans and other conservatives and it is effective.

It is the chant that can whip up a crowd against any sort of health care public option or any change for that matter. Never mind the reality that bureaucrats already get between you and your doctor…insurance company bureaucrats, that war cry is a blood boiling banality.

There is no cure for knee jerk which is the condition that reflexively kicks away at anything that can be called “Socialism”… a threat to free enterprise and the market system. Even so, let’s take the extremists to their logical extreme. Here are a few other slogans for the frenzied to shout at the next Tea Party.

How about “Do you want a bureaucratic dispatcher to get between you and your police or fireman?” What about your garbage collector? That’s appropriate because this distortion of free enterprise is pure garbage.

Of course we want the government to handle these services. All but the fringiest libertarian wants everyone’s trash picked up and is willing to pay a tax for that, if for no other reason than someone else’s uncollected slop can contaminate his or her preciously private property.

I'm moderating a panel of top financial reporters Thursday night at 8:00 at UVa. It's being covered by CSPAN. No idea when it will be on television.

Those who are not sports fans will probably not know the term "BCS", or that it means Bowl Championship Series, or that it is highly controversial because it chooses a national football champion without the kind of playoff elimination games one finds in other major sports. Now you know.

Even though I am among those critics, it has become apparent that BCS should stand for "Ban Congressional Silliness". After all, what earthly reason is there for the members of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection to get into the act by passing a bill and sending it further along the legislative process that would, and I quote "...prohibit, as an unfair and deceptive act or practice, the promotion, marketing, and advertising of any post- season NCAA Division I football game as a national championship game unless such game is the culmination of a fair and equitable playoff system."

In other words, the 30 or so members of this subcommittee apparently believe that Congress has enough room in its schedule, even with historic health care reform reaching crunch time, even with the economy tanking, even with Afghanistan and Iraq, even with all that and more, still, there is room to meddle in intercollegiate athletics.

You know we laugh when somebody says "Show Business Is My Life"? It's a joke. Right?

Perhaps it is, but it's not funny. That's because we live in an age of image making and media manipulation where much of Life is truly show biz. Reality is what the PR people tell us it is , and their superstar clients are made up super humans.

They thrive because we desperately want to have heroes. We want to believe in someone, whether it's a politician, an athlete, a business genius, or something, like say, a Secret Service. And when we find that these false idols are as weak and fallible as the rest of us, we turn on them with the vengeance of someone who feels completely betrayed and with the delight we all enjoy in watching the high and mighty knocked down to our level.

That explains the nasty intensity of the Tiger Woods ridicule. He had made his billion not by being the greatest golfer ever, which he is, and not even because he symbolized racial progress in a sport that still conjures up an image, fair or not, of fat white guys riding around the greens of exclusionary country clubs.

No, he was on his pedestal because he was smart enough to take the advice of those who create carefully programmed avatars who appear to be mythical figures.

Suddenly the curtain is forced apart and we find out that Tiger Woods is just one of us, except that none of us can expect to be the lead story on "Entertainment Tonight" for days on end.

When I was off chasing some grueling or even dangerous story, like say, a shooting war, I had a standard response for anyone who complained: "It sure as hell beats covering some Congressional committee". That was a heartfelt as could be.

After sitting through hundreds upon hundreds of Senate and House hearings, I long ago concluded that almost all of them were nothing more than excuses for the members to showboat and try to get on TV by competing for the "Sound bite of the Day Award" There are certainly many exceptions...Watergate or currently the numerous substantive encounters on health care or our stolen economy.

Then there's my all-time personal favorites the bizzaro Clarence Thomas hearings. There is nothing like discussing "pubic hairs on a Coke can" to get the juices flowing.

But too many are like this latest mundane round about the White House gate crashers. What possible value do they have? What will they uncover that adds to the investigations underway by the embarrassed White House and Secret Service? Who can blame the Salahis for refusing to show up? Is there anything sillier?

Well, yes there is. That would be the refusal by social secretary Desirée Rogers to face questions. Actually, what's dumb is the reason given by the administration. She has been instructed not to appear, so we are told, because it would violate the Separation of Powers.

No, I am not making that up. The administration argues that her testimony, in effect, would violate Executive Privilege, the doctrine, as we all know, that is supposed to keep critical advice to the President confidential, so those who give it can be candid and not inhibited by public disclosure.

Does that include the Social Secretary? Does this doctrine cover any embarrassment to the members of the First Family and their court. Does it extend to the gardeners who tend Mrs. Obama's garden. That's silly. Right? Of course it is.

Let's dispense with the cheap shot first: The Salahis were not invited to the White House Summit on jobs.

Unfortunately, neither were the unemployed, not in any meaningful way. True, there is no shortage of concerned speeches, including one by the Concerned-Speechmaker-in-Chief, addressing a collection of economists and other academics, and politicians , of course, along with representatives from business, mainly small.

They are all hand-wringing over the outrage of an economy turning upward while the downtrodden unemployed get more numerous and more desperate.

But all they do is nibble around the edges with platitudes instead of offering real solutions, which would be laws and policies that force the prosperous who are prospering again to share their prosperity with those they have victimized.

It is galling that an administration and a Democratic party that purport to represent common people have done so little to get them back on their feet. The protestations that their actions prevented the economy from falling into the abyss. That has little meaning to the millions whose lives are in that abyss, while the select few, with massive government help, are able to step on their backs as they scramble out.

My 10:30 AM MSNBC segment on this Wednesday has been blown away by overriding news.

I'm on MSNBC this morning (Wednesday)...scheduled for 10:30, Eastern.

An apparently uninvited couple waltzes past what we have always been told is an impenetrable human wall against danger to the President.

We may have already forgotten forget the failures a few months ago in what we had grown up believing were the fail-safe procedures to prevent cataclysmic disaster with our nuclear arsenal. Remember the cross country B-52 flight of missiles across the country that were never supposed to be armed over the United States but were? Or the theft of a device carrying launch codes, or the Minuteman Three crew members caught sleeping near their silo duty posts?

Is it any wonder, we are skeptical of any assurance we get these days? "The H1N1 Vaccine is Perfectly Safe", "Uncontaminated Food""You Can Afford That House", "Customer Satisfaction" "Free Checking", "Mission Accomplished", "Change You Can Believe In" and so on and so on.

Given the number of blunders and unkept promises by so many who insist we trust them, it is easy to understand why the relentless examples of false hope and incompetence leave any sane person wavering between skepticism and cynicism.

The problem is this broken faith is fertile ground for INsane Conspiracy Theories and all the other scams promoted by hustlers who gain riches and prominence as they target all of us who are looking for simple answers in sinister plots.

“WHAT AN INCREDIBLE NIGHT THIS WILL BE!!!”

Rush Limbaugh is beside himself. He’s the moderator of the first GOP presidential debate of 2012, carried exclusively on Fox News Channel. What a highly charged confrontation we can expect! Who would have known four years ago that the candidates would include Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Joe Wilson, Michelle Bachmann, Joe the Plumber, Michael Steele, what-his-name…oh yeah…Mitt Romney, the guy who looks like an anchor-man, and the front-runner, New Jersey Senator Lou Dobbs, who never did look like one.

They have already marched onto the stage. There was a brief scuffle as they each lurched to the far right, but things have settled down now. ALL of them are staking out the same extreme position. It’s not hard to understand. Ever since that upstate New York Congressional loss, no Republican wants to be in the middle. Not the road, not the stage. Not anything.

Limbaugh continues to speak:

“WE WILL BE JOINED IN THE QUESTIONING BY ANN COULTER AND GLENN BECK”

(Actually the choice of Beck had created some real hard feelings at Fox News, where Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly argued they were Lunatic Fringe before Lunatic Fringe was cool.)

(Actually that was not the only back-story. Beck was upset that Fox had decided Limbaugh should moderate instead of him. After all, had considered running for President himself. but angrily gave up the idea when officials rejected his idea that the nominating convention be replaced by a Tea Party).

“THE DISCUSSION WILL BE DIVIDED INTO SPECIFIC SEGMENTS:

“FIRST ‘OBAMACARE. WHY IT WILL KILL OLD PEOPLE AND GET BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR DOCTOR’

“NEXT: ‘THOSE CURSED MEXICANS’ WHY WE MUST SHOOT AT ANYONE WHO TRIED TO CROSS OUR SOUTHERN BORDER’

SENATOR DOBBS HAS ALREADY ASKED TO GO FIRST ON THAT ONE AND HAS AGREED NOT TO PARTICIPATE IN ANY OF THE OTHER SEGMENTS, SINCE IMMIGRATION IS ALL HE EVER TALKS ABOUT..

I'm sorry. I can't contain myself. I have to write about this:

It is probably not true that when President Obama announces Tuesday he'll be ordering thousands more Americans to Afghanistan, the first two to go will be the couple that crashed the White House State Dinner. But there are probably some people here who would applaud the idea.

Let's face it, Tareq and Michaele Salahi have left a lot of powerful figures bent out of shape and looking for some way to punish them for their embarrassing stunt Tuesday night. There's even talk of legal action.

What will the charge be...Ruining Thanksgiving For Secret Service Officials? Or maybe Pulling Off a PR Coup?

C'mon people, you were had, by a couple that succeeded in realizing the American Dream: Getting on television. They are probably the most ridiculous personalities to dominate political news since Joe the Plumber or Sarah Palin.

In fact, one could argue that instead of prosecuting these two, they should be given a medal instead. After all, they did reveal how porous the security around the President can be, and they did it in a harmless way. Unless you include all the heartburn at Secret Service headquarters.

Those Humane Society commercials on behalf of neglected, abused and hungry dogs and cats are heart wrenching to me . No one loves animals more than me, dotes more on his own pets.

HOWEVER: Don’t we need a similar campaign for human children? Given the new study that shows one fourth of young Americans face the possibility of going to bed hungry every night, could we show video of just some of them with someone to somehow touch our sadness and anger over their circumstance too?

How can we be blase about their plight? How could those of us more fortunate not rush out and share our bounty? This is not sharing wealth, this is about guaranteeing the right to basic sustenance. And Thanksgiving is the very day we should think about this.

I'll be on MSNBC Friday morning, the day after Thanksgiving, at 7:00 Eastern. If you're not out being pummeled while shopping, tune in.

Unlike the wide coverage given to the tedious meetings President Obama has held about Afghanistan, the planning for the White House State Dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was conducted in complete secrecy.

It's a pity. First of all, the President himself also convened these discussions, this time assembling his Kitchen Cabinet to help with the decisions.

Actually, Michelle Obama sat at the head of this table, but it's fair to say that Barack was the power behind this throne. As a result the meetings were interminable debates between those who favored one protocol or another.

Particularly valuable, as one might imagine, was the input from Hillary Rodham Clinton who brought such a wide variety of experiences to the
deliberations. Not only could she share her perspectives as Secretary of States and former First Lady, she had also spent those many years as Governor's wife in Arkansas, so her knowledge if "Country Come to Town" society events was unmatched.

"Thank you for asking".

If I am ever able to realize my dream to establish an Insincerity Hall of Fame that phrase will have a prominent place.

It's the usually dismissive response from someone who has just been asked "How ya doin'?". I always want to fire back with "Thank you for answering" or "Thank you for thanking me for asking".

Come to think of it "How ya doin'" belongs in this memorial to meaninglessness.

Truth is we don't really don't care how you're doing. In fact the possibility you might tell us causes us to shudder.

"Nice to see you" is another one, almost always the automatic greeting from someone who is looking over your shoulder and doesn't really see you at all.

Washington would be the obvious home for an Insincerity Hall of Fame. The language of phoniness is a fine art here. Where else but the US Senate is it required that a member refers to his or her most bitter enemy as "My Friend"?

Only here can those who absolutely want to sabotage health care reform, feel no shame in piously declaring they are for "Sensible Reform".

This is the safe haven for those members of Congress who express the most intense outrage over our economic collapse while rigidly opposing any effective regulation of those who caused the debacle and, by the way, make huge contributions to the incumbents' re-election funds.

We get to have it both ways, because what's spoken here is the language of deception. But it is not unique to Washington.

With all the reports coming out that recommend we scale back on life saving medical exams there is one we might soon see from still another group of experts.

This one concerns depression. It concludes that diagnosis, medication and counseling won't work anyway, so why bother trying. After all, the best we can expect from dealing with negative feelings are false positives.

They'll certainly be startled by the intense political emotions, best described as anger turned OUTWARD. Republicans, in particular, will be screaming about how this is just another example of health care rationing contemplated by President Obama.

That is the main conclusion from the landmark Study About Depression (SAD). It is sponsored by the put together by the Foundation of Undermine Necessary Knowledge (FUNK), funded exclsuively by the insurance companies.

Critics will complain that the task force contains no mental health experts or other medical professionals. However, all the members are clinical depressives which means every one has first hand experience.

This project was anything but easy. Meeting after meeting had to be canceled because panelists simply couldn't drag themselves out of bed.

At one point it got so bad very large staff members were dispatched to their homes to try and convince or coerce the individuals to face the world. But they would simply pull the covers over their heads. The efforts failed. Isn't that the way it always is?

Almost. What did do the job was hiring each one's mother, who would call to say how she was so ashamed... that she'd always predcited her kid would never amount to anything.

Well she was wrong wasn't she. The task force has produced its report. Not that the members are getting any enjoyment out of it. But ifit is released all the angry reactions will mean that, for a change, when they burst into tears, they'll have a reason. .

We are supposed to be the land of prosperity but now a new Department of Agriculture study finds that 25 per cent of our children can't count on getting enough to eat. ONE IN FOUR faces the possibility every night of going to bed hungry!

President Obama released a statement calling it "Unsettling". "Unsettling?!!" It's disgraceful. That's what it is. Unacceptable.

Prosperity for whom? Fewer and fewer of us are hoarding all the wealth and refusing to share it. "Them that Gots, gets...", as the song goes. And they make sure of that by hiding behind laws they manipulate so they can cheat anyway or anyone they want.

They use the sheer power of their riches to wall themselves off from their responsibility to a society that allows them to engorge themselves, while the parents of one in four children outside their gated communities struggles to find a few morsels, a few crumbs.

The Agriculture Secretary, Tom Vilsack calls this latest report "A Wake up call". No kidding Sherlock. What a surprise!!

Our economy came crashing around us thanks to the deceptions of a greedy few and so far the only turnaround we've seen seems to benefit those whose caused the system to come tumbling down in the first place. The spiraling unemployment rate wasn't enough of a "Wake up call"?

So let's understand this: That U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is recommending that regular mammograms should be delayed a decade because in addition to significantly preventing death, they result in too many "False Positives" and misdiagnoses of what needs to be treated or ignored.

Before I go any further, I will admit that I am a man, in case the name "Bob" wasn't a dead giveaway. That means anything I have to say on the subject can be considered suspect. Of course.

Wading in anyway to the bath water they want throw out with the life saver: Is the Task Force's conclusion really another way of saying that the reason to do away with a procedure that can be the difference between survival and dying is because the medical system cannot be counted on to do the tests and analyze their results in a competent way?

"Fraud". One dictionary describes it as "Dishonesty calculated for advantage". Only when it stringent burdens of proof are met does it fall to the standard of a criminal act that can result in fines and imprisonment. But manipulating those stringent requirements is what keeps many of those on the the top rungs of our financial ladder above the law. They have safe havens for people who could semantically, if not legally, be called "Frauds".

How else do we describe the bankers who conceal business practices that sneak large sums of money from unwitting customers who are left with no choice but to use their services?

What else do we call the pharmaceutical executives who peddle their concoctions at huge profit, fully aware they are neither safe nor effective? We're talking about the ones who coddle the doctors and obstruct the regulators to make sure they turn a blind eye toward the sometimes toxic dangers of their products.

How else do you describe the big business lobbying behemoths who dole out some of their limitless wealth to finance bogus studies for use in distorting public policy debate?

We can probably agree on a word that fits those few who get caught at it, like the poor guy at the US Chamber of Commerce, whose emails soliciting money for a phony economic analysis that would then be used to sabotage health care reform came into the possession of the Washington Post. But he doesn't really need an insult to add to the injury he'll suffer when his bosses get their hands on him for exposing their legalized fraud. There's that word again.

For that matter, the "F word" probably works to characterize those who have wormed their way into the administration who are really there to make sure no meaningful change takes place.

I'm on the program again this weekend. It broadcasts Friday, Saturday or Sunday, depending on the station, which means you must check local listings.

In re: the cases of those allegedly responsible for the 9/11 attacks and the other worst cases of terrorism against the United States, the question, plain and simply, is whether we in the United States are afraid.

Do defiantly admitted 9/11 mass murderer Kahlid Sheikh Mohammed and the four other defendants who will be tried in a New York court cause us to be so spooked by the threat their lunatic associates will attack, we are not able to properly adjudicate these matters at the scene of the despicable crimes?

Are we so scared we cannot defend our recent past actions we must continue to make exceptions to the normal proud legal traditions and go on rendering our punishments largely out of sight in an isolated prison in a remote part of Cuba or in other hell holes around the world?

Are we so unwilling to expose the abuse at Guantanamo, on what the world views as a "Devils Island" that we can't convene proper open trials in US courts?

Is our evidence gained there and elsewhere so tainted by torture and ineptitude that our legal system cannot not administer justice in these matters?

Those who believe the First Amendment should prohibit ANY ties between our government and religious organizations have gotten strong support for their arguments in recent days.

It seems that these deals with the angels have strings attached that fly right into the First Amendment’s prohibition against government’s ”
… establishment of religion…”

Last week it was the Catholic Bishops exerting their will into the health care debate. In effect, they were threatening to bring the massive reform legislation down if they could not impose their beliefs on abortion.

Now, in Washington, it’s the Archdiocese threatening to pull the plug on Catholic Charities. At issue: DC’s proposed same-sex marriage law that would prohibit discrimination against gays. Requiring equal treatment, in matters like benefits for employee would run afoul of church teachings.

The problem is that the Catholic Charities programs are a significant part of the social services infrastructure in the District. Their good works on behalf of children, the homeless, and so many others in need are an integral part of the safety net here, just as they are in some many cities. But now they’re threatening to cut the net.

If their contentions sound familiar it’s because they’re exactly like the ones heard in the black civil rights struggle when some other leaders from other churches claimed that racial oppression was justified in The Bible and/or ordained by God.

Many of us have gone through the misery of home renovation. One lesson that we learn from bitter experience is to never again trust the contractors’ time estimates. The job will ALWAYS take longer than what they promise. And cost more too. One can only hope the house doesn’t collapse in the process.

Which brings us to the chief contractor at Congress’ upper house, the U-S Senate. Majority Leader Harry Reid is now predicting that the health care legislation will be done before Christmas.

In fairness, he didn’t specify Christmas of what year. If he meant 2009, one might consider the possibility of an amendment that would require Senators to undergo random drug testing.

Give or take, we’re about six weeks away from Christmas, during which time the Senators have to shop around their competing views of what health care reform should be, or not be, or whether it should even be at all.

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If Nidal Hasan wanted to damage the United States with his vicious rampage at Ft. Hood, he may be succeeding more than his twisted mind ever dared hope. Not only has he left such sadness in the wake of his massacre, but he may have triggered anger that we will do something stupid and encourage authorities to intensify the intrusive snooping into our private lives.

Already we are seeing the finger pointing at intelligence operatives who were aware Hasan was in e-mail contact with an Al Qaeda operative.

How did they know? How do they ever know? Since 9/11, prying surveillance has become a fact of life for all of us.

Now the clamor is building to place blame on someone or something that allowed our domestic spies to ignore the so-called "warning signs" of possible terrorist connections their cyber sweeps had picked up major Hasan while sifting through everyone's communications. What naturally follows is a push to tighten the screws on our civil rights even more.

I'm on "Let's Consider the Source" tomorrow (Tuesday) evening at 7:30, Eastern on XM Radio Channel 133, Sirius 196

I am on MSNBC tomorrow (Sunday) morning at 9:30, Eastern, discussing the health care vote in the House

I'm on "White House Chronicles" this Friday, Saturday or Sunday, depending on the stations. Check local listings

Those who know me are aware I’ve always wanted to do the TV live shot where the anchor says “Now for a report on what this all means, here is Bob Franken. Bob, what does it all mean?”

To which I reply “Nothing, absolutely nothing”

Well the Tuesday off-year elections probably did mean something…actually somethings.

First of all, it means that those of us who think we have a clue would have new material to misinterpret in our columns and live shots

But it also says a lot about the state of play in politics right now and particularly about the players.

In Virginia and New Jersey, the Democrats displayed what it is they do best: implode. They got so caught up in their hubris after last year’s nationwide GOP forfeit, they decided it didn’t matter how dreadful their gubernatorial candidates were nor how tone deaf they had been in Washington. It mattered. What they did was send swing-vote independents fleeing in the other direction. So now there are two added Republican governors, two subtracted Democratic ones.

It’s not that Republicans are immune from self-destructive tendencies. Look no further than the Canadian border…uppest state New York where the Grand Old Party was sabotaged by the Tea Party purists. Goodbye swing voters. The voters in the state’s 23rd Congressional district were so offended they did the unthinkable: they elected a Democrat.

What this means, in other words, is that people are fed up with the whole bunch of these guys.

Whatever. Pronounced “WUT-’EVAH!!”. However you say it, the thought pretty much captures the surly mind set of most Americans a year after Barack Obama inspired a glimmer of hope in “Change You Can Believe In”.

No matter who is to blame, what most have seen since then is “change” all right, the nation’s problems, staring with the economy got much worse. And as country tries to claw out of collapse, the only ones who are really benefiting so far are the super-rich, the ones who got us into this mess to begin with.

And what do we see from our esteemed leaders? Whether they’re dealing with the economy, or desperately needed health care reform, we are treated the same old silly political games, or so it seems…the same old cheap shot sound bites, the same old money-buys-influence lawmaking… same circus, same clowns.

Chances are you’ve been following the Washington Redskins epic lately. You don’t have to be a football fan to be fascinated by the story of a team owner who has managed in 10 short years to squander generations of goodwill from an area that came together on little besides the adoration of the Redskins. That has been frittered away thanks to one lousy decade of astoundingly inept management under owner Dan Snyder.

What’s so amazing is the intensity of anger directed at Snyder. When those watching from their grossly overpriced seats aren’t booing the team, which is remarkable in in itself, they are turning to the owner’s box and chanting “Sell the Team. Sell the Team!!”, or “Fire Snyder!!” (Full disclosure: I am one of those who has paid to be in the stands)

Why are so many so wrought up about this that the team suddenly decided to ban all signs carried by spectators into the stadium, presumably out of fear poor Dan would be embarrassed by what the television cameras showed. Perhaps the answer is that he is a symbol for all the management fat cats who have also run our entire economy into the ground and actually added to their wealth in the process, while most of us have seen the bottom fall out. He is not only in the NFL, but in a league with mortgage bankers, health insurers and all the other Snidely Whiplashes of modern America.

What possibly could the Fox News executive and President Obama's press secretary have to talk about? Surely they weren't negotiating some sort of truce to end the silly War of Petulance the President's peeps have declared on Fox. Say it ain't so.

Were they describing some sort of quid pro quo? Did the administration offer to recognize that news media have the right to be critical of a president no matter how little he is used to it? Did the Fox guy offer to lighten up, to be a little less shrill about FNC's biases. Does this mean there will be no more " Tea Parties"? Let's hope not.

Let's be clear: The Tea Parties are partially the contrivance of a network that has mad geniuses in its PR department. After all it manipulated the thin skins at the White House to do the one thing that would inspire even more survivalists to watch. It singled out Fox for punishment. Never did punishment feel so good.

I

There's a song by the blues ensemble "Fathead" with a terrific title: "First Class Riff-Raff". I would call it to the attention of all our big headed politicians who get so caught up in their delusions of grandeur they dpn't remember how Americans see them: as First Class Riff Raff.

It's easy for them to forget that the their esteem and the terrific honorifics are merely the reflected glory of their offices. We chose them after they probably went through demeaning gyrations in order to be elevated onto their government pedestals. So it's easy to understand why we take great delight in knocking them off.

They take quite a pounding, particularly from the relentless criticism and second guessing of the media.

That brings to mind another piece of music: "Send in the Clowns". Let's face it, the news biz is saturated with ill-informed bombast and triviality that masquerades as journalism. It's not entirely that way, but oftentimes, the substance is drowned out by the noise and blotted out by superficiality. This abandonment of the mission to inform has been accelerated by the desperate efforts to keep up with the internet.

So it's easy to understand why a political leader, say a President of the United States, might get a little thin-skinned after awhile, weary of trying to match wits with nitwits. All this static interferes with his message.

We're hearing a lot of squealing from some of those who wallow around in the financial sector on behalf of the executives whose fat, make that bloated, compensation has been cut.

We're talking about the leaders at companies that needed to feed at the public trough to avoid going belly up. They received billions upon billions to help make sure they didn't finish crushing the economy. Now the government is weighing in and slashing their pay.

What is being herd on Wall Street, first of all, is the usual clamor over government interference, as if the bailouts were not. But just as widespread is the threat that the most talented will simply leave these corporations and lard over greener pastures elsewhere.

It's a strange argument, considering many of those whose salaries, stock packages and perks are being cut, are the very same ones who almost brought their companies to ruin. They got rich dragging the rest of us into a barren future. So many will ask "What's the big deal? Let 'em leave!"

For the moment, however, let's assume they can scamper away to enterprises out of the reach of the "Pay Czar" and the other awakening regulators...that they can continue to feed their greed, while so many others are struggling to feed their families.

You’ve heard this before. It doesn’t matter whether those of us who fancy ourselves politically informed are right or wrong when we pontificate. No one really pays close enough attention to remember, and certainly we don’t. It’s a great gig.

Well, I hope you’re sitting down, because this pundit-wanna bee is about to utter something that would otherwise knock you off your feet: ”I might have been wrong”

There. I said it. I feel much better now. Except I may end up being wrong about being wrong.

Right now you’re probably asking yourself “What in heaven’s name is he talking about?”. It’s a fair question and it deserves an answer. Finally.

This is about the Public Option and my prediction there was no way in the world the all-powerful insurance industry would allow its paid lackeys in Washington to enact one to compete with them and loosen their choke-hold on health care coverage. There was no way that they and their limitless money for “campaign contributions” and deceptive advertising would allow passage of a government alternative to its evil ways.

Well, they got cocky. Perhaps they overplayed their hand…with their HEAVY-handed attempt to frighten the White House and the Congressional negotiators. The Senate Finance Committee, remember, hadthe audacity to suggest a plan, MINUS that Public Option, mind you, that might make it more difficult for them to continue making their absurd profits for dismal performance.

Let’s get this straight. Some of those who oppose relaxing marijuana laws complain that it will mean even more dollars will flow to the drug cartels in Mexico. In other words, it’s like oil, where we are also beholden to foreign countries to meet our demands.

It doesn’t have to be this way. In the very same way that we try to create “Energy Independence”, searching out home-grown sources of power, we can do the same thing with pot…call it “Lethargy Independence”.

This is America people!! Surely we can focus on our innovative spirit to come up with ways to solve both problems.

FROM POLITICO:

The Democrats have just fired their biggest guns at the insurance industry but unfortunately they are shooting very loud blanks.

That's what they did Wednesday, when the the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing entitled “Prohibiting Price Fixing and Other Anticompetitive Conduct in the Health Insurance Industry.” The target is the McCarran-Ferguson Act.

There is no way in the world that the insurance companies are going to allow Congress to repeal McCarran-Ferguson, even though it really does allow their. "Price Fixing and Other Anticompetitive Conduct..." The insurance industry is the only one, other than Major League Baseball that gets a pass from anti-trust enforcement.

But don't expect the majority in Congress to play ball with those who are serious about getting rid of that exemption, even though the ever-quotable Sen. Chuck Schumer called it "...one of the worst accidents in American history..."

It was no accident at all. The McCarran Ferguson Act has been with us since 1945 when when the industry got Washington's willing lawmakers to reinstate the industry's immunities from federal regulation after the Supreme Court, a year before, had overturned the apple cart of special treatment insurers had gotten since right after the Civil War.

I mean, what was Rush Limbaugh thinking? Did he really believe that his comments about race that many consider outright bigotry would be forgotten...particularly in a league where two thirds of the rosters are African-American?

Was he really surprised that superstar Donovan McNabb had not forgotten Limbaugh's assessment just six years ago that he was "...overrated... because ".. what we have here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback can do well—black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well."

We he really surprised that McNabb and some other of the players were suggesting they would boycott the team, wouldn't show up to play? Is he surprised now that the people who want to buy into the NFL have dumped him?

This was one of those rare cases where Congresswoman Shelia Jackson-Lee had made an understatement on the House floor. Rush Limbaugh " is not", she said, "someone who brings people together".

That is true. Unless we count the fact that Limbaugh has brought Democrats together in opposition to his dream of getting a stake in a football team. Uniting Democrats is no easy task, just ask President Obama.

Limbaugh is not an understatement type either, thundering "I wonder if Ms. Jackson Lee to have any regard for the truth. Does she have any regard for hoping, desiring to sound intelligent and knowledgeable, or is she content to be happy and proud to go the floor of the House of Representatives and make a fool of herself?

The question here was who was making a fool of whom?

What is such fun about Washington is we get to be unbound by any reality. Words, for instance, have no meaning. Nor do alliances, promises or anything that normal people use as guideposts to understand what's going on. Here in DC Fantasyland, there is nothing to understand, so we are permitted to conjure up any explanation we wish.

Case in point: Karen Ignagni: She is president of America's Health Insurance Plans, the lobbying enforcer for the health insurance mob, as the name suggests. For the last several months, we have been told that this time, the industry would be allied with the Obama White House and the other special interests in creating some sort of reform...not like the last go around when their "Harry and Louise" ads brought the Clintons' efforts down in flames. They took a seat at the negotiating table. Now we discover that they were probably using it as a vantage point to choose the right moment to sabotage the whole thing from the inside.

AHIP (we're big on acronyms here), has commissioned an anything-for-a-payoff accounting firm, Pricewaterhouse-Coopers to concoct a study that concludes the average American will end up paying more for health insurance under many of the planned reforms than they would otherwise.

They've been roundly attacked by the Democrats for a less-than-honest analysis, based on a very selective use of assumptions. Even Price-Waterhouse is backing off a bit in embarrassment, because the firm is looking kind of like the author of a medical study that is paid for by a drug company. Among the assumptions, the absence of a public option as an alternative to insurance companies.

Is it me or does anyone else have an impression that White House Communications Director Anita Dunn has a second job...that she is a public relations spokesperson for Fox News? What else would possess her to declare that FNC is not a news organization at all but "...often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party".

What else could she possibly utter that would cause the right wingnuts and any others not enamored of the Obama administration to lock their TV remotes on the network's channel wherever they live? It's hard to imagine a siren song more seductive to them. Rupert Murdoch and/or Roger Ailes surely sent her flowers after she said that.

The only other possibility is that the Obama group is so bent-out-of-shape when someone doesn't follow the message-of-the-day that its members don't realize that they are downright petulant

It doesn't matter that Fox is generally slanted toward the right...shamelessly so. Even though there are many fine journalists who work there, the story selection and tone during straight news reporting is almost always conservative, to say nothing of the bulk of its "personalities", guests, and most blatantly, its strategy of becoming a megaphone for the partisans who organize contrivances like the so-called "Tea Parties".

That's what happens when news business becomes show business. That's what happens when the corporate decisions have nothing whatsoever to do with a responsibility to adequately informed those who vote and everything to do with currying favor with one mass of true believers or another. Those of the conservative persuasion are just as convinced that other media, particularly MSNBC, are nothing but shills for the Democrats, and they too can make a persuasive case.

I'm on MSNBC tomorrow (Sunday) at 9:00 AM, Eastern

When Barack Obama steps on the stage to accept " The Prize", and shouts, in his rock star way, "HELLO COPENHAGEN!!! and a chagrined aide whispers in his ear that he's in Oslo, it won't be that hard to understand.

Just a week earlier President Obama was flying back from Copenhagen when he got the embarrassing news that his efforts to get the Olympics for hometown Chicago had been harshly rejected, even after his personal appearance.

Just seven days later from another Scandinavian capitol,Oslo, comes the altogether surprising news he has won the Nobel Peace prize. That is what his basketball buddies would call a "rebound" He didn't even have to show up.

In fact, it's less than a year since he's really shown up on the world stage and he's already won the Tony Award for his role as peacemaker...way before he's made any peace.

The Nobel committee cited his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international cooperation and diplomacy between peoples". The announcement specified his outreach to the Muslim world and efforts to stop nuclear proliferation.

Sometimes the choice of what is news reveals way than the stories themselves. Sometimes they give us a clear look at the social perspective of those who make journalistic decisions. The front pages of our two so-called “Papers of Record” gave us a particularly revealing comparison of what their editors considered important, at least on Tuesday.

In the New York Times, the headline was “Lavish Door to Food Is Shut in Magazine World”. In the same spot in the Washington Post it was “Identity Crisis Accompanies Va. Family’s Financial Slide” The Times was mourning the loss of Gourmet Magazine, which is being shut down after “…a rich history…that lived and sold the high life”. The Post meanwhile was chronicling a middle class family that has suddenly been thrust by the economy into homeless and “depths they had never imagined”, The quotes are from each article.

What a juxtaposition! These were just single news articles, but their placement on the front page speak (or in this case write) volumes about what the editors at the New York Times consider important. A magazine devoted to finest foods versus the spreading plague of those who are desperately seeking their sustenance from food banks. Not that the Washington Post always gets its journalistic priorities straight, but on this Tuesday it kicked the stuffing (pardon the pun) out of the Times.

I'll be on XM (Ch 130)-Sirius (110) Radio this afternoon (Wednesday) at 12:15, Eastern to talk Afghanistan

Defense Secretary Robert Gates obviously works very hard at being inscrutable. He is a definite adherent to the “Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick” approach. So when he gently suggests in a speech that President Obama’s advisers should deliver their advice “candidly but privately” you can bet he’s swinging a club at General Stanley McChrystal.

McChrystal was anything but private with his insistence the US needs to send thousands more troops into harm’s way on the treacherousAfghanistan battlefield he commands.

Now his boss is going public himself, putting his usual placid face on some candid advice he had on his general and his military colleagues who have also gone semi-defiantly public to spread the word they favor, as they so often do, emphasizing force before finesse, this time in Afghanistan.

The “advice” from Gates? Candidly? ”Shut the hell up. Remember who’s boss.” And Gates made it clear he was also speaking to the civilians at the administration’s top levels who were also seeing to it, their private counsel to the president was anything but private. Were you listening Vice President Biden? Biden, as we know, is opposing heavy troop commitments.

Let's face it, Oak Street Beach in Chicago is no Impanema. Where Rio De Janiero has its Bossa Nova tradition, Chicago is better known for its "Boss of Bosses" history. Whatever the reason, the International Olympic Committee has chosen Rio to host the 2016 games, handing the United States' Celebrity-in-Chief a bit of embarrassment.

That's Oprah Winfrey, of course, who had also brought Barack and Michelle Obama to play like Chamber of Commerce boosters. But it wasn't enough. The members of the IOC, who are not that keen on the U-S anyway, finally succumbed to the samba song of Rio, after tossing Chicago out in the first round of its final deliberations. It wasn't the Second City, it was Fourth.

The rap against Rio is security. The place is dangerous as hell. But Chicago is no great shakes in the crime department either. Besides, South America has never had an Olympics before. The last two in North America were in Salt Lake City, where the Winter Olympics struggled with a bribery scandal and Atlanta, which struggled with someone who tried to blow up the place.

I'm on "White House Chronicles" Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. It depends on your local station. So check the listings if you want to watch.

They are called the President’s “War Council”. Perhaps the more accurate name would be “Face Saving Council”.

As the President and his national security “Principles” meet in the White House to discuss how to move ahead with Afghanistan, the best question, the most fundamental question is not on that round table in the Situation Room: If we were starting fresh, what would we do if we were deciding how to send forces and IF.

Of course that’s not the case, any more than it is in Iraq, and arguably the Afghanistan invasion was more justified than the Iraq foolhardiness, which by the way, depleted the military resources that might have helped do the job in Afghanistan.

But for that reason, and more importantly a combination of negligence and distractions combined with incompetent miscalculations, here we are, too hopelessly entangled to merely cut the knot. Put another way, simply pulling out is not an option.

If we did, the same mortal enemies of the United States, Al Qaeda would simply return to their safe havens provided by the same insane Taliban who would quickly overrun the weak, corrupt, unpopular leaders who were no longer propped up by their naive benefactors from NATO.

These ruthless Taliban fanatics would then have free rein to resume brutalize their countrymen and worst of all their countryWOMEN.

Now that we’re there, it would be unconscionable to abandon Afghanistan and let these despicable thugs wreak their vengeance and once again enslave the country.

For the moment, let's step past the battle over a Government Option as competition for the private insurance companies. The real problem is that there would still be that private option.

Unless, we eliminate the revenue-obsessed insurance companies and adopt a single-payer system in this country, which most are loathe to do, it would be difficult for profit and non-profit to co-exist.

Under such an arrangement, insurance companies would find ways to offer their policies only to the most healthy, those least likely to need a payout from their medical coverage. Their lawyers would find ways to circumvent any restrictions on covering those with pre-existing conditions and canceling those customers once they get sick.

They would use the public plans as their dumping grounds, to put in bluntly, by tossing out anybody who would threaten the next quarterly report.

It's fascinating how this might be the mirror image of what happens in countries that rely on government health insurance the reflection would be backwards.

While the people of Canada, for instance, like to laud it over the United States for its government run systems, many citizens sometimes get frustrated with the delays in optional and semi-optional care.

The well off can head south of the border and pay extra for exactly what they want, when they want it in the US...exercising, in effect, their PRIVATE option.

I'm on "White House Chronicles" which is on Friday, Saturday and/or Sunday, depending on the market. Check your listings.

I moderated a program, taped at the Newseum about the Cold War called "The Wall and the Media". It will run on PBS stations and NPR, but I have no earthly idea when. Check local listings.

While we used to debate how similar the Iraq War has been to Viet Nam, the Iraq misadventure is nowhere near the parallel universe that Afghanistan is. And we are being sucked in again.

With his insistence he needs more troops to emphasize protecting
Afghan civilians, General Stanley McChrystal sounds eerily like the commanders who assured us that a bigger military commitment would be necessary to "win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese".

And what about the US supported leaders? As the man said, "Here we go again". This time around it is Hamid Karzai who presides over a hopelessly corrupt system. Back then America's crook was Ngo Dinh Diem.

But what is most striking is each country's repeated rejection of foreign occupiers. The people of what was then called Indochina had just gotten through disgracing the French by driving them out when the United States became the next fool to rush in.

The motive then was a fear of communism spreading through the entire region...what was called the "Domino Effect", where Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, all the other countries, would fall to the "Red Menace", one after the other.

We ended up just like the French...fleeing in defeat and suffering a national humiliation that scars us to this day.

President Barack Obama: You are about to set the world record for presenting the same show on the most channels in the same day. The record is currently held, of course, by “Law and Order”. The only network where you will not be seen is Fox. And that Mr. President, is a crime.

Many of us in the reporter biz have always referred to the Sunday interview programs as the “Game Shows”. It’s unfortunate that this Sunday, you, President Obama, are playing games with just one of them.

It doesn’t matter that many, particularly on the left, consider Fox News an instigator of the right wing extremists and a megaphone for their wildest fringe fantasies. The fact is that with its boffo ratings, it fits well within what is now the dismal definition of news media.

As a matter of principle, President Obama, you should include Fox in this Sunday’s merry-go-round of interview show appearances and make the dizzying saturation complete.

First of all, by boycotting only that major national network you are allowing it to trumpet the kind of victim hood that attracts the beehive of loonies like honey. So it’s a tactical error to indulge your obvious pique at the unfair and unbalanced coverage of your administration.

Beyond that, you shouldn’t need the lecture about how media are not supposed to be wrapped around your little finger as they sometimes were in the campaign. It’s probably been an adjustment for you as journalists have rediscovered we’re supposed to be skeptical of everyone, including you.

In addition, Chris Wallace is a good solid reporter, who will ask the tough but fair questions. He should get that chance…certainly before David Letterman does.

FROM POLITICO:

I’m amazed at how we have all gotten sucked into the health care debate over a “public option.” People, there is not going to be a public option. There was never going to be. That was just a red herring, created by Rahm Emanuel or someone else in the White House who likes to play mind games with those who lose their minds at the prospect. It’s a decoy; it’s not real. Get over it.

Between the lines of President Barack Obama’s health care speech last week before Congress, it was clear there will still be only one option: the insurance company option. Even those who had been allowed to take their chances with no coverage, particularly the young, will lose that option. They will be required to buy policies. The insurance giants will be swollen with even more billions in revenue. No wonder they have been playing ball with the White House.

What does the president, and what do we, get in return?

Insurance companies will not be allowed to deny coverage to those who have “pre-existing conditions.”

Be very careful about this one. After all the final secret deals are made, will the lobbyists have succeeded with slipping in language that permits the companies to still impose prohibitively higher rates? Will the proposed requirement that they cannot cancel a policy after someone gets sick contain a similar loophole that allows them to charge much more?

How naive we were on January 20th to believe that the inauguration of Barack Obama marked the time when had gotten over racial prejudice. We have clearly not.

Instead, wherever we turn, we witness widespread intolerance, much of it real, some of it perceived, all of it the continuing preoccupation of a country that cannot stop looking at a President in terms of black and white.

It’s hard not to notice the sea of nearly all white faces in the various “Tea Parties” and “Taxpayer Protests” or the blatant caricatures and characterizations on the signs they carry and in the hatred of President Obama spewing from those at the irrational health care town meetings.

They are whipped into a frenzy by the bigoted undertones of their champions like Glenn Beck and the other commentators along with the political demagogues that have become leaders of the fringe’s mainstream.

They cheer lustily at the shameless charge of lying on the House floor shouted at this President by Joe Wilson, the Congressman from the South Carolina Low Country (is “South Carolina Low Country” a political redundancy?)

Even though we’ve moved way beyond E mails with Texting,Instant Messages, Twitter, Facebook and what have U, Emails are still in play. But we have never understood what they really say.

So as another in my series of vital public services, I am interpreting the language of Electronic Mail…what the words actually mean:

“Dear Jim:I hope you are well”
(”Actually, I couldn’t care less. This is about me”)

“I thought it was time to catch up”
(”Why the hell haven’t you answered my previous Emails”)

“I’d love to get together to bounce some ideas off of you”
(”I am desperate for a job. Can we please talk?”)

“I’ve been meaning to get in touch since we had that tremendous conversation at the professional conference”
(”You might not remember a thing about it because you were totally wasted”)

“I came away thinking this is somebody I need to meet with again”
(”Actually it was a good thing you were drunk most the time, because sober, you’re a crashing bore. The truth is I came away thinking I would forever avoid you like the plague. But I had a job then. My standards are in the toilet now” )

“I’ve attached my resume”
(”Which should get a Pulitzer Prize for fiction”)

“And nothing would please me more than meeting you for lunch.”
(”That and being water boarded.)”

Warmest Regards”
(”Answer my damned E-mail“)

“John Doe CEO, FSE”
(”Chief Executive Officer, Face Saving Entity”)