Ann Althouse and I did a Bloggingheads TV diavlog yesterday. It's almost an hour long -- we covered a lot of topics, and they break it down by segments. If any of them interest you, feel free to check it out.

• The Loneliness of the Pro-Hillary Blogger
• Why Hillary should stay in (until June July anyway)
• Is Hillary a wounded wife, or does she just play one on TV?
• Ann defends making fun of Hillary and her gender
• Jeralyn says rape is about violence, not sex; Ann begs to differ
• Lethal Injection Drugs, Dogs and Euthanasia
• Child-porn case raises questions about the role of juries
• An appreciation of Charlton Heston, actor and activist

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

In a uniformly awful piece by Mark Leibovich, an "Ode" to Chris "Tweety" Matthews, we find demonstrated everything that is awful in the Media. The emptiness, the unwarranted arrogance, the banality, the silly insidery gossip and the just plain bad reporting. But I got a big kick out of this line:

Matthews’s bombast is radically at odds with the wry, antipolitical style fashioned by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert or the cutting and finely tuned cynicism of Matthews’s MSNBC co-worker Keith Olbermann.

(Emphasis supplied.) Olbermann's finely tuned cynicism? Lack of bombast? As Tweety himself might say, Ha!

How many Americans have finished dinner and turned on the TV? Millions. How many are watching the cable news coverage of today's Iraq hearings? How many are watching Dancing With Stars?

Since I got nothing from my perusal of the coverage of the three cable news networks other than McCain flubbed by mixing up Sunnis and Shiites, which he's done before and today corrected immediately, and Hillary and Obama asked a few questions, I'm watching Dancing With Stars (with Sheryl Crow) tonight.

For those of you following the real news, here's a place for you. Please do better than the cable news networks.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

For a campaign that has been declared over, and a candidate who has been declared dead, Hillary Clinton sure gets alot of attention from the Obama News Network (NBC), not to mention the Obama blog network (you know who I mean). I watched Countdown with Keith Olbermann for the first 15 30 minutes. After 10 minutes of bashing Clinton for firing Mark Penn (it seemed like that he was doing, to be honest, Olbermann was pretty incoherent), then 5 minutes of attacking Clinton on comparing her Iraq position with Obama's. Then 10 minutes of telling us that Clinton has no chance (begging the question, then why spend the first 25 minutes of your program blasting Hillary Clinton?

Olbermann wanted to attack Clinton on the Bachtel story, but it seems NBC got the memo that they were wrong (Olbermann graciously "gave that one" to Clinton) then attacked Clinton for an argument she did not make (but should) - that the Media LIED about the Bachtel story. Yes Keith, your Obama News Network spent the day LYING about Hillary Clinton's statement on Trina Bachtel.

More . . .

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

It appears that, via Digby, NBC's Andrea Mitchell has a credibility problem:

Mitchell: Well, it turns out it's not true. After reading about the story in the Washington Post, hospital officials demanded that the Clinton campaign stop using that anecdote. They say there is no indication that this woman was denied medical care, that in fact, she did have insurance.

It turns out the hospital and NBC have a credibility problem - the woman WAS denied medical services, but not by the hospital that chose to accuse itself:

At an earlier time . . . Bachtel lacked health insurance and ran up unpaid bills when treated at a clinic near her home in Middleport. When she returned for treatment when pregnant, the clinic demanded $100 per visit to help retire the outstanding debt, Casto said. Because Bachtel could not afford the fees and found it difficult to travel, her aunt said, she postponed receiving treatment.

NEVER believe the Media. Hopefully, "progressive" blogs will learn their lesson. Just so you know, Andrea Mitchell and Howard Fineman are on TV attacking Hillary's credibility while they have completely gotten the story wrong. The Media is a joke.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

I found this passage from Jon Chait amusing:

The spin now is that Obama's delegate lead is "small but almost insurmountable" (USA Today) and that, since neither can clinch the nomination with pledged delegates alone, "the nomination is expected to be in the superdelegates' hands" (Los Angeles Times). These beliefs reflect the mathematical illiteracy that has allowed the press corps to be routinely duped by economic flim-flammery. A lead that's insurmountable is, by definition, not small. . . .

(Emphasis supplied.) Um, noooo. A lead can be large but surmountable and it can be small but insurmountable. An insurmountable lead is not, by definition, large, in my understanding of the English language (admittedly my second language.) And when a contest is to reach a certain number of delegates, the only MATHEMATICALLY insurmountable advantage is when one of the candidates reaches the magic number (2025 or 2214 total delegates being the one ones that matter here, not the majority of the pledged delegates) More . . .

By Big Tent Democrat

mcjoan has a live blog going with NY Times reporter Eric Lichtblau who broke the warrantless surveillance story. He is discussing his new book on the subject:

As political bombshells go, the headline that popped up on New York Times Web site on December 15, 2005, "Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts," was a pretty big one, the biggest in the chronicling of the Bush administration's "war on terror." The story had been well over a year in the making, the process of it coming to light filled with nearly as much intrigue as the story itself.

More...

What did you think? Actors playing Hillary and Bill discuss their tax returns and making money and whether Hillary will step aside.

"So, at this point I think it would be in the best interest of the party if I stepped aside for the Obama campaign. That's not going to happen. I am not jumping out of this until after the inauguration. Even then I won't be gracious."

It wasn't particularly funny or memorable. Host Christopher Walken's opening was much better and funnier, although it had nothing to do with politics. He is such a good actor.

By Big Tent Democrat

The normally astute Mark Schmitt writes something incredibly absurd:

With the elected officials who are superdelegates now split evenly between Obama and Clinton, it seems that there are now two congressional parties, defined not by ideology but by attitude: On one side, older liberals like Ted Kennedy joined with those elected more recently who have the combativeness necessary in the Bush years; on the other side, a middle-generation elected and brought up under the assumptions of the '80s and '90, very roughly speaking.

(Emphasis supplied.) Say what? Ben Nelson? Tom Daschle? Kent Conrad? Claire McCaskill? This is one of the silliest statements I have read in a season of silly statements. Yes, the post partisan Obama Unity Schtick has been VERY appealing to the Fighting Dems. What a freaking joke.

Hillary will be on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno tonight. Fox News has a wrapup.

A regular on Letterman this campaign season, Hillary Clinton took a seat on the couch of his Los Angeles Late Night Rival — and took her share of good natured lumps. In an intro at the top of the show, she did a sketch skewering her 3am phone call ad, fielding a call from Leno asking her to appear on the show before saying “we’ve GOT to get caller ID.”

And in the monologue, Leno mocked her recent Rocky Balboa infatuation, saying “We have the Italian stallion on the show tonight — Hillary Clinton, ladies and gentlemen.”

She takes on the Bosnia snipers and Rocky:

Walking out to the theme from Rocky, Clinton told Leno she was worried she wouldn’t make the show — saying “I was pinned down by sniper fire.” Leno replied “In LA, that might be true.”

She also talked about Bill's excitability on the campaign trail.

By Big Tent Democrat

Ed Rendell asks:

In an interview with me, the governor was again in media-critic mode. "It took Saturday Night Live to bring some fairness to this election," Rendell said, referring to the show's now famous skit lampooning the media's crush on Obama. "It's stunning. Does Keith Olbermann get checks from the Obama campaign?"

(Emnphasis supplied.) Heh.

Update (TL): Comments are open again, the troll has been deleted. It was ObamaMama who registered as 8 users today, including the offensively named one. All such registrations and comments and comment ratings by him/her have been erased. Thanks to all of you who e-mailed me about it.

John Lennon, r.i.p, would be proud. Yesterday, Hillary Clinton announced a plan for 3 million new jobs.

At the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO Convention in Philadelphia, Hillary Clinton announced a plan to create three million new jobs through increased investments in the nation’s infrastructure. Hillary would create these jobs over 10 years by combining emergency initiatives like fixing the immediate safety risks of the I-95 bridge in Philadelphia along with long-term investments to create a greener, sleeker 21st century highway and transit system.

"President Bush has stood by and watched as we've lost 3 million manufacturing jobs. And he’s done nothing about the loopholes in our tax code that actually encourage companies to ship jobs overseas," said Clinton. "It's time for a different approach. I'll fight for every single job in America – and create millions of new, high paying jobs that can’t be outsourced. We're trying to run today’s economy on yesterday’s infrastructure – and we’re jeopardizing tomorrow’s prosperity. So I will rebuild America – by rebuilding, repairing and modernizing our infrastructure."

It's a $7 billion plan of tax incentives to companies that will keep jobs from going overseas. [More...]