Either Relevant or True » Why does he know the word ‘flamewar,’ anyway?

Tie: Orange
Segue Music: Since the web video cut it off, I haven’t the foggiest.

5. Obama’s got a new idea about religious groups. He wants to toss out Bush’s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives and set up a program that helps those sort of programs so long as they follow stricter rules on recruitment and pushing their private beliefs.

Richard’s here to talk. He says that Obama’s making a great move against a GOP nominee who has big evangelical problems. But since Dems are big on that whole secularism thing, he may lose some of his own voters.

A new guy is here to tackle that issue more in depth- Reverend Barry Lynn from Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. He’s glad that Bush’s system will be taken down, but he longs for the past, when religious groups did things for their communities and just operated their goodwill stuff completely separate from their religious stuff. Just make a completely different organization affiliated with your church! He sees Obama’s idea as flawed because how in the world is the government going to monitor how these people are hiring?

An excellent point was made- this could hurt Obama more than help him because, really, how many evangelicals care about secularism? On the other hand, there are a lot of Obama’s base who don’t like the federal government devoting so much to something that shouldn’t be an issue in the first place.

(Yeah, my view on this is pretty transparent.)

4. If you so much as sneeze near McCain’s military credentials, you’re insulting them. Yeah, what?

McCain’s camp accused our boy Webb of attacking McCain’s military record last night when he asked that McCain chill out about folks who were obviously not taking aim at his record in the service. Oh, and McCain’s got one of the Swiftboaters in his circle. If hypocrisy was gas, the GOP could fuel the country if we all drove Hummers.

Chris Kofinis from Johnny Edward’s old campaign is here to… tell us what we already know. The McCain folks are making this the issue to avoid the real ones. And Keith uses the word “flamewar,” much to my bemusement.

Oddball: Oh man. I hate this job some days. There is a enema statue in Russia. Cameron Delande found friggin’ diamond rings in the loo.

Best Persons: FOX News is looking for a fact writer. Why start now, folks? Larry Craig and David Vitter are looking to co-sponsor a Constitutional marriage amendment. And Gregory Praeger attacked his mother with sausage.

3. McCain has no idea what the price of gas is and he bought a new plane to fly around. Not that Obama doesn’t have a plane of his own, though. Oh, and Bill Kristol is rooting for Alaska governor Sarah Palin for the GOP VP because it’ll help the gas crisis since she can convince him to be pro-ANWAR drilling. Wasn’t it Jon Alter who said it’d take more than ten years for any of these new drilling opportunities to yield any actual price drop?

2. Worst Persons!
Bronze: Kings County Hospital, a patient dies. The staffers change the records to reflect on their monstrous negligence better.
Silver: MC Rove made a fudge-up in his piece for the WSJ. (and yet I cannot find a link for this, woe)
Gold: BMW Direct re-enacted The Producers! I dunno, that’s kind of admirable in a criminal way.

1. It’s our monthly segment of “Keith’s Producers Are Threatening to Hurt Him Unless He Does a Celebrity Story”. I sympathize with your pain, Mr. O. I gotta admit, his way as saying “OK Magazine” makes me laugh. His way of saying French magazine names though is made of an epic sort of fail.

And… rather than recapping the inanity of Madonna’s not-affair with A-Rod or Jolie giving birth to twins again this month (would that make them quintuplets?), A Story You May Already Know.

So this sports journalist is hanging out with some hockey players who are all jolly and more than slightly tipsy and having a ball (Or a puck? Haha, I kill me.); one of the drunken players gets a bit excited and tries to climb on a table. His buddies quickly help him realize what a dumb move that is. He stops and wisely goes home with his team after they all give Mr. Journalist rib-crushing hugs on their way out. The next day, Mr. Journalist hears tabloids squawking about a crazy drunken hockey player who was thrown out of a bar for getting too rowdy. Mr. Journalist knows the truth though. From that moment on, he knows better than to believe any tabloid BS.

For those of you who haven’t read Dan’n'Keith’s book, The Big Show, Mr. Journalist is our boy KO. Story time with Aunt Lucy is over, chickadees! Goodnight!

ETA: Hey-o, John Dean’s FISA column is up now. Thanks, Erin.

Lucy, I love any and all hockey stories. Thank you.

NOW: Why I am zeroing in on the enema statue you all may ask, but…..

My fair city of Phoenix, AZ, is giving Russia a run for is money as we are in the process of erecting a new and very expensive piece of public art that is supposed to be a gigantic floating cactus flower, supported by many guy wires. In the wind we had tonight, I am breathless to know if it has made it to China yet, to be part of the Olympic Opening Ceremonies.

The first time I saw this thing I thought of a gigantic lavender uterus, with cervix descending. And that is what I will always see.

My tax dollars at work.

“I don’t understand why these anchors say, “We’re not supposed to take a side, we’re supposed to just give the news,” but they don’t just give the news, and they don’t tell the truth, excuse me. I only listen to Keith Olbermann. To hell with the rest of them. I’m an MSNBC type now.”

Lauren Bacall, San Francisco Chronicle, July 2.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/01/DDFA11GD8V.DTL

Keith, you know how to whistle, don’t you?

You know, though, my husband’s aunt is a fervent Democrat AND a devout Christian. She feels very left out at her church because there aren’t any other Democrats. This might help Obama with folks like her, and I imagine there are a few.

Lucy, it should be pointed out that here at Blogging Olbermann, The Big Show is required reading.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_pY08e_tdtA

We all know the drill…open up a new window in your browser and cut and paste the above address.

Time for the nominees for today’s title of “Worst Person in the World.”

The bronze, to comedian Rush Limbaugh. Now we have to admit the man is funny, but never like this. In an interview that will be in Sunday’s issue of The New York Times Magazine, comedian said this about Bill Orally:

“Somebody’s got to say it. He’s Ted Baxter.”

Comedian, I hate to say this, and even with that new $38 million a year contract that you have, but the actually phrasing is “Ted Baxter’s Evil Twin.” You know, if you only paid attention while shopping around for doctors for those blue M&M’s, maybe for opnce watch this here program or stop ignoring your friend Jabba the Hutt, whom I remember ruining your television career, so much so that when I was in Times Square last month I saw the remants of a billboard promoting “The Rush Limbaugh Television Program” on top of Toys ‘R’ Us, I thought “Wait a minute…this funnyman had a five-day-a-week sitcom of his own? Why didn’t I know that?” Anyway, if you just paid attention to what we talk about here, then you’d understand why Ted Knight is doing the one and a half twist with a jacknife into a pike position with a difficulty of 2.0 next to his headstone.

The runner-ups, the graphics department of Fox Noise Channel. On Fixed and Fiends, ex-weatherman Steve Doocy and ex-sportscaster (and it shames me to say that, having been in the toy department to say the least) Brian Kilameade attacked two members of The New York Times staff, Jacques Steinberg and Steve Radcliffe and said that they were “attack dogs”. And to make it worse, the graphics folks who took Photoshop lessons in third grade by the way, plastered their heads onto a photo of a man and his poodle. And what even makes it even worse…

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v200/NozeNuggets/fox-steinberg.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v200/NozeNuggets/fox-radcliffe.jpg

…here’s the “before and after” shots from the graphics department.

You know, it’s one thing to slam people when they don’t work for you but it’s another to use their pictures and attach them to a dog. that’s even below Fox noise to do that. Look, I know you want me to be “the face of NBC News”, and we know Captain K. Rupert Murdoch bought The Wall Street Journal to spout his views of ultra conseravatism. But knock down a respected paper like the only newspaper in America that does not have a comics section? You know what they say? “See you in the funny papers!”

But our winner…

Fox Noise’s in-house promotional department. They’re running this new campaign kissing, er, praising the fact that The O’Reilly Factor Fiction Comedy Program has a 90-month winning streak against six people who never had a number one show in their lives? A 90-month winning streak against Phil Donahue, Paula Zahn, Aaron Brown, and some guy named Olbermann? That they compare The Big Giant Head to Elvis?

Somebody at Fox Noise’s parent, NewsCorpse never told them about that group that they lovingly call “The Money Demo”, you know, about those between the ages of 25 and 54, the ones that helps pay the bills for TV shows in particular? Here’s the numbers for Tuesday, July 1st, just in case you’ve forgotten:

8 PM: Countdown, 374,000 viewers. The O’Reilly Factor (even with a guest host), 355,000 viewers.

Oh, wait, this just gets better. You know how they keep saying that Billo’s reruns at 4 AM are supposed to be better than whatever we’re airing? Here’s the numbers in that money demo at 10 PM in the evening:

Countdown rebroadcast: 268,000 viewers. A new episode of On The Record with Greta Von Sustren: 261,000 viewers! Now who’s talking about better numbers in reruns?

Fox Noise Channel’s in-house promotional department, ignoring The Money Demo to serve the wishes of K. Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes, today’s WORST…PERSONS…IN THE WORLD!

For the record, the segue music coming outta the “Best Persons” segment was “Mother” by Danzig. I listened to the podcast at work last nite.

Have a safe and sane Fourth of July, and remember in the words of Bob Barker some two decades ago on a 4th of July edition of The Price Is Right” “Have your fireworks spayed or neutered.”

I have not read the Dan & Keith book.
But it was not sports that brought me here.
I’ll read it someday, though.

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