(illustration by Tom Tomorrow)

Revisionist wingnut Jonah Golberg, aka Doughy Pantload, is asking for input on what you “think Bush’s legacy will be.“

Not kidding. I suspect we may have at least a few readers who wouldn’t mind helping him out.

Nikke Finke: 

Well, one insider says she was booked on Keith Olberman and Morning Joe to talk about her tome — and then unbooked. “These are shows that call her regularly to come on. And then the word came from on high that she had to be cancelled.”

Brave New Films:

It seems that Arianna Huffington has run up against the impenetrable wall that is Tim Russert’s ego. Huffington, who is currently on tour for her new book Right Is Wrong: How The Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded The Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe, will be appearing on CNN, ABC, and CBS. She had been booked on Morning Joe and Countdown with Keith Olbermann as well, but those bookings were suddenly and inexplicably cancelled.

NBC confirmed that Huffington wouldn’t be booked on any NBC-affiliated show to promote her book, but refused to explain why. Huffington’s people say that this is Tim Russert’s doing, that Russert is out for revenge because Huffington called him a “conventional wisdom zombie” in her book and devoted seven pages to faulting Russert for allowing his Meet the Press guests to go unchallenged (not to mention HuffPo’s RussertWatch).

Oh, did the poor widdle WATB get his feelings hurt? Or were Arianna’s words just a little too close for comfort?

Campaign for Our Future’s Rick Perlstein (and author of the soon-to-be* published Nixonland) went head to talking head with Bush speechwriter and neo-con David Frum for the latest edition of BloggingheadsTV. The entire discussion is about 45 minutes in length, but this excerpt is instructive to the whole. Frum authoritatively starts asserting his opinions as facts about how Lyndon Johnson could have saved the Democratic party in the late 1960s “if there had been a police response that sent the message, ‘this is not going to be tolerated, no more riots…”

But Frum’s mistake is assuming that Perlstein doesn’t have the actual facts on hand. How many stammers and concessions do you hear Frum make?

* corrected.  Nixonland will be available on May 13th.

Roy Edroso of The Village Voice puts together a handy guide to all your favorite far-right whackos of the blogosphere.

Looks like FDL is getting in on the fun with their own reference guide: The Official FDL Election Season Guide to the Left-Wing Traitorsphere

I was fortunate enough Thursday to interview Glenn Greenwald about his new book, Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics. In this podcast exclusive, we discuss the major theme of his book in the context of John McCain and the press’ reverence for him, as well as the successful campaign we waged to kill the AT&T bill and what it says about the emerging power of the blogosphere.

 Download | Play

I’ll post the transcript once it’s complete. In the meantime, you can find some excerpts here and here, as well as some of the other reviews from around the blogosphere:

• Digby, and another one in the context of the ABC debate
  
• Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon
• Buzzflash
• Daily Kos

And don’t forget to pick up a copy and support one of our own.

An honor well deserved. Yes, we really like her, we really do. She’s been an incredible influence and blogging role model for me personally. Women’s Voices. Women Vote selected her as their favorite female blogger.

Glenn notes how well the media is doing its job:

In the past two weeks, the following events transpired. A Department of Justice memo, authored by John Yoo, was released which authorized torture and presidential lawbreaking. It was revealed that the Bush administration declared the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights to be inapplicable to “domestic military operations” within the U.S. The U.S. Attorney General appears to have fabricated a key event leading to the 9/11 attacks and made patently false statements about surveillance laws and related lawsuits. Barack Obama went bowling in Pennsylvania and had a low score.

Here are the number of times, according to NEXIS, that various topics have been mentioned in the media over the past thirty days:

“Yoo and torture” - 102

“Mukasey and 9/11″ — 73

“Yoo and Fourth Amendment” — 16

“Obama and bowling” — 1,043

“Obama and Wright” — More than 3,000 (too many to be counted)

“Obama and patriotism” - 1,607

“Clinton and Lewinsky” — 1,079

The sad thing is that the mainstream press really does believe that things like Obama’s poor bowling skills and the Clinton’s tax returns are more important stories than, say, the trillion dollar war that continues to rage on with no end in sight or a collapsing economy. Like Glenn says, people care about the petty stuff because the media loves to tell themselves that they do.

We all helped Glenn’s book reach #12  today when it was #212 yesterday.  Go Blogoshere. It would be great to push him into the Top Ten list. Jane makes an excellent point: “Nobody rips the right like Glenn Greenwald. Since there’s no Richard Mellon Scaife to buy boxloads of books and force it onto the New York Times bestseller list, you can help do it the democratic way by buying the book.”

Pre-order your copy today.

It would be great to move it into the top ten on Amazon. And I agree on this point all the way:

In a minimally rational world, a Republican presidential candidate like John McCain who has enabled all of that would have no chance. But — in the absence of anything changing the way this works — the establishment press will remove those considerations from its election coverage and the GOP’s exploitation of bottom-feeding personality-based psychological, cultural and gender themes will predominate. In 2008, the GOP will dedicate itself single-mindedly to these same personality-based, manipulative electoral tactics because that is their only hope for winning.

There simply cannot be any greater priority than preventing a John McCain Presidency, one which would empower the same faction and continue the same policies that have been slowly though inexorably destroying this country, its institutions and political values. Understanding and neutralizing these tactics and the enabling media behavior is a prerequisite for preventing that…read on

Update: FDL makes a good point: Jane says:

The wingnut welfare queens have their books bought onto the New York Times bestseller list, and their ideas thus are able to penetrate much further than if they had to survive on their own merits. Please help us do the same for our team’s very best, Glenn Greenwald — without whose heroic efforts I have no doubt we’d have retroactive telecom immunity today.

The General ranks the importance of some of Secret Service’s duties.  Making sure Jenna has a good time in Mexico ranks up there.  So does interrupting a Michael Moore interview. Going after a death threat against a Democratic candidate?  That requires asking bloggers to do the leg work. 

I’ve written about Meghan McCain’s McCain Bloggette site, and its intent to document her father’s campaign and further the whole notion of what a swell guy he is. Even the media has picked up on it, although in typical McCain media blinders fashion:

Her Web site mixes behind-the-scenes photos and videos from the campaign trail with iPod music playlists, designer fashion, even makeup tips.

It can be addictive, says Julie Barko Germany, director of the Institute for Politics and the Internet at George Washington University.

“It feels almost like picking up a copy of Us Weekly - real stars, they’re just like us!” Germany said.

The site shows her father through a younger lens, making him seem, if not more hip, then definitely less crotchety, said Germany, whose husband works for McCain’s campaign.

That’s great feedback, from the wife of a McCain campaigner. Real independent sourcing. But even in the great McCain lovefest that is the media, little niggling facts will come out, though never focused on. This little paragraph in the same article caught my eye:

“McCain Blogette” is independent from the campaign. So independent, the campaign said it could not answer who pays for Meghan and her two friends to travel on campaign planes and buses. A spokeswoman for Meghan did not respond to inquiries.

Hmmm….the FEC should be looking into campaign spending violations for McCain already…is this another avenue they should pursue?

The C&L staff knows we’ve got some of the best, most politically aware readers of any blog out there, and we feel deeply honored every single day to be a part of this. Really.

This year we’re also deeply gratified to have received the 2008 Bloggie Award for Best Political Blog. The Bloggies are the oldest blog awards, started in 2001. As the boss man John Amato says, “very kewl.”

Thanks much to the nice folks who voted for us, much appreciated. 

On a quick note, I really appreciate all the dynamite tips C&Lers send me throughout the day. I couldn’t do this without you, but I also get a lot of emails that instruct me to go here and or look this up with no explanation or context. I receive 500-700 emails a day and I always just delete those emails. I don’t have time to track down the meaning of them all. I haven’t said this before and I should have already.

If you have a tip or an article that you want me, Nicole or anyone from C&L to read, please include the url and the body of the article with a good title in the subject line so I don’t miss it and can take a look at it while I’m going through my inbox. I don’t want you to waste your time and effort…And I’m sorry I haven’t had the time to respond to as many as I used to.

Also, feel free to send me any video or audio clips with a short write up that you find too. I’m always open to a little help from my friends. Just let me know how you’d like to be identified for the hat tip…

 Download | Play  Download | Play

File this one under Prince Harming. Apparently, Matt Drudge thought he had an exclusive on Prince Harry’s whereabouts serving in the military in Afghanistan. It turns out that he didn’t get the exclusive, but as Keith Olbermann points out on Thursday’s Countdown, he does get all the blame - the blame for endangering Harry by revealing his location which had been kept a secret. More from The Independent UK:

An American website, the Drudge Report, broke a news blackout yesterday by revealing that Prince Harry has been serving in Afghanistan for more than two months.

To the fury of the Ministry of Defence and condemnation from the head of the British Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, the website announced a “world exclusive” and proclaimed: “They’re calling him ‘Harry the Hero!”.

The article brought to an end an agreement with the media that the Prince’s deployment to Helmand be kept quiet in the interests of his safety and that of the soldiers with him.  [..]

“I am very disappointed that foreign websites have decided to run this story without consulting us. This is in stark contrast to the highly responsible attitude that the whole of the UK print and broadcast media, along with a small number of overseas outlets, who have entered into an understanding with us over the coverage of Prince Harry on operations,” General Dannatt said.  Read on…

Why does Drudge hate the troops and want them in harm’s way? 

That’s very nice of them. You can see a video segment on it here.

Oh look, he’s finally succeeded at something outright.

In his Wisconsin victory speech this evening, John McCain wasted no time in firing shots across Barack Obama’s bow. Hoping to highlight the Democratic frontrunner’s inexperience, McCain to partisan cheers ridiculed Obama’s promises as “eloquent but empty.” But in a preview of Republican duplicity to come, McCain blasted Obama’s past advocacy of unilateral American attacks against Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan, attacks the Bush administration itself is now finally carrying out.

  Download | Play Windows Media…

Update: John Amato:

When Bash confronts McCain on this issue—saying that the WH wants to do the same thing, he gets a little nasty. He tries to make the case that Obama should keep quiet about his intentions.Sure, just like Bush has. And what about McCrazy singing bomb Iran?

He’s still very hostile to Dana Bash of CNN…

Obama’s family must be Commies. That’s a new one.

John Cole:

Lisa Schiffren at the Corner, perfect representative of the modern GOP:

Obama and I are roughly the same age. I grew up in liberal circles in New York City — a place to which people who wished to rebel against their upbringings had gravitated for generations. And yet, all of my mixed race, black/white classmates throughout my youth, some of whom I am still in contact with, were the product of very culturally specific unions. They were always the offspring of a white mother, (in my circles, she was usually Jewish, but elsewhere not necessarily) and usually a highly educated black father. And how had these two come together at a time when it was neither natural nor easy for such relationships to flourish? Always through politics. No, not the young Republicans. Usually the Communist Youth League. Or maybe a different arm of the CPUSA. But, for a white woman to marry a black man in 1958, or 60, there was almost inevitably a connection to explicit Communist politics.

***

Time for some investigative journalism about the Obama family’s background, now that his chances of being president have increased so much.

Cole: You know what that means- someone needs some pictures of 60’s era countertops. CITIZEN JOURNALISTS, YOU HAVE YOUR MARCHING ORDERS!

The imagery isn’t lost on Matt Drudge. He’s a just a plain old pig—no matter how many times Mark Halperin praises him. Take a guess at how he’ll frame Obama next. Might it include a hood of some kind? (h/t Chris)