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3 Journalists Freed By Iran

2009-11-08T02:10:03Z

TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian authorities have released three journalists who were among more than 100 people arrested during pro-government and opposition street demonstrations this week, the country's official news agency reported.

One of the reporters, Farhad Pouladi, is an Iranian who works for Agence France-Presse. The other two are foreign reporters, but the report by the IRNA news agency did not identify them or say for whom they work.

Police detained 109 people during the rallies this week, IRNA said. Sixty-two of them were handed over to judicial authorities for trial on charges of disturbing public order and the rest were released after questioning, said security spokesman Azizollah Rajabzadeh, according to the news report.

Iranian security forces beat anti-government protesters with batons Wednesday on the sidelines of state-sanctioned rallies to mark the 30th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy takeover. The counter-demonstrations were the opposition's first major show of force on Tehran's streets in nearly two months.

The protests showed the determination of Iran's opposition to reassert its voice. But the latest marches drew far fewer demonstrators than in the weeks after the disputed June 12 presidential election, suggesting the relentless pressure by authorities could be taking a toll.

The protesters believe Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's victory over a pro-reform candidate was rigged.

The IRNA report said the three journalists released Saturday had been taken into custody Wednesday as they headed to cover the rallies outside the former U.S. Embassy.

Iran has imposed wide-ranging restrictions on media that include bans on firsthand reporting of street demonstrations and other events not authorized by authorities.

IRNA said two political activists jailed over the country's postelection turmoil, Ali Tajernia and Ebrahim Amini, have also been released on bail pending a verdict in their trial.

More than a 100 political activists and protesters have stood trial since August on charges of seeking to topple the ruling system through what the government has described as a "velvet revolution."

Rosie O'Donnell Says "Fuck" On Jimmy Fallon Show, Calls Glenn Beck "Carnival Barker" (VIDEO)

2009-11-07T23:30:03Z

Rosie O'Donnell was a guest on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon Friday night. The comedian and former talk show host weighed in on Fox News "carnival barker" Glenn Beck and dropped a the f-bomb when she talked about her new show on Sirius XM radio.

Rosie On Glenn Beck:
O'DONNELL: Yeah, it's not ever going to be me and Glenn Beck.
[ Laughter ]
FALLON: It won't be.
O'DONNELL: No.
FALLON: Crying hysterically. No.
O'DONNELL: No. [ Crying sounds ] "Obama is ruining everything. I want drugs. Be afraid, America, we're in trouble."
[ light laughter ]
FALLON: You don't want to hear that everyday now.
O'DONNELL: I don't understand why people enjoy that carnival barker. I don't get it.
[ Laughter ] He's a scary man to me.

WATCH:

O'Donnell used a few choice words as she recounted an exchange with a new employee, saying "shit" twice. At the end her story, Fallon reminded O'Donnell about the swearing and she turned to the audience and said "fuck." None of the swear words made it on air. The were beeped out. It's also worth noting that Fallon's network show doesn't go on air until 12:35 a.m.

WATCH:

Karl Frisch: The Right-Wing Media's Election Analysis Just Ain't That Good

2009-11-07T22:10:21Z

Back in 2001, conservative media figures were adamant. Democratic Party victories at the ballot boxes during the off-year elections had little national significance.

Fox News contributor Dick Morris said at the time, "[I]f you have a Republican president, people are going to vote Democrat, and if you have a Democrat president, they're going to vote Republicans." Proffering further spin of the GOP losses, Fox News contributor Mort Kondracke said, "We have no way of knowing" how the 2001 outcome would affect the 2002 midterms, a sentiment echoed by conservative writer Michael Barone, who declared on CNN, "I don't think that the issues and personalities" in the Virginia and New Jersey races "are going to be congruent with very many" races in 2002 or 2004. Then there was Laura Ingraham on Fox News' Hannity & Colmes noting that "[b]oth sides are going to spin this," before offering her own spin: "[T]o call this some kind of watershed moment against Republican views is nonsense."

For anyone watching Fox News in the weeks leading up to this year's off-year election, it should have been apparent what was afoot on the conservative network.

In the two weeks leading up to their November 3 elections, Conservative Party congressional candidate Doug Hoffman (NY-23), New Jersey Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie, and Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell appeared on Fox News and its personalities' radio shows at least 16 times for live interviews lasting a total of 114 minutes and 36 seconds.

As leading Republican politicians and activists celebrated Fox News' role in pushing just the right message and helping their electoral chances, two Fox News employees spent time fundraising and recruiting volunteers in support of GOP-backed candidates. Fox News host Mike Huckabee used network airtime to collect email addresses for his PAC, which in turn used the addresses to recruit volunteers for GOP candidates on Tuesday's ballot, including McDonnell and Hoffman. Meanwhile, Fox News contributor Karl Rove was shilling for the Republican Governors' Association to help Christie's bid in New Jersey. All the while, Fox continued to feature his spin of that same election.

So, Fox News gave Republican candidates a huge platform to communicate with conservative activists and voters while Fox News employees recruited volunteers and raised money for them.

What else did Fox need to check off the list before Election Day? How about telling people how to vote and pre-spinning Democratic Party losses before a single ballot had been counted? Check.

One Fox News graphic actually stated that if the GOP were to win the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey -- races with no direct influence over congressional efforts to reform health care -- it would mean "no gov't-run option" in health care reform.

Sean Hannity, Fox News' apparent GOP get-out-the-vote captain, went all out advising his radio listeners how to cast their votes, telling one caller to his radio show, "Don't forget -- go vote for Christie tomorrow in New Jersey. All right?" and his New Jersey audience in general, "get to the polls" and "stop Obama-care in its tracks." On his Fox News program, Hannity told Hoffman, "I hope I'm on the air this time tomorrow night and I'll be able to declare you the winner." Marching to Hannity's tune, CNN's Lou Dobbs declared Hoffman was "change [he] can believe in" while Fox News' Bill O'Reilly piled on predicting a Hoffman win.

But what if -- right-wing media fear of fears! -- Democrats were to pull off a victory in New Jersey? Well, there'd be just one thing to explain it -- cue the ominous music -- Voter Fraud.

Rush Limbaugh warned his audience that "fraudsters" at ACORN, SEIU, and the New Black Panthers would try to affect elections on Tuesday and that "tomorrow's going to be a dry run for Democrat mischief and malfeasance, getting ready for 2010 and 2012." Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com took the bait, baselessly -- and predictably -- accusing progressives of trying to "steal" the New Jersey governor's seat. As did Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund who fabricated evidence of voter fraud in New Jersey and anonymously sourced voter fraud innuendo. Completing the circle, Limbaugh echoed Fund's baseless accusation warning of an "ACORN factor" and a "vote fraud factor."

Fox News hosts and political analysts capped off Election Day celebrating and shilling for conservative and GOP candidates. When the dust settled, Republicans had won the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial contests while Democrats had won the open New York congressional seat -- a seat targeted by tea-partiers and not held by a Democrat in nearly 150 years.

While Fox News' Brit Hume acknowledged that "Barack Obama was not a central issue" in New Jersey -- exit polls decisively showed he wasn't an issue in any of the targeted races -- others in the conservative media were blind to the readily available exit polls. Hume's Fox colleague O'Reilly said the New Jersey governor's race was a referendum on Obama. El Rushbo dismissed the exit polls entirely, saying the governors' races were all "about Obama" and that the election results show "[t]here is no question this is an anti-Obama vote."

Fox & Friends graphics described the election results as "shockwaves," "winds of change," a "Republican revival," and a "blueprint for success." In a truly odd attempt at spin, Fox News declared that the results meant "Obamacare" was dead, while its sister network, Fox Business, claimed the markets "like[d]" "Big GOP Wins In NJ & VA."

So, exit polls said Obama had nothing to do with Democratic losses in New Jersey and Virginia, where, incidentally, the GOP nominees downplayed their right-wing positions -- and this is good news for Republicans?

What about Hoffman, the unambiguously right-wing Conservative party candidate in New York who conservative media types spent weeks hyping? How would Fox News and company spin his loss of a seat, again, not held by a Democrat in far more than 100 years?

In an attempt to paint Democratic Party victor Owens as a conservative, thus explaining away his win in a historically GOP district, right-wing bloggers sought to highlight the "under-reported fact" that he "campaigned against the public option" even though Owens had expressed support for a public option since September.

Limbaugh blamed "party bosses and these big thinkers like Newt [Gingrich]," who "screwed the whole thing up," while leaping to the defense of Sarah Palin, who had championed Hoffman. Limbaugh asserted that Palin "is not damaged at all" by the loss of her candidate. And in an about-face only fitting for someone of Limbaugh's ego - err ... stature -- the conservative talker switched his stance on "moral" victories, which he'd lambasted Democrats for in 2006, declaring Hoffman had a "good showing."

So, yes, if one thing is clear after the 2009 off-year election, it's this: Conservative media figures haven't a clue when it comes to election analysis.

Oh and one last note on Tuesday's election, did you hear the nasty anti-Obama election night story that Fox News concocted out of thin air? The conservative cable outlet reported, remember this is not true, that President Obama watched an HBO documentary about himself, rather than following the election results. A story so grand -- gosh the president is such a narcissist! -- that the fact-challenged liberal media bias hunters at Newsbusters wet themselves over it before eventually conceding that Fox News had "misreported" the incident -- a nice way of saying "made it up."

I guess, in addition to the analysis, they haven't a clue when it comes to reporting either.

Karl Frisch is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog and research and information center based in Washington, D.C. Frisch also contributes to County Fair, a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the Web as well as original commentary. You can follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, or sign up to receive his columns by email.

David Colbert: Publishing's Next Big Thing and Its Next Big Headache, Part I

2009-11-07T20:39:43Z

A contractual problem threatens the ebook business of all the major publishers.

It begins with the next big thing in book publishing: advertising.

Have you used any free iPhone apps that generate revenue for their creators by running small ads above or below the apps' primary content?

Have you seen photos of the Barnes & Noble Nook ereader, with its second, independent display that's capable of showing advertisements?

A reader spends a lot of time with a book. Ads will have time to sink in. That makes the medium valuable. Google isn't getting into the book business for charity.

But before book publishers can enjoy ad revenue, they need to solve a big problem:

Most modern publishing contracts state that publishers may not sell advertising with their books.

That restriction appeared in the early 1970s, when cigarette companies started an intense program of buying insert ads in paperbacks. (Lorillard Tobacco, which may have been the first, began its program in August 1971 with 12 million inserts spread over 156 titles.)

Authors objected. In time, advertising restrictions became standard clauses in publishing contracts.

Publishers who stick to that promise will have to walk away from revenue. They might have to limit the platforms and apps they support. They'd certainly lose sales to ebooks that are supported by advertising. Those other books will be priced low or given away to attract more readers for the advertiser.

Publishers and authors will have to negotiate a solution.

That may not work well for the publishers. With a reputable publisher, the author's worst-case split of subsidiary rights is fifty-fifty. Contracts that allow advertising usually mention that figure.

That's less profitable for a publisher than the current revenue split of ebook revenue, which is closer to 75/25 in the publisher's favor.

Worse for publishers, a fifty-fifty split will be a dream when they sit with the agents of their top authors. Publishers will have to offer better, or they can forget about new books from those authors.

No matter the final split, this will be a big headache for some publishers.

And there's a kicker.

It's possible that no matter what deal is struck, some publishers won't be able to hold up their end of it.

The reason for that, and the possible consequences for some of the larger publishers, is coming in Part II.

Geoffrey Dunn: Palin Usurped "Concession" Speech

2009-11-07T20:22:24Z

In their new book Sarah From Alaska, Shushannah Walshe and Scott Conroy have provided drafts of two versions of a speech that vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin was to have delivered on Election Night 2008 in Phoenix--if only John McCain and his top brass, including Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter, had allowed her to do so.

Headlines reporting the story in the Los Angeles Times declared "Sarah Palin's Speeches Were Ready but Never Seen -- Until Now," while ABC posted its story as "Sarah Palin's Never-Heard Concession, Victory Speeches."

While Palin did not deliver her concession speech on election night, she did, in fact, deliver most of it, nearly verbatim, only eight days later at a meeting of the Republican Governors Association on November 13 in Miami, Florida.

Here are two examples:

Concession: My fellow Americans, tens of millions of you shared our convictions and gave us your votes. And I thank you for your confidence. For us, it was not our time ... not our moment. But it is our country ... the winner will be our president ... and I wish Barack Obama well as the 44th president of the United States.

RGA: Tens of millions of Americans shared our convictions and they gave us their votes. ... But for us, it was not our time. It was not our moment. But it is our country. And the winner will be our President. And I wish Barack Obama well as the 44th President of the United States.

***

Concession: I will remember all the young girls who came up to me to our rallies, sometimes taking off from school, just to see only the second woman ever nominated by a major party in a national election.

RGA: For years to come, I'm going to remember all the young girls who came up to me at rallies to see the first woman having the privilege of carrying our party's VP nomination.

Walshe and Conroy spin a fascinating account how Palin's concession speech, crafted by former Bush speechwriter Matthew Scully and his associate Lindsay Hayes, became a final skirmish in what had become an ugly and open civil war between the McCain and Palin camps during the GOP campaign. It got so bad, according to Walshe and Conroy, that Schmidt ordered the lights be turned off on Palin, fearing that she would still try to deliver the speech and steal McCain's final dignity from him at the close of the campaign.

Palin clearly built her remarks at the RGA around those crafted by Scully and Hayes, whose salaries as speechwriters were paid for by the Committee to Elect John McCain. Virtually every thought or phrase in the Scully-Hayes concession speech made their way into Palin's RGA remarks. While Scully acknowledged that he was aware of their use, Palin did not notify McCain's top senior advisors that she was going to be hijacking these remarks at the RGA (one told me that he was completely unaware), even though they had been paid for by the campaign.

While Palin made a number of small changes to the original concession speech and added many additional comments to her RGA remarks, there was one significant change that she made in the eight days after they were crafted. The original read:

And when a black citizen prepares to fill the office of Washington and Lincoln, that is a shining moment in our history that can be lost on no one.

In Miami she removed what, in the original context, was a rather awkwardly constructed, if not disturbing, racialized reference to Obama, to:

And as he prepares to fill the office of Washington and Lincoln, know that this is a shining moment in American history.

Few people beyond Scully probably were aware that Palin had incorporated the remarks into the RGA speech. "[Palin] was so polarizing," Walshe and Conroy conclude in what is an otherwise surprisingly empathetic portrait of Palin, "that she inspired a civil war within her own campaign during the final days before the election."

Award-winning writer and filmmaker Geoffrey Dunn's book The Lies of Sarah Palin: The Untold Story Behind Her Relentless Quest for Power will be released by St. Martin's Press in spring 2010.

Stephen Viscusi: Unemployment Numbers Worsen; Next Year's Numbers Will Be Even Worse

2009-11-07T19:26:48Z

Economists tell us that the recession may soon be ending. "Recession" is an economic term. The "NY Times" tells us "if statistics went back as far,(unemployment) the measure would almost certainly be at the highest level since the Great Depression....In all, one out of every six workers--17.5 percent were unemployed, or underemployed in October.

As a HarperCollins and Random House author and Jobconomist, I am predicting right now--next year 2010--will only be worse!

Who am I? The star of the upcoming TV series "The Headhunter From Hell" and I am the author of the HarperCollins global bestseller "Bulletproof Your Job".

The world has changed, as have government programs. Most lost jobs will NEVER be back. What were then bread lines in 1929 are not, people applying for food stamps cards. People, who once had an Amex card, now have what looks like an Amex credit card, but people can use to buy groceries. What were "food stamps" are now food cards. In some states, you can even use these cards at COSTCO.

We have all seen old newsreels of news stories, of people jumping out of windows, as they lost their family fortunes, mostly all on paper. Banks collapsed, and were closed. People were depressed and in despair. We are told suicide, seemed the only way out for so many. The same applies today for those who have been unemployed and underemployed for long periods of time. People write about the tormented guilt the feel about being of of work. The only thing worse then being unemployed today, is to be the spouse or partner, of a person unemployed (worse if that other person is working). You feel helpless, yet you want to put on a good face. It is torture, I am told. Thousands write me each day for workplace advice (Stephen@viscusi.com). I tell them how to keep the job they have at all cost, I give them unconventional secrets on not giving up hope and how to find the new job--and even how to create a resume, that will get them a interview (www.bulletproofyourresume.com). Then, I tell them something unconventional-- "Pray". Belive it or not, very few, ever are offended. The power of Prayer, can and does work in the job work.

I cannot help but feel, from the e-mails and letters I get from my viewers and readers that, the suicides of 1929, from bank collapse and stock market collapse, will now be copy-catted-- to suicides of people, who can no longer find work, in 2009 and 2010-- Men and woman, but mostly white men over 50 who can no longer find work. Worse, for them, because everyone will be talking about the "changing economic news for 2010", and the stock market will rise, and -so, if you are currently unemployed, with all this positive economic news, you understandably will feel bewildered, depressed, stressed., that if things are getting good again--how come you can't find a job?

I dare say the yammering of the money talking heads, like Jim Cramer "Mad Money", and Suze Orman, who will be in glee over the fact that they are semi "relevant" again. These money talking heads will keep their jobs, even though you will not be getting yours back. Let me be the first to say, I could not write a book on how to tell how to invest your 401K, anymore, than I would expect, a money talking head or author, could tell you how to save your job or find a new one.

For the very first time, people who had always held "good jobs" - cannot get back to work. Men tell me they are emasculated, and the women tell me, they feel, whatever the reverse of that is.
What is left for these people? My viewers and readers tell me they cannot pay their mortgage or rent--maybe then cannot pay child support. Therapy, Prozac - all that stuff, often does not help. Time will tell if my terrible and sad prediction about these "unemployment" related suicides in 2009 and 2010--is correct.

Much like it takes the economist, a year to tell us when a recession ends or starts - when the statistics, of suicides, of those unemployed - when they are statically studied years later, we will learn that there were more suicides in 009 and 2010, from distressed unemployed people.
So, in spite of the fact that the stock market may raise in 2010, jobs will not. Barely a hiccup of growth in jobs. Nothing.

"Jobconomist." A new word I invented that describes, an employment expert, whose experience, based on history, and changing technology. One needs not be a genius, one just needs to be a realist, understand people, business, and follow patterns of the past. Jobconomist--are mostly intuitive-- or maybe "counter-intuitive" is a better word.

I am predicting as a "Jobconomist," that very few new jobs will be created in 2010. At least another 14 months of, unemployment for those of you who are unemployed? If you are lucky enough to have a job, the thousands of people that have read my latest book, "Bulletproof Your Job" (HarperCollins) - tell me, that in this book, I give realistic techniques and strategies on how you can still be "the last employee standing." The book is published in 9 languages. My first book is called "On the Job" (Random House).

Now do not kill the messenger---or yourself, but I know I am right.

The rising stock market, changing political climate and talking heads, babbling over money, and politics, will distract you next year, from realizing that, the fact our economic recession may be ending--but the dire job climate, lack of growth, will remain.

So keep sending me your resumes and letters. Visit my own website www.bulletproofyourresume.com

Mostly know, that things will get worse before they get better, and after you finish reading this column, with me: Close your eyes, take just a moment to "Pray". Pray for fr the job you have if you have one, pray to find one if you are looking and pray for your friends family and even strangers. Take a deep breath. You are not alone. Times will get better. You will find work, I promise you.

Stephen Viscusi is the author of the HarperColins book "Bulletproof Your Job" Available in 9 languages. He is a world renowned Jobconomist. He is the founder of www.bulletproofyourjob.com a career consulting and resume service. He is the host of the up comiing network TV series "The Head-Hunter From Hell".
He welcomes letters and questions about the workplace and jobs to "Huffington Post" readers and will answer your questions, in this BLOG column.
Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Linken

Stephen@viscusi.com

Made be duplicated or quoted without permision as long as your credit author.

Bill Lichtenstein: More Irony in Ft. Hood Tragedy: Hasan on Mental Health Panel with Army's "Top Psychiatrist"

2009-11-07T18:11:57Z

In yet another twist of irony, in a case already replete with it, Maj. Nidal Hasan, 39, the alleged gunman in the November 5th Fort Hood shootings, served as the co-chair of a panel which examined “Medical Issues for Psychiatrists in Disasters” at the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) annual conference held this past May in San Francisco.

Among the other experts on the panel was Col. Elspeth Ritchie, M.D., M.P.H., a Harvard-trained psychiatrist who is widely referred to as the “Army’s top psychiatrist,” in her role as the Medical Director at the Strategic Communication Directorate Office of the Army Surgeon General.

Dr. Hasan’s role as co-chair of the panel would indicate that he was better known professionally, and more highly regarded in his field of disaster psychiatry, than has been previously reported. The annual APA conference is attended by nearly 20,000 psychiatrists and mental health professionals from around the world, and is a premiere venue for the discussion of new research and best practice treatments in psychiatry.

According to the APA, Hasan’s conference panel focused on the role of psychiatrists when treating patients in disaster settings, including how psychiatrists should be integrated into the general healthcare response teams in a disaster.

Among the issues covered by the panel, according to the program summary, was that during a disaster, “Psychiatrists will be asked to provide psychiatric care for those with and without medical illness and, at times, may even be needed to attend directly to the medical needs of this vulnerable population. As such, it is essential that psychiatrists are aware of the most commonly encountered medical issues in the disaster setting, such as wounds . . .”

According to the APA, the other presenters on the panel were co-chair Mark Viron, MD, a clinician affiliated with the outpatient psychiatry department at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston; Brooke Parish, M.D., a psychiatrist with disaster and forensic psychiatry training, and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University Of New Mexico; Catherine May, M.D., a Washington, DC. psychiatrist; and Col. Ritchie. None of the participants on the panel have responded to phone calls or emails by deadline.

It is not know role Dr. Hasan played in proposing the panel, writing the discussion summary or choosing the panelists. However, Hasan’s interactions with the other psychiatrists, trained in treating trauma, during the preparation and presentation of the panel less than six months before the shootings, may well provide additional insights into Hasan’s state of mind and his perspective prior to the tragedy.

Among the other experts on the panel was Col. Elspeth Ritchie, M.D., M.P.H., a Harvard-trained clinician who is widely referred to as the “Army’s top psychiatrist,” in her role as the Medical Director at the Strategic Communication Directorate Office of the Army Surgeon General.

According to the APA, Hasan’s conference panel focused on the role psychiatrists have in treating patients in disaster settings, including how psychiatrists should be integrated into the general healthcare response teams in a disaster.

Among the issues covered by the panel, according to the program summary, was that during a disaster:

“Psychiatrists will be asked to provide psychiatric care for those with and without medical illness and, at times, may even be needed to attend directly to the medical needs of this vulnerable population. As such, it is essential that psychiatrists are aware of the most commonly encountered medical issues in the disaster setting, such as wounds . . .”

According to the APA, the other presenters on the panel were co-chair Mark Viron, M.D., a clinician affiliated with the outpatient psychiatry department at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston; Brooke Parish, M.D., a psychiatrist with disaster and forensic psychiatry training, and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico; Catherine May, M.D., a Washington, DC. psychiatrist; and Col. Ritchie. None of the participants on the panel have responded to phone calls or emails by deadline.

It is not known what role Dr. Hasan played, as co-chair, in proposing the panel, framing the discussion, or selecting the panelists. However, Hasan’s interactions with the other psychiatrists on the panel, all of whom are trained in treating trauma, as they prepared for and participated in the discussion about trauma and disaster less than six months before the Fort Hood shootings, may well provide additional insights into Hasan’s state of mind and his perspective prior to the tragedy.

Georgianne Nienaber: The Campaign: The Audacity of Hope Did Not Die in Maine

2009-11-07T15:23:14Z

I am terrible at writing headlines, but in these times of Google searches and social networking, article tags and Twitter hashtags, headlines are important. "Hope springs eternal" won't cut it when referring to what happened in Maine last week regarding gay rights. The linkage of "audacity" and "hope" is a winner, especially since I was clever enough to work "campaign" into the tease. But The Campaign is not about Obama and not about Maine, either. It is about the dedication, hard work, patience, and tenacity of a young filmmaker, born and bred in Mississippi, who is fighting with every ounce of her heart and soul to complete a documentary about the heart-breaking battle against California's Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California. What happened in California was a clear harbinger of last week's repeal of Maine's law legalizing gay marriages by 53 percent to 47 percent.

One might argue that the defeat in Maine provided a psychological boost to activists in California who will most certainly put the issue squarely on the ballot in 2012. Read any analysis and the pollsters will say that it is the young who will support the issue of gay rights. The young voters did not turn out in an off-election year.

The Campaign tells the story of a lost battle, inspiring hope through the passionate work of those committed to re-energizing the fight for gay rights. Christie Herring captures the essence of this emotional journey, blending in-depth observational footage with interviews of stakeholders -- from Executive Committee Members to first-time volunteers. So far there is only the trailer, but the footage is all there, ready to be assembled. There is also the priceless talent of the filmmaker.

Image: Christie Herring © Scott Mansfield

Christie Herring is no stranger to the political process or social justice issues. Herring's first film, Waking in Mississippi, focuses on a controversial political race in her Mississippi hometown -- the 1994 election of the town's first black mayor which ended in the threat of a race riot. Today she is an award-winning independent documentary director. Her resume is impressive and includes PBS, National Geographic, MTV/LOGO, A&E, and the History Channel. Trying to get a documentary completed on the critical issues facing the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender communities isn't easy. But it is the unheralded individual, working from a sense of commitment to what is right, who can create a sea change.

It so often falls to the young to wage this fight.

Was it bigotry that defeated gay marriage in Maine and California, or was it ignorance? I can't judge, and the pundits from either side have no right to judge what was in the hearts of voters either. In the late seventies, when I was young and still hopeful, I was privileged to march with my gay brothers and sisters when the bigotry of Anita Bryant began to poison the political landscape of the country.

We had rocks thrown at us, and we were spit upon, but what hurt more was the absolute hatred in the eyes of Bryant's followers. Gays and their supporters were "evil," plain and simple. Gay marriage was not even in the lexicon in those days. Beauty queen Bryant preached an Old Testament activism and what stuck in her craw was a 1977 Miami-Dade County amendment to the local human rights ordinance making it illegal to discriminate in housing, loans, and employment based upon sexual preference. Her brand of hatred won, and the law was repealed. The following year, she supported the failed Briggs Initiative in California, which would have produced a witch-hunt against gay teachers or anyone who advocated a gay lifestyle.

So in some ways, one could argue that things are "better" now for the LGBT community, but Herring casts an unjaundiced eye upon what she terms the "the fault lines of religion, race, and sexual identity." She makes a good point. Have things really changed for the LGBT community except in the most superficial ways since 1977? I wonder. I study the trailer and am reminded of the pain we witnessed back in the days when the movement for true gay equality was in its infancy. One of the individuals featured in THE CAMPAIGN trailer speaks about how "personal" it is to hear people "yelling and screaming" about taking away the right to love--the most basic of human rights.

All Herring has is a trailer now, but it is an excellent, quality beginning, and given Herring's track record, there is a better than even chance the film will be made. Herring possesses her own brand of audacity, hope and generosity.

Over the last week, I have been full of emotion, thinking about what I was doing this time last year. On November 4, 2008, I was up at 3AM, after 90 minutes of glorious sleep, and I arrived at campaign headquarters at 4:15AM. I planned to film the headquarters before the lights came on at 5AM. To my surprise, the staff had arrived even earlier, unable to sleep in anticipation of Election Day. Twenty-three hours later, we were all still awake, holding onto hope that Prop 8 would not pass. I'm sharing THE CAMPAIGN trailer now as a reminder of that day and as a thank you to the campaign staffers, activists, and community members who put their hearts into this crucial work.

Image: San Francisco Impact Rally (2008) © Barry Perlman

Films like The Campaign require our attention and our support. Because young people dared to face the hatred of Anita Bryant and her supporters, progress was made. My daughter's generation considers gay rights to be a non-issue. If I have grandchildren, I have some hope that the world they enter will allow them to make the simple and profound choice to love whom they wish. Films like The Campaign will provide the historical blueprint and record of how the fight was waged, how battles were won--and lost.

Hope does spring eternal, but its future rests with the young, the dedicated and the openhearted. Hope also requires belief.

Tom Vander Ark: How Social Networking Will Transform Learning

2009-11-07T14:47:52Z

There are plenty of theories about how to improve education. Most focus on what appear to be big levers--a point of entry and system intervention that appears to provide some improvement leverage. These theories usually involve 'if-then' statements: 'if we improve this, then other good stuff will happen.' Leading theories focus on people, schools, policy and community. Nonprofit ecosystems develop around theories, they ebb and flow with foundation interest. Although seldom discussed, leading levers differ substantially in terms of risk and return.

People. Teach for America was an early leader in what is now commonly referred to as the Human Capital agenda in education. With increased federal and foundation attention, alternative certification programs have achieved some scale but still train a fraction of all teachers and leaders.
• Problem addressed: weak talent distribution
• Key assumption: teacher effectiveness is the key variable; more good teachers will improve student achievement
• Risk: low risk especially with proven recruiting and training programs
• Return: low leverage for teacher programs (one announced this week costs $70k/placement), moderate leverage for leadership, potential for sizable impact with sustained investment over time
• Example: Advance Innovative Education, New Leaders for New Schools, New Teacher Project

Schools. Charter schools are the leading representative of the view that 'good schools will improve the system.' Proponents usually add a dose of competition and choice to theories about scaled impact. While market share in 14 communities exceeds 20%, national market share of the burgeoning new school development sector serves less than 4% of US students.
• Problem addressed: obsolete school designs with restrictive rules
• Key assumption: good schools are sticky--once they develop a constituency, they'll be around for a while
• Risk: low risk especially with proven models and operators
• Return: low-moderate leverage (funders bet on moderate returns given optimistic assumptions about competition, scale, and diffusion)
• Examples: Achievement First, Aspire, Green Dot, KIPP

Policy. A growing number of think tanks and advocacy groups are attempting to nudge the Gordian knot of policy in a slightly more positive and coherent direction.
• Problem addressed: three-tiered mess of American education policy
• Key assumption: a smart investment in advocacy can yield big returns
• Risk: high risk of little or no progress, possible unintended consequences
• Return: high leverage if successful; opportunity to change the opportunity set for millions of students
• Example: EdTrust, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Equality Project, EdSector, ConnCAN

Community. A small number of diehards attempt to organize community support or community services for better schools.
• Problem addressed: underserved communities are disenfranchised
• Key assumption: organizing creates power for change (and/or schools can't do it alone)
• Risk: transitory support and high risk of bureaucratically thwarted efforts
• Return: moderate-high leverage if support can be built around key opportunities
• Example: Communities in Schools, Parent Revolution, PICO, Parent Organizing Consortium

You could add 'data' to the lever list, but given the wide recognition of its importance, better data is usually incorporated into strategies in each category. You could add 'systems' approaches but they are usually cobbled together bundles of these four--more community for the left-leaning foundations, more choice for the right.

One problem not addressed by these theories is the lack of innovation diffusion in education--a good idea won't cross the street. Weak improvement incentives and strong bureaucracy have created a lousy marketplace for products and ideas.

In other sectors, platforms have proven to be a big lever: iTunes for music, Wal-Mart for consumer goods, Windows for computers. Platforms combine a set of technologies--including some we didn't know we needed that instantly become indispensable--into a disruptive value engine.

I'm betting on social learning platforms as a lever for improvement at scale in education. Instead of a classroom as the primary organizing principle, social networks will become the primary building block of learning communities (both formal and informal). Smart recommendation engines will queue personalized content. Tutoring, training, and collaboration tools will be applications that run on social networks. New schools will be formed around these capabilities. Teachers in existing schools will adopt free tools yielding viral, bureaucracy-cutting productivity improvement.

In the coming decade, most middle and high schools will adopt some version of 1:1 technology, online learning will play an increasing role, and learning experiences will be conducted and coordinated on social learning platforms. While adoption won't be simple and smooth, it will cut through the typical barriers that block other reforms.

The platforms that get big will have a business model behind them. Foundations will contribute to niche platforms and apps, but the big platforms will be dot coms not dot orgs. There's no stopping it and that's the beauty of disruptive innovation.

Three Foreign Journalists Reported Detained In Iran

2009-11-07T02:06:12Z

Iranian officials arrested a Japanese and two Canadian reporters during anti-government demonstrations this week and charged them with "unauthorized reporting," the semiofficial Fars News Agency reported Friday.

Lapham's Quarterly: Perfecting the Paranoid Style in 500 BC and 2009

2009-11-06T23:28:35Z

Peter Struck is an associate professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Birth of the Symbol: Ancient Readers at the Limits of their Texts. Professor Stuck is a member of the Lapham's Quarterly editorial board.

From Buckley to Beck

Back in 1996, I had a correspondence with William F. Buckley, Jr., who, like many of those on the Right at the time, had a habit of claiming ownership over the ideas and spirit of the classical past. So it wasn't altogether surprising to see him on television aligning himself with Socrates and pressing for the triumph of absolutes over relativism. What did catch my ear was that Buckley was arguing in favor of the death penalty, and was using Socrates to make his case. I couldn't resist writing the man about the cruel irony of holding up as a poster boy for the death penalty the Western Tradition's most famous victim of it. Buckley responded promptly, but never really engaged the most challenging issue: that Socrates, the paragon of classical rationalism, was deeply suspicious of that other signature legacy of his countrymen, democracy. He saw it as a system of government whose weakness was precisely that it rewarded those who could most artfully whip up a bunch of hot-headed boobs with the power to kill whoever displeased them. At its worst, it was rule by mob.

Seeing the doughy face of Glenn Beck extending his tongue at me from the cover of Time magazine last month made me recall that previous generation of Right-wing dogmatists with a whiff of nostalgia. Buckley, Irving Kristol, and the rest had a comparative seriousness of purpose in their ideas. Their bluster and posturing had an intelligent wrapper to it and they surely appreciated the danger of crowds. Their most recent successor for the Fox News set revels in his theme of pitchforks and barricades. Beck's message, rooted in disenfranchisement and a quest for simple purity, bubbles out of him each evening in artfully arranged displays of resentment of the type that would make Huey Long and Richard Nixon envious.

In Slate, David Greenberg recently tried to set the angry Right into historical context by re-evaluating Douglas Hofstadter's essay "The Paranoid Style in American Politics," the famous 1960s attempt to get a grip on Goldwater followers and John Birch Society members. Greenberg was casting about for better answers as to why some Americans find such an angry politics appealing, but it seemed to me that after swimming through the froth around Beck in recent months, he had allowed Beck's appeal to become more mysterious than it really is. Nativism and resentment of privilege have an enduring attractiveness. Add a flair for the theatrical, and the truism that angry crowds have momentum, and you hardly need exotic explanations to reckon the appeal. This formula has been successful in many countries and times, and Buckley's spirit reminded me of the very remote past.

It Was Cleon Who Shouted the Loudest

The archetype for Glenn Beck is a fifth century B.C. Athenian figure named Cleon, our first well-documented populist. Cleon represented a new class, made possible for the first time in democratic Athens. The notion that the whole people of Athens should participate in decisions collectively allowed for the rise of figures who presumed to speak for them. Cleon became wildly famous and successful not by coming from a powerful family, or by serving in regular office, but by delivering fiery speeches to thousands of Athenians in public. The Greek sources leave behind an unsparing portrait of an impulsive, histrionic bully. Aristotle tells us that "he was the first to use unseemly shouting and abusive language in the public assembly; and while it was customary to speak politely, he addressed the assembly with his cloak lifted up." In Thucydides' version, Cleon's own lack of a pedigree provided him a plentiful source of resentment against those that had one, and he cast every self-aggrandizing gesture as a motivated by a love of the people over the aristocrats. He flattered his audience as being more capable of governing than the supposed experts in power. He personalized politics and under his influence those who disagreed with the state were referred to, for the first time in ancient Greece, as "haters of the people." The comic playwright Aristophanes vividly portrayed him on stage as a man in a constant state of anger, his voice resembling the squeal of a scalded pig.

Beck's One-Room Schoolhouse

Beck's signature piece is an essayistic rant, "The One Thing," a free-form monologue that can run to lengths that are the television equivalent of War and Peace. The title bespeaks his exasperation, as if after having delivered a long string of wisdom to a noncompliant elite, he wants to make sure they will at least understand this. It is theater for a world on the edge of collapse. His favorite device is a chalk board that he uses to simplify issues. The atmospherics welcome you to Beck's one-room schoolhouse-- simpler times, wholesome educations, homogeneous agrarian center of gravity.

In a recent week, Beck made the following points: his enemies hate him, but they also hated Benjamin Franklin. His enemies think he is stupid, and he isn't. His enemies think his audience is stupid, and they aren't. The only values that motivate him are simple curiosity and his love of country and the truth. Issues are not complicated. Bilingualism is the equivalent of slavery. Obama is committed to redistribution of wealth, so is Michael Moore, and so was mass-murdering dictator Joseph Stalin. The government is forcing people to get injections (health care workers getting swine flu vaccine), giving the rats in your basement lawyers (Cass Sunstein), and indoctrinating your children to love Obama. Democrats at the inauguration of President Obama littered; the crowds at the tea parties in Washington did not (this point occupied him for nearly six minutes).

But the most powerful rhetorical force was given to multiple reiterations of quotations from Rahm Emanuel that you never want a crisis to go to waste and Obama's statement on the eve of election that promises fundamental transformation. These last two may speak to you of the idea that the financial crisis offers a chance to fix Wall Street (which actually turns out not to have been taken); and the idea that after eight years of George Bush Americans were hungry for change. For Beck, these statements speak to a government systematically committed to removing individual liberty.

From Beck to Buckley

In the line from Cleon to Beck there is hardly a wiggle. Less obvious but telling is the connection between both these figures and Buckley. Driven by an unyielding sense of their own correctness, all three are experts in the trade of absolutes, always pressing toward a higher-contrast world of black and white. While it has become utterly common to see people in the public sphere assume such a posture, it does not stand to reason that they must. Among Republicans, for example, one used to see a strain based on intellectual modesty, of resistance to grand theories and attempts to explain everything. Eisenhower built a coalition around such principles that held up for decades. Obama may well be up to doing the same. In order to get on with fixing what it was possible to fix, they recognized the usefulness of an ability to live with a degree of uncertainty, a quality that Goldwater, and later George Bush and Karl Rove, vanquished from the Republican Party.

This Republicanism of certainty has had a good run, but it has likely reached the end of its appeal. David Brooks, whose sympathies attune with refinement to Eisenhower Republicanism, sounded its death knell in a recent column in the New York Times. If Beck's days as the center of attention are numbered, as Brooks claims they are, it will not be because of his coarseness or his rejectionism, but because of his imperviousness to doubt. Intellectual hubris is tiresome in any case, but it is an especially odd standard to use to rally people who understand themselves as conservatives. Certainties are what one needs to upend things, and at a some point conservatives grow uncomfortable with that sort of thing. Cleon, that ancient voice of certainty, was not among the conservative lot at all, but a radical through-and-through.

While Buckley was of course right to point to Socrates as someone who endorsed the idea that there are absolutes, he missed the most important part of the story. The Greek philosopher was equally convinced that only a fool and a demagogue would claim to know them. If only Buckley were around to teach this lesson too.

MSNBC's Shuster Assails GOP Leadership's Embrace Of Right-Wing Scare Tactics, Ex-GOP Congressman Storms Off Set After Insult

2009-11-06T23:12:45Z

On MSNBC Friday night, David Shuster (filling in for Ed Shultz) addressed hateful signs at Thursday's Capitol Hill "House call" against health care reform. But the discussion escalated into a fight that led a Republican guest to walk off the set.

Shuster criticized GOP leadership for attending Thursday's anti-health care reform rally in Washington which, according to Shuster, "had all the trappings of a proverbial orgy of bigotry, racism, anti-Semitism, and hate." Shuster's condemnation became particularly pointed when he called out Republican Congressman John Boehner for refusing to denounce some of the offensive signs that were prominently displayed at the rally, including a picture from a Nazi concentration camp that read "National Socialized Health Care."

"Is there no shame anymore on the conservative right?" asked Shuster. "Is there no decency anymore?...When anybody compares a health care proposal to the murders at Nazi death camps it's offensive, and it diminishes all of us by diminishing just how evil the Holocaust really was."

Earlier in the show, former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo refused to criticize Republican leaders for participating in the event, saying there were equally offensive signs at anti-Bush rallies in the past. He said they should talk about the policy, not the signs.

Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas defended health care reform, pointing out that the military uses government-run health care. Tancredo said veterans complained about their health care and would much rather have a private choice.

"Tom, I'm a veteran. Okay?" Moulitas responded. "I did not get a deferment because I was too depressed to fight a war I supported in Vietnam. I'm a veteran. They want a more effective V.A. ..."

"You're not going to do that. You're not going to try to insult me that way and then pretend like we're just going on and talk about that. You either apologize ..." When Moulitas did not apologize, Tancredo simply took out his earpiece and walked away.

As a Republican student activist, Tancredo spoke out in favor of the Vietnam War but did not serve.

After graduating from college in June 1969, he became eligible to serve in Vietnam. Tancredo said he went for his physical, telling doctors he'd been treated for depression, and eventually got a deferment.

"I think he left a little early," Shuster joked. "The congressman is always welcome on this show. We always appreciate hearing his point of view. It's a feisty one. That's what we like around here."

Watch both segments:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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Fox News Tops For Fort Hood Breaking News Coverage Ratings

2009-11-06T22:22:54Z

When news of the shooting at Fort Hood broke Tuesday, Fox News is where the majority of Americans turned for breaking news coverage.

Over the course of the breaking news, from 3PM-12AM, Fox News averaged 3.039 million total viewers, more than CNN (1.576 million), MSNBC (820,000), and HLN (428,000) combined. In the Adults 25-54 demographic over that time period, Fox News averaged 837,000 viewers, more than CNN's 471,000, MSNBC's 248,000, and HLN's 177,000.

In primetime, Fox News averaged 3.765 million total viewers to CNN's 2.024 million, MSNBC's 1.101 million, and HLN's 621,000. In the primetime A25-54 demo, Fox Nes averaged 1.147 million total viewers to CNN's 596,000, MSNBC's 308,000, and HLN's 221,000.

The breaking news brought several ratings records for Fox News as well: "Special Report with Bret Baier" (3.351 million), "Fox Report with Shepard Smith" (3.966 million) and "The O'Reilly Factor" all drew their largest total viewer audiences of 2009.

DNC Urges D.C. Residents To Ask For The Vote Of Their Non-Voting Congresswoman

2009-11-06T21:49:49Z

Far be it for me to criticize the campaign arm of the White House/DNC, Organizing For America, seeing as they have successfully gotten one more president elected to office than I have. But I have to think that if you want to maintain this reputation of being awesomely granular sorters of voter data and skilled messaging micro-targeters who can quickly and effectively align voter support for key priorities, then the emails you send out to constituents ought to demonstrate that you have a functioning understanding of how... say, the U.S. House Of Representatives works. That way, you avoid sending voters perplexingly useless missives, like the one that Mitch Stewart, Director of OFA, blasted out to residents of the District of Columbia:

[NAME REMOVED] --

This is it -- the House of Representatives will vote on health insurance reform tomorrow. All signs point to it being incredibly close, possibly even coming down to a single vote.

With the clock ticking, insurance company lobbyists are going all out to stop reform. Please call Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton at 202-225-8050 now.

Today, President Obama is visiting the House to call for reform, and I hope you'll add your voice to his. If you haven't called before, now is the time. And if you have recently called, thank you -- now please ask friends, family members, and co-workers in your district to join you.

http://my.barackobama.com/HouseVote

Everything we're fighting for comes down to moments like this -- and every second counts.

Thanks for stepping up,

Mitch

Well, I have to say, if the House health reform bill does come down to a single vote, reform proponents better hope like hell that single vote doesn't have to come from Eleanor Holmes Norton! This is not because Norton isn't an awesome lady -- she is, as evidenced by her many appearances on the Colbert Report. But while Norton is an ally of the White House and supports the larger effort to expand health care coverage, as the duly sworn representative of the District, she does not enjoy voting privileges. So, as far as her vote goes, she would vote if she could vote but she can't vote so she won't vote.

Anyway, thanks, Mitch Stewart, for reminding the residents of the District of Columbia that they enjoy second-class status and their hopes are largely tied to other people's representatives.

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Carol Felsenthal: Pat Caddell a "Liberal Democrat?" No He's Not!

2009-11-06T21:43:53Z

I've been thinking about political operative Pat Caddell for years, but haven't written about him because I figured that anyone interested enough to care about the subject must know that Pat Caddell is quite conservative--and rarely disagrees with cable pundits such as Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck. I've watched Caddell, a contributor to Fox News, on so many panels, supposedly there to represent the liberal view and spar with the conservative---but instead he agrees with the conservative almost all the time.

I was prompted to write this afternoon when I read Peter Nicholas on the Chicago Tribune's "The Swamp." Nicholas quotes a Democratic consultant who received a "blunt warning from the White House to never appear on Fox News Channel..." This person, unnamed because he/she fears that Obama's people will retaliate by hitting him where it hurts--in the wallet--said that the tone of the call was "intimidating." He told Nicolas that there was an "implicit suggestion," (Nicholas's words) that, in the consultant's words, "Clients might stop using you if you continue."

White House Communications Director Anita Dunn denied that anyone from the White House was making any such threat.

Nicholas then quotes Pat Caddell, now 59, who came into the public eye as pollster for Jimmy Carter--while still at Harvard, he polled for George McGovern--and over the years has been sharply critical of Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry and other establishment Democrats. Caddell told Nicholas that he had talked to Democratic consultants who had confirmed the threats but, no surprise to me, Caddell declined to give their names.

Some research turns up the following:

--On August 24, 2009 on Glenn Beck's show, Caddell described himself as a "liberal Democrat." and then bashed the Obama administration's economic policies, Attorney General Eric Holder, etc. He asked if President Obama is "disingenuous," called the democratic party under Obama both "elitist" and "revolutionary," brought up the names of George Soros and Rahm Emanuel, and agreed with Beck about the evilness of Obama's soon-to-be-former green jobs czar Van Jones

--On August 13 on Glenn Beck's show with Karl Rove and Andrew Napolitano, Caddell took off after Rahm Emauel: .

CADDELL: He leaves the Clinton White House and he gets two jobs. He gets put on the board of Freddie Mac, which is the second of the big giant mortgage companies.
BECK: What is his -- what is his qualification? Didn't he go to school for dancing?

CADDELL: He studied ballet dancing in college. He was trained for ballet. He is.

BECK: Freddie Mac doesn't do ballet.

CADDELL: No, that's true.

BECK: Yes.

CADDELL: Now, he gets. The other job he has is that he gets a job with Wasserstein Perella, which is a major Wall Street deal company, and he gets in their Chicago office. And he then made $16 million in less than two years.

BECK: In two years?

CADDELL: Yes.

BECK: Two years, $16 million is what he makes.

CADDELL: On top of the quarter million taxpayers gave him for Freddie Mac.

BECK: And $250,000. Wait, he was there when -- he was there.

CADDELL: He was there when they're cooking the books.

BECK: Yes. He was there.

CADDELL: This is -- they were cooking the books there.

BECK: Got it. OK. Sixteen million dollars -- how did he make the $16 million?

CADDELL: Paid $16 million basically on one large deal and there's a second one. But a big deal he got it on was he was advising SBC which later grew into the new AT&T.

BECK: OK, SBC.

CADDELL: Right.

BECK: That's not really -- here's what's interesting about the SBC thing, is, the guy who helped make this deal.

CADDELL: Yes.

BECK: . took a loss, did he not?

CADDELL: Yes. They had to sell because they bought another phone company, Ameritech. They had to get rid of a security company called SecurityLink. It was $1 billion, $1, $1.5 billion investment. He sold it to a group headed by -- an investment group being led by.

BECK: Whitacre?

CADDELL: No, by -- this Whitacre was the chairman. He sold it to a group led by Mr. Emanuel for about $500 million.

BECK: OK.

CADDELL: Six months later -- six months later, the investment bank that bought it sold it for $1 billion.

....CADDELL: Now, and he took out a huge amount of money. Now, the president at that time, Whitacre was the chairman of SBC.

BECK: America, does the name Whitacre, the guy who helped Rahm Emanuel
make $16 million, does the name Whitacre ring a bell? Pat?

CADDELL: Because, when they appointed the new chairman of G.M., who announced the day of his appointment, I know nothing about the car business, his name was Edward Whitacre.

BECK: Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness! It's the new chairman of G.M. that knows.

CADDELL: Well, it gets better. It gets better, because the second name down in the corner, Bill Daley, brother of the mayor, who is the really, the powerful force. I said this on the air in 2008, a person pulling the strings in the Obama campaign was Bill Daley. One of his closest friends, one of his closest confidantes is a person named Jim Johnson. Jim Johnson was the chairman of Fannie Mae. He had been -- his qualifications for the largest mortgage company in the world was that he had been Walter Mondale's campaign manager.

BECK: Oh.

CADDELL: And he puts him on the board there.

....CADDELL: It is a -- it is a cancer on the society. No one will touch this story. Nobody has made this connection in the media, well, because they have decided they have a new role, which is to serve as lackeys.

....BECK: They are in deep trouble. And you bring any connections, you keep helping us and I will air the story to my last breath.

CADDELL: There is so much to uncover here. It is like the beginning.

BECK: You stay close to us, sir, and we will uncover it.

CADDELL: Will do.

--August 12, 2009, Cadell appeared on Sean Hannity's "Great American Panel" along with Ann Coulter--Coulter and Caddell are friends-- and Mercedes Vianna Schlapp who worked in George W. Bush's White House.

HANNITY (to Caddelll): I'll start with you as a Democrat on this panel. Are you happy with the names the Democratic Party, the DNC, the attacks against the American people that we've been witnessing at these town halls?
CADDELL: Let me just say, you know, as a Democrat, we're supposed to be the party of the common people. I've never known a situation where the president -- remember the DNC is owned lock, stock, and barrel by the White House.

HANNITY: You don't deserve to call yourself a Democrat, because you're making too much sense. I mean...

When he was polling for Jimmy Carter, Caddell, then 29, was the impetus behind Carter's disastrous "malaise speech." (As explained in a new book on the subject, What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President, the speech, delivered from the Oval Office on July 15, 1979, temporarily boosted Carter's ratings, but only temporarily.) In retrospect, says the book's author Kevin Mattson, unfairly, the speech came to be seen as one of many disasters of the Carter President--and a factor in his defeat by Ronald Reagan in 1980. Perhaps Caddell, who went on to consult for the presidential campaigns of Walter Mondale and Gary Hart, and Joe Biden has been a double agent all along.

I'm not the first to point out Caddell's politics. Many came before me, but none that I've noticed lately. In late 2000, lefty turned righty David Horowitz, praised Caddell: "Pat Caddell is a Democrat with a Conscience. Is there another?"