The Journalism We Have.

The Onion takes on Cable News. Simply perfect.

Sullivan: Washington Bullshit Watch

No one does it better than Mark Halperin. Every single thing he cites in his latest brain-dead critique is, I believe, tangibly false, and the moronic attempt to grab some pageviews by a counter-intuitive and utterly dumb analogy - Obama is like Bush, guys! Aren't I clever? - is Beltway hackery at its worst.

This administration has resolutely pursued policy before politics on the economy, the wars, and health insurance reform; has some real cabinet stars - Duncan, Gates and Geithner come immediately to mind - who have actually done the right thing rather than the politically expedient thing; and the president remains a completely different brand in the public mind than the Congress.

Halperinism really is part of what's deeply wrong about Washington. Obama really is the only thing that's still right.

Sullivan: Christianist Watch

10 Mar 2010 08:48 am

Wow:

[R]eligious right mainstay Janet Porter [is] praying at "Convergence 2010: A Cry to Awaken A Nation" conference on March 4-6, 2010. She's not praying for love or peace, but control over the nation's media. This just goes BEYOND any criticism I can give against Porter and the groups whom she aligns herself with. This is more than insane. It's scary. Whatever Jesus would do, I feel safe to say that He wouldn't support such madness.

digby: Dancing With Himself

Media Matters caught the voices in Glenn Beck's head having an argument with each other:

Beck "hacked off" by RNC memo, claims America is looking for "someone that is not going to play on our fears"
1 hour and 47 minutes ago

Beck: "We are sitting around and we are watching the systematic destruction of everything we hold dear by thugs"
2 hours and 28 minutes ago

Not that any of his listeners have any trouble holding those two ideas together in their heads either. Cognitive dissonance is a permanent condition on the right. But Beck takes it to a higher level.

John Cole: What Chait Said

This:

Without a doubt, Obama’s proposals would leave the health care system far short of what most progressives, myself included, would design in the absence of political constraints. But also without a doubt, it would lift the system far above the status quo that is the only near-term alternative. Here it is, the most dramatic improvement in social justice in at least four decades fighting for its life in the home stretch, and the left can barely be roused to fight for it. The somnolence is far from universal, but on the left there is at least as much passion against health care reform as for it. One of many considerations the vulnerable Democratic moderates who hold reform’s fate in their hands must balance is, in return for the limitless rage of the right, will they get any credit from the left for backing this reform? At the moment when every voice counts, when every ounce of pressure could prove decisive, here is FireDogLake:

Lynn Woolsey says she’s a definite “yes” vote on the Senate health care bill. Even if it lacks a public option. Despite the fact that it’s the biggest blow to a woman’s right to choose in a generation, and may come at the price of a stand-alone vote that allows Blue Dogs and ConservaDems to join with Republicans and roll them back even further in order to get Bart Stupak’s support.

Any ability for progressives to negotiate, to achieve meaningful concessions, to exert their influence and make the bill better just disappeared.

It’s time for Lynn Woolsey to resign as the head of the Progressive Caucus.

Yes, that is what it is time for! One day, when progressives study this moment in history, they will evaluate all of us by this single standard: What did they do to stop Lynn Woolsey?

I’m just ready for Republicans to take over again and save us all from the threat that is Rahm Emanuel and Obama’s health care reform. We’ll just have to make sure we have bigger majorities in 2045 when we get another shot at this. Obama is so much like Bush that it won’t be much difference anyway, amirite?

And the five of you who are going to write me emails telling me you are done reading Balloon Juice because I am too mean to “progressives”- save your time. Stop being an idiot and I’ll stop being mean.

Sullivan: Stewart vs Thiessen

I was worried, to tell you the truth, after Jon's failed run-in with war criminal John Yoo. But Stewart totally destroyed the McCarthyite mediocrity last night. He didn't get into Thiessen's disgusting defense of the brutal torture of al-Qahtani, but he completely devastated the vile insinuation that because Thiessen believes torture made America "safe" - his sole evidence being seven years of no attacks, which Stewart briliantly reminded him could have been said of the no-torture Clinton administration record as well - Obama was somehow endangering American lives.

My favorite point was the lawyers defending pedophiles. Thiessen went so far to say that a lawyer who defended pedophiles in court should be suspected of supporting child abuse.

Thiessen's arguments were both morally repugnant, legally absurd, McCarthyite and ignorant. For this, he gets a weekly column from Fred Hiatt in the Washington Post. That tells you all you need to know about Fred Hiatt and what has happened at the WaPo.