Ann Coulter Visits "The View"

By Alex Bennett

On Tuesday Ann Coulter visited "The View" and its requisite "hen party". What bothered me is that is that it turned out to be a gang hit of 5 on 1. I intensely dislike Coulter, but this encounter was really quite unfair. It seemed as though they were ready to pounce on her the minute she came out. I think it is wrong to invite someone to be on a show and then do what they did. Yes it's Coulter, but fairness would dictate that one person should have been selected to argue with her.

Coulter talked about single motherhood especially among blacks being corrosive to the children and our society. Interestingly she was simply making in her abrasive, PR getting way, the same things that Bill Cosby and President-Elect Obama has been saying.

These women made the case for everything that Coulter has said about what she feels is liberal bias and unfairness. All they did was play into her game while she sold a few more books. Boy these women are morons!

I Got Screwed And So Did You!

Barack Obama is engaging in croneyism. Reprinted is this item from Broadcast Television from yesterday. Oh well there goes my future career because "Mr. Change" is doing what every other pol would do and give friend a cushy job.

Genachowski Expected to Head FCC Broadcast agenda likely to include DTV public interest obligations...

The word in Washington is that Julius Genachowski will be named FCC chairman. The 46-year-old is a former law school chum of the President-elect and a member of his transition team. Genachowski also served as media advisor for Reed Hundt, chairman of the FCC from 1993-97. Hundt gives Genachowski props in his 1997 book, “So You Say You Want a Revolution.”

“During the summer of 1994, my broadcast team, including a brilliant former Supreme Court law clerk, Julius Genchowski, assembled our network-friendly broadcast policy. In an effort to find compromise between the networks and the public interest advocates, the team proposed to require three hours of educational television per week.”

Genachowski clerked for Justices Souter and Brennan, and for D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Abner Mikva. He also worked for Rep. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on the Iran-Contra joint committee.

Aside from helping craft the current public interest obligations for broadcasters, little is known about Genachowski’s view of the industry. He is expected to push the establishment public interest rules for digital TV, which have not been set, and to oppose the relaxation of media ownership limits.

Genachowski will likely push broadband initiatives, having worked in Barry Diller’s InterActive Corp for eight years. He’s not expected to be the bane to the cable industry that is current Chairman Kevin Martin, who’s called for a la carte pricing over the last two years.

Genachowski’s regulatory orientation will likely be influenced by his entrepreneurial experience. He’s a co-founder of Rock Creek, a venture capital firm, and founding partner of LaunchBox Digital, a Washington, D.C. incubator for online startups.

Political veterans on Capitol Hill describe Genachowski as “highly qualified” and “smart.” One former colleague said, “Extremely intelligent, fair and generous with his time.”

Once appointed, Genachowski will have to be confirmed by the Senate, which could take several weeks. President-elect Obama is expected to name one of the two democratic FCC commissioners--Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps--interim chairman some time next week.

Blood on the Tracks

by Tom Yamaguchi

Like many cities, Oakland has a street named for Martin Luther King Jr. The former Grove Street runs north from downtown Oakland and through the city of Berkeley. At the border of the two cities is a sculpture called Here/There. The two words appear in eight-foot steel letters, a reference to Gertrude Stein's famous line, "There is no there there." The "There" part is on the Oakland side. The art piece sits on a plaza next to the tracks of Bay Area Rapid Transit where the tracks descend into a tunnel beneath Berkeley after traveling elevated along MLK Jr. Way in North Oakland. Trains speed commuters along the elevated tracks, past the old Merritt College campus where the Black Panther Party was founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in 1966.

But it was on a different set of BART tracks that Oscar Grant was riding on early in the morning on New Year's Day. That section emerges from a tunnel from downtown Oakland to another elevated track through East Oakland. The track roughly parallels International Blvd., which has much in common with MLK Jr. Way. If you are looking for what is wrong with America's big cities, you can find it along either of those two Oakland streets.

Oscar Grant was riding BART that morning after joining the crowds in San Francisco celebrating the arrival of 2009 with fireworks. The train stopped at Fruitvale station with reports that a fight had broken out between two groups of young people. BART has its own police force, and a group of BART police officers were dispatched to the station platform, pulling suspects off the train as other riders watched the spectacle. Before it was over, Oscar Grant was dead. At Grant's funeral one week later, no one could still answer the question "Why?"

BART first reported that there was no recording from the surveillance cameras on the station platform. It soon retracted that statement and reported a recording was made but did not show the incident. Then Karina Vargas stepped forward. She recorded the event on the new camera she received for Christmas. Vargas turned her footage to KPIX-TV in San Francisco, determined to make her evidence public. She was able to get away from police who wanted to confiscate her camera. Other cameras were confiscated by the police that morning, but fortunately not all of them. More videos have since been given to the local media. 

As BART stumbled in its effort to conduct its investigation, the public was left with only the raw video footage to judge what happened. They do show the officer Johannes Mehserle shooting Oscar Grant in the back as Grant lay on his stomach on the floor. Mehserle resigned his position before he could be forced to submit to an interview for the internal investigation. We can only guess what caused Mehserle to shoot Grant. One theory is he had reached for his taser but had pulled his service revolver instead.

The video evidence itself is inconclusive. There is a lot of screaming and very little coherent audio. Many of the shots by Vargas' camera were blurred or blocked by the crowds. Fortunately, Vargas was able to see what she was unable to record on video. She described the scene in detail for KPIX, and what she saw was Grant and the other detainees cooperating with police and not resisting arrest. If what Vargas saw is true, then there was no reason for Mehserle to pull a gun or a taser. People can speculate about the cause of the fight that morning or Grant's previous brushes with the law. None of that changes that Oscar Grant appeared to do nothing that morning to deserve being shot. 

On the day of Oscar Grant's funeral, a demonstration was held at the Fruitvale BART station. Though intended to be a peaceful gathering, a group broke off and started marching west on International Blvd. They ended up in downtown Oakland where they started smashing windows, setting fires, and throwing anything they could find at police. Mayor Ron Dellums, who started his political career as an anti-Vietnam War activist, was shouted down as he tried to calm the crowd. He quickly retreated into City Hall. Grant's family pleaded for calm, as well, to no avail. Later, the organizer of the demonstration Evan Shamar broke down in tears as he spoke to the press. "I was devastated by it," Shamar told the San Francisco Chronicle. "I worked diligently for the past 72 hours, and for it to be destroyed by a group of anarchists was extremely upsetting. I felt like my integrity had been compromised."

It is easy to feel hopeless for the future of Oakland, but for a number of residents the coming MLK Jr. holiday represents a new opportunity. This year, it happens the day before the inauguration. Barack Obama is asking the nation to celebrate his inauguration by joining the National Day of Service. Many do not know that the MLK Jr. holiday was originally intended to be a day where people volunteer to the benefit of their communities. The call went out via email to Obama's list of supporters. Participants were invited to register their events or volunteer for events already registered by going to www.usaservice.org. In Oakland, one group will be cleaning up trash along International Blvd. and planting seeds and plants along tree wells. Another group will be planting trees on the median beneath the BART tracks along MLK Jr. Way. One tree will be dedicated to those who died as a result of violence during the past year. 

A token effort, you might say, and you might be right. If the job stops there, nothing will change. Or it could be the first step in a new direction, one where people can learn how to be community organizers. The Obama campaign has discovered some very powerful organizing tools through email, the web, and social networking. These tools are energizing young people like nothing we have seen since the 1960's. They helped elect our first African American President. Will those tools work to bring peace to Oakland? Who knows? At least it is worth the try.

I have volunteered in elementary school classrooms during past King holidays. The students sing Stevie Wonder's birthday song and hang King's portrait on the bulletin board. If asked, they can only tell you two things they know about Martin Luther King: he had a dream, and he got shot. They have been taught about a mythical King who seems to have no connection to what is going on today. They have not been taught what King understood about nonviolent organizing.

"Now I cannot say that violence never wins any victories," said King in a speech made over fifty years ago. "It occasionally wins victories. Nations often receive their independence through the use of violence. But I can say this, that that is all it does. Violence only achieves temporary victory; it never can achieve the ultimate peace. It creates many more social problems than it solves."

The people who rioted on the streets of Oakland may have won some small victory. They may have embarrassed the BART board to speed up its investigation of Grant's killing. But at what price? Minority-owned businesses were trashed, and the owners wonder why they were targeted. There is greater distrust between the police and the public, making it more difficult to find the cooperation needed to solve violent crimes. Blame will be assigned, and people will be vilified. People who felt temporarily empowered by trashing police cars will return to feeling alone and powerless.

We can vilify and abandon Evan Shamar for his inability to organize a peaceful demonstration. Or we can provide him and the other peacemakers of Oakland the tools they need to do the job. This will not be easy work, but it can be achieved. We do not have King here to teach us, but we do have his writings and speeches, as well as the people who knew and worked with him. Obama knows the troubles of our major cities and has committed to invest in their revival. Success can only be achieved by investing heavily in our peacemakers. Step one, as Harvey Milk well understood, is "You gotta give 'em hope."

Since When Did Fairness Become A Dirty Word?

Here is an item from the Radio and Records website that appeared last Thursday:

It didn’t take the new 111th Congress but a day or two to introduce partisan legislation in both the Senate and House that would block the re-imposition of the Fairness Doctrine. On Tuesday (Jan. 6), a pair of Republican senators, Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and John Thune (S.C.) introduced their bill to "prevent the Federal Communications Commission from repromulgating the fairness doctrine (S.34)." The companion measure was introduced the next day, Wednesday (Jan. 7), in the House (H.R. 226) by Republicans Mike Pence, of Indiana, and Greg Walden, of Oregon.

In 1987 at the close of the Reagan White House, the "Fairness Doctrine" which mandated that broadcast outlets present contrasting viewpoints on controversial issues was vacated. It was claimed that the statute had a chilling effect on freedom of speech. That of course was bullshit. We soon found out that without it, freedom of speech was curtailed even more. In the past a talk show host like Rush Limbaugh couldn't just spew his distortion without someone to counter them. When the doctrine was removed Rush seized on the opportunity. The result was a flood of conservative talk shows that permeated the airwaves after that.

I would agree that we might be best served without such a doctrine if the right wing licensees had played fair, but they didn't and for over two decades, left to their own honesty, it was hard hear anything else on the radio but the neo-con palaver. It would be nice to believe that given the freedom to do what was right they would have done so, but they didn't and if the doctrine comes back in some form, then they have no one to blame but themselves and their flagrant disrespect for balance.

Now these assholes are trying to prevent us from instituting any measures that would reign them back in. In fact Mike Pence one of the sponsors of the house bill was a conservative talk show host and station owner. Not exactly the kind of upstanding individual to talk about free speech when he was a perfect representation of that has been wrong without the doctrine.

The article goes on to state:

NAB Executive VP Dennis Wharton this morning (Jan. 8) said, "Since the Fairness Doctrine's elimination in 1987, America has witnessed an absolute explosion in alternative media outlets, providing a rich diversity of viewpoints from all sides of the political spectrum.

What absolute crap! The explosion in alternative media was not the result of the suspension of the "Fairness Doctrine" but with the creation of new uncensored media technologies, paramount among them being the internet. But mass terrestrial broadcasting represented by the NAB which offers more access for more people has failed to show any of this alternative diversity. In fact they have tried to prevent alternative voices as was seen with their war against satellite radio.

Back in 1991 when I was out of work, I had a meeting with the program director at WABC in New York. She had heard of me and positively so. In our talk she asked "What's your political bias?". When I told her I was a lefty, she blanched and said "oh my general manager would never want that!" This of course was the home of Rush Limbaugh and other right wing talk show hosts. That's what the doctrine's suspension created.

This doesn't mean that a host would have to present both views if the station presented a host with an alternative perspective. This means that those stations that ran Rush would also run Tom Hartmann. Currently liberal thought is relegated to a gulag of low power stations with numbers on the lower end of the dial, while the neo-con's are on the powerful stations higher up. To this day, the impact of the liberal programs is diminutive compared to the right wing shows and it's not because they aren't entertaining. It is because they are ghettoized.

For now let's not bring back the "Fairness Doctrine", but let's not make it's implementation impossible by passing a law. This way, the omnipresent fear that we could bring the "Fairness Doctrine back might just might force them to play fair.

The Sunday Funnies 1/11/09

Here is a very young Dana Gould as he appeared on "The Alex Bennett Comedy Hour".  Another funny for you to enjoy on this day of rest.

Why I Should Head the FCC

by Alex Bennett

With the new administration comes new people to lead just about everything. Come on, Sanjay Gupta for Surgeon General? Give me a break! This is the guy that liberal hero Michael Moore eviscerated when he was publicizing "Sicko". He's a Goddamed TV Doc for heaven's sake. Why not nominate "House", he has bigger ratings? So if "Goopy" can get the job, why not me for Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission?

This is not a joke. To begin with, I am more than qualified. I know most of the business side and am eminently qualified to deal with the electronic side as well. Hell I can't think of many more people who have the qualifications that I do.

Here are 10 things I'd do to improve communications in this country and the commission as well:

1. I'd get the FCC back to what its original purpose was, to monitor signals by making sure they were up to snuff and to act as an ombudsman for the public when they have complaints about the licensees.
2. Take the FCC out of the business of being a censor, a role it was never meant to play.
3. Make stations get back to the prime tenant of the FCC Telecommunication Act and serve in the "public interest, convenience and necessity" and live out the creed it mandated that "the airwaves belong to the people".
4. Allow any language and topics at any hour. Most broadcasters wouldn't suddenly go crazy with dirty words or seedy topics because they do have the public and advertisers to deal with. There is currently a chill that exists in all over the air broadcasting that something might go wrong and they would be fined massive amounts of money. Let the marketplace determine what the taste should be.
5. Reasonable nudity at a reasonable hour. Let's leave the porn to the internet and cable where people can get their fill.
6. Repeal all the fines given stations for things like the Janet Jackson breast exposure debacle and if they already paid a fine, give them their money back. Broadcasters just should be held liable for the acts of others over which they had no control.
7. Take all those vacant analog TV channels and convert them to free, uncensored Wi-Fi for the public.
8. Better wireless phone service that doesn't go dead on you.
9. While there is some question as to weather the "Fairness Doctrine" should be brought back, I do believe that licensees should be held accountable for a reasonable balance in political and social opinions aired by them.
   
10. Finally, channels should be set aside on radio, TV and cable for public access to the airwaves free of charge on a first come first serve basis which would serve the needs of minority opinions and niche needs. By the way, no censorship.

That's petty good for starters. There's a lot more that needs to be done.

If this all sounds good to you go to http://change.gov and under contact send them a note suggesting me. They won't listen, but let's give it a shot.

Am I serious? Enough to quit my job, divest myself of my broadcast stock and move to that hell hole Washington D.C.

To Seat Or Not To Seat

Roland Burris has a major distinction he is the only black Senator in the US Congress and the first black Senator not to be seated. Seeing Burris being turned away at the doors of the Senate almost looked like something out of 40 years ago in places like Selma Alabama. I suppose the most imortant thing is that there is more at stake this time than a seat at a diner.

It seems that embattled and alleged crook Governor Rob Blagojavich of Illinois appointed him to fill the vacant spot left by Barak Obama's senate seat. It is rumored that Blagojavich attempted to get people to pay for the privilege. This is all alleged. He has yet to be indicted or impeached and yet assholes like Senator Harry Reid worked to block Burris from being seated on the opening day of the senate. In other words Reid has become the judge, jury and executioner of Blagojavich. Hey look, old Rob is probably everything they say he is, but until he is tried somewhere he has the right to appoint Burris.

Of course you have to ask why Burris would want to be put in such a spot. It's because he is an idiot. Others have turned down the offer, but at 71 I suppose Burris figured this was his last chance to be anything but a state functionary. He probably felt that destiny had chosen him for this moment when in fact it was Rob who did and everybody hates Rob and so to, by association, Mr. Burris.

So what to do. Far be it for Reid to yell at Blagojavich for being corrupt because he's had a few problems of his own in the past. I suppose they should seat the guy because Illinois desperately needs full representation since for the past three years that Obama was running for president, they had only one Senator working for them.

Who really needs to be taken to task is the Illinois Secretary of State who refused to sign the papers which is why Burris was turned away. I don't think it's his job to determine what is legal and just sign the paper. He should be dumped.

The other unseated Senator was Al Franken (the former....aww if you don't know by now it doesn't matter) who lost to Norm Coleman in Minnesota on election night by 215 votes. In the mandatory recount Franken pulled ahead by 225. It's a mess and now the Repubs are moaning, so this one isn't exactly in the bank. Franken shows up declaring himself the winner. The Senate officials said "wait a minute" and sent him walking.

I don't like Franken. Not as a TV comic, an author and especially as a talk show host. He's an asshole and I don't like him. For a socialistic minded person he is completely bourgeois to those around him. But he went against Norm Coleman an even bigger asshole so I guess I'll have to go with the lesser of two jerks.

Boy are these two scenarios with no heros!

The Political Cage Match

Here is an article that Alex Bennett did for Hustler Magazine. Although it pertains to the recent presidential election, it all still holds true. It was edited by Bruce David who always makes Alex look good.

Once upon a time broadcast news was nothing more than rewritten copy from the newspapers. Most newscasts ended with the admonishment “for up to the minute details, consult your local newspapers.” Sure there were a few news commentators, but actual proactive coverage was scarce.

It wasn't until World War II that radio news came into its own, thanks to a renegade reporter named Edward R. Murrow. His vivid reports from London rooftops during air raids put radio reporting on the map. Murrow and his team of CBS reporters defined what we now call “Broadcast Journalism.”

When the war was over the “Murrow Boys” helped define television news, giving CBS its “Tiffany Network” reputation. Broadcast news was finally being taken seriously by everyone except the network “bean counters” who couldn't understand why their bosses allowed it to run at a loss. The bosses simply wanted something positive to point to when people complained about the “Beverly Hillbillies”. But that was then and this is now. 

The downfall of broadcast news can be traced to the creation of CNN. Not that CNN wasn't a great concept. Ted Turner, disturbed by what he saw as the bias of Dan Rather (letting his views intrude on the newscast), decided to create a non-biased 24/7 news service. Now, for the first time, the news had to be profitable. Too bad money and good journalism don't mix...unless you compromise your product.

For 11 years CNN just barely kept afloat. Then, in 1991, their coverage of the Gulf War changed everything. CNN was the only news organization with a live feed during the bombing of Baghdad. Their subsequent war coverage not only gave cable news credibility but large numbers. With numbers, came profit. 

Broadcast news had become big money just as the grizzled and aging old guard reporters were falling by the wayside. They were replaced by “journalists” who had a new agenda: fame, glory, big money and perfect hair. Journalistic credibility quickly eroded. By the time we got to the second Iraq war, the bar had been significantly lowered.

Smelling profits, other organizations entered the cable news frey. With their right wing bias, Fox gave CNN a run for its money, eventually knocking them into second place. In response, CNN became more conservative in its reporting. Just as bad, GE, a major war contractor, seized ownership of NBC and its cable news outlets.

During the second Gulf War a Bush administration genius came up with the idea of embedding journalists in with the military. Under the guise of freedom of the press, “embedding” reporters became a way to keep them in line. When you're out covering a war with the troops, the last thing you want is to piss them off. The fear of being cut from access, or worse, getting yourself killed, made the press more compliant and, ultimately, a willing tool of the Bush machine. They became a cheering squad for the war, presenting coverage that was little more than a squalid reality show. Reliable access to war information was cut off. Sometimes facts were even falsified.

As the disinformation grew, so did support for the war. At one point 75% of the American public believed Iraq helped perpetrate the events of 9/11. The news also pushed the notion of Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction,” despite the lack of evidence. Bush and his boys played the press like a finely tuned violin.

A few alternative news sources protested but they were not widely accessible. It wasn't that the public was stupid -- just too trusting of their mainstream sources. Mainstream news had betrayed them.

Rather than do real investigative work, broadcast news got lazy, accepting press handouts from the “Bushies” without question. America was sold a bill of goods and the salesmen were the press. As if all that wasn’t bad enough, the way they’ve handled this national election is even worse:

“Hold that thought right there Senator Clinton, but as you know we have to go to a commercial break.” Who do you think made that statement? David Letterman? Larry King? It was NBC news anchor Brian “my eyes blink so much it looks like I'm sending a coded message” Williams. And he said it during a democratic presidential debate! Imagine interrupting a possible leader of the free world -- in mid sentence, no less -- to break for a commercial. Since when did debates of this kind even have commercials? Since broadcast news went into the dumper, that's when!

What's wrong with running commercials, you might ask? On commercial programs, ad costs are based on the size of the audience. How do you get a large audience? You create drama. So if your political debates are part of your commercial programming you cast them as you would a reality show. 

“Let's promote the good looking black guy against the white woman.” 

That had to be going through their heads. “Forget Edwards. There's no tension there. Besides he hates corporations and we are one.” 

The candidates that didn’t fit their scenario were cast as losers, making it impossible for them to get traction. The networks weren't promoting a debate as much as they were a “cage match.” Not only did they pick the players, they created the tension as well. 

The worst of them is Tim Russert, the pudgy, annoying chief of NBC's Washington bureau and moderator of “Meet The Press.” (The show should be renamed “Meet The Russert” since he monopolizes every discussion.) At one point during a debate he shouted at Hillary Clinton, then argued with her. Hey Tim, please look up the definition of moderator! 

Russet also trotted out endless poll numbers that pitted black voters against white voters. On one occasion he even made the blanket statement that Hispanic people don't like black people. What is the point of setting one group against another if not to jazz up the “cage match.” Thanks, Tim, for a hot heaping pile of race relations. 

On the sillier side, NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell (who’s married to Allan Greenspan) was swooning over Sen. Barack Obama. Then she went off the tracks entirely when she said “He has a lot of young supporters like Maria Shriver.” Maria Shiver? Young? Maybe to Mrs. Greenspan whose husband must be pushing a hundred and who herself is just a facelift away from looking like Norman Bates mother.

Then there is CNN. When he was running for the presidential nomination, Senator Christopher Dodd, would publish (on his website) the amount of debate time the candidates would get to state their various positions. Obama and Clinton usually got the lion's share. However, old Wolf spoke more than either of them. Shut up Wolf!!!! 

The Democratic debate in Cleveland, Ohio, was the biggest draw ever. Eight million people watched it and NBC cleaned up in advertising revenue. Creating this newest reality show by choosing the cast and selling it to America, had made the “cage match” a major hit.

Am I suggesting that news people be censored? No! I’m saying they should get back to the moral principals that guided broadcast journalism in its golden age. The networks should treat news as if were a wildlife sanctuary. Just sit in the brush, film the action and let nature take its course. Don't disturb the order of things. If you don't make money, run it as a loss and figure that’s your penance for running “Deal Or No Deal”. 

If you ever watched “Star Trek” you know there was “The Prime Directive.” It was the only crime -- interfering in the natural evolution of a civilization -- that carried the death penalty. Am I suggesting that these news creeps be executed for trying to meddle with the natural course of our lives? Of course not! 

Well, maybe. 

2008-Great Moments in Disappointment

by Tom Yamaguchi

Wow, it's January 2009 already. I'm still trying to catch up with all the year end newsletters I received from my family and friends in December. Here is one from my conservative Republican Uncle Forrest.

Dear Folks,

Our family has been truly blessed this past 2008. Our daughter Cindy was fifth in the state spelling bee, and her sister Suzie was a semifinalist in the National Trampoline Championship. Their brother Bobby spent all of football season on the bench, but, as he tells us, "It's better than getting my neck broken out there!" Bobby, he's such an optimist.

After the election, I decided to step down as the chairman of the county Republican Party. Things did not go the way we hoped this year. It started with a lackluster lineup of candidates in the primaries. I had almost given up hope last January when a friend told me about Fred Thompson. Yeah, he'll save us. He's an actor like Ronald Reagan. He's a real conservative like Reagan. Excited, I sat down to watch Fred announce his candidacy on live TV. Before it was over, I don't know who fell asleep first, Fred or me. When I did wake up I was looking at John McCain. After, a nice nap, McCain didn't look so bad. After a couple of beers, he looked even better.

We all welcomed Sarah Palin as the vice-presidential nominee. She weathered the onslaught of the liberal media who tried to embarrass her by asking her questions about stuff she doesn't know. What is this, Jeopardy? How many people on the street could tell you what the Bush Doctrine is? And those of us who do know, including Bush, are trying to forget what it is.

The scum media shamefully dragged Sarah's family problems into the public. Those reporters thought they had some kind of license just because Palin brought her unwed, pregnant daughter on stage, holding her baby brother so we wouldn't see her tummy. Hey, they were trying to keep it a secret until after the election. Don't talk about it! At least all that attention showed the world how Republicans can be pro-choice. We're all for it when the choice is being made by parents who are opposed to their daughters getting abortions.

So John McCain ended up looking like a crazy old guy wandering around the stage, and Sarah Palin had trouble convincing us she had relevant experience. Ok, so living close to Russia and signing a gas treaty with Canada isn't really conducting foreign policy. In my business, its called padding your resume. Hey, everyone does it. And Joe the Plumber! Where did they find him? We should have ditched him under somebody's sink in Ohio or some other state like that where he'd never be heard from again. I am sure then we would have had a chance. 

Yes, we made some big mistakes in 2008, but the biggest one was letting Barack Hussein Obama become our next President. Yeah, that one! We were sure he would turn this country into an Islamic, Communist dictatorship if we let him anywhere near the White House. But after the election, what has he been doing? He has been acting like the moderate he said he was during the campaign! Nobody is supposed to tell the truth during the campaign! That's not fair! It's un-American! How can we hate a guy who, it turns out, doesn't pal around with terrorists? Obama fooled everyone in both parties. On the bright side, the liberal Democrats will end up hating him more than we Republicans do.

Leaving my post at the GOP is just one of the many changes that are in store for 2009. A few days before Christmas, I received this email from my boss Ebenezer.

"Dear Staff:

"First, let me take this time to wish you all a Very Merry Christmas. Let's not forget there is still a War on Christmas, and I'm not going to let those politically correct, atheistic Commies destroy this joyous occasion.

"Second, let me inform you that your services are no longer needed as the company is now bankrupt and you are all being laid off. I want to thank you for all those years of pitching in to keep our struggling ship stay afloat in these perilous times. Thanks for rejecting the opportunity to unionize and for those wage and benefit givebacks. Your sacrifice has saved us some big bucks. Thanks for training the employees of our independent contractor Greywater Corp so that they could staff their new offices in India. This has helped us maintain our high level of customer service since the last round of layoffs in our domestic divisions. Unfortunately these efforts were not enough, but please do not feel too discouraged, especially when you see out CEO at his news conference tomorrow blaming the company's downfall on excessive payroll and fringe benefits. He is only trying to easy the pain being felt by our stockholders who have seen their shares drop from a high of $89 to yesterday's close of 17 cents. And even though he is leaving with a $12 million golden parachute, believe me, he feels as bad about this as I do. 

"One more thing. Since the company is bankrupt, there is no Christmas bonus or severance pay, but I hope we can still be friends on MySpace. You can write when I take my new position with Greywater in India. Kind regards, Ebenezer."

I will remember that email the rest of my life, and I hope you all have a memorable 2009. Love, Forrest

A Sunday Something

Here's a day at the Alex Bennett Program.   This was shot on a Flip HD Video camera about the size of a box of matches.  Only problem is that Albert our producer had the day off.   But Michael and Scott are there Have fun.