Melanie Phillips fillets out-of-touch female reporters in the Beltway, like Gloria Borger, who WON'T let facts get in the way of their asinine predictions about Newt Gingrich & women voters. She shoots and she scores!

In her Daily Mail blog post of Sunday titled, Well, what a surprise (not), Melanie Phillips quite properly fillets out-of-touch female reporters in the Beltway who WOULDN'T and WON'T let self-evident facts get in the way of their asinine predictions about Newt Gingrich & women voters, per the Marianne Gingrich contretemps of last week.


Predictably, longtime Washington Week in Review panelist Gloria Borger of CNN was among the most egregious of these disconnected talking heads for her asinine "women won't vote for Newt" comments of Thursday immediately following the debate in Charleston on CNN and then on Friday night on PBS.


Phillips , author of one of my favorite books of the past 20 years, 2006's Londonistan: How Britain is Creating a Terror State Within, wrote, in part:

All those who said the onslaught upon Gingrich by his ex-wife Marianne would leave him dead in the water, particularly among women, have been shown to be spectacularly out of touch. Gingrich actually won more women’s votes than his opponents.

She goes on to conclude that in the battle of Newt vs. Mitt, 

The gladiator in question may be flawed and far from ideal in a number of respects, but if he’s the only one who can fell his opponents rather than be felled by them, he wins.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://phillipsblog.dailymail.co.uk/2012/01/well-what-a-surprise-not.html

-----

C-SPAN video: Melanie Phillips - Londonistan. Heritage Foundation. May 10, 2006. http://youtu.be/DvgypX2-f4k
To watch a higher-quality video of this, see: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/192456-1

http://phillipsblog.dailymail.co.uk/


http://www.melaniephillips.com/


http://twitter.com/MelanieLatest

Spot-on! Michael Kinsley re-thinks his notions of the relationship b/w journalists and sources; LA Times: "Journalism and the art of betrayal"

University of California Television video: Conversations with History: Michael Kinsley

http://youtu.be/Fg-9Oa2FVHA

Saw this fascinating column in the LA Times this afternoon while making my way to their online Entertainment page to look at some film reviews, and knew I had to share it with you all ASAP, since it concerns the thoughts of someone I've long liked and admired even when I disagreed with him on an issue, Michael Kinsley.

Los Angeles Times

Op-Ed

Journalism and the art of betrayal

The explanations newspapers give for why anonymity was granted can be hilarious. But they tend to prove what was famously asserted by New Yorker writer Janet Malcolm: Journalism is about betrayal.

By Michael Kinsley

November 4, 2011, 8:34 a.m.

In 1989, New Yorker writer Janet Malcolm published her famous essay, "The Journalist and the Murderer," with its notoriously overheated opening sentence: "Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-kinsley-column-anonymous-sources-20111104,0,1960132.column

I used to talk to media personality Michael Kinsley fairly frequently back in the days when he was one of the co-hosts for CNN's Crossfire, and he'd be over at the Army-Navy Club office bldg. on Eye Street where the New York Times' DC bureau was located -usually waiting for his close friend, Maureen Dowd, to come down from her office after 5:30 or so.

The Army-Navy Building was a place where I spent LOTS of time the last ten years I was in D.C, as I mentioned here previously back on April 6th, 2011, in a post I titled, Memories of D.C. bureau of N.Y. Times; Cool stuff from NYT Graphics: Key states for Obama in 2012; 2010 Census interactive map

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/memories-of-dc-bureau-of-ny-times-cool.html

People were often split on their opinions about Michael depending upon their politics, ideology or subject, of course, but in my many experiences, I found him to be one of THE friendliest media personalities out of many I ever met or knew in Washington, with a good sense of humor.

On his TV show, given their confrontational format, that humor often came across as sarcastic I suppose, but in person, he was was often amusing and engaging in ways that were truly remarkable.

And he's got that amazing memory for details, so...

Somewhere in storage, up in the D.C. area, I think i still have a few great photos of the two of them posing in front of the bldg. lobby's Christmas tree and decorations, which were always one of the nicest in all of downtown and K Street, the same way that the NY Times' March Madness basketball pool was one of the best and most lucrative to get in on, since you had Times employees not just from the DC bureau participating, but their employees from all over the world (and their spouses) also putting their money where their mouth and brackets (or heart) was.

(To this day, I still find it amusing that so many people who would say so many vituperative or sarcastic things about her at the time at social events I attended in the DC area had no idea how truly sweet and concerned with people's feelings she could be, even when she didn't have to be.
Also, of course, famously, most people who knocked her had no idea how petite Maureen is. 
In a winter parka with a lined hood, walking by in a crowd, she'd look like a kid counting their days until she could leave Junior High.)

I still think it's pretty amazing that in the year 2011, a guy who is as clearly smart and curious as Michael about both people and ideas and trends, and who has his ability to draw people out in interesting ways, doesn't have a national TV show now.

IF I was a media mogul... I'd rectify that.

-----

Bill Geist interviews Maureen Dowd on CBS News' "Sunday Morning"

http://youtu.be/ldGQ2Qf2Uz4

http://conversations.berkeley.edu/

http://www.youtube.com/user/UCtelevision

MSM's 'Mirror, mirror on the wall' news approach: Earthquake in VA? Send resources to Times Square to interview pretty tourists -but nobody in VA!

My screenshot of Fox News Channel joining in the fray to the lowest common denominator -not explaining what really happened, but rather, what do people in New York City think about it?

Like the worst immature behavioral excesses of a teenage girl constantly looking to catch her own reflection in any passing mirror and a clueless dog who persistently chases after its own tail, we saw the American Mainstream Media in all their collective unsophisticated glory this afternoon, as an unusually large earthquake with its epicenter in Louisa County, about 40 miles NW of Richmond, Virginia's capital, hit around 1:51 p.m.

But why interview someone who was near where it happened -you know, in Virginia- when you can just send a network crew over to Times Square and interview pretty tourists, or have Wolf Blitzer stand out side near Union Station?

In going back and forth from one cablenet channel after another for an hour, I NEVER once saw a local Richmond TV station affiliate's live feed picked up as is usually the case. Why?

Why would I possibly care what people in NYC think?

Above, my screenshot of CNN's Wolf Blitzer reporting LIVE from 95 miles away from where something actually happened.

Get someone from The Brookings Institution on, stat!

Above, my screenshot of Fox News Channel brings us views of New York City's underpaid, sexually-harassed female office drones walking the pavement while they Tweet their mundane thoughts to their four "Followers" while walking across the street, and checking to see what California-based celebs they "Follow" think about what is happening thousands of miles away in Virginia.

Soon afterwards, Fox anchor Megyn Kelly makes her needless cryptic remark about receiving a message from a LEO about the possibility of The Washington Monument "leaning."

Nice going, reporting something before it's actually confirmed.

Why don't you report LIVE from underneath it? LOL!

The perpetually-indignant Kelly is the one Fox News personality I really dislike!

Usually, I mute her, but since my back was turned to her while I was on my computer reading reports from people who know what they're talking about,

http://www.usgs.gov/

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/

http://www.1140wrva.com/main.html

I left the volume turned up.

My mistake, since it only confirmed what I think about her -not much.

Above, my screenshot of MSNBC -refraining from blaming Tea Party supporters for a few minutes- shows The National Mall in Washington, on the left, looking west towards The Washington Monument, and at right, Times Square in NYC.

No doubt there were moviegoers in The Village seeing matinee performances of The Sorrow and The Pity who were forced to evacuate and, unfortunately, leave their organic food smuggled into the theater in their seats, as they lined up outside like lemmings, as eager liberal petition workers immediately descended upon them to sign up to protest something or another.

Oh, the agony of the news patriarchy!

Sunday's LIVE telecast of the National Memorial in Oslo can be seen at NRK at 9 a.m. Eastern U.S./Canada - Minnesceremoni från Norge

SVT Rapport video: Överlevande åter på Utöya. August 19, 2011.

SVT's Thursday night news segment on the survivors returning to Utøya for the first time since the armed attack one month ago, along with dozens of family members of the survivors and deceased and an army of psychologists.

http://svtplay.se/v/2507829/rapport/overlevande_ater_pa_utoya

SVT Rapport video: Sorgen fortfarande starkt närvarande i Oslo. August 19, 2011.

SVT news segment from Thursday night on the strong grief still being felt a month later in the Norwegian capital.

http://svtplay.se/v/2507901/rapport/sorgen_fortfarande_starkt_narvarande_i_oslo

Both videos available at SVT Play website until August 19, 2012.

--------------------------

Sunday's LIVE telecast of the National Memorial in Oslo regarding the attacks in Oslo and Utøya on July 22 can be seen via computer at NRK at 9 a.m. Eastern U.S./Canada.

http://www.nrk.no/video/direkte_minneseremoni_21_august/3D147755BB517E07/

According to the latest information on SVT's website, the following individuals are scheduled to participate:

Music: Kringkastingorkestern, Susanne Sundfør, Leif Ove Andsnes, Karpe Diem, Dumdum Boys, Sivert Høyem, Jarle Bernhoft, Bjørn Eidsvåg, Ingrid Olave, Sissel Kyrkjebø and A-ha.

Readings will be led by actors Aksel Hennie, Anders Baasmo Christiansen, Ane Dahl Torp, Adil Khan, Ingrid Bolso Berdal, Sofie Gråbøl and Maria Bonnevie.

The ceremony will be hosted by (reporter/singer) Haddy N'jie.

I've refrained up 'till now from writing about what transpired a month ago in Oslo and Utøya on July 22nd for reasons that are not entirely worth getting into right now. Perhaps in the not-so-distant future.

There were some things, though, that I wanted to share now that I think reflect my frame of mind and what I will eventually post here, and will give you some small guidance if you watch Sunday's national memorial service.

First and foremost, as it always does, timing and opportunity rules everything.

I was reading/watching the LIVE reports of the armed attacks in Norway by Anders Behring Breivik -via Stockholm and Oslo- within mere minutes of it happening, even BEFORE it was being reported in the U.S. media, because of the fact that that particular morning -my time- I was already looking at Swedish news websites like Aftenposten, SVT, TV4, Svenska Dagbladet, Expressen, et al.

I'd also written some recent posts about Norway, so still had the NRK website handy as well on my Bookmark list.

SVT video: NRK:s Peter Svaar direktrapporterar från Oslo. July 22, 2011.

http://svtplay.se/v/2486151/rapport/nrk_s_peter_svaar_direktrapporterar_fran_oslo?sb,k103266,9,f,161015

Above, one of the first on-scene reports of the explosion downtown by NRK's Peter Svaar.

Norska TV2 berättar från Utöya. July 22, 2011.

http://svtplay.se/v/2486325/rapport/norska_tv2_berattar_fran_utoya

Above, one of the first reports from Norway's TV2 on what happened in Utøya, with lots of helicopter shots outlining the island.

I watched the foreign and domestic coverage for a few hours almost continually for days, constantly amazed at the VERY poor and incorrect reporting being done in the U.S. media on this rapidly-evolving story.

In CNN's case, that is, the U.S. version of CNN, that included reporting low casualty figures hours and hours after it common knowledge among the media on the scene that the grim numbers were FAR HIGHER, an upsetting point that I made in some quick emails to some U.S. media friends around the country, some well-known, that I wanted to know the true scope of the attacks, not the old info being foolishly repeated over-and-over on CNN.

One of the emails I sent was this news about an important Tweet warning being sent around the area as people were warned to turn off their cell phone rings.

My subject header was: FYI: Ominous Twitter warnings went out re Utøya: ”Ring inte ön"

"RING INTE FOLK PÅ UTØYA. De gömmer sig för gärningsmannen. Kopiera statusen! (Ambulansen kommer inte fram ertersom det fortfarande är skottlossning)."

which roughly means:

Do not call the island on your mobile as fake cop re-loading gun in search of people to shoot, is listening for rings from phones. Ambulances won't arrive if shooting is happening.

from Ungdomarnas larm från ön på twitter: Hjälp oss, Nyheter, Aftonbladet

http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article13364079.ab

I also watched the LIVE telecast on SVT Play via NRK the following day of the Memorial service at the Oslo Cathedral that drew so many notable figures, as well as the families whose loved ones had perished.

Above, right-to-left: King Harald, Queen Sonja, Princess Märtha Louise and her husband, author Ari Behn.

That started at 5 a.m. Miami and was very tough to watch as you'd see people just start crying, tearing-up or sobbing out-of-the-blue.

Especially after the poignant lighting of the candles!

The emotion of the occasion gets to the King and Queen, too.

Above and below are just some of the screen shots of the dozens I took of that church service which I have been holding onto, knowing that it would be impractical to simply post them all, knowing that 99% of you would not have enough context to appreciate what was taking place just from the photos.

While it might not always seem that way to some of you, especially those of you who are in South Florida, I try my best not to be too preachy here on the blog, and I knew that it would be hard to drop ALL those photos on you all, out-of-the-blue, then as now, without seeming either patronizing or...???

Because if you have to explain everything...

So I've held onto them.

But I thought I'd share a few now...

The Royal Family represents.

Above and below, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg addresses those assembled in the cathedral and across the nation.

http://youtu.be/8oPbd9UvZuY

Above, Prime Minister Stoltenberg singing along.

All screen shots on this page by South Beach Hoosier.

False alarm: At HB City Hall, Debby Eisinger nixes any mention of Broward League of Cities' jihad against strict ethics laws for cities, instead...

she bored everyone in the Comm. Chamber senseless for nine-and-a-half minutes on the wonders of the Broward League of Cities, reading a laughable laundry list of focus-group approved feel-good phrases and gibberish that might've made the more naive people listening think the Broward League was part Justice League of America and Phi Beta Kappa convention.

I've met people who belong to it -it is neither!

I know that Eisinger's comments were that LONG because I taped them and just watched them again on my home computer.

That's twenty minutes of my life I'm never going to have again.

I had every intention of posting them to my YouTube Channel if she has said anything at all remotely about ethics legislation, and the League's adamant opposition to common sense and anything that would hurt the current sweetheart deals that many local municipal officials have enjoyed with lobbying neighboring cities or agencies, either by themselves or their

spouses or special someones.

In more important and late-breaking news, CNN has just canceled the Eliot Spitzer Show and NBC has signed James Spader to The Office, thus answering the mystery of who could replace Michael Scott in the Scranton office of Dunder Mifflin.

In fact, Spader has outpaced the Peter Principle and will now be the new CEO of Sabre, the parent company of Dunder Mifflin.

House Budget Comm. Chair Paul Ryan on 'Path to Prosperity'; the drivers of debt and the overdue reforms needed in FY 2012 budget -charts aplenty!

U.S. House Budget Committee video: The Path to Prosperity: America's two futures, visualized, presented by Budget Comm. Chair Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
http://youtu.be/Xwv5EbxXSmE

Rasmussen Reports
Paul Ryan's Growth Budget
A Commentary By Lawrence Kudlow April 7, 2011

Of all the discussion about Paul Ryan's big-bang budget plan, the element I like best was caught in this Wall Street Journal op-ed title: "The GOP Path to Prosperity." In other words, it's a growth budget. It has plenty of spending cuts, but it also has significant pro-growth tax reform.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_lawrence_kudlow/paul_ryan_s_growth_budget



U.S. House Budget Committee video: Budget Comm. Chair Paul Ryan on Fox News Channel's Mike Huckabee Show details drivers of debt; Calls for honest leadership and real reform
http://youtu.be/SiZj1Uncl9Y



U.S. House Budget Committee video: Behind the Scenes: Budget Listening Session with Budget Comm. Chair Paul Ryan.
http://youtu.be/otlOCQyE8oY
Related article at: http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/03/17/gop.budget.plan/index.html

See also:
http://budget.house.gov/
http://www.youtube.com/user/HouseBudgetCommittee
http://prosperityproject.org/

Coincidence that three anti-Glenn Beck stories appear in one week? His show draws 300,000 more total viewers than ALL cable news competitors COMBINED

Just a coincidence that three anti-Glenn Beck news stories/columns appear in same week?

Of course, since so few American TV/print reporters, editors or producers actually read and speak passable Arabic, or are the least bit knowledgeable about the Mid-East, they can't very well write about Libya intelligently, now can they.
Which is why beyond the actual news value of what happened to and with him last week, there were so many stories and columns in the American press about Charlie Sheen, because you don't have to know anything to write or talk about him...
Everybody's an expert.

Before you read the following three stories/columns, here's something to keep in mind, since facts actually matter.

The Glenn Beck Show on Fox News Channel is drawing 300,000 more total viewers than ALL cable news competitors in the time period COMBINED.
Just saying...

If I was the news director at a local TV station in a major market in the United States and my eyeball numbers were more than the total of ALL the other local TV stations COMBINED, plus, I was also leading in the 25-54 demo to boot, and my adversaries were saying that I was in a slump, I'd take that kind of losing streak and laugh all the way to the bank.
And so would my family!

CNN would take that kind of losing streak right now at 5 p.m. Eastern in a heartbeat.
And so would MSNBC and CNBC.

But they can only dream of a such an upside-down news world now, since at 5 p.m., they're merely ants at the picnic, not the guest of honor.
They're barely noticeable unless one of them crawls on your arm or leg -and completely harmless and useless- so you just flick them away with your finger and they go buh-bye. Just saying...

Apropos of these stories, coming soon, I may soon have a blog post here on some real actor/celebrities who actually HAVE lost their hold on film audiences at the box-office, but you rarely if ever see the sort of joyful negative stories on them in the American press like the stories below on because... well, they really, really don't like Glenn Beck -or his audience.
Just ask them, they'll tell you.

Hmm-m... note to self: Their film grosses fizzling and reviews not-so-positive, have Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Anniston, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt lost their juice?

More after the links.

-------

TheWrap
Media | Books
His Ratings Fizzling, Has Glenn Beck Lost His Mojo?
March1, 2011 @ 6:59 pm
http://www.thewrap.com/media/article/behind-glenn-beck-fox-news-slumping-ratings-24967


The New Republic
Politics
The Decline of Glenn Beck What caused it?
James Downie, Reporter-Researcher
March 3, 2011, 10:59 pm
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/84662/the-decline-glenn-beck


New York Times
The Media Equation
The Fading Power of Beck’s Alarms
By David Carr
March 6, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/business/media/07carr.html

----

None of these pieces have mentioned the most obvious and most likely reason for the lower numbers.

Beck's TV show, which I watch everyday, usually, the 2 a.m. repeat, has been pre-empted more often than usual due to what was going on in Egypt, often for pointless -often nine-hour old- coverage of Tahrir Square in Cairo when NOTHING was happening.

Reminder: Just because you point a TV news camera at something doesn't mean it's news.

Because of those pre-emptions on the repeat show at 2 a.m., before RED EYE, I actually saw some Fox News weekend panel program I'd never seen before, which itself was a few days old and was clearly intended to run-out-the clock until 3 a.m. came around.

Additionally, there have been many more repeats since January than at about any time since Beck joined Fox News Channel.

Seems like I even recall him being sick and having surgery, though I can't recall the exact details.

Sometimes, there's no conspiracy, it's just that there's either no program to see, or the one that airs is one you've already seen twice before -I don't need to see it a third time.

I love pizza, but sometimes when I was out with friends in the D.C. area, after a movie or ballgame or whatever, sometimes when asked what I was in the mood for, I'd choose Vietnamese, unless I knew that we were near a great pizza place. If it isn't what you want the way you like it, TV, like pizza, isn't the same.

Similarly, with all the news about Tunesia, Egypt and Libya on Beck's show, why would loyal viewers who really don't care about foreign policy compared to domestic or economic issues watch something they really don't have any interest in, something that isn't their cup of tea?

I love well-played basketball, esp. top-tier college basketball, not surprisingly, considering I only went to college at a school like IU where basketball is much more than tradition but a culture.

Still, I haven't watched the NBA All-Star Game since about 1990, and haven't watched more than 20 minutes of the NBA this entire season.
It's not interesting to me since nothing matters until May.

Or, maybe those fans see a repeat or a pre-emption and finally get around to watching one of those prime-time shows they've been continually taping for weeks and STILL NOT started watching yet, so they think, today is the day I start watching 'em, otherwise I'm deleting them all.
Just saying... sometimes, lower ratings are not so mysterious.

And when you STILL have MANY more viewers than all your time-slot competitors combined, it's really absurd to talk about a SLUMP.

When the Yankees of the 1920's amd '30's actually lost a game or two in the World Series instead of sweeping their opponent in four games, were they in a slump, too?

Is Adam Carolla the new Sheridan Whiteside? Skewers American media's strange love affair with Piers Morgan, slams the narcisissm running amok in U.S.

On an appearance on KTLA-TV (Los Angeles), Adam Carolla channels Sheridan Whiteside and skewers the American media's strange love affair with new CNN chat host Piers Morgan, and slams the narcisissm running rampant in the U.S., giving numerous examples of things that bother him.
Now that's funny -and true!
The best of all posssible worlds!



Adam's podcast, available for free, is currently the most-popular podcast on iTunes.
He'll be appearing at the South Beach Comedy Festival next Thursday the 3rd at the Colony Theater on Miami Beach and up at the West Palm Improv on Friday March 4th.

http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0D00462AE2E06E5F
http://www.adamcarolla.com/ACPBlog/

http://www.ktla.com/



The Man Who Came To Dinner, with Monty Woolley as Sheridan Whiteside, only one of my ten favorite films -and literary characters- ever.

And speaking of Malmö as I just was, Nina Persson of The Cardigans says proudly of her hometown...

CNN - My City My Life: Nina Persson in Malmö | Part 1 of 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SMkMGHbJV4

CNN - My City My Life: Nina Persson in Malmö | Part 2 of 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK1nR3LOCyc

Tom Jicha says Jake Tapper is better-suited than Christiane Amanpour to host ABC News "This Week" -says move to her is a "mega mistake."; He's right!

I'm trying my best to catch-up here on the blog on a number of media-related news stories that I've noted and written some thoughts about over the past few months, but never quite gotten around to actually posting for one reason or another. Today is a start on pulling those stories out of the ink well and bringing them to your attention.

Curiously enough, on Friday, I saw that over at Tom Jicha's TV Plus blog at the Sun-Sentinel that he'd just written about one of those subjects: whether or not ABC News was making a big mistake by bringing in former CNN multi-tasker Christiane Amanpour to permanently host their "This Week" public policy/talking heads program on Sunday mornings, taking over the reins from interim host and ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper, who took over after George Stephanopoulos took over the duties at Good Morning America.
http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/

I'd written a number of what some friends thought were some pretty persuasive arguments about why the move could turn out rather quickly to be yet another in a long line of recent mistakes where the American pundit-ocracy and East Coast media had prematurely labeled someone or something they had a connection to or rooting interest in, a great success, long before the American people had gotten a chance to vote with their remote controls and emails.

Sun-Sentinel TV critic Tom Jicha took a more direct approach than me in his blog and has simply taken to describing the move to Amanpour as a "mega mistake."

He's right, of course, though for more reasons than he lets on in his piece.

It seems clear to me that no matter how poorly Amanpour does in the comparison with Stephanopoulos or Tapper, especially in her ability to move the show along and cut-off a guest or panel member going down a blind alley, her many loyal friends in the chattering class would never actually say it was a disaster in quite the same eager and enthusiastic way that they did with Campbell Brown's CNN show.

There, though Brown's been gone for what seems like forever, even while actual viewers have known for five weeks that she's heading out the door, CNN's graphics crawl at the bottom of the screen STILL invites us to be lovely and talented Campbell's Facebook friend. Frankly, that's been making me laugh for months on those occasions when I watch CNN at night, which are few and far-between. http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/cnn/campbell_browns_time_at_cnn_coming_to_a_close_165720.asp

As we get closer to Amanpour's coronation in August, I'll bring up my own points on why I think the move to her will prove less-than-satisfactory for American TV viewers living west of the Hudson, but for now, check-out what Jicha is saying.

-----

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

TV Plus blog

ABC should keep Tapper as host of This Week

by Tom Jicha

June 24th, 2010 3:23 PM

Each week brings a new reminder of the mega mistake ABC News is about to make bringing in Christiane Amanpour as the host of “This Week.”

Jake Tapper should have been the first choice and is demonstrarting weekly that he is the ideal choice. He keeps the show moving and is equally tough on representatives of both sides of the political spectrum.

Later, Jicha writes: Who knows if Amanpour is. Her perspective is global, always has been. This is not a character flaw. It could be said it is an attribute. But it is a negative for a program driven by domestic political discussions.
Read the rest of the post at: http://blogs.sun-sentinel.com/tv/2010/06/abc-should-keep-tapper-as-host-of-this-week.html

Guess who's South Florida's newest public policy genius? Emilio Estefan.

Appearing on John King's USA show on CNN early Wednesday evening, newly minted roving ambassador Emilio Estefan, calling for a boycott of Arizona.

Didn't the Jackson Browne "No Nukes" debacle in the '80's prove the absolute folly of trusting musicians on politics?
Yes.

Below, some screenshots I took while I waited to see how long it would take host John King to ask Estefan if he told Obama what he thought about immigration policy when he and Gloria hosted him recently here in Miami.






http://johnkingusa.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/05/emilio-estefan-calls-for-boycott-of-arizona/

Excerpts below from http://www.epolitix.com/latestnews/article-detail/newsarticle/parties-defend-immigration-policies/ express what is common sense to most Americans but forever Breaking News to the MSM:

Shadow immigration minister Damian Green said immigration had been "out of control" under Labour, and a Conservative government would bring net immigration down from hundreds of thousands a year to "tens of thousands"
. ...Green said where operated in other countries amnesties simply led to greater levels of illegal immigration.
Exactly!
That's why those poll numbers are the way they are.

Gloria Estefan - Reach (1996 Atlanta Olympics Closing Ceremony)

When Gloria Estefan sang "Reach" fourteen years ago,
she gave me and all my friends gathered in my living room
in Arlington County chills.
There's just no denying her great talent.

Third world commuter conditions, and it's NOT South Florida but Berlin. Wie gehts?

Maybe it's because I lived for so long in
communities like Chicago and Washington, D.C.,
where taking a commuter train was both
de rigeur and common sense, but after
reading the story below about the truly
exasperating and economically brutal
transportation situation in Berlin,
all I could think of was how badly this
situation would've been portrayed on
CNN or more importantly,
CNN International, right before the
height of the South Florida tourist season
for Europeans, if this had happened here
involving an intact and thriving FEC
Corridor commuter train system along
U.S-1 that was logically connected to
both Tri-Rail and the Miami-Dade
Metro system to create the smartest
possible options for people and businesses
in South Florida.

A system that quickly and effortlessly
moved residents and tourists around
the area from airports to seaports to
hotels, museums to nightclubs to theaters
to sports arenas, from work to home and
more.

My educated guess is that it would also
show, once again, that if South Florida
didn't have bad luck/negative stories
shown on CNN, they'd have no stories
at all.

Instead, though I'm a news junkie,
I've yet to see a single TV news story
about this situation in Berlin on any
of the American cablenets, or even
on Channel Four in Britain,
which I watch just about every day
via the Internet.

Have you?
----------
Spiegel Online
'THIRD WORLD' CONDITIONS
Commuter Chaos in Berlin until December

Berlin has had to take two-thirds of its commuter trains out of service due to safety issues.It has resulted in angry locals, crowded platforms, confused tourists, near accidents, amulti-million-euro bill and political fallout. And it's going to go on until the end of the year.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,638049,00.html

See also:
TIME
Train Chaos Brings Berlin to a Standstill
By Tristana Moore in Berlin, Germany
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1912399,00.html

Miami Herald snoozes; Boedeker blog: Autopsy suggests Caylee Anthony 'suffered tremendously'

June 20th, 2009

1 a.m.

I predicted to close friends and family months ago,

the day Caylee Anthony's body was found, in fact,

that the Casey Anthony murder trial would be moved

to South Florida, and this news today only serves

to confirm it.

Well, that, and the Miami Herald's non-coverage.

As of 12:15 a.m., many, many hours after the judge

made his ruling on making the autopsy report public,

there is absolutely nothing about this story on the

main page of the Miami Herald's website.

Stories about lots of things, not even particularly

interesting things, but NOT the biggest news story

in this state over the past 24 hours.

As always, that certainly explains a lot.

If I were unfortunate enough to be associated with

Casey Anthony's defense team, I'd be sure to

include screenshots of the Herald's website and

be sure to show it to the judge when we make our

formal request for a change of venue, since the

Herald's consistent indifference toward this case,

or at least their editors, really helps make the

defense team's case.

And helps make CNN happy, because now they

can have local legal eagles Kendall Coffey and

Roy Black on the scene from Miami during the

trial, offering their expert color commentary.

Well, I guess somebody's finally happy with the

Herald's coverage after all.

'Tis pity she's a whore.

Aye, there's the rub!

-----------------------

Orlando Sentinel blog

Hal Boedeker: The TV Guy and More

by Hal Boedeker

June 19, 2009, 5:40 p.m.

Caylee Anthony: Autopsy suggests she 'suffered tremendously'

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2009/06/caylee-anthony-autopsy-suggests-she-suffered-tremendously.html#more