“The dance with staffers is a perilous one. You’re probably not going to get much, if any, one-on-one time with the candidate, which means your sources of information are the people who work for him. So you pretend to be friendly and nonthreatening, and over time you “build trust,” which everybody involved knows is an illusion. If the time comes, if your editor calls for it, you’re supposed to fuck them over”- Michael Hastings, GQ 2008  on covering presidential candidates.

If only Gen. McChrystal had read those words before granting access…

I am not going to do too much editorializing on this one. I am just going to give you Hastings in his own words or quote from official bios and mainstream book reviews. I just had a feeling there was more to this guy than simple earnest journalist. And that is not to say that anything in his Rolling Stone story isn’t legit, but sometimes, it does help to know where an an author is coming from.

Michael Hastings spent two years reporting in Iraq as Newsweek’s war correspondent, but he has also been published on some pretty far-left websites:

• Slate
• Salon
• Gawker

Relationships

He wrote a book “I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story,” that describes his experiences in Iraq and the death of his girlfriend, Andi Parhamovich, who moved to Baghdad to be with him. Parhamovich was an activist who was killed in an ambush in one of Baghdad’s most dangerous neighborhoods. She was helping Iraqi political parties do outreach to voters.

A New York Times review of the book gives us some more details of the relationship.

He writes of their first meeting, at a party for Jerry Springer that she attended as a publicist with Air America Radio and he as a pseudonymous correspondent for a gossip Web site.

Hastings has also been rumored to have been involved with Rachel Sklar- formerly of the Huffington Post, now with Mediaite.

Politics

“Joining us now from Kandahar is Michael Hastings, an accomplished and experienced freelance journalist who has reported from a number of war zones. Full disclosure: Mr. Hastings is also a friend of mine” - Rachel Maddow, 6/23

We get the best sense of Hastings beliefs from a piece he wrote for GQ in October, 2008:

• On Giuliani: “I quickly realized Rudy was a maniac. I had a recurring fantasy in which I took him out during a press conference (it was nonlethal, just something that put him out of commission for a year or so), saving America from the horror of a President Giuliani. If that sounds like I had some trouble being objective, I did… I was’t alone in the press corps. I don’t think I spoke to another journalist who ever said one good thing about the man. What did we say? We made fun of his divorces and his wives, that he had married a second cousin, that he surrounded himself with corrupt cronies, that he had a piss-poor relationship with his children, etc. We talked about his megalomania and his cynical exploitation of September 11. Still, I ate meals with staffers and campaign managers. I tried to say things that would make me appear sympathetic to Rudy while not technically lying.”

• On McCain: “He seemed to have gone just a little crazy, Captain Ahab style. One aspect of McCain that did intrigue me was his purported womanizing, which came up a lot among reporters.”

• Wanting Obama to win: “The attempt to smear Obama as a Muslim ratcheted up. A picture of him in Somali garb was leaked to the Drudge Report; soon after, a Clinton surrogate went on TV to say that Obama shouldn’t be ashamed to be seen in his native clothing. Finally, they even dropped the pretense of a cover when Clinton claimed in a speech that all the hardworking white Americans would vote for her. The campaign degenerated into a series of furious conference calls between Obama’s and Hillary’s advisers. I wanted out. I wanted Obama to win enough delegates to end this thing.”

• Obsessed With Porn: “For my part, I watched a lot of porn. A colleague told me the first thing he did after checking in to a hotel was to check out their porn selection. I followed his example. I’d become an expert on the various hotel chains and what they offered. The best was clearly the Hyatt Regency; the Homewood Suites had the usual selection of XX features. On my last night in Manchester, after the primaries were over and the campaigns had moved on, I selected one called Nasty Older Sluts or something like that for $11.95. (Note to Newsweek accounting department: I never expensed the porn.).”

An additional piece from Slate:

• On Jan. 21, 2004 - Hastings wrote a puff piece on Michael Moore and his relationship with Wesley Clerk.

Brian Stelter, the pudgy New York Times media reporter can’t hide his love for MSNBC. Even when ostensibly writing yesterday about a new contract for Greta Van Susteren over at Fox News, he quickly turns it into yet another fawning piece on The Stalker and the much anticipated (I’m sure!) rise of Larry O’Donnell to host at 10pm. I guess Larry will somehow add to the ratings juggernaut that is MSNBC. 

[MSNBC] has made ratings progress in recent years because of the combination of Mr. Olbermann at 8 p.m. and Rachel Maddow at 9 p.m.With the addition of Mr. O’Donnell, MSNBC will have three liberal hosts in prime time, further cementing the channel’s ideological identity.

Really?! Ratings progress? Keith’s ratings this year have been a disaster. I guess Stelter could be referring to MSNBC’s ratings five years ago when some shows on local public access channels literally had more viewers. About the only real success Keith’s show has had this year was when Larry filled in for him.

Larry, acting as a sub-host, had been besting America’s Worst Person in the World when it comes to the ratings. Just take a look at a week when Larry filled in a couple months ago:

• Olbermann hosted for one day (3/18). His Nielson rating was .8 with approximately 746,000 households tuning in.

• Larry averaged a .9 with 794,000 households.

What’s more, Larry had to compete with American Idol, House, and Survivor on his nights.

I guess this is what Stelter was referring to when he said:

Mr. O’Donnell is said to have impressed MSNBC executives when he filled in for Mr. Olbermann in March.

Then at the end, Stelter cheerfully reports on his hero’s tweets:

“Countdown” is “The New Show Factory,” Mr. Olbermann remarked on Twitter on Tuesday, adding, “I’m happily looking for another new sub!”

Who is Brian Stelter?

We do know that he has been a big fan of Brian Williams since his days on MSNBC. From a USA Today piece by Peter Johnson on 7/10/2006:

Williams, who writes a daily blog at NBC, makes no apologies for praising Stelter, who grew up watching Williams on MSNBC and has dreams of a career in TV news.

On the same subject, on 11/20/2006, The New York Times reported:

Growing up in Damascus, Md., Mr. Stelter watched the news addictively. He recalls watching Mr. Williams, who was then at MSNBC. He finally got to meet Mr. Williams last year when he came to New York to attend a memorial service for Mr. Jennings. Mr. Williams invited him to sit in on his broadcast’s 2:30 p.m. editorial meeting, and the two talked privately for a half-hour.

What about his politics? There are a few clues in the form of a screencap from Stelter’s old Facebook page. He lists memberships in 46 different Facebook groups – things like Towerlighters and Jon Stewart Fan Club. Two of them give us a look into his beliefs:

• “Don’t Blame Me… I Voted for Kerry”
• “What’s Wrong with the World? George W. Bush”

So we know where Stelter is coming from. That’s fine. But he still needs to get his facts straight when talking about “ratings progress.”

On June 8, Keith did a truly despicable thing. As part of his hapless, petty war on Fox News, a war he has completely and utterly lost - check out the latest ratings news, the Stalker uses a Ground Zero controversy to attack Rupert Murdoch:

…our winner: Rupert Murdoch. His “New York Post” has been beating the drum of race hatred here in New York. A columnist inspired a protest of a Muslim county center in lower Manhattan which the newspaper has incorrectly described called the “ground zero mosque.” 

Well, Rupert got what he wanted, 500 protesters showed up at our most hallowed ground as they hated Muslims as hard as they could hate them.

Really? Murdoch ordered 500 bigots to condemn a little ole community center? We didn’t think that even Keith could sink this low. Now, he has drawn grieving 911 families into his silly vendetta. He has lost the ratings war, but wants to take as many people down with him as possible in a sort of rhetorical kamikaze attack. As usual, the Stalker has missed the story - not that he actually cares. Please, please take a moment to read about this controversy: 911 Familes for a Safe & Strong America. This organization has done some great work in exposing the truly radical nature of those behind a Mosque that would sit adjacent to Ground Zero - a Mosque that by its very design would only serve to remind Americans of who killed them on September 11.

We’re told the management at Comcast is aware of Keith’s peculiar behavior here.

I wonder where Keith will go after the takeover. His options are limited. Al-Jazeera? New spokesman for Weight Watchers?(see pic below!) Mascot for Media Matters? Please use the comments section for your ideas. Maybe we can create a contest out of this.

Phil Griffin: “Can I See Roger Ailes… Please!”

You see, MSNBC wasn’t always as wildly “successful” as it is now. A few years ago, things looked pretty bleak. A couple of former MSNBC folks who had made their way over to Fox News at that time tell us that were contacted by their former colleague, MSNBC President Phil Griffin, at his lowest point. He just couldn’t make it work where was, but had an idea. Why not just move to the where it was already successful? If only someone could get him into Roger’s office… Hmm…

Well, Phil never got that meeting (at least through our sources). That left him with only one option - throw in with the likes of the Stalker and turn his network over to the Democratic National Committee. The rest, as they say, is history.

Griffin may never savor actual success in anything that he does, but at least he’ll have the love and admiration of his current audience numbering in the many dozens.

Let the dominoes begin to fall!

The New York Post is reporting what we were already told by our usually reliable sources inside NBC:

General Electric has finalized details of Jeff Zucker’s exit deal from NBC Universal, according to sources familiar with the situation.

Zucker will leave “a couple of months” after Comcast Corp. closes its agreement to acquire a 51 percent stake in the media giant from its current owners General Electric and Vivendi — with an exit package of roughly $30 million to $40 million, under the proposed exit deal, those sources said.

Additionally, Zucker has actually been answering to a Comcast liaison for months. He is no longer in charge and makes no decisions on his own. Good thing for NBC. His reign over programming has been nothing short of a disaster.

There is also widespread chatter inside MSNBC that their days of being a propaganda machine for Obama are over. Comcast is not likely to keep the formula of all liberal hosts (I know, I know, Joe Scarborough - we’ll get to him) all liberal guests, and agitators thinly disguised as reporters and news anchors. And prime-time might be the first to go.

The thinking is that Phil Griffin won’t have time meet the new bosses before finding himself out on the street. And without Griffin to protect The Stalker from the new corporate bosses, he can cross another network off his list of places he can never work again.

We’re even thinking of running a contest here on what day will be Keith’s last. Winner gets dinner with Ed Schultz!!

Now, Scarborough…

What is it with this guy? He gets called out by The Stalker again! This time,Olbermann clearly referred to Joe as someone who does “cheap impressions of Fox News.”

Wait a minute! I thought Griffin said he wasn’t going to tolerate this kind of bickering? As a matter of fact, he explicitly forbid it. After the last Olbermann-Scarborough spat in January, the enabler issued this memo to staff:

We have many strong personalities with differing, passionate opinions, but it is important to remember that we are all on the same team. I want to reiterate my long-standing policy: We do not publicly criticize our colleagues. This kind of behavior is unprofessional and will not be tolerated.

Let me be clear: I encourage you to keep doing what you do best. Give the viewers your perspective and a vigorous debate on the issues they care about. But do not turn substantive differences into personal ones.

Hmm… Will Griffin just pretend he never heard Olbermann? Likely. Afterall, Griffin does everything but draw the bath for him.

Fair & Balanced?

Also, worth taking a look at this graphic from the good folks over at OlbermannWatch:

Here he is at Citi Field a couple weeks ago. Isn’t he handsome!

What exactly is VoteVets? We’ve seen them lurking around MSNBC and various anti-war organizations ostensibly to support our fighting men and women. The veneer wore off quickly as we all realized this was just another anti-Bush group - this one under the guise of military veterans. They have even admitted to taking money from the Democracy Alliance - the Doctor Evil-esque, far-left funding project of George Soros. If anyone really doubted where these guys stood, there was always their campaign to close Gitmo.

Now, they have twisted their transparent, faux pro-military message into something truly offensive. The Vets have taken what looks to be authentic footage of our troops being blown up by terrorists and turned it into a message supportive of Obama’s upcoming environmental legislation. This simply must be seen to be believed.

As heard on Rush Limbaugh today! (listen for the Jed plug!)

Apparently, the left will stoop to any level - any at all - in order to make a cheap political point. With the horrible accident ongoing and the fates of some miners still not known, the propagandists have already begun linking the West Virginia mining disaster to Tea Parties, global warming, and capitalism. Oh, and remember when President Bush somehow got blamed for the Sago mine disaster?! Surely, the Chosen One could have done something for these poor down-trodden workers…

Take a look at how this thing is shaking out:

Crooks and Liars: Left-Wing Blogs Link CEO With Tea Parties

Meet Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy Company. Blankenship is also on the Board of Directors of the US Chamber of Commerce. Massey Energy Company, Blankenship’s highly successful strip-mining and mountaintop removal operation is the parent company of Performance Coal Co, where a tragic explosion occurred on April 5th. As of this writing, 25 miners have died and 4 more are still missing. Twenty-five families are without a loved one. Four more may discover they have lost someone they love too. 29 families in all, forever changed by one single, violent event in a coal mine. One single violent event in a coal mine run by a company so obsessed with profit it runs roughshod over employees’ and neighbors’ health and safety.  Here’s something else about Don Blankenship and Massey Energy Company: Blankenship spent over $1 million dollars along with other US Chamber buddies like Verizon to sponsor last year’s Labor Day Tea Party, also known as the “Friends of America Rally.” Here’s Massey’s pitch. Note how he makes it sound like he isn’t one of the corporate enemies of America.

CBS News: Bashes Mine Owner For Denying Man-Made Global Warming Theory:

“Believe me yet? Global warming is a hoax and a Ponzi scheme.” Those are the words from a Feb. 19th tweet written by Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship, who is in the spotlight following the deaths of 25 miners at his company’s Upper Big Branch Mine in Raleigh County, West Virginia. A CBS News review of Blankenship’s tweets since early January finds him railing against environmentalists. Blankenship takes the Sierra Club to task for tying up the legal system with “frivolous lawsuits.” He criticizes environmentalist activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for taking government subsidies for his solar business, “RFK Jr. says green jobs will replace coal jobs. He’s spending $1.4 billion to create 86 solar jobs. Massey employs 6000 workers. Do the math.”

Oh, I get it. Deny global warming theory - you must be a bad person… and … your mine blows up??!! What?

Associated Press: Link “Big Profits” To Deaths

The coal mine rocked by an explosion that killed at least 25 workers in the nation’s deadliest mining disaster since 1984 had been cited for 600 violations in less than a year and a half, some of them for not properly ventilating methane — the highly combustible gas suspected in the blast.  The disaster at the Upper Big Branch mine has focused attention on the business and safety practices of the owner, Massey Energy, a powerful and politically connected company in Appalachia known for producing big profits, as well as big piles of safety and environmental violations and big damage awards for grieving widows.

Salon Headline - “How to connect mining disasters and climate change”:

Massey’s safety record and its CEO’s position on energy policy both intersect at one point anything that threatens the profitability of “running coal” must be opposed, whether that’s the science of climate change or building the appropriate number of mine overcasts. Environmentalists are often criticized by conservatives for embracing the science of climate change because it fits neatly with their ideological positions on conservation and sustainability. I think there is certainly some truth to that. But I’d argue that there is even more truth to the opposite position: Energy company executives and the politicians who carry their water reject science and oppose energy legislation because it conflicts with their ideological belief that anything that interferes with private profit-making is evil government intrustion. The wonder of Massey’s Don Blankenship is how consistent he is. Whether the problem is properly ventilating a mine, or keeping the entire atmosphere of the globe stable, he’s sticking to his guns. If it will hurt his bottom dollar, he’s opposed.

And finally some sanity from The American Spectator:

Remember When Bush Was Blamed For Mine Deaths?: The death toll in the West Virginia mining accident has now reached 25, with the recovery efforts suspended for now because the area is not safe for rescue workers. At this time, our hearts all go out to the families of the workers who perished in this horrible tragedy. Reading news accounts of the event, it strikes me that during the Bush administration, disasters like this were immediately seized upon to score political points. Specifically, when the Sago mine disaster happened in 2006, it was used as yet another example of Bush rewarding oversight positions to corporate allies who would allow lax standards to prevail. For instance, in the wake of the Sago tragedy, Scott Lilly of the Center for American Progress wrote a column entitled, “How Many Brownies are there in this Administration?” He wrote that, “The terrible story from West Virginia that blanketed the nation’s television screens this week should be a further reminder of the cost of corrupt and incompetent government.” Noting that the Sago mine had a horrible safety record, Lilly asked rhetorically why nothing was done. “The answer to that is directly attributable to the individuals in whose hands the safety of miners and other workers has been placed by this administration and the prevailing mind set within the administration on any issue in which business interests differs from those of workers,” he wrote.

Think of the political hay the left could make over a catastrophic meteorite strike or even an attack by Godzilla! I suppose those also would be blamed on global warming, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and corporate greed.<—>

President Obama and his allies won the political battle on health care but lost the debate on substance. And instead of fighting on the merits and trying to convince the American people of their brilliance, the left wing is dealing from the bottom of the deck and playing their political trump card - by calling critics racist (with scant evidence). But for some reason, one man has been eerily silent - the President of the United States.

Nobody supports calling John Lewis the n-word. No credible leader is calling Barney Frank a f——t. All clear thinking Americans reject this kind of hatred. &Tea Party members don’t need a lecture from a Democratic party whose he accepted an apology without even so much as a senior senator is a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. When Harry Reid referred to Obama as a “light skinned” black man who didn’t speak with a “negro dialect”- he accepted an apology without even so much as a beer summit. In this case, there isn’t clear cut evidence yet at half the country is being slandered. This must stop.

President Obama just won the biggest legislative victory on social legislation since LBJ, but he’s tacitly allowing his supporters to drag the country into an unnecessary race war. When the Rev. Wright issue threatened his bid for the Democratic nomination, Obama took a couple days off and came back with what the liberal punditry thought was a marvelous speech on race. At that time, his political career was on the line. But now, the country needs him to lead on the race issue and reject the attempts by the far left to smear patriotic, peaceful Americans who just don’t want the federal government to spend trillions of dollars to ruin the best health care system in the world and bankrupt our kids. Obama needs to convince America that his plan is good, not have them condemned for daring to criticize.

President Obama may be the only man who can calm the irrational fears on the left that their many of their fellow Americans hate him because he’s black.  He knows better.

It’s time for the President to weigh in and try to unite the country.  Mr. President, it’s time to lead and your silence is deafening. 

Also, for all you fans of MSNBC…

Contacts inside their offices there tell us that there is more and more talk of the Comcast takeover. The working theory is that the new bosses are going to pull the plug on this left-wing hate-fest. Expect a ratcheting up of the negative rhetoric in the coming days in part because they need to find something to prop up dwindling ratings, but also because they know that their time is short.

You would think that MSNBC would have gotten a little bit of a bump after the Olympics, but Keith’s show has lost 11% March 2009 to March 2010. In the “key” demo (viewers 25-54), he has 33% of his viewers.

And check this out: Mediaite: Countdown Tops CNN Again, But Rates Better Without Olbermann.

Before embarking on his latest diatribe - this time trumpeting the dubious claims of racial slurs at Sunday’s anti-Obamacare Tea Party in DC - the stalker took to his blog over at the Daily Kos. What was most interesting wasn’t the usual nonsense about hate-mongering Republicans (Yes, he even told someone to resign again - this time Rep. Devin Nunes), but the way described his return to television:

So tonight I felt compelled to come in off my grief leave, just for the night, to address these recidivist Republicans in a Special Comment.

Grief leave? That’s right, an alleged major television personality has taken oodles of time off during an important news cycle as part of “grief leave.” Has anyone ever heard of grief leave? Almost any company will give you a couple days when a parent dies, but this guy has hardly worked! It only fuels rumors that this guy is once again about to implode.

We’ve already told you that many inside NBC were growing concerned about Keith’s behavior, but they really don’t have anything to worry about in light of recent ratings news.

It seems that Larry, acting as a sub-host, has been averaging ratings than the normal Countdown boy. Just take a look at last week:

• Olbermann hosted for one day (3/18). His Nielson rating was .8 with approximately 746,000 households tuning in.

• Larry averaged a .9 with 794,000 households.

What’s more, Larry had to compete with ratings juggernauts American Idol, House, and Survivor on his nights.

So, everyone at NBC can exhale. When Keith finally cracks up, Larry can step in and not miss a beat! And will Keith be back tonight?…anyone’s guess.

Please go here right away and have your voice heard by the few politicians left likely waiting for their deal to come through from the White House:

This could be the most alarming story yet to come out of the health care debate.

Forget about all the inane squabbling on Capitol Hill. Forget what the polls say. Forget the Tea Party rallies, the town hall meetings, the strong-arm tactics of MoveOn and the SEIU, the debunked sob stories… For a moment, let’s just look at what physicians say they will do if Obamacare becomes a reality.

The Medicus Firm, a national physician search firm, recently surveyed 1,195 doctors, and what they found should shock you more than Nancy Pelosi after another eyelift:

•  46.3% of primary care physicians (family medicine and internal medicine) feel that the passing of health reform will either force them out of medicine or make them want to leave medicine.

AGAIN, for those of you who need a little extra help (like in Louise Slaughter’s district) - almost half of primary care physicians would leave the business! If the bill did not literally call for actual rationed health care, that is exactly the result we would get anyway. Less doctors, means less care. Less care, means rationing. Rationing… dare I say… leads to panels. Yes, panels (be they of the death or life variety) deciding who gets what care and when.

Some other grim findings from the survey:

• 72% of physicians feel that a public option would have a negative impact on physician supply, with 45% feeling it will “decline or worsen dramatically” and 27% predicting it will “decline or worsen somewhat.
• 24% of physicians think they will try to retire early if a public option is implemented.

The physicians take a decidedly more cautioned approach to reform than the president:

• 62.7% of physicians feel that health reform is needed but should be implemented in a more targeted, gradual way, as opposed to the sweeping overhaul that is in legislation.

The New England Journal of Medicine thought enough of the survey to include it on their medical careers site.

People need to wake up and smell the rationing. Although, this doesn’t mean that all these doctors would definitely leave the profession, the real fear among them exists. These doctors may not jump ship, but they are terrified that it could happen. You will not like it when you have to wait months to see your doctor.

It’s come to this - whom do you trust: your doctor or some bureaucrat? These are the people on the front lines of health care, not backroom lobbyists or dizzy politicians.

Make your voice heard - Dick Morris has a list of congressmen who are on the fence. Stop what you are doing and call them now! Your life may very well depend on it: www.dickmorris.com

You don’t have to believe Sarah Palin about Death Panels, just ask your doctor.