Via Yglesias, I kid you not:

[W]hat distinguishes Goldberg from the Sean Hannitys and Michael Savages is a witty intelligence that deals in ideas as well as insults

Here is an example of the wit and ideas according to the reviewer:

In attempting to link Roosevelt to the fascism that enveloped Europe in these years, Goldberg highlights examples like the Civilian Conservation Corps, which offered a paycheck and military discipline to unemployed young men from the cities, and the National Recovery Administration, which was intended to spur industrial production through centralized planning.

Feel the wit. Sheesh. To the reviewer's credit, he basically ends up saying Goldberg is full of it, but my gawd, this passes for wit and engaging in ideas in his mind? Double sheesh.

Here, and a nasty piece of work it is:

The daughter of one of Pakistan’s most flamboyant and democratically inclined prime ministers, Benazir Bhutto, 54, served two turbulent tenures of her own in that post. A deeply polarizing figure, she lived in exile in London for years with corruption charges hanging over her head before returning home this fall to present herself as the answer to her nation’s trouble.

. . . A woman of grand ambitions and a taste for complex political maneuvering, Ms. Bhutto, 54, was long the leader of the country’s largest opposition political party, founded by her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Even from exile, her leadership was firm, and when she returned, she proclaimed herself a tribune of democracy, leading rallies in opposition to Mr. Musharraf, like the one at which she died.

. . . Her record in power, and the dance of veils she has deftly performed since her return — one moment standing up to General Musharraf, then next seeming to accommodate him, and never quite revealing her actual intentions — stirred as much distrust as hope among Pakistanis.

(Emphasis supplied.) More . . .

Media Matters does the heavy lifting and announces the worst offenders of misinformation by the media. Top categories: Those who unfairly blasted Hillary, Obama, the undocumented and Muslims.

Top Offenders: You know who they are, no surprises here. But the examples demonstrating the extent of their naked hatred may surprise you.

In a separate MM article, Jamison Foser lambasts Chris Matthews and Tucker Carlson over their feigned indignation about Bob Kerrey's use of Barack Obama's middle name. Turns out, both of them used his middle name well before Kerrey.

The first mention of the name as a political matter that we can find in the Nexis database comes from MSNBC's Chris Matthews. On the November 7 [2006] edition of Hardball -- three full weeks before Rogers' comment -- Matthews said: "You know, it's interesting that Barack Obama's middle name is Hussein. That will be interesting down the road, won't it?" Media Matters noted Matthews' comments the next day.

....A few weeks after Matthews' reference to Obama's middle name -- and a day before Rogers first used it -- Tucker Carlson used his MSNBC television program to call guest Bill Press "a true member of the Barack Hussein Obama fan club."

Foser continues on to who first brought up the topic of Obama's cocaine use:

More...

(Speaking for myself only)

I am of the opinion that Brian Williams is the most ridiculous person on television. I am also of the opinion that Howie Kurtz is the most ridiculous person writing in a major newspaper (yes, more so than MoDo.) So certainly I enjoyed Bob Somerby's skewering of both. Here is a snippet:

KURTZ (page 265): If Gibson managed to beat him, so be it. Charlie was a newsman’s newsman, Williams felt, an older version of himself. There was no shame in losing to Charlie. But he felt very differently about Katie Couric.

It wasn’t that Williams was jealous of her fame, her huge salary, of the enormous wave of publicity surrounding her ascension. But Williams and others at NBC believed that Katie was in something of a bubble, living a wealthy celebrity lifestyle that set her apart from her viewers.

What was central to Williams’ conception of himself was that he was the down-to-earth journalist, the NASCAR fan, the onetime volunteer fireman, the guy who shopped at Price Club and watched American Idol. . . . Brian Williams was convinced that, when it came to news, people would see who eats it, sleeps it, and breathes it.

And they were also going to see who knew how to pause between items! At any rate, it’s fairly clear that, at this high level, the high-strung artists of TV news can develop understandable sets of attitudes—the types of attitudes which, seen somewhere else, might be mistaken for excessive self-regard . . .

Read the whole thing. Hilarious.

Ike Turner died Wednesday at age 76.

Turner, was born in Clarksdale, Miss., and was brought up there by his mother after his father, a minister, was beaten to death by a white mob. As a child Ike spent time at the local radio station, WROX, a hub for Delta blues performances. According to Mr. Turner’s autobiography, the D.J.s taught him how to cue up and segue records, sometimes leaving him alone on the air when he was 8 years old.

....in 1958, he heard Anna Mae Bullock, who joined the group and quickly became its focal point as Tina Turner. The band was soon renamed the Ike and Tina Turner Revue.

Here's a photo retrospective.

A quick hit.

The Ombudsman for ESPN identifies what is wrong with today's Media:

. . . I call out ESPN for practices common to its cable news peers, such as bloated coverage of the moment's hot-topic stories and the mad dash from scant information to voluminous opinion. Often, the questions I pose ESPN executives can be, and often are, answered with a version of "That's just the way the 24/7 media is today." But I am not ombudsman for CNN or Fox News. I am charged with monitoring ESPN, looking at how its coverage affects sports and sports journalism . . .

"That's the way the 24/7 media is today" is the excuse of all of today's Media. ESPN's Ombudsman seems to be the only person who understands that answer is unacceptable.

Between Huckabee and Romney taking center stage with their faith this week and today's church-related shootings in Colorado, it's time for REM and Losing my Religion.

Bump and Reminder:

Sunday night at 9pm ET, the History Channel will air "1968" hosted by Tom Brokaw. Watch or set your Tivo, it's really good. I received a screening copy which I watched on an airplane flight last week. I don't think I looked up once.

The topics: Vietnam, hippies, music and civil rights.

More...

Woody Allen on the writers' strike. And this came in by e-mail yesterday from a Hollywood writer and TalkLeft reader:

Yesterday the AMPTP has hired some big gun PR guys who have Democratic connections.

The AMPTP announced yesterday that it had retained Mark Fabiani and Chris Lehane of Fabiani & Lehane and Steve Schmidt of Mercury Public Affairs "to assist in communicating the industry's proposed New Economic Partnership."

Fabiani and Lehane have a long history in Democratic politics, serving as senior aides and advisors to President Clinton, Vice President Gore and other Democrats across the country. Lehane is currently in the Hillary camp. Schmidt is a Republican guy, so nothing we can do there.

We would like to get blogs to write about this to put pressure on these guys. The idea that people who work closely with Dems would help to bust a union is disgusting. Hopefully we can pressure them to drop the job.

And a new way to support the writers: Tell the Networks How You Feel.

The battle between Huffington Post and Mike Huckabee is ongoing.

• Round 1: Murray Waas exposes Huckabee in Huffpo.

• Round 2: The Huckabee campaign posts a response by a former aide attacking HuffPo .

• Round 3: Arianna jumps in, defending Huffpo and Waas.

Our contributions (and slightly different take from all of them to date:)

• Huckabee and Wayne Dumond: Interview With Dumond's Attorney

• Mike Huckabee's Tangled Web

Stay tuned, I hear there's more to come.

Paul Krugman notes the radical departure by his fellow Timesperson Kit Seelye from the "Dems claim world is round, GOP disagrees" reporting. Seelye has decided to opine in a news article that Obama is right and Edwards and Clinton are wrong on health care mandates. Krugman writes:

I have a lot of problems with this Kit Seelye piece. It’s kind of weird that the usual “both sides may have a point” reporting gave way to a clear declaration that one side is right — precisely on an issue where many, many health experts believe that Obama is wrong, and that mandates are both feasible and essential.

I have no idea what the right answer is here, but I feel confident Kit Seelye does not either. I know that people like Krugman and Jon Cohn believe Edwards and Clinton are right (see also this),. And I trust them more than I do Kit Seelye, who relies on a person who works for the conservative AEI and an Obama spokesman.

As I said, I have no knowledge n this subject, but the reporting on this complex and debated subject by Seelye is clearly poor. Krugman points to this WSJ article for some good reporting on the subject. It is obvious that the WSJ report by Laurie Meckler is superior to Seelye's work. But Seelye has proven to be a poor reporter for quite some time.