Obama Takes Economic Questions From Opponents (With Cameras Watching, OMG!), Governors Refusing Cash, And Some People Think Green Food Is Icky
Hi everybody. Happy New Week! We're going to kick it off with lots of happy news and joy, right? Uh no, not so much. Ali Velshi is already at the Wall of Doom, bumming us out before we've even gotten comfy in our chairs. It seems the Dow went tumbling again, but we've heard this song before. I think I'm through with being concerned about the day to day movements of the stock market. The real story is the level we're at now and not specifically what happened on any given day. Still though, my general feeling is "meh."
Anderson Cooper then notes that President Obama made a pledge today to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. When I heard that earlier, I had to laugh. I mean, THAT'S optimism...bordering on delusion. Yeah, that's so not happening. Ali basically says as much, showing us our budget in graphic pie form, and noting that really the main place he'd have to cut is defense. That should go over really well with the hawks. Hell, forget the hawks, try every member of Congress that has something defense-related built in their district. Good luck with that, Obama.
Next up, we have an Ed Henry piece where we get another sliver of evidence that Obama just might be the real deal. See, he was having this fiscal responsibility summit thingee and at the end he just opened the floor for, like, 45 minutes of questions from everyone there, including--gasp--Republicans, and he let the press record the whole thing. If that wasn't enough, who was the first person he called on? John freakin McCain. You just know Obama is up there thinking, "Okay mofos, is this bipartisan enough for you?" Yes, that's right, my president says "mofos" in his head (or even something a little harsher). Why do you think he pauses so much?
But getting back to the rusty "Maverick," here was his big chance to ask a tough intelligent question, thus sticking it to the kid that stole his dream. So what did he ask about? The cost of Obama's helicopter. Seriously. That's our most pressing economic issue? Hey, why not ask about A-Rod? John McCain has just become the Michael Fletcher of the fiscal responsibility summit. Later, in a twist of amusement, Eric Cantor, who has made me want to throw things at my television lately, turned into a total almost-fanboy when he got his time to talk to the prez. No one can resist the power of Barack.
It's about that time, again. I hope you're ready for pontification because here it comes. Rocking out the panel tonight is David Gergen, Ali Velshi, and newbie Krishna Guha, chief U.S. economics correspondent at The Financial Times. At first I got excited because I thought Krishna was a real economist, but looking at his background, I think that's a no. Though I could be wrong. Anyway, they talk about the summit and bank nationalization and yada, yada, yada. Krishna thinks Obama made that prior deficit comment in order to convince the markets there's a plan.
Also, a friend of mine has urged me to give Ali a cookie for finally acknowledging that unemployment benefits are stimulative. I actually never noticed he'd previously said the opposite, but apparently he did. That was on Campbell Brown's show, which I do not keep honest. I don't know if he's done it on 360. Obviously I need to watch Ali closer. Be afraid, little financial guru, be afraid. Oh, and have a cookie.
We're moving on now to Tom Foreman at his...I don't know what to call the thing. I was going to name it the "special wall," but that just makes it sound like it's driven in on the short bus. If anybody has a suggestion, I'm all ears. Anyway, Tom is using the wall to tell us about a new sheriff in town named Earl Devaney. He's the guy tapped to keep track of our stimulus bucks and yes, they're really calling him a sheriff. The guy has an interesting background: cop, secret service, EPA, and helped take down Jack Abramoff. Sounds good to me. When can he start?
On now to a Candy Crowley piece on Republicans who are refusing stimulus money. Are they exhibiting integrity? Are they hurting their constituents over ideology? Actually, most of this piece focuses on Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who I sort of admired for his stand. But then again, he's only refusing $100 million out of $4 billion available to his state and what he's refusing could really help those hurting worst right now. So, I don't know. But hey, he could be telling people he doesn't know if Obama is a real citizen, so there's that.
Next up, we have a Randi Kaye piece that takes us on a little trip in the wayback machine to a time when the country was caught up in the story of a married politician who was having an affair with an intern. No, it's not the 1990's, it's 2001, and if you can believe it, that story ended a lot better than this one. Most of us remember this: Chandra Levy went missing and all fingers pointed to Congressman Gary Condit.
It was a newsgasm waiting to happen. But then, something did happen. There were planes. And there were falling towers. And there were warnings and powder and fear and uncertainty. And there was no more Chandra Levy in our news. Her body turned up the next year. Apparently, they now have enough evidence to convict a man who is already in prison. For his part, Condit was never charged, though the case ruined his career. He now runs an ice cream shop and is planning on writing a tell-all. Of course he is.
Erica Hill has the headlines tonight and we learn that George Clooney met with Obama and Biden about Darfur. He was actually just in the region, along with twitterers Ann Curry and Nicholas Kristof. I have to say, Kristof's tweet about him and George bunking together certainly got my attention. You can read about said bunking, as well as find a link to their coverage here. George was on Larry King tonight as well. I was sorta hoping he'd be on 360 instead. First of all, Anderson actually knows what he's talking about in regards to the region and also, I'm a bit bummed about being denied the Cooper-Clooney split screen. That's a whole lot of hotness there and...wait, what was I saying?
Last up, we have an Erica piece on Michelle Obama's preparations for the first official White House dinner. Fancypants!
The "shot" tonight is Ben Stiller at the Oscars doing his best imitation of Joaquin Phoenix on Letterman. That was actually pretty hilarious. I love Natalie Portman's, "You look like you work at a Hasidic meth lab." Honestly, my jury's still out on Joaquin. Drugs, breakdown, or greatest punking ever? I dunno!
Anyway, Anderson then goes on to very seriously pimp the "raging" debate over vegetables, (those of the green variety to be precise) taking place on the blog. The whole thing started when Anderson made a random throwaway comment (as is his wont) stating he doesn't like green food. Next thing you know, people are hypothesizing that broccoli is an alien plot to turn us into zombies. Seriously, that's a quote. Which is ridiculous because broccoli is delicious. Lima beans on the other hand? You just know those bastards are hiding something.
On one of the webcasts, Erica ticked off a bunch of green foods and Anderson made a disgusted face to all of them, except peas. I'm pretty sure he even balked at lettuce. Lettuce! I must have seen that wrong. No one can be that weird...said the girl who won't eat pasta. But we're not talking about me here, people. Going back to peas, someone once told me that when they were kids they would hide them in their milk, which is just...ew. That grosses me out. The thought of it has ruined me for peas, though not milk, ironically.
Other stuff on the webcast included Erica putting forth the notion that maybe their procurement of a second microphone has been hampered by a conspiracy plot lead by Anderson. See, that's what I've been saying. Also, Erica uses the term "fancypants," which given my affinity for the word, makes her my new best friend. I don't know why adding "pants" to the end of a word raises its amusement level, but it totally does. Oh, and they're still working on getting that new mic turned off. It's starting to become comical. Hardest off switch evah!
Finally, shoutout to Jack Gray. His Oscar live-blog rocked. I can't believe that lasted four hours. It's a few hours shy of my live chatting record from a couple years back (plus I live blogged Hurricane Ike for five hours last year), but still. Time flies when you're having fun. Or, you know, something less cliched and cheesy.
Anderson Cooper then notes that President Obama made a pledge today to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. When I heard that earlier, I had to laugh. I mean, THAT'S optimism...bordering on delusion. Yeah, that's so not happening. Ali basically says as much, showing us our budget in graphic pie form, and noting that really the main place he'd have to cut is defense. That should go over really well with the hawks. Hell, forget the hawks, try every member of Congress that has something defense-related built in their district. Good luck with that, Obama.
Next up, we have an Ed Henry piece where we get another sliver of evidence that Obama just might be the real deal. See, he was having this fiscal responsibility summit thingee and at the end he just opened the floor for, like, 45 minutes of questions from everyone there, including--gasp--Republicans, and he let the press record the whole thing. If that wasn't enough, who was the first person he called on? John freakin McCain. You just know Obama is up there thinking, "Okay mofos, is this bipartisan enough for you?" Yes, that's right, my president says "mofos" in his head (or even something a little harsher). Why do you think he pauses so much?
But getting back to the rusty "Maverick," here was his big chance to ask a tough intelligent question, thus sticking it to the kid that stole his dream. So what did he ask about? The cost of Obama's helicopter. Seriously. That's our most pressing economic issue? Hey, why not ask about A-Rod? John McCain has just become the Michael Fletcher of the fiscal responsibility summit. Later, in a twist of amusement, Eric Cantor, who has made me want to throw things at my television lately, turned into a total almost-fanboy when he got his time to talk to the prez. No one can resist the power of Barack.
It's about that time, again. I hope you're ready for pontification because here it comes. Rocking out the panel tonight is David Gergen, Ali Velshi, and newbie Krishna Guha, chief U.S. economics correspondent at The Financial Times. At first I got excited because I thought Krishna was a real economist, but looking at his background, I think that's a no. Though I could be wrong. Anyway, they talk about the summit and bank nationalization and yada, yada, yada. Krishna thinks Obama made that prior deficit comment in order to convince the markets there's a plan.
Also, a friend of mine has urged me to give Ali a cookie for finally acknowledging that unemployment benefits are stimulative. I actually never noticed he'd previously said the opposite, but apparently he did. That was on Campbell Brown's show, which I do not keep honest. I don't know if he's done it on 360. Obviously I need to watch Ali closer. Be afraid, little financial guru, be afraid. Oh, and have a cookie.
We're moving on now to Tom Foreman at his...I don't know what to call the thing. I was going to name it the "special wall," but that just makes it sound like it's driven in on the short bus. If anybody has a suggestion, I'm all ears. Anyway, Tom is using the wall to tell us about a new sheriff in town named Earl Devaney. He's the guy tapped to keep track of our stimulus bucks and yes, they're really calling him a sheriff. The guy has an interesting background: cop, secret service, EPA, and helped take down Jack Abramoff. Sounds good to me. When can he start?
On now to a Candy Crowley piece on Republicans who are refusing stimulus money. Are they exhibiting integrity? Are they hurting their constituents over ideology? Actually, most of this piece focuses on Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who I sort of admired for his stand. But then again, he's only refusing $100 million out of $4 billion available to his state and what he's refusing could really help those hurting worst right now. So, I don't know. But hey, he could be telling people he doesn't know if Obama is a real citizen, so there's that.
Next up, we have a Randi Kaye piece that takes us on a little trip in the wayback machine to a time when the country was caught up in the story of a married politician who was having an affair with an intern. No, it's not the 1990's, it's 2001, and if you can believe it, that story ended a lot better than this one. Most of us remember this: Chandra Levy went missing and all fingers pointed to Congressman Gary Condit.
It was a newsgasm waiting to happen. But then, something did happen. There were planes. And there were falling towers. And there were warnings and powder and fear and uncertainty. And there was no more Chandra Levy in our news. Her body turned up the next year. Apparently, they now have enough evidence to convict a man who is already in prison. For his part, Condit was never charged, though the case ruined his career. He now runs an ice cream shop and is planning on writing a tell-all. Of course he is.
Erica Hill has the headlines tonight and we learn that George Clooney met with Obama and Biden about Darfur. He was actually just in the region, along with twitterers Ann Curry and Nicholas Kristof. I have to say, Kristof's tweet about him and George bunking together certainly got my attention. You can read about said bunking, as well as find a link to their coverage here. George was on Larry King tonight as well. I was sorta hoping he'd be on 360 instead. First of all, Anderson actually knows what he's talking about in regards to the region and also, I'm a bit bummed about being denied the Cooper-Clooney split screen. That's a whole lot of hotness there and...wait, what was I saying?
Last up, we have an Erica piece on Michelle Obama's preparations for the first official White House dinner. Fancypants!
The "shot" tonight is Ben Stiller at the Oscars doing his best imitation of Joaquin Phoenix on Letterman. That was actually pretty hilarious. I love Natalie Portman's, "You look like you work at a Hasidic meth lab." Honestly, my jury's still out on Joaquin. Drugs, breakdown, or greatest punking ever? I dunno!
Anyway, Anderson then goes on to very seriously pimp the "raging" debate over vegetables, (those of the green variety to be precise) taking place on the blog. The whole thing started when Anderson made a random throwaway comment (as is his wont) stating he doesn't like green food. Next thing you know, people are hypothesizing that broccoli is an alien plot to turn us into zombies. Seriously, that's a quote. Which is ridiculous because broccoli is delicious. Lima beans on the other hand? You just know those bastards are hiding something.
On one of the webcasts, Erica ticked off a bunch of green foods and Anderson made a disgusted face to all of them, except peas. I'm pretty sure he even balked at lettuce. Lettuce! I must have seen that wrong. No one can be that weird...said the girl who won't eat pasta. But we're not talking about me here, people. Going back to peas, someone once told me that when they were kids they would hide them in their milk, which is just...ew. That grosses me out. The thought of it has ruined me for peas, though not milk, ironically.
Other stuff on the webcast included Erica putting forth the notion that maybe their procurement of a second microphone has been hampered by a conspiracy plot lead by Anderson. See, that's what I've been saying. Also, Erica uses the term "fancypants," which given my affinity for the word, makes her my new best friend. I don't know why adding "pants" to the end of a word raises its amusement level, but it totally does. Oh, and they're still working on getting that new mic turned off. It's starting to become comical. Hardest off switch evah!
Finally, shoutout to Jack Gray. His Oscar live-blog rocked. I can't believe that lasted four hours. It's a few hours shy of my live chatting record from a couple years back (plus I live blogged Hurricane Ike for five hours last year), but still. Time flies when you're having fun. Or, you know, something less cliched and cheesy.
posted by eliza at 11:52 PM
2 Comments:
The wall Tom Foreman uses is similar to John King's wall. I think the commercials refer to it as the 'cool magic wall' or something like that.
Technovelgy.com talks about the wall.
@Sammem: Yeah, I know they call John King's wall the "Magic Wall," but I wanted to come up with something different for Tom.
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