(Click Image Above for the Blogopticon with Clickable Links)
Vanity Fair has put together this very handy grid of some of the world’s major blogs, which are arranged by news reporting (the Y-axis) and opinion (and juicy gossip) (the X-axis). The chart has extremely useful clickable icons, which link directly to the featured sites.
“Picture of the Day: Pandora’s Box Always Holds Hope.” A colorful picture to remind us that even in the worst of times, we can find sources of support and hope.
I have already pointed out on my own blog what I believe to be the intentionally venomous effects of Matt Drudge’s so-called corrupt reporting at The Drudge Report. In a Time Magazine posting today, Joe Klein agrees and asserts that Drudge is absolutely shameless about distorting news and misleading his readers.
I have already pointed out here and also here on my blog what I believe to be the intentionally venomous effects of Matt Drudge’s so-called corrupt reporting at The Drudge Report. Joe Klein posts this in Time Magazine today:
“I know this is old news, but this guy is shameless. The headline, with a photo of a three-quarters crazed Hillary, is HEALTH INSURANCE PROOF REQUIRED FOR WORK but the linked story says this:
At this point, we don’t have anything punitive that we have proposed,” the presidential candidate said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We’re providing incentives and tax credits which we think will be very attractive to the vast majority of Americans. “She said she could envision a day when “you have to show proof to your employer that you’re insured as a part of the job interview — like when your kid goes to school and has to show proof of vaccination,” but said such details would be worked out through negotiations with Congress.
How stupid does he think we are? Answer: Extremely dumbolic.
I’ll have more about Clinton’s health plan in this week’s print column.”
“Photo of the Day: Night at the East River.” This is a stunning photograph of a man alone, gazing in dark solitude at New York’s East River. The photograph is presented in high-resolution.
Grace Paley, the author and social activist who explored in pungent and tragicomic style the struggles of ordinary women muddling through everyday lives, died on Wednesday at home in Vermont. She also lived in New York’s Greenwich Village. Ms. Paley was New York’s first official state author and a poet laureate of Vermont. Photograph and video are included.
The Columbia Journalism Review details how Matt Drudge continues to distort and poison political discourse in the media. Specifically, it details how The Drudge Report fabricated the so-called recent “cat-fight” between Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton, and how his distortions spread like wildfire through the mainstream media.
The CNN/YouTube Democratic Debate at The Citadel, Charleston, S.C.
Overview of the Debate
The Washington Post provided this summary overview of Monday night’s South Carolina debate:
“Democratic presidential candidates shared the spotlight Monday night with ordinary citizens from around the country in a two-hour debate that featured sharp and sometimes witty video questions and often equally sharp exchanges among the candidates on issues ranging from Iraq and health care to whether any of them can fix a broken political system.
The debate, co-sponsored by CNN and YouTube, underscored the arrival of the Internet as a force in politics. The citizen-interrogators generated the most diverse set of questions in any of the presidential debates to date and challenged the candidates to break out of the rhetoric of their campaign speeches and to address sometimes uncomfortable issues, such as race, gender, religion and their own vulnerabilities.
Many questions in the nationally televised session were aimed at the two leading candidates, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), and they used the forum to challenge each other more directly than they have in past debates. But all candidates were put on the spot at one time or another, such as when asked whether, if elected president, they would work for the minimum wage. Most said they would.
Obama came close to directly criticizing Clinton’s support for the Iraq war in 2002, and Clinton contradicted Obama on a question about whether, as president, they would meet with leaders of foreign governments hostile to the United States.
On Iraq, Clinton noted at one point that she had recently asked the Pentagon about planning for troop withdrawal, only to be accused of abetting the enemy. Obama then turned praise into veiled criticism of her record on Iraq.
“I think it’s terrific that she’s asking for plans from the Pentagon, and I think the Pentagon response was ridiculous,” he said. “But what I also know is that the time for us to ask how we were going to get out of Iraq was before we went in. And that is something too many of us failed to do.”
When a questioner asked whether the candidates would meet with leaders of Iran, Syria, Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela during their first year in the White House, Obama eagerly responded that he would.
“And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them — which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration — is ridiculous,” he said.
When it was Clinton’s turn, she offered a more measured response, one that suggested she believed her rival had been naive in his answer. Saying she would not make such a pledge to meet with those leaders in her first year, she warned: “I don’t want to be used for propaganda purposes. I don’t want to make a situation even worse.”
Readers can access The Washington Post review of the debate in its entirety here.
Beneath the Surface: Glimpses at Issues of Self, Identity and Political Decisiveness
Self and Identity: Questions of Race and Gender
(Click Image for Video)
Obama’s Pre-Debate Video Submission
Barack Obama on Iraq: Decisive Political Conscience in Action
“Why is one not exactly gob-smacked to find that a leading Republican Christianist was once a client of the DC Madam? I mean, a leading evangelical opponent of gay equality, Ted Haggard, was hiring a male hooker. We had the leading Republican campaigner against hooking up with minors online … hassling adolescent pages with IMs. We had Newt Gingrich committing adultery while impeaching Clinton. Why should we expect anything different from senator David Vitter? All the usual signs of hooker-use are in the record:
A staunch conservative, Vitter disavowed same-sex unions during his 2004 campaign, boasting that he had co-authored and fought for the Federal Marriage Amendment. He further vowed to protect “the sanctity of marriage.”
“This is a real outrage. The Hollywood left is redefining the most basic institution in human history, and our two U.S. senators won’t do anything about it,” he said in a statement on his campaign Web site. “We need a U.S. senator who will stand up for Louisiana values, not Massachusetts values.“
Massachusetts has a lower divorce rate than Louisiana. Maybe that explains Senator Vitter hiring a whore.”
It’s now being reported by ABC News that a call from Hustler Magazine may have been what prompted Vitter’s public admission.
Also worth noting, in an ironic twist of fate, a Louisiana reporter who wrote a few years back about allegations that Vitter had an extramarital affair with a prostitute is now running for the Louisiana state legislature and issued a press release today claiming he is “vindicated” by the Vitter revelations.
“I will say to my Republican friends that it does no good to whine about double standards. You’re going to have to concede the hypocrisy point to our Democratic friends on this one. If you’re going to lecture people about the sanctity of marriage as it relates to banning gay unions or campaign on a platform stressing “family values,” it would be best if you didn’t go whoring around on your wife, wetting your wick at $300 a pop,” — Rick Moran, on the right-wing Pajamas Media.
President Bush’s commutation of Libby’s sentence continues to be seen by many as an impetuous attempt to cling to his remaining hardcore base for the remainder of his term, as well as to shield Dick Cheney and perhaps himself from implication. A summary of many angry reactions to his decision is presented. Photos and Keith Olbermann video included.
A “national underground network” of lesbian pistol-packing lesbians is terrorizing America, according to a shocking report on the Fox News Channel program, The O’Reilly Factor. See terrifying pictures of them and watch the video of Bill O’Reilly’s frightening report.
WordPress.com cans one of its main forums moderators, because he doesn’t toe the line. So much for internet freedom at WordPress. Read about it here, before WordPress deletes any mention of this incident.
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