Politicos

The answer is no. But, the emails from the Obama campaign are certainly getting our attention in new and weird ways. Thursday afternoon, we received an email from “Bill Clinton” that had a subject line saying, “Meeting you.” Well, hot damn! It’s our lucky day. We get to meet Bill Clinton! NOT so fast. It’s an email trying to squeeze money out of potential donors. You see, Clinton is teaming up with POTUS for “An Evening with Two Presidents.” All you have to do is kick a little cash to the Obama campaign and you’re entered into a lottery to meet the two in NYC. (We’re less than shocked to see that POTUS didn’t include Jimmy Carter in this shindig.) I know that campaigns are constantly looking for inventive ways to raise funds, but maybe they can stop freaking me out so much with emails from famous people. It’s starting to come off as a scam. Just last week we got an email from “Sarah Jessica Parker” saying, “I’m hosting.” Hosting what? Saturday Night Live? The answer was no, she wasn’t hosting SNL, but rather another event for POTUS in NYC. Since Bill Clinton is so willing to help these days, we thought we’d help write the next version of the email.

From: Bill Clinton

Subject: I need your help

Dear Peter,
This message may be coming to you as a surprise but I need your help.Few days back we scheduled a fundraiser for President Barack Obama.Everything was going fine until last night when we got mugged on our way to the fundraiser and all cash and credit card were stolen off us.

I really need your financial assistance Please let me know if you can help us out?

You can wire the money to me through western union all you need is the Name on my passport and location below.

“Bubba”

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(A Sprinkling of Things we Think you Ought to Know…)

Shuster Faces Down Snake – Current TV’s David Shuster was recently on vacation in Morocco and engaged in what would appear to be a stereotypical tourist activity when visiting the area. He posed with a giant cobra. Don’t believe us? He tweeted the following picture as proof. As Shuster notes, handling snakes is nothing new. “Years in DC made this a breeze,” he told FishbowlDC.

Kurtz Self-Pimps Throughout Latest Story – We hardly think it’s breaking news when Newsweek/Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz uses his pieces to talk about himself. His latest on Walter Cronkite is no exception. It’s an examination of a new biography on Cronkite that claims that Cronkite wasn’t the most ethical of newsmen. There are tantalizing details in the piece, but Kurtz makes sure we know about HIS relationship with Cronkite right up front. He’s barely three graphs in when he tells us, “I got to know Cronkite after his anchoring days as a charming, hard-of-hearing, slightly stodgy spokesman for old-fashioned news values against the encroachment of tabloid entertainment.” Thanks, Howard! We were dying to know your experiences with Cronkite.

SNL Dings Sharpton…  Again – We can’t really blame Saturday Night Live for lampooning MSNBC’s Rev. Al Sharpton. Let’s face it. When you have a subject that consistently churns out unintentionally funny lines with the regularity of Sharpton, why stop? Check out the video below to see Sharpton Lettuce’s take on “JiP Morgan.”

 

Hillary Clinton has been First Lady. She’s been a U.S. Senator. She’s been a formidable candidate for the President of the United States. She’s currently serving as Secretary of State. So, who cares if she goes out in public without makeup and wearing glasses? Lots of people, apparently. In this picture, taken at a press conference in Bangladesh, she is clearly going for the schoolmarm look. The way some people in the media reacted, you’d think she walked outside in the nude. The Drudge Report quickly put the picture on its page. WaPo’s “She the People” page praised Hillary and called the look “refreshing.” She even addressed her new look with CNN on Tuesday saying, ““At some point it’s just not something that deserves a whole lot of time and attention. If others want to worry about it, I’ll let them do the worrying for a change.”

And worry they did. When Politico reported on her comments, their commenters went wild with one of the most polarizing politicos of our time. One commenter, Rachel Wells, says “Hillary get a stylist – and for God sake’s I will send you some lipstick.. As for the ‘ atta girl’ — please if she were a conservative woman you would mock her endlessly.. next thing you know she will lift her hairy underarms to shouts of ‘ women power’.. hush. Brush you hair and put on some mascara.. grow up.” Another, Marge Ilich, says “She’s supposed to represent us and looks like something plucked out of a dump truck. Obviously a sign of no self-respect.” One of Politico’s “Top Commenters”, Ra Williams, takes a homophobic turn, saying “She needs to be happy and come out of the closet. Why isn’t she yet? She would be a hero to many Democrat voters! Is Bill or Barack holding her down from her true feelings on sexuality?”

Hillary also had plenty of defenders. Hector Acuna commented, “You’re a beautiful woman inside and out Hillary.”

Former Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) believes we can all do better, namely CBS, which booked him in a joint appearance alongside WSJ’s Peggy Noonan Monday morning. That wasn’t the deal he struck with them, he told FishbowlDC in a phone interview, sounding blunt and irked. His new book, We Can All Do Better, hits bookshelves today. In it, he describes how everyone can do everything better, citing job creation, deficit reduction, education and immigration. We caught up with him about the Noonan incident, his thoughts on the media, including his SiriusXM radio show, American Voices.

So, you write that we can all do better. Can journalists? Absolutely I think journalists can do better. I‘d like to see journalists focus on the substance of issues and less entertainment. I think journalists share a fundamental responsibility in building America and making it a better. I think the structure of the media has changed. It’s fragmented audiences. They’re not watching general issues. That fragmented audience is matched by the fragmentation in Washington, the cable channels that are so narrow. That is fracturing our unity. You find people playing to the subscriber bases.

Have you ever been badly burned by a member of the media? I was burned this morning. Well, I was told I was going to be on eight minutes on the [CBS] morning show. Last night they said there was supposed to be someone else, Peggy Noonan. I don’t not like Peggy Noonan, but it was not the deal we cut.

What do you want people to take away from your book? I want them to realize that hope is still alive. I’d like them to know that we’ve had difficult problems in this country, depressions, wars, flaws in our democracy and we’ve overcome them all. I wanted to remind people that the American people are mostly good…our political system is flexible enough to solve our problems.. The key is having politicians who put country above party.

In general do you trust the press? The better question is does the press trust politicians? Too often there is an assumption that the politician isn’t telling the truth. There has to be the benefit of the doubt and deep investigative analysis of big things. There’s a Pulitzer in every tax bill and Appropriations bill if you look for it. There’s an opportunity here for a lot of improvement.

Which cable networks do you watch? I watch CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. I love [ABC] Nightline still, and the Sunday shows. I watch them sometimes, not all the time.

Can you name some specific nationally known journalists whom you trust? Well, I think Gretchen Morgenson at the New York Times, her coverage of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae was absolutely wonderful. [Contributing Vanity Fair Editor, author of Moneyball and The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game] Michael Lewis is a great writer who covers important subjects in depth.

Your radio show involves featuring remarkable people… Read more

(A Sprinkling of Things We Think You Ought to Know…)

Network Anchors Shilling for Candidates – It’s not what it sounds like. A new story in the Columbia Journalism Review and linked to by HuffPost examines political candidates and their use of news clips that feature anchors delivering stories that show their opponents in a negative light. While this isn’t something new, the scale of which this is being used is much bigger. Just a few months ago, when Newt Gingrich was putting the pressure on Mitt Romney, the Romney campaign released an ad featuring nothing more than NBC’s Tom Brokaw delivering the news that Gingrich had been found guilty of ethics violations. Brokaw spoke out against it. But the tactic proved so effective that Romney deployed it again against Rick Santorum. An ad featuring footage of CNN’s Gloria Borger reminded Pennsylvania voters that they had already thrown Santorum out of office aired 177 times in ONE DAY in Pennsylvania and would have aired many more if Santorum hadn’t dropped out.

I C&*t Believe This Happened – It wasn’t so long ago that we reported on the Daily Caller’s Michelle Fields being called “a cunt” by an Occupy protester. We can only hope that she doesn’t find the word TOO offensive, because she was exposed to the mother of all dirty words again last week. As we ramped up to the hysteria surrounding Kim Kardashian at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Fields tweeted “Sorry. I’m a Kardashian hater.” This did not sit well with the army of Kim K fans on the internet who began attacking Fields. One member of the Kim Army, @SheivaG, told Fields “dont worry im sure people hate you too .” That then prompted a Fields Fan to reply, “@SheivaG @MichelleFields, you are a CUNT. Don’t be jealous Michelle .” Fields did not reply to that comment (obviously).

West Wing Reunion – The cast of The West Wing reunited for a good cause in a new video on Funny or Die. It’s for a public service announcement encouraging people to walk 30 minutes each day. The video features Martin Sheen, Allison Janney, Dulé Hill, Joshua Malina, Melissa Fitzgerald and William Duffy in their first appearance together in five years. It should come as no surprise that the video relies heavily on the “walk and talk”, one of the trademarks of the former TV show.

 

A new study on potential Republican VP picks says Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) received the most media coverage out of anyone else within the last month.

The study, conducted by HighBeam Research found that Ryan was mentioned almost 27 percent of the time when veeps were discussed in the news media. Just behind Ryan is Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) at almost 24 percent. In a distant third, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell at 11 percent.

Out of the nine potential picks, two are women: South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, both at 6 percent in media coverage.

At the bottom of the list (receiving only one mention in the Las Vegas Review-Journal) is Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval (half a percent).

The study was conducted from March 16 to April 16.

Amid all this talk of who is waging war on women these days, Ranker.com took the time to collect some of the most blatant sexist outbursts from politicians. While some of the blunders come from overseas, plenty of American politicians made the list. Their wives must be proud. Some are recent gaffes. Like Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) responding to a female heckler by saying, “You know, something may go down tonight – but it ain’t gonna be jobs, sweetheart.”

Others are blasts from the past. Like Newt Gingrich, who in 1985 said, “If combat means living in a ditch, females have biological problems staying in a ditch for 30 days because they get infections.” I hear they attract bears when they’re on their periods, too, Newt.

Thankfully for the USA, the top sexist outburst comes from Australia. Tasmanian Sen. David Bushby “meowed” at a female politician while she disagreed with him.

That video is below. Ranker has videos to accompany each of the outbursts on their website.

TWT‘s Emily Miller and D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown went shooting at a gun range in Virginia last Friday. Miller detailed the experience in a column published Tuesday.

A bit from the piece:

Mr. Brown was not afraid of the gun. On his first try, all his rounds landed in the blue part of the silhouette target. “Great job,” I said, after bringing back the target to get a closer look.

“Not good enough. Put it back out there. Let’s do it again,” he said. … We decided he needed a new paper target to show his improvement. “I’m gonna tear this up,” he said, clipping up another blue target, and he did.

Brown apparently enjoyed himself. On Tuesday’s City Council meeting, Miller handed Brown a copy of the newspaper featuring his picture (a good picture; not the kind Brown usually sees of himself in the Washington Examiner, which notoriously runs shots that make him look like he has just been taken down to the station) on the front page, next to Miller’s column. Miller snapped a shot of Brown admiring the spread along with Councilwoman Mary Cheh.

Miller explained that the picture is…

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Democratic leaders, and even CNN, have all united in throwing Hilary Rosen under the bus this week. After her comments about Ann Romney not working “a day in her life”, she has been criticized by everyone right up to POTUS.

So if you’re a public official giving an interview these days, you better be ready for a reporter to ask about Rosen’s comments. Take Sec. of Labor Hilda Solis. The Daily Caller’s Michelle Fields pressed her about the comments and Hilda gave a measured, reasonable response about how much stay at home moms work.

Except we had a hard time paying attention to the Secretary’s comments because we couldn’t stop watching the Michelle Fields Bobblehead Doll conducting the interview. Just watch her body language in the video below. It’s like she’s questioning a member of the Cabinet on a pogo stick. It’s a wonder that Solis didn’t try and join in with a rendition of the “Electric Slide” in some sort of weird miscommunication. Anyone can see that Fields is having trouble standing still for the interview. If they can’t, maybe they should borrow those woodshop glasses she’s wearing and clear up the situation. Lucky for us, Fields manages to not shimmy her way out of the shot so we can experience her question through the power of interpretive dance.

Partnering with Apollo Group, NJ is launching its “Next America” project, a series of events “exploring the dramatic effects of the demographic revolution that is remaking the face of America.”

The first event on April 19 will feature an interview with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) followed by panel discussions related to the diversification of the U.S and how it will affect public policy.

Confirmed speakers include William H. Frey of the Brookings Institution, Paul Taylor of the Pew Hispanic Center and Esther Aguilera of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.

Moderating the panels are NJ‘s Major Garrett, Univision anchor Enrique Acevedo and NPR’s Michele Norris.

The Next America launch event will be held at the Newseum’s Knight Broadcast Studio on Thursday from 8p.m. to 11 a.m.

RSVP with Rachel Alben at ralben@nationaljournal.com.