Fortuna Faveat... may fortune favor us

The first segment of the Palin-Couric interview

Well, you asked for it, dear readers. Actually, Shelly asked for it. But check out my nimble response to audience requests! This is the power of small media enterprises, people! Small and nimble, makes them tremble! I’m a poet and I don’t even know it…but I digress…

If you have been paying any attention to the world around you, I am sure you are aware of the Couric-Palin interviews. Katie Couric isn’t known for being a hard-hitting journalist. The comfy couches of the Today Show don’t exactly prepare you for taking on the likes of Henry Kissinger. Sure, if Al Roker gets a bit too frisky, you can handle that without issue. Thankfully, Couric wasn’t up against anyone who would ever objectively be considered for an international leadership position, certainly not one above Kissinger’s pay grade. Errr…shit.

Compare Palin’s responses with those of Lauren Caitlin Upton (below). I don’t see much difference. You be the judge. After the jump, parts two and three of Palin-Couric and Katie Couric on CBS’ The Early Show talking about the experience of the interview.

The similarity between Palin and Ms. South Carolina 2007, Lauren Caitlin Upton, is uncanny.
The cadence, the in-depth response, brrrrr, sends chills down my spine. It’s eerie!

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The video above is the monologue and the early segments of Late Night with David Letterman from September 24, 2008. It also includes a snippet of his interview with Keith Olberman.
The full interview with Olberman can be found in two parts after the jump.

This was a great moment in television. I just wish a journalist, and not a comedian, had been at the helm. You can get the crux of the situation from the video, but here is a synopsis for the search engines: McCain was scheduled to be on Late Night with David Letterman last night. McCain has been on Late Night many times before and Dave has the utmost respect for what McCain did serving this country. But last night, at nearly the last minute, McCain calls Dave personally to tell him he won’t be there because the “economy is cratering” and he has to leave immediately for DC. Dave says, “do what you gotta do.”

But then he starts thinking about the situation and the result is political comedy genius as Dave picks McCain, Palin and the entire campaign (and bailout) apart on a totally non-partisan basis.

Watch and enjoy! Read more »

When I heard Charles Gibson was tasked with interviewing Sarah Palin, I groaned. Clearly, the entertainment executives over at ABC News wanted Ms. Palin to have an easy time of it and hoped that Gibson would turn in a milquetoast performance ala this year’s debates. Now, I’m not saying his performance throughout the Palin interview was stellar. Honestly, I haven’t seen all of it. But I will give credit for moments of good journalism when I see them and the video above is about as close as the msm gets.

Gibson asks his question numerous times in the face of dim-witted rambling and, though he never gets an answer, the lack of an answer is self-evident. Palin is either unprepared to or unwilling to answer the question and that speaks volumes about her. It appears that the McCain camp thought they could put up this political tike and the rabble would be so excited by her story they would overlook her gross ineptitude. I certainly hope that doesn’t happen. If Biden would actually vote on important issues, he would clearly be ahead in the VP game. With leadership like this, it is no wonder we are in this national funk.

I think I might be a bit too jaded to watch the Olympics. It has reduced me to micro-blogging my gripes. Eh. Have you seen the “all-american” ad that Bud is running? Images of “America”, right down to the Nascar and cowboys and blue-collar workers, the whole time proclaiming “this is our tradition.” I didn’t record it and can’t seem to find it anywhere online yet, so I can’t show it to you.

I’ve been to Belgium. It doesn’t look like that commercial. Tradition (and the United States) is being turned on its ear. Globalism isn’t a tradition.

Full disclosure: Belgian beer is delicious. Bud, on the other hand, is not.

Has anyone else noticed that all the play-by-play thus far during the Olympics has originated out of New York? I’m not talking about Bob Costas, Matt Lauer and their new best-friend, Mr. Translator. They are all important enough to warrant a ticket to Beijing. But not the poor folks calling the Women’s Saber event or the Women’s Air Rifle. They are stuck in a studio in New York watching the satellite feed with the rest of us.

Is this a cost-cutting maneuver by NBC/Universal/GE? Is it a result of the “green is universal” charade? Is it a security concern? Are these “journalists” worried about saying the wrong thing on the air and being detained by Chinese authorities? I know I would be. I don’t know if there is a slew of articles out there talking about this very topic, but its too late and I’m too tired to look right now. So, if you know, let me know, won’t you?

I’d been planning on writing a tirade against Obama and his support for the criminal FISA bill. Instead, thanks to the tutelage of Messrs. Olberman and Dean, I can just wait and see what happens. I’ve never been a doting supporter of Obama. He is, after all, a career politician and therefore beyond trust. But he did represent the most-electable hope for change and change is what we should be seeking as a nation (for best hope for change, see Ron Paul). Watch the video and then join me for a couple thoughts after the jump. It gets particularly excellent around the 7:30 mark. Kinda long, yes, but isn’t the aforementioned possibility of ACTUAL justice worth waiting for?

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I am a regular viewer of Charlie Rose. His stately manner and deep sourcing always provide insight and entertainment. I was quite surprised earlier this week when I tuned in and found Mr. Rose appearing to be fresh from a run-in with the Van Buren Boys. I was very curious how he got the shiner, but didn’t bother to look it up. Today, the answer found me.

Charlie Rose with a hell of a shiner.
Courtesy: Engadget

Evidently, he bit the dust after stepping in a pothole while walking home with his Macbook Air. Charlie is a gadget-head and opted to protect his new toy rather than his face. Regardless of your views of the Air, you must respect the effort. According to his producers,

The Macbook Air is fine, he showed us the blood stains on it this morning.

This past Sunday, I had a conversation with my father about the Bear Stearns debacle and its portent for the rest of the US/world economy in which I said, “Well, we aren’t seeing shanty towns yet, but…” Little did I know that there were shanty towns and that we simply were not seeing them.

I am (pridefully) the first to admit that I am not a regular viewer of the evening news, so there may have been a mention of this that escaped my attention. But I doubt it very seriously. I am a voracious consumer of news on the interwebs and have seen nary a mention of this until perusing BoingBoing today. Looks like BBC News just got added to my TiVo season passes. Join me in my outrage, won’t you? Can I get an amen from the congregation?

This is about a week old now, but what a great moment in radio! If only the other Governors around the country would join this valiant challenge to absurd federal mandates, we might be headed in the right direction. My last few posts have been a bit on the heavy side, so I thought a bright spot might be in order. Enjoy!

In what is nothing more than bald-face censorship, CBS affiliate WHNT-TV, Channel 19, Huntsville, AL, censored an entire segment pertaining to former Alabama governor Don Siegelman. The segment, broadcast this past Sunday, February 24, was effectively blacked out for the bulk of the northern half of the state.

Throughout the time that the segment was airing across the United States, WHNT broadcast a black screen with the following message:

We apologize that you missed the first segment of 60 Minutes tonight featuring ‘The Prosecution of Don Siegelman.’ It was a technical problem with CBS out of New York.

When asked for clarification by Harper’s blogger Scott Horton, CBS had this to say:

There is no delicate way to put this: the WHNT claim is not true. There were no transmission difficulties. The problems were peculiar to Channel 19, which had the signal and had functioning transmitters.

Why can’t we always get that level of candor out of major corporate entities? Kudos to CBS for producing the piece and then not being afraid to squash an insolent affiliate.