The Commentariat -- November 23

The President Gets His "3 am Call." Michael Crowley of Time: "During a press gaggle on Air Force One today, White House press secretary Bill Burton said that national security advisor Tom Donilon woke the president at 3:55 am with the news of North Korea's artillery attack on a South Korean island." Crowley adds, "I see no sign that our children were unsafe because it was Obama and not Hillary who fielded it."

Appearing on Sean Hannity's nightly "Integrity in Journalism" show, journalism major Sarah Palin explains journalistic principles & ethics to Katie Couric (not named, but Couric is the object of this little lesson):

Megyn Kelly of Fox "News." Photo by Alexei Hay for GQ.... Greg Veis conducts an interview for GQ of Fox "News"' Megyn Kelly, who discusses the "nobility of journalism" and no, she did not have an affair with Brit Hume, but Hume was pleased about the rumor of one. Sample response:

My rule is, if anybody writes in asking for a head shot and compliments me or the show or just wants one, that's fine, they can have a head shot. But if they write anything perverted, they're not getting one. -- Megyn Kelly

CW: see photo which accompanies the interview. Not a head shot. Why would anyone be inspired to write "anything perverted" to Fox's own Miss School M'arm?

... Speaking of Right-Wing Integrity... Dan Vergano of USA Today: "An influential 2006 congressional report that raised questions about the validity of global warming research was partly based on material copied from textbooks, Wikipedia and the writings of one of the scientists criticized in the report, plagiarism experts say":

It kind of undermines the credibility of your work criticizing others' integrity when you don't conform to the basic rules of scholarship.
-- Skip Garner, plagiarism expert

The Fed Fights Back. Sewall Chan of the New York Times: "Faced with unusually sharp ideological attacks after its latest bid to stimulate the economy, the Federal Reserve now faces a challenge: ... how to defend itself in a hyperpartisan environment without becoming overtly political. Caught off guard by accusations from Congressional Republicans, Sarah Palin, Tea Party activists and conservative economists, the central bank and its chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, are pushing back, making their case on substantive grounds but also haltingly adopting the tactics of Washington battle, like strategically placed interviews, behind-the-scenes assuaging of opponents and reaching out to potential allies on Wall Street and Capitol Hill."

Broken Record: Paul Kiel of ProPublica: "The government’s mortgage modification program has ... failed to boost the number of modifications relative to the need... For homeowners, modifications are just as rare as they were before the program launched. The absolute number of modifications is higher now than it was then, but so are the number of defaulted loans." ...

... Abigail Field of AOL's Daily Finance: "Testimony in a New Jersey foreclosure case decided last week may spell big trouble for Bank of America.... If what one bank employee said on the stand proves to be accurate, paperwork problems it acquired when it purchased the failing mortgage provider Countrywide in 2008 could leave BofA on the hook for billions of dollars."

Alan Pyke of Media Matters: another day, another lie from the Newt: "... Gingrich claimed that the verdict in the civilian trial of embassy bomber Ahmed Ghailani — which will put Ghailani in jail for 20 years to life — is a miscarriage of justice and proves 'Attorney General Holder should resign....' Gingrich is not merely ignoring the record (his own, as well as judicial precedents and the history of stronger sentences from civilian courts than from tribunals). He's also ignoring the official Manual for Military Commissions, Rule 304 of which rules inadmissible any evidence gained through torture." ...

... Sorry, Newt. Greg Sargent & Adam Serwer: "The families of victims of the 1998 embassy bombings in East Africa support the Obama administration's decision to try Ahmed Ghailani in civilian court, even if they were disappointed with the verdict, a spokesperson for the families tells us.... Edith Bartley..., a de facto media spokesperson for ... families of victims, [says] ... the families don't fault the Obama Justice Department's handling of the case. She also called on [right-wing] critics of Justice's conduct to stop turning the trial and verdict into a 'political issue,' which she denounced as 'unacceptable.'"

Fredreka Schouten of USA Today: "The companies with multimillion-dollar contracts to supply American airports with body-scanning machines more than doubled their spending on lobbying in the past five years and hired several high-profile former government officials to advance their causes in Washington, government records show." ...

... Marc Ambinder, now of the National Journal: "The White House is coordinating a response to what it views as dramatically overblown press coverage of a policy that most Americans say they support." ...

... Luckily, and to no one's surprise, the White House enjoys the cooperative effort of Mr. Inside-the-Beltway, Howie Kurtz, who stands up for the TSA's new pat-downs & super-scans & blames "media frenzy" for the public uproar. Frenzied Media, get a grip.

Jonathan Chait of The New Republic: "Probably the most serious long-term threat to American security is the possibility that terrorists will acquire an unsecured nuclear weapon. It's therefore terrifying that Republicans are holding up the START Treaty that secures that material.... Our security apparatus is filled with wildly expensive and/or intrusive measures that bring minimal benefit, but the one security intervention with an enormous cost-benefit ratio may get held up because you need the consent of an intransigent and largely insane party."

One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president. -- Al Gore, on why he had once supported corn-based ethanol subsidies