Mediabistro's Fishbowl DC's Eddie Scarry reminds us that POLITICO is "always selling" and always promoting themselves, even to the point of creating a video patting themselves on the back for being -wait for it- legen-dary.; Remembering D.C. and the daily anticipation of getting The Hotline by fax in the early 1990's, when the Internet was still not a daily reality

POLITICO: Our Story; http://bcove.me/oawud7k0

Mediabistro's Fishbowl DC's Eddie Scarry reminds us that POLITICO is "always selling" and always promoting themselves, even to the point of creating a video patting themselves on the back for being -wait for it- legen-dary.; Remembering D.C. and the daily anticipation of getting The Hotline by fax in the early 1990's, when the Internet was still not a daily reality

The former Washington Post reporters behind it, Jim VandeHei and John F. Harris,
whom I read for years while living up there, are trying to create a wave of publiclity that will create a corresponding interest in that.

But how will they keep that information only in select hands when everyone at the law firms, lobbying firms and trade associations they are trying to convince to subscribe to it can always  copy and email real "nuggets" to their friends who don't get it?.

It reminds me a lot of the problem faced by The Hotline -now owned by The National Journal- in the pre-Internet era of the early 1990's, when that goldmine of information used to be faxed daily into offices throughout The Beltway and people would gather around the printer mid-morning waiting for it all to spill out, so they could grab a page and see if there was something in it that dealt with their area of coverage or responsibility.
People would be positively giddy on days after big events in Washington to see what was being written about that subject, and that was especially true during the 1992 presidential election.

And there was always someone in an office who would try to pull the last sheet out before it was finished printing, who'd be yelled at in a milli-second. Good times!

That was also back when if you saw someone reading a copy of The Hotline on the Metro in the evening on your way home, especially an original copy with the Red masthead, that was your clue that the person you were looking at was someone much smarter and better-informed than the average Washingtonian around you.

I kept old copies of them in stacked banker boxes in my garage, with colored 3M Post-it's on the sides with subject areas written on them that I dealt with or was interested in. 
My little treasure trove!

Of course, that was also in the era of heavy faxing, when people routinely forgot to replace the paper in the paper tray of the printer and there was hell to pay if it turned out to be you.
Email is so much easier! 

FishBowlDC blog
New Video Reminds Everyone That Politico Is Still Politico And Always Will Be
By Eddie Scarry on March 27, 2013 12:00 PM

A new three-minute video produced by Politico touts the publication’s “early success” and its plan for the future. Full of Politico bluster, it’s part of a new “brand and advertising” site the publication launched this week, according to Mike Allen‘s Playbook.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowldc/new-video-reminds-everyone-that-politico-is-still-politico-and-always-will-be_b100185

OMG! Really, another interview with predictable Debbie Wasserman-Schultz on Channel 10's TWISF tomorrow? Why? Will there be any mention of the Sun-Sentinel STILL ignoring the Glenn Thrush book's depiction of DWS's unpopularity at Obama HQ in Chicago?; Sun-Sentinel has completely morphed into the Snooze-Sentinel! It's now more of an idea of a newspaper, and a bad one at that, rather than a newspaper you actually look forward to reading

POLITICO video: Debbie Wasserman Schultz disputes POLITICO e-book
http://bcove.me/iysunfmy
Related article at: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/80465.html

OMG! Really, another interview with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz on Channel 10's This Week In South Florida (TWISF) program tomorrow morning at 11:30 a.m.? Why?

There are only 66 days until Election Day and they're consciously choosing to put HER on?
What a colossal disappointment!

Not to mention, another missed opportunity to bring viewers up-to-date with someone new or interesting or amusing -three things that DWS no longer is.

I guess this only proves all over again that not every TWISF program with Putney there is going to be a hit, which is what I always think whenever I see certain people on the show as guests that I find bores and quickly flip-over to Fox Soccer Channel to see what the score is in the Premier League game I was watching earlier.
Looks like I will be watching MUCH more of the Manchester United at Southampton match LIVE than I originally thought I would -after the Liverpool at Arsenal at 8:25 a.m..

It's not just that I disagree with DWS, or that she has never had to run from a competitive CD, though I do and she never has, it's also that she's just completely predictable, like Alan Simpson and Richard Lugar and Charlie Crist and Dan Gelber.
Or, even more deadly dull, like watching the Dolphins and Hurricanes offense the past few years -SNOOZE...............

I know when that check-down pass to the running back coming out of the backfield is coming even BEFORE the ball is snapped, even BEFORE the linebacker covering him does, so I'm groaning even BEFORE seeing it painfully come to life -over-and-over again!
And rarely if ever getting the First Down!

There's no need to watch this program tomorrow, no need to tape it, you already know what DWS is going to say before she says it, based on Michael Putney's questions.

Use that time to walk along the beach with your kids or finally change your oil or air filter under the hood, because there will be no news there at all, and besides, next weekend is wall-to-wall NCAA and NFL football again.

Yes, unlike watching a favorite Seinfeld episode for the 100th time -and isn't that about how many times DWS has been on TWISF since I came back here from D.C., 100 times?- watching and listening to DWS say the same exact thing about Romney or Ryan with that unpleasant voice is NOT as enjoyable the 100th time.

It's a bore.


Will there be any mention about the Miami Herald and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel -almost uniquely among all American newspapers with circulations above a college newspaper- STILL completely ignoring the negative revelations in POLITICO's Glenn Thrush's e-book, and its negative depiction of her and the level of her unpopularity at Obama HQ in Chicago, and the local papers refusing to make any mention of it in-print?

Yes, the very subject I wrote about over a week ago, the only person in South Florida publicly noting its complete absence from the scene?
Yes, this part of my August 22nd post
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/paul-ryan-why-he-matters-and-needs-to.html

Here it is again, and nothing has changed since then -still nothing new about the book or its author in the Snooze-Sentinel.


Speaking of DWS, here's another piece you won't be reading in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel if any of her many trained poodles over there have anything to do with it, though logically you should, right?
Supposedly, DWS is on the hot seat! 
Or is it on thin ice? 
She's on one of the other, which ever you find personally worse in the summer.

The Weekly Standard
Book: Wasserman Schultz Most Unpopular Obama Campaign Surrogate
By Daniel Halper
8:33 AM, August 20, 2012

According to a new ebook released today by Politico writer Glenn Thrush, Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a member of Congress from Florida, is the most unpopular of all surrogates for President Obama's reelection campaign. That finding is the product of polling done by the Obama campaign, according to Thrush.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/book-wasserman-schultz-most-unpopular-obama-campaign-surrogate_650276.html

The Washington Post
Report: Obama campaign has doubts about DNC chair
Posted by Rachel Weiner on August 20, 2012 at 7:36 am

President Obama’s Chicago team is not thrilled with Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, according to a new ebook from Politico’s Glenn Thrush.

Read the rest of the post at:  
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/wp/2012/08/20/report-obama-campaign-has-doubts-about-dnc-chair/

Don't believe me?
Okay, check the Sun-Sentinel for yourself: nothing about it as of right now.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/search/dispatcher.front?Query=Debbie+Wasserman-Schultz&target=adv_article&date=07%2F23%2F2012-08%2F22%2F2012&range=pre&facet=

As for the author of the book, the last time the Sun-Sentinel ran a piece by Glenn Thrush was April 28, 2012, so it's clear that they have not touched the story, even though it's right there in front of them.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/search/dispatcher.front?Query=%22Glenn+Thrush%22&target=adv_article
Hmm-m...

Yes, her crew over at the newspaper is definitely looking out for her, as per usual. 
Just saying... the facts are the facts.
If this sort of thing had been said about Rep. Allen West at GOP HQ based on some sort of polling, the paper would've had it on the front page ASAP, so what's the Sun-Sentinel's explanation for the complete absence of information in print on this re DWS?

------

Douglas Lyons is the Sun-Sentinel's... well, it depends upon whom you talk to.
Some would say that he's the guy whose job consists largely of cranking out a column once in a while and going around Broward making excuses for the poor and scatter-shot local news coverage they crank out for fewer and fewer readers, but his official title is senior editorial writer. 

Here's a thought -Why don't you ask him why his newspaper refuses to mention a negative story about the most prominent elected official in its coverage area, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.

His contact infromation is here:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/columnists/sfla-opinion-lyons,0,1403324,bio.columnist

Personally, my days of writing him a serious and fact-filled letter and expecting a reasonable response are over, so if he's on your own email list, you might want to seriously ask yourself why -and then purge him.

Lots of people I know, some of whose names you'd even recognize, have done this the past year or so, something they wouldn't do if this were a more normal American community and they had to engage in some sort of pretense to take him seriously and care what he thought or wrote.
Nope, they've tossed him and others there overboard with no negative effect whatsoever. 
They actually like the idea that they and other people who really know what's going on DON'T communicate with him, and he's less aware of what's going on than ever.
But that just makes him like 99% of the people working there.

They're NOT at all like the competitive reporters I've known and interacted with in Chicago and Washington, and the results are readily apparent to readers when you see the newspaper in print.
It seems more like an idea for a newspaper, NOT an actual newspaper you'd read at the beach or take on a plane ride.
And the less said about their website the better.

More proof that Tampa Bay Times' bias is showing: intentionally-misleading faux headlines in blog posts: "Marco Rubio's grandfather ordered deported"

More proof that Tampa Bay Times' bias is showing: intentionally-misleading faux headlines in blog posts: "Marco Rubio's grandfather ordered deported"

Yes, in 1962 -nine years before Marco Rubio was born.

Yes, rather than someone at the The Times doing the right thing and put the year in the headline, they intentionally left it out knowing THAT headline would provoke more hits and visits to the website. Once again, telling the truth would've ruined what the Mainstream Media thought was a clever idea.

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/node/117342#comments 

It reeks of desperation.

As I've stated here before, The Buzz blog has degenerated from one of the best places to find out useful information in the state to the number-one site for creepy political Internet trolls from the  Kos Kooks Army, which is why I and so many people I know around the state no longer bother leaving comments there, esp. information that is not controversial.
No matter what you say, you get attacked.

At least when Greg Gutfeld on Fox News' Red Eye does his funny, intentionally-misleading made-up bits, say, something like this, "George Clooney is dead... tired of people asking him when he first realized he was good-looking," everyone gets why it's funny.
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/red-eye/index.html

Give the devil her due: nobody in Florida demagogues & obfuscates like the dreaded DWS; Politico: "Wasserman Schultz says GOP seeks ‘dictatorship..."

Give the devil her due, nobody in Florida demagogues & obfuscates like the dreaded Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-20) -Politico: "Wasserman Schultz says GOP seeks ‘dictatorship..."

POLITICO

Debbie Wasserman Schultz says GOP seeks ‘dictatorship … spark panic'

By Mike Allen

July 27, 2011 5:52 PM EDT

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), chair of the Democratic National Committee, said Wednesday that House Republicans are trying to impose “dictatorship” through their tactics in the debt-ceiling negotiations. She said the GOP rhetoric could “spark panic and chaos,” which she called “potentially devastating” to the economy.

Read the rest of the post at:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/60080.html

Meanwhile, north of here in the Panhandle part of Florida I've never ventured into, Tallahassee Democrat Senior Political Writer Bill Cotterell weighs in on the recent contretemps between DWS and Allen West that I wisely avoided writing about since it was everywhere you looked, and you could only NOT know about it if you lived in... well, no, you'd know about it there, too.

Tallahassee Democrat

The art of the political insult

Today's lack elegance, but they get the job done

By Bill Cotterell

6:33 PM, Jul. 27, 2011

http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20110728/COLUMNIST03/107280310/Bill-Cotterell-art-political-insult?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|s

The above piece by the very insightful Bill Cotterell, is an exception to what I've often written here of the hagiography that goes on in the Florida press corps with regard to DWS, esp. at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and local Miami TV stations.

The female reporters in South Florida are especially reluctant to ask DWS questions that are either hard or original, just the same softballs, year-after-year.

It's monotonous with a capital "M."

But then that's why so many female reporters here are simply not taken seriously by well-informed people regardless of gender.

Simply put, too many of the reporters are personally shallow AND happily uninformed and really ought to be in much smaller media markets.

But like DWS -and most of the female sideline reporters at ESPN- they are gerrymandered into their current positions.

In some cases by virtue of this area's low-pay and need to have a certain demographic group represented on TV, regardless of how unappealing they are -dopey women who really do think stories on plastic surgery ARE imp0rtant, and ought to be on within the first ten minutes of a newscast- but nothing short of video of them shooting someone will get them off the air or off the newspaper beat.

The joke is on us, the readers and viewers who have to tolerate the towering mediocrity.

Here's a recent example of the sort of hagiography I meant, which actually compelled me to write in and comment because it sounded so much like a puff piece from her own paid govt. flack.

St. Petersburg Times

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz uses her resolve to fight cancer, lead DNC.

By Alex Leary, Times Staff Writer

In Print: Sunday, July 17, 2011

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/national/article1180722.ece

Back on the 16th I wrote:

Is there no end in sight to the number of articles that can be written about this woman and cancer? Are there so few compelling political or government stories in the fourth-largest state in the country that this sort of filler must continue to be churned out, over-and-over? Simply put, there is nothing here that hasn't been written a dozen times before -and better.
And I surmise THAT is something that both liberals and conservatives can agree on.

For instance, how about writing about the number of State House and Senate members that DON'T live at the addresses they claim they do, both before and after the election, and how the legislature just looks the other way, despite the fact that it's illegal?
There are three of them in just South Florida alone!
Just saying...

Alex, what happened to you? You used to show such promise.
Is this how it ends, with a banal whimper?

Like cat-nip for Palin-haters: Washington Post & New York Times ask for readers' help in analyzing Palin emails as Alaska governor, but here in Hallandale Beach, Mayor Joy Cooper's email about city issues are off-limits to residents, taxpayers and small business owners

http://bcove.me/jt9yvxp0

A version of this blog post below was sent out as an email on Thursday to the Usual Trusted Sources in the Sunshine State and from Coast-to-Coast.

-----
Up in the Northeast corridor, the Washington Post and the New York Times among other MSM -along with ProPublica- are sounding the dinner bell for Sarah Palin-haters by asking their readers for help in analyzing Palin's emails as governor of Alaska, a place that 99.99% of them have never been, which you'd think would naturally make a difference in analyzing information and giving others some proper context.

(One of my maternal uncles, now living back in Texas, was a teacher in Nome in the '70's.)

-----
New York Times

Caucus blog

Help Us Investigate the Sarah Palin E-Mail Records

By Derek WillisJune 9, 2011, 1:36 PM-

On Friday, the State of Alaska will release more than 24,000 of Sarah Palin’s e-mails covering much of her tenure as governor of Alaska. Times reporters will be in Juneau, the state capital, to begin the process of reviewing the e-mails, which we will be posting on nytimes.com starting on Friday afternoon E.D.T.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/09/help-us-investigate-the-sarah-palin-e-mail-records/

-----

Washington Post

Fast Fix blog

Posted at 10:56 AM ET, 06/09/2011

Help analyze the Palin e-mails

By Ryan Kellett

Over 24,000 e-mail messages to and from former Alaska governor Sarah Palin during her tenure as Alaska's governor will be released Friday. That's a lot of e-mail for us to review so we're looking for some help from Fix readers to analyze, contextualize, and research those e-mails right alongside Post reporters over the days following the release.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/help-analyze-the-palin-emails/2011/06/08/AGZAaHNH_blog.html

Archive of Sarah Palin emails: http://documents.latimes.com/sarah-palin-emails/

On the chance that you haven't been following things this weekend, above, the Palin email fishing expedition has largely backfired and The Politico is even saying so publicly.

Meanwhile, closer to home, in case you forgot, thanks to Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB) head Nicki Grossman's sister, Broward Circuit Judge Patti Henning, Hallandale Beach residents STILL can't see the govt.-related emails to and from Mayor Joy Cooper's AOL email account that she has intentionally used for YEARS to shield them from public view, despite the fact that it was known years ago that all government-related emails are supposed to go thru the city's email system.

As South Florida Sun-Sentinel columnist Michael Mayo accurately noted two years ago, when he was the only journalist in all of South Florida asking reasonable questions about what on the face of it seemed like an open-and-shut case involving the clear provisions of the Florida Constitution and the Sunshine Laws, HB taxpayers even got the privilege of paying for the mayor's mendacious lawsuit, to boot, which makes a mockery of the spirit and letter of the law.

That Oct. 29, 2009 story titled, Why are taxpayers footing Mayor Joy Cooper's lawsuit bill?, included these two gems of clarity:

If the Feb. 17 e-mail sent from Mayor Joy Cooper's personal America Online account was private and not subject to the state's public records law, as Cooper and the city maintain, then why did the city hire an outside law firm at $185 an hour to initiate a lawsuit?
If you accept the premise that her e-mail, which had the subject line "Mayor Cooper's Update," was not connected with city business, shouldn't Cooper have hired her own
attorney to go to court to clarify the issue?

http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2009/10/mayo_why_are_taxpayers_footing.html

Mayor Cooper didn't (and still doesn't) care about appearances, which is why, then-as-now, she does what she does and dares someone to stop her, which has been her standard M.O. the entire seven-plus years I've lived here, all of which has been with her as mayor.

My friend Michael Butler, creator of the fact and financial-based website Change Hallandale, http://www.changehallandale.com/, stood-up to challenge her efforts and all he got for his concern for the larger community was hassled -and a legal bill that HE had to pay for.

Here's a partial list of who foolishly ignored what Michael did to hold public officials accountable and force them to do the right thing: The Miami Herald, Channel 4 News, Channel 6 News, Channel 7 News and Channel 10 News, The Daily Business Review, et al... You know, the thing they always say everyone needs to do?

(Cooper's now doing the same thing with the Golden Isles overlay proposal that will clearly violate homeowners rights as spelled out in their deeds. She just doesn't care. She wants everyone to do what SHE wants. Period.)

Now that she is the elected head of the Florida League of Cities, if you want me to believe that all the email she receives from her out-of-town colleagues or special interest groups in Tallahassee urging her to pass resolutions of support for one thing or another at HB City Hall, supporting League (or parochial pet projects) as a template for others to emulate, is the official one that ends @hallandalebeachfl.gov, you are going to have a very, very difficult time convincing me, because I'm sure she's still using that AOL account for such purposes so we will never know.

Why would Joy Cooper change her spots NOW?

My favorite response about this biased effort regarding Sarah Palin came from someone who wanted to know why the MSM didn't ask their readers to do this for the minutiae of Obamacare when it would've mattered, since it was clear that many congressmen were going to vote for it without ever reading it, which I'm sure includes Kendrick Meek, whom nobody misses and who has largely disappeared from the scene.

I'll bet he still hasn't read it.

Not that South Florida's lapdog news media ever asked him, on-camera.
That's the sort of journalism usually practiced in South Florida now -strangely incurious and content to let questions go unasked.

Rejecting Pixie Lott's 'Boys And Girls' together policy paradigm, Obama's Cabinet was "Boys against girls" over military intervention in Libya

Pixie Lott - Boys And Girls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7y1MdlXclM

Rejecting Ambassador Pixie Lott's 'Boys And Girls' policy paradigm, two reporters at the New York Times and POLITICO's Ben Smith on his blog say that it was actually a case of "Boys against girls" over Libya in the Obama Cabinet.

IF this sort of story had happened under Bush 43, David Brooks would be saying that misplaced sentimentality had weighed-in at the worst possible moment, when clear-headed logic and action was what was necessary.
But it's Obama, so...

POLITICO.com
Boys against girls over Libya?
By Ben Smith
March 20, 2011 pol

There's been quite a bit of chatter today about the notion that a cadre of human-rights-minded women -- Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Hillary Clinton -- fought and won an internal debate over Libya. But White House officials and close observers outside government pushed back hard on the idea of a crucial internal split Sunday, arguing that Obama was pressed to action not by the internal dynamic but by the situation on the ground.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0311/Boys_against_girls_over_Libya.html

-----

New York Times
Obama Takes Hard Line With Libya After Shift by Clinton
By Helene Cooper and Steven Lee Myers
March 18, 2011

WASHINGTON — In a Paris hotel room on Monday night, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton found herself juggling the inconsistencies of American foreign policy in a turbulent Middle East. She criticized the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates for sending troops to quash protests in Bahrain even as she pressed him to send planes to intervene in Libya.

Only the day before, Mrs. Clinton — along with her boss, President Obama — was a skeptic on whether the United States should take military action in Libya. But that night, with Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces turning back the rebellion that threatened his rule, Mrs. Clinton changed course, forming an unlikely alliance with a handful of top administration aides who had been arguing for intervention.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/19/world/africa/19policy.html

But if it fails, will Susan Power ever be seen again on TV news chat shows while Obama is president? Or will that be blamed on Gen. Mullen?
Hmm-m...

-----
By the way, since it was NOT mentioned in the South Florida news media -and I looked- in the ramp-up to Obama's Latin America trip, Brazil abstained on the U.N. vote on Libya.
It had a chance to do something of significance-it blinked.
Again.

And this is the country that actually wants to be a Permanent Member of the U.N. Security Council?
Nej tack!!!

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/19/v-fullstory/2123799/obama-opens-new-chapter-in-relations.html

That my friends is why despite its large size and immense resources, Brazil remains firmly seated at the children's table, not the adult table, until further notice, no matter what the Miami Herald's reporters and columnists churn out by the barrels about their alleged grandness.

That perpetual adolescence plus, well, it's too self-congratulatory nature, and, frankly, being a country that most Americans could really care less about -because it has done so little that most Americans care about or respect, much less, what well-informed Americans care about or respect.
Brazil is a very large Belgium, and Americans care not a whit about Belgium, either.

I will soon tell you in this space about a simple test those self-evident, self-promoting Herald reporters and columnists won't dare do publicly because it would so easily show the absurdity and emptiness of their grand pronouncements about Brazil.
Like so many of their previous overwrought words about the importance of South America to the U.S. in the future, it just doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

http://www.youtube.com/user/PixieLottVEVO
http://www.youtube.com/user/pixieofficial
http://www.youtube.com/user/pixielott
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/

REMIX


Pixie Lott - Boys And Girls - Remix Version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S_NdMyf9j0

I once knew a girl from Essex...

With 99 days 'til Election Day, POLITICO reports that cynical Obama Nation is sending flacks to FL to help bumbling Alex Sink make hay out of BP spill

Surprise! With 99 days 'til Election Day, The POLITICO is reporting Sunday that the cynical and craven Obama White House is sending flacks and hacks to FL to help bumbling, stumbling Alex Sink and her gubernatorial campaign make political hay out of BP oil spill.

Great, I'm sure that's exactly who respected and well-read Florida reporters and columnists like Steve Bousquet, Adam Smith, William March, Aaron Deslatte, Craig Pittman, Bill Cotterell, Jeremy Wallace and Dara Kam want to hear from about the Florida political campaigns: people who don't live here and who only know what's going on based on what they see and hear on TV, newspapers and blogs.

The POLITICO
W.H. sends 2012 rescue team to Fla.
By: Carol E. Lee
July 25, 2010 07:02 AM EDT

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The White House has quietly launched an effort to confront the political backlash along the Gulf Coast over its handling of the BP oil spill – giving special attention to Florida, the only state in the region President Barack Obama won in 2008 and one he will need again when he runs for re-election in 2012.

The White House dispatched political and communications aides to the Gulf Coast states on July 12, with Alabama and Mississippi each receiving one, sources familiar with the effort said. Some aides went to Louisiana. Florida received four. Read the rest of the article at: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/40184.html This article also has this delicious pot-meets-kettle quote:

“It was just so off-target and out of touch with the reality of what’s going on over there,” Sink said in an interview at the Florida Democratic Party headquarters in Tallahassee.

Actually, being off-target and out-of-touch is the common talking point among Florida voters, Democratic and Republican, in describing Alex Sink's dismal gubernatorial campaign to date.

Savvy but honest and well-informed Republicans I've talked to from around the state are almost as confounded -but more delighted!- by her repeated failure to launch as the Democratic activist community, who, rather foolishly, have deluded themselves into imagining that that Sink would be a strong, poised and polished can-do candidate like Meg Whitman, the former eBay CEO who is running to be governor of California, and whom most of my friends in Cali are currently supporting. http://www.megwhitman.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VekQ1F9J-C8



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShZEPayRDA8


And that's Meg Whitman, by the way, NOT Mae Whitman, as some news articles with bad editing have written that Mae would be a great candidate! LOL!
Mae is the very talented twenty-two year old American actress who has, literally, grown-up before our eyes in one good film or TV show after another, as the daughter of, among others, Sandra Bullock, George Clooney and Bill Pullman.
She's currently appearing in NBC's Parenthood, which as I've written here previously, is a TV show that started-off far too slowly for me, due to the need to establish all the character's story arcs -and there were SO many characters!

But after the first 6-8 slow-moving episodes, the show's finally picked-up some momentum and has gotten dramatically better, with some compelling story lines that seem realistic to me. Especially the tension between high school cousins, Mae's 'wild child' character Amber and 'good girl' Haddie, played by Sarah Ramos, who was so tremendous as the youngest daughter in another fave of mine that got cancelled far too soon, American Dreams.I would watch either one of them in anything because there's never a false note when they're on the screen.

That seething hurtful anger on the surface that Haddie had towards Amber at the end of the first season was SO realistic, that when they finally had to reconcile, because they were always going to be connected, it was almost awkward to watch.It deeply resonated with me from my experience of being in the middle of watching female friends get into it with other female relatives about old slights, both real and imagined.

Result: Me driving us back home to D.C. area on the Sunday after Thanksgiving at her family's home, and hours-and-hours of quiet punctuated by bouts of crying over in the passenger seat. Talk about a no-win situation.
It also helps greatly that the show also stars another longtime personal favorite, Lauren Graham, as Mae's mother. Mama Mia!
http://www.nbc.com/parenthood/bios/lauren-graham/index.shtml
Here's a short NBC video that features Lauren and Mae:
http://www.nbc.com/parenthood/bios/mae-whitman/index.shtml

See also http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0926165/ and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tow-ovrl2_U



Experience and the realities of the campaign have clearly proven that Sink is anything but a Meg Whitman.

If anything, she's more like a Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, but without either the royal Kennedy magic and name recognition.

Whatever else the many faults and weaknesses of GOP candidates Rick Scott and State Attorney General Bill McCollum may be, and there are plenty of self-evident ones to choose from, Alex Sink has proven that she is Not Ready for Prime Time.

Sorry, when you are governor of the fourth-largest state in the country, you have to have gravitas, and even though Charlie Crist has proven to be such a colossal disappointment and waste of a vote, doesn't mean we have to accept such a low threshold.

(Gravitas, yet another reason why I will vote enthusiastically for Marco Rubio in November, despite disagreements on some policy issues.
I know with certainty he's loyal to the Framer's intentions, smart-as-a-whip, hard-working and really sweats the details, some traits that CAN'T honestly be said for the other three candidates hoping to go to D.C. this Fall.)

And when you think about it, how could it be otherwise for Sink, when even now, with less than four months to go until November 2nd, both the St. Petersburg Times and Miami Herald are STILL mentioning in the first few paragraphs of their news coverage of her campaign the fact that a large portion of Florida voters not only don't know who she is, but, even more tellingly about her failure to make herself known and give a logical rationale for her candidacy, DON'T even know that she is a SHE.
Let me repeat that: DON'T even know that she is a SHE.
Yes, that's a real identity problem that even wheelbarrows of money and TV campaign ads can't undo the damage of.
Frankly, if Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Greene was smart, he'd have actually run for governor, as he'd have carved-up Alex Sink even more methodically and brutally than Scott or McCollum plan to do, and would have a better chance of actually improving the state for the better, especially since the Dems in Tallahassee now may be among the dumbest and least-accomplished in generations.
And not that you asked, but since I last mentioned it, I have received more emails from folks throughout the state saying that they agree with the well-founded rumor that State Rep. Joe Gibbons, who is supposed to represent me and other HB residents, as well as those from here westward in Broward County towards Miramar, actually lives in Jacksonville with his family when he is not at work in Tallahassee, NOT South Florida.

Sort of like a less geographically-challenging version of the problem Steve Geller confronts now living apart from his family in Cooper City, and hanging his lawyer/lobbyist hat in Hollywood Beach at night in order to meet the legal residency requirements of his battle against incumbent District 6 Broward County Commissioner Sue Gunzburger.

Charlie Crist's sister, Margaret Wood, will run his independent U.S. Senate campaign

Hmm-m-m... Margaret Wood? Can't honestly say that I've ever heard of her but... I was anything but in news junkie mode yesterday, since I was busy all day due to my nephew Mario graduating from the University of Miami down in Coral Gables, with the afternoon ceremony at the on-campus Bank United Center, which is where the basketball Hurricanes play.

Fortunately for all involved, the building's A/C was blasting on a day that was nice and sunny for photographs afterwards, but also very hot and humid, especially for those of us wearing suits in cars packed with relatives and breaking in some new dress shoes.

Because of the terrific party my sister threw for Mario at her new home in Pembroke Pines for family and friends, I didn't see a single TV news broadcast all day, the first time that's happened in many years when I wasn't traveling. (It was actually disorienting to be honest.)

So when I read this afternoon at the Washington Post's 44 blog, subtitled, Politics and Policy in Obama's Washington, http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/ that Florida governor Charlie Crist is entrusting his political future to his sister, Margaret Wood, I must admit, I was a bit dumbstruck.
But then I wondered if I was simply the last person to hear about this.

I used to have the widget for the 44 blog on my blog but it often had technical problems, so I had to toss it overboard, just as I did the Ben Smith blog widget from POLITICO for similar reasons.

But when I read in the post that the news came out of an interview Crist did with the St. Pete Times Editorial Board, I knew that ace political reporter Adam Smith -no relation- would likely be all over the story, and, of course, he was, in their great politics blog, The Buzz, which I've long been a regular reader of.


44 blog of the Washington Post
Crist says his sister will manage his Senate campaign
by Felicia Sonmez

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/05/crist-says-his-sister-will-man.html


The Buzz politics blog of the St. Petersburg Times

Charlie Crist hires a campaign manager
Posted by Adam Smith at 05:06:37 PM on May 13, 2010 http://blogs.tampabay.com/buzz/2010/05/charlie-crist-hires-a-campaign-manager.html

re 1/11/10 Ben Smith in POLITICO: Game over: The Clintons stand alone; Haiti

I've held off on posting this for a few days since
there was so much discussion of the contents
and short-term implications of Game Change
by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin
over this past weekend on the network chat
shows, I didn't want to add this to the pile
when you couldn't properly appreciate it.

I personally know that at least a handful of you
have actually started reading it, but Ben Smith's
overview below is the best I've seen so far
because he sees past the individual anecdotes
towards the larger un-mentioned story,
the fall of the House of Clinton.
After you've read it, I think you'll agree.

Last year I was running Ben's POLITICO
widget on my blog, along with their 44 widget
for Obama stories, so people could easily
access his entertaining and informative pieces,
but I seemed to run into constant technical
problems with those widgets, so I reluctantly
pulled them down.

Thursday 2:00 p.m.
By the way, it's just my opinion, but 46 hours
after the earthquake in Haiti, I find it completely
unbelievable that the the U.S. military and our
erstwhile Allies in the region seem NOT to have
established a working unit to coordinate logistics
and air traffic control at the Port-au-Prince
airport, the way we quickly did at the Baghdad
airport
after our invasion, which I supported.

I know the latter had many months of planning
overall, but on the other hand, I think it's fair
to remind you that this time, we know that
nobody will be shooting at us, right?

Sufficient number of trucks to move planes
stuck on the airport out of the way and placed
on the perimeter so they don't pose a safety
hazard, gas re-supply trucks to handle refueling,
mobile air traffic control units, modules,
helicopter techs, etc.

While I haven't seen these stories myself,
I have already heard from friends who know
about these things that UPS and FedEx
would like to use some of their planes to bring
supplies, starting initially from their hubs of
Memphis and Louisville down there, and
then return quickly, perhaps to Miami
and Hollywood-Ft. Lauderdale to keep
shuttling back-and-forth, and maybe
even deploy some of their logistics
professionals down there.

Why?

So we DON'T see the absurd sight of:
a.) people passing supplies hand-to-hand
instead of using conveyor belts or fork lifts, or
b.) well-meaning charity groups dropping boxes
of supplies into huge crowds of desperate people,
with the entirely predictable chaos.

But UNTIL the airport is completely cleared
and secured, they can't, and therefore nothing
of significance is going to happen.

At 2:10 p.m., I've yet to see a shot of the airport
under control.

Popular South Florida blogger and activist
Chaz Stevens from Deerfield Beach, a veritable
one-man tidal wave of information and enthusiasm
and a sharp-eyed watchdog for public transparency
and accountability from state and local government
at his blog, Acts of Sedition,
http://www.actsofsedition.com/ wrote
in earlier that I may be wrong.

Actually, you are wrong I believe. Two Coast
Guard Cutters (one by the name of Forward)
are off the coast of Haiti providing air traffic control.

Chaz is no doubt right, but I was referring to the
airport itself, per se, though perhaps I was not so
clear when I sent this out as an email a few minutes
ago.

My sense of things is that some of the reporters
there are going out of their way not to criticize
the chaotic recovery efforts thus far, but once
that dam has been breached, it won't stop.

Then it's Obama's tar-baby, whether that's
fair or not.
With the MLK holiday on Monday and even
more Americans home watching the awful scenes
unfold before them on TV, right before his
State of the Union speech, our response
to this tragedy, such as it is, will be firmly
placed around his neck.
Just saying...

-----

POLITICO
Game over: The Clintons stand alone
By: Ben Smith
January 11, 2010 06:05 PM EST

A new book is out with a highly critical but unsourced portrait of Hillary Clinton. This familiar occurrence — it’s happened too many times to count over the years — has usually been greeted with an equally familiar response: A fast and furious counterattack from the Clinton inner circle.

What’s notable about the highly publicized release of “Game Change,” however, is the virtual silence from the Clinton camp. The lack of public outrage seems to mark the sputtering end of what was once known as the Clinton political machine and underlines a fact that onetime Clinton loyalists acknowledge: The book’s primary sources about the former candidate and current secretary of state are her own former staffers and intimates.

Read the rest of the story at:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31345.html#ixzz0cQXHlJSP

---------

See also:
The Atlantic Online
Marc Ambinder's excellent blog, which I get everyday
"The Juiciest Revelations In "Game Change"
January 8 2010
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2010/01/the_juiciest_revelations_in_game_change.php


Los Angeles Times
BOOK REVIEW 'Game Change' by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin
The political journalists provide juicy insider tidbits about the 2008 presidential candidates, their spouses and other players, but it's hard to see the enlightenment behind the entertainment
By Tim Rutten
January 13, 2010
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-et-rutten13-2010jan13,0,4331192.story


An excerpt of the book that ran in
New York magazine last Saturday

Saint Elizabeth and the Ego Monster
A candidate whose aides were prepared to block him from becoming president. A wife whose virtuous image was a mirage. A mistress with a video camera. In an excerpt from the new book Game Change—their sweeping account of the 2008 campaign—the authors reveal that, inside the Edwards triangle, nothing was too crazy to be true.

Read the excerpt at:
http://nymag.com/news/politics/63045/