The Public Option Has A Bad Day, Michael Moore Interview, More Polanski, Father Arrested In Japan, Job Scam, And Did You Hear CNN Has An iPhone App?!!

Hi everyone. Anderson Cooper is doing the new standing thing again. It's a nice change of pace, but I hope this isn't part of the solution to fix the ratings. Anyway, we're kicking off things with a recap of health care reform's no good, very bad day. The Senate Finance Committee quashed not one, but two amendments to add the public option to the health care reform bill.

Lest there be any confusion, the Democrats--the people we voted into office to fix health care--are the ones who just shot us in the foot (and that's not covered!). I don't think it can be said enough, but screw Max Baucus. And when I say "screw," I mean something else, but I'm trying to keep this place classy.

According to Candy Crowley, it's not over for the public option, except that it kinda is. She seems to think we'll be getting some sort of public option-lite. Until the proverbial fat lady sings, I'm not giving up hope. Jason Linkins over at Huffington Post isn't as optimistic, but he has a good write up of what happened today, and just why it's so infuriating. For my fellow public option supporters, if your senator is on the finance committee and voted no, tell them they suck! But, you know, politely.

Joining us for discussion of all this, is Michael Moore. Woo! Obviously I'm a bit biased here, but it's always nice to see a real progressive get teevee time. Michael is fired up and ready to go! He's planning on kicking ass and taking names, though actually probably not in that order. Time to challenge some of these spineless Democrats. Normally I'm not really much of a reactionary, but things have gotten ridiculous. If certain Democrats aren't going to deliver on the public option, vote them out.

Anderson seems to be perplexed by this, asking Michael if he'd really campaign for Republicans. Erm, there are these things called primaries that I think we'll start with, thank you very much. Ned Lamont ring a bell? Bueller? Sure, that didn't work out in the end, but it made Lieberman spend his money and gave him quite a scare. Michael stresses that at least two-thirds of Americans support the public option, so exactly who is Congress working for? He calls the public option, "absolutely make or break."

Then there's talk of a single payer system,which is what Michael really wants (as do I). He says that "any intelligent, or even half-intelligent, nation has either a single-payer or a national health care plan." Okay Michael, simmer down there. Needlessly inflammatory statements like that turn people off. But then he makes the very good point that despite all the calls to compromise on the public option, Obama already compromised on health care reform right off the bat by taking single payer off the table. In my opinion, a dumb move.

"Nothing is going to change. Trust me on this one thing," says Michael, referring to a bill without a public option. And I do trust him. Because as he points out, he's been right about basically everything he's been saying over the years. A lot of progressives have. Yet they are consistently marginalized and I am so friggin sick of it. Perhaps the only thing worse than living through a train wreck, is to warn that one's coming and have no one listen to you. A bill without a public option is a massive tax payer funded gift to the insurance companies. It's that simple.

Anderson wants to know why all the public option supporters aren't out at town halls making their voices heard like the opponents. Michael says he's going to do his part to organize people, but notes that probably most Americans thought that after voting in a Democratic president and a super Democratically-controlled Congress, we were kinda, you know, set. Apparently, democracy also requires batshit insane yelling.

Next, the whole vote count thing is brought up. Some senators (coughBaucuscough) are claiming they couldn't vote for today's amendments because they don't have enough votes, which Jason Linkins pointed out in the above-linked piece, is just about the most ridiculous thing ever. Michael thinks this is stupid as well, and puts on his faux "whiny Democrat" voice that I must admit is in of itself a little annoying. But I'm totally down with what he's saying. As Michael notes, this isn't how the Republicans would play this thing. They'd just do it.

"What is wrong with our side of the aisle? Where is the spine? Where is the courage?" he asks. Amen! Why is it presumed we need 60 votes? We don't. We need 51. Democrats like Baucus are really going to join Republicans and vote against cloture? Fine. Call their bluff. Make them do it. As Michael says, let the Republicans have their filibuster. We do not need 60 votes on the bill. If the Democratic caucus can come up with 51 votes for a bill with a public option there is absolutely no reason to surrender.

Moving on to some discussion with David Gergen and Candy Crowley. The Gerg is "mystified" by Michael's emphasis on the public option. I am mystified by how much the Gerg seems to not get it. He concedes that there is approximately 65 percent support among the public for the option, but then just as quickly dismisses the number, noting that you don't find that state by state. I guess we're supposed to assume that senators like Baucus who are in more conservative states are just doing right by their constituents. Yes, that must be it. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the millions he gets from health and insurance interests that are against reform.

More bizarrely, about a couple minutes later, the Gerg notes all the ways that this is now a weak bill. Uh huh. Once again, you can't mandate that people buy insurance and then not put into place anything (public option) to keep those insurance companies honest. Lots of new customers with nothing to keep down costs? I'm thinking those companies are currently saying, "yes, please." There must be a public option.

Transitioning now to talk about Roman Polanski with Jeffrey Toobin and Jeff Berg, Polanski's agent. I think this is just going to be one of those stories I skip. At least they didn't put it up top again.

So hey, did you hear that there's a new CNN iPhone application? No? Well, then you must not watch CNN, read anything on CNN's website, or follow anyone with any connection to CNN on Twitter. Yeah, me thinks there was a "promote me!" memo sent out today, because boy have they ever! And now it's Anderson's turn. So tell us, Anderson, how much is it? "Less than 2 bucks, $1.99. I mean, you can't afford not to get it. Am I right?" he says. Such a steal! Do you think that was painful for him? Eh, what's a little corporate whoring every now and then. Am I right?

We then move on to the case of Christopher Savoie, an American who had two children with a Japanese native. The couple divorced and the agreement was that Noriko (the ex-wife) could take the kids to Japan for the summer, but would otherwise live close to Christopher in the states. Things were going according to plan, until one day Noriko took the kids back to Japan. Christopher subsequently alerted police, a warrant was put out, and he was given full custody. He expected to get his kids back, but that's not how it works in Japan.

In fact, when Christopher traveled to the country himself to get his children, he was the one who ended up being arrested. Now he sits in jail, while his ex-wife has his kids. Way uncool. For discussion, we're joined by Jeremy Morley, Christopher's attorney, and his current wife, Amy Savoie. This case is pretty outrageous. I had no idea this was how Japan operates.

On now to a Drew Griffin investigative piece, but I missed some of it, so I think I'm just going to take a pass.

The "shot" tonight is a naked New Yorker with a fanny pack buying a taco from a food stand. There is so much wrong with that sentence I don't know where to begin. First of all, ew, unsanitary! And second, a fanny pack? Nakedness, fine. But a fanny pack? That's just tacky. Anyway, Anderson and Erica Hill share my revulsion and for a second there, I thought we were going to get a bastard version of "Really?!! With Seth and Amy." I think they could totally pull that off. I'd watch it.

Once again, 360 did the whole thing where they drop a good segment into the second hour. Tonight it was an interview with the mothers of those hikers being held in Iran. I'm still comfuzzled as to why they're doing the programming like this. Given the current cable news landscape, I would assume 360 is trying to build a base of loyal viewers. Yes, CNN gets mad ratings when events happen, but Michael Jackson can't always die. Cable news has changed significantly even since 360 has been on the air.

So...given that the segments they are dumping seem to be subjects that loyal viewers would actually be drawn to, and given that (I'm assuming) appointment viewers are more likely to tune in for the live first hour broadcast, I don't get their reasoning at all. Because hey, I'm a big fan, but even I'm not going to watch almost two hours of the same thing every night. The only reason I caught the segment tonight is because Colbert had a commercial. But, anyway, I guess they have their reasons.

The show was an improvement from last night.

Roman Polanski Arrested, Iran Testing Missiles, Chicago Student Killed, Inside The Earth Liberation Front, And Modern Slavery

Hi everyone. We begin tonight with Anderson Cooper standing in front of the big screen to intro the night's segments. Ooh fancy! Although, he might have done this last week too. As I said in my prior post, I'm not much of a noticer. Remember when he used to do the standing "pose" with his foot up on step? Good times.

Anyhoo, the introing put me through a roller-coaster of emotions. At first I was annoyed because I thought we were starting with the Roman Polanski story. Then when I realized he was previewing, I got relieved. And...then he really did start with the Polanski story. Le sigh. I'm not going to deny the story merits coverage, but top story? C'mon.

In an Erica Hill piece, we learn that the director was arrested in Switzerland over the weekend in connection with a warrant over three decades old. I think most of us know the basic details of this case. In 1977 Polanski drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl, then fled to Paris right before his sentencing. France refused to extradite and he continued his directorial career. To this day, the man has his defenders, along with those who feel he got away with a crime.

For discussion (yeah, you knew it was coming), our panel is being rocked by Lisa Bloom, Jeffrey Toobin, and criminal defense attorney Joel Brodsky. Honestly, I don't care much about this. The panel gets all arguey, Anderson loses control, I zone out, and then I tune out. It's been a while since I've had to reach for my remote during the show.

Moving on to the subject of Iran, the country must not have been listening when Obama told them they were "on notice" because they just went and test-fired themselves some missiles. To talk about this, we're joined by Paul Begala and Rich Galen. Political strategists. To talk about Iran. Because that makes sense in a way that totally doesn't. I guess it really is just all a game. Apparently we've already made up our mind about Iran.

For a post that gives some good reasons as to why we don't have to freak out about this whole bomb thing, check out Michael Hastings' latest at True/Slant. From there you can find a good post from Glenn Greenwald that compares the current dialog to that of prior to the Iraq invasion, as well as level-headed analysis from Scott Ritter, the former inspector who was totally right about Iraq. Now an interview with him would have been a good segment.

Anyway, there's not much of note here, them not being experts in foreign policy and all. But I will point out that Anderson again hits on the fact that though Obama seems to be fairly popular worldwide, that popularity hasn't translated into much (example: NATO troops for Afghanistan). I think this is a good point, but he sets it up with a false premise: "For all the reaching out, is this president perceived as being weak?" I'm not sure how you immediately leap from not yet successful to being weak.

As Paul points out, the last guy's macho cowboy policy didn't really get us anywhere either. In fact, it actually made up less safe. Rich is happy that Obama has not taken the military option off the table in regard to Iran. It's funny, when the last crew said stuff like that it used to scare the crap out of me. Obama? Not so much. That's because, in my opinion, Cheney really did want war with Iran, no doubt still does. Obama can leave the war-button on the table to play the psych-out game all he wants. It's nice to know that at the end of the day, we have a president that doesn't really want to press it.

Transitioning now to the horrific beating death of 16-year-old Darrion Albert, a Chicago honor student. In a Joe Johns piece, we learn that Darrion was a good kid who was trying to help a friend and became an innocent victim in a street fight. He was beaten to death by other teens with wooden boards, a crime captured on video. Four individuals have since been charged. This kind of violence among teens is not new to Chicago--last year alone the city lost 37 school kids. 360 has been covering the crisis since 2007.

For more, we're joined by Ronald Holt, father of Blair Holt, a slain student 360 profiled two years ago, and USC Trojans football head coach Pete Carroll, who founded A Better L.A., an organization that works to combat teen violence. Both men seem to attribute this violence problem to teens' family life. Pete discusses structure and the lack thereof. He works to make connections with community leaders, no matter how dangerous, in order to show them that there is another way to live. Sounds like he's doing good work.

Anderson notes all the kids in the video just standing around watching. Honestly, that's not really a new thing or specific to Chicago, is it? I remember when I was in high school we had some pretty big brawls--sometimes daily--and 95 percent of the kids would rush to gawk. Hell, a couple of years ago there was a brawl at a local mall that got so out of hand that they had to call in SWAT. I applaud the work of the guests, as well as 360 shining a light on this, but I don't know, I'm not sure this is a story I see improving.

Moving on now to a Drew Griffin piece, which introduces us to Jake Ferguson, a former member of the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). You probably don't think of hardcore radicals when you think of environmentalists, but that's exactly what the ELF was. Known as "the family," the group committed massive acts of vandalism costing millions in damages. They torched everything from lots of SUVs to Vail Ski Mountain. Eventually the FBI caught onto Ferguson and gave him the choice of going to jail or flipping on the ELF. Yeah, he flipped. Talk about giving environmentalists a bad name. The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) too.

In tonight's "360 Bulletin" we learn from Erica Hill that Sarah Palin has chosen the name of her memoir. I can barely contain my excitement. The only reason I'm noting this is because before the break, Anderson gave us three choices and told us to guess: "Going Rogue"; "I'm a Maverick, Too"; or "Only Dead Fish Go with the Flow." Now, probably most news junkies already knew it was that first one, but "Only Dead Fish Go with the Flow" completely cracks me up. Fond memories of her last batshit insane speech. Anyway, I was just imagining all the 360 kids having a boatload of fun coming up with possible guesses. Producer Jill came up with the fish thing. Well done.

Up next, it's the first ever "Beat 360"/"Shot" combo! And here I've barely yet to recover from learning the name of Palin's book! "Yes, we are making history tonight," Anderson deadpans. So anyway, "Beat 360" used this picture, and then the "shot" was the video version, which I actually could not find--though admittedly didn't look very hard. Pigs flying jokes are made; hilarity is had.

After we've grown fond of the leaping porkers, Anderson wraps it up with, "And all the pigs were 'eadden' by the large crowd." Erica is shocked (SHOCKED!) he would say such a thing, but I dunno; when he says it like that, it doesn't sound quite so horrible. It's like when he says "Sadden"--the dark prince suddenly sounds, quite frankly, adorable. Oh Anderson, I kid because I love.

Stop right there, people. We're not done yet. Because 360 has decided to pull one of their magic tricks where they drop a perfectly good segment in the second hour and don't tell anybody. Anderson interviewed Julia Ormond and writer Ben Skinner about modern day slavery. It's estimated that 27 million people worldwide are victims, which is pretty astounding. They also talked about corporate responsibility--a topic I'd love to see covered more.

Anyway, this was a good discussion and it's kinda mind boggling to me that they would treat a subject that affects 27 million people almost as an afterthought. Don't get me wrong, major props for the attention, but this wasn't good enough for the first (live) hour? This wasn't good enough for any mention whatsoever, besides one tweet from a producer? Maybe I missed some blog posts. It's just odd how they treat some of their coverage. We never did get the Roxana Saberi interview. And based on blog posts, I know that some of their New Orleans coverage never made it to air. Yet they'll use airtime for segments full of speculation. Honestly, I don't get it.

The show was just meh tonight. I think my commentary pretty much speaks for itself.

Terrorism Plots In The U.S., More Fun At The U.N., Family Pics Interpreted As Child Porn, Possible HIV Vaccine, And John McCain Interview

Hi everyone. A lot going on tonight. As I often (okay, basically never) do, this evening I sat down to watch my local news. Did I find the usual nice normal story about the latest shooting and/or stabbing? No! Terrorism has come to my neck of the woods! Well, almost. As we learn from Anderson Cooper, American Michael Finton converted to Islam while in prison, became a John Walker Lindh wannabe, and just tried to blow up a federal courthouse in Springfield, Illinois. Eep!

If that's not bad enough, we also learn that in Texas, a Jordanian in the US illegally, was plotting to give a Dallas office tower the WMD treatment. WTF? Is this crazy terrorist day? Did I miss the memo? Okay, this all didn't just go down today. From Jeanne Meserve we learn the details of how the FBI investigated and thwarted both plots. Normally all we hear about is government screw ups, so total gold star to them.

Like celebrity deaths, I guess news about crazy terrorists also comes in threes. Today Afghan immigrant Najibullah Zazi was charged with conspiracy to use WMDs. We're shown EXCLUSIVE stills of him buying stuff at a convenience store. From Susan Candiotti we learn that this allegedly included hydrogen peroxide, a shower cap, hair rollers, and nail polish. Apparently, this stuff is used to make bombs, but um, hair rollers? Maybe he likes to look pretty while he's being an evil doer.

For discussion of all this, we're joined by Peter Bergen and former FBI specialist Don Clark. They talk bombs, and then ponder what's up with all these U.S. terror plots lately. We all know that Britain has a problem with homegrown terrorism, but the conventional wisdom has been that America is cool in that area. Peter notes we might have reason to worry that isn't so. Or maybe it's just a coincidence or something. Either way, sleep tight! Le sigh.

Because one day of U.N. fun just isn't enough, we now transition to Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, getting a little pissy that Holocaust-denying Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was even allowed to speak. To lay down some analysis on this bad boy, David Gergen and Reza Aslan are stepping up to the plate. The Gerg is happy Netanyahu brought this stuff to the table, but also believes the U.N. is a place where everyone should get a say--even batshit insane, members-only-jacket-wearing dictators.

Reza pretty much agrees with the Gerg, but also wants to point out that Netanyahu isn't exactly a member of the U.N. fan club, so there are several thing going on here. They then start talking about Obama's foreign policy and the Gerg admits he's had concerns the prez isn't strong enough. May I remind you of the POTUS's awesome Jedi-like fly-killing skills? Also, he totally didn't hesitate to take out those pirates. (That seems like forever ago, doesn't it?)

Change-up now to the specific topic of Iran, with Reza noting that the priorities of the U.S. and Israel differ when dealing with the country. He thinks the U.S. needs Iran to accomplish our other foreign policy goals. The Gerg, on the other hand, thinks it's all going to be about the nukes. "I believe that the central purpose of what we're going to be focused on as an international community is whether the Iranians are willing to freeze their nuclear weapons development," he tells us.

But Reza has heard something he does not like: "David, it's not a freeze of a nuclear weapons program. It's a freeze of uranium enrichment. Let's not conflate the two. These are two different issues." Ooh, tiny polite snap! The Gerg counters that they're not separate issues, and is about to go on, but then says, "let's leave it there for now." What? No! It was just getting good. Argh! Don't get me wrong, I hate arguing, but the Gerg and Reza wouldn't do that. Instead we would have had an intelligent debate between two people who don't fall into the tired left vs. right spectrum. How often does that happen on cable news? Never. And it didn't happen tonight either.

Transitioning now to an outrageous story of how one family practically had their lives ruined just because they took pictures of their children. A.J. and Lisa Demaree snapped some normal bath time photos of their three little girls, took them to be developed at Wal-Mart, and were promptly accused of engaging in child pornography. We're shown the pictures (kids faces are blurred out) and they are completely innocent.

But what happened to A.J. and Lisa was not innocent at all. They join us live and we learn they were placed on a sex offenders list and had their children temporarily taken away. Lisa was even suspended from her job for a year. All this and they did NOTHING wrong. They're now suing the city, state, and Wal-Mart. I fully support protecting children, but it's kinda terrifying how easily the state can just take your kids from you. Hopefully they won't have any long term issues due to being separated from their parents.

For the legal lowdown, we've got Jeffrey Toobin, who differs with the Demaree's lawyer in that he believes Wal-Mart does have a responsibility to report questionable pictures. I gotta go with Jeff on this one. As much as I hate Wal-Mart, I think they're the least at fault here. But Jeff does note he thinks the people at the store and the Peoria PD must have perverted minds themselves to think the pictures were erotica. True dat. The lesson in all of this? According to Jeff (and what I wrote in my notes while watching the Demaree's interview) is use a digital camera.

Next up, swine-flu-survivor Sanjay Gupta is here to talk about a possible HIV vaccine. That would be awesome! What's interesting is that the vaccine is a combination of two other vaccines that previously failed. Also of note, is that because of mutation, there might actually be different vaccines for specific parts of the world. Complicated stuff. In any regard, availability is years away, but it's a good step.

On now to "The Big 360 Interview." Fancy-pants graphic! Anderson got himself an EXCLUSIVE with non president John McCain. In all honesty, there's not much here, but I'll expand on that in a second. For now, let's skip to the part where Anderson brings up his new favorite topic of how we're nation building in Afghanistan. And I say that without snark, by the way. You keep pressing, baby! However long it takes until this mission is better defined.

McCain responds, like Lindsey Graham the other night, by saying we need to first get the security situation under control before we can progress on other fronts. "unless we do what we did in the surge in Iraq, which is clear, hold and secure areas, then it's very difficult to defeat an insurgency," he says. I'm sorry, this is crap. Everyone paying attention knows that the "success" of the surge was brought on by a multitude of factors (such as putting insurgents on the payroll) and was not strictly due to a troop increase. So...how are we going to replicate those factors in Afghanistan? And do we want to? And dude, where is the follow up?

Anderson then reads a quote from McCain that basically says we shouldn't send men to fight a war that the public isn't behind. He brings up the recent poll numbers on the war and wonders if Afghanistan will "end up being, once again, the incredible efforts of our troops in the field bearing this thing alone." I got this one. Go out on the street and grab five people. Ask them to first give you a summary of the last episode of "Dancing with the Stars." Then ask them what they know about what's currently happening in Afghanistan. There's your answer. The troops are already bearing it alone.

Okay, then there's some more stuff, but it's all very talking point-esque. So on to the lightening round! Yes, for real. Speaking of "Dancing with the Stars," our anchor wants to know what McCain thought about Delay's (child-frightening) performance. McCain says he actually spared himself from seeing it, which leads Anderson to recommend he hit the YouTube. I will take that to mean that the Silver Fox is not a big fan of the senator from Arizona.

Our next stroke of lightening is a question about Ghadhafi's tent, specifically, uh, what's it like in there? They both chuckle and McCain says "bizarre," but let's back this train up, shall we? Okay, the other day they led with the very serious outrage (OUTRAGE) over Ghadhafi pitching his tent and now it's a joke? I think you need to choose, guys. Anyway, like I said, I wasn't hugely impressed with this interview, but I do give big props that Anderson is actually doing interviews nightly now. Variety is the spice of life. I won't love them all.

Finally tonight, David Mattingly joins us to talk about a dead census worker, which sounds like it could turn into something bigger. But I'm tired and am going to just wrap things up. The show was good again. It felt like a lot was covered and not much ridiculousness. The ratings last night were pretty good, so...lock in the formula, 360! I think you finally got it. (Watch, now tomorrow we'll get 30 minutes of speculative sensationalism.) That'll do it. Until we meet again.