Hesiod of Counterspin is looking for a new, improved name for radical right-wing radio. Our suggestion is Radical Right Radio. As we posted in the comments at Counterspin

That's our name of choice for the Radical Right--they shouldn't be allowed to call themselves the "Christian Right" because their values certainly are not Christian, and by referring to them as such, we only imbue them with legitimacy. Their ideas are far outside the mainstream, and constitute right-wing extremism. Most people connote "radical" with undesirable, which is exactly the appropriate appellation for conservative talk radio. So we vote for "radical right radio."

Dan Abrams' MSNBC show, The Abrams Report, has been cancelled. Dan will stay on as NBC/MSNBC's chief legal corresondent--appearing on news shows like Today and Nightly News, and doing some afternoon anchoring for MSNBC. Dan's show was fun to watch, he put his heart into it. We hope he gets another show soon.

Update: Dan's show has been reinstated, not to worry.

Michael Tomasky writes an article on warbloggers in New York Magazine, Blog On:

But newspaper dispatches are merely a sideshow. The media keep telling us that the military difference between this Gulf War and the last one is technology. True. But it's the media difference, too. The change is the Web, and the people really following this war are following it online. Dozens of bloggers, writing under rubrics like the Fly Bottle, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, and the Volokh Conspiracy, are providing serious, up-to-the-minute critiques of the action.

Who dresses Richard Perle and prods him to lose weight? Read all about Eleana Benedor, who wants her right wing hawks to look good on tv and the lecture circuit. If this story weren't so pathetic, it would be funny.

"I’m very meticulous," said Ms. Benador, a diminutive woman in her 40’s who is a publicist to neoconservative stars. "Clothing. Attitude. Hair style. I’m always fussy about it. Some of them, if they’re putting on weight, very gently I will go to them and say, ‘You have two choices: You go to my doctor who makes you lose weight, or you buy a new suit.’ Very gently." Ms. Benador, a Peruvian-born New Yorker who runs a one-woman publicity firm for experts on national security, foreign policy and the Middle East, noted that her star client, Richard Perle, the former chairman of the Defense Policy Board, had shown marked improvement. "I think we have seen that he’s losing weight," she said in her heavily accented English. "I’ve looked at him."

The 2003 Pulitzer Prizes for Journalism have been announced: Cornelia Grubman and the Chicago Tribune has won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing for this series of editorials against the death penalty.

Grumman credited her prize to the work of investigative reporters Steve Mills, Maurice Possley and Ken Armstrong, who spent years uncovering problems in the capital punishment system and worked to free some former death-row inmates. "They laid the groundwork for reform in Illinois, and I was just kind of making the argument,'' Grumman said. "I feel like my work has been a footnote to the book they wrote … just the last chapter calling for reform for all the problems they detailed," Grumman said. "My hat's off to them. They are my heroes."

Mills, Possely and Armstrong are our heroes too.

The Dixie Chicks top the Billboard Chart of the top 20 country albums for this week (April 12). [link via Media Horse].

Pearl Jam played in Denver last night and the Rocky Mountain News reports that some weren't thrilled by their anti-Bush display:

Incensed fans walked out of Pearl Jam's concert Tuesday after lead singer Eddie Vedder impaled a mask of President Bush on a microphone stand, then slammed it to the stage. Most of Vedder's antiwar remarks earlier in the Pepsi Center show were greeted with mixed cheers and scattered boos. But dozens of angry fans walked out during the encore because of the macabre display with the Bush mask, which he wore for the song Bushleaguer, a Bush- taunting song from the band's latest album, Riot Act.

We're on our way to the Pepsi Center shortly to see Bon Jovi and the Goo Goo Dolls. We're not expecting any political displays from either group, but if we're wrong, we'll report back here later tonight. Update: Vedder expressed his support for the troops during the concert.

"Just to clarify . . . we support the troops," Vedder said to cheers. "Our problem is certainly not with anybody over there doing something that not too many of us would do right now, not for these reasons. "So to the families and those people who know those folks and are related to those folks and are married to those folks, we send our support. We're just confused on how wanting to bring them back safely all of a sudden becomes nonsupport. We love them, we support them. They're not the ones who make the foreign policy. . . . Let's hope for the best and speak our opinions."

Atrios notes the unhappy fans didn't leave until the encore

Update: Bon Jovi was outstanding. Non-stop energy from start to finish--over 2 hours. Goo Goo Dolls were terrific too. Great show. Only one war mention--Bon Jovi introduced a song they wrote for "the men and women over there," and said, "We're there, let's get it over with." Tons of patriotic cheers when he mentioned the men and women over there.

Update: Hessiod comments on the other side of the Pearl Jam story.

Too funny. New York Press asked readers for their suggestions on the 50 most hated New Yorkers. She-pundit clocks in at number 4, with this description:

Yes, she does live here. What a depressing age we live in, when a horse-faced Tri-Delt who spends her days hurling genocidal threats at foreigners and liberals--whose best come-hither look promises jackboots, pepper gas and the switch--can somehow be considered a sex symbol. What's next? Vlad the Impaler Beanie Babies? A children's show called Joseph McCarthy's Neighborhood? Please, before it's too late, bring back Charlene Tilton, and send this pampered, vicious bitch back to the stenographic pool where she belongs.

[link via Tapped]

The war is one week old and the media has already bungled 15 stories [link via Cursor]

A reporter explains why journalists stay in Baghdad.

Slate has a primer on the Geneva Conventions (there are three.)

Al Jazeera now has an English website. [link via Seeing the Forest]

The Washington Post has a continually updated Latest News in Iraq blog-type feed here.

Update: Here is the text of Michael Moore's acceptance speech:

Michael Moore: Whoa. On behalf of our producers Kathleen Glynn and Michael Donovan from Canada, I'd like to thank the Academy for this. I have invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us, and we would like to — they're here in solidarity with me because we like nonfiction. We like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fictition of duct tape or fictition of orange alerts we are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. And any time you got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up. Thank you very much.

Michael Moore rocked the Academy Awards tonight with his acceptance speech following the Best Documentary Award for Bowling for Columbine. At first there were a few cheers but they quickly turned to jeers when he said "Shame on President Bush" whom he called a fictitious president running a fictitious war. By the time he was done, there were loud boos. Moore was laughing, he knew his remarks were over the top, but he clearly intended to shock, and the boos were his confirmation that he succeeded.

We weren't offended by his remarks. But we think he wasted a good opportunity and instead accomplished just what we were afraid of: turning millions of people off. Not by his beliefs, but in the way he chose to express them. It's his right of course, but he certainly didn't help the anti-war movement, in our opinion.

After Moore, host Steve Martin came back and got a laugh with his line, "As you might expect, things are going great backstage. The Teamsters just loaded Michael Moore into the trunk of his limo."

Update: Contrast Moore with Adrian Brody who got cheers and a standing ovation for his heartfelt plea that the war end soon.

Smythe's World: "For all the reaction that [it] caused, I have yet to hear anyone say that a single word of what Michael Moore said last night was false. Sometimes it's tacky to tell the truth. "

Are we the only ones uncomfortable by the Pentagon's "embedding" of reporters to cover the war? It's censorship.

Yes, we realize that it's dangerous out there and news organizations might not get their reporters as close to the action without help from the Administration. But we're getting only what the Government allows the reporters to tell, so how is this journalism? We're getting a slanted view.

We find ourselves constantly going over the BBC, SkyNews and other international websites to read their coverage.

All night long, on every news station tonight, U.S. reporters covering the Camp Pennsylvania grenade attack were hemming and hawing--"I can't talk about that"..."I've seen more than I can say, I have to be really careful here". This Reuters article advising that one of the 13 injured soldiers is dead, nails it for us.

Time magazine correspondent Jim Lacey told CNN by telephone from Camp Pennsylvania, the Kuwait base for the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, that the soldier had died of his injuries. "We're allowed to talk about it," he said.(emphasis supplied)

Sunday's New York Times reports that reporters are eagerly responding to the Penatgon's "welcome mat." The "embedding" policy has been in the works for many months, and is mainly the brainchild of Rumsfeld who wanted to drum up public support for the war, and decided, what better way than to get the media enthralled.

It's worked. The first night of bombing, the reporters were awestruck. They were positively gleeful about finally experiencing "shock and awe" and that it more than met their expectations.

We'd rather have free news and honest news than more of it. And we have some questions. Who's paying the freight for the "embedded" journalists? Is the Pentagon throwing it in free to the news organizations as a means of sweetening the pot and getting them to go along with their restrictions on reporting? If the Government isn't footing the bill, how much cheaper is it for the media giants to warehouse their reporters with the military than to pay their way independently? We would think that by traveling and bunking with the military, the news organizations are saving big bucks.

It looks to us like we're getting a marketing campaign, not true news. Censorship is antithetical to a free democracy.