The dirt on Tom Cruise via Andrew Morton’s biography, here:

not gay (though the “evidence” is flimsy)

homophobic (ditto above)

a freak of Scientology

Whatever. I just pass on the reports. You decide.

Oh yes. I almost forgot:

Nicolas Sarkozy Secretly Weds Singer Carla Bruni

Bonne chance to the lovebirds, whom I’ve written about here and here, noting that his advisers weren’t too worried about the affair. They just wanted Sarkozy to get on with it and marry Carla already so that he could get back to steering the ship of state. Ever the politician—and one with huge ambitions—he took their advice. He’s no slouch, that Sarko.

Following up on my earlier post about the smashing success of horse-race coverage for the cable “news” outlets, let me report to you the advice of Broadcasting & Cable to the networks. It’s simple: get in on the action.

But at a time when voters have turned out in record numbers in the first two primary states, broadcast news divisions have ceded live coverage to their cable brethren. Neither CBS nor NBC interrupted primetime schedules to air meaningful coverage of the Iowa caucuses or New Hampshire primaries. Granted, NBC News’ Brian Williams and Tim Russert held court on sister cable network MSNBC, but there they had to tolerate the sophomoric shenanigans of Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, et al.

Broadcasting & Cable singles out ABC for its coverage (and its performance):

ABC News has been the only broadcast network to step up to the plate. And viewers are paying attention. Back-to-back primetime debates on Saturday Jan. 5 attracted big audiences. More than 7 million people watched the Republican debate, and an impressive 9.36 million tuned in to the Democrats.

Get in on the action in order to salvage what remains of your reputation. That’s the advice I would give network news divisions. But what do I know?

Following up on my post earlier today, here’s a story from TNR that provides evidence of the sick, treacly rot—the insane PC obsession with hurt feelings, as if it is words and not hurtful, harmful, obscene, illegal, immoral, and unconscionable actions that they should be worried about—that is eating away at progressives, Democrats, and what’s left of the left:

The latest maiming of the historical record and elementary historical logic has come over Martin Luther King, Jr., Lyndon B. Johnson–and the presidential primaries of 2008. The media echo chamber is now booming with charges that Senator Hillary Clinton has disparaged Dr. King, praised President Johnson in his stead, and thereby distorted the history of the civil rights movement. …

Now, Representative James E. Clyburn, the most prominent African-American elected official from South Carolina, has picked up the ever-changing story and implicitly accused Senator Clinton of denigrating Dr. King and the civil rights movement. “We have to be very, very careful about how we speak about that era in American politics,” Clyburn told The New York Times.

[e.a.]

Do we? Who is “we”? And Why?

What matters is the truth, not the tender feelings of the hypersensitive. And the truth is that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a massive hero to millions and millions and millions and millions of Americans, black and white.

He was strong, tough, honorable, noble, and unbending in the face of hideous real-life persecution. He shamed bigots throughout America and ennobled an entire nation. His accomplishments will not soon be matched by another human being.

Why do we have to be careful about talking about his era? Why?

Political correctness (for the purposes of this post, I will define it thus: “You’re not allowed to say that; only I am allowed to say that”) was the left’s gift to America. The left meant well. (I know, because I was on the left—comfortable and at home on the left, that is—at the time.)

Now the left, represented by the Democratic party, is having interesting problems. (I haven’t felt comfortable on the left for a long time, because the left has abandoned liberalism, I believe, but that’s another story for another day.)

My point is this: Two candidates who represent the apotheosis of progressive ideals are vying for the presidency. One is black. The other is a woman. If you’re a sensitive, well-meaning progressive, how do you support one of these candidates without smearing the other and earning yourself the label of “sexist” or “racist”?

To her great credit as a media critic and journalist (and without a lot of pickup by other media writers, except for Mickey Kaus and I’m not sure he counts except in the blogo-universe, where he counts a lot, in my book), my cyber-pal Rachel Sklar of ETPhas been asking this question for a while now (though somewhat less directly than I write about it here).

On January 3, she wrote (re the Obama and Oprah Show):

[F]raming Obama’s support in terms of a wave of hope and optimism and Clinton’s support as inevitability imposed by a suffocating dynasty might have been just a tad unbalanced. It’s funny, even as I write this I feel the need to check and recheck to make sure I don’t somehow say this wrong. Obama is that candidate — the one you are careful writing about. I don’t think it’s just me.

Kaus picked up on it the next day:

Rachel Sklar notes an insufficiently remarked on Obama advantage: (”[E]ven as I write this I feel the need to check and recheck to make sure I don’t somehow say this wrong. Obama is that candidate — the one you are careful writing about. I don’t think it’s just me”) …

Last night, Rachel put up a very long post analyzing the sad but inevitable viral viciousness of the Obama “fairy tale” remark by Bill Clinton (which he ihas been going out of his way to explain)[e.a.]:

Context isn’t just important, it’s everything — especially in these days of insta-pickup by blogs and online news sites, where just a snippet of text is enough to launch a million clicks.

You’d think that in the case of this election, where the race is tight and a nasty rumor or smear can make all the difference, people might want to be a bit careful. Alas, no.

Now Jules Crittenden picks up the theme. Understandably, being on the opposite side of the political spectrum from Rachel (I assume), he’s got a somewhat different take—namely, how “careful” is everyone supposed to be and for how long?

My big question is, does this mean if Obama gets elected no one can ever use the words “fairy tale” again, or any other words that might suggest he doesn’t know what he’s doing or what he’s talking about or that he might be full of it, because that might be perceived as racially insensitive? That’s a pretty serious issue, regardless of Obama’s politics, if political speech is going to be curtailed about something as important as the performance in office of the president of the United States, because someone’s feelings might get hurt. I’m guessing anything remotely resembling any of the delightful remarks about Chimpy’s appearance, intelligence, preparedness for office and performance in the last seven years would pretty much be out.

Here’s the thing. I believe that Barack Obama is not likely to have his actually feelings hurt by “racially insensitive” speech (no more than I would be if I were running for office and encountered “religiously insensitive” speech). Despite the smooth presentation, he is a hard-ass politician who came up through Chicago, which has a history of dirty, vicious politics. Alleged racial insensitivity and gender insensitivity are, in this race, merely cudgels with which to beat political opponents. They’re powerful and loaded cudgels, but they are still only cudgels (and not evidence of real racism and real sexism, which are not about the things you say about people but about the things you do to people who are less powerful than you).

Here’s the other thing: I believe that most normal people get that. Politics is a dirty business. There is no way for your candidate to win unless the other guy or gal loses. And you do whatever it takes for your guy or gal to win—no matter how dirty or hurtful. That’s just the way it is.

Political correctness may become a casualty of this election. Or, at least, one can always hope.

Right, Barack?

First the MSM was challenged by the blogosphere. I’m beginning to think that MWLs (mainstream world leaders) and political and geopolitical institutions will soon be challenged in unexpected ways by the technological revolution.

A previously unknown (at least to me) group has posted to YouTube a trailer for what it hopes is an upcoming geopolitical event. (I do not endorse the group or the trailer or the message. I am merely passing on the news about a revolutionary kind of political action made possible by the technological revolution).

The trailer is called The Last Fanatic. You can view it here. Ynet News explains:

A cinematic trailer serving as a tool for marketing Israeli Initiative’s political message is starring in the list of the most popular video clips on YouTube just a few days after its release. …

“The Last Fanatic depicts a would-be suicide bomber who unexpectedly calls off his attack plans – which leads the viewer to question what led him and his supporters to deviate from their path,” a statement released by the Initiative said.

This is entertainment as propaganda—the very essence of infotaiment.

We decided to translate the campaign into the language of the Internet generation and of the Web 2.0.,” said Israeli Initiative’s strategic campaign adviser, Yuval Porat.

“The use of the cinematic language of a short and rhythmic trailer and advanced marketing tools, which were used, utilize the new arena in an ideological manner, which create file-sharing websites, including YouTube, and enable exposure to millions of visitors throughout the world and in Israel,” he said.

Political philosophy packaged for the YouTube era. Brave new world indeed.

The NYT’s David Carr delivers grim news to “creatives”:

I’ve got some bad news for striking Hollywood writers: Election 2008 is a breakaway hit.

January was supposed to be the month when the writers’ strike took its toll, subjecting viewers to a menu of desiccated repeats and cheesy reality shows. Instead, the primary season is serving as the backdrop for one of the most compelling runs of event television in years, creating the kind of chatter network marketers would kill for and spectacular ratings for cable news.

Carr repeatedly tries to suggest that it’s the absence of appealing alternatives (like sports, late-night comedy, and scripted shows, for example) that accounts for the huge gains in audience numbers for “cable news” since 2004.

The Times’s Bill Keller disagrees:

“I think the level of interest in the presidential race would be intense even if writers were still churning out episodes of ‘24’ and ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ ” he wrote. “It’s a defining race for both parties, with a cast of fascinating candidates, some of whom fall into the breakthrough category. There also seems to be a visceral national yearning to turn the page.”

Perhaps. But I’m more inclined to accept the explanation of Brian Grazer, who is not a gazillionaire producer for nothing [e.a.]:

“There is a new episode on almost every night,” said Brian Grazer, a Hollywood producer who is in what is left of the Oscar hunt with “American Gangster.” “It is very human to be constantly searching for new stories, and now that the traditional outlets of those stories are shutting down, people are finding their drama in these unfolding events.”

So, yes, I agree with Grazer and with Keller. But neither one of them will come out and say the bleeding obvious: that it is the manner of coverage of politics that is drawing in the audiences. The “drama” is being manufactured by the cable “news” networks. (In this case, it is helped along by the wide-open nature of the political race, but that only makes it easier for the networks to churn out stories with unpredictable endings.)

It is not news. It is infotainment—in other words, information (none of which is necessarily true) packaged as entertainment.  

Now do you believe me when I say that Infotainment Rules? Here’s what I wrote:

Television, however, delivers what sells, and what sells is entertainment—or stuff that is packaged like entertainment. Infotainment doesn’t have to be bad or stupid or crass. High-quality infotainment may in fact be superior to dry “news” as a vehicle for delivering information to audiences.

Once again: I do not endorse the hideous devolution of TV “news” into infotainment. I am merely trying to get people to understand that what they’re getting on TV is not “news.” It’s entertainment, and the goal of its producers is to get you to watch their channel.

They do it by hooking you on stories. If the stories are exciting and the ending isn’t known to anyone in advance (as in an election, or a sensational kidnapping, or some violent flare-up somewhere, for example), people tune in. That’s why cable “news” is addicted to horse-race coverage of the U.S. election that is ten months away and can barely turn away to give any attention to the visit of our president to the Middle East.

If you want to know the news, take advantage of the vast amount of information available on the Internet and read widely.

If you want fictional rather than reality-based (and reality-bending) entertainment on TV and you want our political process to be a little more serious and less unseemly … I don’t know how to advise you. All I do is call ‘em how I see ‘em.

Glenn Greenwald channels Voltaire:

People like Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant are some of the most pernicious commentators around. But equally pernicious, at least, are those who advocate laws that would proscribe and punish political expression, and those who exploit those laws to try use the power of the State to impose penalties on those expressing “offensive” or “insulting” or “wrong” political ideas. The mere existence of the “investigation,” interrogation, and proceeding itself is a grotesque affront to every basic liberty.

For those unable to think past the (well-deserved) animosity one has for the specific targets in question here, all one needs to do instead is imagine these proceedings directed at opinions and groups that one likes. If Muslim groups can trigger government investigations due to commentary they find offensive, so, too, can conservative Christian or right-wing Jewish groups, or conservative or neoconservative groups, or any other political faction seeking to restrict and punish speech it dislikes.

It’s not often that Greenwald and LGF’s Charles Johnson agree on something. Savor the moment.

More important: visit Ezra Levant’s blog and watch and read his attack on Canadians’ perversion of justice:

For a government bureaucrat to call any publisher or anyone else to an interrogation to be quizzed about his political or religious expression is a violation of 800 years of common law, a Universal Declaration of Rights, a Bill of Rights and a Charter of Rights. This commission is applying Saudi values, not Canadian values.

It is also deeply procedurally one-sided and unjust. The complainant – in this case, a radical Muslim imam, who was trained at an officially anti-Semitic university in Saudi Arabia, and who has called for sharia law to govern Canada – doesn’t have to pay a penny; Alberta taxpayers pay for the prosecution of the complaint against me. The victims of the complaints, like the Western Standard, have to pay for their own lawyers from their own pockets. Even if we win, we lose – the process has become the punishment….

It is procedurally unfair. Unlike real courts, there is no way to apply for a dismissal of nuisance lawsuits. Common law rules of evidence don’t apply. Rules of court don’t apply. It is a system that is part Kafka, and part Stalin. Even this interrogation today – at which I appear under duress – saw the commission tell me who I could or could not bring with me as my counsel and advisors.
I have no faith in this farcical commission. But I do have faith in the justice and good sense of my fellow Albertans and Canadians. I believe that the better they understand this case, the more shocked they will be. I am here under your compulsion to answer the commission’s questions. But it is not I who am on trial: it is the freedom of all Canadians.

You may start your interrogation.

Stirring stuff.

New York Times:

G.O.P. Voters, in Big Shift, Favor McCain Over His Rivals — WASHINGTON — Republican voters have sharply altered their views of their presidential candidates following the early contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, with Senator John McCain, widely written off just weeks ago …

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CBS News:20 minutes ago

CBS Poll: McCain Surges To National Lead — On Democratic Side, Clinton Maintains Double-Digit Lead Over Obama — (CBS) Surging after his win in the New Hampshire primary, Arizona Sen. John McCain has come from behind to now lead the national Republican race, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll.

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