Tea Party Is Mad As A Hatter

Posted on March 16, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

The Tea Party, which is to political movements what plaid is to Bermuda shorts, has a Tea-bag trifecta underway in Utah.

From Tuesday’s dead-tree New York Times:

3 Leading Mormon Politicians Feel Heat From Tea Party at Home in Utah

Call the roll: U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Forget About That Hanukkah Song); former Massachusetts governor and probable presidential candidate Mitt Romney (R-We Don’t Need No Stinking Tie!); former Utah governor and improbable presidential candidate Jon Huntsman (R-Am I Back from China Yet?).

All are, according to the Times, “facing varying degrees of revolt where they might least like it or expect it — in their own backyard among mostly Mormon Tea Party members who are pushing for still more conservative fortitude.”

That leaves Romney trying to explain away RomneyCare (rhymes with ObamaCare), while “supplicant” Hatch sucks up to the Tea Party like a Dyson Ball.

Mr. Hatch, in particular, is taking pre-emptive action by meeting with as many Tea Party groups as he can, said his campaign manager, David Hansen.

“Do I think we’ve made progress? Absolutely,” Mr. Hansen said. “They may not agree with everything he has done, but they appreciate that he is listening to them and talking to them.”

In at least 25 to 30 meetings over the last year, by Mr. Hansen’s count, Mr. Hatch has “emphasized things they believe in and he has supported,” Mr. Hansen said. “It’s an ongoing process; it will continue.”

In other words, continue to suck it up, Orrin.

Meanwhile, here’s what Huntsman faces:

Mr. Huntsman took a moderate stance on many social issues as governor and also supported carbon emissions cap-and-trade legislation to reduce heat-trapping gases, another Tea Party no-no.

“On a good day, he’s a socialist,” said Darcy Van Orden, a co-founder of Utah Rising, a clearinghouse group, referring to Mr. Huntsman. “On a bad day, he’s a communist.”

Good lord – do these people even know what a socialist or communist is?

Just one more reason to fear for the Republic.

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Acid Test (Owsley Stanley Obit Division)

Posted on March 16, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

Owsley “Bear” Stanley, legendary LSDealer to the counterculture stars of the 1960s, died on Sunday at age 76. Depending on which obituary you read, Stanley “was a prolific LSD producer” or “made and supplied the LSD that fueled acid rock and California’s hallucinogenic culture in the 1960s” or “made LSD in quantity for the Grateful Dead, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Ken Kesey and other avatars of the psychedelic ’60s.”

That last is from the New York Times obit, which also featured the best headline:

Owsley Stanley, Artisan of Acid, Is Dead at 76

Other headlines, in descending order . . .

Wall Street Journal:

Grateful Dead Sound Man Supplied ’60s With LSD

Boston Globe:

Owsley ‘Bear’ Stanley, 1960s counterculture icon; at 76

Talk about your acid flashbacks . . .

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It’s Good To Live In A Two-Daily Town (WGBH Union Edition)

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

What’s wrong with the Boston Herald? Last week the feisty local tabloid couldn’t keep WGBH off the front page, gleefully whacking the public broadcaster for “[scoring] more than $80 million in obscure federal handouts over the past half-dozen years.”

But this week the Herald has left it to the Boston Globe to cover the union dustup at ‘GBH, as the station’s biggest union, Association of Employees of the Educational Foundation, Communications Workers of America, Local 1300, has rejected what management labeled its last best offer.

Today the Globe reports that the union wants to go back to the bargaining table, but it seems more likely management will declare an impasse and begin imposing the terms of its final contract offer. Then the question becomes, will the union strike?

Good question. The hardworking staff is laying plenty of eight-to-five that they don’t.

But back to our original question: Where’s the Herald’s backing for the working class heroes at ‘GBH? Shouldn’t this be right in their wheelhouse? Or have they read the comments over at the Globe, which almost unanimously blowtorch the union for its negotiating stance, and decided in this case discretion is the better part of tabloid valor.

Poor showing, fellas.

Postscript: The Herald has run two letters in two days (here and here) defending WGBH’s federal windfall. Go figure.

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The Twits Of Twitter

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

What the hell is wrong with people? Part 1:

Aflac drops Gilbert Gottfried after he tweets jokes about Japan crisis

After delivering a stream of jokes on Twitter mocking Japan’s devastating earthquake and tsunami, Gottfried was dropped by the insurer Aflac, whose duck mascot he voiced in 50 commercials. The Georgia-based company does 75 percent of its business in Japan.

“I was talking to my Japanese real estate agent,” went one of Gottfried’s dozen cyber cracks that began Saturday. “I said, ‘Is there a school is this area?’ She said, ‘Not now, but just wait.’ ”

And this: “Japan is really advanced. They don’t go to the beach. The beach comes to them.”

What the hell is wrong with people? Part 2:

WNBA star Cappie Pondexter sorry for tweets regarding Japan quake

WNBA superstar Cappie Pondexter has apologized Monday for comments via Twitter over the weekend about the recent earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan.

[snip]

The three-time WNBA All-Star tweeted Saturday: “What if God was tired of the way they treated their own people in there own country! Idk guys he makes no mistakes.”

She later posted: “u just never knw! They did pearl harbor so u can’t expect anything less.”

Apparently, we can’t expect anything more, either.

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Why NPR Should Stand For ‘No Precipitous Response’

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

Did NPR drop the hammer too quickly on vanquished CEO Vivian Schiller, who was scuttled in the immediate wake of the National Punked Radio sting by the pimplicious James O’Keefe?

Good question, now that strange bedfellows Glenn Beck and NPR itself have examined the tapes that purportedly revealed an NPR fundraiser making anti-Semitic remarks, disparaging Tea Party conservatives, and dismissing the need for federal funding of public broadcasting.

And guess what? Beck and NPR concluded that parts of the tapes were “taken out of context.”

From NPR’s report:

Footage posted online last week by conservative activist James O’Keefe III captured NPR’s chief fundraising official, Ron Schiller, disparaging conservatives and the Tea Party and saying NPR would be better off without federal funding.

Fueled in part by the attention given the video by the conservative Daily Caller website, an 11 1/2-minute version of O’Keefe’s hidden camera video ricocheted around the blogosphere Tuesday.

It mortified NPR, which swiftly repudiated Schiller’s remarks and in short order triggered his ouster along with that of his boss, NPR CEO Vivian Schiller, who is no relation to Ron Schiller.

A closer review of those tapes, however, shows that many of Ron Schiller’s most provocative remarks were presented in a misleading way.

So maybe the NPR Board of Directors (see here for a seriously unflattering description of them) jumped the gun?

Ask Vivian Schiller.

Then again, she should’ve been dumped after she made her disgraceful remarks about Juan Williams in the course of his unceremonious dispatching.

The Postman Always Rings Twice, yes?

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WGBH=Workers Get Big Hatin’

Posted on March 14, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

The Wisconsin public employee unions may have felt the love during the Cheeseheads Held Hostage standoff,  but it’s quite the opposite for the WGBH union (Association of Employees of the Educational Foundation, Communications Workers of America, Local 1300) that has resoundingly rejected management’s “final offer.”

Just check out the comments about today’s Boston Globe report for Exhibits A through Umpteen. They run roughly 131-1 in favor of giving WGBH union members a dopeslap. No question there’s an healthy dollop of class resentment involved, and granted, this is a private sector union, but even so, that’s a pretty big swing of the pendulum, no?

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‘On the Media’ Ramps Up NPR Rumpus

Posted on March 14, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

From our Chasing Your Own Tail desk:

Big J journalism hall monitor On the Media addressed, as it should have, the current woes of NPR (National Pander Radio), whose chief fundraiser got caught sucking up to some phony Muslim contributors, creating all kinds of mishegoss.

Not to mention exchanges like this between OTM co-host Brooke Gladstone and NPR graybeard Frank Mankiewicz:

BROOKE: Is firing [NPR CEO Vivian Schiller] for the foolish remarks of a fundraiser the act of a mature, confident news organization? Not according to Frank Mankiewicz …

FRANK MANKIEWICZ: I don’t think this event should have been responsible for her firing. I think she was a very competent executive and was taking NPR in the right direction…

BROOKE: Jon Stewart called NPR’s Board a bunch of pussies.

FRANK MANKIEWICZ: A bunch of what?

BROOKE: Pussies.

FRANK MANKIEWICZ: Cookies?

BROOKE: Pussies! Pussies!

FRANK MANKIEWICZ: Oh pussies. Yeah that may be true…

You tell me: Does saying “pussies” on the air make NPR more or less liberal? Or just downright crude?

Regardless, the show followed up that special moment with an appearance by This American Life host Ira Glass, who insisted NPR is not ideologically biased and issued this challenge:

On the Media – you are the perfect vehicle for this – you were made for this purpose: To measure the political bias of public radio.

It needs to be done – you are the only ones – you are the ones best positioned of everyone in the country, in the public radio system, in the world – to do this mission, and I hand it to you.

It’s an urgent mission and it needs to be done and done beautifully.

How Ira Glass. How NPR.

So Glass deputizes On the Media to prove conclusively that NPR is not liberal. That’s like Charlie Sheen engaging Michele Bachmann (R-Am I in Lexington and Concord Yet?) to prove he’s not delusional.

Then again, there’s always the chance Glass’s riff was some post modern spoof I’m not smart enough to get.

But he sure sounded serious.

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NYT Writer Throws In The Towel

Posted on March 14, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

Sunday’s New York Times Week in Review section featured a piece by Elisabeth Rosenthal headlined “Green Development? Not in My (Liberal) Backyard.”

Rosenthal addresses the anomaly/hypocrisy of eco-advocates who favor environmentally friendly initiatives such as bike paths or wind turbines, so long as it’s not in their neighborhood:

Last week, two groups of New Yorkers who live “on or near” Prospect Park West, a prestigious address in Park Slope, filed a suit against the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to remove a nine-month-old bike lane that has commandeered a lane previously used by cars.

In Massachusetts, the formidable opponents of Cape Wind, a proposed offshore wind farm in Nantucket Sound, include members of the Kennedy family, whose compound looks out over the body of water. In Berkeley last year, the objections of store owners and residents forced the city to shelve plans for a full bus rapid transit system (B.R.T.), a form of green mass transit in which lanes that formerly served cars are blocked off and usurped by high-capacity buses that resemble above-ground subways.

The reason, Rosenthal says, is that convenience generally trumps conviction.

Test yourself: When a sign in a hotel bathroom exhorts you to reuse your towel for the sake of the planet, do you nonetheless tend to throw it on the floor to get a new one? (Me: Guilty.)

Seriously, Ms. Rosenthal? You can’t use a hotel towel twice?

That’s just pathetic.

And I say that as someone who doesn’t have kids, so I don’t have to care about the rain forest ‘n’  stuff. But really . . .

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MediaYikes Hat Trick

Posted on March 13, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

Saturday’s Mediaite offered three entirely counterintuitive stories:

1) Bill Maher hatin’ on the Qur’an

Bill Maher To Muslim Rep. Keith Ellison: The Qur’an Is A ‘Hate Filled Holy Book’

2) The Huffington Post posting a conservative post

HuffPost Ends Its Liberal Soundtrack, Publishes Andrew Breitbart Essay Defending NPR Sting

3) Glenn Beck’s website defending NPR

The Blaze Finds That The NPR ‘Sting’ Video Used ‘Questionable Editing & Tactics’

Will wonders never cease.

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The Apple Of My i(Pod)

Posted on March 13, 2011 by Campaign Outsider

Well, the rubber thingy on one of my iPod earbuds disintegrated, so I trundled down to the Apple store to see what could be done about it.

I walked right past the line of Appleniks waiting to buy the brand spanking new iPad 2 and showed the shredded thingy to a polite young man who said, “Yessir, we can take care of this” and disappeared into a back room.

I figured, Great – they can replace the thingy and I’ll be on my merry way.

Several minutes later a polite young woman handed me a new set of earbuds.

No wonder so many people love Apple.

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