In all the coverage about Comcast’s purchase of NBC there’s been tons of talk about how NBC Universal has done very badly in the traditional broadcast television world but succeeded handily in cable. True enough if your horizon stretches no further than, say, next summer.
The obits for broadcast have been written before and with $600 billion in ad revenues sloshing around I’d bet the reports of broadcast television’s death are still very premature. But there’s no denying cable networks have a better economic model — at this moment.
The potentially fatal …

You didn’t even need to pick up a copy of the New York Post this morning to know the paper’s oh-so-predictable verdict on President Obama’s speech at West Point. In fact you didn’t even have to watch the paper’s stable mates at Fox last night to know what was coming. Because it’s been coming for months. For his legion of well-heeled and widely-distributed critics, the bottom line is simply, if it’s coming out of Obama’s mouth or Obama’s White House it is, by definition, bad, misguided, and probably un-American. Their …

It was inescapable from the very start of Barack Obama’s campaign waaaaay back in January 2007 that race and racism would play a big part in whatever came to pass. And of course it did and it has and it still is and it always will. Now the New York Times — or to be fair one of her columnists — has finally said what is pretty apparent: An awful lot of the screaming incoherent rage ostensibly directed at Obama’s actions is actually just plain racism.
Maureen Dowd put it this …

If  Barack Obama has an Achille’s Heel (if? who doesn’t…) it is almost certainly his arrogance. Most of the time he keeps it in check, or at least does a reasonably good job of masking it. When it peeks through he is generally quick to recognize the potential damage (“You’re nice enough, Hillary”). But this time his arrogance may once again cost Americans the chance at having the health care system as good as every other industrialized country in the world.
The arguments about the relative merits of various plans, the …

No one ever accused Rupert Murdoch media properties of being fair and balanced least of all his money-losing Democrat-hating baby the New York Post. Still Friday’s Michael Starr article on Oprah Winfrey’s ratings declines is a truly remarkable effort in keeping the boss happy at all costs.
Starr writes about the long slow decline in Oprah’s ratings for her afternoon syndicated talk show. He notes early on that the show’s numbers are “down by nearly a third, 32 percent, records show” before jumping into the speculation pool for a quick dip …

 
OK so it’s not the most surprising headline and many people probably believe it could be a daily column but this is a special episode of “Bill O’Reilly is Allergic to Facts.” Today’s episode: Newspaper circulation.
O’Reilly’s syndicated column is essentially a hearty har-har-har over the troubles at the New York Times which is, of course, a favorite topic among the legions of Americans who hate the “paper of record.” There’s certainly plenty to write about on that score but Bill takes the super lazy way out insists the paper’s problems …

All of a sudden there is a debate over torture. A debate about whether or not torture might be okay to use in some cases. What’s stunning is not the arguments for and against but that there’s now an accepting underlying narrative. Conservative and liberal commentators who violently disagree about whether the U.S. should torture tacitly agree on one thing: Torture works.
Bullshit.
The relatively short list of those who argue that it has (Dick Cheney, Michael Hayden, Michael Mukasey) all offer either no proof (Cheney) or debunked claims (Hayden and Mukasey). And …

Face it. The most natural American gut reaction to the news about Somali pirates holding an American ship captain hostage is, blow them the f*ck up! And that’s pretty much what the always-level-headed editors at the New York Post advocated on Saturday.
We would urge Washington to bring the melodrama to an immediate end — irrespective of the consequences to the hostage. Failing to do so would paint the Navy — and America — as impotent, making US-flagged vessels even more tempting targets for Somali cutthroats.
In other words, Nuke ‘em!!!!! Oddly, …

Orginally posted 3/29, updated 4/11
Hey if the New York Post can write great, if somewhat misleading headlines, why can’t I?
The equation that liberal Keith and conservative Bill were essentially separated at birth may not apply in all ways but in at least one they are equal: Both are blowhards who seem almost incapable of admitting mistakes.
(Each has one major exception to this: Olbermann famously wrote the “Mea Culpa” essay for Salon in 2002 about his experience at ESPN and O’Reilly admitted in 2004 he was wrong in believing President Bush’s …

There a few things more certain in life than this: Hyper-partisans (left and right) will twist everything and anything to fit their worldview. Today’s case in point comes courtesy of Red State and a contributor who speculates that the Somali pirates who have attacked and apparently captured an American-flagged cargo vessel did so because they know Barack Obama is a wuss.
While the author is correct no U.S. flagged vessel has been successfully attacked by pirates to this point it’s worth noting how few American-flagged vessels there are any more. The …