RELATED: MSNBC’s Martin Bashir Rips Rep. John Walsh Over Unpaid Child Support

Bashir rattled off a laundry list of Republican bad behavior, from Arizona governor Jan Brewer pointing at the President to Rep. Joe Wilson shouting “you lie!” to Newt Gingrich using the term “food stamp president.” “Why do Republicans think this is acceptable behavior in public?” Bashir asked.

“Demonizing the President is both morally wrong and dangerous,” Jackson began, citing “the continued demonization and then somebody shoots an AK-47 in the White House… to demonize him and demonize the poor is unacceptable.” Noting that there wasn’t much of an explanation here, Bashir pressed on, asking whether Jackson was predicting “some sort of terrible outcome.” “Ignorance and hatred and violence is in a certain pattern,” Jackson continued, citing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and noting that “George Wallace never hit anybody.”

“I’ve seen, sir, that remarkable photograph of you on the day Dr. Martin Luther King was murdered,” Bashir replied, “are you saying that Barack Obama’s very safety is being imperiled?” “Absolutely,” replied Jackson, “ignorance and hatred leads to violence.” He went on to argue that “there is something unholy about this.” Seems like we’re a long way off from the days Jackson was privately calling for President [then Senator] Obama’s castration.

The segment via MSNBC below:

RELATED: Drama Clubbed: Jan Brewer Says ‘I Felt A Little Bit Threatened’ By President Obama

Rev. Al opened the segment by calling Gov. Brewer’s finger-pointing “unacceptable” and “disrespectful,” noting “but she’s not apologizing.”

He played video of Brewer recounting the incident to reporters, calling the President “thin-skinned,” and saying she “felt a little bit threatened.”

To his credit, Rev. Sharpton is one of the few commentators to key in on the racial subtext of Brewer’s remarks. “Thin skinned? You felt threatened?” he said. “What does that even mean, you felt threatened? By the President of the United States? This is yet another example of disrespect and delegitimatizing this president.”

RELATED: Why Won’t Black People Let Newt Gingrich Help Them?

Rev. Al then played a fairly comprehensive rundown of clips that featured prominent Republicans behaving disrespectfully toward the President, including Rep. Joe Wilson‘s infamous “You lie!” moment. Speaking of lying, Sharpton also noted Gov. Brewer’s dueling descriptions of her 2010 meeting with the President, which was the genesis of the tarmac dispute.

“So Governor Brewer,” Rev. Sharpton said, “when were you telling the truth? When you just walked out of the meeting and told the press in front of the White House, with a smile on your face, how it was cordial and how the tone was very good, positive, or when you wrote a book saying it was condescending, and he was lecturing you?”

He also characterized Brewer’s handing of a letter to the President as political grandstanding. That letter centers around what sounds like an invitation for the President to be lectured by Brewer, to learn at her knee, if you will. “I’d love an opportunity to share with you how we’ve been able to turn Arizona around with hard choices that turned out to be the right ones,” it reads.

Joe Madison weighed in by pointing out that even a small child knows it is disrespectful to point in someone’s face, and related some suggestions he got from his radio audience, including bending back her finger, to having the Secret Service jack Brewer up. “I give the President of the United States credit for doing what?” Madison said. “Walking away.”

Madison also told Rev. Al to add to his dis list Newt Gingrich’s (and others) tendency to refer to the President simply as “Obama,” and Republicans’ demands to see the President’s grades. “Excuse me,” Madison said, “what 50-year-old-plus man has to provide his grades? What, getting elected as the president of the Harvard Review is not enough?”

He continued, “This is nothing more, and I’ll just say it straight up. There are some people, not all, in this country who cannot stand the fact that this is an African-American who is now one of the most powerful individuals on the planet. And there are those who cannot consciously and subconsciously handle it.”

“You know you’re not going to get a debate from me,” Rev. Al replied. “They brought race in. They put a race deck on the table. If you pull a card, it’s a race card because they set the deck.”

What you have to ask yourself is not whether Republican leaders have been disrespectful to this president, but whether they have done so in ways that white presidents have not had to deal with. The same holds true for liberal critics of the President, are they treating him as they would a white Democratic president?

This doesn’t have to mean that all of these folks hate black people. People like Gov. Brewer and Speaker Gingrich ought to ask themselves if they have succumbed to something more insidious, this tendency in white media culture (or as I call it, “media culture”) to promote, at best, informality with (and among) black people, the effect of which is to lower the inhibition to behave bluntly.

Here’s the clip, from MSNBC:

RELATED: Bill O’Reilly And Bernie Goldberg Tear Into NBC For Handling Of Romney/KKK Story

Goldberg began to list off critiques of President Obama that the New York Times had found racial undertones in– Newt Gingrich calling President Obama a “food stamp President,” Rep. Joe Wilson shouting “you lie!” at the State of the Union address, Mitt Romney claiming the President sought to create “an entitlement society.” “Any Republican who criticized Barack Obama… there’s a good chance that at some point members of the so-called Mainstream Media will label that Republican racist.” Goldberg did not expect it to work too well, however, telling O’Reilly that “you can’t cry wolf over and over again.”

O’Reilly agreed, noting that the New York Times was having an “awful time” financially, and part of that was that “if you are conservative, you’re a bad person, they can’t possibly respect you.” Part of the alarm O’Reilly also attributed to polling that made minority voters more important. “If you make the race for President about race, then you’re going to get the attention of minority voters, who Democrats desperately need to turn out in the numbers they did in 2008,” O’Reilly contended.

Goldberg dismissed the tactic as “name-calling” and decried the “incredible double-standard”: “they can call people who criticize Barack Obama racist… but liberals can attack a conservative black person,” he argued. “They mock them… but they say that’s not about race.”

The segment via Fox News below:

Landry raised the sign to shoulder-level at the point in the speech when President Obama acknowledged that Republicans might have ideas different than his for the $447 billion package. Certainly a small protest, but one that indicates remaining disagreements despite a concerted effort by President Obama to sell the job’s package as bi-partisan.

While he was not one of many Republicans who had hoped to get out of attending the joint-session address, Rep. Landry has had scrapes with the President in the past. In June, he was the only House Republican to turn down an invitation by President Obama to visit the White House to discuss the deficit crisis, saying: “I don’t intend to spend my morning being lectured to by a president whose failed policies have put our children and grandchildren in a huge burden of debt.”

***

REALLY? Well, I hate to disagree with a famous brain, but if we were to take Mr. Engelbart at his word, the entire GOP (especially since the election of Barack Obama), its lily-white offshoot, The Tea Party, and “politicians” such as Joe (“You lie!”) Wilson, Sarah Palin and Christine O’Donnell should be very mature indeed. Not!

Actually, the aforementioned are without shame and without the slightest sense of embarrassment.

Ms. O’Donnell, running for a senate seat in Delaware, was not embarrassed in the slightest last week when an audience gasped over her questioning of what is in the First Amendment. Indeed, she was as insanely chipper as ever, smiling and giggling. This woman cannot be embarrassed. She doesn’t have that personality chip. However, we can help her by stuffing straw into her head, if the Wizard won’t give her a brain. (One would think a person running for the Senate might have perused the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. Just in case.)

Likewise Sarah Palin is beyond being reproached. She is a far more prickly character than O’Donnell, however. (Christine is like a lobotomized cheerleader.)

Sarah won’t be embarrassed, but she will be annoyed. And once annoyed, her fake folksy-ness falls aside. You don’t want to run into Sarah Palin on a dark tundra.

Nothing is ever Sarah’s fault, she is never wrong. Only the evil liberal “elitist” press can be blamed for any public mishap. (Question: Does it ever occur to famous conservative politicos and TV talking heads that they, too, are “elitist?” -– highly paid and beyond the cares of their constituents and/or audience?)

My goodness, Sarah Palin quit her job as governor of Alaska because it was “too tough” for her to deal with criticism. She couldn’t do her chores properly. But … she wants to be president? Given Sarah’s point of view, President Obama should have quit within 48 hours of taking the oath of office.

As of this moment, the ex-governor’s pretty daughter, Bristol Palin, is still twirling her way through “Dancing With the Stars.” If Bristol was voted off the parquet too swiftly, those liberal execs at ABC-TV would have to take the blame. You know -– she coulda been Ginger Rogers had the Left not sabotaged her. It was a plot, you betcha.

Watching what’s happening to the American political process right now is akin to a 50-car highway pileup. You can’t look away. And sick as it might make you – you want to find out the body count, too.

Some people kvetch and geschrey (sp?): “I can’t stand it, I want to die or leave the country!” Not me. I love America and I want to live at least another 87 years to see how it all turns out and if it turns around. And how many times it will turn around.

As for Ms. O’Donnell, I suppose she will make a perfect running mate for Mrs. Palin in 2012. The shameless leading the unembarrassed.

Liz Smith’s column can be read in its entirety at Wowowow and is excerpted here under an agreement between Mediaite and Wowowow.

The dolls just went on sale today, so when we contacted Herobuilders owner Emil Vicale, he was shocked to learn that his creation had already been featured in The New York Daily News. While he didn’t have any sales figures yet, he did give us some indications of the doll’s possible success.

“I don’t have any sales figures yet,” Vicale said, “but one woman is buying a hundred of them if she’s in a red dress, so we’re putting her in a red dress now. I think she’s going to be a fantastic seller.”

Vicale surmises that the red dress order is from a supporter, but the market for the witch doll is more likely to be “a gag gift to send their Republican friends and family.”

Not everyone is thrilled with the idea. Vicale says he’s already gotten one strongly-worded email. “Some guy in a college said I was interfering with a political race. I think he left his sense of humor at the college he works at. It’s all in good fun.”

Herobuilders is a bipartisan enterprise, offering a variety of figures for political junkies on both sides of the aisle, including a selection of Sarah Palin dolls, an “anatomically correct” Scott Brown figure, and even a Joe “You Lie” Wilson doll to go with your Barack Obama action figure.

The O’Donnell doll is also a patriotic purchase. Vicale says the figure’s witch costumes are hand-made in the USA, which is why they cost slightly more than the “Executive” version that’s clad in a stock outfit.

So, will there be other O’Donnell figures, perhaps a Hare Krishna version? Vicale says there are more O’Donnell dolls in the works, but wouldn’t get specific. If his first big customer is any indication, however, it looks like he’s open to suggestion.

The key will be the degree to which the GOP campaigns on repealing the reform bill, and the degree to which Democrats embrace their achievement. Either way, the media has begun, and will continue, to shift the narrative in the aftermath of this fight.

One of the big reasons the reform effort stalled in the first place was the media’s affinity for small but vocal anti-health care spectacles like Sarah Palin‘s “Death Panels,” screaming town hall attendees, and POTUS-heckling Congressmen. That fascination will now come to the Democrats’ aid. When the ball is in play, all of these things can be spun as “fierce opposition.” Once the game is over, however, the team that stays on the field and keeps playing just looks crazy.

Just as the substance of health care reform was drowned out during much of the debate, so will the substantive problems with the bill be lost in the laudatory afterglow of its passage. Critics on the left will join the high-fiving bandwagon, with an eye toward building on the bill’s foundation. Just as Tea Parties and Scott Brown energized the base on the right, so will this victory reactivate the energy that carried Obama into office.

On the right, repeal will be a losing argument. The tire-kicking is over, and once the American people drive this bill off the lot, they ain’t bringing it back, except for a tune-up. Republicans would be much wiser to focus on individual fixes, but their incensed base will punish them if they don’t make good on repeal. That’s what happens when you call something an “apocalypse,” and people believe you.

The Democrats, however, never met an advantage they couldn’t squander, or a leader they couldn’t undercut. If they listen to the current conventional wisdom, they will shrink away from important fights on the economy, immigration, and energy policy, convinced that laying low will save their seats.

If, on the other hand, they use this momentum to show the American people that they can get things done, and they get even a little bit of economic good news between now and November, there’s no reason they can’t hold or gain. The choice is entirely theirs.

I asked Robert Gibbs this during today’s White House Press briefing, video of which follows:

According to MSNBC’s Luke Russert, the shout came from the Republican side, from an as-yet-unidentified southern Rep. Like Joe “You lie!” Wilson, the heckler should reap a fundraising windfall once he is identified. This might also send a message to other Democrats who might be tempted to make common cause with their GOP colleagues.

“On the other hand, there is the issue of the setting, the circumstances and the decorum…The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court — according the requirements of protocol — has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling.”

Roberts also called the speech a “political pep rally,” which, let’s be honest, is exactly what it is, and has been for quite some time. Nevertheless, was it okay for Roberts to respond? There are varying opinions, many of which focus on the appropriateness of Obama’s behavior in the first place. But I thought this was interesting. On Studio B today, Shep Smith discussed Roberts’ response with Judge Andrew Napolitano, who took a rather hard line…against Roberts. Saying, basically, that while it’s nothing new for the President to criticize SCOTUS (at all), it is not okay for any member of the Supreme Court to publicly reply. At all. (It’s “unheard of” for the court to reply, says Napolitano.) Video below.

Side note: If you stick it out till the end, Napolitano talks about his new book about the most crucial lies the government has ever told us, during which Shep asks him what one of the most recent was, says Napolitano: “We do not torture.” Says Shep: “Because we do torture, we did torture.” Interesting exchange.

Nevertheless! It is the State of the Union, and technically Obama’s first, and along with that comes a ton of pomp and circumstance and a day filled with predictions about what the President may or may not say, and what Joe Wilson may or may not holler (Time says nothing, but more on that below).

From the NYT:

When Mr. Obama presents his first State of the Union address on Wednesday evening, aides said he would accept responsibility, though not necessarily blame, for failing to deliver swiftly on some of the changes he promised a year ago. But he will not, aides said, accede to criticism that his priorities are out of step with the nation’s.

From CBS’s Mark Knoller (follow him on Twitter here if you’re not already):

It’s a little known secret about the House Chamber. Inside the lectern from which the U.S. president addresses Joint Sessions of Congress, there’s a small locked box. Once a year, just before a president arrives to deliver his annual State of the Union Address, the House Sergeant-at-Arms unlocks the box with a four-sided key that dates back to the days of Thomas Jefferson. The cover flips up to reveal a red button about the size of a half-dollar coin. If the president presses it during his speech, he gets to start his presidency over again. If only. [HA]

The possible state of the post-apocalyptic union:

For those keeping Continuity of Government score at home tonight, there’s a new wrinkle this year : Not only will there be a Cabinet member hidden in some undisclosed location to prevent a complete beheading of our government, but the senior-most Cabinet secretary will also be absent from the speech, per the President’s direction to her to stick to a previously scheduled international meetings in London on hot-button national security issues Yemen and Afghanistan.

The other speech people are waiting for:

Congressman Joe Wilson will deliver the first ever live response to a State of the Union via Facebook on Wednesday. The South Carolina Republican is most known for blurting out “You lie!” during President Obama’s last speech to a joint session of Congress. Wilson will deliver an address live on his Facebook page approximately 30 minutes after Obama concludes the State of the Union.

And finally the speech the media may be most obsessed with tomorrow:

The chief executive officer speaks at a press conference today in San Francisco, where he will announce “a major new product that we’re really excited about,” he said this week in a statement with Apple’s earnings.

Yet the media spent a lot of time chasing non-stories, from Balloon Boy to Sarah Palin’s death panels…Why did so many news organizations, from old media and new, chase silly, shiny distractions? Mainly because it’s easier than reporting out, and attracting readers to, big questions of politics and public policy.

That is true, in a year of hard news the media has gone soft, likely to our detriment. That said, should this really come as a surprise? Obviously, “shiny distractions” are easier. You know why? Reporting is not only hard, it is costly and time consuming. Costly and time consuming, meanwhile happen to be at odds with just about everything to do with the media these days. Or, to be more precise, new media looking to survive, which at this point pretty much covers all media. We are, sadly, talking about an industry in which the only newspaper to finish the decade looking somewhat similar to how it started it is the New York Times, and anyone who has picked up the Sunday Times of late will tell you even that it is a ghost of its former 3.5 lbs self.

It’s easy (also, consistent content filler) to bemoan both the loss of good reporting and ease with which the blogosphere (and increasingly the MSM) picks up hollow, splashy, polarizing stories. However, this doesn’t change the fact that until someone creates a new, workable business model the coin of the Internet realm is traffic. And traffic is most cheaply generated by frequency and shock value, two things which are very much at odds with in depth reporting.

None of this is news. So why it should therefore come as a shock that a year which saw the financial bottom plummet out of the MSM also saw the rise of the sort of easy, splashy, stories that the Internet most easily allows for, seems naive. Traffic talks in the new media Internet world, what it does not do yet is report and/or research whilst penning the required 15 posts per day.

Michael Scherer at Swampland picked up this fairly aggressive response to a Q&A at last Thursday’s job summit (between Afghanistan, the Kennedy Awards, and his visit to the Hill yesterday the President has had a busy week!). After agreeing with a audience member that the recession does offer America a chance to reinvent “If we can recapture that sense that we’re in this thing together and that we are willing to work hard” Obama took aim at the press as the purveyor of the sort of divisiveness that is keeping the country from being successful at doing just that.

But it’s not going to come easily and it is going to require a level of cooperation and a willingness to work strategically together that we have not seen over the last several years. And frankly, this town and the way the political dialogue is structured right now is not conducive to what we need to do to be globally competitive. And all of you are leaders in your communities — in the business sector and the labor sector, in academia, we even have a few pundits here — it is important to understand what’s at stake and that we can’t keep on playing games.

I mentioned that I was in Asia on this trip thinking about the economy, when I sat down for a round of interviews. Not one of them asked me about Asia. Not one of them asked me about the economy. I was asked several times about had I read Sarah Palin’s book. (Laughter.) True. But it’s an indication of how our political debate doesn’t match up with what we need to do and where we need to go.

Scherer points out that Obama’s characterization of his interview questions is not quite accurate — he was asked about the jobs bill and the South Korean trade agreement. Still, does the President have a point? It doesn’t take a genius to note that in the last six months the coverage of the President not only has become a national pastime of sorts but also increasingly polarized. And polarizing sells. So does the sort of stunt-like news stories that have been derailing the President’s various agendas at every turn: Town Halls, Kanye West, Joe Wilson, Sarah Palin, The Salahis. Of course in a world where every type of media is scrambling to keep its head above water, let alone make a profit, it’s hard not to chase the ambulance. Perhaps Obama needs to quit complaining and try and figure out how to beat the press at its own game.

THE WHITE HOUSE CONSIDERS THE MOTIF OF MUCH OF THE U.S. COVERAGE TO BE ASININE. A senior administration official: “American leadership was absent from this region for the last several years, despite the fact that it is increasingly central to our economic growth and our security. President Obama put our alliances on a firmer footing, reasserted our leadership in the region, and continued to advance a complicated bilateral relationship with China that will play a large role in shaping the 21st century.”

And this from David Axelrod, who apparently felt the need to point out that the trip to China was not about ticker-tape parades:

DAVID AXELROD, surrounded by White House reports after the two-question “news conference” at South Korea’s Blue House: “The goal on this trip was to lay a foundation for economic progress, to open up markets for American goods, to lay a foundation for progress on mutual security issues, … to lay groundwork on climate change. … Though the president is demonstrably popular in all these countries and polling reflects that, we didn’t come halfway across the world for ticker-tape parades. … So we believe it was a successful trip. … We didn’t have expectations that Barack Obama arrives in China or anywhere else and things change overnight.”

It’s not clear which coverage in particular the White House is upset with — Fox is not singled out — though, there does seem to be a bit of a ‘walk on water’ expectation that follows Obama wherever he goes. Perhaps instead it is just the pervading tone that Obama was too deferential to his hosts on this Asian trip as opposed to, say, merely trying to find some common ground. Considering the week we’ve had in the media, I think it’s safe to say Obama coverage hasn’t really made it ‘asinine’ quite yet.

But every few weeks one of the 435 other congressmen and congresswomen bubble up and into the media spotlight – and now it’s Rep. Anh Joseph Cao‘s turn.

Recently, it has helped to be loud and disruptive, like Joe Wilson and his “you lie” comment or Alan Grayson and various hyperbolic statements. Also there’s Michele Bachmann, whose “Super Bowl of Freedom” has helped increase her spotlight.

But Rep. Cao made his waves by casting an important vote – as the only Republican to vote ‘yay’ on the health care bill Saturday night.

Part of the reason the vote is so significant is it allows Democrats to say there was bipartisanship involved, and it means the GOP leaders like Eric Cantor can’t claim a 100% whip-ping of his party. But also, there’s what RNC Chairman Michael Steele said on ABCNews.com’s Top Line last week:

Candidates who live in moderate to slightly liberal districts have got to walk a little bit carefully here, because you do not want to put yourself in a position where you’re crossing that line on conservative principles, fiscal principles, because we’ll come after you.

In a CNN interview yesterday (below), Cao laughed off the quote, reminding Steele how the GOP celebrated his victory just last year in a traditionally Democratic district. He said Steele “has the right to come after those members who do not conform to party lines, but I would hope that he would work with us in order to adjust to the needs of the district and to hold a seat that the Republican Party would need.”

The reason behind Cao’s yes-vote came after two key events occurred: first, the Stupak amendment was added, banning government funding of abortion (Cao is pro-life). Secondly, Pres. Obama made his pitch to Cao, and he promised help with recovery from Katrina. Conservatives seem to have mixed feelings on Cao’s vote. Quin Hillyer of The American Spectator writes, “Conservatives need to take a deep breath, relax, and stop bashing Joseph Cao,” because, “Cao did not hold out for just some ridiculous pork project favored by big-money lobbyists; he instead asked for help with local issues caused by THE GREATEST NATURAL CATASTROPHE THAT EVER HIT THIS NATION.”

Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin asks, “Can’t the GOP do better?” She notes Cao voted yes simply for a commitment from Pres. Obama: “You know what that’s worth: Nothing.”

Cao had a short interview this morning on Fox & Friends and will likely be seen elsewhere on the dial as the day and week progresses. Will he keep the backing of his GOP buddies or get Scozzafava’ed next year? Welcome to the spotlight, Joseph Cao…

Here’s the CNN interview:

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Whether it was in front of Congress or screaming 20-something year olds at the Video Music Awards, if we’ve learned anything this year…it’s that interruptions are the way to get things done.

Wilson’s rudeness helped him raise over $1 million big ones for his campaign, and West’s hissy fit got him all up in the headlines once again (suspiciously enough just in time for his Fame Kills tour with Lady Gaga, which ended up getting cancelled anyways. Can you say ultimate fail Kanye?).

So when Andy Hertzberg proposed to his partner, Andy Rollman, during his testimonial at round two of the Washington D.C. Council meetings on marriage equality, perhaps he had even more of an agenda.

Wonder if this interruption will help propel the ruling in favor of equal marriage?

Video Clip Below

Grayson wasted no time in putting up a fundraising plea at Daily Kos, one that has raised over $70,000 so far.  He has also spent the hours since then doubling, tripling, and googlpling down on his remarks to anyone who will have him on.  The phone at Grayson’s office is ringing off the hook, and when I reached them, they declined to give an updated estimate.

You may remember that Joe Wilson started out in the hole against his Democratic opponent immediately following his “You lie!” outburst before a Joint Session of Congress, but soon, Republican satisfaction at his actions surpassed Democratic outrage.  In the end, both candidates benefited greatly from the incident.

The Republican National Congressional Campaign Committee is hoping they can surpass the Democrats’ oppo-fundraising feat, and have set up an anti-Grayson website called “AlanDisgrayson.com” to raise money for his eventual opponent.  A source within the NRCC ballparks the amount raised from the site at a couple hundred dollars, but says that the site went live late yesterday, and he expects it to get much more promotion today

Despite a resolution to admonish Wilson, and a threat (later dropped) of a resolution against Grayson, fundraising numbers like these provide little impetus for politicians to hold their tongues.  To paraphrase an old expression, “Money talks, civility walks.”

Grayson explained his comments on Rachel Maddow last night:

Here it is. The Republican health care plan for America: Don’t get sick. That’s right, don’t get sick. If you have insurance don’t get sick. If you don’t have insurance, don’t get sick. If you’re sick, don’t get sick. Just don’t get sick. That’s what Republicans have in mind for you America. That’s the Republicans’ health care plan. But I think that the Republicans understand that that plan isn’t always going to work, it’s not a foolproof plan. So the Republicans have a backup plan in case you do get sick. If you get sick in America, this is what Republicans want you to do. If you get sick America, the Republican health care plan is this: die quickly.

This ballsy address has gotten the attention of Politico, Huffington Post, NY Magazine’s Daily Intel, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and even Joe Scarborough on MSNBC yesterday morning, basically ensuring its merit as a lead story for the rest of the day. 

Yesterday House Republicans demanded that Grayson apologize and started circulating a resolution of disapproval, the same slap on the wrist that their own Joe Wilson got for his own rambunctious verbal address. Grayson obliged with an apology, though in a very different manner than what the Republicans were expecting. “I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven’t voted sooner to end this holocaust in America,” Grayson said on the house floor.

Media outlets have been quick to draw parallels between the two, and even North Carolina Representative Patrick McHenry is likening Grayson’s passionate, albeit contemptuous, demonstration to the “You lie!” outburst a few weeks ago. Yesterday, the Congressman tweeted:

Will Pelosi hold vote to reprimand #Grayson?http://bit.ly/4pGUWN Or was JWilson reprimand just partisan politics after all? #tcot

The problem with this comparison is that the two situations don’t compare at all. Indeed, Grayson was acting in a provocative way, but he was yelling to us through CSPAN. Wilson yelled at the President, to his face. Grayson was making a point, however colorfully, and he had the right to do so with his allotted five minutes. Wilson wasn’t just talking out of turn, but interrupting a televised speech. Being made by the President. 

People make confrontational speeches in the House all the time. But shouting like you’re in kindergarten while someone else is talking is something entirely different.  

Apples and oranges. Which was part of the point Keith Olbermann made on Countdown last night.

Granted Obama is doing a lot of television, but he’s been doing a lot of it all along and it’s not like the President has suddenly launched a tumblr! (Though I do think he should reconsider the chalkboard this weekend. Also, Office Hours!) However here are some early warning signs that if the President does not succeed in selling this health care bill, or at least appear to divert the debate even a little bit, next week’s conversation, and at least the cover of one weekly, is going to be all about how too much Obama has diluted Obama’s power.

• The New York Times wants to know whether “the president cheapening his currency by being so visible? Or is he simply being media savvy?”
  
  Sound familiar? Last time the NYT addressed the saturation question (in July) the paper quoted Joe Trippi saying “It’s a risk of overexposure…If you use it all up on health care, you may not be able to use it on something else. But if you’re going to risk using it all up, this is the one to risk it on.”

• CBS’s Mark Knoller, jokes that Obama may be missing some stops on his media train and should consider other cable show options like The Food Network, Animal Planet, and “Dog the Bounty Hunter.’
• Over at ABC, The Note’s Rick Klein wants to know “If Obama has something new to say“: “Now comes President Obama’s latest big moment — except it’s really three or four days’ worth of moments…It’s the president’s chance (as if heeded to create them) to say his piece — over and over, and over and over, and over and over. It’s not a bad time to say something new.
  ]]> http://www.mediaite.com/online/the-overexposure-meme-early-signs-obamas-big-media-o-is-back/feed/ 0 http://www.mediaite.com/online/should-obama-pitch-his-health-care-plan-kanye-west-style/ http://www.mediaite.com/online/should-obama-pitch-his-health-care-plan-kanye-west-style/#comments Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:53:16 +0000 Glynnis MacNicol http://www.mediaite.com/?p=23237 President Obama just can't seem to catch a break when it comes to holding the nation's attention with details of his health care plan. Perhaps the President should embrace an 'if you can't beat'em, join'em' mentality and stage his own outburst. It may be a good last resort before all is lost. Consider this.]]> President Obama just can’t seem to catch a break when it comes to holding the nation’s attention with details of his health care plan. Perhaps the President should embrace a ‘if you can’t beat’em, join’em’ mentality and stage his own outburst. It may be a good last resort before all is lost. Consider this.

  Last Wednesday Obama made the unusual move of calling a joint session of Congress, once again occupying the airwaves (sans FOX), to once again pitch his health care plan and hopefully clear up some misconceptions about what it does and does not consist of. It was by most people’s measure a fantastic speech…and yet it was mostly lost amidst all the ongoing hubub over Joe Wilson‘s “You Lie” outburst.

  On Saturday, Obama sought to follow up Wednesday’s address with a health care plan rally in Minneapolis. Saturday was also known to some 70,000 rambunctious sign-wavers as 9/12, and it was that outburst of sign wavers, marching around Washington, who dominated both the cablers and the next-day coverage.

  Being nothing if not persistent, Obama appeared this Sunday 60 Minutes for a second time in six months (video below) to talk to Steve Kroft about…the health care plan. 60 Minutes airs at 7pm ET, which last night put it somewhere between Serena Williams’ outburst at Saturday’s U.S. Open and Kanye West‘s Taylor Swift-directed outburst at the VMA’s. The President really just needs everyone — everyone — to shut the hell up for seven days so he can get his point across!

  There is a chance Obama will have another shot at the headline ring. Rumors abound he is set to appear on tonight’s debut of The Jay Leno Show…with special guest Kanye West. Perhaps the Prez can get a few outburst notes from the master. Outbursts have appeared to paid off for everyone else.
  

  
  President Obama Talks Health Care on 60 Minutes
  

  
  Watch CBS Videos Online
  

  ]]> http://www.mediaite.com/online/should-obama-pitch-his-health-care-plan-kanye-west-style/feed/ 5 http://www.mediaite.com/online/viral-vid-kanye-joe-wilson-re-mix/ http://www.mediaite.com/online/viral-vid-kanye-joe-wilson-re-mix/#comments Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:51:22 +0000 Zeke Turner http://www.mediaite.com/?p=23335 Joe Wilson at the Obama's joint-session health care talk. Then Kanye West at last night's Video Music Awards. And somewhere in the middle, Serena Williams did a little shouting-out of her own. In this video, Kanye and Wilson collide.]]> This week was full of shout-outs, mostly of the incongruous, impolite variety. First Joe Wilson at the Obama’s joint-session health care talk. Then Kanye West at last night’s Video Music Awards. And somewhere in the middle, Serena Williams did a little shouting-out of her own.

  Here, Kanye and Wilson collide:

  
  

  ]]> http://www.mediaite.com/online/viral-vid-kanye-joe-wilson-re-mix/feed/ 0 http://www.mediaite.com/online/joe-wilson-wants-your-money/ http://www.mediaite.com/online/joe-wilson-wants-your-money/#comments Fri, 11 Sep 2009 20:10:08 +0000 Palika Makam http://www.mediaite.com/?p=22705