“It is better to be thought a Fool than to speak and remove all doubt. ...

Apparently, Broder is intent on removing all doubt. Greg Sargent tells us:

Over at the Dallas Morning News, which prints Broder's column from time to time, they've done a teaser on the paper's blog previewing the Op-ed columns the paper is running tomorrow. Here it is:

Tomorrow's op-ed columns

. .. (David Broder) How Harry Reid has joined Alberto Gonzales as exhibit A of ineptitude.

I won't say more because you should "[n]ever argue with a fool, they will lower you to their level and then beat you with experience."

At 11:00 a.m. E.T., Rosie O'Donnell will announce she's leaving "The View".

I've never seen the show, and I don't really get what the fuss is all about with her, but she's been making the news a lot lately, so I thought I'd report it.

Update: Her contract was up and they couldn't agree on terms for the next year. Barbara Walters says she's sorry to see her go.

David Halberstam, RIP, was a great journalist before he became famous and pretty good advocacy journalist after he became famous. And I think he realized that. Glenn Greenwald highlights a few of Halberstam's speeches on the "state of journalism" and a section from this Halberstam speech caught my eye:

There are a few things I would like to pass on to you as I come near to the end of my career. One: It's not about fame. By and large, the more famous you are, the less of a journalist you are. Besides, fame does not last. At its best, it is about being paid to learn. For fifty years, I have been paid to go out and ask questions. What a great privilege to be a free reporter in a free society, to be someone whose job is a search for knowledge. What a rare chance to grow as a person. . . .

(Emphasis supplied.) I think that is a key insight from Halberstam. When you are not famous, your job as a journalist is to learn facts and then tell the public about the facts you have learned. By and large, as a reporter gets famous or even better known, they become advocates for particular narratives. This too is a worthy role so long as we understand that this is what famous journalists are doing.

********

I am like, so glad I stayed home in Denver. Not only was the Washington Correspondents Dinner a total bore, but the after parties were even worse.

Libby Copeland and Dana Milbank explain, in an article I assume was written by Libby, with assists from Milbank, copying the tone of a Valley Girl.

Could anything be more last year -- either the dinner, the parties or their recounting? It's almost as bad as this one by Libby.

[sarcasm intended.]

Episode 80 is tonight: "Remember When."

This week, with the heat turned up in Jersey, Tony and Paulie head south to cool off. Meanwhile, Junior rekindles some of his old fire in a poker game.

I'm wondering if someone will be killed tonight. Three weeks without a whacking is a long time.

After the Sopranos is the final episode of Apprentice: LA. Donald Trump chooses his apprentice tonight. My money's on Frank. This was definitely not a great season for the show, I usually tuned in to the last 15 minutes to see the boardroom action and who got fired, but the finales are fun to watch because they are live and the contestants presumably don't know who will be chosen.

Update: Trump chose Stephanie, a very L.A. civil lawyer who defends construction companies against defect claims and employers against workman comp claims. She was a mouse the whole season, but she showed her mettle tonight. A fitting choice for Trump.

If you watch and have some thoughts, here's the place to leave them.

Update: Ann Althouse and her commenters review the Soprano's episode. I agree with one of the commenters who said it seems like the show is going to go out with a whimper, not a bang.

Iggy Pop turned 60 yesterday, and he's still as energetic in his concerts as always.

The eerily athletic "Godfather of Punk" stripped down to a tight pair of blue jeans and dived off the stage into the arms of his adoring fans during a concert in San Francisco with his reunited band the Stooges.

Pop no longer carves up his chest with a steak knife, rolls around in cut glass, smears himself in peanut butter, or follows a drug regimen that makes Keith Richards look like a choirboy. But the Michigan trailer-park kid otherwise outruns rockers one-third his age.

I'm looking forward to reading the new biography about him, Iggy Pop: Open Up and Bleed.

Trynka leaves no detail, graphic or otherwise, untold in this hard-to-put-down biography that traces Pop's early years in Ann Arbor and captures the debauchery and drug use that led to his and the band's downfall. But it also tells the very human story of Osterberg and his struggle with his manic Iggy Pop alter ego.

More...

Watching Meet the Press and the ridiculous talking heads, this time Meacham, Kearns Goodwin and Gregory, say nothing about nothing, I was thinking if that was preferable to what Kyra Phillips did. Of course, Meet the Press is, in theory an opinion show so the issue is should reporters by doing opinion segments. I am pretty strongly in favor reporters and Editors saying NO to that. So Gregory, Meacham, Citizen Stengel and the like should not be doing opinion segments. But that does remind of the one time a reporter did opine on a war:

[Walter Cronkite] was not punished in the ratings when he went to Vietnam and reported that he had seen the lies, corruption, and stalemate in that war and that it was time for us to go. LBJ watching Cronkite's Vietnam report. President Lyndon Johnson listened to Cronkite's verdict with dismay and real sadness. As he famously remarked to an aide, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost America." After all, this was not one of the young, brash reporters like Morley Safer or Jack Laurence pricking the president's power. It was Cronkite, veteran of World War II, a man of unimpeachable patriotism. When he stated the obvious -- that the Viet Cong had no intention of giving up, and we had no intention of remaining in Vietnam for another generation -- the common sense of it stuck with the public.

Can you imagine NASCAR Brian Williams, Katie Couric or ABC's generic anchor (I know his name, but he has no persona) doing that? Of course not. Heck, the Media does not give opinions on issues, it makes fun of politicians. Our political journalism is as pathetic as the President it covers.

We are in an Era of Incompetence, from our President to our Media.

Big Tent Democrat has already criticized New York Times' columnist Maureen Dowd's article, Running With Scissors.

I'm going to weigh in with Hillzoy at Obsidian Wings who criticizes Dowd for going with the crowd that criticizes John Edwards for his haircuts and day spa expenses. It turns out the day spa expense was for makeup for going on TV.

Who goes on TV these days without makeup? I'm not running for President, and unless it's a breaking news story where there's no time to arrange for a make up artist, I say no if they ask me to go to a studio without one. Not when the anchors and other guests get it automatically because they are either in the studio with the host where make up artists are on site all day and night, or in a city large enough that the local bureau provides it.

It doesn't matter whether you're on for five minutes or an hour. Make up artists charge around $250 per appearance.

If you're running for President, and a last minute call comes in for national tv time and you need a haircut, like Hillzoy, I see nothing wrong with paying the stylist to come to you -- rather than having to take a few hours to go to a salon -- and get a haircut. Time is money, as they say.

But Hillzoy says it much better than me, and she's really angry about Dowd's column, so I hope you'll go over and read her.

And, here's a note to those who find themselves in Denver with a hastily arranged tv appearance. Ask for MFG Studios, they'll call Beth Ryan or Dee (the best in town, in my opinion, and I've probably had them all) and tack it on to the network's bill. MFG also has the most flattering lighting.

Update: Why doesn't anyone report that Laura Bush has paid $700 for a haircut?

What's going on at CNN? First John Roberts and now, via Greg Sargent, Kyra Phillips decides to opine rather than report:

Is this the new CNN policy? And if it is, can I ask them if they think the Bush Administration misled the country into the Iraq Debacle? John? Kyra? What do you think about that? Harry Reid has said that too. Any thoughts on the matter?

I like Maureen Dowd's writing. I really do. But if she is going to continue to write about the politcs, she needs to attend to her daddy complex. In writing about the silly Edwards haircut story, Dowd reveals the psychological block she has in writing about politics - she needs to overcome her Elektra complex:

Speaking of roots, my dad, a police detective who was in charge of Senate security, got haircuts at the Senate barbershop for 50 cents. He cut my three brothers’ hair and did the same for anyone else in the neighborhood who wanted a free clip job. Even now, Mr. Edwards could get his hair cut at the Senate barbershop for $21 or the Chapel Hill Barber Shop near his campaign headquarters for $16.

Guess she is bidding for the "daughter of a police detective" vote. Memo to MoDo, just cuz daddy did it that way does not mean doing it some other way is wrong.

But in all seriousness, every significant defect in Dowd's writing, from her outrageous writings on Clinton, Gore, Hillary Clinton, Republicans and Democrats, really can be traced back to this. She needs to address that.

In his weekly roundtable blowhard pundit segment, with Ed Rollins, NY Daily News' Michael Goodwin and Dem strategist Hank Sheinkopf, Lou Dobbs and his group skewered Sen. Harry Reid for saying "Iraq is lost."

ROLLINS: It's not fair to the men and women who are there to basically say, they are losing a war. They are in a police action. They aren't fighting a war anymore....
DOBBS: Thank you for saying that.

Not ten seconds later, Dobbs said:

I believe William Odom, General William Odom will be proved exactly right in his characterization of our involvement in Iraq.

Victory Is Not an Option
The Mission Can't Be Accomplished -- It's Time for a New Strategy
By William E. Odom
Sunday, February 11, 2007

Hmmmm. Is Lou Dobbs emboldening . . .?