PSoTD

I wish that I had access to the pay version of this news article search engine a few years ago.

It seems to me that a heckuva lot of journalists are on Twitter.

I stumbled onto this show when I couldn't sleep on Sunday on FX, and it was this episode. I will admit, I haven't laughed so hard at a TV show since maybe ever. It might just be dumb guy humor, but it's the pure good stuff. I still am laughing.

My wife and I are enjoying this quirky cop drama on NBC, we liked it last year also, but I have to say, I really don't get the attraction of Sarah Shahi's character towards her boss.

Still, just an entertaining show.

CNN.

It's a commercial stew here. Big ole' Campbell Brown head, regular ads, use CNN's mobile service, etc. They use lots and lots and lots and lots of water and corn starch on this site.

Not much meat, though. Try to find projected vote totals for third party candidates at any level. They've turned their "Election Results" section into a glorified coloring book story tale.

Yeeearrggghhh.

Gotta give credit where credit is due: SNL and Ben Affleck just nailed Olbermann in a sketch yesterday. Classic.

I guess I don't get it. What is the appeal that this guy have his own show? We were watching a couple of times this week, and perhaps it's just rare honesty on televsion, but he seems to like to say that he "doesn't know who to believe." Balance in reporting is great, but I prefer it doesn't come from a sense of confusion or inability to discern.

If it weren't for David Gergen I wouldn't watch CNN's political coverage at all...

Please don't hire these people.

I sent an email to David Broder a few weeks ago for a lousy column he wrote (standard fare for him) and today, finally, came this:

Thank you for your e-mail to David Broder. With the popularity of these columns, we receive upward of 1,000 e-mails a week. We regret that we cannot respond to all of them. If we did, there would be no column to e-mail about. But be assured that David Broder or one of his editors will read every e-mail. If you are responding to one of Mr. Broder's columns, we invite you to let us know in which newspaper you read the column (unless you have already done so in your e-mail) by replying to davidbroder@washpost.com. Then we will share your e-mail with your local newspaper editor, who would also appreciate hearing your feedback.

Sincerely,

The Washington Post Writers Group

After a week and a half, that's a bumbling email to send. It's an autoresponse, why wouldn't it have sent out immediately?

I'm just kinda wondering, has Joe the Plumber actually said his life has been destroyed the past few weeks? Or is he liking his fifteen minutes of fame?

If the Chicago Tribune had any brains, they'd replace John Kass with Joe the Plumber. I don't care if Joe can't write anything interesting, at least so far he hasn't proved that he would pen something irrational and stool-like.

Sure, at least ten newspapers that backed Bush in 2004 are now endorsing Obama this year, but unless they've changed editorial boards, I can't be impressed with decisionmaking made by folks who backed such a problem causer for the United States in 2004.

Links to online newspapers.

is to read the assessment of Christopher Hitchins on McCain and Palin - and Obama.

Bill Kristol has some advice: keep aimlessly flailing.

What the heck, maybe America wants an extremely erratic leader! Who knows? It's just too bad that you didn't name a Wilson volleyball as VP!

It's abundantly clear, the Republicans as a group don't know how to campaign in today's America, so how would anyone expect them as a group to know how to govern?

For election coverage, David Gergen is about the only reason to watch CNN. The lack of thoughtful, honest conservatives on television makes Gergen's regular appearances stand out as some of the most watchable political commentary on television outside of The Comedy Network. It's worth - and only worth - watching CNN's coverage to hear a conservative actually honestly assess what is going on with the Republican Party.

Because he's babyassbitching about his job. Maybe next time CBS should have him cover the Libertarian Party's candidate. Seriously, is this what CBS is paying him to cover - how he's treated on the campaign?

There must be some alternative reason that ticket sales suck besides reality. THERE MUST BE A CONSPIRACY!!!!!

When people ask the news media to examine the debate content in detail, I do not think that this is what they mean.

I guess I'm a bit jaded, I don't see these "commentators" as just being horrible judges of politics and how Americans see it today, but as strong efforts to try to prop up what can only be perceived as an unacceptable debate result for any Vice Presidential candidate.

You know what would be fun? A CNN program that discusses analysis of the VP debate from four different commentators including the two above, and have one of those "undecided" focus groups with that male/female response graph at the end, and see who people actually believe.

A woman I know said a friend of hers had a cousin who has a neighbor that works with a lady that said that she heard at a bar that there were some people conspiring against America.

Talk about laughable - if there's ANYTHING that "Pajamas Media" stands for or exists for, it's to be in the tank of the Republican Party.

David Broder's op-eds are not predictable. The reason isn't because of what his opinion will be on a given topic, but what his topic matter of choice is. But he is consistently conservatively shallow in his thinking and can be counted on to display a lack of understanding to how those not in the mediacracy sees things.

I find the disdain to which he considers the immediately polling after the debate quite telling. Any "pro-tilt" towards Obama as a result of the debate is about the political and financial climate, not about how Obama and McCain actually performed during the debate. Whether this is true or not isn't proved by anything and exists only in the minds of Broder and people like him. It diminishes the assessment skills of people who watched the debate in a preconceived way - short of McCain barfing on himself trying to dislodge his tie which he had swallowed while angrily bellowing to kill Iranians, David S. Broder was going to declare McCain the winner in this debate. The only question was whether he was going to write about it.

I think this TimesPeople experiment might be interesting. I signed up to see how it works. If you're looking for me, I'm PSoTD, as usual.

A first thing, single must item MUST BE THE DECONSOLIDATION OF NEWS MEDIA. Because McKay is right.

Every time I see one of this guy's AP articles, I wonder: doesn't his editors ask him to cover something important in the campaign?

Maybe Associated Press doesn't pay well, why else would Nedra Pickler be a lead political reporter for any campaign?

So it's Charlie Gibson.

That the Anchorage Daily News would become a must-read for bloggers in this election?

I think so. Know why? Last week was the last week of summer, this week is the first real week of school around the country. Know what happens this week? Parents are home, parents control the later evening television.

I gotta tell you, the Osceola News-Gazette has one crummy web site. I don't live there, I don't read it, all I'm looking for is an obituary that I believe was published there last week, and they can't seem to provide in a functional way. Talk about standing out in a very poor way...

It's sad when you realize that the predetermined observations of someone well past 15 years of writing anything enlightening will not stop receiving high level media attention until that person is dead.

Unless, of course, the newspaper outlets for that person die first.

It is amazing: CNN sucks more as a news organization every year. Their convention coverage this year was barely better than unwatchable. I couldn't care less about every CNN personality they try to brand on their news, and it's very clear that their number one goal is to brand the news, not report it. Wolf Blitzer has become a very bad joke. They really should fire everyone there and start over. Frankly, there are people at Fox News that are better than most of the on-the-air "talent" they run at CNN.

Funny how few television news "personalities" have been offended by John McCain's treating them like puppies chasing imaginary sticks today. Hey, Lieberman's in Dayton! No he's not! Where's my blackberry! Who has the most recent misleading hint from McCain! Woof woof!

There are dumbasses in the United States that say they will vote against their own interests out of hurt.

This just in from me: the 2004 election showed there are dumbasses in the United States that will vote against their own interests because they're dumbasses.

CNN promotes the first group, and supports the second group's ignorance. Thanks, CNN.

I actually agree with this Atrios snidety as a standard.

There's not a good reason to keep people like David Broder and the recently retired Bob Novak on newspaper payrolls past a certain age - or at least a proven reason. I know that there's some sort of theory that they've built contacts and history and wisdom that the newspaper can tap into with the columns, but frankly, they've also built up a premium cost and predictable processes and an established coterie of quote contacts and a predisposed viewpoint of the world that has gotten more than their share of time, and it's time for them to go. The same argument newspapers make about columnists can be made about state government employees and I don't see much clamor to keep the state government employees around past mandatory retirement.

These aged scribes have an audience they can tap into with their own blogs if they're really that damn interesting, and so they should go do it. I suspect that David Broder doesn't want to learn how to do a blog, and that's really the problem - if a columnist doesn't want to learn on the job, then what good are they?

Yup, that headline says it all.

I feel bad for Tim Russert's family over his untimely death. This, however, is wrong. There are plenty of REAL journalists, people who have paid their dues with work, that deserve a shot at this, I'm sure. This IS WRONG.

Journalism should not be considered a fiefdom.

He says:

ABC News' Jennifer Parker reports: A longtime friend of Sen. Hillary Clinton said it's "incomprehensible" that Sen. Barack Obama would choose another woman to be his vice-presidential candidate over Sen. Hillary Clinton.

"The selection of either one of those instead of Sen. Clinton I would find completely incomprehensible," said Lanny Davis of rumored Obama vice-presidential contenders Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill.

There is a clear, if perhaps minor, reason to select of these two as a candidate over Hillary Clinton - it greatly reduces the chances that we will continue to see Lanny Davis in any kind of public forum in the future. If there's ever been a political never-was masquerading as a has-been in his pursuit to become somebody remotely important, it's Davis.

May bird turds rain from the sky on the suits of executives that make decisions giving news priority or value to anything Lanny Davis does.