Yesterday, I awoke with what was diagnosed as a middle-ear infection. Prescribed drugs seemed to work out the symptoms, and I awoke this morning feeling almost normal, but I’ve the dizziness back right now.

Here’s a bit about that which I wrote yesterday.

I’ve not seen a lot frome the MSM covering the Bobby RUsh angle of Harry Reid’s refual to seat Rollie Burris — that the Senate Dem leadership is racist — and I wonder what might have happened had Mitch McConnell refused to seat a black Republican. Then again, such questions are so purely hypothetical — wouldn’t happen — unless the appointed Republican were a mass murder or an all around bad guy. Senat9r Burris seems a nice enough guy. Unlike Leon Panneta.

OPEN THREAD.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

PREFACE:

Opening ABC’s This Week, Israeli President Shimon Peres asserted that Israel had no desire to crush Hamas or occupy Gaza; rather, they wanted to eliminate terror.

Next up for host George Stephanopoulos was Dick Durbin, who appeared to indicate that he would be willing to seat Burris provisionally until the Senate could investigate and determine if Blago played by the rules in appointing him. That would be an easy out for Harry Reid from his self-made mess.

Then on TW, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell pointed out that half of the American public was represented by a Republican Senator, and the GOP would be a part of the process.

On FOX News Sunday, House Dem Leader Steny Hoyer said that the Obama Spending Package (stimulus) will not be “overloaded with earmarks,” but that he will not give the Obama Administration an “informal veto.”

Next up on FNS, former President George Herbert Walker Bush endorsed his son Jeb for the U.S. Senate if that is what Jeb wants: “I’d like to see him be President.”

On MTP, Harry declared that Senators can decide who can be a Senator and who cannot. He denied that he is a racist because a black woman was once his second choice to be a federal judge.

On FTN, host Bob Schieffer went through a partial list of the vacuous lefty lunatic howls and Vice President Dick Cheney withered them with calm and factual logic. So. There.

First on LE, Palestinian (Hamas) “negotiator” Saeb Erekat blamed Israel for attacking innocent Palestinians in Gaza. He called for an immediate cease fire so that the international community could sort things outl.

Next up on LE, Benjamin Netanyahu pointed out that Israel could have done a Dresden on Hamas but sought to diminish civilian casualties.

Then Mark Sanford and Jon Corzine were Blitzer’s guest on LE. Corzine argued that Obama’s spending package was a “partnership with the federal government,” not a “bailout.” Sanford argued that it is daft to get the federal government to “solve” a problem by throwing money at it when the government was the root of the problem.

Read the full Review at RedState.com

For Sunday, January 4, 2009

FOX News Sunday (FNS): Host Chris Wallace will discuss the first 100 Days of Dem Congress, 2009, with Steny Hoyer.

This Week (ABC): Host George Stephanopoulos will talk to Senators Roland Burris (D-Illinois), Dick Durbin (same), and Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky).

Meet the Press (NBC): Moderator David Gregory talks to Harry Reid about his mounting woes.

Face the Nation (CBS): Host Bob Schieffer has his last interview with Vice President Dick Cheney.

Late Edition (CNN): I think John King will be taking over, and I’m sure he’ll talk to lots of nice folks.

= = = = =

I applaud Stephanopoulos for interviewing Rollie Burris, and contra what I implied, he’s not yet a Senator. It will be interesting to hear what Durbin has to say about this. Reid is addled, but he might say something controversial, and I wonder if Steny will purport to speak for Nancy.

The Sunday Shows return to the Front Page at RedState on Sunday afternoon.

It was radio talker Sean Hannity who first observed something like 2008 was the year journalism died, for the journalists’ unconcealed fawning over Obama. I’m not willing to pain all journalists with the same brush, as their are some good ones, almost all outside the realm of political coverage. I’d argue that given Sean’s criteria, journalism died in the 1980s with its coverage of the Reagan Administration, which was not nearly as bad as its slander of the Bush Administration, but it was bad enough to merit the demarcation.

Political ournalists, the talented ones, like to think of themselves as objective. This could lead to a backlash against Obama, perhaps a magnification of his errors. Also possibly leading to a backlash is if Obama doesn’t carry through on an agenda which is actually radical.

I wonder what our review of journalism in the next year will be when it has finished?

This is an open thread.

Vicki Iseman, the lobbyist with whom the New York Tmes declared, with no evidence, that John McCain was having any affair, has sued the paper for $27-million. If you’ll recall, the story was scurrilous and, most of all, lame, by the NYT is standing by it.

Her main problem could probably be that the NYT does not have $27-million to pay her for damages from their libelous defamation.

This is an open thread.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Tribune Co., the owner of the paper, spent $3-million to restructure debt last year then declared bankruptcy. They also hired one of the country’s top PR firms, Edelman, to handle communications regarding Chapter 11.

Much is at stake. Tribune Co. also owns the Los Angeles Times and other papers and is a major broadcaster. In its bankruptcy petition, the company listed assets of $7.6 billion and $12.9 billion in liabilities.

Could this have been avoided, could revenue have remained healthy, had they directed the reporters and editors at the company’s newspapers to report the news, as the readers demanded, and keep the Op/Ed for the Op/Ed page? We will never know for sure, and that is not the route they chose.

(HT, Romenesko.)

Open thread.

Our soldiers still have work to do in Iraq, of course, but the Big Three TV networks are redeploying from Iraq.

“The war has gone on longer than a lot of news organizations’ ability or appetite to cover it,” said Jane Arraf, a former Baghdad bureau chief for CNN who has remained in Iraq as a contract reporter for The Christian Science Monitor.

Joseph Angotti, a former vice president of NBC News, said he could not recall any other time when all three major broadcast networks lacked correspondents in an active war zone that involved United States forces.

Certainly there are newsworthy things happening in Iraq, things about which the public should know, but there is little left that fits the media meme. They’ll slink out of town with their heads hung lw. Every day they remain and report is another time they have to let the public know of an Obama broken promise.

In the end, the reporters were very brave but their bosses have turned out to be exceedingly craven.