Going berserk over 'Going Rogue;' Democrats' reaction to Sarah Palin book and publicity

Wow, for somebody who's supposed to be such a political joke, an Arctic ditz and eminently dismissable as a serious anything except maybe a stay-at-home hockey mom, Sarah Palin is sure drawing an awful lot of attention from Democrats and eager critics.

The launch of her "Going Rogue" interviews Monday on "Oprah," of her book today, of her on-air chat today with Rush Limbaugh at 10 a.m. Pacific and of her mid-America bus book tour Wednesday ignited a surprisingly large blizzard of derogatory Democrat dis-missives.

Every few minutes another note from Democratic National Committee operatives and others dropped into electronic mailboxes across the media-verse, helpfully passing on even the tiniest tidbit of negative news about Palin.

You know how sometimes a friend tells you how much he/she doesn't really care about....

C-SPAN talks with Ken Auletta on new media vs. old

Word on the street has it that there's something out there now called new media that's going to somehow change society in unimaginable ways. Even politics, like Obama's $750-million campaign haul last year.

And this Internet Web thingy moves fast and doesn't need wires (How is that possible?). And somehow all this change threatens the old media that hadn't changed much since Johannes Gutenberg carved his first wooden letter of type about 600 years ago.

Well, that's all silly, of course. Traditional media has changed plenty; it doesn't use wooden type anymore, for one thing.

But Ken Auletta has gone ahead anyway and written another one of his intriguing looks at modern media. He wrote it in book form, though, one of those cursor-less collections of paper pages that you open by hand to read and then turn the pages to continue. Amazingly ancient. Called "Googled: The End of the World as We Know It."

So tonight, C-SPAN's Brian Lamb, who has talked very calmly with every author who's ever written a book since Gutenberg, interviews Auletta about what he found. It's pretty interesting, even without antacid commercials.

We're going to watch because we're addicted to Lamb.

So we obtained for Ticket readers a little sneak peek here of the interview. It will air on....

...the "Q&A" program at 5 and 8 p.m. Pacific tonight and again at 3 a.m. Pacific Monday. Set your TiVo, not the alarm.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Don't call me a slut, Meghan McCain demands

It's Saturday. After traveling thousands of miles and raking in millions of donor dollars, both of the country's top Democrats have taken the day off. And we should too.

But before anyone reveals that Meghan McCain has her own line of underwear coming out this fall, we have to re-express our delight at the sight -- not so much of her cleavage (which, frankly, hon, we hadn't noticed until someone else pointed it out) --  but of the refreshing spontaneous spunkiness of a young woman apparently enjoying experimenting with life so much.

We're always looking to peek behind the scenes of politics here on The Ticket, to see how the pieces interact, the process unfolds, and to have some fun whenever possible.

Most days, gotta say, the fun part is hard duty given the stuffed suits offering their prefabricated pontifications and canned talking points on reams of policies and legislation that they haven't read.

Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell may well be the funniest family members at their Thanksgiving dinner table. But stick those Senate party leaders in front of the ubiquitous microphones arrayed on Capitol Hill, and no one needs any Benadryl to doze.

Which helps explain the naked media coverage of the 24-year-old's flaunted ...

Obama says he's happy with Senate health vote, but....

He didn't take questions. He sure didn't look very happy. But President Obama seemed in good health and professed pleasure with today's 14-9 Senate Finance Committee vote to move its version of healthcare reform to the Senate floor.

By the narrowest of margins -- Olympia Snowe's lone vote -- the president could claim it was a bipartisan passage. The Maine Republican said her vote to move the bill on did not necessarily augur her vote in favor of final passage, which will come much later after five different versions are somehow melded into one.

Not to mention the House version.

The Baucus committee bill that advanced today would cost $829 billion and would after 10 years still leave 25 million Americans without health insurance. Other than that, it's perfect. Or as the president put it today, "not perfect."

Will Snowe's vote now force happy Harry Reid, the Democrat Senate majority leader, to start calling the GOP the party of nearly no?

Meanwhile, as provided by the White House, here are the president's full less-than gleeful remarks.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Remarks by the president on Senate Finance Committee vote

THE PRESIDENT:  Good afternoon. Today we reached a critical milestone in our effort to reform our health care system.  After many months of thoughtful deliberation, the fifth and....

What if Obama really wants a fight over gay pajamas?

A little something to think about:

Have you too noticed that very few accidents seem to happen around Barack Obama?

Sure, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright association blew up in his face; that was just a matter of time and came not from Republicans but from fellow Democrats. One day the Harvard-educated, freshman senator from Illinois thought there were 57 states. He didn't know Canada had a prime minister, not a president. And it took some doing for the man to grudgingly give in to that stupid lapel flag pin thing.

The Geithner-Daschle-Solis back-tax deals were also messy.

But those gaffes happened early in the presidential campaign or the administration. He and his team have been touching every conceivable base at every opportunity, from tonight's Latin music fiesta at the White House to marking Leif Erikson Day to earn the Viking vote.

In fact, Obama's devoted so much time cultivating and nurturing these political niches that critics credibly suggest he might profitably invest less effort in the perpetual campaign mode -- flying off to Copenhagen to take an embarrassingly blunt public hit for the Chicago machine and chatting up that serial philanderer on the CBS late show -- and put in a lot more shirt-sleeve time in the Oval Office being the new president at the old desk.

On Saturday night before he was asked about "don't ask-don't tell" Obama told the banqueting but impatient Human Rights Campaign crowd (full text right here) all the Democratically correct things it wanted to hear before the big march for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) equality the next day.

So it was very surprising -- even jarring -- when on Sunday CNBC's John Harwood, long a respected political journalist, reported a conversation with an anonymous White....

Huffington Post merging news with community service

Liberal juggernaut the Huffington Post is launching a new feature called Impact at midnight, which places call-to-action buttons alongside blog posts.

The buttons, which are supplied in a partnership with Causecast, contain relevant links for charities and organizations.

For example, if you're reading news about homosexuals and AIDS, there might be a link to local HIV testing centers and the Trevor Project, a suicide hotline for gays.

Our colleague Dan Fost writes on the Times Technology blog:

You've got to love the left. Even when they're running capitalist enterprises, they want to find some way to help the downtrodden. ...

[Site founder Arianna] Huffington said ads will run on the site, and the Huffington Post and Causecast will split the ad revenue. Any money donated to any cause goes directly to the cause, with nothing coming out of it. 

Her site continues to expand, reinvesting its proceeds in the product. "We’ve had a very, very good advertising year," she said. "We would be in the black if we were not expanding. Whether you are profitable or not depends whether you're standing still or expanding. This is a window we need to take advantage of."

Ever had the urge to donate your time or money after reading a particularly heart-wrenching story? Let us know in the comments.

-- Mark Milian

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Photo: Arianna Huffington. Credit: Associated Press

OMG, Obama Exec Order fed txtg while drving ROFL!

Now that Health and Human Services Secy. Kathleen Sebelius has issued formal instructions on the proper way Democrats want Americans to sneeze and/or cough during the official federal flu season (into your elbow), President Obama 2day issued an Executive Order with strict new rules for feds to not text while driving.

Good thing for highway safety, cuz feds not known as gr8 multi-taskers.

The order (full text below in legalese) was obviously written by a Harvard-trained team of lawyers with all kinds of cool sections and subsections, which include lots of things -- but, you should know, are not limited to them. You can, for instance, leave the car motor running while texting from vehicle, but must be on the roadside and/or driveway at the time. Good 2 no.

The Obama Order is way longer than 140 chars. But lawyers paid by hr anyway.

Important thing is highway safety, rt? The nation's chief executive is also the country's most notorious left-handed CrackBerry addict. He's very interested in personal safety, according to the executive order, which is no doubt why he also made his daughters wear those goofy-looking helmets while bicycle-riding on their recent Massachusetts vacation. (See photo below.)

Although, truth be told, the role-model-in-chief went helmetless himself for that photo op. (Why? Think 1988. Photo op. Massachusetts. Governor. Democrat. Dukakis. Army tank. Dumb helmet. Laughter. Loser.)

Also, Obama doesn't drive himself anywhere anymore. So he's in the back....

Frank Luntz tells Americans what they really want

What do Americans want?

Frank Luntz, a political advisor, pollster and author of several books, thinks he has the answers. Dozens of curious Americans convened at the Milken Institute in Santa Monica recently to find out.

Luntz paced around the room, animatedly referring to his slides, as he broke down the data and observations he accrued in numerous public opinion polls. Much of that info is condensed in his new book, called "What Americans Really Want...Really."

It took almost an hour, but he eventually landed on a summation of the greater tone he observed:

"All we want is to improve our economy," Luntz said. "It's not about healthcare or nuclear weapons. It's about jobs."

Healthcare may not be the No. 1 priority, but Luntz still has his own tips for how President Obama should have tackled the immense issue.

"The first thing I would have done is look at the Republicans and say, 'No' is not an answer,'" Luntz said. And to the Democrats, "You can't get it all in one year."

Obama isn't the only one that Luntz had advice for. He criticized the American people for their obsession with blabbing about their daily lives, which fills the air on Facebook, Flickr and Twitter. Perhaps we should take a note from Luntz, a noted observer.

"I think we would be a happier, healthier society if we focused on how we take information in, rather than how we put it out," Luntz said.

-- Mark Milian

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Photo credit: Mark Milian / Los Angeles Times

Does Twitter favor conservatives?

The White House announced with some fanfare over the weekend that its Twitter account had passed the 1 million mark.

“A million followers – nice,” the White House @whitehouse wrote in a tweet sent out Sunday afternoon. “What would you like to see more of from this feed? Photos? Quotes? Cowbell? Tell us @whitehouse.”

Big deal. 

Arizona Sen. John McCain, who lost to Barack Obama in the 2008 election, passed the 1 million mark six weeks ago. He declared that tweeting, which for him was novel, was "a phenomenal way of communicating."

Like most things that come out of Silicon Valley, Twitter was assumed to be in a purview of the left, another tool for tech-savvy liberal netroots to use as they besieged the political system in the name of progressive change, in 140-character bites.

But the left has usually used Twitter to promote ideas, according to Alan Rosenblatt, of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. "We have a lot of amazing progressives on Twitter," he told Maine's online news source, the Exception.  But, he added, there had been "nothing that brings everyone together."

By contrast, he said, the right has been using Twitter to create new pressure points in politics. Conservatives have a website, Top Conservatives on Twitter, that ranks various right-wing tweeters (former House Speaker Newt Gingrich currently rides on top), and offers pointers on how to organize.

Liberals are fighting back -- Rosenblatt has created a rival website, TopProg.org -- but it's in its infancy.

Meanwhile conservatives seem to be having more fun with Twitter.

When Republicans staged a protest last summer and refused to leave for summer recess, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi simply adjourned the session and turned out the lights, effectively turning off the C-SPAN cameras. So several GOP stalwarts started tweeting an account of what was going on from the House floor. They developed a following and prompted conservative commentator Michelle Malkin to call Twitter "the new gathering place for conservative activism.”

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: California Democratic State Senate candidate Edward Paul Reyes works with a colleague on his Twitter page recently at a Los Angeles Starbucks. Credit: Associated Press

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Obama critic Michelle Malkin survives encounter with 'The View'

Michelle Malkin appeared on The View today to promote her new book, "Culture of Corruption."  The highly anticipated showdown may not have been the bloodbath some viewers had hoped for, but the tension between the right-wing pundit and the mostly left-wing View panelists was clear from the get-go.

Malkin had barely started talking when Joy Behar, who has been a vocal critic of Malkin in the past, interrupted to ask for clarification.  Malkin later asked Joy if she had read the book, to which she replied, "I read some of it".  

Whoopi Goldbergseemed even less familiar with Malkin's new book.  After misquoting Malkin, Goldberg revealed that she was reading questions that her staff prepared for her and had not actually read the book herself.  

The panel's lack of information concerning the book allowed Malkin to dominate the conversation, which mostly centered on what she described as a lack of transparency and widespread corruption in the Obama administration.

Malkin posted her own response to the appearance on her blog. "Just finished up on The View, where I sparred with the ladies about Culture of Corruption," began Malkin, before summing up the highlights:

Best part: Every single member of the audience got a copy of the book!

Second best part: Whoopi Goldberg, who didn’t read the book, asserting that I called the administration the most corrupt ever in the book when I was on the set — and then waiting for me to leave to falsely assert that “that young lady” said it on the Today Show.

The audience was mostly silent during Malkin's appearance, but cheered when Elisabeth Hasselbeck announced that everyone would receive a copy of the book.  Who knows, maybe some of them will actually take the time to read it.

--Brendan Bigelow

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