Camera stencil via nolifebeforecoffee. Classic.

On Friday at Netroots Nation, Digby, Marcy and I had lunch at a restaurant near the convention center. At one point, we were laughing so loudly at our table that I was certain we’d end up as someone’s "drunken bloggers" tweet from the restaurant (although we were having iced tea and water to drink because we had panels to contend with later).

What set off the laughter? 

We were reminiscing about the media freak show absurdities the last time around during the Clinton years.  And talking about the current circus side show atmosphere of the moment.

Digby had us howling about the Clinton years, when the media obsessed about whether Bill Clinton’s penis really did hook to the left as Paula Jones averred, and then had endless "guests" on to hold up pictures of what the Presidential penis might look like.   But when Marcy says "blowjob" on television?  The whole world as we know it was coming to an end in medialand.

It’s the titillation/pearl clutching media paradox.

And now?  We have a Schiavo redux going on in the worst sense of the words on healthcare, and the media is happily playing right along.  Again.  Via Digby:

…these right wing neanderthals want to make sure that doesn’t change. These hysterics don’t care what the elderly actually want — if these poor people have to spend weeks hooked up to machines in sterile hospitals, in misery and horrible suffering, alive only in the most expansive definition of the term, it’s worth it because Obama is a Kenyan Hitler and they have to "break him."

We just went through a lot of this with Mr. ReddHedd’s parents in the last year during their lengthy hospital and rehab stays. It’s a difficult maze of paperwork and care protocols to navigate, and we’re both lawyers. I cannot imagine having to go through all the contract and legal considerations on power of attorney, medical care, etc., when you aren’t familiar with the terminology. Because at the same time you are trying to deal with all of this paperwork? You are also facing the emotional nightmare of potentially losing a very ill and beloved parent.

To gin this up into a political issue is unconscionable, especially as a scare tactic for the elderly.

But, as Rick Pearlstein explains, it’s not exactly new for the right wing to sink into the orchestrated outrage gutter:

So the birthers, the anti-tax tea-partiers, the town hall hecklers — these are "either" the genuine grass roots or evil conspirators staging scenes for YouTube? The quiver on the lips of the man pushing the wheelchair, the crazed risk of carrying a pistol around a president — too heartfelt to be an act. The lockstep strangeness of the mad lies on the protesters’ signs — too uniform to be spontaneous. They are both. If you don’t understand that any moment of genuine political change always produces both, you can’t understand America, where the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and where elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests. . . . (more…)

Not the life of the party?  via seanbonner.

The last few weeks, I’ve been following the hoo haw over Matt Taibbi’s brilliant Goldman Sachs/Wall Street screed with more than a little amusement.

The rabid pushback at Taibbi from the usually timid bunny following the golden carrots financial press has been a sight to behold.

My favorite was Charlie Gasparino at CNBC who dismisses Taibbi’s article without adequately addressing any of its substance by relating it to "half-literate bloggers."

Ouch, never heard that one before. *rolls eyes* Derivative, much?

CJR’s Dean Starkman has a takedown of the flailing, panicked pushback from financial media that is well worth a read. Especially for business press who are wondering why so many of us on the outside are disgusted with them being so in the tank on the inside.

Hint to "journalists:" healthy skepticism is a job requirement. Fawning dictation is not.

Here’s Starkman’s analysis in a nutshell:

As Taibbi (who needs no help defending himself) pointed out on his own blog, Moore addresses precisely none of the substantive criticisms that have been leveled at the bank, including big ones, like (1) buying predatory loans, (2) selling defective mortgage-backed securities while (3) shorting them at the same time, and (4) buying defective insurance from American International Group, then having those bad bets redeemed in full by government programs ratified by ex-Goldman executives. This is to say nothing of the role ex-Goldman alums played in laying the groundwork for the decade’s financial recklessness—Robert Rubin’s contribution to deconstructing financial regulation and Henry Paulson’s lobbying to loosen capital restrictions in 2004, to name just two. . . .

. . .while some in conventional business journalism may wish to dismiss Taibbi, it’s worth remembering that he is only filling a vacuum left by mainstream outlets themselves. One reason “Bubble” was so shocking, I believe, is that it looks with well-deserved skepticism (okay, red-faced, foaming outrage) on the core business practices of an individual financial institution, by name, and a powerful one at that. Conventional business-press investigations focus too often on marginal infractions, rulebreaking within the game, and too rarely on the game itself.

The amusing thing about so much of the critique of Taibbi’s work is that it boils down to the Howie Kurtz reaction to Marcy’s MSNBC "blowjob" interview.  In short, Taibbi says "fuck" and “giant vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity" *shocked, pearl-clutching gasp* so never mind that he’s documenting and revealing factual information that financial media thus failed to report or consider. 

Or, even worse, that Taibbi’s showing them up by digging into important material that the public needs to know about and then having the balls to report it with names and everything.

Honestly, I learned more following along with the Q&A in our latest book salon with Taibbi and Max Wolf than I have reading or watching "news" reports.

Instead of getting defensive about the challenges to your mediahood, oh ye of little reportage, how about trying to top Taibbi’s investigative work? How about tackling the substance? How about digging in on the companies, regs, business actors and/or politicians you see as shouldering some of the responsibility for our financial mess?

You know, reporting the news in the public’s interest instead of fishing for invites to Hamptons soirees.

I. F. Stone is rolling in his grave at the state of far too much of the media these days.

God hates sinners via danny.hammontree.

Randall Terry is at it again.  Because apparently the half-skull poster of Sonia Sotomayor and exhortations to his unstable flock about the Angel of Death weren’t nearly enough to get him the fundraising haul attention he needed.

In any polite society, his brand of dangerous stoking of the fires of hell would get him shunned by decent people.

In fact, it’s well past time that GOP lawmakers were asked — clearly and without any ambiguity — what they think of Terry’s fire and brimstone violence stoking on behalf of their policy agenda. 

Because they cannot have it both ways any more that Terry can. 

Using Terry’s dangerous rhetoric to push the Republican policy agenda makes them just as responsible for the ends of those means as Terry is. 

Either you embrace the violent ends that result from this and take responsibility.  Or you denounce it for what it is:  dangerous violence stoking rhetoric that poses a public threat, and is designed to scare public officials into inaction through threats of violence and retribution against their safety.

Just like it was designed to do with Dr. Tiller.

Here, though?  Terry gets time at the National Press Club to spew his vile, violent venom:

Randall Terry, Founder of Operation Rescue, and other local pro-life advocates will hold a press conference at the National Press Club (529 14th Street NW, Washington, DC) on Tuesday, July 21, at 2:00 P.M. Mr. Randall Terry to discuss what he and other pro-life leaders will and will not do if healthcare passes and includes paying for child-killing, and what convulsions follow.

"Let all those in government be warned: They cannot order people to pay for the murder of babies, and betray God Himself, without horrific consequences." — Randall Terry (more…)

Steaming kettle via JustABigGeek.

The American Constitution Society recently held a discussion regarding SCOTUS nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor. It was moderated by the wonderful Dahlia Lithwick of Slate, who had her hands full.

My favorite part of the back and forth was the discussion regarding real world, life experience versus, as Ed Whelan condescendingly describes it:…indulging your experience in an improper way.

If ever there were a “pot, this is kettle” moment

Political pundits, electoral operatives and former elected officials are like the undead: just when you think they’ve been buried, they rise up again from the political graveyard. No matter how craptastic their myriad sins may be — stealing from public coffers, ethical lapses out the wazoo, being a race-baiting bigot, whatever — they continue on your teevee and in print.

Well, why not just come out and say what you are really insinuating, NYTimes?Judge Sotomayor’s sharp-tongued and occasionally combative manner — some lawyers have described her as “difficult” and “nasty” — raises questions about her judicial temperament and willingness to listen. Her demeanor on the bench is an issue that conservatives opposed to her nomination see as a potential vulnerability — and one that Mr.

An anti-Sotomayor ad has hit the airwaves and it piqued my interest on who was really behind it.

It’s an odd ad, edited narrowly to portray a very stilted picture of Sotomayor — in short, it’s a classic political hit piece. Watch for yourself:

It’s from the Judicial Confirmation Network, headed by Gary Marx and Wendy Long.

From hurling labels of racism to claims of Sonia Sotomayor being an “affirmative action hire,” it’s been a show of dismal stupidity the last day and a half from far too many in the GOP. That the contradiction between the two epithets isn’t patently obvious makes it all the more ludicrous.