One of the Man from Hope's consistently amazing lines is that the press doesn't offer the Clintons enough credit for all their good works. The latest example came on the trail in Keene, New Hampshire, where the Associated Press found him whining about how the press hasn't underlined the vast chasm in experience between his wife and Barack Obama. "Bill Clinton said Tuesday that if reporters covered the candidates' public records better, his wife's presidential bid would be far ahead of her rivals," reported AP. Clinton obviously believes his presidency was a Golden Era, a time when peace and prosperity... continue reading
The Christmas season is upon us, which means it's that special time of year for the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State to make sure no wayward city council will allow a whiff of frankincense on government property. They must send out direct-mail fundraising letters asking "Help Us Crush a Creche at Christmas!" The Christmas season is also that time of year when the business world implores us to consider the material as more important than the spiritual, all in the spirit of "the holidays." So we celebrate instead the arrival, on... continue reading
Is CNN capable and professional enough to host presidential debates? After last week's CNN-YouTube debate fiasco, even Tim Rutten, a media writer for the left-leaning Los Angeles Times, was giving CNN a big fat F for failure: "In fact, this most recent debacle masquerading as a presidential debate raises serious questions about whether CNN is ethically or professionally suitable" to host debates. CNN had the opportunity to perform a journalistic swan dive. Instead it produced an enormous belly flop. It's far worse when you realize this mess of a production was the highest-rated primary presidential debate in history. Back in... continue reading
In her own twisted way, Tila Nguyen probably considers herself a great American immigrant success story. Born to Vietnamese parents in Singapore before they moved to Texas, she has channeled her outsized ambitions into fame and fortune in the Wild Wild West of the Internet and cable television with the stage name "Tila Tequila." To chronicle her rise to "success" is to document the decadent underbelly of American popular culture. Tila first came to widespread national attention with five pictorials in Playboy magazine. Then she became the "Madonna of MySpace," one of the hot new social-networking websites. With her talent... continue reading
With the Writers Guild on strike in Hollywood, the forecast for so-called "reality" TV shows has probably never looked brighter. The networks keep attempting to find new programming schticks, and perhaps no "reality" show had a stranger buildup than CBS's "Kid Nation," which drew a pile of negative early publicity for being an alleged labor camp or sweatshop for youngsters in New Mexico. The publicity put the show on the TV map, but it also largely scared advertisers away from the premiere. But the program itself wasn't exactly "Stalag 17." The show's "reality" plot is simple. In a ghost town... continue reading
In the musty but hallowed halls of the Old Media, the first item for target practice is often the New Media, the ones formed and made popular by the atrocious biases of their predecessors. The Old Media continue watching their numbers bleed away; continue to paint themselves as fair and balanced, despite the preponderance of evidence to the contrary; and continue to smear the New Media, especially talk radio, as the divisive haters and fact-manglers ruining civil discourse in America. Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw is on the publicity tour for his new book "Boom!" about the 1960s. On... continue reading
For decades now, the national media have insisted in each presidential election cycle that voters should ignore the liberal wizards hiding behind the curtain of the Democratic Party. Each plausible Democratic presidential contender is a "moderate" or "centrist," be he Walter Mondale or Michael Dukakis or John Kerry. But now to describe Hillary Clinton as a "moral conservative" is so upside down and backwards it sounds like.... "This is your brain on drugs." That's what Time reporter Amy Sullivan announced on Tucker Carlson's show on MSNBC. She suggested Hillary might be "fairly liberal" on economic issues, "but she's a moral... continue reading
Most Americans don't know the name Joe Francis. But many are familiar with his gold mine. It's "Girls Gone Wild," the odious racket of DVDs huckstered on late-night cable shows and the Internet in which Francis and his jolly cast of soft-porn exploiters charm, badger, or hornswoggle often-drunk young college-age girls into flashing their breasts for the camera on Spring Break. This creep claims that college girls see this long-lasting video embarrassment as a "rite of passage." But as time passes, and these girls become mothers, how will their children deal with the possibility that Mom was flashing her nudity... continue reading
The Hillary Clinton juggernaut likes to try and run over every new threat, especially the ones they can call "old news." Every new book on her life, personal and political, is dismissed as "old news" - unless the person retelling and reshaping the "old news" is Hillary. Her recounting of her life is minty-fresh. Every other book smells like a reopened casket. Whenever - if ever - authors of Hillary books are introduced by the national media, the tone of the interviews focuses in on Hillary's talking point: "Why should anyone care?" From the start, the message is that these... continue reading
As the movie studios gear up for a big Christmas movie season, one trailer that looks like a blockbuster is "The Golden Compass," which must be trying to cash in on the "Narnia" movies. It has flashy special-effect polar bears in armor and a young heroic damsel in distress facing off against evil forces. The casting is top-notch, led by Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, the current star spy in the James Bond movies. But buyer beware: Narnia it's not. It's the anti-Narnia. Instead of a Christian allegory, it's an anti-Christian allegory. The author of "The Golden Compass," Philip Pullman,... continue reading