RELATED: Rick Santorum Answers Question On SOPA: ‘There Are Limits To Freedom On The Internet’

Santorum has been open about his family fleeing Mussolini in the past, but Oggi notes that a great deal of their apprehension about fascism came from the fact that they were a well-known group of “red communists to the core”:

“In Riva del Garda his grandfather Pietro and uncles were ‘red communists’ to the core,” writes Oggi journalist Giuseppe Fumagalli, likening the family to “Peppone” after a famous fictional Italian communist mayor who fought against an ultraconservative priest known as Don Cammillo and about which a popular television series is based. “But on the other side of the ocean, it’s like his family here doesn’t exist. Instead he draws crowds as the head of the ultraconservative faction of the Republican party, against divorce, gay marriage, abortion, and immigration.”

The Daily Beast concludes that his relatives love him and would be happy to see him win, despite the political differences. The Oggi website also has a very cute video interview with some older Santorums over what appears to be wine. The Daily Beast‘s take is not hostile to Santorum, and the Oggi video appears to be an interesting look at part of the family of a family values candidate, but there is a danger in the potential use of this coverage that should be immediately diffused: the impulse to use Santorum’s family against him, to mock or oppose him based on his family’s beliefs.

The why and how behind the fact that there are Santorums out there that disagree with our Republican presidential candidate is a concern alien to why such an attack should prompt an instantaneous and viscerally negative reaction from the American public. The set-up from the initial report for Santorum opponents, should they choose to take the bait, is for a meta-ad hominem attack from which no politician is safe, the natural evolution from, say, “x politician has a gay relative” or “y politician’s uncle has a DUI under his name.” It tempts the reader to ask, “if Rick Santorum is so conservative, how come people who share his blood are communists?” the same way the aforementioned draw the reader into wondering how a politician could uphold certain virtues when his or her genetic material has produced in others such radically different results. It flies in the face of everything Americans are taught defines the ethos of their nation: that individuals define themselves and immutable traits don’t matter.

Many will contest that Santorum judges immutable traits in the same manner through his social conservatism, but that vision proves myopic regarding the template of the argument, particularly with the children of immigrants. If this argument is accepted as valid and radically derails the already fumbling Santorum campaign, the next target for such an attack is pretty clear: Sen. Marco Rubio, whose parents fled a turbulent situation in Cuba amidst a communist rebellion. Countries like Cuba are too small for someone not to be related to another of the opposing faction. There is little doubt that, somewhere on the island (or in Moscow, where many children of communist sympathizers were sent to study if they were good little pioneers) Sen. Rubio has a distant cousin who must at least nominally believe in the “revolution.” And the media hasn’t been averse to grotesque attacks based on his past before.

Nor would Republicans be the only ones under attack, lest it appear I be making the argument that the Republican Party is the party of immigrants and exiles. Expanding the rules of political decency to allow for this sort of attack benefits and enlightens no one. That’s not to dissuade journalists from finding the color in a politician’s family or trying to get to know the candidates better, but given than anything from potential animal abuse to being a francophone, it is important to draw a line somewhere regarding what should be socially acceptable methods of attack.

[Photo via AP]

In addition, former CBS Interactive executive Eric Danetz will be reportedly joining the company as its senior vice president of sales. Update: Justine Rosenthal is being promoted to executive editor, Newsweek, and Jane Spencer is taking on the role of executive editor, The Daily Beast. Mark Miller is “coming home” to the magazine as director of editorial operations for Newsweek and The Daily Beast after working as editor of The Texas Tribune, and Nathan Geddie will be promoted to associate managing editor.

Rosenthal was formerly editor of The National Interest

Furthermore, the duties of the managing editor position will be "absorbed elsewhere in the department."

The news come on the heels of news that Newsweek will be this year eschewing its practice of having reporters follow the candidates on the campaign trial. Earlier, Felsenthal had explained the decision by declaring “that sitting on election news” felt “out of place in an era where so much information comes out so fast” via platforms such as Twitter and blogs.

These recent changes at the media company seem, then, to point to a two-pronged issue: 1) Cost-cutting measures and 2) an ongoing search for a new and relevant identity at a time when the manner in which we take in and analyze media and information is changing rapidly. We were, however, told by a representative for the company that “the magazine saw a 10 percent rise in ad pages in October YOY per PIB vs. 2010. Newsstand sales are up 20 percent and our subscription renewals are up 2.6 percent – first time they’ve seen a rise in 5 years, so to say the magazine is struggling to find an identity is not accurate.”

It appears that Newsweek writer Howard Kurtz (who also hosts CNN’s Reliable Sources) was afforded a rare level of access in doing research for this article. The fascinating read hits many of the same notes we have come to expect to hear about the Fox News chief — he can be combative, sees himself as an underdog, and uses candor to both charm and command respect from his staff — but the larger leitmotif of the essay is that the pendulum of Fox News’ opinion coverage is swinging back towards the middle. Or, at the very least, that’s the message that Kurtz and Ailes would like the reader to take away. There are lots of great details to highlight as well:

For starters, then, let’s take a look at just one example supporting the notion that Ailes is a man who knows very well what he wants. And no New York City mayor is going to change that.

Ailes is also fully aware that a little competition never hurt anyone…

Speaking of competition, Ailes keeps a close eye on other news outlets as well, not only to see what they’re up to, but also to gauge the tone and rhetoric they employ in packaging the news for their audiences:

Ailes keeps a close eye on the network’s stars. While this might appear, on the surface, to be the result of a tendency to micromanage the network’s talent, the overall takeaway is that Ailes is constantly viewing his network in terms of the big picture — a picture, as at least one former aide to Barack Obama has noted, that may be transforming:

You see, if there is one thing that Ailes focuses on, it’s the bottom line. The profile presents a picture of a man finely attuned not only to what the American public says they want, but what they’re actually going to end up watching. And, for now, it seems that means a subtle tweaking of Fox News’ programming and overall tone:

Do yourself a favor and read the interesting essay at Daily Beast / Newsweek.

He wonders, today, if CNN’s exclusive might have been granted by al-Megrahi’s family with certain motivation, and whether al-Megrahi is “Dying or Faking?” The families and friends of Pan Am 103 victims he talked to seem to believe as much.

Frank Duggan, president of the nonprofit Victims of Pan Am 103 Inc., says that “The CNN ‘exclusive exposé’ that they discovered his hiding place was total bullshit.” He argues that al-Megrahi is not as sick as he is made out to be, and that his family is “trying to make a sympathetic character out of and unrepentant, murderous monster.” He also claims that Robertson did not have to track al-Megrahi down, and rather, that he was invited, as were several other news organizations. “Megrahi’s son was emailing all this information to the Libya shills in England and Scotland,” he tells Grove. “I don’t believe CNN, and I certainly don’t believe SkyNews, who reported that Megrahi had died last year.”

Kathy Tedeschi, who was widowed in the crash, is equally dubious. “The reporter is climbing up and looking all over the place, and waiting a long time before the family let him in,” she noticed. “That’s plenty of time to set the stage.”

While acknowledging the possibility that the scene might have been set, Robertson remains confident as to what he saw and reported. “Not being a doctor, not doing proper medical checks, you cannot sort of say with a hundred percent certainty his real state of health here,” he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Monday night. But, for Robertson, the fact remains: “I saw Megrahi two years ago … He looked much better back then than he does now.”

And so Robertson was reporting the situation as he saw it, just as a reporter wont do, and maybe al-Megrahi is actually near death — nearer, even, than two years ago when he was released from jail under the assumption that he had only a few moths left to live. Grove seems to be arguing, though, that to continue reporting on al-Megrahi’s near death goes only to serve al-Megrahi, as there is a much more powerful story to be gotten from the man. As another victim, quoted in Lloyd’s piece, says, “There’s a treasure trove of information there and we ought to be focused on finding out who else was involved in Lockerbie.”

Watch Robertson’s report from CNN below:

Headlining a piece about someone who is soon to be one of the very few voices of color in cable news with the phrase “affirmative action” poses enough of a problem; that as the article proceeds, it becomes apparent that Sharpton’s questionable ethics to acquire the position have far more to do with lobbying and money than race is another complication entirely. Add to that the fact that his predecessor, Cenk Uygur, was already an ethnic minority on the network, and the links between Sharpton, his racial activism, and his relationship with his new bosses feels like something of an impenetrable web of intrigue made even more inscrutable by the eye-catching headline.

But don’t let the shiny words fool you– the crux of Barrett’s thesis is that Sharpton is being rewarded for being one of the few minority voices in favor of the NBC-Comcast merger, not simply for being a minority voice. Noting that “his three prior attempts at hosting a show have flopped badly,” Barrett posits that there is no particular commercial attractiveness to adding a host like Sharpton to a cable news lineup, snidely concluding that his profile isn’t helped much by a a 2004 presidential bid “so widely seen as vacuous and uninformed that it earned him remarkably puny support, even among black voters.” So why, then, would MSNBC even have him in the running?:

Sharpton has a long and well-documented history of leveraging his civil-rights profile for his own benefit. Grabbing a prime-time anchor spot in exchange for cheerleading for a controversial merger would be the capper on that career. It’s gone remarkably unnoticed that Sharpton was the first major black leader to endorse the Comcast merger, which met fierce resistance.

Barrett goes on to show that one hand washes the other– Comcast has also made some significant contributions to Sharpton’s National Action Network, as well– according to a spokesperson, $140,000 since 2009, when the merger was first proposed. The National Action Network, on their part, had honored MSNBC President Phil Griffin with an award this year, and, as mentioned before, Sharpton supported the Comcast-NBC merger staunchly when it was being attacked for potentially fostering less diversity in the media through a memorandum of agreement (MOU) also signed by the NAACP and the Urban League. As Barrett explains, “the MOU was significant because it countered opposition from Jesse Jackson, a variety of black organizations, and some black House Democrats.” And here is where race finally comes into play in a concrete way: that MOU required the establishment of minority advisory councils, which Barrett finds strange that Sharpton declined to participate in:

The MOU required Comcast/NBC to establish minority advisory councils, and the Urban League’s [Marc] Morial was named to chair the African-American panel. Sharpton’s organization designated the Rev. W. Franklyn Richardson, who has chaired NAN’s board for years, to sit on the council. Since Sharpton has frequently put himself on corporate councils, including even Walmart’s, his decision to appoint Richardson suggests that, as far back as May, he was already angling for an MSNBC job, and knew he couldn’t be both a council member and an employee.

Barrett pieces together enough of the puzzle to make a viable argument: Sharpton couldn’t market himself as a successful host on his own, he must have brought something new to the table, and money and perks were being exchanged between the two entities fast and loose. What this has to do with affirmative action– the policy of actively pursuing minority hires to balance out past racial discrimination– is a question left unanswered, particularly when replacing a minority host with a minority host would do little to advance any such goal.

According to the Observer, the Newsweek Daily Beast company has already hired producers Kathy O’Hearn, formerly of CNN, and Susie Banikarim, who was “poached from Diane Sawyer.” O’Hearn has previously worked with Brown as the executive producer of CNBC’s relatively short-lived weekly talk show, Topic [A].

The show will not only potentially bring increased visibility to the Daily Beast, but it is also set to provide the news site with original video content. There’s at least one former member of the Newsweek / Daily Beast blended family, however, that isn’t terribly enthusiastic about the new venture:

Former Newsweek editor Mark Coatney, now in charge of Tumblr media relations, criticized the decision on (what else?) his Tumblr, citing the strength of the Newsweek brand, its healthy traffic and the havoc the move would wreak on its searchability.

He got sentimental about the content, too.

“Newsweek.com at its best, especially when Deirdre Depke and Tom Watson ran it, was a really great read, full of stories and photos you wouldn’t find anywhere else, and done with a nice dose of wit and style,” he told Off the Record in an e-mail.

But, then again, who is to say longer format, in-depth reporting and editorials with “wit and style” can’t coexist peacefully with short, topical posts, viral videos or (God, we hate this word) talk show webisodes.

h/t The Observer

With just enough time for the shock of seeing the seemingly anachronistic chyron “Carl Bernstein: The Daily Beast” to subside, O’Donnell asked Bernstein to discuss the two scandals and how they compare, the topic of an upcoming Newsweek piece Bernstein penned. “This is a massive abuse of power, much like Nixon abused his power… journalism is not a license to abuse a free press.” He went on to say the “Murdoch enterprise has acted like thugs, not like reporters, somewhat like a mafia outfit.”

Despite the damage done to the organization, however, Bernstein argued he still had “huge power here through his readership,” citing especially the New York Post, “which has been terribly influential in a horrible way.” As hard as he went on the Post however, Bernstein did not tackle Fox News with so much ire, instead saying of the network, “good journalism is the best obtainable version of the truth, and that’s not what Murdoch practices.” He also made the point of saying that a three minute segment was far too short to have a substantive conversation, and invited himself on the program several times.

Bernstein did note that there was no fixed journalistic code to follow, and that “we’re not choirboys,” but “common sense and decency are to guide us.” And speaking of that… Bernstein then turned to give a few words of wisdom to his host, in particular about his tearing apart of Newsweek for making Sarah Palin their cover girl. “It’s one thing to argue about a piece, but, since we’re talking about journalism, to just go after the whole magazine the way you did,” Bernstein preached, “saying it was declining or whatever when the circulation is up, or whatever… we need to avoid this thing in our business. This is the kind of thing that Murdoch has made his bones on. Let’s calm down this discussion.” O’Donnell, for the most part, shrugged it off, joking that he had told his audience to “buy Newsweek” for Bernstein’s article. Bernstein then, in classic “shameless elder statesmen who knows he is a living legend” form, told O’Donnell they needed to have another segment on the topic in the near future– a longer one, of course, so Bernstein could lay down the law on journalistic ethics all the better.

The segment via MSNBC below:

Trotta, who appears every Saturday to give her (usually excoriating) take on a topic of the week, minced no words about Brown and her publication, calling it “the lowest of the low” and accusing Brown of resorting to “old Fleet Street desperate tricks in order to up the circulation.” She also remarked that her piece on Diana was just “fan fiction” and that “you can expect more of the same, because wherever Tina Brown goes, she leaves a trail of third class ‘journalism’ behind her.” She then gave her anti-plug for the magazine: “unless you’re really interested in sleaze, you should not buy Newsweek.”

The Saturday afternoon Liz Trotta commentaries that have become Fox News staples are fascinating for many reasons– for one, there’s never one where Trotta isn’t unapologetically frothing at the mouth about someone in the media, and she rarely has dialogue with the host of the hour (though there was more of that today). What’s more, they are never actually part of any program. Trotta just appears, barely announced, rarely expected, introduced by a news anchor as if cutting to another report or commercial. And the format, while uncommon, fits Trotta’s “if you’ve got nothing nice to say, keep talking” style to a T.

Trotta’s scathing words for Tina Brown and Newsweek below:

True, as someone who finds herself in a place not terribly dissimilar from the prosecution in Anthony’s trial, Clark is in a unique position from which to offer insight and analysis. But it all is kind of… well, funny:

Clark’s piece — titled “Worse Than O.J.!” — opines that the “not guilty” verdict in the Anthony case is even more surprising than in Simpson’s because Anthony is not a celebrity, at least not in the traditional sense that pro athlete O.J. Simpson was. And she ties the two cases together in another way, noting that, although she must accept the jury’s verdict, “I don’t have to agree with it.”

h/t Daily Beast

Graham notes that Liberty Defined tackles fifty main themes, but squeezes the pulp out of the juiciest of them– sparing readers most of the anti-Federal Reserve rhetoric that has defined Rep. Paul’s career. Those arguments, for the most part, Graham narrates deviate little from what Rep. Paul argues on television and debates all the time. Nor does much of the book veer away from that, either, but Rep. Paul’s application of his well-known logic to more obscure political topics is what Graham argues gets him in trouble. For example, Rep. Paul’s passionate support for states’ rights over federal power leads him to reference the Civil War and argue the Constitution may require personal consent, like the mythical Social Contract:

A chapter on states’ rights turns into an argument for nullification, the long-discredited notion that states can nullify federal laws they oppose (in making his case, he mentions in passing that “the Civil War was fought to keep all states under the thumb of a powerful central government”—even though a chapter on slavery directly precedes it). Paul even flirts with the idea that the Constitution should apply only to those who personally consent to it; then he quickly moves on, writing, “Enforcing the Tenth Amendment is a big enough challenge to us for now.”

Graham also finds problematic that Rep. Paul does not believe in global warming, calling it “an unserious, intellectual luxury” that would lead the government to attempt to “plan weather patterns… the height of absurdity”– though that does not put him at odds with many conservatives– and that he argues stridently against “bipartisanship,” though rather than do so on partisan grounds, Rep. Paul repudiates both parties as having ideas that are too similar. Rep. Paul goes on to hope “that [both parties] will continue fighting and not pass any new legislation.”

Then there are the “conspiracy theories” and bargain bin of wacky side issues that do Rep. Paul in for Graham:

He praises Julian Assange and WikiLeaks several times; tosses in a chapter on Zionism that’s unlikely to gain him much praise in the current Israel-loving climate; says Texas’ decision to seek statehood was “probably a mistake”; eloquently speaks out against the death penalty; and mentions in passing that the Federal Reserve may be secretly financing the CIA—a claim that would raise eyebrows even if he supported it with evidence or a footnote, which he doesn’t.

While Graham does his best to merely aggregate the book’s most bizarre ideas, he does give away a few times that he does not quite grasp the political enclave Rep. Paul has been ruler of since his rise to prominence as a presidential candidate during his last term. For one, he calls Rep. Paul a “social conservative” for his stance on abortion– a difficult leash to tie around a candidate whose major contributions to the Republican debates so far is to make legalizing heroin a visible topic. He also chides Rep. Paul for his claims, adding that “disciplined candidates don’t do such things,” going on to include Rep. Michele Bachmann, albeit begrudgingly, as one of the “disciplined candidates.”

To Graham, many of Rep. Paul’s long-standing, honest, and deliberately publicized opinions come across as gaffes. That Graham equates Rep. Paul being open about his opinions to Rep. Paul being “undisciplined” says as much about the level of honesty America expects in their presidents as President Obama’s permanently “evolving” stance on same-sex marriage. That’s not to say that slyly hinting approval of a Texan secessionist movement and accusing the Federal Reserve of secretly funding the CIA while extolling the Constitution is a fast track to the White House (or logic), but counting Rep. Paul’s quirkiness against him is to miss the appeal of the “Ron Paul Revolution” in its entirety.

His fans embrace the fact that Rep. Paul is comfortable tossing out support to Julian Assange and calling climate change “absurd,” even when they don’t agree, because the alternative politicking and equivocating from the other candidates (with perhaps Herman Cain and Gary Johnson as exceptions) has become about as palatable as two-week-old Thanksgiving leftovers. And while it may not give him the power to win the nomination, it gives Rep. Paul the power to knock out other contenders– and possibly significantly divide the Republican/independent vote in 2012.

Edwards’ career freefall took an unprecedented turn for the worse when Edwards was indicted a few months ago, but all signs point to him being disgraced and hated throughout his hometown long before his woes developed a legal nature. Cottle notes that a local bar famous for its photos of celebrities is regularly inundated with requests to replace his photo with one of his wife, Elizabeth, or at least relocate his to the bathroom. While there is sympathy for his children, residents speak of him as a pariah so scurrilous few will interact with him, and his disgrace is no laughing matter:

The first, inescapable fact on the ground is that the folks around Raleigh and Chapel Hill are not yet in a forgiving mood. While legal experts debate the merits of the Justice Department’s case against Edwards, the hometown crowd has issued its own, more personal verdict: Depending on who you ask, the man is “a snake,” “a scumbag,” or, as Betty Henderson, receptionist at the Edwardses’ longtime church home in Raleigh, eloquently put it, “a narcissist so in love with himself that he can’t see past his own desires.”

Even on his decline, there was a time, Cottle writes, when Edwards was a character to be ridiculed and not so sternly scorned. He became, to a certain extent, that guy at everyone’s local bar, flirting with college girls and drinking away his problems because there was nothing better to do. “Particularly during the period when Elizabeth kicked him out of the house and he was living in an apartment near the main drag where UNC students congregate, Edwards was a fixture at area watering holes,” Cottle notes, adding that, yes, people used to actually talk to him. The image she recalls most vividly is one of the stereotypical failed man of Hollywood– somewhere between Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas or an extra in an obscure 1980s Mickey Rourke movie. It is difficult to equate that man with a politician who could have been a heartbeat away from the presidency merely seven years ago.

Yet, somehow, who Edwards is now is even more tragic than he was while Elizabeth Edwards was still alive– the days of pathetic bar-hobbling seem to have been left behind to spend more time with his family. “According to cemetery staff, the senator comes frequently to visit his wife and son,” Cottle notes of Edwards, adding that, given the number of Confederate tombs in the area, historical tours often pass by. “Observes one staffer,” she notes, “’How humiliating it must be for him to be sitting out there with all those people [gawking and whispering.]‘”

Edwards appears far beyond the point of no return, at least when it comes to his political career, and having an ice-cold home such as this to limp back to makes prison sound slightly more comfortable, if at least an escape from the life Cottle paints for him. As his case proceeds through the legal process, Edwards will soon be back in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons, and perhaps finally able to escape his hometown, though it may serve as a frying pan from which to leap straight into a burning media firestorm all over again.

In her Daily Beast column, Powers spoke emotionally about being manipulated by Rep. Weiner into defending him, based on lies:

In short, he was a friend whom I cared for very much, even if I thought he had issues he needed to deal with. It was because of this friendship that I believed him when he told me last week that he had done nothing wrong. In an email to me he wrote: “Why not to call the cops: Personal account, no federal case, we don’t know yet what they got, I didn’t send it, statements on sat, sun, monday, the girl said she doesn’t know me, I don’t know her. The people I follow are all people who ask. We’ve hired a law firm but not to protect me, to put together the team to figure out how we prevent and maybe civil or criminal next steps. We don’t know where this photo came from. We have theories. Until we know for sure we open up legal hornets nest if we say.”

He knew I was going on the show Hannity, where I would use this false information to defend him in front of millions of people. I did, and I regret it.

Her strongest condemnation, though, concerns what she calls Weiner’s “predatory behavior,” calling it “classic sexual harassment.”

“We know only about the women who were responsive to his overtures,” Powers said. “The odds are very high that he struck out with many, and other women were victim to his unsolicited sex talk.”

In fact, this scandal was touched off by what we now know was an unwelcome Twitter message, featuring an underwear-shrouded erection, to Gennette Cordova, a 21 year-old Seattle college student whom Weiner admits did not solicit it. Weiner characterized the tweet as a “joke,” which many women have pointed out is exactly the kind of deluded excuse used by IRL sexual predators like this subway pervert.

Cordova has maintained all along that she never had any inappropriate contact with Rep. Weiner, a fact buttressed by her real-time reaction to the photo.

While elected Democrats have begun to call for Weiner’s resignation, liberal commentators have been quick to point out the lack of such calls by Republicans surrounding scandals involving the likes of David Vitter and John Ensign. They have also pointed out that Weiner’s scandal involved no actual sex, and that Weiner, unlike some of his Republican counterparts, never campaigned as a “family values” candidate. I asked Powers if she found either argument persuasive, what she thought of Weiner’s sex chat, and how she felt about Andrew Breitbart’s involvement in the story.

Tommy Christopher: How do you view Rep. Weiner’s actions, in context with other sex scandals involving the likes of Sens. David Vitter and John Ensign?

Kirsten Powers: What I find distinctive about what happened with Anthony is that it wasn’t an affair, it wasn’t, you know, a one-time event, it was predatory behavior. And it was behavior that was done in his official capacity. He wasn’t doing this as an anonymous person. He was doing this where you have people who saw him on TV or thought he was a good Congressman or whatever going to him and saying, “Oh, you’re such a great fighter for Democrats, Congressman Weiner.” And then he was using that position to, sort of, being predatory on the internet and I can’t remember which woman said it. She said, “I just want to talk politics,” and then it started getting creepy. So he’s using his official division, he’s not doing this, as much as he wants to say it’s in a private capacity, I highly doubt these women would have been talking to him if he wasn’t a Congressman.

“I can tell you as a woman who has received very inappropriate things from people who have more power than me, it’s very intimidating. “

The sending the picture to the girl, to me it’s like sexual harassment. He’s a Congressman, she’s a student. He has tons of power. She looks up to him.

I can tell you as a woman who has received very inappropriate things from people who have more power than me, it’s very intimidating. And you often don’t even tell anybody because you’re so frightened of what this person could potentially do to you. And so, there’s a kind of harassment predatory aspect to this.

TC: The thing I want to know about the discussion of Ensign and Vitter and those guys is, do you think that even belongs in this discussion? Do you think that’s sort of a non-sequitur? Do you have any objection to people bringing it up?

KP: It’s not a non-sequitur in the sense that I brought it up, actually, when I initially said he shouldn’t resign. You know, I think I did after he lied to me, but prior to me understanding how extensively he had lied in the media. So, even though he had lied to me, actually, I was kind of saying, “Whatever, you know, people lie about sex scandals.”

It’s not that Anthony Weiner shouldn’t resign because David Vitter didn’t resign, even though that it’s sort of the conclusion I think, you can draw from it. I did bring up the David Vitter thing, but I brought it up in this context. I don’t want to listen to Republicans preach about this. You know what I mean?

“…liberals are supposed to be the feminists, the ones who stand up, you know, against misogyny, against predatory behavior against women, I mean, feminists used to do that, right?”

But upon more reflection, the point just is, “Shut up, Republicans.” We’re really not interested in listening to you on this stuff. Look at your own people. You know, “get off your high horse.” And that’s what I said on Greta. I said, “Get off your soapbox. David Vitter’s a Senator. Don’t start talking to us about how…” Because we keep hearing from Republicans, “Oh, we police our own party. Oh, we don’t have people like that.” That’s the aspect that I think is what you need to respond to, to bring up David Vitter in that context.

The problem with these kind of arguments is, is that our standard? “You’re not as bad as David Vitter? You’re not as bad as John Ensign?” I mean, that’s our standard? That’s not a standard. That’s juvenile. That’s just the vicious cycle that Washington is in. “Oh, you think we’re bad? Look at them.”

No wonder Americans hate Washington. I don’t cheat on my husband because other people cheat on their husbands. I mean, that’s not, that’s not a justification.

TC: What do you think about the idea that Weiner isn’t as bad as GOP politicians in sex scandals because he doesn’t preach family values?

I think if he had an affair, that actually is a valid argument. But this isn’t about family values. This is about liberals are supposed to be the feminists, the ones who stand up, you know, against misogyny, against predatory behavior against women, I mean, feminists used to do that, right?

When he sent that picture to that girl, it was not consensual. She did not ask for that picture. I don’t understand even how people can’t see that it’s so obviously sexual harassment. It’s not sexual harassment in a legal sense, she’s not working for him, but it is a person of power, and influence, doing something that is hostile to somebody who did not ask for this. It’s just kind of confusing to me. That has nothing to do with family values, and everything to do with what kind of standards do we have for members of Congress or members of the Democratic party in terms of how they treat women? And this seems to me to be kind of what the state of values of liberals are.

“It’s not about women having sex and people find that titillating. It’s about “I’m gonna gag this woman, she’s not going to be able to breathe.””

And then, I also think that I personally found that sex chat that he had to be misogynist. I’ve had liberals tell me, ‘Oh, no, it’s just normal or whatever.’ Common, maybe. But I wouldn’t call it normal.

(Powers is referring to an explicit sex chat with a Las Vegas blackjack dealer.) TC: But people say things in dirty sexts that they would never say or do in real life.

KP: I used to be of that point of view, but the more I’ve read about porn and the brain and the way it operates, it’s very hard to disconnect the two things. Once you start thinking about women that way, it’s not really that surprising that he thought that he could send a picture of his penis to somebody. It’s all kind of intertwined, and…

TC: So do you think the dirty talk, out of context, might not be so bad, but when you fit it together with everything else, is that what aggravates it?

KP: No. I think that any context about gagging a woman with your penis is something that I think is unhelpful to women. And I know that everybody says I’m a prude and… because I’m anti-porn, I’m a prude, and all that kind of stuff. But I’ve seen a lot of research, there are a lot of feminists who feel this way. This is not about the texts, this is just misogynist. This is just, you don’t need, the hardcore porn industry sells this to men.

It’s not about women having sex and people find that titillating. It’s about “I’m gonna gag this woman, she’s not going to be able to breathe.”

That’s what hardcore porn is about. I think that I just have a completely different perspective on it, than a lot of people do, but I really do believe that it’s misogynist. I don’t think, unless you think about women that way, I mean, why would you fantasize about something like that?

Do you want a leader who… I mean, if that was the only thing he did, then should he resign? I guess not. I don’t think he should be reelected. But that’s not the only thing he did. We have a whole pattern here of an attitude towards women that’s extremely troubling. And then, we have the… sociopathic lying. It’s not like your standard kind of… you know, I did an interview this morning with Curtis Sliwa, and he said, ‘Oh, Kirsten, you worked in politics, you know they’re all crazy. How does this compare to that?’

Yeah, exactly. They’re all nuts. But this is so far beyond like what you would expect.

TC: What do you think about Andrew Breitbart‘s role in all of this?

KP: I think that there was a time, a pre-Breitbart stage when he (Rep. Weiner) would have gotten away with it. And I think it’s a very sad commentary on the media that they are very diligent in writing a front-page story about John McCain maybe possibly could have maybe had an affair that he didn’t have, but that John Edwards, they just have no interest in it. Maybe in this situation, it would have just, he could have gotten away with blaming a right-wing conspiracy and everybody would just be on their way, so that’s all the Republican’s fault. So I think it’s just another sad commentary on the media.

Meghan McCain

In one of the more brilliant headline teases to come out of the “Weinergate” scandal, McCain entitled her article “Anthony Weiner Tweeted Me,” though of course nothing of the sort that headline would suggest is present in the facts. That said, they did have some Twitter rapport after she had spoken about him in the New York Times– he followed her and publicly thanked her in appreciation. She returned the favor with a follow. “His tweet has since been retweeted to me a lot this week,” she writes, “with a lot of bad puns and poor constructed jokes attached.” Despite this, she weaves in some not-so-obvious double entendres herself– noting that she was impressed by “his use of the hashtag”– but she does also profess a legitimate admiration for his candor on the social networking site, as well as his “rants” on YouTube and his ability to connect so personally through the internet.

That said, the life and times of @RepWeiner on Meghan McCain’s newsfeed are over: “By the way, I no longer follow Congressman Weiner on Twitter at the request of my mother. She said it made her uncomfortable.”

[Photo via Daily Beast]

The Daily Beast spoke to The New York Times about the relationship:

Pogue’s editor at the New York Times, Damon Darlin, says that Pogue told him about the relationship last December. “He was concerned that there might be a perception of a conflict of interest, so we went over it,” says Darlin, adding that he determined that as long as Pogue didn’t write about companies that Dugan personally represents, there would be no problem. He says he also asked OutCast not to pitch stories to Pogue. “People have romances all the time,” says Darlin. “He hasn’t written about any companies that she is representing.” (Neither Pogue nor Dugan returned a message for comment.)

Of course, Pogue has mentioned OutCast clients in his articles since he and Dugan’s relationship began, albeit not necessarily fawningly nor in ways where a disclosure would be absolutely necessary. Still, it’s usually better to be safe than sorry, where the trust of your readership is concerned. Why not, if you had the choice, be transparent rather than not?

The Times official take on divulging relationship is as such:

Romantic involvement with a news source would create the appearance and probably the reality of partiality. Staff members who develop close relationships with people who are likely to figure in coverage they prepare or oversee must disclose those relationships privately to a responsible newsroom manager. In some cases, no further action may be needed. But in other instances staff members may have to recuse themselves from certain coverage. Sometimes assignments may have to be modified or beats changed.

Of course, there is a bit of irony at play in such an article appearing in The Daily Beast, which had to deal with a similar issue a while back.

You might recall that, back in January, Daily Beast Washington bureau chief Howard Kurtz found himself in a bit of hot water after he had neglected to divulge that his interview with Rep. Darrell Issa never actually, you know. Happened.

Kurtz eventually came clean about the mix-up, but not before his readers and others in the media criticized him for waiting a month to divulge this information.

h/t Daily Beast

First off: Yes, fine. The interview is not exactly what anyone would call “hard hitting.” In fact, it’s really something of a lovefest, with McCain and Trump continuously complimenting one another throughout the course of the article.

Wonkette (yes, that Wonkette) blogger Jack Stuef (yes, that Jack Stuef) takes the “fame-starved” angle in a post titled “Meghan McCain Finally Gets a Job, With Donald Trump:”

“So are we doing a radio show?” Trump asks. “No, this is an interview for The Daily Beast,” Meghan responds. “Oh, OK, good,” Trump says. (He’s never been to the Internet and has no idea what she’s talking about.) “I like you. I see you a lot on television.” These two are perfect for each other! There are no two individuals who have less to do with Republican policy than them. There are bloated half-dead starving kids in third-world countries who have more to do with policy, and Republicans don’t even like bloated half-dead starving kids in third-world countries. Anyway, Meghan McCain grovels for a job and Donald Trump gives her the first job offer of her life, because these people truly love each other, for they have been on television.

For the record, yes, I did laugh at “he’s never been on the internet.” As did Gawker in its own take on the interview, “Journalism’s Finest Hour: Meghan McCain Interviews Donald Trump.”

Slate’s David Weigel comments on the interview in a post of his own – “Meghan McCain Commits An Act of Journalism.” (Which is quickly followed up with “Sorry, that headline’s a lie.”) His focus, as you probably could have guessed, paints the interview as amateurish and, I’m assuming, biased. He highlights several of the direct questions posed during the interview, for example: “If you run for president, will you hire me for your campaign?” and “Why do you think this birther thing still has such legs?” and, well, “Have you ever stayed at a Holiday Inn?”

And here’s the real meat of Weigel’s post, which echos the basic premise of Stuef’s:

At least some of Trump’s success so far can be traced to the way the media engages him — as a celebrity, not a politician who needs to be held accountable for his actions.

And here’s where I get to find out who actually read this post and who merely glanced at the title: I don’t completely disagree with this assessment. I suspect people (not “media people,” mind you) who haven’t found themselves already completely fed up with Trump coverage to the point where they tune out whenever his face pops up on their television sets or computer screens, keep watching him because they’re genuinely entertained by his performance and his bravado, even if they’re masochistically entertained by how angry he makes them. And it’s the job of some forms of media to give the people what they want even if, by God, they don’t want to want it.

But it is also coverage like these articles that feeds into the frustration on which Donald Trump is building his platform. I mean, come on. I live in New York, I work in media: I know exactly for whom these posts were written, and of course they’re going to provide the laughs they were designed to provide. And that’s fine. But repeatedly referring to Trump as this sort of lunatic imbecile, grasping hold to the top of the Empire State Building (which features a giant gold “TRUMP” logo across its top floors, as least in my imagination) as he brandishes a wadded up piece of paper from Hawai’i, or painting McCain as clueless or ruthlessly opportunistic (and, believe me, it’s kind of hard to be both of these at once) only gives their supporters what they want. It basically tells them, “You are completely justified in your frustration over the lamestream media. It is simultaneously ignoring and mocking you and the beliefs you hold most dear.” Because, you know. That’s really not an unfair assessment of what’s going on, at least in what I’m refusing to refer to as the blogosphere.

And, after the number of pageviews are recorded and discussed and bloggers slink back to the giant dank basement (in Brooklyn) where we all collectively reside, no one really ends up winning. Except, possibly, the McCains and the Trumps of the world, smiling back at us from our TV sets, silently mouthing “it feels so good to be gangsta” as we feud, drunk on PBR, amongst ourselves.

The buyout was offered to 30 employees, or one third of staffers represented by Newspaper Guild, with the understanding that not all, or even most, of those individuals would agree to take part.

Late last month, Daily Beast founder Tina Brown, who is now firmly positioned at the ailing news weekly’s helm, discussed the challenges of “revamping” what she views as a “legacy brand:”

Not that the Beast was easy but it was unencumbered. There’s a legacy at Newsweek but . . . I have an appetite for it. I really do love journalism.

But could that “legacy brand” – which readers and industry critics alike have long viewed as as a lukewarm offering – benefit from moving out with the old, in with the new? Since the merger, Brown has added several new hires to the Newsweek brand as several former staffers saw it best to leave on their own.

h/t Adweek

Snark is the medium of the day. I don’t have Google alert because it just distracts the brain. At the end of the day, we have bigger things to worry about than that, quite frankly. We have a magazine to remake.

(It is noted, in the interview, that Brown prefers her omelets with egg whites and her toast without butter – either because it shows her restraint and discipline, or because it is assumed that people are curious about what it is that famous women eat for breakfast. The answer is: The weak.)

Brown notes the challenges of working with a “legacy brand” like Newsweek (its latest issue, the first to feature its redesign, has Secretary of Sate Hillary Clinton on its cover): “Not that the Beast was easy but it was unencumbered. There’s a legacy at Newsweek but . . . I have an appetite for it. I really do love journalism.”

One thing that sets Brown apart from other publishers, online or otherwise, is that she’s willing to pay for good content – in the Daily Beast’s case, that means $350 per article:

As a writer myself, I cannot look other writers in the face and ask them to do things for nothing. In the same way, I wouldn’t ask my dentist to give me a free filling. Writing is a profession and you should have respect for that and should pay for it.

This predictably draws a comparison with the woman long painted as Brown’s “frenemy” – friend and rival Arianna Huffington, whose pay model differs quite a bit from Brown’s. Brown simply refers to her as a “very old girlfriend” of 30 years whose work and tenacity she admires.

When asked why, unlike her pal Huffington, she chose not to have her name on her website, Brown replied that such a thing would work to diminish the work put in by all the site’s contributors.

It’s a nice sentiment, surely, but one benefit of having one’s name on one’s website is that it capitalizes on a famous individual’s cult of personality. Brown, despite or because of the variety of reactions she inspires (see: “hagfish”), draws interest. She’s now, for better or worse, the face of both the Daily Beast and Newsweek, and perhaps both brands could benefit from serving as, basically, brand extensions for Tina Brown, Inc. She says what people want to hear – She pays her contributors! She respects the group effort responsible for her site’s content! – she’s contentious enough to draw comparisons to horrific forms of sea life (What woman could ask for more?), she has famous friends and she’s tough. Why not add more Tina, especially given most would rather read about the journalist / business woman than pick up Newsweek? Sure, an emphasis on quality content and accessible means of providing information and entertainment to readers will help, but where is Newsweek‘s competitive edge? Newsweek has been, as Hot Air aptly described it, “oatmeal in a silver bowl” for too long. It needs a little (lot) more personality – namely, Brown’s. Then maybe, someday, we can read articles about Brown that still make note of her breakfast preferences, but don’t paint her as “that woman whose job is kind of like Arianna Huffington’s.”

h/t The Guardian

A top contender at CBS, Kurtz says, is 60 Minutes‘ Scott Pelley:

The 60 Minutes correspondent has long been a favorite of Fager, who doubles as the show’s executive producer. But with Fager taking a methodical approach to his first major decision, Pelley is not a lock. A few short weeks ago, the expectation in the Couric camp was that she would sign a new deal to stay in the anchor’s job through the 2012 elections as she figured out the next phase of her career. But her thinking has now changed as she has tested the waters—and, of course, the decision is not entirely in her hands.

Pelley’s name has been mentioned before, in a post Thursday in the Los Angeles Times, describing one of Pelley’s advantages as his status as a CBS lifer. “Pelley has been with CBS for more than 21 years. If he is given the job, odds are the network won’t have to worry about him eyeing his next big deal or wondering what else is on the horizon.”

While few would contest that it currently isn’t a particularly pleasant time to be president, the sweeping generalization that no president has faced more difficult challenges will likely be– and already has been– met with some skepticism, though history will have to judge for sure. In fact, Obama opponents have already seized on the statement as silly (Newsbusters, for one, took a stab at naming a few historical scenarios more precarious than the current one, and even going as far back as the president before Obama, one would be hard-pressed to argue that September 11 was not a more difficult challenge than Libya or Japan). Despite the sympathy, however Brown goes on to say that even she is not quite sure the President is doing a good job, troubles or not. Even in this criticism, however, she will find more support among liberals than conservatives– her gripe with the President is on Afghanistan. She lamented “the length of time it takes to make a decision, and then we’re not even sure it’s the right decision,” specifically citing the lack of an end to that conflict as disappointing, hoping that in the future Afghanistan will receive more attention than it has so far.

The discussion via MSNBC below:

O’Donnell ruminates:

“I can’t look up and imagine myself doing this for three years… I’m just filled with dissatisfaction about what we can squeeze into script form. It’s always my fault. I’m a very slow writer.”

In addition to revealing that his heart might not be in this gig for the long haul, O’Donnell also discusses his realistic view of those with differing viewpoints from his own:

“I don’t think Republicans are evil . . . I think people hate me for the right reasons, which is my politics and what they discern to be my personal attitudes.”

Further distinguishing himself from other hosts is an admission by O’Donnell that “I can be as crazy as anybody and go over lines I should not go over.” Whether O’Donnell’s toned-down approach translates to continued ratings success remains to be seen, but now O’Donnell’s self-imposed three year countdown clock is ticking.

Check out Kurtz’s full profile of O’Donnell.

MSNBC’s President Phil Griffin says of Maddow, “she’s our biggest show . . . [she's] so friggin’ smart . . . Very few people can be so honest with a remark, a giggle, a serious look. There’s no performance art. That performance is Rachel.” Even conservative commentator and former co-worker Tucker Carlson has nice things to say about Maddow. Despite Maddow seemingly being pleasant to work with, one thing that isn’t different between her and Olbermann is a distrust of her cable news competition.

Maddow’s take on Glenn Beck‘s recent Muslim-related shows is that he is “running baroque conspiracies that are designed to freak people out about bogeymen coming to get them, conspiracies that are unsupported by the facts.” And her harshest blow is saved for the entire Fox News Channel, dismissing it as a “McCarthyite chamber of horrors . . . You can’t really call yourself a news channel if that’s what you broadcast.”

Kurtz notes that “Maddow’s repeated attacks have not provoked a response from Fox” yet maybe with her latest round of criticism things might change. Or maybe since Fox rarely acknowledged Olbermann’s comments, they plan on using a similar strategy against Maddow to help make her disappear too.

Check out Kurtz’s full story on Maddow.

Like the Huffington Post, the Daily Beast is an online entity covering news, entertainment and opinion with a recognizable woman at its helm. And, not unlike Aol, Newsweek is a brand seeking to reinvent itself and breathe new life into what is generally viewed as an outdated offering.

Already, news of the partnership between the Huffington and Aol has resulted in a jump among newspaper stocks because, as Yahoo Finance / the AP sees it, HuffPo’s sale is just “the latest in a string of deals that show investors are interested in companies that cover the news and websites that carry news” …even as Aol’s own stock suffered a drop the day the deal was revealed.

Mediaweek provided an insightful look at some of the challenges facing “NewsBeast,” highlighting two major obstacles: For one, it needs to build an audience (something SEO-friendly content machine HuffPo has in the bag – it boasts around 24 million readers compared to under 3 million for the Daily Beast). And then there’s the matter of, you know. Making money:

From the beginning, the site has tried to do business in a different way – and no wonder, since independent news Web sites have traditionally been unprofitable. But the Beast made the curious decision to divorce itself from the online ad system. It offers no standard ad units and sells only premium custom placements.

The Huffington Post’s worth and profitability had been something of a contentious matter previously, especially given news that it had been shopping for buyers as its backers sought to bow out. Now, Aol hopes that HuffPo will turn out $10 million in profit (before interest and taxes).

So what does this mean for the future of the Daily Beast / Newsweek? Only time will tell, of course, given it’s still anyone’s guess whether the HuffPo’s special brand of search engine optimization and content aggregation and repackaging will prove a long-term, lucrative means of presenting information to readers, or a trend among websites that has reached its zenith with this sale.

When news of the merger first emerged, Brown (despite earlier claims that long-form content “of the old kind” is a dying medium) said she believed that magazines could provide a “different kind of narrative rhythm” than the web, and that she welcomed the opportunity for her web team to write in a way that is “more reflective, reconstructive, predictive, and to provide a more in-depth, narrative account of news.” (Why, yes! I did indeed just link to one of my own articles.)

Our guess? Eventually we’ll witness the pendulum swing back towards longer, more in-depth content, especially given that hand-held, portable devices like smart phones and the iPad allow people to access content nearly everywhere – even as there remains a place and a necessity for quick news blurbs created and curated to attract as many pairs of eyes as possible. But as readers grow wiser, savvier and increasingly jaded with time, they will be more discerning of the news sources they visit and more aware of SEO trickery or sources that offer quantity over quality… perhaps to the extent that they will be willing to pay for better, longer, more quality content on the web and mobile devices.

Update: Found this piece by Jeff Jarvis so on-the-money that I figured I’d bring your attention to it. It’s about Aol / HuffPo, but could apply to the future of NewsBeast.

Here’s my favorite paragraph:

Content alone isn’t enough for Aol. It has content. Lots. What HuffPo and Arianna bring is a new cultural understanding of media that is built around the value of curation, the power of peers, the link economy, passion as an asset, and celebrity as a currency. As a friend of mine reminds me via email from London, HuffPo, thanks to its roots, also has a keen understanding of the value of technology innovation to build platforms. Unlike old media companies, HuffPo groks scale.

As it turns out, Kurtz hadn’t spoken with Rep. Issa at all but, rather, with spokesperson Kurt Bardella. Kurtz explains the confusion, informing readers that, after reaching out to Bardella for an interview with Issa, he received a phone call:

That afternoon my phone rang, I heard the words “Darrell Issa” and I thanked the congressman for calling. I asked why “you” made various statements about the president and congressional oversight, and he responded. I called him “Congressman” several times during our discussion. I later emailed Bardella, on Nov. 24, and said: “Hey, thanks for getting me the congressman so quickly. He mentioned the minority having sent 46 letters to the chairman or subcommittee chairmen and getting only six responses. Would you have some or all of the ones that drew no response? Thanks.”

Bardella sent the followup information I requested.

On Nov. 29, after my story ran on The Daily Beast, I got a note from Bardella saying there had been “a little confusion” and “it wasn’t the congressman you spoke with, it was me speaking in his capacity as his spokesman.”

The news has inspired Kurtz’s readers to leave comments like the following:

Howard, you need to resign from ‘Reliable Sources’ immediately. You’ve had this info for a month, yet you waited until now to correct it? You have no business critiquing the press after this.

Kurtz made sure to mention that he felt the opinions he described as belonging to Issa were not “inaccurate.” But that seems almost beside the point – it stands to reason that a spokesperson would speak for the person he or she represents. The real issue at play is why Kurtz waited a month and a half to let his readers know of the mistake. Kurtz attempted to explain his reasoning to Politico:

I was so puzzled by the note that Bardella sent – about my not having talked to the man I repeatedly called congressman, and who identified himself as Darrell Issa – that I wasn’t sure how serious he was. He didn’t ask for a correction, which he certainly is entitled to if I wasn’t in fact talking to Darrell Issa. Then I got busy with other things and I let it slip, and that was a mistake on my part.

Well, then.

Schultz explains his brash style to Kurtz as a result of the fact that “Liberals have been vilified, laughed at for years” and claims it’s “good to give it back to [liberal critics].” Interestingly, MSNBC president Phil Griffin, admits:

There are times I tell him he goes over the top and that TV is different than radio. . . . A couple of times he’s crossed the line. I said, ‘Ed, you ran down the field 100 yards and you spiked the ball. Don’t spike the ball!’

Since such passionate “spiking” seems to at least contributed to MSNBC’s ratings success against CNN, might Griffin begin trusting his hosts with the ball more? Schultz concludes to Kurtz, “Not to get too grandiose about it . . . but I really believe I’m saying things a lot of Americans want someone to say.”

Check out Kurtz’s full column.

Bartlett gave the confession to the Daily Beast‘s Howard Kurtz, who explored the trap in-depth this week, both the elements of getting the legislation passed and the spin both sides would have to give the public to attempt to come out of the negotiating looking good. This goal was exponentially easier for Republicans than Democrats, save for Bartlett’s frank admission:

“We knew that, politically, once you get it into law, it becomes almost impossible to remove it,” says Dan Bartlett, Bush’s former communications director. “That’s not a bad legacy. The fact that we were able to lay the trap does feel pretty good, to tell you the truth.”

Other Bush-era figures were not so sincere in their schadenfreude. Former Chief of Staff Andy Card told Kurtz that, while he “wish[ed] I could tell you I was that smart,” most of the negotiating for the tax cuts had more to do with attempting to make the law permanent, not set to explode in the hands of the Democrats, long after President Bush was out of office. That kind of plan, he explained, required a foresight not present in his administration.

Needless to say, Bartlett’s version of the story is the one gaining traction, since there was already a sense, Kurtz writes, among Democrats that they were being set up. At the time, Congressional leaders made comments about the cuts “crashing down on all of us,” the “roof fall[ing] in” long after President Bush was gone. Yet the cuts passed anyway, and now Democrats from Alan Colmes to the Think Progress crew are up in arms yet again. This sets up another round of challenges to court the public eye into seeing the convenient version of the story for either side. For this goal, no one could perceive Bartlett’s comments as remotely positive, given that they are the perfect red meat for any moderate or liberal looking for villains setting “traps” instead of working to improve the country.

With the tax cuts for the middle class currently at a standstill in Congress, nothing short of a media war appears on the horizon for the rest of this lame duck Congressional session, with Kurtz’s report and Bartlett’s comments ahead of the curve. All that’s left is time to find whether this legislative story takes the cable news world by storm– and wrests the spotlight away from Wikileaks and the Palins– as it continues to threaten to do.

Today’s Twitter segment was a response to a Daily Beast column proclaiming media criticism dead specifically because of Twitter– why put effort into an extended critique when 140 characters can convey the same sentiment? Unlike the author of that piece, however, not everyone on the panel agreed that Twitter had created a generation of “sniggering cheap shot artists.” The Fox News Watch panel begged to differ.

“You look at the window into our souls,” Judith Miller noted of the medium, “and lots of times you don’t like what you see.” This, she continued, was not necessarily a bad thing. Fellow panelist Ellis Henican interjected about his practices– regardless of the relative damage or benefit to the art of journalism, “I’m just glad I finally found a platform that matches my attention span.”

“I think Ellis hit it there for a lot of us,” Jim Pinkerton replied, causing Henican, who was making a simple joke, to stare at him incredulously. In response, Pinkerton explained that Twitter is “headlines, it’s 140 characters. Let’s you say one thought, and I think that’s what most of us are good for in any one session.”

The segment from today’s Fox News Watch below:

Christians are a small but historic part of the religious fabric of Iraq. Although they make up only about 1 percent of the population, Christians have been in this part of the world for 2,000 years, as evidenced by the stunningly beautiful churches and ancient monasteries that dot the Iraqi landscape. The town of Mosul is mentioned in the Bible, where it is known as Nineveh. And, to this day, some Iraqi Christians continue to speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus.

But now this historic community is on the brink of extinction. Since the American invasion in 2002, more than half of Iraq’s Christians have fled the country. The Christian community, like everyone else in Iraq, was caught up in the ethnic war that erupted in 2004 between the Shiites and Sunnis, and they have frequently been targeted both by Iraqi militants and by the mostly foreign fighters who constitute al Qaeda in Iraq. But Iraq’s Christians have not experienced anything like the deliberate targeting of their community over this past year. Hundreds of Christians have been murdered in 2010 and thousands more have left the country, fearing for their lives and the lives of their loved ones.

Despite this unprecedented bloodshed, little effort has been made by the Iraqi or U.S. governments to secure the livelihoods of Iraq’s Christians. “I blame the government for all these attacks. It’s a very weak government and it can’t protect us,” Zeya Moshi, an Iraqi Christian, told the Christian Science Monitor. After meeting with Maliki, the Syrian Archbishop Matti Shaba Matoka sounded less than confident in the government’s ability to protect his congregation. “The security authorities promised to protect us, but we don’t know what kind of procedures they’ve put in place,” he told the Christian Science Monitor.

Read the full story at the Daily Beast here.

Watch the interview below:

Instead of laying out a combined $217 million to run for office, Whitman, Fiorina, and McMahon could have saved America’s commuters some serious cash. They could have footed the toll bill for half of the 52.1 million vehicles that cross the George Washington Bridge yearly, or one-third of the 102.2 million vehicles that cross the Bay Bridge.

Whitman’s spending could have bought full tuition for 23,553 California residents at the University of California-Berkeley, which would almost double current undergraduate enrollment. She could have made 95,764 connections for at-risk youth through Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Los Angeles. Or, if she wanted to be known as the Savior of San Jose, she could have wiped out the megalopolis’ budget deficit twice over.

On Fiorina’s spending:

Too bad that woman didn’t tell Fiorina her total campaign spending could have doubled the total assets of Goodwill of Southern California. It could have fully funded Pajaro Valley Unified School District for a year, saving the schools’ sports programs. Or, if Fiorina wanted to befriend folks closer to her mansion in Northern California, she could have increased the budget eight-fold of Raphael House, which provides low-income family services and shelter in San Francisco. Maybe she would have earned more headlines if she’d used her campaign budget to go global and purchase one million bed nets to combat malaria in Africa or provide micro-loans to more than 350,000 small businesses in South Africa, most of them to poor women.

And on McMahon:

McMahon, who laid out $41 million during her run for senator of Connecticut, and her partner-husband had amassed a net worth estimated at at least $1.1 billion as of 10 years ago. Each of the 498,306 votes cast in her favor cost $84.08. That would have covered a full year’s worth of salary and benefits for 802 state employees facing furloughs because of the state’s budget shortfall. It could have provided heating assistance to Connecticut families in need for seven years. It could have paid for 15 million school lunches across the whole country, or paid for two years of enhanced security for our troops in Iraq.

Read the full story at the Daily Beast here.

Despite bringing in new voices to discuss the matter on a grander scale, the focus was very much on Olbermann’s behavior throughout the elections. Kurtz provided the strongest dissent, beginning his assessment by say that journalists should “absolutely not” donate to campaigns. “I believe you made a serious mistake, Keith,” he advised, “with these Democratic donations.” He suggested that there had to be “some kind of line” between journalists and opinion commenters on one hand, and partisan players on the other. Also, as a journalist, Olbermann was not entitled to such liberties.

Mitchell found the origin of the problem in the beginnings of journalists appearing on cable news programs and being encouraged to give opinions, and found the perception to be the issue, not the reality– “when the owners of these companies are donating huge sums, it’s the perception that they’re controlling things.”

Kurtz, who finally agreed with Olbermann on the point of transparency in donating, still did not give up the point that Olbermann had done serious damage to his objectivity. “We give up certain rights in order to get the kind of platform that you enjoy,” Kurtz noted, though he did not argue that keeping the donations quiet is preferable.

The discussions from tonight’s Countdown via MSNBC below:

(This post has been updated. -SK)