Eric Massa: Tickle-Fighter Extraordinaire, Prius On The Loose, More From Hollenbeck, Dating Game MURDER (!!!), & Controversy Over A Haitian Baby

Hi everyone. We begin tonight with the story of one Mr. Eric Massa, a now former congressman, who despite me not knowing much about him before today, has managed to provide at least a week's worth of giggles. Says our anchor: "First up, think of all the ways that politicians get into trouble. There's taking bribes. There's drunk driving. There's infidelity. You can run the list. Rack your brain. Go ahead. But chances are, you will never, ever come up with tickle fights. That's right, tickle fights." You underestimate me, Anderson Cooper!

In fairness, I think Larry "wide stance" Craig set the bar pretty high for congressional kink. Anyway! This leads us into a Joe Johns piece on why Massa gave his resignation. Turns out, you can take your pick because the former congressman has given us several reasons to choose from. First, there's the classic health issue excuse. Then he admitted to ethics violations, and finally, accused Democrats of pushing him out over health care reform.

There's actually a whole mess of awesomesauce here. Earlier today, I happened to glance at my Twitter feed and saw people were going nuts about something related to this Massa character and Glenn Beck. Apparently, Beck had the former congressman on his show for the hour because he thought he was going to trash the Democrats over health care reform. That is soo not what happened. You all know I don't actually watch that show because to do so would make flowers wilt and puppies cry, but I did read this article; call it cliff notes if you will.

If I may, a dramatic interpretation of the broadcast: Beck is all, "Hey there Eric Massa, thank you for coming on the show. Please kindly spill all of the Democratic health care reform secrets so that I may imply someone is Hitler and then have a good cry." And then Massa was like, "That sounds like fun, but you know what be even more fun? How about I talk to you about how I groped a male staffer this one time and, oh, would you like to see photos of my tickle fights? Because I have some right here."

At this point, Beck realizes he has made a grave miscalculation, and when GLENN BECK is your conductor on the way to Sanity Town, you know the shit is going down. Oh that's right, we've got some rated R-ness going on up in here tonight. I can't help myself due to the extreme stone-cold WTFery. To be clear, the Beck interview was mentioned in the piece, though I've, uh, further explored it here. But what is up with leaving out the naked Rahm Emanuel anecdote? Naked Rahm should never go unmentioned. Also? The look on Anderson's face after this piece made me laugh out loud. He is so loving this story.

For discussion of the crazy, we're joined by David Gergen and Arianna Huffington. The Gerg is totally your dad is this situation. All the kids are tee-heeing over tickle fights, while he's metaphorically rolling his eyes over the ridiculousness of it all and sternly reminding us that the real story is Massa's accusation that the Democrats forced him out of Congress (a charge he later admitted wasn't true). Despite being a buzz kill, The Gerg is right. I mean, hells yeah, I had fun blogging it, but in the grand scheme of things this story really isn't important at all. It's barely even a story, save the titillating details.

Arianna notes that to his credit, Beck apologized to his viewers for wasting their time. And from Anderson: "I think Glenn Beck is an enormous talent in what he does, but he clearly seemed to be kind of clutching at straws at some points today." Just today? Also, pssst, he's not on your network anymore--you don't have to say nice things. Maybe our anchor means Beck is an enormous talent at being a paranoid moron, which in that case, yes, agreed. The segment ends with the panel talking about tickle fights. Yes, this really happened.

Transitioning now to a Ted Rowlands piece on a runaway Toyota Prius. Jim Sikes was driving in San Diego County when suddenly the accelerator of his car took on a life of its own, and in turn took Jim for a terrifying joy ride. He was able to call 911 and we hear the tape played. Pretty scary stuff, though it was quite amusing to me that the interview was done in Jim's car with Ted sitting behind him in the backseat. Oh News, you're so adorably mock-worthy sometimes.

Moving on to Anderson telling us that Letterman blackmailer Robert Joe Halderman pleaded guilty to extortion and was sentenced to six months in jail. Jeffrey Toobin joins us for the legal lowdown, but I'm sorta over this story. However, of note is a nice montage of clips of Halderman's past statements.

Next up, we have a Homicide in Hollenbeck piece from Anderson. Tonight we are updated on the case of two brothers, Ronald and Angel Brock, both victims of gang violence. Ronald wasn't a banger; he was a marine set to deploy when he was killed at his home at only 19-years-old. It's believed that Angel, the actual gang member, was the target. Angel himself was then killed only seven months later. Neither case has been solved. No one is willing to come forward. Right before Ronald died, he learned his girlfriend was pregnant. His daughter is now seven, robbed of the chance to ever know the father who had his sights set on something higher than life in a gang.

Of particular note in this piece was the mention of Bobby Singleton, a homeless man brutally murdered in order to prevent him from testifying in a gang case, and to no doubt send a message to others who might be thinking of doing the same. Didn't just yesterday Anderson report that the police said there were barely any incidents of violence against witnesses? To be fair, he did note the officer had said there was one--maybe this was it. Still feel like I'm getting a mixed message though.

Moving on now to a Tom Foreman piece about a serial killer and the television show The Dating Game. It seems that in between his raping and killing, Rodney Alcala also took a little time off to appear on the 1970's show. Besides the fact that the killer has just been sentenced to death for his crimes, there's really not much here. Not exactly the kind of report I want to see on my news broadcast, but with that creepy TV contestant/serial killer combination, I suppose they couldn't pass it up. The chyron possibilities alone probably got them excited: Dating Game Serial Killer.

But things really go off the wheels after the piece when Anderson actually "digs deeper" with serial killer dude's fellow Dating Game contestant, Jed Mills. It's one of those, "are they kidding?" moments. Was his childhood neighbor not available? No, 360. Just no. There are some bookings that just shouldn't be done. It's still no where near as bad as when they booked a former pimp though. So there's that.

Moving on to an Elizabeth Cohen piece on a Haitian baby girl that was found in the arms of a dead woman post-quake. It was believed she was an orphan and she was near death, so she was stabilized and then transported to the states for care. She had been given the name Patricia by a driver, but a couple back in Haiti came forward to say that the baby was actually their daughter Jenny. Elizabeth tracked the couple down, who remain adamant the girl is their child. Some accuse them of simply looking for a ticket to the United States. A DNA test will be performed, then I guess all anyone can do is wait. Confusing situation.

The "shot" tonight is a thank you to all the men and women aboard the U.S. Navy ship Comfort, which is on its way back to Baltimore after providing endless care to Haitians post quake. Anderson does some recapping of specific cases and I'll let him take it from here: "I didn't get the chance to board the Comfort when I was in Haiti, but if I had, I would had told them what I will tell them tonight as they leave Port-au-Prince. Thank you for representing our country so well. Thank you for saving so many lives. Thank you and Godspeed."

The show was pretty meh. Hilarity doesn't exactly equal quality news. Haiti and Hollenbeck were the strongest segments. For those who care, I weighed in on the comments to my ratings post and left a thesis. Apparently, I have brevity issues. That'll do it.

Killer Whale Attack, Medical Costs, Red Tape In Haiti, Toyota Coverage Continued, And More Broken Government

Hi everyone. Jessica Yellin continues to hold down the fort for the MIA Anderson Cooper. We're kicking things off tonight with a killer whale attack at SeaWorld that resulted in a fatality. Details are still a bit fuzzy. Depending on who you talk to, the female trainer either fell into the tank or she was actually grabbed by the mammal itself. It's a horrible story and a story worth reporting to be sure, but top story?

Out of everything that occurred in the world today, this is what 360 has determined most important? Given their recent stellar reporting on Haiti, this pathetically blatant ratings grab is rather depressing. The killer whale coverage goes on for almost a third of the show, including a Randi Kaye piece, statements of a witness, a phoner with someone tangentially connected to the story, and a bizarrely defensive interview with Jack Hanna. All topped off with rather ghoulish B-roll of the trainer playing with the whale in happier times. Yeah...

Brianna Keilar has the "360 bulletin" and we learn that Lieutenant Michael Lohman pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in the case of the police officers who shot two unarmed men during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I totally missed this. Good on them for following up.

Moving on to Sanjay Gupta live and then a subsequent piece that is all about those dreaded hospital bills. He tells us that something as simple as an IV bag can put you back $280. Why does everything cost so much? Well, hospitals buy the equipment at cost from manufacturers and then mark it up to include administrative costs and other factors like the uninsured. Interestingly, many hospitals operate in the red, while supply companies are mostly doing okay. They should delve into this further.

Sanjay also gives us an update on Kimberly, who you might remember as the girl with a brain injury that he operated on in Haiti. An organization called Can-Do saw his reporting and has brought supplies to Kimberly's family. She has also been able to secure a home, so that's great news. If only every Haitian child had exposure on a major news network.

Continuing with Haiti coverage, we're joined by Soledad O'Brien who tells us of a new aid road-block: taxes. Previously, relief supplies weren't taxed and everything just kinda freely flowed into the country. But now the government is holding things up at customs until they can determined that what's coming in really deserves to be tax free. The only way around the wait is to pay customs taxes and a lot of organizations simply don't have the money. And it should go without saying that time is of the essence.

Worse still, the government basically wants people to just give them their supplies for confirmation and then they'll give them back...whenever, I guess. Seeing as how trustworthy the Haitian government can be, organizations aren't too keen on this idea. How frustrating. Good reporting.

Transitioning now to a clip of Akio Toyoda (Toyota CEO) testifying before Congress. This segues us into a piece from Ted Rowlands, which investigates Exponent, the company that compiled the initial report that basically let Toyota off the hook for all their vehicle problems. Exponent was hired by, surprise, surprise,...Toyota. Funny how that happens. Known as the "masters of disaster," they're the ones who get called when a big corporation gets into hot water. Exxon Valdez oil spill? Yep, Exponent was on the case. You get the picture.

Now charges of junk science are being thrown around, which Exponent vehemently disputes. This kind of things seems to happen all too frequently and I'm glad it's finally under the microscope--at least in this case. Way too many cozy relationships.

Speaking of that, we next have a piece from Joe Johns that looks at whether the National Highway Traffic Safely Administration (NHTSA) was out to lunch when they should have been catching this Toyota scandal. Joe tells us that since 2000 they have received 2,600 complaints about sudden acceleration in Toyota cars, and State Farm alerted them to the problem in 2004. At that time, a preliminary evaluation of the vehicles was conducted, but then shut down after they failed to find defect trends.

A technical test was conducted in 2007 that determined floor mats to be the culprit, but a FOIA request on the test resulted in few details. So what's up with the NHTSA? A lot of "under" charges going around: Understaffed. Underfunded. Under-qualified. But there's the whole industry incest thing too. Some Toyota employees used to work for the NHTSA. So there's that. Tell me again why regulation kills freedom?

It's broken government time. Jessica sits down with John Avlon and Peter Beinart, and oooh, they brought listicles. A smorgasbord of people who are keeping our government all non worky, if you will. How cute. We'll start with John. His top picks include Nancy Pelosi (because she's polarizing and partisan and we can't have that), Dick Armey (because he's astroturfing the tea parties--a fact that would have been excellent for 360 to mention in any of their coverage on that subject), and Rush Limbaugh (because...seriously, do we need a because here?).

Peter's highlighting Frank Luntz, Mitch McConnell and Olympia Snowe for putting shrewd politics over good governing. We're all familiar with the Party of No. These people only care about their own power, screw the average American. Anyway, I'm on the fence about whether or not I liked this segment. I guess it's good to call these people out.

Congrats to Jessica for winning a Gracie award.

The show was...weird. The top story choice and the fact that it went on so long was so below them. Yet the rest of the broadcast was actually pretty good. Lots of solid reporting. I guess that'll do it.

Toyota Lobbyists, Central Falls Teachers Fired, Pushing Through Health Care Reform, And A Good News Story Out Of Haiti

Hi everyone. No Anderson Cooper tonight. In CNN's apparent continuing quest to confuse me, we've got Jessica Yellin pulling anchor duties. Well this is new. I'm not sure I've seen her host 360 before. Admittedly, most of my confusion up top here is due to the fact that, well, I just woke up.

Yes, your blogger was napping. Sue me. I pretty much spent the first five minutes or so of the broadcast just wrapping my head around Jessica being there, so yeah, my indepth-ness is going to be of the not variety.

We begin with the subject of Toyota, and how they kinda seem to be trying to kill us. This is all very important of course, but again, I was all discombobulated. So, from some clippage of congressional testimony, we go into a Drew Griffin piece that explores just what the heck is wrong with the cars. The company has previously blamed things such as stuck pedals, but evidence seems to be pointing more and more to electronic issues.

On now to a Joe Johns piece about all those lovely lobbyists Toyota has hired. Ugh. I think we all know that seedy deal by now (though it should absolutely be reported). We also learn that Representative Jane Harman has recused herself from the congressional investigation due to her husband's business dealings with the company and stock holdings. Good for her. Others like Senator Jay Rockefeller aren't stepping aside.

Particularly of note, is the notion that this mess might not be so much that lobbyist money convinced regulators to look the other way, but that the regulators just didn't have the resources to deal. As Joe points out, it's not that far-fetched given how much the Bush administration loved them the regulation. Thanks conservatives!

Transitioning now to the story of Central Falls High School in Rhode Island, which was covered on the program last night. In a Randi Kaye piece we learn that, it's official, the teachers are getting fired. To recap: the district is very poor with horrible statistics when it comes to student performance. But the teachers make between $72,000 and $78,000 per year.

In an effort to shape things up, the superintendent put forth a plan that mandated more time with students. The union for the teachers claims that scores have actually improved as of late and they just wanted to work out details of a plan moving forward. The district says the teachers actually refused the new schedule. I guess the truth is in there somewhere.

In a taped interview, Jessica talks with superintendent Fran Gallo. She assures us the teachers will finish out the school year, but she seems pretty set in this decision to terminate. Some of the teachers may be hired back if they reapply. I guess that's something, though probably rather humiliating. Dr. Gallo also notes that the teachers have complicated things by bringing the students into the issue. I'd be interested to hear more about that angle.

Now for the other side, we're joined by fired teacher George McLaughlin. He seems to think this was all avoidable. First of all, he doesn't accept the district's performance statistics because they have a transient student population. He also kinda disses on the superintendent and how little he believes she knows about the community. Finally, he resolutely states this was not about money. In fact, he seems pretty open to working out details.

I think this was a better format to explore the story that what we had last night, though I still don't feel like I have all the facts. George appeared to think there's some sort of agenda going on, and admittedly the superintendent came off pretty unwavering. I guess the big question is whether the teachers are looking out for the students or just themselves. I don't know the answer to that.

Next up, Dana Bash joins us live to report that reconciliation in health care reform is on the table. Woo hoo! Once upon a time, I had a notion that someday we'd really live up to this whole democracy thing. The system would work and everyone would have their say. But you know what? Screw it. Ram that sucker through!

We spent years watching the Bush administration and Republicans jam legislation down our throats with nothing we could do to stop them. I didn't really want the Democrats to be like that. And they haven't been as of yet. They've bent over backwards so many times for Republicans that they're all going to need chiropractors, with nothing to show for their efforts. Well, enough! It's time for my side to be the jerks. At least in this case we get health care reform.

Of course, it's not without risk. Obviously that whole planned summit thing is going to be painted (accurately) as a farce. Not to mention the overall politically controversialness of the move. But doing nothing might be worse politically (and it will certainly be worse on the nation's health). Plus the base is pissed. No more kowtowing to the stupid centrists who quit when things get hard. I'm through with getting my hopes up on this, but it wasn't a bad day.

From here we have a "broken government" segment with Ali Velshi and Peter Beinart. An okay discussion. I'm taking a pass.

Moving on to Gary Tuchman live with actual good news out of Haiti. The six orphans he reported on last night are going home. Woo! As I'm sure most of us suspected, the previous problems were all just a miscommunication and they really did have the prime minister's signature to take the children. So yay. The aftermath of this mess was also not without difficulty. Gary tells us that when the women went to get the kids at the orphanage...they were gone. Turns out they had been moved to yet another orphanage without telling them. What a day.

All this info sets the very adorable (taped) scene of Gary interviewing the three women while they're all holding kids. And when I say all, that includes Gary. He's got Malichi (ph) who is a little chatterbox and quite enamored by Gary's comically ginormous microphone. At one point he tries to eat it, which hey, it happens. The whole time Gary's doing that thing where you're trying to hold the kid in a way that he can't reach anything. Heh.



Also? The women didn't have a ride, so CNN was kind enough to load them and the six kids into their van. During the interview those boys seemed to be hitting the kinda wound-up crabby stage that kids get in. That might have been a long ride. In any regard, once again, yay. Happy ending! We all know that's not the case overall. Anderson Cooper was on Charlie Rose the other day discussing Haiti and you can see the show here. I thought it was a very good indepth conversation, and I especially found Robert Maguire very informative.

The "shot" tonight was billed as a countdown of Olympic mishaps, which I was going to say was in poor taste given what happened to the luger. But it turned out to be something completely different. Instead, it was a salute to CNN's own "Olympic-ish athletes." Okay, yes, they are totally stretching the Olympic relatedness, though who am I to reject trainwreck-y video?

First up, we get a picture of Tom Foreman receiving first aid treatment after attempting (and apparently failing) a jump onto a desk. Now, why this was attempted, I can't tell you, but I do know at some point he landed that jump. Then there's David Mattingly getting hit by a carp, which let's just face it, who doesn't want to watch that over and over. Anderson sure does.

Finally, perhaps the greatest piece of video CNN has ever broadcast: Rick Sanchez getting tasered. It hurts! I cannot tell you how much I have watched that video over the years. And I laugh every damn time.

The show seemed pretty good. But don't forget the wars, guys. The Iraq election is just around the corner. I know it's the new forgotten war and everything, but the troops who are there now and the troops who paid for that country's future with their lives deserve better, as do the Iraqis.