Quotes of the Day

SANFORD MEDIA OBSESSION CONCLUDES: “Sanford campaign takes a bigger class picture.” — WaPo‘s Karen Tumulty.

“Love him or hate him, he’s one hell of a grassroots campaigner” — MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough on the newly reelected Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.). Scarborough, later chatting with Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), promised to take Sanford to dinner when he got to town.

Meanwhile, MSNBC’s Twitter feed appears to hold back on the praise. “In his victory speech last night, Mark Sanford described himself as ‘one imperfect man.’ No argument there!”

Editor-in-Chief calls himself an “idiot”

“As of today, @wcp has gone 0 days without a workplace injury: I just cut my thumb on packing tape dispenser. Because I’m an idiot.” — WCP Editor-in-Chief Mike Madden.

Oh no he didn’t.

“You know who is fat? Hillary.” — Breitbart editor John Nolte.

Father of the Year?

“Headed home from Flint, MI after attending daughter’s wedding shower and niece’s lacrosse game as well as watching #Wings with dad. #love.” — National Journal national reporter Ron Fournier.

Dipshit alert or rightful observer?

“For perspective: Mark Sanford cheated on his wife. Ted Kennedy killed a lady.” — Fox News Contributor and RedState‘s Erick Erickson. The Nation’s Washington reporter George Zornick didn’t seem to enjoy any of Erickson’s commentary last night. He wrote, “There really is no polite way to say this: Erick Erickson is a mendacious dipshit.”

Other reactions to Sanford’s win…

“Sanford wins. Women lose.” — CNN Contributor and Democratic pundit Donna Brazile.

“Hide your wife, Mark Sanford’s coming back to town.” — Media Matters fellow Oliver Willis.

“Well, I’m pleased that Mark Sanford won. Hopefully, he will bring pigs to the House floor soon.” — Liz Mair, formerly RNC online communications director and GOProud Advisory Board member.

Internal BuzzFeed is “weird place”

“The Buzzfeed reply-all office email chain is a weird place.” — BuzzFeed‘s Kate Nocera.

The Media Critic

“Aside from how I feel about the content, Megyn Kelly at 10 would be a better show than Greta Van Susteren is. almost anything would be.” — Media Matters fellow and professional Fox News hater Oliver Willis. Asked why, he replied, “Because it’s a boring snoozefest.” Better hope Camp Gretawire doesn’t see this.

Dannia Hakki, a publicist who also handles her dog’s pr, lands her pooch on Popville. Her name is QueenTinzy. Seriously. And yes, QueenTinzy has been involuntarily entered into DogBowl2013. See here.

Peter Ogburn contributed to this report.

(A sprinkling of what we think you ought to know…)

New conservative publication brands itself with Bush slogan– Rare, an online news site for “today’s conservatives,” makes its official debut April 15. The publication, headed by former TWT Editor Brett Decker, is hosting two events at the Newseum to mark the occasion, one an interview by Decker of a to-be-named “high-profile” guest, the other a video showing “a modern, fresh, technologically savvy approach to conservative media.” Noteworthy: The video calls for “a new way forward” in branding conservative ideas, according to a press release from Rare. “New way forward” was the slogan adopted by the Bush (43) administration in the Iraq War troop surge of 2007.

Glenn Greenwald on Margaret Thatcher and “death etiquette”– Unless the person was truly vile, it’s customary to withhold any strong dumping on someone immediately after his or her death. Writing in The Guardian, Glenn Greenwald says it’s time for that to stop when it comes to political figures like former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. “When a political leader dies, it is irresponsible in the extreme to demand that only praise be permitted but not criticisms,” Greenwald writes. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with loathing Margaret Thatcher or any other person with political influence and power based upon perceived bad acts, and that doesn’t change simply because they die.”

In any case, Thatcher helped invent soft-serve ice cream… Read more

Quotes of the Day

Hookerpalooza: So many hookers, so little time 

Monday at 11:36 p.m.: “The Washington Post piece today on Menendez and the Dominican hookers was completely, utterly wrong. Our story coming soon.” — The Daily Caller‘s Editor-in-Chief Tucker Carlson. 11:40 p.m.: “WaPo might have saved itself the embarrassment if they’d bothered to call us before running their stupid piece.” 12:46 a.m.: “Turns out the Washington Post got the wrong hooker: [Read here].” After going mute for 48 hours after WaPo ran a story saying one of the hookers was paid off, Breitbart‘s Matthew Boyle, who likes to brag that he broke the original hooker-Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) story for his former employer, The Daily Caller, finally piped up this morning at 12:49 a.m.: “Washington Post mixes up prostitutes. You got the wrong girl, guys.” Nevada political journalist Jon Ralston sums the whole thing up well: “Seriously, folks, what could go wrong if an “escort” was your main source?”

A journo’s dinner: “Just one of those days where 6pm Cheetos from White House vending machine is first meal of the day.” — AP‘s Josh Lederman.

Gossip columnist or therapist?

“I’m starting to think that people are using the HOH tip line to save time and money on therapy and journals.” — Roll Call HOH writer Neda Semnani.

WANTED: Fact checker: “WWR seeks to hire a researcher/fact checker for a six-month project. Work remotely from anywhere. Send resumes to westwingrpt@gmail.com” — Paul Brandus of West Wing Reports.

Oversharing Sherri

“Leaving house late again – does it ever feel like you try 2B organized but sometimes all goes awry? Where the heck is his backpack & my wig!” — ABC “The View’s” Sherri Shepherd.

Pundit urges cold beer

“The city of New Orleans Is under a boil water advisory. Another excuse to drink cold beer.” — Democratic pundit on CNN and ABC Donna Brazile.

Important news nugget of the day…“Brodie Jenner is joining the Kardashians next season. (Remember his reality show “Bromance?”)” — FBDC and TheBlaze‘s Eddie Scarry.

And now a word from BuzzFeed D.C. Bureau Chief John Stanton: “NO WASHINGTON POST IT CAN’T BE CALLED SNOWQUESTER”

Politico Playbook Publish Time: 8:25 a.m.

Convo Between a Reporter and a Researcher

Politico‘s Steve Friess: “Entertaining twitter debate betw [WaPo's Greg Sargent] & [NJ's Ron Fournier] right now. Summary: GOP bad. No, everyone is. No, just GOP.”

Logan Dobson, research analyst for The Tarrance Group, a GOP Polling firm: “Steve Friess, it’s possible we have different definitions of entertaining.”

Writing tip, important Q and more…

Read more

We haven’t done this in awhile, so we’re checking in on the Sunday morning political talk show roundtables to see how females are fairing and how many schlongs they’re planning to have on this week.

Let’s have a look.

ABC’s “This Week”: 3

Two roundtables. Guests include: Reps. Mike Rogers and Eliot Engel; ABC News’ George Will; ABC News’ and CNN’ Christiane Amanpour; Donna Brazile, ABC News Contributor; Steve Brill, TIME Contributor, Steve Rattner, MSNBC “Morning Joe” regular, and former counselor to the Treasury Secretary; and Kimberly Strassel, columnist for WSJ.

CBS’ “Face the Nation” With Bob Schieffer: 3

There isn’t a journalist/pundit panel per say, but it looks to be: National Journal‘s Nancy Cook, WaPo‘s Scott Wilson and CBS News Political Director John Dickerson. Female guests also include a former FBI senior profiler, Mary Ellen O’Toole and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer.

PBS’ Washington Week With Gwen Ifill (airs live Friday night at 8 p.m.): 2

Guests include The Atlantic‘s Molly Ball, WaPo‘s Sari Horwitz, CNBC and NYT‘s John Harwood, and NYT‘s David Sanger.

NBC’s “Meet the Press”: 2

Panel guests include: Former Rep. Harold Ford Jr., NPR’s Steve Inskeep, WSJ Columnist Peggy Noonan, CNBC’s Jim Cramer and CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo. Both main guests, Governors Bobby Jindal (R-La.) and Deval Patrick (D-Mass.) are obviously male.

NBC’s “The Chris Matthews Show”: 2

HuffPost‘s Howard Fineman, BBC’s Katty Kay, NBC News’ Kelly O’Donnell and NY1′s Errol Louis.

CNN’s “Reliable Sources” With Howard Kurtz: 2 

Guests include: CBS News Senior White House Correspondent Bill Plante, Baltimore Sun‘s David Zurawik, Sirus XM’s Julie Mason, Mitt Romney Senior Advisor Stuart Stevens and WaPo‘s Ann Hornaday.

On Tuesday we broke the news that CNN Contributors James Carville, Mary Matalin and RedState‘s Fox News-bound Erick Erickson were parting ways with the network under the direction of the new sheriff Jeff Zucker.

But who’s next?

We’re hearing that CNN may look at parting ways with Contributors Donna Brazile and Roland Martin, as they appear to have been slowly replaced by pundits who are known as their “black replacements”: civil rights activist Van Jones, NYT‘s Charles Blow and Democratic Strategist Cornell Belcher. CNN avoided using Brazile and Martin during its Iaugural coverage; ABC took advantage of  Brazile’s expertise in theirs.

Should the calls come down, Brazile likely wouldn’t be too shell-shocked. She’s already got a sweet gig with ABC. Martin, on the other hand, has his “Washington Watch” program on TV One and is a senior analyst for the Tom Joyner radio show. The call would allow him to do what his loud and loyal Twitter following has been clamoring for him to do, which is to be able to appear on MSNBC and Fox News, outlets forbidden to him while he has a contractual agreement with CNN. Martin’s contract with the network is up in early February.

This past week as members of Washington’s media were off stuffing themselves with turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie and bourbon, some managed to be acutely irritating in a whole smorgasboard of ways. See as we dissect them below.

8. From the Dept. of Bragiculture…Sen. Rob Portman (permanent fill-in for GOP Presidential debates) tweeted about reading ABC News’ Jake Tapper‘s new book, Outpost: “Started reading @jaketapper‘s book ‘The Outpost’ over the weekend. Powerful reminder of sacrifice of our troops on ground in Afghanistan.” Of course, Tapper, always moved when people write about his book, retweeted it. And just in case you haven’t gotten enough Outpost rammed down your throat, Tapper also retweeted about it here: “Black Friday blog - @powerlineblog review: ‘The Outpost’: Buy This Book’.” Read the positive review here. Tapper will also be on Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert tonight and on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Tuesday morning to discuss it.  “I’ll be the guest of @StephenAtHome on @ColbertReport on Monday to discuss The Outpost.tinyurl.com/OutpostBandN BRING IT, STEPHEN!!!!” Undoubtedly Colbert will be touched and won’t be challenging him about it.

7. Just in case you haven’t thanked the troops yet this holiday season, please allow NBC “MTP” host David Gregory to do it for you. “A special thank you to our service men and women for their service and sacrifice. We are thankful for you all. #thanksgiving,” he wrote.  Politico‘s Christine Delargy also felt the need to publicly thank the troops: “Anything we have to be thankful for today is due in part to men & women serving overseas. Thank them: uso.org/operation-uso-… #supportourtroops”

6. As if we needed more reasons to be thankful, Politico‘s Mike Allen wrote a personal note to readers expressing his gratitude for them. Bizarrely he turned into quite the politician and told them that the most important email he receives is “yours.” He also apologized for whatever f–kups they may have caused and for any unreturned email. Our favorite part is the wisdom from Grandma Powers, who is apparently now all of our grandmas, collectively. We’ll spare you the scene where Allen and his family retreat to a Japanese steakhouse for a knife throwing contest while bouncing eggs off their faces (or something like that).

DEAR PLAYBOOKERS: Thank you for being so alert, smart, encouraging — the best audience in the world. Many of you have heard us say: “Every morning is Christmas morning!” We feel that way partly because of the exciting times we live in, and partly because it’s such a huge privilege to have a daily conversation with someone like you. But mostly, it’s because this community is so appreciative and engaged, making it a joy to serve you each day.

Thank you for forgiving our lapses. In the early ’90s, FedEx unveiled the slogan: “Our most important package is yours.” We feel the same way: We get thousands of emails each day, but the most important one is yours. If we said we were going to do something and then forgot, or if we didn’t respond, we apologize. We try to respond to each personal email and when we don’t, it’s a mistake. As our Grandma Powers used to say: “We slipped a cog.” Please remind us – we’ll make it right. You are the reason Playbook exists.

We believe strongly in constant reinvention to remain essential and enjoyable. So we’re grateful for your suggestions about how Playbook can evolve to serve you better:mallen@politico.com. A healthy, happy, hearty Thanksgiving to you and yours. And thank you!

Quotes of the Day: Hurricane-Cyclone Sandy Edition

“DC, take it from Coco Pebbles Chanel: it never hurts to be prepared.” — The Hill’s Howlma Kurtz, a.k.a. Judy Kurtz with accompanying picture.

Mixed feelings: “TWIITTER, I HATE YOU…. OK, I LOVE YOU” — HuffPost‘s Sam Stein. NYT‘s Jonathan Weisman was less confused: “TV seems dull compared to Twitter. Reading my feed I eagerly turned on cable and … Meh.” And Assoc. Editor of The Atlantic Brian Fung slammed the medium: “Glad to know that even in the midst of a hurricane, the Internet is still capable of kicking up monstrously dumb debates. Whew.”

Dork in the Storm

“My wife just remembered we had a bunch of small airline-style bottles of booze squirreled away. #yesplease.” — MSNBC host Chris Hayes.

Morally outraged.

“Protip: Tweets that make political jokes about storm that’s killed at least five people are maybe not worth sending.” — Politico‘s Maggie Haberman.

“Twitter is great and all but it’s proving tonight why journalism with real reporting and sourcing is essential.” — The Hill‘s White House Correspondent and resident Michelle Obama Fan Club Prez Amie Parnes.

“My wife gave birth to our three children at NYU. Horrifying to think of what’s going on there now. Horrifying.” — Conservative writer and professional Twitter fighter John Podhoretz, affectionately known as PodWhore.

“Has the storm past DC and we are through the worst of it? Swear I can’t tell from the coverage.” — CNN Democratic Analyst Hilary Rosen.

“Sandy has taken down Buzzfeed AND Huffington Post! The horror!” — The Times of London‘s Matt Spence. Reacting to the news, Breitbart.com‘s John Nolte remarked sarcastically, “That’s a shame.”

Powerless.

“Lights out here in McLean, Virginia” — The Daily Mail’s Toby Harnden, who will join the UK Sunday Times in January. He posted the accompanying photo.

“NoVa storm update: Power out. Water in basement. Reading Cat in the Hat to 3-year-old by flashlight.” — The Atlantic‘s Molly Ball.

“Feeling stir crazy so went to neighborhood Izakaya place. Returned home to find cable + Internet down.” — The Atlantic‘s Garance Franke-Ruta.

“First electricity flicker. 4:32 p.m.” — HotAir‘s Mary Katharine Ham.

“Afraid for your power? Both the Gtown and West End Ritzs are offering $229 ‘Sandy’ rates for locals. Beats a night in the cold dark!” — Washingtonian Editor Garrett Graff, who likes to appreciate the finer things in life such as Scotch and beautiful hotels.

“And my power just went out here in North Bethesda Maryland. It was a good run folks.” — The Daily Caller‘s Matthew Boyle.

Journo upset about stew and other random complainers

“Sandy is whistling here in my neighborhood. Not as loud as a train coming through the alley or dump truck moving down the street. But loud!” — Democratic Strategist Donna Brazile.

“Afraid the storm-related low pressure is causing my stew to tenderize freakishly slowly.” — Slate economics reporter Matt Yglesias.

“Suddenly, insisting on having a top floor apartment seems like a bad idea. Sounds like debris is hitting my roof!” — The Daily Caller‘s Publicist Nicole Roeberg.

Storm Chasers

“The wind outside my window has very quickly gone from interesting to extremely troubling.” — MetroWeekly‘s Randy Shulman.

“Flying debris now showing like a fast-motion movie through my back window.” — WaPo‘s Erik Wemple.

Comic relief

“El Chucko de Schumer esta hoggingo el microphoño! Que learno to shareo!” — Miguel Bloombito, expressing the media whore tendencies of Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).  If you’re not following him, you must: @ElBloombito.

“Anderson Cooper is doing a phoner on CNN so I have no idea how tight his shirt is. Therefore I have no idea how bad things are.” — NBC News’ Shawna Thomas, who later claimed to borrow a variation of a joke from SNL’s Seth Meyers.

“Sexual CNN Headlines.” — NYT comm asst. Jordan Cohen with accompanying picture.

“Oh thank God, David Corn is about to give us his perspective on Sandy on Hardball. Storm coverage is complete now.” — TownHall‘s Derek Hunter.

“Watching CNN coverage of Sandy giving me PTSD. Just put on my CNN windbreaker and started interviewing neighbors w/a plastic microphone.” — former CNN anchor Miles O’Brien.

See which blogger feared the storm might make her pregnant and what advice could MSNBC Contributor Meghan McCain possibly have?

Read more

Nearly every Washington-based big print publication has some type of video coverage of the party conventions. As they breathlessly note in their releases, much of the video is “LIVE!”

FishbowlDC took a look at some of the LIVE! offerings to separate the pros from the piglets.

Politico has done a solid job thus far with its video coverage. Each morning at 7:30 a.m. White House Correspondent Mike Allen and Executive Editor Jim VandeHei begin with a look at the day ahead. An hour later Politico partners with the Tampa Bay Times for a “Playbook Breakfast” featuring high-profile guests such as Liz Cheney, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Karl Rove. Live streaming video continues throughout the day with coverage and analysis provided by Politico reporters and other media types. Convention speeches are also streamed in the evening. Finding Politico‘s video coverage is easy. A large graphic link sits at the top of the homepage. Shockingly, this detail escaped many other publications, which essentially put their video streams in holes then covered them in dirt. One upside of viewing Politico‘s live videos is VandeHei try to intimidate his reporters with scare tactics. Wait, isn’t that Politico Pro‘s Tim Grieve‘s job? “You said you’d have two scoops for us,” VandeHei said to Jake Sherman at the start of one segment. “It’s your birthday!” VandeHei said at one point to another reporter. “We’re going to let you work until midnight!” Only minor audio issues in the stream have ensued.

WaPo‘s live coverage, meanwhile, is mediocre at best, if you can manage to stay awake to actually experience it. It’s unclear how to even get to a video landing page. From the front page of WaPo‘s website, readers can either scroll down a little to click a small icon labeled “live” which leads to a regularly updated blog on political news and posts live streaming video when there is one. The stream we caught was a breakfast yesterday hosted by WaPo‘s Dan Balz, Chris Cillizza and Karen Tumulty along with Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio). Content amounted to a camera that largely zoned in on Portman. The breakfast bore the atmosphere of a cafeteria at a retirement home.

HuffPost Live, the new video venture from HuffPost, has also been streaming segments from the convention. Yesterday the publication’s Editor-in-Chief Arianna Huffington streamed into HuffPost‘s studio via webcam from Tampa to discuss the Republican convention. What’s distracting is how anyone joining by webcam has to do so wearing headphones, often the white ones that come with Apple products. Video is easy to find with HuffPost Live because it has its own website. Production is sharp enough for online video but we can’t escape the feeling that our annoying relatives are trying to Skype with us. Furthermore, because many of the guests are everyday people joining from home, so viewers are often treated to random home phones ringing and out-of-sight dogs panting.

CNN may have the best online video stream (understandable, given that it’s produced by an actual TV network). The cast we caught was a convention chat between CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Jim Acosta along with liberal commentator Donna Brazile and former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. Unfortunately, we have no idea how to navigate back to any video streaming. We were only able to find this particular one because the exact web address was advertised on CNN’s TV channel. But trying to get there from CNN.com is a no go.

Moving on, other than picture quality, which was generally top notch, The Hill‘s live streaming has been terrible. We checked in on several occasions. Once, the camera was fixated on a man tapping on his phone and doing nothing else, with a 30-second clip of music on loop. Another time, the camera was focused on empty bleachers for an unusually extended period of time. And in a third instance, the audio wasn’t in sync with the video. This morning’s stream was a panel discussion featuring conservative author Jonah Goldberg and The Hill‘s A.B. Stoddard, two capable journos who know their way around TV appearances. I’d tell you who the other person on the panel was, but there was almost zero description of the panel underneath the video. The description that was there only contained the name of the event and the time it started. The camera never moved, or zoomed. It simply sat with a wide shot of the panel. On the plus side, the video stream is easy to find. Like Politico, a graphic link at the top of The Hill‘s homepage takes you there.

Tied with The Hill for terrible video streaming is National Journal. Once again, it’s difficult to find when navigating from the front page. Scroll down and a graphic link is to the right with tiny font lettering that says “full coverage.” Even when you get there, the live stream video isn’t at the top, it’s almost halfway down the page. In National Journal‘s case, the picture quality is good but the camera work is poor. It was only a single stationary camera focused on the speaker (and we can’t tell you who it was when we watched because like The Hill, there was no description underneath the video).

Quotes of the Day

“What up?” — Snooki upon meeting former presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich on NBC Tonight Show With Jay Leno last night. The above picture was posted by Newt’s wife, Callista, who wrote, “Enjoyed meeting Snooki at Leno today.”

Leno cries media bias

“Both of them are so ridiculously biased. It’s hard for a normal person to…” — Jay Leno on The Tonight Show last night, explaining to Gingrich why it’s so hard to watch either FNC or MSNBC. Gingrich opened up his big fat mouth and interrupted him mid-sentence.

WTF Central

@MittRomney not inviting @SarahPalinUSA to GOP convention is like @TeamCavuto not inviting @MichelleFields back to his show.‪#ReconsiderBoth‬ — Fields’ hallucinating follower Chris Claud. One thing’s for sure, Fields worshippers are getting creepier by the day. Claud should just shhh, be quiet, but no, he continued on about his distress of Fields not appearing on FNC’s “Hannity” Wednesday night after Fields informed her followers that they should still watch the program even though she wouldn’t be on it. “@MichelleFields @SeanHannity I’ll still tune in, but Sean owes us big time. I’m thinking you as co-host for a week!‪#HannityAndFields‬ ‪#IOU”‬

Donna Brazile blasts Romney at 3 a.m.

“@donnabrazile Donna, do u always tweet at 3 a.m.? Only parents of hungry babies like me awake to read them.” — Roll Call‘s Steven Dennis.  At around 3 a.m. this morning, CNN Analyst Donna Brazile fired off a series of tweets on Mitt Romney. For example, “FLASHBACK: Romney Challenged Kennedy To Release Tax Returns zite.to/OI9oic” and “Once more, the critics of Obama feast on fear and paranoia. SEAL Team Six Commander Launches Anti-Obama Offensive.” 

Journo down on Letterman

“OK, I’ve never watched late night TV but isn’t Letterman supposed to be funny?” — Politico Pro Energy reporter Alex Guillen.

Peter Ogburn contributed to this report.

The weekend brought numerous media sightings around the city.

Thursday gave way to Bill Kristol, who FBDC saw wander out of the CVS on 17th and P Streets. It struck us as slightly odd to see the conservative editor of The Weekly Standard casually stroll up 17th, given the abundance of gay pride paraphernalia on display. No need to be alarmed, however. Kristol, who is married (to a woman), stopped at the Turkish restaurant Agora, not one of the other establishments on 17th such as JR’s, where bartenders have been known to serve drinks half nude or DIK Bar (exactly how it sounds).

At Eastern Market on Saturday we saw nothing short of an act of heroism by Democratic Strategist Donna Brazile, a CNN contributor. We spotted Brazile dressed comfortably in sandals, a T-shirt and what looked like sweat pants walking her fluffy black dog. A separate dog that was obviously lost padded over to Brazile, who yelled out to a woman in the crowd, “she’s over here!” The woman, apparently familiar with Brazile, approached and said “Donna, I’ve never lost her before.” A happy ending.

On the same day, also at Eastern Market, we spotted a distinguished gentleman walking alongside his bright red Schwinn bike. Our first guess was Pee Wee Herman, but it turned out to be Jimmy LaSalvia, co-founder of GOProud, a gay Republican group.