The Oscars Must Die

Whether or not the Hollywood writers’ strike nixes this year’s Academy Awards telecast, it may be time to kill the show.

Nothing quite motivates Hollywood like the prospect of a global calamity that only a heavy dose of stardust can avert. Disease. World hunger. Supplying Larry King with a steady stream of interviews so he can stay off the unemployment line. This year’s impending tragedy is, of course, far worse than those. The Oscar telecast might die. How will the world ever escape the darkness that will befall it if we are deprived of our annual evening of glitter and blather? The writers’ strike is obviously serious business, but the public has sacrificed quite enough by forgoing the return of “24.” Jack Bauer, please rescue the Oscars!

On the other hand, maybe Jack should keeping lying low. Who needs the Oscars, anyway, other than the chosen few nominees and the hangers-on who love them? The fact is, the Oscar telecast (scheduled for Feb. 24, assuming some sort of miracle) is the worst three hours and 27 minutes on television, and it has held that distinction for years and years and years. Go ahead, try to think of something, anything, memorable from a telecast in the last, say, five years. The witty host’s monologue? The moving acceptance speeches? The outfits? Sure, you can remember that such staples existed, along with a cute joke or moving moment or two. But considering the length of the show, those tidbits don’t convert to a very high on-base percentage. And considering the anticipation and hype that precede the show every year, this is one pretty awful excuse for A-list entertainment.

Don’t agree? Think about the most memorable moments from the show in recent years. Most memorable acceptance speech: Halle Berry’s endless tearfest. Dress: Bjork, dressed as a swan. Host shtick: David Letterman’s “Uma-Oprah” monologue. Presenter’s moment: Elizabeth Taylor’s addled “GLAD-i-a-tor!” Production number (a tie): Rob Lowe meets Snow White, and any of the best-song montages choreographed by Debbie Allen. That’s some hit parade, isn’t it?

I exaggerate, of course. (A little.) The Oscars have served up some amusing crumbs, though I was so hard pressed to remember any of them, I went back and read reviews of the last three years’ telecasts, and the most promising stuff I found was the orchestra cutting off Al Gore in midsentence (2007), Jon Stewart ending up in bed with George Clooney in the year of “Brokeback Mountain” (2006), and, well, I thought Chris Rock was hilarious, but apparently Hollywood was not amused when he mocked the acting prowess of Tobey Maguire and Colin Farrell, so maybe you can’t count that.

That’s a big part of the problem. The Oscars has become the multinational corporation of television shows, so it’s afraid to offend anyone. This is live television, but it feels as if it was freeze-dried back in 1956. I so wish that a streaker would run across the stage, or some senior citizen attempt a one-handed push-up, or Janet Jackson were a better actress so she could get into the building and give us a wardrobe malfunction. There is no spontaneity, no life. It’s much easier to watch the highlights on E! and save three hours of my life. And don’t try to tell me that Billy Crystal would solve the problem. Going back to ghosts of Oscars past is the surest way to make it more irrelevant than it already is.

So what to do? Shorten the telecast, for one. The SAG Awards clipped along nicely at two hours, and it could have even been shorter. I know there are contractual reasons that so many of those second-tier and technical awards have to be presented on-air, but seeing how we’re in a new contractual season, maybe something can be done about that. When you’ve won an Oscar for best animated short, the statue should be enough recognition, thank you.

The telecast’s producers should certainly find a way to make the show more fun. I’d love to see someone—Jack Nicholson is my first choice—slimed with green gunk, in an homage to the infinitely more enjoyable Kid’s Choice Awards. One of my favorite parts of the Emmys is the nominations for best talk or variety show. Not surprisingly, they all make hilarious tapes to accompany the long list of nominated writers. My favorite this year was from Bill Maher’s folks, who placed themselves in a series of bathroom stalls, with various combinations of tapping (and moving and kicking) toes, à la disgraced Sen. Larry Craig. At the end of the list, the last stall door flew open, Maher stepped out, gave himself a squirt of breath spray, and went on his way. The Oscar folks would never go for something as risqué—and brilliant—as that. So who cares if the entire thing vanishes this year. Frankly, I’d just as soon see the whole thing flushed away for good.

via//Newsweek

[VIDEO] Less Jobs. More Wars.

Why I Support Ron Paul

by Heath Calvert

I’d been walking around sharing the phrase “fire it up” for about three weeks, borrowing glittery talking points about the exciting race between the first possible female and the first possible African-American president, but I still felt like I didn’t understand what changes these candidates were positing other than a replacement nameplate on the oval office desk. If you’d told me at the start of this presidential primary that I’d take off work and roadtrip to New Hampshire and South Carolina for the campaign of a pro-life republican from Texas, I’d have probably jump kicked you in the chest. In his defense, he’s from Pittsburgh.

Who is this man, and how did I find him since you can’t find him anywhere in television or print? I was sweeping my bedroom passively watching the Republican debates, when, somewhere between Romney’s “I’d double the size of Guantanamo” and Guiliani’s 37th invocation of 9-11, a soft spoken man you’d only know from C-SPAN2 started talking about the Constitution. He continued stating that we had armed Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, that we’ve been bombing Iraq since the end of the 1st Persian Gulf War, to remember that the CIA had overthrown Iran in the fifties, and that if we had followed the aforementioned Constitution perhaps we wouldn’t have gotten ourselves into so much “mischief.” I blurted out something that sounded like “wrudafuk.” What presidential candidate uses CIA and the word “mischief” in the same sentence? Then he offers to give Rudy Guiliani a reading list, and “blowback” becomes a familiar word to a lot more people than those who read Chalmers Johnson or the latest National Intelligence Estimates. I become a fan of Dr. Ron Paul.

I began internet researching in my obsessive fashion and eventually discovered some Ron Paul videos on YouTube from rallies around the country. He talked about things like eliminating the IRS, our history of meddling in foreign governments, dissolving the Federal Reserve, ending the war on drugs, and pardoning all non-violent drug offenders. I had no idea what he was talking about, and neither does America.

Ron Paul is a paradox. He is a ten-term Texas congressman who voted against the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, the Real ID Act, internet regulation, those acts last year that stripped Habeas Corpus and Posse Commitatis, plus this week’s Democrat sponsored Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act (a precursor to internet filtering and University monitoring by the Department of Homeland Security). Democrats shutdown when they see the letter “R” next to the word Texas, and Republicans can’t say “he’s not a republican” enough. He will quickly remind you that Republicans used to be the antiwar party, and in fact George Bush had been elected on a promise to stop policing the world. Republicans used to be the party of small government, fiscal responsibility, and sound money. Now sound money isn’t a sexy topic, but those listening to Ron Paul are starting to wake up to the gravity of what threats can be brought by a steeply declining currency, ballooning debt, excessive militarism combined with over extension, and a government that seems more interested in collecting data on it’s own citizenry and protecting corporate marketshare than preventing future attacks.

We can fundamentally change our idea of what our government should be, and return to constitutional principles. Ron Paul’s position is that the government shouldn’t coddle us from cradle to grave. Central bankers like the Federal Reserve, which isn’t part of the federal government, shouldn’t have the power to manipulate the worth of our currency and thus our way of life. His position is that we shouldn’t police the world or unconstitutionally interfere through bureaucracies like the CIA. Only Congress has the power to declare war. Plus, we can’t afford it anyway. We don’t need the IRS harassing American citizens and taking our hard earned money and sending it out for destinations unknown. In fact, let’s eliminate it. We’ll pay for it by bringing home our soldiers from around the world, saving over a trillion dollars. While you’re giving us our taxed dollars back, we’d also like you to return those civil liberties you’ve been whittling away at so you can give lucrative contracts to the homeland security/military industrial sector company you’re going to quit the government to start, run, or lobby for.

Much is said about the national constituency of Ron Paul, more often than not describing them as “young 9-11 truthers,” or “hillbilly Libertarian whackos,” but the campaign that Ron Paul has built is a revolution, and it is growing. Ron Paul, despite being ignored by mainstream press, trounced republican opponents with over 18 million in grassroots fundraising last quarter alone. Rudy Guiliani could drop out after coming in third in Florida. Mike Huckabee doesn’t have the funds to finish. John McCain, despite a voting record similar to Clinton, will most likely lead the delegate count with Romney trailing close behind. What will be the interesting story is Ron Paul staying in the race (he leads in fundraising, he also leads in contributions from active military personnel), bringing a significant enough number of delegates to the convention to possibly decide who becomes nominee. After canvassing in New Hampshire and South Carolina, I’ll tell you that most people are undecided and will vote for whomever the tv tells them to. Ask Ron Paul supporters and they’ll tell you that Ron Paul’s success may not be seen by him gaining the most votes in this election, but his ability to positively influence the Republican party’s platform now and in the future.

Doctor Paul is indeed curing apathy. In fact, listening to him speak, at times, can be like receiving a medical diagnosis. I had never been active in the political process. Nor had most the people I’d met for that matter. They were all just curious to hear this man with so many seemingly common sense ideas that the establishment branded radical. What’s so radical about our Constitution? The Constitution was written to restrict the government, not the people. Give me a choice between three lawyers and an ex-Air Force flight surgeon that’s delivered four thousand babies. I’ll take the doctor anyday.

via//Huffington Post

GATA to Federal Reserve: Where’s the Gold in Ft. Knox?

The Wall Street Journal has agreed to publish a full-page ad in which the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee charges the U.S. government surreptitiously utilizes gold reserves to engage in international swaps and other market manipulations.

“Anybody Seen Our Gold?” is the title of the ad, which alleges U.S. gold reserves held at depositories such as Fort Knox and West Point may have been seriously depleted. GATA asserts U.S. gold reserves are being shipped overseas to settle complex transactions utilized by the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury to suppress the price of the precious metal.

“The objective of this manipulation is to conceal the mismanagement of the U.S. dollar so that it might retain its function as the world’s reserve currency,” the ad copy reads in a pre-publication version GATA provided.

The U.S. Treasury denies the claim, insisting the stock is accounted for regularly.

GATA’s chairman, William J. Murphy III, said his group was willing to pay the Wall Street Journal’s cost of $264,000 to run the ad “to get the message out that the U.S. enters world markets without public disclosure to prop up the dollar and depress the price of gold.”

GATA cites as evidence the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee reports dating back to Jan. 31, 1995, showing the U.S. Treasury Department’s Exchange Stabilization Fund had undertaken gold swaps.

GATA, a non-profit 501 headquartered in Manchester, Conn., further asserts the federal government strategy to manipulate the price of gold has begun to fail.

“Gold’s recent rise toward $900 per ounce shows that the price suppression scheme is faltering,” the GATA ad reads. “When it is widely understood how central banks have been suppressing gold, its price may rise to $3,000 or $5,000 an ounce or more.”

“The gold reserves of the United States have not been independently audited for half a century,” the ad charges.

The U.S. Treasury disagrees.

“While the entire gold stock is not physically re-counted in any one year, over a period of years, by our continuous sampling process, the entire stock has been counted, and is effectively re-inventoried,” Rich Delmar, counsel to Treasury’s inspector general said.

Delmar explained that the annual Office of Inspector General audits of mint facilities involves a physical inspection of certain vaults, which are subject to a 100-percent bar count and assaying. At the end of the inspection, each vault is sealed.

“During each visit, all previously sealed vaults are checked to ensure that the seals have not been compromised or tampered with,” he wrote. “This process is the basis for the conclusion that there has been a complete physical inventory.”

Delmar said the OIG’s work consists of more than reviewing documents.

“Our auditors physically observe the inventory work done at the mint facilities, and we are responsible for the assay sampling process,” he said.

The Treasury was asked if there is a comprehensive listing and accounting of any encumbrances or other restrictions on the gold in the U.S. Mint that may affect ownership.

“This is not within OIG’s purview,” Delmar responded. “You may want to ask the mint directly.”

‘Dodging the question’

Murphy called the response “ridiculous.”

“The mint does not make complex gold transactions with other countries,” he said. “That is the role for the U.S. Treasury. The mint just houses the gold. The Treasury is dodging the question.”

GATA has filed a Freedom of Information Request asking the Fed and Treasury to disclose information on encumbrances and swapping or leasing of U.S. gold.

“The Fed and Treasury have not even acknowledged receiving our FOIA request,” Murphy said. “It’s idiotic to tell you that the mint would have that knowledge.”

Murphy asked, “Is the gold in the mint truly U.S. gold reserves or is it just ‘custodial gold’ held for some other country? That’s why we need to know what encumbrances there are on the gold as well as whether any U.S. gold has been shipped overseas to fulfill swap obligations.”

The 2006 annual report published on the website of the U.S. Mint lists KPMG as outside auditor.

The KPMG signed audit report in the 2006 Annual Report of the U.S. Mint takes full responsibility for auditing the balance sheets and includes a statement of the custodial activity of U.S. gold reserves.

According to the balance sheets, custodial gold and silver reserves make up 90 percent of the U.S. Mint’s total assets.

Still, there is no specific statement in the U.S. Mint’s annual report or the KPMG audit report describing any KPMG involvement in a physical inspection of the gold reserves.

KPMG’s role as independent auditor for the U.S. Mint is also confirmed in the 2006 audit report prepared by the Office of Inspector General of the Treasury.

Dan Ginsburg, a KPMG spokesman, declined to provide any detail concerning his company’s audit procedures for the U.S. Mint, citing client confidentiality.

Greater force

Craig R. Smith, founder of Swiss America Trading Corp., said he accepts the GATA arguments because “there has to be a force greater than normal market conditions that has repressed the price of gold.”

Smith noted any number of financial crises since the late 1980s that “should have propelled gold way beyond the 1980 high of $850,” including the savings and loan debacle and the birth of the Resolution Trust Corporation, as well as the on-going devaluation of the U.S. dollar against virtually all major foreign currencies.

“Gold has been playing catch-up with current world economic conditions, and future movements should easily prove gold to be a great value at $900 an ounce. That price will look cheap going forward as the world starts to turn its back on debt-laden currencies and returns to money with a real value.”

But the U.S. Treasury, in a statement on its website, denies the Exchange Stabilization Fund has been used to manipulate gold prices.

“The ESF does not engage in any transactions in the market for any metal such as gold, either in spot markets or in any of its derivative forms,” the Treasury statement declares. “We would like to emphasize that the Treasury Department does not seek to manipulate the price of gold or any other metal by intervening in or otherwise interfering with the market.”

Yvanka Wallner, advertising sales representative for the Wall Street Journal in New York City, said the GATA ad has been approved by the Journal’s lawyers and is being prepared to be run next week.

Gold yesterday closed at an all-time high of $911 an ounce, up $28, on a weaker dollar and higher oil prices.

via//NowPublic

Fox News is in for a very rough 2008

by Eric Boehlert

My guess is that Fox News guru Roger Ailes has been reaching for the Tums more often than usual early in the New Year, and there are lots of reasons for the hovering angst.

Let’s take an extended multiple choice quiz. Right now, which of the following topics is likely causing the discomfort inside Ailes’ Fox News empire?

A) CNN’s resurgence as the go-to cable destination for election coverage.
B) The incredible shrinking candidacy of Fox News’ favored son, Rudy Giuliani.
C) The still-standing candidacy of Fox News nemesis and well-funded, anti-war GOP candidate Rep. Ron Paul.
D) The Democratic candidates’ blanket refusal to debate on Fox News during the primary season.
E) Host Bill O’Reilly being so desperate for an interview from a Democratic contender that he had to schlep all the way to New Hampshire, where he shoved an aide to Sen. Barack Obama and then had to be calmed down by Secret Service agents.
F) Former Fox News architect and Ailes confidante Dan Cooper posting chapters from his a wildly unflattering tell-all book about his old boss. (“The best thing that ever happened to Roger Ailes was 9/11.”)
G) The fledgling Fox Business Network, whose anemic ratings are in danger of being surpassed by some large city public access channels.
H) Host John Gibson’s recent heartless attacks on actor Heath Ledger, just hours after the young actor was found dead.
I) Fox News reporter Major Garrett botching his “exclusive” that Paul Begala and James Carville were going to join Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign, and then refusing to correct the record.

I’d say it’s A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. (I doubt Gibson’s grave-dancing or Garrett’s whopper caused Ailes a moment’s concern.)

Bottom line is that Fox News is in for a very rough 2008. And the umbrella reason for that is quite simple: Eight years ago the all-news cable channel went all-in on the presidency of George Bush and became a broadcast partner with the White House. Proof of that was on display Sunday night, January 27, during Fox News’ prime-time, “Fighting to the Finish,” an “historic documentary” on the final year of Bush’s presidency. Filmed in HD and featuring “unprecedented access,” according to the Fox News press release, the show was pure propaganda. (I must have missed Fox News’ “Fighting to the Finish” special back in 2000, chronicling the conclusion of President Bill Clinton’s second term and his “extraordinarily consequential tenure.”)

The point is that Fox News years ago made an obvious decision to appeal almost exclusively to Republican viewers. The good news then for Fox News was that it succeeded. The bad news now for Fox News is that it succeeded.

Meaning, when the GOP catches a cold, everybody at Fox News gets sick. As blogger Logan Murphy put it at Crooks and Liars, “Watching FOXNews getting their comeuppance has been fun to watch. They made their bed, now they’re having to lie in it and it’s not too comfortable.”

The most obvious signs of Fox News’ downturn have been the cable ratings for the big primary and caucus votes this year, as well as the high-profile debates. With this election season generating unprecedented voter and viewer interest, Fox News’ rating bumps to date have remained underwhelming, to say the least.

For instance, on the night of the big New Hampshire primary, CNN, which habitually trails behind Fox News in the prime-time race, attracted nearly 250,000 more viewers than its top competitor, marking a changing-of-the-guard of sorts.

The turnaround was striking when you consider that in 2004, even with no Republicans running against Bush, Fox News was still able to draw 200,000 more viewers than CNN on the night of the New Hampshire Democratic primary. Yet in 2008, with a very competitive GOP field, CNN was the ratings winner from New Hampshire.

And just look at the ratings for January 19, which featured returns from the Nevada caucus coming in during the late afternoon, and then fresh returns from the South Carolina Republican primary being posted during prime time that night. In the past, Fox News would have absolutely owned that night of coverage, as conservative news junkies flocked to their home team — Fox News — to see the results. But no more. CNN grabbed nearly just as many prime-time viewers for the Republican South Carolina returns as did Fox News.

The problem for Fox News is that it’s the Democratic race that’s creating most of the excitement, yet Fox News has been forced to mostly watch the race from the sidelines. That’s because last winter, after Fox News tried to smear Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) for purportedly attending a radical Muslim school as a child, liberal bloggers launched an initiative to get Democratic candidates to boycott a debate co-sponsored by Fox News and the Nevada Democratic Party. (The boycott, powered by Foxattacks.com, was later extended to any and all Fox News debates.)

The point of the online crusade was not to simply embarrass Fox News or rattle Nevada Democrats for being out of touch with the grassroots masses that distrusted and despised Fox News. The point, instead, was to begin chipping away, in a serious, consistent method, at Fox News’ reputation. To spell out that Fox News was nothing more than a Republican mouthpiece and that Democrats need not engage with the News Corp. giant.

The lack of Democratic debates for Fox News has meant a huge setback for the news organization from a ratings perspective. Just look at the grand slam CNN hit last week when, on January 21, it broadcast the much-talked-about Democratic debate from South Carolina. The CNN event not only creamed Fox News in the ratings, nearly tripling its audience that night, but the debate set a new cable news mark for the most viewers ever to watch a primary debate.

In fact, of the 10 most-watched debates this election season, Fox has aired just two, compared to CNN’s five. Of the 10 most-watched debates, six have featured Democrats; four Republicans.

CNN is virtually guaranteed another monster ratings win this week with a pair of high-profile debates staged in California — the Republicans on Wednesday night and Democrats on Thursday.

No wonder CNN’s so giddy these days. Here’s the spin CNN president Jonathan Klein put out following its New Hampshire ratings win: “There’s a freshness and exuberance to our coverage that the others just aren’t matching. … Fox almost seems downright despondent in their coverage.”

So I’m not the only one who feels like Fox News coverage, especially of the Republican field, often feels like a televised wake. Or maybe that’s just been Fox News’ collective, subconscious mourning of the Giuliani campaign.

After all, Sean Hannity serves as Fox News’ official ambassador to the Giuliani campaign; a campaign that Ailes and Fox News were hoping to ride back into the White House. Yet despite showering Giuliani with all kinds of laudatory coverage, both Hannity and Ailes have been powerless, as they’ve watched Giuliani’s rudderless campaign go nowhere for months.

Even an all-out Fox News marketing blitz to label Giuliani “America’s Mayor” never got traction. In fact, it ranked right up there with the launch of New Coke, in terms of branding success. (Watch this clip to see the Fox News absurdity up-close.)

In the meantime, the rise of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and especially Mike Huckabee, with his populist streak, has caused all sorts of consternation at Fox News. Even the conservative Weekly Standard took notice. The magazine recently wrote that “A lot of conservatives have problems with both Huckabee and McCain. Last night on Fox, for example, Sean Hannity could barely conceal his distaste for both pols.”

And don’t even mention Ron Paul’s name to the folks at Fox News, who have stepped outside their role as journalists to try to kneecap the anti-war GOP candidate. The most blatant slap came right before the New Hampshire primary, when Fox News refused to include Paul in a televised GOP debate, despite the fact that just days earlier Paul grabbed 10 percent of the vote in the Iowa caucus, nearly doubling the tally Giuliani posted.

Paul’s Republican supporters became so incensed by the snub that they literally chased Sean Hannity through the New Hampshire night chanting “Fox News sucks!” and captured the scene in a homemade clip that really has to be seen to be believed. (To recap New Hampshire for Fox News: Hannity was pursued by a Republican mob, O’Reilly got into a shoving match with an Obama aide, and CNN grabbed more viewers. Now that’s a week to remember!)

Oh, and we can’t forget the wildly hyped launch of the Fox Business Network, which, News Corp. execs bragged, would dethrone longtime cable business news champ CNBC. Of course, that might happen one day. But the early ratings for Fox Business Network have been unbelievably weak.

After two months on the air, Fox Business Network, available in 30 million homes, was attracting, on average, just 6,300 viewers on any given weekday, according to Nielsen Media Research. That was good for a nearly invisible .05 rating. (By comparison, CNBC during that period was attracting 265,000 viewers.)

Making matters worse for Ailes was the fact that on January 22, as fears mounted about a possible global financial crisis, CNBC posted its best ratings in seven years, attracting 401,000 viewers that day.

The hurdle for Fox Business Network has always been simple: Why would investors and day traders in search of reliable business information turn from CNBC over to the Fox brand, which is so well-known for passing along one-sided information? News Corp. always assumed Fox News would help launch the business channel. But Fox News is taken seriously by so few people, it may be hurting the business launch.

After all, Fox News continues to embarrass itself with a type of journalism that nobody else in the industry would dare call professional. And for proof of that look no further than Major Garrett, who is supposed to be one of the channel’s nonpartisan, serious journalists. He landed a recent scoop about how former advisers to Bill Clinton, Paul Begala and James Carville, were getting set to join Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Carville immediately shot the story down, telling Talking Points Memo’s Greg Sargent that very same day, “Fox was, is and will continue to be an asinine and ignorant network. I have not spoken to anyone in the Clinton campaign about this. I’m not getting back into domestic political consulting.”

Begala did Carville one better and directly emailed Garrett to deny the story — a story Garrett never bothered trying to check with Begala or Carville before it was broadcast. Garrett’s response to Begala’s blanket denial? Garrett told the Democratic operative that he would take his denial “under advisement.” [Emphasis added.]

Garrett then went back on the air and repeated the same story, and added the fact that Begala had been on a conference call the day before with Clinton advisers, which was also false. And no, despite his earlier email exchange with Begala, Garrett never bothered to try to confirm the conference call story with him before reporting it on Fox News.

On his Fox News blog, Garrett did acknowledge the Begala email and claimed he’d be updating the fast-moving story soon — which, he told readers, would likely be confirmed the next day when the Clinton campaign made the Begala/Carville announcement. But the next day when the story imploded, Garrett simply ignored the embarrassing gaffe.

Recounting the whole Kafka-esque charade at the Huffington Post, Begala wrote, “I’ve never had a more surrealistic day. If this is what one of Fox’s best and most respected reporters is doing, what are the hacks up to?”

They’re watching CNN capture the campaign ratings crown.

UPDATE: Fresh Nielsen numbers show Fox News’ ratings woes continued over the weekend. During Saturday night’s 8-10 p.m. ET coverage of the Democrats’ South Carolina primary results, Fox News not only got trounced by CNN among viewers 25-54, but lost to MSNBC as well.

via//Media Matters

Edwards exits the race: What went wrong

John Edwards proved a powerful advocate for a strain of economic populism whose resurgent power he sensed before his rivals, and whose policy framework he helped establish.

But Edwards’ decision to leave the race Wednesday was a mark of the fact that despite a pitch-perfect political performance, and despite a declaration that he was engaged in the “cause of my life,” he never quite sold himself to voters.

Edwards’ insistence on his own authenticity was at the center of his political appeal.

He cast every policy stance, every political move, as flowing straight from his heart and his childhood in a South Carolina mill town.

Edwards said that on the way to announce the suspension of his campaign in the same hurricane-ravaged section of New Orleans where he began it more than a year ago, he stopped to talk with homeless men and women living under a nearby bridge.

One of them, he said, asked him to never forget them or their plight.

“Well, I say to her and I say to all those who are struggling in this country, we will never forget you. We will fight for you. We will stand up for you.”

That pitch — of a campaign as a moral crusade born deeply out of personal experience — also offered a choice more stark, and fraught with more potential peril, than most politicians pose to the electorate: Either Edwards was speaking from his heart or he was faking it.

With Edwards, there was no wink, no middle ground, even when it came to tactical shifts like a decision to accept public campaign financing.

That tension was a source of accusations of inauthenticity from his rivals and the press.

And his record as a moderate, one-term senator — voting for the war in Iraq and for trade with China — proved an albatross he could never quite shake in a contest against better-known, and better-funded, rivals.

Aides and Edwards himself said the symbolism of returning to New Orleans to leave the race was no accident.

“This journey of ours began right here … and we will continue to come back. We will never forget the heartache and we will always be here to help,” Edwards said.

“He’s trying to send a signal to the other candidates that he hopes that this issue will continue to be something that the two of them will carry on, that he will be committed to,” said Jennifer Palmieri, an Edwards adviser.

His departure, however, raises a pair of immediate political questions: What will Edwards do? And what will his supporters do?

Edwards did not immediately endorse either of his rivals and said both had told him that they would make the goal of ending poverty “central” to their campaigns and presidencies if elected.

Edwards signaled repeatedly this year that he felt himself closer to Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

Obama “believes deeply in change, and I believe deeply in change,” the former North Carolina senator said at a debate in Manchester, N.H., earlier this month, where he associated Hillary Rodham Clinton, by contrast, with the “status quo.”

And Obama made his bid for Edwards’ endorsement in a statement today.

“John Edwards has spent a lifetime fighting to give voice to the voiceless and hope to the struggling, even when it wasn’t popular to do or covered in the news,” Obama said in a statement, echoing Edwards’ campaign themes and his resentment of meager press coverage.

“While his campaign may end today, the cause of their lives endures for all of us who still believe that we can achieve that dream of one America.”

A spokesman for Obama, Bill Burton, declined to comment on printed speculation that Edwards could parlay his endorsement for the post of attorney general in an Obama administration.

Clinton also lavished her former rival in praise, and signaled that she’d seek his support.

“John Edwards ended his campaign today in the same way he started it — by standing with the people who are too often left behind and nearly always left out of our national debate,” Clinton said in a statement.

“I wish John and Elizabeth all the best. They have my great personal respect and gratitude. And I know they will continue to fight passionately for the country and the people they love so deeply.”

But while his support could offer a boost to either candidate, it remains unclear how many votes he can bring along. Edwards never emerged as the leader of a movement.

He was the favorite of a demographic group — working-class white men — from which he himself had risen, and with which both Clinton and Obama seemed to struggle at times to connect.

Speculation immediately focused on whether those voters had already considered and rejected Clinton — or whether they, like many of their wives and sisters, would tip her way instead of Obama’s once Edwards left the race.

Edwards’ main legacy in the race may be in Democratic policy circles, where he’s seen as pulling uncertain, centrist front-runners toward the party’s “progressive” wing on issues beginning with a press for withdrawal from Iraq and ending with universal health care.

“Edwards’ biggest problem may have been that he was too compelling — so compelling that his rivals effectively adopted his agenda,” health care policy journalist Jonathan Cohn wrote in The New Republic Wednesday morning.

“Pundits frequently criticized Edwards for his unabashed populism, and it’s true, his rhetoric was the most openly confrontational of the three leading Democrats. But in terms of what the three were actually proposing to do, the agendas were virtually identical — not to mention widely popular, if the polls are to be believed. We’re all populists now.”

via//Politico

[VIDEO] Guiliani: ‘Tamper proof ID’ to get online?

During the MSNBC Florida debate Rudy Guiliani declared:

“We should develop a tamper proof ID card”

“and if you got the tamper proof ID card, then you’d be allowed to work, pay taxes, get online, become a citizen, follow the rules….”