Oh Toobin

Jeffery Toobin is a goddamn idiot. He said on CNN that Biden fumbled his "best" lines - hard to believe as sincere from a man who stumbled trying to get the accusation of stumbling out of his froth-filled, half-agape mouth - and that it had no thematic union. You know, no thematic unity except for the repeated phrases indicating the massive difference between the two candidates' policy positions and the fact that one of those candidates has been consistently proven correct - well, except for that there was nothing of substance, at all, in the speech. Sure.

McCain's New Add Apes Triumph of the Will

Respectful campaigning, indeed.

The New Yorker Cover

Thought I should comment on that. Obama's camp is apparently livid at what the magazine calls an obviously satirical photo.

I'm torn, honestly. On the one hand, I think it's a funny image. Hell, I laugh at much, much more inappropriate things every day. Most New Yorker readers will also be able to see it as satire. The magazine claims to have used the cartoon as a cover image to generate discussion as well as controversy. On the other hand, though, I do think that the image is inappropriate and the fact that it's on the cover as opposed to on the inside of the magazine bothers me for some reason I can't quite put my finger on. It's probably a deep mistrust of cable media's ability to really take this picture and use it as a springboard for serious discussion. Hell, I think that one of the groups satirized by the image is the media who run with these right wing talking points so very well.

It's frustrating that people do think that Obama is a terrorist Muslim fanatic and Michelle a radical America-hating Black Panther. Precisely because of that, I think it's a funny image. I'm not a national magazine, however. I really think this will generate more press about the New Yorker than it will spark serious discussion on CNN and MSNBC about why some people hold this view of the Obamas.

And here is another good point, although a bit overly dramatic.

[Edit -- Neither of the Obama-related articles in this issue of the New Yorker - one, a brief comment lampooning the flip-flop nonsense, the other a quite long piece about Obama's Chicago roots - have anything to do with the subject matter the cover satirizes. This just further makes me question why that cover was approved.]

Jesus

Cops Nab Fugitive Head Fund Manager. That is the headline.

Samuel Israel III, 48, walked into the police station in Southwick, Mass., at about 9:15 a.m. wearing a colored T-shirt and shorts, identified himself and said he was a fugitive wanted by the federal government, officials said.

Nice job, CNBC. Nice job.

Tim Russert - dead of a heart attack aged 58

Too soon. I've complained about him a lot in the past year, but his reporting throughout his entire career has been so stellar that the expectations he raised in liberals were bound to fall short by a bit. That's not to undercut his integrity and the loss that will be felt in the journalism world by his death.

On a personal note, I remember that watching Meet the Press in high school was, with my forced-viewings of Newshour, the catalyst to my political awakening.

More problems for English-language Russian media

Well, it looks like The Exile might be in some trouble. Most other outlets seem to be correctly interpreting this as an indication that the proud Russian tradition of suppressing media is going to continue under Medvedev. Some are going a bit overboard, though. Joshua Keating, for example, states that "Moscow won't be the same without them." Which is certainly true, but at the same time, give me a break.

While the tabloid is sometimes entertaining, I for one don't really care all that much about their fate. Mark Ames is one of God's perfect assholes. That isn't to say that the paper should be shut down, necessarily, but to take this as more important than the fact that Russia has one of the worst rates of unsolved murders of journalists, indicates that priorities are a little out of whack. There are more pressing concerns with regards to Russian media than whether a bunch of Hunter S Thompson knock-offs getting drunk and trying to see which brand of Viagra sold in kiosks is the most potent are going to be shut down.

I would, uh, link to that particular feature but it appears to be down.