Media Magic

Today is The Daily Caller Editor-in-Chief Tucker Carlson‘s birthday. So we figured we’d take this opportunity to get others around town and beyond to help us wish him a happy birthday. At left is a photograph of what is apparently a red Daily Caller thong on the door to Carlson’s former office. We have no idea what it is doing there or why Carlson would leave it hanging on the doorknob. Photo credit: Anonymous.

Daily Caller Publisher Neil Patel: “Tucker, in honor of your birthday I have decided to refrain from telling Betsy Rothstein about the time in college that you wore a euro style banana hammock speedo on the beach in Nicaragua. Your secret is safe with me.  Happy birthday, Neil”

 

Raptor Strategies’ David Bass offers a poem:

From motorcycle to moped
From bow-tie to lengthy Foulard
As Tucker slouches toward middle age
His latest change is not hard

Mediaite White House Correspondent Tommy Christopher: “I was going to get him a black velvet painting of Barack Obama Greco-Roman wrestling with The New Black Panthers, but I thought, ‘Does he really need another one?’”

Former Daily Caller online editor and writer Jeff Winkler, a D.C. refugee who is living and writing in Arkansas: “Since my former boss looks to be between the ages of 14 and 40, I don’t know whether to offer him a gentlemenly handshake or a ribbon-adorned pony. But considering that he once slashed me across the face with his fly rod, my B-day gift — sent courteous of the USPS — is a collection of photos from my recent nude escapade involving archery, yoga and bobbing for apples. And I’d like to promise him that we’ll meet up again in the near future, but that always seems to be taken as a threat. Regardless, I wish Tucker the best in the coming years. If Washington D.C. had any sense, it would follow North Korea’s example and build ‘towers to his immortality.’”

MSNBC “Morning Joe” Co-host Willie Geist: “Happy Birthday to my all-time favorite ‘bow-tyin’ white boy’!”

FBDC’s Peter Ogburn: “My wish is that he gets ANYTHING but a gun.” (Peter was once mildly threatened by Carlson. He’s slowly getting over the PTSD from that experience.)

Politico‘s Patrick Gavin: “Tucker, my wish for you on your birthday is that, if you ever turn me into a puppet, just make it a skinny, buff puppet.” (See relevant link here in which The Daily Caller turns a Capitol Hill press secretary into a puppet.)

The Weekly Standard‘s Matt Labash: “Back in the early 90s, when all things were possible and there was still dew on the world, I remember a young, reckless Tucker peering out of his cloud of smoke (he used to rip through two packs a day on the principle that ‘clear lungs are for pussies’)  while pronouncing, ‘I hope I die before I get old.’  He often spoke in song lyrics back then. It was part of his whole rock’n'roll lifestyle.  Now that he is old, however, I trust he’ll choose life, as his Wham! sweatshirt implored  (again with the rock’n'roll – but Andrew Ridgely was his hero).  If not, and he follows through on his original threat, I’ll be here for his family, his dogs,  and his bamboo fly rod, the last of which he should really think about willing me.  Now that you’re a senior citizen, Tucker, time to get serious about estate planning. Remember that in our increasingly accelerated world, 43 is the new 80. Happy birthday, old friend.”

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

The national non-profit organization Childhelp is hosting it’s fifth annual Capitol CAREaoke event tonight. Childhelp puts on the fundraiser, which features media figures performing karaoke to raise money for child abuse prevention and treatment.

Big names include CNN’s Brianna Keilar, FNC’s Shannon Bream (photo at right) and SportsNet’s Michael Jenkins (who tweeted that he’d singing Bel Biv Devoe’s 1990 classic “poison”) are scheduled to perform. ABC7 anchor Rebecca Cooper and Washington Capitals announcer Wes Johnson will emcee the event.

Jordin Sparks is billed as a special guest and will also perform.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) will be awarded as Congressional Champions for Children.

The event starts at 6:30 p.m. at the Ronald Reagan Building.

In conjunction with its re-launch on Monday, April 16, Human Events newspaper is trying a new gimmick to snag readers: free food. They will sponsor popular food truck DC Empanadas with free coffee, breakfast, and lunch for all patrons. The food truck will be solely distributing food and beverages on behalf of Human Events for the duration of the day, likely at Capitol South metro station in the morning and Farragut Square for lunch.

Check @HumanEvents on Twitter on Monday for exact locations.

Human Events, the cornerstone publication of The Human Events Group, is promising a “dynamic new look, increased editorial horsepower, and broader distribution” on Capitol Hill and around Washington, DC.

Celebrity Q and A’s Colin Drummond catches up with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin over the weekend outside Washington’s Matisse restaurant on Wisconsin Avenue. Palin appeared on Fox News Sunday the following morning.

“Happy Birthday Sarah Palin!” Colin called out to her. Those accompanying her repeatedly asked who he was with. When he asked her to react to news of Whitney Houston‘s death, that broke that evening, she stopped and expressed her condolences.

WaPo recently launched a new blog called “She The People” headed up by Melinda Henneberger with the tagline “The world as women see it.” God, I hope not.

I realize men have no idea how women think, but vaginas can’t make this much of a difference between what happens in the mind of the opposite sex. If they do, women don’t think about the economy or jobs, but about the questions no one else does, like “Would we love Tim Tebow if he were Muslim?” and almost obsessively about Republican Presidential candidates…and not much else.

Do women care that deeply about candidate’s spouses and ex-spouses? “She The People” bloggers do since they write about them more than the National Enquirer.

They do take a slight break from time to time to kiss up to first lady Michelle Obama almost as much as The Hill‘s Amie Parnes, so there’s that.

Aside from staying lock-step with the Post’s predominately liberal blog bias (sure, there’s exceptions), this is a painful blog to read. I hope women think about things beyond this. To steal a catch phrase, you’ve come a long way, baby, but this blog ain’t helping the cause.

Emoticons are annoying little characters people usually insert into text messages and emails, like the smiley face , the winking smiley face , the winking smiley face with its tongue sticking out ;-p and so on. What it is not is anything having to do with privacy. But don’t tell that to MSBNC’s newest contributor Meghan McCain.

On “Now with Alex Wagner” today, the daughter of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said she thought President Obama and his family deserved “an emoticon of privacy” in regards to revelations in NYT’s Jodi Kantor‘s new book The Obamas.

McCain, known for her, shall we say, “creative” use of language more than her ability to, you know, like, think, immediately took to Twitter to explain herself: “Thanks everyone, was talking quickly and said ModiCOM instead of ModiCUM this morning – thanks for obsessing over my every waking word. ”

Nice try, Megs, but you said it twice and you said it clearly. While trying to cover it up shows at least some cognitive awareness that she’s building a reputation as a clown, she seems to forget that this is the Internet Age. Where people used to forget, the Internet doesn’t. The video of her latest fumble (at least as of this writing, who knows what she’ll do between now and when this is published) went viral faster that Gwyneth Paltrow in “Contagion.”

Twitter lit up with ridicule. Here are the highlights:

Slate’s Dave Weigel added, “Meghan McCain reporting that Jack Lew will take over as White House chef.”

Mike Flynn, Editor-In-Chief of BigGovernment, harkened back to another MSNBCer’s greatest his with, “Resist We Much the ‘Emoticon of Privacy’ #MeghanMcCainFail”

Townhall,com columnist Derek Hunter gave props to McCain’s ability to continually top herself by tweeting, “Every time I think @McCainBlogette has found her floor of stupid, she opens her mouth and out comes a shovel.”

Pajamas Media’s Stephen Green (VodkaPundit), added, “I have now watched @McCainBlogette‘s ‘emoticon’ video more times than I’ve watched Godfather I & II combined.”

 

The Daily Caller‘s Editor-in-Chief Tucker Carlson is often magnetically pulled to the oddest people in a crowd. Manchester is no exception.

Late last week, Infowars.com interviewed him about Libertarianism, Ron Paul and 9-11 being an inside job. Carlson, who thinks 9-11 conspiracy theories are ludicrous, engaged with male blogger types who looked like they could stand a few sprays of deodorant. They baited him by claiming the government caused 9-11. “I hate that 9-11 crap,” Carlson says, at one point giving his interviewer and his camera the hand. When the interviewer suggested that Tucker believes family members of the victims are “less than adults” for wanting information being withheld by the government, Tucker lashed out, saying, “I would say parasites like you make it much worse for them. …It’s filthy to say things like that with no evidence.” He then calls his interviewer a “moron” for continuing to bring up the topic. Somehow they ended on a friendly note. (Meanwhile, Daily Caller reporter Alex Pappas can be seen in the foreground, watching on and laughing.) View here.

Next Up: Capital, a New York-based website that writes about how things work in NYC except when they’re in New Hampshire, also trailed Carlson over the weekend for a block or two down Main Street and came up with a story that moved through a goofy assortment of topics: 1. Carlson hanging out with Hasidic men who were there to rally against anti-Zionism and Israel. 2. Carlson refusing to let the reporters tape him while interviewing him about Attorney Gen. Eric Holder. “Are you kidding?” he says initially in response to him declining to be taped. 3. They ask how The Daily Caller is doing and bring up Politico Keach Hagey‘s recent story that mentioned “growing pains.” He replied, “It’s really good. I mean, if you can’t make a site work in the age of Obama, you should probably go do something else.”

Photo credit: Capital New York

A new radio show is launching in Washington this weekend and David Shuster is host.

Whoa! That D. Shuster?

The show debuts this weekend from Noon to 3 p.m. on 1480 AM otherwise known as We Act Radio DC. Among D.’s guests will be Roll Call‘s Paul Singer. D. says he will continue his duties as a fill-in for Keith Olbermann on Current TV.

In other D. Shuster news that he won’t SHUT UP about (we’re totally kidding, D.), he’s launching a new website that he claims will be “amazing” and “shake things up.” Watch out Politico CLICK. “I’ve been working with a few friends on a new journalism venture that we are beginning to roll out on FB, twitter, and via a radio show I’m hosting each Saturday in DC starting this weekend,” he told FishbowlDC. “We aren’t doing a full pr blitz just yet… that will come later in the spring. The website we launch in a few months will be pretty amazing and should shake things up.”

We cannot wait.

UPDATE: Why is Shuster jumping into this new radio show? Find out…

Read more

Meghan McCain, daughter of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Cindy McCain, beer distributor heiress, whose only accomplishment of note is being born to rich and famous parents and finding a way to parlay a poorly written blog into a book deal, doesn’t like Newt Gingrich. Why does anyone care what this spoiled woman-child thinks? Because she’s on TV, naturally.

In what can only be explained as a prank that has gotten out of control, Meghan is also an MSNBC contributor who was brought on to represent the Republican Party. Well, it was either a prank or just how far down the food chain MSNBC had to go in order to find anyone willing to call themselves a Republican and regularly appear on their network. Either way, it ain’t right.

Meghan was on “Now with Alex Wagner” earlier in the week to discuss the Republican primary and used the opportunity to unleash fresh hypocrisy on the world.

In addition to claiming that a Gingrich nomination would be “the end of the Republican Party,” McCain decided to attack Newt’s wife Callista, who, in her eyes is a hussy.

Of Callista, Meghan says, “[S]he was a third wife and a mistress and is coming off somewhat icy and [her] reputation of being somewhat controversial within their campaign is doing damage. Maybe just to politicos, but I think it’s something that people, and especially values voters, will bring into the race.”

GUESS WHAT MEGHAN: YOUR MOM IS ALSO A HUSSY.

McCain, herself not a “values voter,” calls Mrs. Gingrich “a mistress.” It’s true, Newt was married to his second wife when they met. But what Meghan neglects to point out is her own mother Cindy, wife of the last Republican nominee, was a mistress herself. Yes, John McCain was married when he met and became involved with Cindy. That this doesn’t occur to Meghan isn’t surprising, since she’s so oblivious to the world around her that she actually thinks people take her seriously.

But that slight to mistresses might make for an awkward Christmas dinner at the McCain house…whichever of the 8 homes in which they’re “Christmasing” this year.

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) made his name in comedy, not Congress and Howard Stern is revisiting some of Franken’s time as a Saturday Night Live cast member on the Tuesday broadcast of his SiriusXM program The Howard Stern Show.

On Monday, Stern’s show kicked off “SNL on Stern,”a week-long series that takes a look at past highlights from SNL as well as old interviews Stern had with the cast. Franken was one of the original writers and performers of the show and Stern is re-airing a 1987 clip of Franken and his SNL co-writer Tom Davis talking about Chevy Chase, also of SNL fame, and the late actor Milton Berle.

Former SNL star Darrell Hammond, best known for his impersonation of Bill Clinton, is scheduled to appear on Stern’s show this week to talk about the time he came face to face with the former president.

Catch Stern’s show on SiriusXM 100. The original broadcasts begin at 6 a.m. Monday through Wednesday and encores follow all day.