Video- Best New Pundits

Wow, I almost feel sorry for them if their "best" are Amanda Carpenter and Ross Douhat...

Punditiots respond to President Obama's first press conference

By GottaLaff

Keith Olbermann (not a punditiot): The questioners are calling this a "bipartisan failure"???

Chris Matthews: He was very eloquent tonight. He used the velvet glove. But he made his points, but I've never seen such forward looking attitude from a politician.

Rachel Maddow (also not a punditiot): He seemed like a man with very large majorities in both houses. You don't have to bash the other guys, and win some over with high approvals and making your positions sound reasonable. He took a couple of little whacks, but not like the past few days. He seemed calm, cool, and collected here.

Tweety: Chuck's [Todd] questions were very sound [verbatim]. The questioners were swell [paraphrased]. The president sounded good, calm. [paraphrased] I was very impressed, he was very precise. He was at his best intellectually.

Keith: People's standards have been lowered. This is different from Bush. A president answered a multi-part question with 4 different, common sense, intellectual answers, took 7 minutes to answer them.

Tweety: What a mind he has, and what an ability to do that on TV.

Rachel: But there's a cost to long answers. People like sound bites. The recovery package doesn't have a name. We're being asked to understand Econ 101.

Anyone else wonder

Where they've been keeping the cable pundits of color these past few years? I mean, it's almost unseemly how they've whipped them all out at the same time, instead of maybe pretending it was a natural occurrence, that they've been there all along by easing them into the shows.

Readers pick Cokie Roberts' "foreign, exotic" Hawaii comments as Most Inane Punditry

Yeah!!! It got my vote.

In the end, it wasn't close. By an overwhelming margin, criticism by Cokie Roberts, NPR contributing senior news analyst and ABC political commentator, of then-Sen. Barack Obama for choosing Hawaii, the state of his birth, to take his August family vacation was the most popular entry in Media Matters for America's poll for Most Inane Punditry of the 2008 presidential campaign.

Readers chose Roberts' comments -- which included her characterizing Hawaii, where Obama vacations regularly, as "foreign, exotic" -- in greater numbers than her two closest competitors combined. Roberts stated: "I know his grandmother lives in Hawaii and I know Hawaii is a state, but it has the look of him going off to some sort of foreign, exotic place," adding, "He should be in Myrtle Beach, and, you know, if he's going to take a vacation at this time."

Hey! Pundits! Bob Gates Is Pretty Much OK With Withdrawing Combat Troops From Iraq on a 16-Month Timeline!

By GottaLaff

Spencer Ackerman is having way too much fun:

Gates is OK with Obama’s timetable for withdrawing combat troops from Iraq in 16 months!

[...] Gates was asked about the timetable, and he said working within Obama’s 16-month-ish timetable, with appropriate adjustments along commanders’ recommendations, is an “agreeable approach.” Gates noted that the Status of Forces Agreement compels a full withdrawal by Dec. 2011 and a withdrawal from Iraqi towns and cities by next summer, and said commanders in Iraq are exploring a “potential acceleration” of any drawdown. “I’m less concerned about a timetable,” he said. [...]

All this really speaks to the political wisdom of keeping Gates. The Republican defense secretary who implemented the surge just endorsed withdrawing combat troops from Iraq according to a deadline — something that John McCain, the pre-July George W. Bush and a raft of conservative commenters have said for years would herald the apocalypse. What are they going to say now that Gates is in favor of it?

Chances are, not a whole lot, since they can’t seem to comprehend the idea. Here’s Max Boot on the implications of Gates’ reappointment:

This all but puts an end to the 16-month timetable for withdrawal from Iraq…

And here’s Mara Liasson, the token liberal commentator on Fox News:

16 months has gone out the window, I think we can say that.

This is how a new progressive-realist consensus on foreign policy gets forged.

I love this transition if for nothing more than articles like this one.

Here's another reason: Obama actually listens. Yes, he has actual conversations with governors, no strings attached (as in, say, dictating the one, single, pre-determined question that a Republican and a Democrat are allowed to ask at such a gathering.*) Imagine that. A president who sees constructive input as a positive. Great idea.

Just ask the governors he listened to earlier today.

*That anectdote came to me via Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer on today's Rachel Maddow radio show. I heard it with my own two very ears.

This is what happens when pundits have to fill time

By GottaLaff

Every chance he gets, David Shuster has been repeating how "weird" things were today at the Obama/Biden event today in Springfield. He has repeatedly gone on at length about every gaffe that was made: The "next president" remark, the "Barack America" line, Biden calling his wife "drop dead gorgeous", and Obama imitating the stutter when referring to Biden's boyhood nickname, "B-B-Biden". (I'm not entirely sure how else he could have gotten the point across.)

He ended with:

David Shuster (with a grimace): "It was... strange."

Craig Crawford: But the visuals were great. They looked good.

And isn't that all that counts?

I'm not sure why verbal flubs are the focal point here. We all trip over our words. It isn't as if Joe Biden actually thinks Barack's last name is America, or that Obama believes that Biden is at the top of the ticket.

And what is wrong with calling his wife gorgeous? What am I missing here? How about discussing the substance of the speeches instead of the quirks?

Your turn.

Shallow Thoughts: PUMAs, do you really want a President McCain?

By GottaLaff

No, there will be no vice president Clinton. So how many times today must we hear the talking heads ramble on about how those self-destructive Hillary die-hards are so, so, so sputtery spitty mad that they'll vote in a guy who would be another embarrassingly disastrous president?

These questions and more are yours for only $19.95. Call direct, call collect. We take Visa, MasterCard and spare change.

That last part was just me making fun of myself. Sleep deprivation. It's what's for dinner!

UPDATE: Apparently, not everyone knows what PUMAs are. They are the Hillary supporters who won't give up: Party Unity My Ass.

Mark "Mr Stupid Man" Halperin

By Paddy


Just overheard Mark "All The Wins Belong To McCain" Halperin say on "Morning Joe" that Obama better get into the townhall groove with McCain because, "If he goes into a debate this fall and makes one mistake about Iraq or Iran his campaign is over"**.

This from the man that declared that McCain "won" last week. Do they even bother to listen to the crap that comes out of their mouths?

Oh and how many mistakes is McCain allowed to make about Iran and Iraq before his campaign is over Mark?

The video is here- for some reason Howard Fineman has a YouTube channel, but you can't embed. MISSING THE POINT THERE HOWARD!!!!!!!!! Howard fixed it.




**Paraphrased.