Chris Matthews Would Like To Play With Some Hard Balls.

NBC, please keep this man from moderating any more debates.

I watch the debates compulsively as a political junkie of sorts, and rarely am I impressed with any of the moderators the networks dig up among their stable of talking heads. Both MSNBC debates, from last week's Democratic debate in South Carolina to last night's GOP square-off in Simi Valley, have been lame excuses for the horse race. I get that the herd kind of needs to be thinned, but it would help if the moderators would try to stick to political questions. During the Dem debate, Brian Williams rattled off some crap about the Democratic Party being extinct if they lose the presidency in 2008 (despite 2006's Congressional takeover), and then, we get questions like these:

Moderator: Governor Gilmore, you know Karl Rove and you've worked with Karl Rove. Is Karl Rove your friend?

And later:

Moderator: But let me ask you about something else that might be a negative in the upcoming campaign. Seriously.
Would it be good for America to have Bill Clinton back living in the White House? (Laughter)
Romney: You have got to be kidding.
Moderator: No, I'm not.

Chris Matthews is still obsessed with Bill Clinton's dick after six years. That's the conclusion I've ultimately come to. It's not like Brian Williams acquitted himself any better last week, either.

Actual debate insights: Tom Tancredo (I used to live in his district), Duncan Hunter, and Sam Brownback scare me. Giuliani gets actual points for knowing the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite (but he's still creepy and authoritarian, and the whole cross-dressing and the bad splits with ex-wives will catch up with him.) Romney invoked Ronald Reagan's name the most; no coincidence there. Everyone was basking in the glow of the Reagan library, and couldn't move fast away from moderator questions about Bush quickly enough.

The Things We Do For Ratings.

Via Idolator, I get another reason to despise sweeps periods: apparently even Los Angeles TV affiliates are trying to scare people about emo, about three years too late.



I guarantee this is how the idea meeting went for this: "My kid's acting really out of sorts lately. He's listening to some awful music, and spending all his time on the computer listening to bands I don't understand. Hey, let's make a three minute long story out of it."

I'm all about trying to get people to stop listening to My Chemical Romance, but this really isn't the way to go about it.

The New Adventures Of New Christine.

Unusual little story in the L.A. Times sports section today, and the big boys are already all over it, but it's still remarkable enough to expound upon: sportswriter Mike Penner is no more -- Christine Daniels will be taking his place. Usually, this would be considered part of a severance package, with the recent cuts the Tribune Co. has made to the paper (another 150 jobs axed this week), but not this time. Penner is a transsexual, and will become Christine fairly soon.

I can't really cut text from it this time, and won't, because the whole thing is worth reading, but of course, it raises the usual questions about sports, the macho context behind them, and whether Christine will be able to do the job that Mike did based on those assumptions. I surmise the rules are different for sportswriters -- it will be considered odd rather than an affront to those she will cover because Daniels is a journalist. The odds are that people and teams Penner has covered are already kind of used to it, because pre-op transsexuals are told to go around as the gender they will switch to for a year before the surgery.

Honestly, I wish Mike the best of luck in becoming Christine -- that is a painful process to have to deal with over decades and then to get ready for a new life.

the curious case of Daryn Kagan.

Or, "What happens to someone who spends 12 years at CNN and is famous (or infamous) only for having fucked Rush Limbaugh?"

Ms. Kagan is the focus of such a piece by the Washington Post, where they analyze her new Web-only venture, which is a depository for stories charitably called "kickers" by those of us in the broadcast news world, "human interest stories" or "features" by the high-minded in management, and "touchy-feely bullshit" by both categories in more private company.

I actually tried to watch one of these things so you wouldn't have to, and I lasted about a minute and a half before the gag reflex started to kick. You may get a mild version of that same feeling if you read the Post's piece, with Kagan's neologisms like "having a sad" and "do-ist." The whole concept, as the article notes, is filled with bland, nameless spirituality in the service of optimism. It only leaves me with the impression that Kagan's soft-news reinvention is the infotaiment method of becoming a born-again.

At least she's not paid to say absolutely nothing of value by a network that considers itself journalism any more.

tell us your name and what it is you do.

Political columnist Michael Kinsley basically defined a political gaffe as an accidental statement that revealed the truth. Now, in a column about not being too sorry to see the Republicans lose control of Congress, CBSNews.com's Dick Meyer gives us the epitome of a gaffe:

"Really, it's just a simple thesis: The men who ran the Republican Party in the House of Representatives for the past 12 years were a group of weirdos. Together, they comprised one of the oddest legislative power cliques in our history. And for 12 years, the media didn't call a duck a duck, because that's not something we're supposed to do."

There are several ways to address the highlighted portion:
1) Could be sarcastic. Problem is, if you read the rest of the piece, it's hard to tell if he's joking.
2) At least Mr. Meyer got it out in the open and confirmed every suspicion most Democrats have had since 2000.
3) On top of #2, this is the "mea culpa" issued before going after a new Congress, which has switched hands, viciously, for anything and everything.

None of those are good, and larger names at national news bureaus would never have been clumsy enough to write that sentence. So, Mr. Meyer, just what is it that you all do over there? Those of us at the lower levels of your business would like to know.