Health Care Reform Inches Closer, Dennis Kucinich Interview, Haiti Update, New Take On The Infamous Milgram Experiment, & The Sad Death Of Corey Haim

HI EVERYONE! Oh, I'm sorry. Was that too loud? Had one too many green beers, did you? I hope you all had fun getting your Irish on. I don't drink, so it was pretty much just another Wednesday for me. Anyhoo! We've got lots to talk about. That health care reform thing? We're so close! You can almost taste it. And it tastes like chicken. Or the security of knowing you're not totally screwed if you get sick(er). Whichever!

Ed Henry is on the story for us and in a piece from him we learn that Obama sat down with Bret Baier of Fox News to argue in favor of the legislation. He crossed enemy lines. You know it's serious now. I didn't get the chance to watch myself, but my tweeps thought Baier was too interrupty. No different than how he would interview Bush, I'm sure. As for what's in the bill, nobody frickin' knows, though that hasn't stopped Republicans from being very unhappy about, well, everything.

I've been a very bad little wonk these past few days. I haven't really done my required reading, so there's not all that much for me to add. From what I can gather, the bill's still pretty sucky, but it's better than nothing. According to Ed, the probable vote will go down Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! And since this is real life and not an M. Night Shyamalan movie, I'm really hoping we're not going to get some sort of 11th hour scandal twist. So attention Congresscritters: please kindly keep it in your pants for at least another week. Mmkay?

On now to an interview with representative Dennis Kucinich, former no vote. Today the liberal congressman announced he's changing that opposition to a yes. The 360 kids are doing that video clippage thing again that I like, and Anderson Cooper hits Kucinich with his past statements as well. But the Ohio representative takes back nothing, emphasizing that he tried everything he could to change the bill. I actually believe him on that. Anderson also pretty much asks if he's getting a kickback from Obama in exchange for the vote.

Kucinich denies and just basically states that he doesn't want to be THAT guy. You know, the guy who kills health care reform and tarnishes the presidency of the guy who's actually trying to dig us out of the hole the last guy dug. That guy. Also of note, is Anderson shocking me by bringing up Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake.com. Somebody's expanding their interweb horizons. Besides Huffpost, progressive bloggers rarely get thrown a bone. I rarely ever read that blog (I can't read them all, people!), but I do know that Jane has caused a lot of controversy in the progressive community.

The deal is that Jane wants Kucinich to return the donations of people who gave to him because he was opposing reform (and to be clear, I'm not saying this is what makes Jane controversial). Well, the congressman is already all over that. Wow. I'm a little impressed. Kucinich is such a perplexing person. In theory, he should probably be "my guy." We agree on so much. But then there are those moments where he's talking about aliens and you're like, "God dammit, man! Could you not have kept that to yourself?"

Joining us to boogie down at the post-interview party, are Bill Bennett and Dee Dee Myers. And the ensuing discussion was shockingly rational. I think the panels might be wearing me down, people. I'm pretty sure I only scowled once!

Transitioning now to an update on Haiti. Nearly all of the children those American missionaries took have been returned to their families. In a Sara Sidner piece, we learn more about what exactly they'll be returning home to. In some cases, the sad answer is nothing. The older children know they were abandoned by their parents and attachments have been made to their current caretakers. Such a heartbreaking situation. Good on 360 for the follow up. I'm really liking Sara.

On now to a Randi Kaye piece, that I have to say, made me ridiculously excited. We're going to talk about social psychological principles. Psychology majors represent! Okay, let me back up. The French have created this game show called "The Game of Death." Modeled on the infamous Milgram experiments (a staple of every psych 101 class), contestants were encouraged to give their fellow participants increasingly severe shocks for every answer they got wrong. As in the Yale study, there are no real shocks in this game show--the recipients are merely actors--the object being to see how far the participant will go.

A twist this time, however, is that there's a live studio audience (also not in on the experiment) cheering the shocking on. At first I was surprised this game show could even exist, but then I realized, duh, it's TV--they're not confined by ethics. The Milgram studies could never be officially recreated by professionals because they'd never pass the review board. Because let me tell you, getting approval from them is a pain in the ass. Oh also? If you think conducting a study in questionnaire form rather than working with actual subjects would be easier, you would be wrong. Lesson learned. But I digress.

Randi tells us that only 16 out of 80 participants refused to do the painful shocking. I am not surprised. The banality of evil. We like to think that we're incapable of such acts, but the truth of the matter is that the power of the situation is often overwhelming. Unless you have the self awareness to look outside yourself while you're in the moment and really analyze things objectively, there's a good chance you'll be one of the shockers. This is why everyone should be educated in social psychology.

In 2006, the Sundance Channel aired the documentary "The Human Behavior Experiments" (review here), which, using a lot of original footage, related infamous experiments such as Milgram's, and Philip Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment, to similar instances of today. Obviously Zimbardo's work correlates with the abuse at Abu Ghraib and in fact he even wrote a book about it in 2007 called "The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil." (Zimbardo's still alive and possibly bookable, FYI!)

The documentarians related the Milgram study to a series of pranks on fast food restaurants in which managers were called and convinced to do horrible things to their employees, including strip searching. In one case the manager's fiance was even convinced to abuse the employee into performing oral sex. Beyond disturbing to watch. For those that want to see the documentary, I'm sure it's online somewhere. I actually used to have it embedded in this blog, but I see the video's been taken down. Anyway, fascinating stuff.

We're going to "dig deeper" on this bad boy now and for once I'm really excited to be doing the digging. But then I see the guest is Dr. Drew and my excitement is tempered. I don't have anything against him exactly; he's just not a social psychologist. That's okay though. Shake it off. Drew doesn't say much more than what I've already inferred--i.e. your thought process can be skewed by a social situation. Anderson actually brings up the power of television, which is a good point, and something I hadn't really thought about since that factor wasn't present for Milgram. So good on that.

Next up, Dr. Drew stops playing social psychologist (and to be fair, hey, maybe he does have some professional experience in that) and goes back to being an addiction specialist in order to talk about the untimely death of actor Corey Haim. Jeffrey Toobin joins us as well for the legal aspect (someone just got arrested). Doctor shopping is discussed and I'm having Anna Nicole Smith deja vu. I pretty much zoned out for the majority of this, though I do find it sad. I read that Haim was so broke when he died that his family had to ask for donations to pay funeral costs. Awful.

The "shot" tonight is the crew learning Irish step dancing from kids of the Inishfree School of Irish Dancing. I gotta hand it to them, I would not have thought of this one. Oh 360, you so crazy sometimes. Bob really had it down there at one point. Is there anything this crew won't do? I'm just imagining the person who was flipping channels and happened to land on CNN right at this moment, going, "WTF?" Good times.

I thought tonight was the best show of the week so far. Yeah, I'm biased with the psych stuff, but I don't really have any big complaints with anything else either. So congratulations 360, everybody gets a cookie. Will the ratings give them a cookie? Who the hell knows? But they were sucko last night. Fingers crossed. That'll do it.

Anderson Cooper Returns To Hollenbeck, Spotlight On Insurance Companies, Tornado (!), A Haiti Update, California State Spending, And Oscar Talk

Hi everyone. This week Anderson Cooper has returned to Hollenbeck, the East L.A. neighborhood he reported on in 2005 regarding gang violence. We begin with a report from him that explores the murder of Steven Bueno, a 20-year-old who was shot in the head in broad daylight in his own driveway. Steven's father Milton shows Anderson where his son fell and where the blood spattered. This death, though tragic on its own, is just an example of a systematic problem in Hollenbeck: violence and the code of silence.

Steven wasn't alone outside that day he was shot; his friends were there with him and surely saw something, but according to police, no eyewitness has come forward. Anderson even speaks with his best friend, who denies he saw the actual shooting take place. Milton has urged his son's friends not to seek retribution for what happened, but he knows it is only a matter of time before the cycle of violence continues.

We're next joined by Dr. Steve Perry to further discuss the code of silence--or stop snitchin' movement. My regular readers know I've previously had some issues with how they've tackled this subject. While I'm still a little frustrated at their lack of investigation into the corporations behind this movement, I was pleasantly surprised to find this current discussion had more context than we've witnessed previously.

For example, Anderson notes that some people may be afraid of coming forward, and he questions the adequacy of police protection. But he also relays that the officers he's talked with say there have been no problems in that area. My guess is there is very little trust of the police in this community and if that's the case, it wouldn't be surprising if there's a huge gap between what's true and what's perceived. And perception is everything.

Steve says those who fail to come forward are "cowards." I'm not sure that's exactly helpful. Though to be fair, he then goes on to talk about how this is really a community-wide problem with a lot of roots in the school system. They also bring up how all these rappers who promote stop snitchin' don't even live in rough neighborhoods anymore. In fact, Steve tells us 50 Cent lives in a mansion in Farmington, Connecticut. Ha! Yeah, it's a hard knock life for him.

Transitioning now to President Obama speechifying at Arcadia University and getting all up in the health insurance companies' grill. For more, we're joined by Ed Henry who tells us that people are excited because Campaign Obama is back! He and Anderson then, fer serious, spend the majority of this segment talking about Obama's passion and fieriness. Good lord.

Moving on to an interview with Wendell Potter, Cigna whistleblower. Awesome. I love this guy. Wendell says what you and I pretty much already know, but can never be said enough: the insurance companies are a for profit business. They don't care about you. They don't care about your sick mother. They care about money going into the pockets of their stockholders and answer only to investors.

They know they're the only game in town, so they don't care if their constantly rising premiums cause a little lost business (people who subsequently become involuntarily uninsured)--there's no where else for us to go. As Wendell says, yeah, they're down with parts of health care reform--specifically the part where everyone is forced by law to buy their crappy product with no public option to keep them honest. Seriously, this world needs a lot more Wendells.

Now for the other side, because the studio will explode if every issue is not split equally down the center, regardless of how truly equal a debate may be. We're joined by Mike Tuffin of America's Health Insurance Plans, and things get interesting right off the bat. Anderson informs us that they had actually asked Mike to be on with Wendell, but his people said he wouldn't do that. Our anchor then asks why and we're met with a deer in the headlights look from Mike, who goes on to stammer about how he'll discuss anything Wendell said. The implication is that Anderson's statement isn't true, but you know, he never actually gives a denial.

Our anchor is then put in the confusing position of wondering if his staff screwed up or the guy is lying (or, even, Mike's people made the request without his knowledge). So he simply tells us that they were told by his people that he wouldn't be on with Wendell, which is pretty much all he can do. Anyway! Regardless of what the hell just happened, big kudos to Anderson. Situations like this should always be disclosed, but too often they're not. And if Mike's nervous reaction was any indication, he sure wasn't expecting that little piece of information to be brought up.

Mike begins by talking about how most insurance is employer-based with private insurance buyers being a small percentage. Yes, and what about all the people who are stuck in a job they hate because it provides them insurance they can't otherwise get due to pre-existing conditions? We can't keep relying on employer-based insurance. People need to be able to afford it and qualify for it on their own. This is about choice, which I thought Republicans loved. When my father died, my mother not only had to deal with that extreme life stresser, she also had to change careers because her job at the time (which she loved) did not provide insurance.

Oh, about those pre-existing conditions? Mike here says they'd just love to do away with all that. But their hands are tied (TIED!) due to the pesky voluntary-ness of the current insurance system. "If people get insurance only when they're sick, for instance, or when they're headed to the hospital, you're going to have exploding premiums," he tells us. On the way to the hospital? Really? Car insurance is mandated by law, yet strangely I haven't heard of people placing calls to agents from accident scenes. I mean, c'mon. Plus, where's the guarantee premiums won't explode anyway? You know what that was called? The public option.

We now pause this broadcast to bring you breaking news footage of a big freakin' tornado in Oklahoma. The video was taken by storm chaser Andy Gabrielson, who apparently is insane. As I watched, the phrase, "What are you doing, you idiot!" came to mind. I'm torn between being blown away by what is admittedly amazing video, and being annoyed they're encouraging this sort of thing by having Andy via phone to talk about it. Oh well. If he didn't talk to 360, he'd talk to someone else.

Moving on to some news from Haiti. First, Anderson informs us that Charisa Coulter, one of those American missionaries, was released today. Only Laura Silsby remains. Our anchor also does a taped interview via Skype with Matt Marek of the Red Cross from Port-au-Prince. Anderson brings up all the people who are apparently still in need of help. Matt concedes there's much more to be done, but does a little Red Cross back-patting regarding how many people they've assisted.

They then both talk about the rains and the new fear of mudslides and floods. It never ends for those poor people. Matt tells us that right now they're working on meeting the immediate needs of survivors, but have also implemented a plan to begin moving people from the camps to transitional shelters or even more permanent living situations. I imagine that's going to take a long, long time.

Next up, we have a Ted Rowlands piece on California, which was good, but I think I'm going to skip ahead due to time limitations.

Finally tonight, we're joined by Joy Behar to talk Oscars. Boy were they a snoozer! I only watch these award shows so I can chat/tweet during them. I think everybody and their mother had a live-blog running. I participated in three myself, thank you very much. The only thing mildly interesting that happened was the Kanye moment, and even that wasn't all that thrilling. They don't make them like Roberto Benigni anymore. Joy would like to see Snooki at the next awards. Seriously, does she want me to cry? Because I'll cry.

The show was pretty solid tonight. I mean, yeah, we had the requisite throw-two-sides-up-like-they're-equal for the insurance debate, but the segment wasn't too bad. There were other little hiccups as well that I've already pointed out. Again though, good show. I am, however, a little annoyed that they keep putting good pieces in the second hour that I know are being missed by people who would want to see them. Tonight the piece in question explored how the Twitter war between CNN and Ashton Kutcher led to the distribution of thousands of malaria nets. Check out the blog post.

Sneaking in pieces during the second hour is something I mentioned in my special weekend blog post, which mostly focused on ratings and CNN's systemic problem. For those of you who commented, thank you. I will try to chime in myself when I have more time. Everyone else feel free to jump in. Anyway, it was great to see Anderson update his Hollenbeck reporting. For those wondering, I hear a Kiki update is scheduled for Thursday, emphasis on 'scheduled.' To up our nostalgia, Anderson even whipped out the old field t-shirt. Ah, memories. That'll do it.

Cheney Hospitalized, CPAC Talk, The Silsby Effect Reverberates For Haiti's Orphans, Firing Teachers In Failing Schools, & Our Broken Government

Hi everyone. We're kicking things off with the news that Dick Cheney has been hospitalized for chest pain. Again. I am trying so hard right now not to say something snarky. As your momma says, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. So...yeah. I was really shocked to find out that he's only 69. I thought for sure he was at least, I dunno, what's the average age of evil these days? Okay, okay, that's one. I'm allowed one, right? I'm only human...unlike Cheney. Yeah, that's two. I better stop.

Anyhoo! Apparently, we need the cavalry for this thing. We've got Sanjay Gupta giving us the former veep's heart history, Candy Crowley on the phone talking politics, and Gloria Borger...doing something. I don't know, I pretty much tuned out for this whole segment. Cheney's up walking around. He's probably going home tomorrow. That's that. I'm sure we'll do this again someday.

Keeping on the Cheney wagon, you know how he's quite fond of telling us Obama will eat your babies has made us less safe? Well, Colin Powell ain't having that. We get a clip of him on Face the Nation, explaining that Cheney's talking crazy. Except, he says it all professional like. Then there was Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on This Week, agreeing with the notion that the Republicans are the Party of No. From there we get a clip of Glenn Beck at CPAC ranting at the Republicans. Dudes, there's a reason I don't watch Fox News.

All this clippage moves us into Bill Bennett taking on what Beck just said. Somebody shoot me now. The topic is thrown to James Carville as well. Because that's so much better. We also get more clips of Beck. It's like they just discovered the guy is connected to stories they cover. Interestingly, there are no clips of Ann Coulter's rousing speech. I can't imagine why. She's always so classy.

One of the main topics of discussion during this segment is the differences between Republicans and Democrats among our elected officials. Let me break it down for you through my eyes: Republicans? Crazy evil. Democrats? Ineffective whiny losers. Questions? Also, from Bill: "There was some speaker, apparently, who made some anti-gay remarks, and was booed off the stage, which is fine. I think that's perfectly appropriate for those young people to do." How nice that he thinks it's "fine" and "perfectly appropriate." Don't praise their actions too much there, Bill. You might strain something.

From irrelevant absurdity we next transition to Haiti, where things are all too real and everything is important. In a Gary Tuchman piece, we learn that the actions of those American missionaries continue to have consequences far and wide. Case in point, Sarah Thacker, a woman who was all set to take her adopted son Reese (along with two other women and five other little boys) to the states, when they were suddenly detained by Haitian police. Actually, when they showed up with the boys at the Port-au-Prince airport they were surrounded by Haitians who started screaming at them about taking their children. No doubt terrifying.

Thing is, their situation seems pretty copasetic. But the Haitian police do not believe it was really the prime minister that signed their paperwork allowing the children to leave. Now the children have been taken to a new orphanage. What a mess. Gary tries calling the prime minister, but is only able to leave a voice mail. No one has heard from him as of yet. C'mon man. Check your messages. Turn on the TeeVee if you can. Sigh. Poor kids. Constantly uprooted these days.

In other Haiti news, once again there were large aftershocks tonight (after the broadcast). So horrible. The people just keep getting traumatized over and over again. For those trying to keep up with the news, I just updated my Haiti Twitter list. Except for a few exceptions, it only consists of people who are actually on the ground in the country. It was pretty depressing how many journalists I recently had to remove. Also, check this out from Soledad O'Brien.

Following Gary's piece, we're joined by Dr. Jane Aronson. The glasses are growing on me. She and Anderson Cooper talk about international adoption and how the process in Haiti needs to be normalized, which will benefit everyone.

Moving on to the news that the superintendent of Central Falls High School in Rhode Island has doled out termination recommendations to the school's 74 full time teachers due to poor student performance. Yikes. The teachers currently make at least $72,000 a year and this decision came after the teachers' union failed to accept a deal that would have involved spending more time with students. Hm. That actually sounds like a pretty good salary for a teacher. I guess that can be taken in more than one way.

For discussion, we're joined by CNN Education Contributor Dr. Steve Perry and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. Steve explains that the teachers can't be compensated for their extra time because the district simply doesn't have the money and the teachers are under-performing anyway. Randi says the situation is different than just simply staying late, and then starts going on about mediation that really makes no sense. "What does that mean?" asks Anderson. Thank you! I hate when people say things that only sound good.

Randi then actually does try to explain, but our anchor cuts her off and throws to Steve. Oh, uncool Cooper. The rest of the conversation is okay. I got the distinct impression that we weren't getting the full story from either side, which makes it hard for me to opine. From my vantage point--much like a political debate--both panelists seemed to go in with their talking points all lined up and ingrained world view. I'm guessing the solution isn't as easy as either thinks, and probably can be found somewhere in between their two styles. These kind of debates are way too surface-y. Was any progress made? Doubtful.

In other news, the White House has finally put out their own health care plan. It's not horrible, but no, sadly no public option. This segues us into CNN's new series on broken government, and we go to Ali Velshi at the Earmark Desk. Whoa, wait! What have you done with the Stimulus Desk?! Is it just me, or do you get the impression that CNN has a whole warehouse out back full of desks just waiting to be named?

Ali introduces us to four congresscritters (Bill Shuster, Dennis Kucinich, Chris Lee, and Harry Teague) who voted against the health care bill, but took money for the health care of their constituents. Hypocrisy! Or is it? Two of the representatives are Republicans and two are Democrats (gotta have that CNN balance!). I don't know Teague's deal, but Kucinich surely voted against the bill because he felt it didn't go far enough (not even a public option). I mean, he's definitely not a compromiser (CNN has him there), but is his stance hypocritical? I dunno. But it's poor form of Ali to not even mention that there's two ways opposition can go.

Next up, we're joined by Time's Joe Klein for more broken government talk. Kudos to him for noting the Republican's unwillingness to negotiate and the apathetic citizenship of the country. Also, I liked this: "Democrats have a big problem when they come into office. They actually believe in government." Yeah, stupid Democrats! Stop trying to "govern" and "fix problems." Meanwhile, Republicans want to be in charge of government so they can destroy it. And half of the country still doesn't seem to get this. Sometimes I wonder how we've gotten this far.

Brianna Keilar has the "360 Bulletin" tonight and we learn that the Vatican's official newspaper has put out its list of best rock albums of all time. There is so much hilarity in that sentence I don't even know where to begin. Yes, that Vatican. But rock is devil's music! Anyway, if you're wondering, you can go here to find out what the Pope and his posse are jamming to after mass.

In that blog posting, we were asked to guess Anderson's favorite rock album. Drum roll, please...Elvis Costello, "Armed Forces." Okay, not bad, I guess. "Some of the people on the blog thought that maybe you were a Motley Crue fan. Or an Abba man," says Brianna. Really? Yeah, because when I think Anderson Cooper, I think Motley Crue. As for Brianna? "I like Smashing Pumpkins." Excellent choice.

Of course, this is all generational. I'm guessing that like me, Brianna rocked out her teen years in the 90's. I couldn't even begin to pick one album. Music--predominantly rock--was always very big in my house growing up. I love all different eras. As an alterna-kid, Nirvana is a good choice, but there are so many others. Sigh. Oh well, whatever, nevermind.

The show was okay. Gary rocks it as always. The education segment was definitely worthy to explore, I'm just not sure the debate set up really works to further any kind of conversation. The other stuff felt kind of rushed. The conservative coverage I hate because, well, I'm biased and that's going to happen. But it wasn't like it was a hack job or anything. I thought they were going to cover that story about the school spying on the student via a webcam. Maybe I hallucinated.

Anyway, hey, if we're going to have Cheney coverage, could we maybe get a mention of how the former veep is on record confessing to a war crime? Kinda seems like an important story, no? Does anyone in this country still care about the rule of law?

Missionaries Released, Charlie Crist Labeled A RINO, Taliban Talk, Jean-Bertrand Aristide Profile, And Troll Foot

Hi everyone. Tonight we have Wolf Blitzer holding down the fort for Anderson Cooper. The Silver Fox should know he is not allowed to suddenly be gone in the middle of the week. It's too confusing. Now I'm going to keep thinking it's Friday, and it is sadly not Friday. Anyway, BREAKING NEWS!!! Oh yeah, we got the big graphic and sound effect and everything.

So what's the what? Eight of those ten American missionaries are being released from Haiti. Okay, once again, that is not breaking news. Yes, it's news, but we learned about it hours ago. It's not breaking anymore, it's broken. Why does CNN insist on making that graphic irrelevant? But back to that news, we've got David McKenzie at the Port-au-Prince airport where the Americans were just flown out by the military.

Then we go to John Vause for more details, and he basically recaps everything we already know. Plus, we learn that while eight of the missionaries were allowed to leave after promising they'd return if asked, Laura Silsby and Charisa Coulter are still in custody because the judge is trying to determine if there was criminal intent. I'm glad the eight got to leave. I hope the other two are held accountable if they were in fact up to something shady, which it kinda sounds like they were.

Transitioning now to a Randi Kaye piece on Charlie Crist and how he's just been slapped with the dreaded RINO label (republican in name only). Long story short? Once again, someone from the Far Right (in this case, Marco Rubio) has come out of nowhere to leave a moderate Republican shaking in their boots. Both men are battling it out for Florida's senate seat.

Rubio is dazzling the tea party set with his Real American upbringing and his ability to speak in slogans. But don't be fooled. While I'm sure he's hoping to paint himself as a young-in coming to shakeup the system, in reality he's grabbing points by bashing the stimulus, all the while admitting he would have taken the money as well. Ah, hypocrisy. Yep, he's a Republican.

Now, to make your eyes bleed, we have the Wolfbot discussing this stuff with John Avlon. Ugh. At some point the election is going to heat up enough that I'll be forced to pay attention to segments like this one so I can counteract all the BS, but thank God that day is not today. I actually flipped over to MSNBC to see what Keith had going on. Gearing up for a special comment. How original. Le sigh.

On now to David Gergen giving us some of his insider-y insiderness related to what's going on with the fight against the Taliban. Turns out? The administration is rather optimistic. Okay, I don't want to dismiss the Gerg's perspective, but how do we know he's not being manipulated to tell us what the administration wants us to hear? Doesn't CNN have boots on the ground in the region to give us more of an independent perspective? At least to accompany what the Gerg is saying? Can we get a little Michael Ware up in here, yo?

Next up, we have a Randi Kaye piece that explores Jean-Bertrand Aristide's role in turning Haiti into what it is today. He was the first democratically-elected president and had a lot of nice dreams for the country, but critics say he stole money and armed street thugs to battle political opponents. Aristide's lawyer claims the charges are all just a disinformation campaign.

Due to epic laziness tonight, that's as in-depth as I'm going with this piece. It was pretty thorough, though I would quibble that there should have been more elaboration regarding the 2004 coup. This is what Randi's voice over says: "President George W. Bush's administration supplied the plane to hustle Aristide out of his country in the middle of the night. He's been living in exile and teaching in South Africa ever since." Aristide actually accused the U.S. of being behind his ousting, a charge the U.S. denied.

Tom Foreman has a piece on Amy Bishop, but I never really followed this story closely in the first place, so pass.

Then we're on to John Zarrella staking out the Miami airport, waiting for the missionaries. Duude. I guess this is going to be, like, a thing now. I should have realized this before. I mean, is there anyone out there who really needs to see or hear from these people as soon as they step off the plane? I'm sure we can all wait for the big Larry King interview (oh, you know it's coming!). But this is the cable news game...and why so many people hate it.

The "shot" tonight is troll foot! This probably requires a little bit of explanation, huh? Apparently, Danny DeVito has been taking pictures of his bare foot all over the place, like it's a friggin' traveling gnome. Remember how I said Blitzer was holding down the fort for our anchor? Well, epic fail! Yes, that would be the Silver Fox's office, obviously unguarded by the Wolfbot.

"This is the kind of thing that goes on when you're away," says our guest anchor to the absent Anderson, who is no doubt currently grimacing in horror at the toes perilously close to his keyboard. Or not. Didn't they do a report years back where they found out that Anderson's office was crazy disgusting when it comes to germs? Oh, also? DeVito did his anchor desk too. Strangely enough, all this just makes me want to watch It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

You've might have already guessed, but I found the show tonight to be just meh. I'll admit, I was fairly bored. Maybe it was partly me. I really hope they're not going to go crazy with this missionary thing now, especially when it seems to be in place of other Haiti news. Isn't that exactly what Anderson spoke out against? Obviously we all want the facts reported, but no more staking out airports, mmkay? That'll do it.

Alabama Shooting, Taliban Commander Captured, McCain Getting Primaried, Missionary Update, & Silent Bob Speaks Out Against Southwest Airlines

Hi everyone. Happy New Week! Anderson Cooper has returned to his anchor chair, and we begin with a shooting that left three people dead at the University of Alabama. The tragedy actually happened on Friday, and our anchor says he has "new details" on the shooter, Amy Bishop Anderson.

I haven't been following this at all, so it's coming out of no where for me. In a Joe Johns piece, we learn that Bishop Anderson actually shot her brother when she was younger. Lisa Bloom then joins us in studio to talk about this. Horrible story and all, but really all I needed was a headline. Anderson doesn't seem that engaged with it either. Moving on.

A little bit of BREAKING NEWS now. The Taliban's number two guy, Mullah Baradar, was captured alive in Karachi. Man, we so kick ass when it comes to number two terrorist guys. Top guy? Not so much. But we will always get his second-in-command...however many of those there might be.

Did you catch a little hint of sarcasm there? Let's just say I don't have the greatest confidence in these kinds of reports. I've seen this play before. First, there will be much crowing about a kill or capture. Then, a week or so later, an official will be quoted in the foreign press, saying they don't know what the Americans are talking about. Finally, long after the initial "go us!" celebration has ended, it will quietly be revealed that the big scary terrorist actually wasn't as big and scary as initially thought.

While I realize there are very different circumstances at play here, you have to admit that based on history, my skepticism is pretty warranted. I've seen a lot of allegedly important terrorists come and go without much result. Hell, we've even killed some of those mofos twice! So you can see why my initial visceral reaction to this latest announcement can be summed up as: ORLY?

Moving on to Tom Foreman employing the Magic Map to discuss the latest offensive against the Taliban in the city of Marjah. Then we're on to discussion with Peter Bergen and Robin Wright of the US Institute of Peace. Peter thinks the capture is a big deal. I guess we'll see. Robin talks about the new strategy in Afghanistan. Of note is mention of the new rules of engagement, which are meant to limit civilian casualties. Yes, that would be good.

Transitioning now to the news that Senator Evan Bayh will not seek re-election. The graphic says "Bye-Bye Bayh." Oh those 360 kids are so clever. But no Backstreet Boys reference? Where is your balance, CNN?!

We're not really going to talk about Bayh though. Randi Kaye has a piece all about how John McCain is getting primaried because he's not Republican enough. Oh, snap. That's gotta sting. He's being challenged by J.D. Hayworth, who Randi interviews. There is word association. Seriously. Previously I joked that these people are nothing but slogans. I guess this is the next logical step.

Hayworth campaigned for McCain in 2000, but says the McCain of 2010 is very different. See, the first sign there's a problem is when there is more then one of you. The McCain of 2000? Pretty rational. I'd maybe even vote for him. The McCain of 2008? Scary boatload of crazy. 2010? I don't even know anymore.

Also? Randi tells us that: "Tea Partiers want smaller government, lower taxes, and more freedom. J.D. Hayworth says he can deliver that and much more." Really? Will he bring everyone a magical pony as well? I'm so sick of this. Newsflash to my fellow Americans: our country is currently in a pickle that's been a long time coming. As we fix it, part of your life is going to suck. This is what we call reality. Stop acting like children.

Moving on to discussion with David Gergen. The phrase "Bayh-Partisanship" is on the chyron. Oh, they're just full of them tonight, aren't they? Anyhoo, I actually missed this convo, but let me go out on a limb and see if I can't take a guess at what our Gerg said. Hm, was there perhaps some hand-wringing over political discourse? Some sadness over the loss of a moderate? It's a bad day for the Village.

Time now for our update on the American missionaries. So that lawyer guy, Jorge Puello? Yeah, not so much a lawyer. Instead, he's accused of running an international sex-trafficking ring, which I'm guessing was not on his fake business cards. But really, the focus of this segment is an interview with Lisa Allen, the wife of one of the detained men. She hired her own attorney and not Puello. Smart. Here's a somewhat related piece I think is worth reading.

Okay, most of my regular readers know I'm a fan of the Twitter. Well, over the weekend I was very amused to witness Director Kevin Smith (@thatkevinsmith) pretty brutally take on Southwest Airlines (@SouthwestAir) over an instance of being kicked off a flight for allegedly being too fat. Smith maintains that his weight was used as an excuse by the airline after he was erroneously ousted.

You know what's coming next, don't you? We're gonna debate this, yo! In this corner, we have Peggy Howell of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. Her opponent? Meme Roth, president of National Action Against Obesity. What follows is pretty much as train-wrecky as you might imagine. While I'm having trouble accepting Peggy's organization without irony, Meme is just, well, mean.

She chides overweight people for not eating properly, putting the blame of an often nuanced situation squarely on their shoulders. Yeah man, they're just lazy slobs! As someone at the opposite end of this particular problem (been trying to gain my whole life), Meme more than rubbed me the wrong way. In any regards, I think the real story here was the intersection of PR and social networking...and the subsequent mess for Southwest Air.

I'm going to wrap it up here because I'm tired. The show was alright. Our anchor was pretty low energy, but I can't really blame the guy for that right now. That'll do it.

New Trouble For The American Missionaries, Afghanistan Offensive, Updating Previous Live Haiti Coverage, And Michelle Bennett's Haiti Robbery

Hi everyone. The broadcast continues to come at us live from Haiti, and we're beginning with the ever-increasing drama involving those American missionaries arrested for child kidnapping.

Karl Penhaul tells us that Salvadoran police believe that Jorge Puello, legal adviser for the American's, might actually be Jorge Torres Orellana, a man wanted in El Salvador for child trafficking. Holy Shocking Twist, Batman! So...yeah, that's bad. But it's important to point out that it has not yet been proven (fingerprints needed) that it's the same man.

We then go to Dan Simon for the response from the American's church. They're skeptical and seem to support Puello. Apparently, the guy cold called the church offering his services, and was then put in contact with Sean Lankford whose wife and daughter are in Haiti. And that's pretty much how the hiring took place.

For his part, Puello denies ever even being in El Salvador or even having a passport. But as Karl points out, one wonders how he got into Haiti (he's from the Dominican Republic) without a passport. Hm.

BREAKING NEWS! The real kind, I think. There's a new NATO offensive happening in Afghanistan against the Taliban stronghold in the city of Marjah. Atia Abawi joins us by phone and we learn this is the largest NATO operation since the war began in 2001. Sounds like it's going to be a pretty intense battle. Thoughts and prayers for our troops.

This news is a weird coincidence, in that just today I was thinking of how Afghanistan has once again become the forgotten war (don't even get me started on Iraq). I had even planned to mention it in this post. The other day I discovered that CNN has a blog dedicated to the country. It's definitely worth your time.

On now to an Anderson Cooper piece that takes us to the national day of mourning prayer service. It has been one month since the quake devastated Haiti. Today, a huge crowd assembled to remember, to pray, and to celebrate life. For us watching at home, the month has been like any other. For Haitians, their suffering has spanned greater than any increment of time, their recovery measured only in inches.

Our anchor takes the next piece as well, this one updating us on the situation at General Hospital. There is improvement, yes. But the tears of the workers show that things aren't close to being acceptable. We listen to a nurse practitioner cry as she tells us there is nothing she can do for a rape victim. The resources just don't exist.

There still aren't enough supplies. There still isn't enough help. The workers are frustrated and heartbroken. They deliver babies and are then forced to send the mother out onto the streets a few hours later. What will become of these people? For additional related reading, give this New York Times piece a click.

Moving on to a Sanjay Gupta piece that updates us on Kimberly, the 12-year-old girl who had cement in her brain. Sanjay operated on her on the USNS Comfort and she looks to be doing well. Both he and her rescuer reunited with her and brought her to her father. Sadly, her mother and sister are dead, her home destroyed. The report is below:



After Sanjay's piece, he talks with Anderson about how difficult things are for these children and how upended their lives are now. "I don't know how the story ends. I want to come back," says Sanjay. Hopefully he'll get the chance to report that ending.

INTERLUDE: Okay, so this is the part where a blogger's satellite goes out. But! Only CNN. It's like the forces are conspiring against me. So I flipped over to the Olympics, and O Canada, WTF? Television should always contain giant light up bears and a boy band member-looking Tinkerbell-wannabe flying through the air. Just sayin'.

Okay, never fear. I caught the rest during a repeat. Anderson and Sanjay have a lot more updates for us. They tracked down little Monley, who you might remember is staying with an uncle who can't really afford to care for him. There have been some snags regarding the aunt who wanted to take him in. Also, Monley has not been told his parents are dead. So sad.

Then there was 70-year-old Ana Zizi, who was rescued a week after the quake. She was initially taken to a clinic, then the USNS Comfort, and finally ended up in a rehab center in Font Parisienne where she is reportedly doing well.

We also met little Johnny, who had a broken leg. He was airlifted to an orphanage called Danita's Children and is in good condition. Johnny begins school next week. Currently, the orphanage is not processing any adoptions.

Finally, there is the case of the man allegedly pulled from the rubble just recently. Doctors say they believe it, and have been able to determine that he had access to muddy water. Apparently he lost 60 pounds. Wow.

From Anderson: "...you know, in movies the end of the story is they're pulled out of the rubble, and you know, in the United States they would get a book deal or a movie of the week or something. And here they're just one more person in the crowd." Sanjay then notes that the last man they talked about is now known worldwide, but he has no where to go. Sobering thoughts.

Next up, we have a piece from Abbie Boudreau that continues her investigation of how the Duvalier family robbed millions from Haiti. Previously, she focused on Jean-Claude, AKA Baby Doc. Tonight the spotlight is shown on his wife, Michelle Bennett, the real power behind the duo. Michelle only wanted the best in life, and she went so far as to steal from charities to achieve her goal.

Her wedding cost a record-breaking (seriously, it was in "The Guinness Book of World Records") three million dollars. Even her decorator had access to government accounts. It's estimated that Michelle and her husband stole at least $500 million from the Haitians. They got away with it because they had their own assassin squad who took out political opponents.

Michelle now lives in a Parisian penthouse, while Baby Doc keeps a much lower profile. Fun fact: at the time of their reign, 80 percent of Haitians were without clean drinking water. Investing $30 million probably could have resolved that problem. Again, they stole $500 million for a lavish lifestyle. Horrid, horrid people.

After Abbie's piece, Anderson tells us that he and his team might have actually seen Michelle at the Hotel Montana, but they can't be sure. Weird.

Finally tonight, we have a Reporter's Notebook from Anderson. The words are from his blog post, the photos from Getty Image's Jonathan Torgovnik. You can watch it below:



For some levity, take a look at this pic tweeted by cameraman Neil Hallsworth. It's nice that CNN doesn't discriminate against zombies when hiring their talent. (Aren't you glad we get to see the pretty version?)

The show was very good tonight. I'm assuming they're going home again--at least that's the vibe I got. Of course, it's very possible a final decision hasn't been made yet. After all, no one really said either way. I imagine at this point it might be hard to get the okay for more than one consecutive week, but hey, what do I know? The only thing I'm sure of is that the people we're watching on the ground are very committed to this story. And for that, I am thankful.

I forgot to mention this all week, but remember you can also find me on Twitter, as well as check out my Haiti Twitter list.