Doctor My Eyes

CNN's Anderson Cooper gets his first ever eyeglasses to read CNN's new pie chart: 

TVNewser reveals why CNN is 'What, Me Worry?' about prime time ratings.

Is actor Philip Seymour Hoffmann Anderson's eyewear 'eye-dol'?

BP: Barack's Problem

The NYP brands Louisiana 'The Big Oozy.' Now there are fears of what happens if there's a hurricane.

The shrimping season was supposed to start Tuesday. 

What I find ironic is that cold control freak Barack Obama has met an animal/vegetable/mineral he cannot contain.  BP says there's nothing to be done until August to stop the obscene oil leak. 

August.  Three months before the 2010 congressional elections.  Between now and August the Louisiana fish industry sleeps with the fishes, tourists take a hike to the tune of millions of lost dollars in revenue - from the Louisiana coast to Florida and beyond - if the oil spill moves Northeast.

The trajectory of Obama's presidency is greased by the very company - BP - that spread around big bucks to him and other congressional candidates.

And control freak Obama is helpless - mired in the muck shoveling the White House spin that nobody's swallowing.

Sneaky Tiki

The NYP's exclusive stake-out photo outside NBC "Today" show correspondent Tiki Barber's estranged wife Ginny's NYC pad as the former Giants star has a 'twin peek' at his twin girls born a week ago. 

The Post reports Tiki was banned from the delivery room, presumably for dumping Ginny for a 23-year-old blonde former NBC intern.

Rush & Molloy Won't Be Missed By CNN's Jeffrey Toobin

The New York Daily News married duo of George Rush and Joanna Molloy are saying sayonara to their 15-year column.

In Sunday's final column Rush & Molloy finger CNN's legal eagle Jeffrey Toobin as one of the outed extramarital sex offenders ecstatic that the intrepid gossips are bagging their column. 

The married with teenagers Toobin (right with Casey Greenfield, daughter of CBS News's Jeff Greenfield), knocked up Casey. Casey went to the bat in court over child support.

The Muck Stops Here

New York Post headline on BP's failure to 'plug the damn hole.'  Now BP says not until August. How is the Obama WH handling it?  NYT  Not well.

'The Obama presidency is facing a real crisis.' Dem pollster Doug Shoen

• Wash Post columnist Dana Milbank: For eight years we had a president who refused to accept blame. Now we have one who seems to enjoy it. In the hour President Obama spent at the podium in the East Room last week holding a news conference on the Gulf oil spill, he practiced every form of self-flagellation short of bringing out a cat-o'-nine-tails.
• He decorated the East Room with wuddas, cuddas and shuddas: "We should have busted through those constraints. . . . pre-deploying boom would have been the right thing to do . . . I do think our efforts fell short. . . . They should have pushed them sooner. . . . I think that it took too long. . . . Where I was wrong was in my belief that the oil companies had their act together."
• No wonder Americans are growing dissatisfied with his handling of the spill. Even his daughter holds him responsible. "When I woke this morning and I'm shaving," he said, "Malia knocks on my bathroom door and she peeks in her head and she says, 'Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?' "
• That's very clear, sir. But why not share some with the guys at BP who actually are responsible for the spill?
• In a sense, it's refreshing to have a president who is candid about shortcomings. Yet Obama's news conference may have been the weakest hour of his presidency.
• As I sat in the fourth row on Thursday, I was struck by the weirdly passive figure before me. He delivered lawyerly phrases and spoke of his anger about the oil spill but showed none in his voice or on his face. He was, presumably, there to show how aggressively he has handled the disaster, but he seemed cool, almost bloodless.
• He also retreated from the tough talk his administration has used on BP. Asked about the White House's vow to keep its "boot on the neck" of BP, Obama replied: "I would say that, you know, we don't need to use language like that."
• Yes we do! And we need tough deeds to match the tough talk.
• Louisianan James Carville exploded Wednesday on "Good Morning America" about Obama's "political stupidity" in the spill. "He could be commandeering tankers and making BP bring tankers in and clean this up. They could be deploying people. . . . It just looks like he's not involved in this. Man, you got to get down here and take control of this."
• Instead, Obama rhetorically took the boot off BP's throat. His Republican critics like to call him a socialist, but in this case he hasn't been enough of one.
• True, Obama needs BP's technical expertise to plug the leak. But questioner after questioner at the news conference pressed the president on why he doesn't take on BP. "How do you explain that we're more than five weeks into this crisis and that BP is not always doing as you're asking?" inquired the AP's Jennifer Loven. NBC's Chuck Todd skipped the usual "thank you, Mr. President" before asking, "Why not ask BP to simply step aside on the onshore stuff?"
• In reply, Obama was passive. "If BP's contractors are not moving as nimbly and as effectively as they need to be, then it is already the power of the federal government to redirect those resources," he argued. "I guess the point being that the Coast Guard and our military are potentially already in charge."
• Potentially in charge? Maybe it's time to put them actually in charge.

NYT Frank Rich in claiming Obama is 'infinitely more capable of handling catastrophe than his predecessor' whines the oil spill is ruining Obama's 'principal mission':  The only good news from the oil spill is that when catastrophe strikes, even some hard-line conservatives, like Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, start begging for the federal government to act, and act big. It’s the crunch moment for government to make its case — as Obama belatedly started to do on Thursday. But words are no match for results. As long as the stain washes up on shore, the hole in BP’s pipe will serve the right as a gaping hole in the president’s argument for expanded government supervision of, for starters, Big Oil and big banks. It’s not just the gulf that could suffer for decades to come.

NYT's Maureen Dowd: President Spock’s behavior is illogical. At a press conference, Obama said Malia had asked him, as he shaved, “Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?” (That hole should be plugged with a junk-shot of Glenn Beck, who crudely mocked the adorable Malia.) Oddly, the good father who wrote so poignantly about growing up without a daddy scorns the paternal aspect of the presidency.

• Too often it feels as though Barry is watching from a balcony, reluctant to enter the fray until the clamor of the crowd forces him to come down. The pattern is perverse. The man whose presidency is rooted in his ability to inspire withholds that inspiration when it is most needed.
• For five weeks, it looked as though Obama considered the gushing that became the worst oil spill in U.S. history a distraction, like a fire alarm going off in the middle of a law seminar he was teaching. He’ll deal with it, but he’s annoyed because it’s not on his syllabus.
• He’s spending the holiday weekend in Chicago when he should be commemorating Memorial Day here with the families of troops killed in battle and with veterans at Arlington Cemetery.
• Republican senators who had a contentious lunch with the president last week described him as whiny, thin-skinned and in over his head, and there was extreme Democratic angst at the White House’s dilatory and deferential attitude on the spill.
• Even more than with the greedy financiers and arrogant carmakers, it was important to offend and slap back the deceptive malefactors at BP.
• Obama and top aides who believe in his divinity make a mistake to dismiss complaints of his aloofness as Washington white noise. He treats the press as a nuisance rather than examining his own inability to encapsulate Americans’ feelings.
• “The media may get tired of the story, but we will not,” he told Gulf Coast residents when he visited on Friday. Actually, if it weren’t for the media, the president would probably never have woken up from his torpor and flown down there.
• Instead of getting Bill Clinton to offer Joe Sestak a job, Obama should be offering Clinton one. Bill would certainly know how to gush at a gusher gone haywire. Let him resume a cameo role as Feeler in Chief. The post is open.

BP has greased the palms of not only Obama but of Congress. Now BP will try to cap the gusher.

Related:  Washington Post  NYDN

Life Cycle Over For Dennis Hopper

'Easy Rider' Dennis Hopper eases into the afterlife. Prostate cancer.  He was 74.

Related:  LAT 'An Uneasy Ride With Dennis Hopper'

NYDN David Hinckley:  Dennis Hopper brought an edge to every role.

CNN Drives A Stake Into Larry King's Heart

Larry King konged again by MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Thursday May 27th after a devastating piece by the NYTimes Brian Stelter.

Larry awoke from his coffin Thursday a.m. to find Stelter opining that the CNN icon 'has come to embody an enormous problem facing the cable news channel. How can he and CNN compete in prime time when viewers seem to crave partisan political programs and when prominent guests—the lifeblood of Mr. King's show—would rather burnish their images on other channels?'

King, 76, has stayed alive by sucking the blood from celebrity and political heavyweights for 25 years.  After CNN cuts off his life support, Larry won't have anybody or anything to sink his teeth into.  Larry erroneously believed he possessed eternal media life.  But now that the sun is sinking and Larry's in the twilight of his career, it is inconceivable the shell Larry occupies will exist within a year without CNN's life-sustaining airwaves.

CNN is rife with schizo personalities, as Gawker helpfully points out. Just like vampires of yore trudging through eternity with identity and ethical issues (recall Brad Pitt's turmoil in 1994's  'Interview With The Vampire' over sucking the blood of dead people), CNN is attempting (and failing) to find lofty journalistic 'objectivity' with frivolous, absurd shows and lightweight talent - the anathema of journalism and its real practitioners.

Vampire Armand (Antonio Banderas) nails Larry's quest for eternal TV life: 'The world changes, we do not; therein lies the irony that finally kills us.'

Unfortunately for Larry, James Cameron's 'Avatar' is just a movie.

Does anyone have any 'Sympathy For The Devil' in CNN's death dance?

CBS & Fox Finish TV Season On Top

CBS #1, Fox #1 18-49. Oh, what to do about NBC and ABC?

Is Glenn Beck A Butt Hole?

Glenn Beck apologizes for making fun of Obama's daughter Malia on his radio show.  But its not enough for Media Matters.  Or MSNBC's Keith Olbermann fingering Beck as TWPINW:

I'm taking the rest of today and Friday off.  Mental health days.  I'm starting to resemble Jack Nicholson in "The Shining." 

Will be ensconced in a hermetically sealed padded cell where no toxic media can penetrate.  I guess I don't appear on the outside as psycho as Jack.  

CNN Can't Carry A Tune

What happened to CNN anchoress Kyra Phillips's flame tresses?  Kyra had to apologize Wednesday after some boob CNN grunt ran a rap song with the word "nigga" in the lyric as "music" to a commercial break.  Kyra claims it was the "wrong song."  Enquiring minds wanna know which song CNN intended to run after a bit about a 103-year-old feisty black woman.  My pick:  "Roll With Me, Henry."

Cable News Ratingzzz

Tuesday May 25, 2010

Two Boobs

NBC's "Today" queens Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb appear sans makeup in a recent May Sweeps stunt.

Wednesday the pair took off their zebra and leopard bras on-air to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the bra.

Had Matt Lauer been around, he would've artfully removed them with his teeth.  In under 10 seconds.

Instead Kathie Lee and Hoda pull a second bra out of their bags of tricks.

Kathie Lee's 500cc implants were unmoved. So were the Fleet Week sailors in the studio watching these dumb dames:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Emperor Has No Close

Mike Allen Politico: A White House official previews President Obama's remarks and press conference on the Gulf and BP, to be held at 12:45 p.m. in the East Room: 'The President will discuss the conclusions of the 30-day safety review on offshore drilling he directed Secretary Salazar to conduct. He will announce standards to strengthen oversight of the industry and enhance safety, a first step in a process that the independent Presidential Commission will continue. While the Commission performs its work to determine how to prevent this from ever happening again, the moratorium on permits to drill new deepwater wells will continue for a period of six months. In addition, the planned exploration off the coast of Alaska in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas will be delayed pending the Commission's review, and the August lease sale in the Western Gulf will be cancelled. The lease sale off the coast of Virginia will also be canceled due to environmental concerns and concerns raised by the D efense Department. Secretary Salazar briefed President Obama and senior advisors on the report last evening in the Oval Office.'

Wednesday Obama's "Strongly Approve" numbers had dropped to 23% in the latest Rasmussen daily tracking poll.

Old Hat

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow digs into the NBC News video archives and comes up with 31-year-old "Today" show reports on a disasterous 1979 Gulf oil spill that mirrors the BP mess: "If you close your eyes... you would be forgiven for thinking you had just flipped on the news today.... This is reporting from déjà-vu-land.' The 'top-hat' cone technique was then known as 'Operation Sombrero.'"

The "Today" show news anchor is Floyd Kalber:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

CNN Sinks Fangs Into Larry King Via Proxy

NYTimes uses the Larry King Dracula photo from the WH Correspondents' Dinner to cold-bloodedly hammer the final nail in Larry's coffin.

NYT's Brian Stelter "In New Era Of  TV, Rival Hosts Drown Out King":

•  CNN cannot compete. “Larry King Live” is now struggling in the ratings, as is CNN as a whole. The ratings for the new “John King, USA” political show at 7 p.m. have been disappointing, and Campbell Brown announced last week that she was quitting her 8 p.m. show after concluding that her newscast could not compete with the bombastic opinion-oriented shows on Fox News and MSNBC.
• Ratings for Mr. King, 76, are about 20 percent better than those of his lead-in, Ms. Brown, but he ranks a distant third behind the conservative Sean Hannity on Fox and the liberal Ms. Maddow. His audience has been cut in half since the last presidential election, to an average of just 725,000 viewers a night.
• CNN executives will not say whether they will renew Mr. King’s contract when it ends next year. There is a growing feeling at the company that a succession plan should be put in place, but there is no evidence that CNN is actually preparing such a plan.
• Mr. King was noticeably absent during a presentation for advertisers last month, which heavily featured CNN stars like Anderson Cooper and Soledad O’Brien, but only fleetingly included Mr. King in a video clip.
• “Larry King Live” is the last trace of an earlier age of cable TV, one that had little interest in the opinions of its hosts.
• “They have this iconic personality who is going to disappear in the not-too-distant future, and they don’t have any clue what they’re going to do,” one senior employee said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he did not have permission from the channel to speak publicly.
• Through a spokeswoman, the chief, Jonathan Klein, said Tuesday: “Larry is one of a kind and a television legend. He delivers the best interviews on cable news, hands down. We’re proud of the work he and his team deliver every night and the consistency with which his show makes news night after night.”
• According to CNN employees who would speak only anonymously, Mr. Klein is focused on finding Ms. Brown’s replacement at 8 p.m., and is not planning an imminent change at 9 p.m. (CNN has held talks with Eliot Spitzer, among others, possibly about appearing on a “Crossfire”-style show at 8.)
• But Mr. King’s contract is up in June 2011, and there has long been speculation that the “CBS Evening News” anchor Katie Couric could slide into his chair. Her contract is up in May 2011, and she sees CNN’s 9 p.m. time slot as a possible new job, according to four of her friends and colleagues.
• But two of the people said the time slot was looking less appealing now, given the ratings slide. They requested anonymity because they were describing private conversations.
• Over all, CNN’s ratings in prime time are down about a third compared with a year ago. The channel’s parent company, Time Warner, is growing increasingly impatient.
• Some CNN employees say there is a tone-deafness at 9 p.m., evinced last week when an interview with Mick Jagger was shown on a busy primary election night. This week Mr. King covered Lindsay Lohan’s court case one night and the gulf oil spill the next, so viewers do not know what to expect.
• “When we pick a brand, what we’re really doing is picking an element of ourselves that reinforces who we are,” said Tom Dougherty, the president of the branding agency Stealing Share, who says CNN’s brand is in a “quagmire.” “Until they decide who they’re for — which is an amazingly difficult thing to do, and includes deciding who they are not for — they will flounder.”
• Some at CNN argue that Mr. King and his program are casualties of the fragmented nature of TV. But Mr. Hannity’s program is down only 2 percent in the 25- to 54-year-old ratings demographic, and Ms. Maddow’s program has declined by about 28 percent, a narrower loss than Mr. King’s 43 percent slide. A new talk show on CNN’s sister network HLN, hosted by Joy Behar, also sometimes beats Mr. King’s show.
• Henry Schafer of the Q Scores Company, which measures public perception, said Mr. King showed below-average appeal, and given the age of the show, “it is very difficult at this point in time” to draw new viewers. Steven J. Farella, the chief executive of the advertising agency TargetCast TCM, said that CNN needed to attract younger viewers in prime time. In the advertising industry, he said, “after anybody mentions Larry King and CNN, the next words are ‘Yes, but it’s old,’ ” referring to the 60-plus audience for the program.
• “Larry King has a terrific place in cable news history,” Mr. Farella said, “but maybe not a firm place in cable news today.”

Pinocchio

Disney secretary to the head of corporate communications at LA HQ finds out it's a small world after all after her arrest on trying to sell company financial secrets.

Bonnie Hoxie as "Dumbo."  Betty Boop Boob Bonnie must have been Goofy in Fantasyland to believe she could pull off this Mickey Mouse insider trading scam with her boyfriend accomplice.  NYDN

There are a hundred Disney jokes here.  You can do better than me...

Errin' Andrews?

"The only place Rachel Maddow would ever don the sequined bikini and ruffled skirt [ESPN hottie Erin] Andrews wore during her Samba would be in some geeky artist's Photoshop file."  NYDN gossipista Joanna Molloy on Erin trying to "have it both ways."

Joanna can't see Katie Couric or Christiane Amanpour in that outfit either. 

Erin Andrews is to Katie Couric what Lindsay Lohan is to Meryl Streep.

Will The Real Dr. Sanjay Gupta Please Stand Up

Did you know there are two Dr. Sanjay Guptas?  Neither did FishbowlDC's Betsy Rothstein apologizing profusely for suggesting the CNN doc was supporting a Philadelphia Dem congressional candidate.

The other Dr. Gupta - a PA pain management anesthesiologist - feels Betsy's pain. Her error was picked up by the national media.

Obama: Plug The Damn Vole

Ex-Roll Call WH reporter Keith Koffler surfaces with a cheeky Obama blog.  Keith had me at "I'm in control here." [Al Haig's famous line after Reagan was shot.]

Serious Journalist Keith got stiffed with his Serious Journalism Peppered With Humor and/or Satire stuff.  Thus White House Dossier - in gestation six months - popped out today.

Mole Koffler may find himself as unwelcome at the WH as the Obama rat. (Which turned out to be a vole.)

Fox On Top 18-49

Broadcast TV season ends today.  CBS #1 in viewers.  CBS and Fox tie 25-54. NBC and ABC third.

Cable News Ratingzzz

Monday May 24, 2010  Don't ask me why I'm compelled to use this photo...

Elena Kagan's Basic Instinct

Assuming a wide stance while sitting.  I can see all the way to Cleveland...

Captions?  Mine: "Plug the damn hole."  -Obama

In This Corner

54% of New York Daily News readers responding to an on-lin poll believe NY Rep. Anthony Weiner to Glenn Beck's 46% after Weiner's Goldline whine last week.  Beck takes the ratings-buster fight to Fox's Bill O'Reilly show Thursday. Weiner and O'Reilly had at it Monday night with another on-air bout scheduled for Friday.   [NYDN photo]

Weiner's report outlines a number of charges against the purveyor of gold coins, bars, and fear.  The biggest one:  Suckers are paying more than the gold is worth.

Headline Of The Day

NYP Tuesday May 25, 2010.

Oh, Carol

Tech Crunch blogger Michael Arrington got off on the wrong foot with Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz right out of the gate, imploring "So how the fuck are you?"

Later Carol told Arrington to "fuck off."  That's Tuesday's buzz du jour.  Gawker "F--- Off."

CNBC Retread

Politico's financial guy Eamon Javers takes the CNBC bailout.  Read the press release. Javers starts his CNBC face time June 14th. This is his second stint at CNBC.  Javers is the second Politico staffer in two days to say sayonara to Albritton's on-line venture.

His bio is still up on Politico.

Cable News Ratingzzz

Friday May 21, 2010

Michael Moore: Clap Doctor

Wednesday update: Inside Cable News (ICN) dons headphones and discovers Michael Moore was right. But Fox didn't do it deliberately. ICN fingers a Fox video editor who put together two clips that were supposed to stay separate.

Under Fox's "zero tolerance" for inexcusable fuck-ups like this, the grunt should be fired. 

Fox tells Mediaite ICN is right - two clips with silent "padding" at the end edited together.  I'd still fire the editor.  Huffington Post got a huge hit with yet another story about Fox News "deception."  Another instance of perception v reality v deception.  Fox is forced to be ever-vigilant against liberal vigilantes out to discredit the #1 cable news network.

Lefty filmmaker Michael Moore finds Fox News free of the clap.  Our Komrades at Media Matters pick up Moore's "tweet" claiming Fox doctored a video of Obama speaking at West Point by omitting the cadets' clap.  Media Matters muses it might be an audio glitch, but that didn't stop them, or the liberal likes of Huffington Post (above banner headline), Think Progress, and others falling into Moore's clap trap:



But it appears Michael Moore edited 8 seconds off the end where there's another audio glitch to make it look like Fox was pulling a fast one and Media Matters fell for "the director's cut."  The clip below runs 1:57.  Watch the last 8 seconds as Obama yaps and there's no sound. Mayhem maker Moore's 1:49 cuts off the 8-second smoking gun audio drop-off.



Fox News's website has the same video as above.

Great Press

Liberal radio talker Bill Press's new book is hot off the press.  Today.

MSNBC's "Morning Joe's" Mika Brzezinski teased Press's upcoming appearance Tuesday a.m. right before 7 a.m. - but Press mysteriously failed to appear.

Bill made his virgin appearance Monday night on Joy Behar's 9p CNN HLN show.  Bill shared Joy's rarefied air with conservative flame thrower Ann Coulter.

Earlier Monday MSNBC's Ed Schultz interviewed fellow liberal Bill on "The Ed Show." 

I got a preview of Bill's book at Talkers New Media Seminar March 19-20 in NYC where Bill was on a panel bitching about the above toxic (albeit successful, much to his dismay) "radical right" talk radio hosts.

Skip the book and watch Bill bloviate:

Obama Put To Bed With A Shovel?

Politico's Mike Allen:  MSNBC dayside went with 'TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE?' For 'Hardball,' it was 'CRUDE AWAKENING.' Katie Couric, who anchored the 'CBS Evening News' from Grand Isle, La., began: 'With the oil still gushing like a geyser, the anger is overflowing here as well.' On 'Morning Joe,' Mark Halperin said President Obama needs to return to the Gulf. Rachel Maddow's BP logo read, 'BEYOND PATIENCE.'  Mika Brzezinski says it's looking like 'a very long, slow-motion Katrina.'

What's very long and in slow motion?   Obama's response.  On Tuesday's MSNBC "Morning Joe" one of the talking heads wondered why Obama hasn't toured the BP disaster area.  Why hasn't he gone to New Orleans?

The damning photos of Obama perusing oil-slicked dead birds.

Watch ABC's Diane Sawyer stroll the beach followed by a soundbite of tiresome Obama pimping his "tireless" efforts to quell the BP mess more than a month after the disaster. er

Cut to Katie Couric in sunglasses on the oil-tarnished waterfront devoting half of Monday night's CBS Evening news to the BP disaster and WH inaction.

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams:  ""Because the story out of the Gulf of Mexico has not changed in over a month and because there's oil spilling into that water right now and of every minute of every day, the anger and despair there are now taking a toll."

ABC's Jake Tapper reports Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is so frustrated with the Obama WH foot-dragging on allowing Louisiana to build barrier islands to block the spill, he says he'll build them himself and risk jail.

On ABC's "Good Morning America" Tuesday a.m. Philippe Cousteau Jr. called the disaster "a nightmare."

UPDATE:  Obama's interrupting his Chicago Memorial Day weekend to fly to the Gulf Friday.

Cunning photo-op strategy.  Nobody'll be watching TV on a holiday weekend.

Frum Bad To Worse

The Washington Post enlists former Bush speechwriter and conservative David Frum to review Rush Limbaugh-annointed "Army Of One" scribe Zev Chafets: Chafets exposes some disconnects between Limbaugh's private life and public presence. Chafets has seen more of the pundit's personal world than any other journalist, and reveals some distinctly grandiose tastes in this self-imagined tribune of Middle America.

Limbaugh has skillfully conjured for his listeners a world in which they are disdained and despised by mysterious elites -- a world in which Limbaugh's $4,000 bottles of wine do not exclude him from the life of the common man.

Frum reviewing a book on Rush Limbaugh is like Keith Olbermann reviewing Glenn Beck's latest tome.

Wonkette, in March 2009, on Frum's anti-Rush Newsweek piece: "... the GOP Death-Fart Ultimate Fighting Murder Match continues! David Frum, annoying former George W. Bush speechwriter but generally inoffensive conservative, uses the pages of Newsweek to kick a couple of new assholes in Rush Limbaugh, because why not? Frum’s mouth-breathing detractors will note that he’s no longer officially a wingnut because he left the National Review after acknowledging that Sarah Palin is a moron and John McCain is a loser. And the Republicans continue to hilariously finish themselves off in a bitch fight over the grotesque carnival pig Rush Limbaugh, the end."

The Hill has a few choice quotes.  Rush reviles Fox's Bill O'Reilly as a "Ted Baxter."  

Funny, that's the only thing Rush and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann have in common.  Both compare O'Reilly to the stiff, swaggering, narcissistic, grandiose Ted played by the late actor Ted Knight.

CNN: Lost

CNN just realized the network's prime time shows and hosts are dead. In limbo. Peopled by earthbound souls trapped by fear of the light. 

CNN's now seen the light.

First Baltimore Sun's TV critic David Zurawik goes on CNN's "Reliable Sources" media critique Sunday show spinning CNN's business model as international - one that derives a mere 10% revenue from CNN stateside prime time.

Tuesday, NYDN's TV critic Richard Huff is served up CNNi's head news suit Will King by the creaky CNN PR machine.

Headline: Ratings are less than stellar, but CNN is still the 'news on demand' network 30 years later.

News on demand to how many viewers?  Ratings = advertisers = revenue.  CNN's ability to create a parallel universe where ratings don't matter is, well, creative.

NBC's "Today" Pimps My Bride

The annoying publicity whores, Obama State Dinner interlopers Michaele and Tareq Salahi, appear Tuesday morning on NBC's "Today" show (again) in a shameless cross-promotion May sweeps pimp for NBC-owned Bravo cable network's "The Real Housewives of Washington, DC" - starring the Salahis.

The NBC press release trumpets "The Salahis speak out."  Does anyone give a rat's ass about these narcissistic numnuts?

MSNBC pimps the Salahis in an interview Tuesday at 10 a.m.

Haley's Comet?

Will Will Folks's coming clean with boinking SC Repub gubenatorial candidate Nikki Haley fizzle or sizzle?  Haley's denying it.

SC blogger Folks (above) outed Haley in a bizarre Monday blog post, claiming he beat Haley opponents to the punch.  Folks fingers Haley for their "inappropriate" relationship back in 1996 when he was single but she wasn't.

But seriously, Folks, I'm just not getting why you outed Haley.  Hell hath no fury? 

MSNBC Head Game

Which MSNBC frequent talking head just received condolences on his lobotomy? 

And it's not any of these:

Answer here.

Obama's Pearl Jam

A hot off the press Rasmussen poll indicates only 43% strongly approve of Barack Obama.

Obama just lost 99% of America's Jewish and media vote with this beyond the pale gaffe where he opined that the terrorist beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl "captured the world's imagination."

That's like saying that the 9/11 slaughter of thousands of Americans "captured the world's imagination."  The Nazi extermination.  Stalin's purges. 

The Daniel Pearl pogrom wasn't a fucking Disney cartoon.  What's with this swine.  Motherfucker of Pearl:

"B" For Bias

There's another conservative-bashing liberal website that's reared its ugly head. MediaFail backed by Free Press which claims to be "nonpartisan."  But a cursory look just reveals nothing more than Media Matters cloaked in a phony generic mission to expose "media behaving badly."  Which appears to be Fox News.

The only reason MediaFail is attacking Comcast's NBC Universal acquisition is over Comcast's opposition to the FCC's proposed net neutrality rule - a liberal hot button.

NYT's Brian Stelter has the 25-cent tour.

CNN: "They can afford to not have great ratings."

CNN "Reliable Sources" host Howard Kurtz: Does CNN need stronger personalities at 8p to compete with MSNBC blowhard Keith Olbermann and Fox's Bill O'Reilly?

CNN's 8p anchors Connie Chung, Paula Zahn, and now Campbell Brown have tanked in that slot.

Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik: No. "CNN has a different business model." CNN only derives ten percent of revenue from prime time shows.  "They can afford to not have great ratings... CNN doesn't have to act."

Howard:  "You don't want to be getting shellacked in prime time."



H/t NewsBusters

CNN should slide Eliot Spitzer into 8p. Why not?  What do they have to lose?  The also-ran cable news network acknowledges interest in the former NY governor and Client No. 9. 

BP: Barack's Problem

Katie Couric and Diane Sawyer broadcast live from the BP oil-ravaged Gulf tonight. 

Politico's Mike Allen:  Katie, who’ll be in Grand Isle, took a chopper tour with Rear Adm. Mary Landry, the on-scene response coordinator, and flew over the rig storing oil being sucked up with the straw technique. Also went out on a boat with an SMU oceanographer. Brian Williams doesn’t have travel plans, but has been to the region 15 times since Katrina.

The offshore oil drilling rig exploded April 20th - a month and a half ago. Why has it taken so long for Big TV to dispatch the likes of Couric and Sawyer?

ABC's "Lost": Island Castaways Were Dead All Along

Sunday wrapped up six years of ABC's hit series "Lost."  Watch the finale here.  Washington Post's Celebritology 2.0 chronicles the end of 121.5 hours of "Lost" episodes.

Monday's "Lost" buzzword is closure.  Read the reactions from NYT, TIME mag.  EW's Jeff Jensen. AP  USA Today.

Update:  TVbytheNumbers has the Nielsen numbers.

MSNBC's Political Poop Of The Day

"We're trying to bring news back to cable," Guthrie says. She shoots a glance at a publicist: "Am I allowed to say that?"  Wash Post and CNN "Reliable Sources" host Howard Kurtz on political savant Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie's MSNBC show "The Daily Rundown." 

Howard salivates that ex-lawyer Savannah is wearing "a ruffled white blouse and thigh-high boots."

"The Daily Rundown" keeps political junkies in the soup loop by reporting the soup of the day in the White House mess and other federal agencies.  "I have the CIA soup of the day -- bacon corn chowder! Yes!" Guthrie exclaims as if she has unearthed a state secret.

Anchor Drift

The Lindsay Lohans and Charlie Sheens of TV news.

Blind Vice

Page Six: "Which producer for a dorky cable anchor has been complaining to colleagues that she's tired of his notoriously nasty behavior?"

Any guesses?  Keith Olbermann's Izzy Povich? Rachel Maddow's Bill Wolff?