Via Digby - the General returns:

larger version here.

Vanity Fair has a parody of the New Yorker's awful cartoon featuring Sen. Barack Obama and Michelle Obama.

I think the VF cartoon is much gentler and less offensive than the New Yorker cartoon.

Also, the McCain cartoon has more truths: John McCain is old, Cindy McCain did have a love affair with pills (even though in the cartoon the pills she is holding are for her husband) and McCain does admire George Bush.

What would you have added to the McCain cartoon to clearly represent the "politics of fear"?

A federal appeals court today overturned the FCC's fine on CBS resulting from Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" in which her breast was exposed during her Superbowl halftime appearance.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit said the Federal Communications Commission had "arbitrarily and capriciously departed from its prior policy" that exempted fleeting broadcast material from actionable indecency violations.

Like any agency, the FCC may change its policies without judicial second-guessing. But it cannot change a well- established course of action without supplying notice of and a reasoned explanation for its policy departure," Chief Judge Anthony Scirica wrote for the three-judge panel that heard the case.

CBS says it hopes the FCC will now revert to its past policy of "restrained indecency enforcement." [More...]

The Washington Post has a postmortem of the Netroots Nation Convention:

. . . Obama . . . is Topic A among the Netroots, his fate somewhat married to theirs. . . . But these are changing times, and Obama, in his calls for getting past blue vs. red America, and in his recent positions on issues such as telecom immunity, is somewhat of an enigma. With the Dems taking back Congress in 2006 and the prospect of an Obama victory come November, many in the influential Netroots are left in a precarious, ambiguous position. The question is, who needs whom: Does Obama need the Netroots, or vice versa?

Obama does not need them of course but neither does the Netroots need Obama. What the Netroots needs is some idea of what they are about. Right now, let's face it, they are about nothing but being a mirror image of the Right blogs. Obama - right or wrong. More . . .

Update [2008-7-19 18:18:24 by Big Tent Democrat]: A classic example of the "Creative Class" in action. Truly a funny panel, not intentionally of course.

Here is an interesting panel discussion at Netroots Nation:

Meta

Saturday, July 19th 4:30 PM - 5:45 PM

In this blogosphere-focused panel, moderator Chris Bowers will pose two questions—one about the Obama/Clinton conflict in the blogosphere community and the second looking at how blogs compare with other forms of social media. After a panel discussion, audience members will be given a chance to ask additional questions.

More . .

Robert Novak writes:

[T]he private Republican view is that the focus must be on Obama in the coming campaign for McCain to win. A positive campaign will lose, and the spotlight on Obama must be harsher for McCain to have a chance.

Thanks for the insight Bob.

Writing from Netroots Nation discussion between Markos and DLC Chair Harold Ford, Ezra Klein writes about the incongruity of Ford speaking at Netroots Nation:

[T]he DLC ceased being a threat and became simply a foil. In 2005, when DailyKos was preparing to destroy the DLC, they were punching up, or thought they were. Now it would be baffling if they took the DLC on: What would be the point? The netroots are bigger, richer, and more relevant, or at least feel as if they are.

That strikes me as hilarious. Who was "bigger, richer and more relevant" on FISA? Harold Ford said:

The Netroots is meeting in Austin the next few days. I will not be there. But if I was, I would talk about what Markos said:

“I’m positioning myself, at DailyKos, which isn’t the broader netroots, to not be carrying water for anybody,” he said. “We’ll work to keep our party honest. We’re not going to pretend that just because he’s Barack Obama, his actions aren’t sometimes problematic. But that doesn’t mean we’re abandoning him or that we won’t vote for him. That’s ludicrous.”

And I would discuss this approach to accountability:

Rolling Stone guitarist Ronnie Wood has entered rehab for an alcohol problem. Video here.

We wish him a successful program. Relapse isn't fun for anyone.

This is another open thread.

When Ana Marie Cox is slapping you around effectively, you may want to rethink your position. In response to Hendrick Hertzberg's attack on people who care about civil liberties, Cox writes:

In other words: Don't you want to win, you dirty freaking hippie? Except if you're a member of the MSM, in which case, Don't you want to be one of the "better newspapers"? Oh, and John McCain is worse. I'm fine with people defending Obama's flip-flops, but I don't like pretending they don't matter. Especially if it's not just a simple change of some random position, but -- as with FISA -- a real rejection of a significant campaign promise. I'm probably going to vote for Obama, okay; I do not have to like it. I do not have believe that his awesomeness creates amnesia.

(Emphasis supplied.) Speaking for me only

Example 1:

Single mothers gathered at the laundromat are all talking about one thing: FISA. Don't believe it? Then - unlike many left-wing bloggers and activists, known as the "net roots" - you're in touch with reality. . . . They claim to want to win, yet they're determined to malign the Democratic nominee for doing what he always said he would do: make compromises and find the middle ground.

Example 2:

[P]rogressives and Democrats are up to the same old internal sniping: single issue people bashing Obama for moving to the middle or voting a certain way on FISA. . . .

Example 1? Fox Democrat Kristen Powers. Example 2? Faux Progressive and Talking Points Memo Clinton Hater Theda Skopcol. More . . .