Signs of trouble began in December, when Olbermann abandoned his glitch-prone set for an austere black background, and escalated a dispute with management about his participation in the network’s coverage of the Iowa caucuses. Now, in a lengthy feature, Newsweek‘s Rebecca Dana reports that Olbermann may be close to walking away, and scuttling former President-Elect Al Gore‘s plan to build a 24 hour cable news channel around him.

RELATED: Bill Press Hosts Current TV’s Florida Primary Coverage On Countdown

The report doesn’t add much flesh to the bones that have already been reported, and what flesh there is comes mostly from an unnamed source at the network, who confirms what most observers probably already concluded: that Gore and company are doing everything they can to keep their temperamental star happy. The source also paints a grim picture of Olbermann’s future at Current, and consequently, of Current’s future.

There’s nothing wrong with this kind of sourcing, mind you, but in Keith Olbermann’s case, it’s worth noting that even a perfectly honest and reliable source might succumb to some level of wishful thinking. Let’s face it, talented people can be difficult. Not all of them, mind you. Rachel Maddow has managed to step in and fill the franchise player role at MSNBC, while still being universally regarded as the Queen of Nice, and even that network’s polarizing Ed Schultz saves his firebreathing for the big show.

But some talented people can be difficult, and the people around them can react in one of two ways. They can either decide the talent is worth the difficulty, and manage it, or they can become resentful. When you’re the “complicated guy” in the cast of According To Jim, you probably won’t be around long, but when a network builds an entire programming strategy around you, they’re going to put up with a lot.

By all accounts, Keith Olbermann is more than worth it to the management of Current TV, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some unhappy campers a bit farther down the food chain. The host may, indeed, be bored or unhappy, but the question these reports of his departure never really get around to answering is, where is he supposed to go? Set aside the burning of bridges, now that he has become so closely identified with progressive politics, where else would he even fit now?

The media types that I’ve spoken with, though, all see an unhappy end for Olbermann and Current, so it’s possible that if he doesn’t remain there, he goes the Bobby Fischer route, just takes his money and vanishes. He might have the tortured soul for that, but talent-wise, even he’s got to know that he’s not the Bobby Fischer of cable news. Maybe he could ratchet the tortured soul setting down a bit. He’s at John Belushi, when he ought to be closer to Jim Belushi.

Unfortunately, all of this drama has eroded the fruits of that talent. His once-appealing wit has become increasingly bitter and petty, and has served to undercut the authority with which he was once able to speak. It’s tough to segue from a fingerbang joke into an impassioned soliloquy about civil liberties. Also, the black background was kinda cool for about a minute, but he really ought to bring the set back.

That Newsweek report does shed some light on the business side of Current (the good news: the network is great at drawing advertiser-attractive younger viewers; the bad news: they’re racing against time to renew carriage agreements with cable systems that expire over the next few years), and Current president David Bohrman revealed to Dana that the network is now trying to develop a morning show to compete with Morning Joe (hmmm, now who could they get to host that?).

All of this depends greatly on Keith Olbermann not just staying put, but getting his head back in the game.

RELATED: Popular Conservative Blog Slams President Obama’s ‘Liverish Lips’ On Newsweek Cover

Anderson Cooper opened the interview with the first order of business: whether the inflammatory cover was his idea. “No, I found out Monday morning,” he clarified, adding that “I make a pretty reasonable , I hope, fact-based argument” and that “you won’t find the word ‘dumb’ or ‘stupid’ in any of the text of the piece.”

Sullivan then explained his argument– that “from the beginning he was planning on 8 years rather than 4, and that is also due to the scale of what he inherited,” he said of the President. He also found it strange that conservatives saw the President as a “radical lefty.” “If 25 million unemployed or underemployed Americans is part of his master plan, then maybe Rush Limbaugh is right,” Buchanan replied, “maybe he is trying to destroy America.” She added that she would rather believe the President was “completely clueless” than that alternative.

RELATED: Megyn Kelly: Is Newsweek Obligated To Put An ‘Actual Journalist’ On Its Cover Instead Of Andrew Sullivan

“I haven’t seen anything Obama has done that has made that worse,” Sullivan replied, concluding that the President would likely “win handily” because of the way he was working, and that his idea of spending now “actually helps in the short term,” citing Italy as a country whose budget cuts did not help growth.

The discussion via CNN below:

RELATED: Sarah Palin Blasts Andrew Sullivan As A ‘TrigTruther Conspiracy Kook Writer’

Of course, as this was a segment in which a cable news program discusses a news competitor, the customary discrediting had to be done before the conversation could get started in earnest. Ok, lets see. Kelly joked that only four people read Newsweek and then asked if the magazine had “some obligation to pu an actual journalist” on its cover. Ooh, burn, Andrew! Who’s dumb now?!

Ok, where were we?

Kelly then asked if Newsweek was obligated to tell readers that Sullivan was a former TrigTruther. Radio host Leslie Marshall pointed out that the audience has the ability to Google the columnist, but Kelly argued that most people think of Newsweek as straight reporting. The National Review‘s Rich Lowry claimed that the magazine hasn’t been for a long time and is now “the house organ of the Obama Administration.”

Kelly worried that older people like her mom and step dad wouldn’t know that. Well, lets hope they were watching the show today. No one could come out of this segment without realizing just how purely evil Newsweek truly is.

Of course, news outlets dissing other news outlets makes up for about 95% of the daily cable news output, so this segment wasn’t anything new. The most fun moment came right at the top as we got to watch Kelly continue to trash her show’s new music choices.

I don’t know what it is but, whether you’re writing for a magazine or anchoring a newscast, I’ve always found self deprecation more charming than full on attacks.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan has responded to the Fox News segment. In a blog post entitled “How Scared is Fox?”, Sullivan challenges the cable network to have him on to defend his piece.

“What I want to know is why they cannot invite the author of an essay to debate it, rather than two random individuals (including Rich “Starbursts” Lowry) to discuss. Surely that’s only fair – unless, of course, I am on a blacklist.

So this is an open challenge to Fox News. If you want to trash my work, have me on to defend it. Any time, Megyn. Any time. What are you afraid of?

Apart from the truth, that is. ”

Watch the clip from Fox News below:

RELATED: Popular Conservative Blog Slams President Obama’s ‘Liverish Lips’ On Newsweek Cover

Here’s what Palin wrote earlier this morning:

She refers, of course, to political commenter Andrew Sullivan, who has written about doubts that Trig Palin, the Palin family’s youngest child, is Sarah Palin’s own son. After Salon.com published several posts last year debunking this so-called “Trig Trutherism,” Sullivan wrote that “My goal in all this has been simple: to find out the truth, whoever it might embarrass, including me.”

h/t NewsBusters

Glenn Reynolds

From Instapundit:

IN WALKS THE VILLAGE IDIOT, AND HIS FACE IS ALL AGLOW. He’s been up all night listening to Obama’s radio.

But the Obama photo on Newsweek’s cover will do him more harm than all the desparate sycophancy in the text. He looks terrible, and surprisingly like Jimmy Carter, even down to the downturned liverish lips and incipient jowls. I’m amazed they went with that one. Perhaps the staff is of two minds. Andrew Sullivan, of course, has reason for gratitude.

Although I’m not a frequent Insty reader, I’ve never known Glenn Reynolds to exhibit any racist tendencies, so I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn’t know “liver-lips” is a deep-dish racial slur.

Even so, given all that’s going on in this country, it’s more than a little bit strange that Reynolds has chosen to fixate on President Obama’s lips.

Redstate’s Caleb Howe also zeroed in on Newsweek‘s cover, but to considerably funnier (yes, there are funny conservatives) effect:

As soon as I saw it, I thought “what is going on with the back of President Obama’s neck there? Is that a shelf??” My second thought was this was a good opportunity for a photoshop contest. My third thought was “seriously, what is going on there? Loosen your tie!” And then my fourth thought was “stupid New England Patriot jerkheads.” But then I went back to thinking about the photoshop contest, and here we are.

You can check them out here, but for me, the funniest thing will be getting Caleb to autograph the Newsweek cover for President Obama’s second inauguration.

RELATED: Jake Tapper And Jay Carney Get Into It Over Briefing Protocol, Bestiality Evoked Again

Real Clear Politics transcribed the oft-times tense back-and-forth between Carney and Tapper:

Carney: “I think it is important — I know you’ve written about this — to understand what most Americans I think know, which is that we didn’t invade Afghanistan, we did not send U.S. military personnel into Afghanistan because the Taliban were in power. They had been in power. We sent — we went into Afghanistan because al-Qaeda had launched an attack against the United States from Afghanistan.

“And what the vice president was reflecting is that, and this is related to the reconciliation process that I was just discussing, is that the Taliban per se, while we are fighting them, it is not the elimination, the elimination of the Taliban is not the issue here. The objective that the president laid out when he laid out his Afghanistan strategy made clear that the number one principle here is to disrupt, dismantle and ultimately to defeat al-Qaeda, as well as help stabilize Afghanistan. And that’s what we’re doing.

“Part of that process is our support for the Afghan-led reconciliation talks. The conditions for reconciliation for the Taliban are very clear. But reconciliation has to be a part of the long-term process in Afghanistan if Afghanistan is going to evolve into a peaceful country.”

Tapper: “I understand that. Obviously, there isn’t much of an al-Qaeda presence in Afghanistan. Leon Panetta, when he was CIA director, told me a year or two ago that there are fewer than 100 al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan. We’ve been devoting a great deal of blood and treasure, focused almost entirely on defeating Taliban insurgents, Taliban fighters. I understand that ultimately that there is going to have to be some sort of reconciliation. I just wonder if the language was regrettable at all?”

Carney: “It’s only regrettable when taken out of context that I just explained. It’s regrettable to present it out of context because it is a simple fact that we went into Afghanistan because of the attack on the United States on September 11, 2001. We are there now to ultimately defeat al-Qaeda, to stabilize Afghanistan and stabilize it in part so that al-Qaeda or other terrorists who have as their aim attacks on the United States cannot establish a foothold again in that country. So what is also completely clear is that Afghanistan’s future has to include within it reconciliation, and that is why we support the Afghan government-led effort there.”

Watch the contentious exchange below via CSPAN:

(h/t RCP)

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.”

At this point, it no longer matters if it’s true (or not) that Fox News has “course corrected”; yes, Glenn Beck‘s dire predictions are no longer included, and as we have consistently pointed out, Bill O’Reilly often stands out with his non-doctrinaire approach to real issues. But long time viewers of Fox News (and there are literally millions and millions of them) would be hard pressed to point to any significant difference in the editorial and news offerings at FNC.

So the genius of Mr. Ailes’ media operation again seems to be in evidence, as Ailes, in Tom Sawyer-esque fashion, gets MSNBC to paint his fence. Here we have a moderate and well respected conservative thinker in Joe Scarborough openly praising the brilliance of Roger Ailes and Fox News to viewers of MSNBC. By comparison, it’s impossible to imagine Fox and Friends anchors speaking with such candid admiration for MSNBC’s Phil Griffin, though that speaks as much to the qualitative differences between the two competing morning shows — one is meant to be an open dialog among disparate points of view, and the other a more traditional entertainment program.

Yes, Scarborough gets some slight jabs in on Ailes, saying that the Fox News chief’s “course correction” assertion basically validates a thesis put forth earlier in the year by New York magazine’s Gabe Sherman, that Ailes “admits that he took the Republican party too far over the cliff.”

But I’m not sure that that is the case, on a number of levels. Sherman’s essay essentially stated that Fox News was an enormous hit from a business perspective, but that politically speaking, it would not be able to produce a viable presidential candidate. It was far too early to make that statement in the Spring of 2011, and it’s still too early to believe that now. Further, there is a reason that we called Roger Ailes the most powerful political person in America back in Fall of 2009, and it has less to do with promoting candidates, than it does in pointing out others’ flaws.

Watch the thoughtful segment below, courtesy of MSNBC:

Tucked away within Kurtz’s eminently quotable Newsweek profile of Fox News chief Roger Ailes was this indignity:

Three weeks after dropping out of the race, Tim Pawlenty showed up to ask for a gig at Fox. But there was a complication: Pawlenty was on the verge of endorsing Romney. “I’m not sure I want to sign you as a paid spokesman for Romney,” Ailes said.

Ailes, bless his heart, was probably being kind to Pawlenty with that Romney excuse. Pawlenty’s lucky that Ailes didn’t turn him down as a Fox News viewer, for fear he’d sap the network’s energy right through the TV. I’m not saying Pawlenty is dull, but when he went to ask Ailes for the job, the Fox chief said, “Okay, send him in,” to which Pawlenty replied, “But I’m sitting right here, sir.”

Pawlenty was also rejected as a pitchman for 5 Hour Energy, whose distributors explained, “That’s five hours in a row.”

In other Pawlenty news, the former governor recently sat for an official portrait by Bulgarian artist Rossin, which gave onlookers the unique opportunity to either watch paint dry, or look at Rossin’s painting.

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.

Through the years, he has been able to get nearly anyone he’s wanted on his show, and once he’s got them, there’s no telling what he’ll do. But for most, it’s worth it. “They get huge, huge currency,” O’Reilly says, in regards to the tough questions he makes his guests face. “I mean, the upside is just enormous.”

Not everyone is so smart as to realize this, though. Former Vice President Dick Cheney – a guest O’Reilly says he would covet, if only he’d accept an invitation — is missing out by playing things safe:

“There is a fear factor,” O’Reilly explains. “I’ve watched four or five of his interviews—I mean, it’s all cupcakes, you know? I ask ’em questions, all right? Obama. I mean, when Obama sits with me, he doesn’t know what the hell’s coming, and it’s exciting. It’s exciting.”

He speaks highly of Obama, who has been on his show twice, both times to much fanfare:

“A guy like Obama, he’s got reason to be afraid, and he’s not,” he says. “He’s composed; he likes to joust. There are personalities that do, and there are personalities that don’t.”

As Newsweek‘s Peter Boyer points out, O’Reilly’s political inclinations are neither Republican nor Democrat, exactly:

O’Reilly’s liberal critics tend to cast him as the biggest bogeyman of the Fox News–Republican conspiracy, but he insistently disclaims ideology—asserting an independence that, in a relative sense, has some merit. Where Sean Hannity’s positions on a given partisan issue can be reliably predicted (“He has a Republican show,” O’Reilly says, “and Republicans should have a show”), O’Reilly is not strictly doctrinaire except for a slavish adherence to what might be called the Ideology of Bill.

As tension continues to grow the Right and the Left, Obama might be well served to sit down again with the Papa Bear. This is a tactic that has worked for the President in the past, and it’s hard to imagine that O’Reilly’s the only one who knows it.

Read the rest of the profile at The Daily Beast

No, you haven’t forgotten to laugh.

Perhaps a bit of background is necessary. Doonesbury is a comic strip that appears in a thing called a “newspaper,” which is, as the name suggests, made of paper and has news printed on it. The strip has been around for 41 years now, and in its heyday, was known for its subversive edge (subversive compared to Marmaduke, I suppose). Doonesbury is a mixture of ensemble narrative and liberal doses of political commentary.

The Palin strip actually does contain a few funny lines(once it gets going. The first 2 panels are of a character whistling and making Jiffy Pop), but misses badly with its sexist dismount. Perhaps this was an attempt to regain some edge ever since Dennis the Menace went emo, but it ends up being offensive and unfunny, especially in a strip that’s supposed to appeal to liberals.

Here’s Newsbusters’ description:

In the strip, long-time character B.D. is watching a televised interview with Palin in Iowa. She’s asked, “What do you think of Michele Bachmann’s early success here?”

In the second to last frame, the faux Palin said, “And did you see me in Newsweek? That article shows that as president, I’d be totally ready if called on to fill a tight sweater.”

In the next frame, B.D. thinks to himself, “Good one. Advantage Palin” as her interviewer asked, “Are you saying Bachmann wouldn’t?”

The faux Palin responded, “We don’t know. The lamestreamers won’t get the facts out.”

Wow, I haven’t read Doonesbury in a really long time. Doesn’t B.D. always wear a helmet?

Many conservatives have no problem with Sarah Palin as affectionate sex object, and while Newsbusters’ Noel Sheppard is rightly offended, he sees this as mainly a partisan issue:

Now imagine for a moment Barack Obama was a Republican, and both Palin and Bachmann were Democrats.

Would Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau be using cheap boob jokes to mock two prominent liberal women?

Yes, that was rhetorical.

Well, allow me to respond anyway. While Garry Trudeau might be less likely to target Democrats, there are plenty of media types, left, right, and center, who have no problem making sexist remarks about liberal figures like Hillary Clinton, First Lady Michelle Obama, Janet Napolitano, and so on. It seems the only time conservatives care about sexism is when the media they hate fails to call out sexism against a conservative. Sexism, as any woman will tell you, is not a partisan issue.

While acknowledging that the accompanying cover story by Lois Romano was fair to the congresswoman, Howard Kurtz thought the photo was “very unflattering” and did not seem to buy editor Tina Brown‘s argument that candidates can come across as both presidential and crazy. The Washington Post‘s Jennifer Rubin agreed, and suggested Newsweek was not so much sexist as it was based on their philosophy, which happens to see Bachmann as “nuts.”

Liberal radio host Stephanie Miller seemed more interested in focusing on the things Bachmann has to say as opposed to a weird photo of her, but then proceeded to bring back “migraine-gate” and treat it as if it was a legitimate story. If Bachmann’s words are enough to make her look crazy, why bother with photos or overblown controversies about her headaches?

Politico’s Roger Simon said the cover was intended to generate buzz for the magazine, which is ultimately the goal Tina Brown has set for Newsweek. You may find her Princess Diana cover ridiculous, horrible, or some combination of the two, but at least you’re talking about Newsweek. Tina Brown is operating under the assumption that any and all press is good press, so therefore there is no such thing as bad publicity.

But really? Doesn’t it take away from the substance of the story to have a cover like that attached to what was a pretty fair-minded article? I understand that the news industry needs to seem “edgy” to get new readers at a time when the print industry is growing weaker, but this shouldn’t come at the expense of actual journalism. Just saying.

Watch the video of the segment here, courtesy of CNN:

In an interview with TODAY‘s Lester Holt, Rep. Michele Bachmann said the hotly debated Newsweek cover photo of the congresswoman “really didn’t impact me that much.” Bachmann quickly shifted the conversation away from the “Queen of Rage” cover story and said the nation had received a “punch to the gut” with the stock market drops and debt rating downgrade.

Bachmann was asked by Holt to name an instance where she “moved the needle” as a leader, and Bachmann described herself as the “lone voice for in the wilderness in Washington fighting against raising the debt ceiling” and said the S&P downgrade and jolts on Wall Street have “proved me right in the past week.”

Watch it here, from NBC News:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

He also shared our (my) own take on the issue: That Newsweek‘s cover stunt actually worked to help Bachmann’s image:

Yes, Tina Brown helped her a lot this week. Because Tina Brown’s a mean girl. And you know what? The liberals can’t wade in. The liberal men can’t wade in on Bachmann, because they eviscerated Palin already, with the mashed-up bag of meat stuff. So it’s going to have to be the mean girl liberals. And I think they helped her out putting that cover up.

And you know something? Michele Bachmann should not trust the mean girls on the Left as her friends because of womanhood. At this point, she’d be better off building a time machine, going back into the 60s, falling in love and touring with Ike Turner than she would trusting those women.

What’s love got to do, got to do with it, Dennis?

Have a look at the segment, courtesy of Fox News:

Schultz first takes Newsweek to task:

“I don’t think that this Newsweek cover of Michele Bachmann is fair. I think she should have been afforded the same, or should I say, some amount of respect by Newsweek when she agreed to have a photo taken.”

Since a photo isn’t an important issue facing America, he’s happy that Bachmann didn’t choose the path of attacking the media. Instead, Schultz reveals that what is very important, is Bachmann’s desire to shut down the Environment Protection Agency and her alleged habit of requesting money from government agencies that “she rails against on the campaign trail.” To Schultz at least, these actions are much scarier than any picture of Bachmann ever could be.

Watch the clip from MSNBC below:

Scarborough could not seem to contain his laughter, if not at Brown’s defense over the cover image, then perhaps at the absurdity of the photo selection that was published by The Daily Beast and didn’t make the cover.

If he played bad cop (or reasonable critic), then his co-host Mika Brzezinski played the role of good cop, politely asking Brown why the cover line “Queen of Rage” did not seem to connect with anything reported in the feature length article. Brown explained the choice of verbiage, “She is right now the face of the Tea Party,” adding “we came off a week where rage was all the rage and let’s face it…Michele Bachmann is the face of the Tea Party right now.”

A reasonable defense, to be sure, but regardless of one’s political bent, it’s not unreasonable to have noticed that Bachmann cuts an attractive and photogenic visage, and that the photo used on the Newsweek cover seems to many notable media critics to be nothing but a ham-fisted attempt to make “the face of the Tea Party” seem slightly unhinged, and by extension, make the Tea Party seem unhinged as well.

Given the debt crisis negotiations of the last few weeks, it is reasonable to analyze the Tea Party politics as disconnected by status quo politics, rageful, even unhinged. The problem with the Newsweek cover, however, is that it has people talking more about Bachmann’s unfair treatment by the media, and not about the policies and politics of Bachmann and the Tea Party. But what does Tina Brown care? We are talking about Newsweek, if even it has quickly become a joke for its recent spate of weird and questionable covers.

Watch the segment below, courtesy of MSNBC:

Watch it here, from TBS:

Stewart began his argument compiling evidence for why he rarely listens to conservatives when they complain that the “liberal” media is out to get them. “Conservatives hate the liberal media so much,” he joked, “they’re willing to accept arguments based on science!” Then he proceeded to do precisely that– attack an allegedly liberal publication for unfairly attacking a conservative. Don’t expect this to happen again anytime soon.

Just putting the photo up elicited laughter from the audience, and Stewart was clear to note the cover’s intention: “that’s a shit picture of Michele Bachmann,” he noted, “and clearly not an accidentally shitty picture.” He went on to argue that of all the things one can say about the Tea Party leader, “one thing you cannot say about Michele Bachmann is that she is not photogenic.” He then showed a variety of Rep. Bachmann photos that could, he joked, pass as “shampoo commercials” and made even the least attractive political activity look good. “You’ve got to go pretty far out of your way to find a crappy photo of Michele Bachmann, and you did,” he quipped.

Stewart then noted Brown’s argument that the photo was illustrative of the Representative’s intensity, which Stewart did not buy one bit. “That’s not an ‘I’m galvanizing the voters in Iowa’ picture,’” arguing instead that the cover looked like “the female version of The 40-Year-Old Virgin.’” “You used that photo in a petty attempt to make Michele Bachmann look crazy,” he scolded, suggesting instead, “that’s what her words are for.” He then put together a far “scarier” portrait of Rep. Bachmann– made entirely of her quotes. “Shame on you, Newsweek, and shame on your editor Tina Brown,” he railed, showing the least flattering photo of Brown he could find.

The segment via Comedy Central below:

At an outdoor town hall in Atlantic, Iowa, the Republican presidential hopeful was asked about the cover. Bachmann says she’s yet to see it for herself, but was then told about the cover line by the individual posing the question, who also added that the image used was a “big close-up” and “wild-eyed.” Bachmann, to her credit, acted as if she didn’t care much about the cover one way or another, and chose instead to shift focus to her campaign and plans for the future.

Her reaction? “Aha. Well, we’ll have to take a look at that, won’t we?” In a word: Perfect.

There were myriad ways Bachmann (who, as we’re all aware, has dealt with this exact same brand of crap before, perhaps most notably from former MSNBC pundit Cenk Uygur) and her people could have handled this, and choosing certain paths would have definitely risked lending Newsweek further publicity for what really does appear to be, let’s be honest, a calculated publicity stunt. She could have blamed the media and painted it as a left-wing enterprise conspiring against her or against conservatives or the Tea Party or women… But she didn’t. She didn’t play the victim. She acted like it doesn’t matter because, truly, such attacks on candidates and other public figures shouldn’t matter. In one fell swoop and with an economy of words, Bachmann was able to simultaneously make Newsweek appear foolish and her campaign come across as not only thoughtful and serious but also — especially important after the events of this weekend — positive. Hopeful, even.

Have a look at her reaction, below:

h/t Slate via Hot Air

When, Kelly asked, was the last time anyone has heard of NOW aligning with conservatives?

It’s rare, and when they do do it, they have some sort of caveat to go along with it, but it’s really striking that they went ahead and took Bachmann’s defense this time around. They’ve been having a lot of attacks against her and, I mean I think it’s just the final straw. She’s been, you know, in the spotlight and she’s being hit for it.

May had actually been able to speak with the head of NOW to obtain a clearer view of why the group was denouncing the Newsweek cover:

Terry O’Neill, she said what they look for is Gloria Steinem‘s test: If this were done to a man, or if it ever could have been done to a man, then it’s not considered sexist. But because, obviously, this is… She’s labeled a “queen” and put as crazy, it’s more sexist.

Kelly then very succinctly wrapped up the central issue at play in this story into a neat little phrase we’ll personally be borrowing this week:

We’ve talked before on the program about how certain women politicians — it’s not limited to conservative women, but you see that often — get deemed (and pardon the terms, folks) as either “nuts or sluts” when they’re running for office.

Have a look at the video, courtesy of Fox News:

The slideshow consists of eight photos that the magazine labels “outtakes,” and they feature shots that convey varying degrees of what publisher Tina Brown calls “intensity.” There’s one in which Bachmann appears to use nothing but the power of her grin to extract an elderly man’s will to live, and another one that looks like she’s trying to levitate an object from across the room.  Here’s a collage of thumbnails that we put together, but you can check out the full slideshow here.

The accompanying text outlines the controversy surrounding the cover, including the denunciation by NOW, and explains, “Many of the photographs taken for the feature showed Bachmann with similar intensity. Here are more images from the shoot, including some used inside the magazine, showing Bachmann in the nation’s capital and on the trail in Iowa.”

While they don’t actually say it, the implication is that these eight photos represent all of the shots they had to choose from, and they had no choice but to use the one they went with.

The problem is that news photographers (really, all photographers) use rapid-fire cameras that take several shots per second, which results in a large selection of each pose. For that one shot they did use, there are probably ten or so that are nearly identical, but with subtle differences which might have softened the effect of Bachmann’s gaze. None of those made it into the outtakes.

In three years of covering the White House, I have accumulated hundreds of rapid-fire shots of President Obama, for example, and there are lots of them that freeze odd-looking moments (a cough, a blink) that look jarring out of context. I’m sure all news photographers do. That’s why they take so many shots, so that they (or their editors) can select the one that best conveys the truth of the moment.

Whatever the intent of the Newsweek cover, it was a specific choice, not some process of elimination. The same is true of the outtakes, all of which have been selected from dozens of nearly-identical, but subtly different, shots.

Their hearts are in the right place, but is Newsbusters really helping Bachmann out by starting a national debate about how crazy she looks?

Newsbusters‘ headline might make you think they’re just being oversensitive, but once you get a load of Newsweek‘s cover, it’s immediately apparent that they have a point. Newsweek subscribers, upon receiving this issue, will probably scratch their heads trying to remember when they signed up for a trial subscription to It Puts The Lotion In The Basket Weekly.

There’s something about Newsbusters Editor Noel Sheppard‘s commentary that isn’t quite right, though. Take a look at the full cover, and tell me if you can see what’s missing from Sheppard’s one line of criticism about Newsweek:

Exactly what were the editors thinking putting this kind of a picture of a sitting Congresswoman and presidential candidate on their cover?

Is Sheppard conceding the point that Michele Bachmann is “The Queen Of Rage,” as the Newsweek cover giant-fontedly dubs her? If not, it’s a pretty glaring omission.

Sheppard also neglects to mention any of the previous Newsweek cover “controversies,” a deviation from Newsbusters’ normally exhaustive M.O.

A cynic might wonder if the real point of this item was, in fact, to start a national debate about how crazy Michele Bachmann looks. In a Republican presidential field that’s weaker than Charles Atlas beginners class, Bachmann’s ability to connect with the energized Tea Party base has made her a danger to the likes of Mitt Romney (R-MA) and Tim Pawlenty (R-UhRoh). Republicans have come out of the woodwork to attack Bachmann over her migraines. A debate over her “crazy eyes” fits in well with a strategy to discredit a candidate who is a very real threat to the GOP establishment.

For what it’s worth, the Newsweek photo certainly doesn’t seem designed to flatter Bachmann, and is strongly evocative of her post-SOTU address to the faerie on the cameraman’s shoulder, but it’s probably intended to pair with that “Queen Of Rage” headline. It’s tough to see how anyone could have a problem with one, and not the other.

O’Donnell began recalling the Newsweek cover “We are All Socialists Now,” and noted that “I, of course, have been calling myself a socialist since I first read the definition of socialism in the first economics class I took in college.” But he took the time to explain that that did not mean he was in favor of a fully socialist economy, because that was not possible. “There is no capitalist economy anywhere in the world and there is no socialist economy anywhere in the world,” he argued, “not even Cuba… we are all mixes.”

He did not bother to name a single capitalist feature in the Cuban economy, though the tourist-only Havana hotels may, in some skewed way, count. Instead, he gave China as an example of the middle ground: “China has a lot more capitalism than Cuba, but a lot more socialism than the United States.” And, for good measure, gave an example of a type of socialism he hates: agriculture subsidies. “I’m a socialist, but I hate bad socialism,” he noted, “and there is plenty of bad socialism out there.”  He concluded he was “as much as a capitalist as I am a socialist,” and that the stigma the word has in American culture was undeserved. Then Maher took it away with his “It Gets Better” segment.

The segment via MSNBC below:

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:

The main recipient of O’Donnell’s ire today was not particularly Palin, but Newsweek, for putting Palin on the cover and “allowing Palin to say ‘I think I can win’ without discomforting discomfiting her in any way.” The “discomfort discomfit” O’Donnell wanted to see comes in the form of almost every 2012 presidential poll, which O’Donnell noted show “she’s the most unpopular politician in America” and, beyond that, “the most unpopular politician in Alaska.” He notes that only one approval rating appears in the piece– her 80% pre-John McCain approval rating.

In attacking Newsweek, O’Donnell even went out of his way to compliment Palin in a way she rarely hears from his side of the aisle: “She knows she’s lying when she says ‘I can win’– she’s smart enough to know.” “Newsweek does everything to make the madness of Sarah Palin sound reasonable,” he notes, ripping through sentence after sentence of what he called “the softest treatment the Lamestream Media ever has [given her].” He went on to attack its “pathetic pro-Palin tilt” and “utterly absurdist” conclusions, and conclude that Newsweek negotiated a deal with Palin to put her on the front page in exchange for access, which they feared they could lose if Palin didn’t “trust” them.

The segment via MSNBC below:

I believe that I can win a national election.

The people of America are desperate for positive change, and deserving of positive change, to get us off of this wrong track. I’m not so egotistical as to believe that it has to be me, or it can only be me, to turn things around. But I do believe that I can win.

Mind you, Palin has yet to make an official bid. As for her eldest daughter Bristol’s recent claim that Palin had already made up her mind about running, Palin tells Boyer that while “Bristol wants me to run for president,” Palin herself is “still thinking about it,” citing the well-being of her family as a factor in her decision-making. In fact, a good portion of the interview is dedicated to Palin’s interactions with her husband, Todd, and their children. To wit:

But before we began, she and Todd, both working their omnipresent BlackBerrys, conducted a bit of urgent family business.

SARAH: I have to answer Piper real quick. She is not going to get her hair cut. What is she thinking?

TODD: No, she’s not.

SARAH: You need to tell her that, she’ll obey you … You told her no, Todd? OK, I’m puttin’ mine away.

The major takeaway seems to be that Palin is examining the GOP field with a shrewd eye, and weighing her options carefully. She she told Boyer about the media’s focus on potential, currently undeclared GOP candidates such as herself, “the field is not yet set.” Also of note: Palin’s “independent” streak:

You know, I rarely use the term “bipartisanship.” I use the term “independent.” Piper’s middle name is “Indie.” That’s the Alaskan way of life. Seventy-three percent of Alaskans aren’t registered Republican or Democrat, they’re independent. Todd’s not a registered Republican. Most of the people I know, they’re independent people saying, “Just use common sense.”

The interview provides an increasingly rare instance of Palin speaking directly to a member of the mainstream media (who isn’t Greta Van Susteren or Sean Hannity). As Palin’s wildly popular use of the phrase “lamestream media” would attest, there’s a reason for that:

The mainstream press is becoming less and less relevant.

I would say no to those who have lied about me. There is no need to reward bad behavior. I’ve learned. You know, once bitten, twice shy. I have learned.

h/t Newsweek

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:

Joe Scarborough brought up the controversial cover during the last minutes of Brown’s appearance, coyly asking how people were reacting (like you don’t know, Joe). Here was Brown’s reply:

“Well, it went absolutely viral in the last two days because the cover has created this huge debate. Some people think it’s kind of spooky and ‘Should we have done it?’ and others think it’s very effective. I think it’s a very intriguing package to show what she’d be like today.”

Sure, some people are saying they hate it but, hey, at least they’re saying the name Newsweek, right?

I’m of two minds about this. Personally, I’ve always found alternate histories fascinating, everything from Phillip Roth imagining a Charles Lindbergh presidency to Magneto assisting in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Why should any woman, even such a beloved woman, be out of bounds? Still, I think the problem a lot of people have is seeing it as exploitative. They feel like Brown and company are purely using the image of a dead woman to sell magazines when they should be covering actual news.

This is a fair argument. There’s a reason why my unpublished manuscript for Anne Frank and Anastasia: Time Traveling Adventurers is only an excellent sci-fi epic (publishers and agents, please contact me for details) and not being touted as a news story.

Watch the clip from MSNBC below: