Yesterday’s All Things Considered on NPR featured a conversation with Andrew Rasiej of TechPresident.com. The bulk of the interview is consumed by discussion of Obama’s latest YouTube video, in which various Hollywood personalities sing along to his “Yes We Can” speech, as well as the Clinton campaign’s “Hillary & the Band” effort and Obama’s ringtones.

At around the 3:10 mark, host Michele Norris asks Rasiej whether the Republicans have done anything similar. Rasiej’s answer answer is no:

For some reason, the Republicans are really terrified of bottom-up politics, and they have used some of these tools, but are trying desperately to keep control.

Call me crazy, but that sounds like a pretty interesting point of discussion. It represents a rather stark difference between the two parties, and an illustrative one, at that.

Does Norris ask a follow-up question (“Interesting. Why do you think that is?”)? No. Does she even remark upon Rasiej’s answer? No. Instead, she moves on to ask him if there’s any particular use of viral marketing that has made him say “Wow.” In other words, we might as well be talking about who had the most memorable Super Bowl commercial at this point.

Maybe there’s more to the interview than what made the final broadcast, but I can find no indication of it on the ATC section of NPR’s site. It is not exactly a revelation to say that the news media tend to focus on coverage of campaign tactics at the expense of commenting on the actual substantive differences. However, I tend to (perhaps naively) expect a little more from NPR, despite their continued employment of Cokie Roberts as a political analyst.

Jon Talton has a killer post over at Rogue Columnist on the oft-remarked upon but (typically) poorly analyzed decline of the traditional newspaper.

We hear endlessly that the troubles are a result of the Internet, new technology, “people don’t read anymore,” and, my favorite, “people don’t have as much time as they used to.” As if there was once a 36-hour day, or people who once worked 12-hour shifts while raising large families had this abundance of time.

These forces are real. And yes, a big swath of the public is distracted by celebrity gossip and gets its “news” from blogs, television and talk radio. What’s less noted is how newspapers themselves contributed to the dumbing down of America. What’s most frustrating is that the discussion fails to focus on the more significant reasons behind the decline in newspaper journalism.

Talton goes on to detail the reasons newspapers essentially ignored the changes wrought upon their business model by technology. Instead of adapting to these changes, the industry contracted into a fetal position throughout the Nineties and into the current decade, and now finds itself with a consistently dwindling readership and little opportunity to change that trend.

The whole post is worth reading.

The second installment of Bill Kristol’s NYT op-ed column is even more predictable than the first, being a routine right-wing “Democrats want the U.S. to fail in Iraq” broadside, this time targeted at Barack Obama.

What is extraordinary, however, is this addendum to the column:

In last week’s column, I mistakenly attributed a quotation from Michael Medved to Michelle Malkin. I regret the error.

STOP THE PRESSES!

Was that an acknowledgement of error from Bill Kristol? As far as I know, that would be first time ever that he as admitted being wrong. Sadly, it’s not in regards to any of his wildly off-the-mark predictions of immediate and fabulous success for the invasion of Iraq.

In an article relegated to the Times’ “Fashion & Style” section, reporter Alex Williams describes the recent pop-culture resurrection of 80′s action heroes. Focusing on Hulk Hogan, Chuck Norris, and Sylvester Stallone, Williams writes,

The leading action symbols of the Reagan era — with all their excess, jingoism and good vs. evil bombast — have returned, as outsize and obvious as they were in the decade of stonewash. Yet as stars of prime-time hits and feature films (not to mention Republican mascots), these actors are still as ripped and imposing as they were 20 years ago, and they continue to carry an undeniable authority with fans old and new.

Indeed, at a time when the country is faced with a new tangle of problems, the return of the ’80s action hero suggests that some Americans, particularly men, are looking to revel in the vestigial pleasures of older times and seemingly simpler ways. (Witness the popularity of the best-selling “Dangerous Book for Boys,” a celebration of the traditional rugged joys of boyhood.)

How dreadfully depressing.

The article refrains from passing judgement on the sort of Americans who would look to a collection of action-figure has-beens with a collective age of 183 to defend them from scary terrorists and skyrocketing mortgage payments.

Let’s keep in mind, though, that this same crowd has collectively spent the last seven years:

• Swooning over our man’s man President decked out in a stuffed-crotch flight suit;
• Getting giddy over the chiselled charm of the Secretary of Defense; and
• Contemplating the sexiness of presidential hopeful Fred “I Could Drop Dead Any Moment” Thompson

I’m certainly not the first person to point out that this sort of adolescent fantasy hero-worship, when extrapolated to the political sphere, leads to bad places. Hopefully, this latests resurgence is the last tired gasp of a demographic group that’s getting as far down the road to retirement as its idols.

Crooks & Liars has posted video of Fox News blowhard and right-wing thug Sean Hannity fleeing from a mob of angry Ron Paul supporters.

I’m not sure which side to root for in this one.

In case you missed it, as a result of being wrong on virtually every prediction he’s made over the last four years, serial liar, perpetual Fox News regular, and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol has been given a regular column on the New York Times editorial page.

Mind you, this would be the same Bill Kristol who has suggested that the Times should be prosecuted for aiding terrorists. Principled man that he is, I’m sure Mr. Kristol has a very good explanation as to why he’s now happy to take the newspaper’s money and appear on their pages.

So what is the paper getting for its money? Kristol starts off his debut column this morning with some borrowed language and a swipe at the Democratic frontrunners:

Thank you, Senator Obama. You’ve defeated Senator Clinton in Iowa. It looks as if you’re about to beat her in New Hampshire. There will be no Clinton Restoration. A nation turns its grateful eyes to you.

Kristol then spends the rest of his space on an analysis of Mike Huckabee that rises to roughly the level of a grade school book report, the conclusion of which amounts to “This Huckabee guy might not be too bad.” Really going out on a limb there, Bill. Highlights along the way include a quote from sometimes O’Reilly Factor host, internment camp fan, and general outrage-maven Michelle Malkin, as well as a brazen attempt to deny seven years’ worth of George W. Bush fanboydom:

After the last two elections, featuring the well-born George Bush and Al Gore and John Kerry, Americans — even Republicans! — are ready for a likable regular guy. Huckabee seems to be that.

Yes, that’s right. The President whom Kristol and his ilk have been telling us since 2000 is the guy Americans want to have a beer with is now a snooty elitist like Al Gore and John Kerry. Nice.

I don’t have a fundamental problem with the Times wanting to feature conservative opinion columnists. The problem comes when the one they pick is a smug, self-serving, dissembling prick like Bill Kristol, with a record of inaccuracy and error that would make Joe Isuzu blush.

Then again, with the modern conservative movement so thoroughly corrupted by thirty years of a quest for power by whatever means necessary, it’s difficult to point to an honest representative.

While I was reading an article in today’s New York Times about a possible comeback for John McCain, the following passage caught my eye:

Several Republicans suggested that strategy might be difficult to pull off. “They are going to try to make him the Washington insider,” said Sara Taylor, a former White House political director. “He spent 10 years as the iconic guy in Washington fighting the status quo; so that is going to be hard.”

Context-free reporting is nothing new. However, I found it to be both amusing and depressing that the Times saw no need to inform its readers that Ms. Taylor is “a former White House political director” because she resigned in disgrace after playing a central role in the U.S. Attorneys scandal.

She’s also the same Sara Taylor who, while testifying before the Senate regarding that same scandal, let slip that she had taken an “oath to the President”.

It was nice to read the Washington Post exposing the “FairTax” scheme that Mike Huckabee has latched onto for the utter load of crap that it is:

There’s one problem: A national sales tax won’t work, at least not according to tax experts and economists of all political stripes. Even President Bush’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform dedicated a chapter of its 2005 final report to dismissing such proposals.

“After careful evaluation, the Panel decided to reject a complete replacement of the federal income tax system with a retail sales tax,” the panel said. It concluded that such a move would shift the tax burden from the rich to the poor or create the largest entitlement program in history to mitigate that new burden.

Now it would just be nice to see another candidate with the stones to say the same, but I’m not holding my breath.

While I was at the gym last night, the story about a man holding hostages at Hillary Clinton’s New Hampshire campaign headquarters was all over CNN like a rash.

Let’s see— primary campaign coverage… hostage crisis… if only there had been a missing child involved somehow, the 24-hour news networks would most likely have collapsed under the gravity of their collective glee.

Pointing out flaws on the Washington Post’s editorial page is like shooting fish in a barrel these days. At the same time, so long as the paper remains one of the bellwethers of mainstream media consensus, the nonsense published in its opinion section deserves every jab that is aimed its way.

Today, we have a piece by Anne Applebaum entitled “No Magic Bullets For Iraq”:

Search the Web, listen to the radio and watch the news, and you can hear people arguing that if only we had more troops, fewer troops or no troops at all, everything would be okay again.

What is missing from this conversation is a dose of humility. More to the point, what is missing is the recognition that every single one of these plans contains the seeds of potential disaster, even catastrophe.

Granted, I don’t always turn out the most startling insights every single day in the posts I write for this site. Some days I’m tired, or I’m busy, but, feeling as though I should post something, I dash off a quick summary of some issue in the news. I consider this sort of post to be a holding pattern, something to fill space until I can come up with a real idea.

Today’s editorial from Applebaum reads the same way.

The difference is that I am not a highly-paid writer for a major national media outlet. I’d like to think that another big difference is that I try not to misrepresent the views of those about whom I am writing in order to provide fodder for my posts.

Contrary to Applebaum’s characterization, it’s difficult to imagine that any of the purveyors of these various plans considers her or his idea to be a “magic bullet.” No one except crazy people (such as war supporter Bill Kristol, who is regularly given space by the Post to publish stuff like “Why Bush Will Be a Winner”) think things will work out well in Iraq.

Nonetheless, Applebaum dismisses as simple-minded any plan except, by default, the Bush-approved “more of the same.”

The only people, according to Applebaum, who really understand that Iraq is a complex situation are the troops serving there. While this claim may be true in some sense, Applebaum engages in the time-honored stay-the-course tactic of trotting out a soldier who is going back to Iraq in support of the notion that the U.S. must remain in Iraq indefinitely.

“Perhaps these things would never have happened if we hadn’t gone there in the first place — but if we leave, we’ll be morally responsible,” she says, referring to the laundry list of possible horrible outcomes in Iraq. What Applebaum, like virtually all supporters of the current occupation and escalation, neglects to mention is that we are morally responsible for the situation in Iraq (and the surrounding region) whether we stay or leave. Serious alternatives to the Bush administration’s plan of endless occupation deserve serious consideration, not the dismissive and dishonest contempt of pundits like Applebaum