Jim McKay Dead at 86

NY Times: Jim McKay, the genial ABC sports broadcaster who covered 10 Olympic Games for the network over 24 years and was the voice of the celebrated sports anthology series “Wide World of Sports” for its first 25, died Saturday at his country estate in Monkton, Md. He was 86.


I grew up with Jim McKay being the first voice I associated with Wide World of Sports.

"Spanning the globe... the thrill of victory. The agony of defeat."

Hillary The Victim

I haven't written very much because of my schedule lately, but I just read a Huffington Post item that I couldn't let pass.

I speak with fellow blogger Armadillo Joe and our habit of surfing around and comparing our findings of posts we read blaming everyone and everything - the media, misogyny, sexism - for Hillary Clinton's downfall, rather than where it should truly lie, her terrible campaign leaders and campaign strategy, GOP-style negative smear tactics and "insert both feet" gaffes that have wasted her name recognition status and cause over half of voters to find her untrustworthy, when once she was the odds-on favorite to win the party nomination for the presidency.

"How Dare You!" written by Jill Iscol is just another example in a long line of reasons that Hillary Clinton's campaign has failed time and again and why any good will towards her has diminished. Iscol's first few lines read like a parody. I was waiting for it to get funny and show it's sarcasm and irony, but that paragraph never came.

We need to talk. How dare the leadership of the Democratic Party turn on Hillary Clinton! How dare they betray Bill Clinton! How dare they not speak out when Hillary is disrespected by words like bitch, whore and the "c" word!

Really? Who called her a "whore" or a "cunt"? Did anyone from her own party talk about Hillary that way? Did Obama? The only one I remember calling Clinton "bitch" was Tina Fey on a Saturday Night Live skit, and it was "in a good way." Did that offend women or were they pumping their fists in agreement?

Iscol describes herself as a "Hillary supporter... along with millions of Democrats throughout our country" and is outraged at the treatment of her preferred candidate and that the Democratic leadership is not sticking up for her. What she doesn't mention is that, unlike millions of other Democrats throughout the country, she isn't just a supporter but a Campaign Finance Chair for Clinton. Not much disclosure there, huh? She goes on:

...This is not the party I thought I belonged to. ...That Party stood proudly by a president who many called the first black president because both he and his wife had demonstrated a lifelong commitment to civil rights and human rights.

That is until Bill Clinton compared Barack Obama's win in South Carolina to Jesse Jackson's primary wins in 1984 and 1988, inferring that he won because of the black vote. And Geraldine Ferraro revealing herself to be a passive racist, the kind that live next door and smile to your face but peer out from behind their blinds to make sure you're not doing anything of which they'd disapprove. And Hillary Clinton's "hard-working Americans, white Americans" gaffe.

Women are outraged. We are still fighting for her, and we are ashamed of how our candidate, a woman who has devoted her adult life to serving others... has been treated not just by the media but by her own Democratic Party.

Yes, it's true women are outraged. But not just female Clinton supporters. How about the outrage of Obama supporters who happen to be women? Do they not count? Are they so vapid that they don't know what they're doing and therefore dismissed?

I said it once, I'll say it again and now I'm putting it in writing: Hillary Clinton is not losing/did not lose the Democratic nomination because of her gender, no matter how many times you may scream it at the top of your lungs. She lost because she was the hare, and thought she could take a break after February 5th, while Obama the tortoise looked at the whole race and didn't nap under a tree after Iowa.

And as far as the "treatment by her own Democratic party" is concerned, let's take a look at at how Hillary Clinton has treated "one of her own" in the Democratic Party, as well as her foot-in-mouth disease, and her thoughts on the Democratic process itself:

- your insistence that there have been widespread calls for you to end your campaign, when such calls had been few.

- your misspeaking about Martin Luther King's relative importance to the Civil Rights movement.

- your misspeaking about your under-fire landing in Bosnia.

- insisting Michigan's vote wouldn't count and then claiming those who would not count it were Un-Democratic.

- pledging to not campaign in Florida and thus disenfranchise voters there, and then claim those who stuck to those rules were as wrong as those who defended slavery or denied women the vote.

- the photos of Osama Bin Laden in an anti-Obama ad.

- fawning over the fairness of Fox News while they were still calling you a murderer.

- accepting Richard Mellon Scaife's endorsement and then laughing as you described his "deathbed conversion."

- quoting the electoral predictions of Boss Karl Rove.

- the 3 a.m. Phone Call commercial.

- President Clinton's disparaging comparison of the Obama candidacy to Jesse Jackson's.

- Geraldine Ferraro's national radio interview suggesting Obama would not still be in the race had he been a white man.

- the dozen changing metrics and the endless self-contradictions of your insistence that your nomination is mathematically probable rather than a statistical impossibility.

- your declaration of some primary states as counting and some as not.

- exploiting Jeremiah Wright in front of the editorial board of the lunatic-fringe Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

- exploiting William Ayers in front of the debate on ABC.

- boasting of your "support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans"...

- repeatedly praising Senator McCain at Senator Obama's expense, and your own expense, and the Democratic ticket's expense.

This Olbermann list doesn't even mention her comparison of the Democratic party process to the Republican one and how she claimed if we were playing by their rules, she'd be the nominee by now. For anyone still using that argument and the threat of not voting for Obama, the Democratic candidate, when he wins the nomination, I say, "Please review your party affiliation and re-register to vote as a Republican. We don't need your triangulating, Republican-lite kind around here."

But now, Senator Hillary Clinton, after shooting herself in the foot countless times, often with Mark Penn's finger on the trigger, takes the sawed-off shotgun and sticks it in her mouth on her own with her awful comment regarding the 1968 election and the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. When I first heard this secondhand, I thought surely there was some mistake. Did she actually use the word "assassinate"? And of course, I know that she doesn't want any harm to befall Barack Obama, but how brain dead or "sleep deprived" do you have to be to make such an idiotic comment?




I was still confused about her comment, not knowing what to make of it. Then I remembered a pundit on Countdown (I believe it was Howard Fineman) speaking of a previous Hillary comment ("Obama's not a Muslim.... as far as I know.") and saying that Clinton doesn't say anything without thinking about it. Wow. Could she be thinking, "Let me stick around... you never know what can happen... remember Bobby Kennedy?" Then Keith Olbermann set me straight.





The fact is that it doesn't matter what Clinton was thinking. In fact, it shows that if anything, she wasn't thinking when she made that comment, effectively ending, in my opinion, any possible shot of wresting away the nomination from Obama.

Comparing the media's treatment of Hillary to that of Obama's is a bad joke. How do you compare the Rev. Wright's six week debacle (where Obama renounces his Christian Pastor and there are still 11% of voters at this point who still think he is Muslim), questions of patriotism and lapel flag pins, the sham of the ABC debate, pundit after pundit during primary after primary trying to make it look like a horserace, asking why Obama can't "close the deal" when in fact they should be asking why the well-known Hillary couldn't "close the deal", how does Clinton compare that to anything the media has thrown at her?

Jill Iscol's delusion of how the Democratic party has "betrayed" Hillary Clinton is laughable when in fact it is Hillary that has, at almost every turn done or said practically anything to try and stop the Obama tidal wave from flooding her dingey of a campaign with a bailing bucket the size of a thimble. Any excuse save reality keeps these people grasping for something that they themselves have squandered.

Debate Protesters at ABC Hand Out Flag Pins

This is great. DDay at Hullabaloo writes about the protest at Disney Studios on Friday as 60-70 people voiced their opinions of the "shoddy and despicable" handling of the latest Democratic debate. It shows you the strength of the internet and blogosphere when 70 people can organize within 24 hours without a single phone call being made.

Their main goal: bringing attention to the way moderators Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopolous focused on the past Democratic gaffes of Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, instead of issues like the war in Iraq and the American economy.

[Organizer Rick] Jacobs said he was offended that Obama was asked why he hasn't worn an American flag pin on his lapel.

"Patriotism isn't defined by a flag pin made in China," he said.

...[News reports] didn't note the most important part of the protest: our distribution of flag pins to employees as they left the ABC gates. Letting them know that they were getting "free patriotism on a stick" and telling them that "Charlie Gibson won't approve of you unless you wear one," we handed out about 300 pins. Most took them graciously and approvingly.

Yes... the pins were made in China.

Who Lost Debate? Looks Like ABC Did

I was working last night and absentmindedly forgot to record the Democratic debate in Philadelphia. Apparently, it's a good thing because judging by the responses I've read so far, my blood pressure would have soared and I might not be feeling so hot this morning.

It looks like neither Obama nor Clinton won last night, but ABC definitely lost. There's even video posted of moderators Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous being heckled as they broke for commercial. It's pretty impressive when the audience members see what's going on. I suppose the razzing Hillary received when she tried to push the Obama "bitter" comment last week during a speech didn't click with the producers or the moderators at ABC. And the ABC website had some wonderful commentary by visitors to the site after watching.

"...I haven't watched ABC "news" in a few years. I see I haven't been missing much! MORE THAN half the debate turned over to Bittergate, Rev Wright, the Weathermen, Tuzla, FLAG LAPEL PINS? Most of the televised debates I've seen this campaign season have been lame, but this one takes the prize. Either you guys are morons or you think that we are. Either way, I'm glad to have seen the last of you. Really, really bad. No winners in this debate, but a definite loser: ABC "NEWS""

"...Are you kidding me? "We don't have much time left. Let's have a MINUTE to talk about gas?" Charlie and George, you need a crash course on the distinction between "issues" and an "agendas." Hint: The candidates have the former; you have the latter."

"...Has ABC News noticed that your so called "debate" has been universally panned? Charles Gibson is a pandering person more fit for the National Enquirer than a responsible news program. Stephanopoulis is barely better. I am so disappointed but not surprised."

After 15 months of campaigning, you'd think that the media would finally get around to talking about substantive issues. Unfortunately, it's has become all O.J. all the time. Why speak about something silly like the Iraq occupation when you can ask the world where Natalie Holloway is? Why worry viewers with trivial things like the foreclosure crisis or the high prices of oil and gas, when you can focus on "real" journalism like Heath Ledger's or Anna Nicole Smith's death?

Congratulations ABC. You turned a pivotal Democratic debate into nothing more than a slap fight, devoid of substance and important issues that the American people really care about.

It looks like Fox News has competition.

Journalistic Integrity

So Hillary Clinton finally made available 17,481 pages of documents while she was First Lady which were released by the National Archives today... and what did the intrepid, "liberal" media look for first?

"Hillary Clinton spent the night in the White House on the day her husband had oral sex with Monica Lewinsky, and may have actually been in the White House when it happened..."

Now that's some real journalisitc integrity by Brian Ross and the "Investigative Unit" of ABC News, huh? Not since Geraldo Rivera and Al Capone's vault have we gotten such an amazing analysis of almost 35 reams of paper containing Clinton's schedule while residing in the White House. The first thing these scumbags look for is where Hillary was on the day Bill was getting a hummer from Monica. Un-fucking-believable.

(H/T Atrios)

Bill Clinton Does NOT Want An Economic Slowdown

WHAT BILL CLINTON SAID:

“And maybe America, and Europe, and Japan, and Canada — the rich counties — would say, ‘OK, we just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.’ We could do that.

But if we did that, you know as well as I do, China and India and Indonesia and Vietnam and Mexico and Brazil and the Ukraine, and all the other countries will never agree to stay poor to save the planet for our grandchildren. The only way we can do this is if we get back in the world’s fight against global warming and prove it is good economics that we will create more jobs to build a sustainable economy that saves the planet for our children and grandchildren. It is the only way it will work.”

HOW ABC's RESIDENT IDIOT, JAKE TAPPER, REPORTED IT:

"In a long, and interesting speech, he characterized what the U.S. and other industrialized nations need to do to combat global warming this way: “We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.”

At a time that the nation is worried about a recession is that really the characterization his wife would want him making? “Slow down our economy”?

I don’t really think there’s much debate that, at least initially, a full commitment to reduce greenhouse gases would slow down the economy….So was this a moment of candor?"

How moronic do you have to be to get that wrong? Either he's being deliberately misleading or Tapper is a pinhead. Of course, before you know it, everyone from The Drudge Report (pinhead)to Rush Limbaugh (fat pinhead) is off to the races with the twisted "truth." This after the fact that everyone, Democrat and Republican, has debunked the story; and even after all that, Tapper still claims to be uncertain about what Bill Clinton meant. How does this guy have a journalism job?

(H/T Carpetbagger and C&L)

FCC Fines ABC Big Do-Re-Mi?

Who are the idiots heading up the Federal Communications Commission? Some nitwit at the FCC has decided that an episode of NYPD Blue that originally aired on February 25, 2003, five fucking years ago, is subject to a $1.4 million fine for indecency because it "depicts sexual organs and excretory organs - specifically an adult woman's buttocks."

I remember watching this particular episode and was pleasantly surprised at viewing Charlotte Ross' "buttocks" for about .2 seconds. (Okay, I just found the video and the total amount of nudity time is about 5 seconds over a 42 second clip.) But maybe someone should remind the geniuses at the FCC of their own definition.

Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 1464, prohibits the utterance of “any obscene, indecent or profane language by means of radio communication.” Consistent with a subsequent statute and court case, the Commission's rules prohibit the broadcast of indecent material during the period of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. FCC decisions also prohibit the broadcast of profane material between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.

They're going after NYPD Blue, a show that's been off the air since 2005, and aired its episodes from 10p.m. to 11p.m., outside the FCC's own "indecency" time guidelines. Here's the YouTube clip in its entirety.

For this, the FCC wants to fine ABC $27,500 per affiliate (52 in total) for a jackpot of $1.4 million. Luckily, ABC is fighting back. " 'ABC feels strongly that the FCC's finding is inconsistent with prior precedent from the Commission, the indecency statute and the First Amendment, and we intend to oppose the proposed fine,' the ABC network said in its defence."

But the real moron seems to be FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate, who apparently can't trust America's parents to judge or police the television content their children watch.

"Our action today should serve as a reminder to all broadcasters that Congress and American families continue to be concerned about protecting children from harmful material and that the FCC will enforce the laws of the land vigilantly," Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate said.

We can't let our children watch this kind of filth on television because it'll prevent them from developing normally, cause them to go on sex rampages and become sexually deviant Republican politicians. Initially, ABC argued against the FCC's contention that buttocks are a "sexual organ", but the FCC rejected that argument apparently because they have anal sex on the brain.

If they really want to prevent children from watching something harmful, why do they keep allowing those damned Republican debates on the air?

Duncan Hunter Conference: I'm Not Quitting

Republican Presidential primary nominee Duncan Hunter calls a press conference carried live by CNN to announce... he's not quitting the campaign!

Hunter: "...some knucklehead, arrogant executive in the corporate media world of ABC and Fox News... decided that my campaign was over and the lights were gonna be shut out on my campaign. So against that backdrop, ABC and Fox have been asking us when I'm going to quit. So here's my answer: I'm not going to quit."

There were some very surpised looks over at CNN. Good for Hunter. He'll run til he's done, not when the media says he's done. There's an inherent problem with the equal time laws for candidates when the networks decide who can and cannot participate in these debates.