White House Correspondents' Dinner - April 28, 2012

President Obama



Jimmy Kimmel



I don't mean to sound like an Obamabot, but you have to admit that President Obama is a natural at this. He's likable, not stiff and knows how to dish it out as well as being a master of self deprecation while also being able to take Kimmel's best punches.

Jimmy Kimmel was funny and a bit more biting than performers from previous years. I thought he did well, although in my opinion not as well as Seth Meyers last year and the command performance of Stephen Colbert in 2006. It seemed he rushed through some of his material. Whether it was due to nervousness or the fact that he seemed to have a large volume of material and was trying to get through it all is yet to be determined. Just because you write a thousand jokes doesn't mean you have to use all of them.

But overall, it was a good time. With so much caustic, partisanship these last couple of years, it's nice to sit back and not take things so seriously. Anyone who was offended (I'm looking at you Keith Olbermann and awaiting a Donald Trump tantrum) needs to lighten up.

It's Time For MSNBC to Fire Pat Buchanan

David Shuster was suspended from MNSBC for expressing Hillary Clinton's use of her daughter during her presidential campaign as "pimping out" Chelsea. He was suspended again for tweeting about that yellow faux journalist douchebag James O'Keefe. He was suspended yet again and eventually fired by MSNBC for filming a pilot for CNN. Keith Olbermann was suspended by MSNBC for making campaign donations to politicians without first asking permission. His continual conflicts with his bosses eventually led to his release.

So what will MSNBC do with conservative pundit Pat Buchanan for referring to President Barack Obama as "boy" not once, but three times? Will they suspend him or fire him for his racist code words?

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Calling the African-American President of the United States "boy" three times is three times too many. Time for Pat to go.

(H/T GottaLaff)

Misinterpreting or Underestimating Obama

Posted by Desert Crone

I have been mulling over an idea that’s been rattling around in my head for a while, and that idea grew to fruition with two tweets by Lt. Dan Choi: “. . . .sad that Barack Obama would have voted no" and "Obama: ‘I have plenty of gay friends. Some of them work for me. I just feel they are inferior to me, and they don't deserve marriage.’" That set me off in an ugly old cranky rant on “Tweeter.” I called Lt. Choi a self-made martyr and a media whore. However, this wasn’t a spontaneous tweet; it was an opinion I’ve held about him since he came out. We drunks have a saying in AA, “Principles over personalities,” and Lt. Choi’s behavior and comments flew in the face of that belief.

His crusade became about himself and his rising star on MSNBC, not the greater good. In my opinion, President Obama became the target of “his” movement, and he lost sight of the LGBT movement. Of course, my criticism of Lt. Choi generated much support and criticism, some very harsh, which was of no surprise to me. However, I digress. In my mind Lt. Choi is hardly a martyr (which to my knowledge he has not claimed to be but acts like) because martyrs don’t throw others under the bus. Martyrs help people get on the bus and up on stools at Woolworth and into voting booths and into segregated public schools and universities. But my epiphany and the point of this post aren’t about Choi’s motive; they revolve around his criticism of President Obama.

As you know, Lt. Choi, Rachel Maddow, and Michael Moore all have the opinion that Obama would have voted against the gay marriage bill in NY. This is simply, unequivocally false. I am truly befuddled by this statement because I have read much of what Pres. Obama has said and written about gay marriage. Others are tweeting “evolve already” to the president, presumably assuming that Obama is struggling with moral or political issues around his view on gay marriage. I also disagree with that assumption.

I believe President Obama’s conundrum is whether or not gay marriage is a vehicle to achieving civil rights for LGBT’S, or whether gay marriage will come with the passing of more sweeping civil rights legislation and court rulings. If my observation does, in fact, define his conflicted feelings (or evolution), then his statements about gay marriage revolve around his search for the most pragmatic path to ensuring civil rights for LGBT’s.

 In this quote from Dec. 2008, Obama says:

‘Look, when my parents got married in 1961, it would have been illegal for them to be married in a number of states in the South. So obviously, this is something that I understand intimately, it’s something that I care about. But if I were advising the civil rights movement back in 1961 about its approach to civil rights, I would have probably said it’s less important that we focus on an anti-miscegenation law than we focus on a voting rights law and a non-discrimination and employment law and all the legal rights that are conferred by the state. Now, it’s not for me to suggest that you shouldn’t be troubled by these issues. But my job as president is going to be to make sure that the legal rights that have consequences on a day to day basis for loving same sex couples all across the country.’

Basically, but not wholly, I base my premise on the part of the quotation that is in bold. Also, I would like to reference articles by Greg Sargent and Andrew Sullivan. I reference these articles, not necessarily because they support my opinion, but because both “get” that this President understands nuance. The lack of understanding this about President Obama has created much of the Left’s vitriolic, unreasonable criticism.

I find it incredulous that many of Obama’s liberal/progressive critics appear to forget that Obama is a brilliant Constitutional lawyer with a powerful intellect. Even a frequent critic of the President, Keith Olbermann admits “it was really one of those moments where you thought, well, maybe we do have one of say the 1,000 smartest people in the country is [sic] the President of the United States. Maybe he`s 999. Maybe number 83 - we don`t know.” 

Yet, still Olbermann and other critics frequently go to great lengths to give President Obama advice on how to do this or that. The fact that Obama is a pragmatist and a Constitutional scholar with a brilliant mind leads me to believe that his positions on issues are not based on his religious beliefs or political scheming but the most pragmatic, quickest way to do the right thing for people of the United States. Thus, he has used and is using his executive powers to make it easier for unions to organize, to implement parts of the DREAM Act, and to obtain civil rights for LGBT’s. If Congress won’t get the job done, then Obama looks for other avenues.

My point is that the criticism that Obama would have voted no on gay marriage or that he doesn’t support gay marriage is so simplistic to be laughable if it weren’t so tragically absurd. It might be true if he were a black and white thinker (no pun so don’t even go there), but he is not. He is a complex man. And don’t you ever forget it.

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Olbermann Signs Off!

With no pomp and circumstance, Keith Olbermann revealed that Friday's Countdown telecast would be the last.

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After eight years, Countdown is done. TPM's Josh Marshall was a guest on the show and was shocked to discover that he was on the final broadcast - the professionalism of the staff and crew didn't give it away.

According to the New York Times...

MSNBC announced that “The Last Word” with Lawrence O’Donnell would replace “Countdown” at 8 p.m., with “The Ed Show” with Ed Schultz taking Mr. O’Donnell’s slot at 10 p.m. Mr. Olbermann did not discuss any future plans, but NBC executives said one term of his settlement will keep him from moving to another network for an extended period of time.

And thus begins Comcast's demise of the liberal media.

ADDING... After letting it sink in for a few minutes, this was definitely personal. Lawrence O'Donnell can be just as bombastic as KO was. And Ed Schultz and his beady, red eyes can come across as a loon sometimes. Maybe even a firebagger. This was definitely a personal matter - there was always friction between Olbermann and his bosses.

April Fools' Day in January, maybe?

POSTED BY JHW22

So, this was Keith Olbermann's final Countdown. No warning. Wow. Speculation is all a Twitter.

Olbermann Takes On Koppel, False Equivalency

Keith Olbermann responded to criticism from Ted Koppel in a Washington Post opinion piece lamenting the "death of real news." Shorter Keith: If it's the death of journalism you're ruing, you should have thought of that when you ignored the run up to Iraq and its aftermath instead of remaining silent for objectivity's sake. Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow didn't do that.

Keith's Back...

... on Tuesday.

In a statement last night, MSNBC President Phil Griffin said, "After several days of deliberation and discussion, I have determined that suspending Keith through and including Monday night's program is an appropriate punishment for his violation of our policy."

I wonder if the deliberations and discussions included a 300,000 signature petition demanding Olbermann back?

Maddow Responds To Olbermann Suspension

"I know everyone likes to say, "Oh, cable news, it's all the same. Fox and MSNBC -- mirror images of each other. But if you look at the long history of Fox hosts not just giving money to candidates, but actively endorsing campaigns and raising millions of dollars for politicians and political parties -- whether it's Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck or Mike Huckabee -- and you'll see that we can lay that old false equivalency to rest forever...

...Their network is run as a political operation. Ours isn't. Yeah, Keith's a liberal, and so am I. But we're not a political operation -- Fox is. We're a news operation. The rules around here are part of how you know that.

...Now, weirdly, it is Keith who is once again illustrating the difference between what he does at MSNBC -- what we do here -- and what goes on across the street."

MSNBC Suspends Olbermann

Keith Olbermann has been suspended indefinitely from MSNBC for making campaign contributions to three Democrats.

...Keith Olbermann: "One week ago, on the night of Thursday October 28 2010, after a discussion with a friend about the state of politics in Arizona, I donated $2,400 each to the reelection campaigns of Democratic Representatives Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords. I also donated the same amount to the campaign of Democratic Senatorial candidate Jack Conway in Kentucky." Olbermann went on to say he "did not privately or publicly encourage anyone else to donate to these campaigns, nor to any others in this election or any previous ones, nor have I previously donated to any political campaign at any level."

What is happening to the democratic process in our country when an individual is denied participation via legal campaign donations because of a horrible ethics policy rule? There's something horribly wrong when one cannot participate in or financially support the candidate(s) of their choice, but it's fine for corporations to donate unlimited funds to candidates and political parties in an anonymous way.

NBC should reconsider an ethics policy that infringes on an individual's constitutional rights.

UPDATE (6:05pm): According to a Huffington Post article, "[w]hile NBC News policy does not prohibit employees from donating to political candidates, it requires them to obtain prior approval from NBC News executives before doing so." The more I read into it, it seems to be personal between the NBC exec Phil Griffin, and Olbermann. It's a "my dick is bigger than your dick" issue, hence the suspension.

But the bigger issue still remains. Corporate rules are currently in place thanks to the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision that make available unlimited funds to 501(c)(4)s in support of a specific campaign by corporate donors who can remain anonymous, but those same corporations can have ethics policies in place for their employees against making campaign contributions as an individual private citizen, or at least in the case of NBC, needing permission from the executives first, who really have no business knowing who you vote for or your political affiliation.  It's just not right. I'd begrudgingly say the same if it happened to Bill O'Reilly.

What the Stewart Rally Meant to Me

It's taken me a couple of days to digest the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert Rally To Restore Sanity at the National Mall in Washington DC. I've had to mull it over to figure out what it means to me because I think that the message was a little different for everyone. Here's Stewart's speech at the end of the rally:



No, I don't completely buy into the "both sides are the same" meme only because one side deals with content and facts and one side deals with hyperbole and untruths. But that doesn't mean that Stewart isn't correct in saying the screechiness on both sides can be equal. And from what I can tell, most of the participants in the over the top rhetoric were the ones most offended.

While I still think it's incorrect in trying to force the notion that there's equivalency from both sides, because the right wing noise machine is much louder, much bigger and therefore more far reaching in it's message. But it doesn't help the liberal side to participate in the teabagger, wingnut, crazy name calling. I know it's hard, but we can rebut and debate without ad hominem attacks. It only weakens our message because people who need the message most get caught up in Keith Olbermann or Ed Schultz calling someone a "right wing nutjob" rather than the content of why they are categorizing that person as such. The content can be all the more effective without clouding it in name calling.

We all do it. I do it on my blog, the right does it, the left does it, hell Stewart even included clips of himself in the video montage the preceded his speech. That doesn't mean that he thinks he's full of shit. He deals in truths and common sense through satire and comedy, but even he will admit that having a Gospel choir sing "Go Fuck Yourself" is exactly the type of "both sides" meme he's talking about.

But he's not completely wrong about new organizations or opinion shows posing as news organizations (I'm looking at Fox New Channel in particular) going too far. We love the red meat. But if you follow politics when there are no upcoming elections, if you read the political blogs daily or watch the political cable shows daily, you are a political junky. You know what's going on. Unfortunately, most people don't. Most people in America can't name the Speaker of the House. And due to the name calling, those are the people who are quicker to dismiss the content of the message because they've already tuned out - the hyperbole turned them off before you had a chance to grab their attention.

So while I didn't completely agree with Stewart, I felt I got what he was trying to say. And I think that the ultimate message Stewart was trying to put across was not that both sides are equal in content, but that they can both be over the top in negative rhetoric. That's what I got out of it anyway.

The mere fact that liberals like TomTomorrow would tweet, "Like Digby says, right wing isn't going to listen to any of this. So basically DFH's just got told to STFU" just gives more credence to what Stewart was saying in the first place. No, he wasn't calling you a dirty fucking hippie and wasn't telling liberals to shut the fuck up, but because everyone is so on edge, TomTomorrow and Digby and Keith Olbermann didn't get the message I got.

It's like when you were in school and the teacher berated the entire class for totally bombing on a midterm exam. Then you get your test back and you got a B+ or an A and you have to step back and think, "Oh, he wasn't talking to me. I get it." You have to separate yourself in an objective manner and not take things so personally. Those that were offended by Stewart didn't seem to be able to do that.

Yes, I'll still watch Olbermann because he still gives me pertinent information even though it may be in a bombastic way. And that's why I watch him and Rachel Maddow, because I can rely on their information. It's based it fact, not fantasy or fear. And since I'm not a vegetarian, the red meat makes me feel like I'm not crazy.

I'll still read Digby's blog and TomTomorrow's tweets because they still have interesting things to say. Just because I don't agree with what people say 100% of the time doesn't mean I'll write them off. It's the same with Glenn Greenwald, for example. In my eyes, sometimes he's just an Obama contrarian but that doesn't mean I disagree with everything he has to say. It's called "opinion." I just have to separate that out.

By the way, I watched MSNBC on and off for a few hours today and didn't hear one mention of the rally. An estimated 215,000 showed up for the rally, outdrawing Beck's rally of 87,000. But we'll cover the Beck rally for a week.  Stewart's? No so much.  So much for equivalence, huh?

Olbermann: "There is no 'Ground Zero Mosque'"

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"...[T]his is America, dammit.

And in America, when somebody comes for your neighbor, or his bible, or his torah, or his Atheists' Manifesto, or his Koran, you and I do what our fathers did, and our grandmothers did, and our founders did. You and I speak up."

Keith Olbermann's Special Comment on Shirley Sherrod

This is arguably Olbermann's best special comment ever.

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"Fired up? Fired up?! Anyone? Anyone?"

Olbermann Advice to Obama: Don't Accept McChrystal's Resignation

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While I understand Olbermann's logic, unfortunately logic is most likely the last thing that will be used in the political and media spin of this situation.

My take:

Either A) President Obama will accept the resignation and the "Obama doesn't listen to his commanders" meme will ring for days, or B) the President will shelve McChrystal's resignation and the "weak leadership" meme will echo throughout Wingnuttia. "Obama can't even control his generals!" A no-win situation. Thanks, Stanley.