Sarah Palin, Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh have figured out what progressive media–including this publication–have not. If only heard and commented upon by their own audiences, like Fox and their radiostations and Facebook page, they would not amount to very much.

In fact, their utterances are designed mostly to get a hearing by the progressive media. Ed Schultz does “psychotalk”. Keith Olbermann has “worst people in the world”. Liberal bloggers and Rachel Maddow take unending delight in pointing out the hypocrisy, stupidity, factlessness of their pronouncements.

That is exactly what they want.

They play the media and progressive bloggers like violins. What does Limbaugh say when Palin’s book is released? “This is clearly a woman who loves policy”. Predictably, and instantly, cable news and the blogosphere become apoplectic. [I am told there is little if anything in the book about policy]. Limbaugh was rewarded with dishonorable mentions, exactly the publicity he craves, while Schultz/Olbermann/Matthews/Maddow believed, erroneously, that they had “explained” to Limbaugh’s listeners what a crock of BS he is.

They do not care.

The mistake “we” make is to assume that these people are actually as embarrassed as you or I would be to make such absurd statements. They have no capacity for embarrassment–or, as an old saying goes, they cry all the way to the bank. Indeed, the more they are pilloried, the higher their stock among the faithful because it shows to their faithful that they are consequential people; and, if you are consequential, what you are saying must have merit, mustn’t it?

It is not rightwing talk radio or Fox, but the progressive cable networks and the netroots that give them their cache.

What about a different approach? One in which no one mentions either their names or their nonsense outside of their own little world? What would happen?

First, they will become even more idiotic, tempting, tempting, tempting the media to report their pronouncements. Then, they will become angry for lack of coverage. Eventually, they will be greatly diminished.

Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) basked in the limelight until he was censured by the Senate. With his gavel gone and the cameras off, he became distraught, bitter, and alcoholic.

Today, McCarthy would have received a cushy position at the Heritage Foundation, where he would have the opportunity of interacting with like-minded people, and appear on Fox as an expert on Communism. With all the communists surrounding Obama (I think Valerie Jarret’s grandmother once knew one, so q.e.d), he would be back in his element. Such a perch might have saved him from alcoholism and premature death (age 48, just 30 months after censure). But it would never be the same for him.

Ignore Sarah, Rush and Glen and they will become just what they are–inconsequential, spewing hatred and nonsense to their fellow travelers. If Heritage and other rightwing belief tanks want to purchase advance copies of their “books” to make it appear as if they are widely read and influential, let them.

And, no, we do not have to “expose” them for fear, like the Hitler they refer to, their views will become widely adopted. There are many others on the right fringe that espouse similar views, and the ideas can be criticized, and hypocrisy revealed, without referring to the triumvirate.

We do not need to give them air or electronic print recognition to provide them ego-satisfaction and encouragement by thinking that we care about what they say, or do.

I urge this publication and like-minded ones not to write another article about what Palin said on her Facebook page, or what Beck hallucinated, or Limbaugh contrived. I also urge my fellow bloggers to resist the temptation to demonstrate their hypocrisy (and, yes, I have succumbed to this, once, myself, when Limbaugh was in hospital in Hawaii and declared it a great system), or idiocy. Hopefully, the cablenews networks will heed the call as well.

Eventually, these people will achieve the anonymity they so richly deserve.

Paul Abrams: Stop Covering Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, Inflating Their Stature via

In a preview for the show’s next season, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi laments that she doesn’t use tanning beds anymore because “Obama put a 10 percent tax on tanning.”

She says, “McCain would never put a 10 percent tax on tanning, because he’s pale and he would probably want to be tan.”

McCain, a skin cancer survivor, replied Wednesday on Twitter, saying “u r right, I would never tax your tanning bed! Pres Obama’s tax/spend policy is quite The Situation. but I do rec wearing sunscreen!”

Snooki replied: “Haha Yes!!”

The federal health care overhaul championed by Obama is funded in part with a 10 percent tax on tanning-bed services.

John McCain Backs Snooki’s Attack On Obama, Tanning-Bed Tax via

GOP: Gulf Oil Spill Shows Obama’s Lack Of Leadership via

Why The 2010 Elections Are A Lot Like A Reality Show via

The former two-term president may have finally found a role in Obama world after struggling to fit in after the caustic Democratic presidential campaign that sullied his reputation.

Clinton is heading up special projects for Haiti and outreach to North Korea for the White House. He was the closer in rural Pennsylvania last month, helping Democratic Rep. Mark Critz win a special election. His campaigning was a factor in Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s narrow victory in Tuesday’s Democratic runoff in Arkansas.

Now, he’s hoping to rally voters for vulnerable Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the swing state of Nevada. Clinton was the headliner at a rally Thursday night.

Democratic candidates up and down the ballot are requesting his help, seeking his backslapping politicking and high-dollar fundraising prowess. And there’s little doubt that this political creature is basking in the attention, if not coveting the opportunity to campaign for Democrats where President Barack Obama may not be as welcome.

“He is very effective,” said retiring Democratic Rep. Vic Snyder of Arkansas, who praised Clinton’s understanding that the party should be a big tent. Still, Snyder added: “He recognizes he’s not effective everywhere, and there are some places where he plays better than others.”

Just like there are some places where Obama plays better than others.

It’s not been easy for Clinton to find his political niche since Obama was elected in 2008 and instantly assumed the spot as the party’s top dog. The 63-year-old, still popular former president faced the challenge of trying to feed his love of politics – and of the spotlight – without upstaging the new guy.

And, of course, there were fences to mend with Obama following the bitter presidential primary that Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, lost.

Clinton’s image took a hit during the 2008 race after a series of campaign-trail outbursts. He called Obama’s opposition to the Iraq war a “fairy tale” and questioned whether the first-term Illinois senator had the experience to lead the country. Clinton fumed that Obama’s campaign “played the race card on me” after Clinton had compared Obama’s success in South Carolina to that of Jesse Jackson, a parallel that black leaders suggested was dismissive.

Clinton later delivered a full-throated endorsement of Obama at the Democratic convention and then campaigned for the nominee. Obama tapped Hillary Clinton for secretary of state.

Since Obama took office, Clinton has focused on his foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative, though he’s gradually returned to politics.

Clinton accepted Obama’s request to lead private sector fundraising efforts for earthquake-ravaged Haiti, along with former President George W. Bush. And he visited North Korea to press for – and ultimately win – the release of two jailed Americans.

He was less successful when he served as a White House intermediary to dangle a part-time government position in front of Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter’s primary challenger in hopes he would drop his candidacy. Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak refused and won last month’s primary.

With increasing frequency, officials say Clinton has made himself available for more political activity – aides say he gets more requests than he can fill – and party leaders have called on him for help in specific races. They are mindful that Clinton, like Vice President Joe Biden, appeals to certain voters in places where Obama may not be as warmly received.

“We look at where we believe he can be helpful, and we are thrilled that he has been so willing to do so,” said New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, who leads the Senate Democrats’ campaign effort. “We look forward to his continuing engagement.”

Clinton spokesman Matt McKenna said Clinton “looks forward to being helpful around the country in the fall.”

Obama has watched his once sky-high job performance rating fall to around 50 percent. He’s pushed forward a sweeping agenda of government expansion and spending that’s given heartburn to many moderate and independent voters. His style is more academic than Clinton, once dubbed Bubba.

More than two-thirds of the country had a favorable opinion of Clinton the last time his popularity was measured, in October. It’s been 10 years since he left office tainted by scandals over an affair with a White House intern and last-minute pardons. Clinton’s “I-feel-your-pain” drawl and hardscrabble upbringing often plays well in conservative parts of the country.

But using Clinton also carries risks. It’s an anti-establishment year and he epitomizes the Democratic establishment.

In Arkansas, Clinton backed Democrat Chad Causey for the nomination in the Arkansas primary race to succeed his former boss, the retiring Rep. Marion Berry – a former Clinton administration official. Causey had only a quarter of the ballot share before Clinton’s endorsement.

The ex-president helped Lincoln defeat Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. He campaigned for Lincoln and filmed an ad that laid out her central argument – that outside groups and labor unions angry at the centrist senator were trying to buy Arkansans’ votes.

Snyder said it was natural for Clinton, instead of Obama, to play such a large role for Lincoln. Clinton is a former governor who counts Lincoln as a longtime friend. Obama, conversely, bypassed the state during the primary and general election and doesn’t have much of a base there.

“Bill Clinton is clearly more effective than Barack Obama right now,” Snyder said – though he quickly added that his comment was specific to Arkansas.

____

Associated Press Writer Philip Elliott contributed to this report.

Bill Clinton Campaigning For Harry Reid In Nevada: Two ‘Comeback Kids’ On The Trail via

Now, you might be thinking to yourselves, “Wait, is this another one of those political media back-and-forth bitchfests about how first the White House is denying access to reporters, and then, the wind changes direction and suddenly, the new meme is that the White House is on teevee, with reporters, way too much?” You know what? I wouldn’t think less of you if you did think that. Lord knows we’ve been on that carousel numerous times the past year and a half.

But no, that’s not the case. That would have, at the very least, substance-like substance! No, this article is about what happens when you are in desperate need of the thinnest of pretexts to run a photo of shirtless White House staffers in the hopes that you can tie it to some hysterical “big picture” claptrap.

When two White House aides last weekend stripped off their shirts for an afternoon of drinking with friends at a Georgetown bar, there was widespread agreement that it exposed something — beyond the pectorals of speechwriter Jon Favreau and press aide Tommy Vietor — about Washington in the age of Barack Obama.

OH, REALLY? What was it? Tell us! We are dying to know!

There was no agreement about what that something was.

Oh, for f-ck’s sake!

Conservative critics said it showed the young Obama crowd needs to get a clue. By these lights, the bare-chested drinking showed the aides acting like — and, thanks to a photo posted on the Web, looking like — frat boys in the midst of two wars and the Gulf oil spill.

Oh, yeah, you know, I’m sure every single staffer on the GOP side of Congress spent their weekend sequestered in their Chambers of Rue, veiled in black, sitting shiva over the Gulf Oil Spill tragedy, hoping against hope that Paul Ryan would be able to tax cut that goldurned hole shut! I’m sure that Representative Gregg Harper (R-Miss.) is going to cancel tonight’s “Mississippi Fish Fry” in light of the fact that so many of Mississippi’s actual fish are choking to death, on chemical dispersant!

West Wing defenders said it showed Obama bashers need to get a life. Do they really have nothing better to carp about than a couple of friends enjoying a day off?

Why shouldn’t they carp, when Politico will just run a story, about their brainless carping?

But some White House observers said the episode revealed something else: The Obama team needs to get an Evelyn Lieberman.

Who now?

Lieberman made an unwanted cameo on the public stage during the Clinton years, when she became briefly famous as the White House staff member who tried to shoo Monica Lewinsky away from Bill Clinton after she noticed that the intern seemed to be “spending too much time around the West Wing.”

Okay, and how well did Lieberman do?

Lieberman ostentatiously failed in that mission.

OH, WELL, GREAT. Why is it that of all the “White House observers” in the world, Politico only seems to know the ones that are thundering dipshits?

If such bare-chested behavior had occurred in the West Wing, “Evelyn would have said the same thing she’d say to women in the White House whose skirts were too short,” said Jennifer Palmieri, a deputy White House press secretary during the Clinton years. “She would say, ‘Excuse me, I think you forgot your skirt.’ In this case she would say, ‘Excuse me, I believe you forgot your shirt.’” However, Palmieri said even White House aides get a longer leash for what happens in a bar on a weekend afternoon.

AND THAT IS WHEN I CLICKED “CLOSE TAB.” I mean, that is one whole page of nothing but meandering equivocation and nonsense. (It goes on, into the wasteland of lost time, for two more pages)/

Inexplicably, it took two writers to produce an article this pointless. And one of them is editor-in-chief John F. Harris! Meanwhile, Politico’s gossip site, Click, has an article up on a documentary film about redistricting. It’s like two universes have just swapped places.

Anyway, this is why there is a section in my living will that reads, “Any perceived willingness to work for Politico should be treated as de facto evidence of brain death; do not resuscitate.”

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Shirtless Beer-Drinking White House Staffers Become Politico ‘Big Picture’ Story via

It’s up to Wayne County Circuit Judge David Groner to decide if Kilpatrick will go.

Corrections spokesman Russ Marlan said Wednesday that the agency sent Groner a letter stating Kilpatrick’s eligibility.

Groner sentenced Kilpatrick to up to five years in prison last month for violating probation stemming from his conviction for lying under oath about an affair. Kilpatrick was expected to serve at least 14 months.

Marlan says those who complete the boot camp automatically receive parole. It includes military-style exercise and work assignments.

Kwame Kilpatrick Boot Camp: Former Detroit Mayor Could Reduce Prison Time With Boot Camp via

• She grew up in New York
• She’s worked in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Cambridge, Massachusetts
• She’s studied in Oxford, England
• She loves the theater
• She participated in a book club that included journalists, attorneys, an expert on health care and one on equal opportunity, where she was regarded as ‘ultra-bright’ and with ‘a wonderful quirky humor’
• She’s been described as ‘more interested in what other people were working on than in talking policy or spinning’
• She was the student editor of the newspaper when she was at Princeton
• She can show great warmth and humor in her interactions with people who are very different from her politically
• She’s a fan of opera
• She’s run a department of 50 people
• She’s argued cases before the Supreme Court
• She’s owned a wonderful home of her own
• She has ties to the Clintons
• She loves books and has collected hundreds of them
• She entertains often
• She’s good at poker
• When she was interviewed for a job as President of Harvard and did not get it, ‘hundreds of law school students threw her a surprise party to celebrate still having her as their dean’
• She’s considered a loyal and totally trusted friend, there at times of crisis or during celebrations
• ‘She reads books about Afghanistan while on summer vacation.’
• She’s President Obama’s candidate to become the next Supreme Court justice
• Since her nomination, she’s visited with 61 senators
• Oh, and she’s only 50 years old

To confirm what you already know, the article is about Elena Kagan, who has always been single and has no children.

You may want to skim that bulleted list once more before reading the Washington Post‘s summary of its story:

“Kagan has many achievements, but her world has been relatively narrow.”

Maybe the characterization of Kagan’s world as “narrow” has nothing to do with the fact that she has always been single and has no children. When I was writing Singled Out, though, I found that [continue reading here].

Bella DePaulo: If This Were Your Life, Would You Consider It ‘Relatively Narrow’? via

]]> http://clickecart.com/bella-depaulo-if-this-were-your-life-would-you-consider-it-relatively-narrow/06/2052.html/feed 0 http://clickecart.com/david-isenberg-nothing-is-too-good-for-our-boys-yeah-right/06/2051.html http://clickecart.com/david-isenberg-nothing-is-too-good-for-our-boys-yeah-right/06/2051.html#comments Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:00:11 +0000 Kelly Smith http://clickecart.com/david-isenberg-nothing-is-too-good-for-our-boys-yeah-right/06/2051.html After decades of observation since my four years in the U.S. Navy I generally believe that when it comes to U.S. military personnel, both active duty and veterans, that while most people are happy to talk about the sacrifices of military personnel it is, in the end, mostly talk.

After the obligatory commentary about the nation’s heroes and the rhetoric about their “heroic sacrifice” most people operate on the out of sight, out of mind principle. Of course, every now and then a scandal comes along to remind people how reality doesn’t live up to rhetoric.

In early 2007 we had the scandal resulting from a series of allegations of unsatisfactory conditions and management at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

The New York Times reported April 24 that Fort Carson’s Warrior Transition Battalion, a special unit created to provide closely managed care for soldiers with physical wounds and severe psychological trauma, is far from being a restful sanctuary. “For many soldiers, they have become warehouses of despair, where damaged men and women are kept out of sight, fed a diet of powerful prescription pills and treated harshly by noncommissioned officers. Because of their wounds, soldiers in Warrior Transition Units are particularly vulnerable to depression and addiction, but many soldiers from Fort Carson’s unit say their treatment there has made their suffering worse.”

And now, once again, the cycle continues. As Karl Marx argued, history repeats itself “occurring first as tragedy, the second time as farce.” The latest example are the stunning findings that “The military medical system is failing to diagnose brain injuries in troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, many of whom receive little or no treatment for lingering health problems,” according to an investigation by National Public Radio and ProPublica.

So-called mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) has been called one of the wars’ signature wounds. Shock waves from roadside bombs can ripple through soldiers’ brains, causing damage that sometimes leaves no visible scars but may cause lasting mental and physical harm.

It was bad enough, as ProPublica and NPR previously reported, that in the past the military has failed to diagnose brain injuries in troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is far worse that now even soldiers who are diagnosed with such injuries often do not receive the treatment they need.

Most specialists say it is critical for patients who show lingering effects from head trauma to get intensive therapy as soon as possible. In the civilian world, such therapy is increasingly seen as the best way to minimize permanent damage, helping to retrain the mind to compensate for deficits.

Yet brain-injured soldiers at Fort Bliss have had to wait weeks and sometimes months just to get appointments with doctors, medical records show. Many have received far less therapy than is typical at well-regarded civilian clinics. In some instances, Fort Bliss medical officers have suggested that the soldiers are malingerers or that the main root of their cognitive problems is psychological.
…

It is impossible for civilians to know how Fort Bliss’ care for brain-injured soldiers compares in quality or scale to that of other bases. Base officials would not give ProPublica and NPR data on how many soldiers are being treated there and the Pentagon would not provide this information for bases elsewhere.

Fort Bliss — the third-largest base in the U.S. military and a vital nerve center for deploying and returning troops — is supposed to be among the best. In 2007, the Pentagon designated it as one of 20 bases nationally that would develop augmented treatment programs for traumatic brain injury.

Yet while base commanders have spent more than $3 billion to expand and improve Fort Bliss over the past several years, they have directed just $5 million to facilities and clinicians to treat TBI. The program had no full-time director until October 2009. A neuropsychologist was hired only recently, after a two-year search.

Among the NPR/ProPublica findings:

• From the battlefield to the home front, the military’s doctors and screening systems routinely miss brain trauma in soldiers. One of its tests fails to catch as many as 40 percent of concussions, a recent unpublished study concluded. A second exam, on which the Pentagon has spent millions, yields results that top medical officials call about as reliable as a coin flip.
• Even when military doctors diagnose head injuries, that information often doesn’t make it into soldiers’ permanent medical files. Handheld medical devices designed to transmit data have failed in the austere terrain of the war zones. Paper records from Iraq and Afghanistan have been lost, burned or abandoned in warehouses, officials say, when no one knew where to ship them.
• Without diagnosis and official documentation, soldiers with head wounds have had to battle for appropriate treatment. Some received psychotropic drugs instead of rehabilitative therapy that could help retrain their brains. Others say they have received no treatment at all, or have been branded as malingerers.

It all seems dreadfully familiar. There is the usual ritualistic outrage on the part of the public and Congress and pundits; denials and lame explanations by the military, calls for action, investigations, and recommendations for improvement.

One wonders where all the usual rightwing and neoconservative suspects are, who are happy to pelt one with endless papers on the need to send U.S. military personnel off to war, when it comes to giving the slightest damn about caring for the wounded. Where is the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, Center for Security Policy, Committee on the Present Danger, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Hoover Institution, and National Interest, to name a few? Oh, I forgot; they’re too busy advocating an attack on Iran to give a crap.

David Isenberg: Nothing is Too Good For Our Boys. Yeah, Right! via

]]> http://clickecart.com/david-isenberg-nothing-is-too-good-for-our-boys-yeah-right/06/2051.html/feed 0 http://clickecart.com/jeff-danziger-steve-jobs-chinese-jobs/06/2030.html http://clickecart.com/jeff-danziger-steve-jobs-chinese-jobs/06/2030.html#comments Thu, 10 Jun 2010 01:00:21 +0000 Kelly Smith http://clickecart.com/jeff-danziger-steve-jobs-chinese-jobs/06/2030.html

Jeff Danziger: Steve Jobs, Chinese Jobs via

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