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Rachel Maddow Shreds the White House for Getting Sucker Punched by Breitbart & Fox News - Again!

Before I saw Rachel Maddow's show last night, I was ranting about Andrew Breitbart's complicity in the mugging of Shirley Sherrod, who was fired from her job as a regional director of the USDA's development program yesterday for being a racist, after a videotape of her was posted on Andrew Breitbart's "Big Government" site that ostensibly showed her voicing a bias against white people (Ms. Sherrod is black).

In an utterly unsurprising development, it turns out that the tape was carefully misleadingly edited and the accusation was wholly false (Ms. Sherrod was telling a story about how she came to see that the problem she was confronting had nothing to do with race). Before the lie had a chance to be revealed, though,  Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack sacked Sherrod - within hours of the story breaking (if this sounds familiar, it's because Breitbart also had a hand in the ACORN story, which has also been revealed as a complete fraud):

The NAACP has now released the full video of the speech that got Ms. Sherrod fired, and it's clear that Breitbart is complicit in a vicious hatchet job on an innocent woman who was describing an incident 25 years ago that changed her perspective about race. It's telling that Breitbart felt no need to see the rest of the video before passing his judgment that Sherrod and her audience are racists, and it speaks volumes about the quality of that judgment. Sherrod should be apologized to and immediately rehired by the USDA, which got stampeded by a cheap con, and the next time Breitbart claims to have damning evidence in support of his peculiar theories, we should remember this lie and his part in it.

Breitbart now claims that he was making the case that the racism of the NAACP audience, not Sherrod, was the reason he posted the videotape, and that he feels sorry that "the media has misconstrued" the story to make it about Ms. Sherrod, and not her audience. Leaving aside the laughable implication that Breitbart isn't part of "the media", you'd have to be really naive to believe that anyway, but even if you did, the point Breitbart says he's making is completely unsupported by the unedited tape.

Naturally, I didn't do as well as Maddow did in summarizing the story - here's a clip from her show last night:

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Amen, and apart from the editorial comments (with which I couldn't agree more), it's a breath of fresh air to see some actual journalism being practiced on TV. Once again, the administration needs to right this wrong, now, and remember this and other lies the next time it gets harangued by these propagandists about some "damning evidence" they claim to have. Shoveling the sort of propaganda Fox does is execrable journalism, and falling for it repeatedly is terrible, spineless politics.

"Balance"

Bill Maher had a little fun with Al Gore over the end of his marriage at the beginning of last night's show, but at the end of the show, as part of his "New Rules" segment, Maher produced a rant that no doubt made Gore smile (or will, if he hasn't seen it yet). Read the whole thing (or wait for the clip to appear on Maher's web site), but here's what I thought was the central quote:

"Media, could you please stop pitting the ignorant vs. the educated and framing it as a "debate." The other day, I saw a professor from the Union of Concerned Scientists face off against a distinguished expert on Tea Partying, whose brilliant analysis, recently published in the New England Journal of Grasping at Straws, was that we shouldn't teach climate science in schools because kids find it scary. As they should. I hope they're peeing in their pants."

WHO DAT??!!??!!!!

Congratulations to the Saints for a fantastic game!!!

Al Gore - Formidable Opponent!

Steven Colbert was joined in his debate with himself last night over global warming by VP Al Gore. Gore's reputation as "humor-challenged" should take a beating from this appearance...

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Formidable Opponent - Global Warming With Al Gore
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor U.S. Speedskating

Pilobolus!

This isn't new, but it was new to me. Incredible!:

Blooper of the Year!

Fox News NY anchor Ernie Anastos tries to make a joke about an old commercial for Perdue chicken, and it goes WAY wrong:

Moyers on Health Care

We're about to begin the debate on health care reform in the US, and its well past time, but we've left the most promising reform of all off the table. The reform in question is a single-payer health care system, and the most recent Bill Moyers Journal program covers that omission in some detail.

The bugaboo that has kept us from real consideration of the overwhelming advantages of single-payer health care has been the phrase "socialized medicine", but that objection is an attempt to create fear of something there is no reason to be afraid of. As has been said before (and as a couple of Moyers' interview subjects allude to), when most of us (in suburban and urban areas, anyway) turn on the tap and fresh, potable water comes out, we are reaping the benefits of a "socialized" water system, and when that water goes down the drain and doesn't end up in the back yard, it's because of a "socialized" sewage system. When we put our trash on the curb in most parts of the country and someone takes it way for us, we are enjoying the services of a "socialized" trash removal system. When we are in trouble and need a policeman, we call for the help of a "socialized" police protection system, and when our houses catch fire and someone risks his life to put the fire out, that fireman is working for a "socialized" fire department.

All of those solutions are "socialized" because the most efficient and fair way to solve those problems is through community action. Everyone needs those goods, and the best way to provide them is through public investment and management. The same thing is true for medicine, and what we have now in the medicine world is analogous to a system in which numerous providers of water are competing to get us water for a fee. The problem is that the inefficiencies are killing us by the thousands, the "water" we're "drinking" isn't potable, and a small cadre of powerful insurance companies are getting absurdly rich by arbitraging the availability of health care.

It's a situation that has to change, and there's a very real possibility that the debate we're about to have won't change it, due to the self-interest of a few very powerful companies, who own enough lawmakers to prevent that debate from happening honestly. Moyers' attempt to uncover that situation is yet another demonstration of why the man is a national treasure. If this week's Journal will run again on your TV, watch it. If it won't run again on TV, watch it on the web - it's an eye-opener.

Really!

I missed this - thanks to Hulu, you don't have to:

And now for something completely...disgusting

Saturday Night Live brings one of the funniest ad parodies I've seen in decades...

Picture New York

The Bloomberg administration is about to promulgate regulations that would require anyone who takes pictures in NYC with a tripod for more than ten minutes to get a permit and a million dollars in liability insurance. Also, anyone who takes pictures using more than two people, and a variety of other arcane requirements.

This is an infringement on free speech, and a "solution" in search of a problem. It's probably too late, but this group, Picture New York, is creating a petition to urge the city to stop it, at very least until a proper public comment period can happen. Sign here.