Our new Think Again column is here. It's called "Blogosphere to MSM: Get off the Bus (and Walk a Mile in Our Shoes...)" It's about the degree to which the Maureen Dowd flap inspired a look at how much the MSM is learning from the blogosphere, rather than vice-versa. This week's Nation column is called "Do "Better" with Less" here and it's about some unhappy trends in journalism. Earlier this week, I did a "welcome" piece on Bibi Netanyahu's visit to the Oval Office for The Daily Beast here and then I published a review of an excellent new book about AIPAC for the Forward which is here.

This week on Moyers:
Reforming healthcare. Washington's abuzz about healthcare, but why isn't a single-payer plan an option on the table? Bill Moyers speaks with advocate Donna Smith about how our broken system is hurting Americans, and then with Public Citizen's Dr. Sidney Wolfe and Physicians for a National Health Program's Dr. David Himmelstein about the political and logistical feasibility of health care reform.

Alter-reviews by Sal:

Sinead O'Connor's career has been uneven to say the least. After the one-two punch of her debut "The Lion & The Cobra" and the monster follow-up, "I Do Not Want What I Do Not Have", Miss O'Connor seemed to have hit the rum candy a bit too often. Reggae records, Celtic records, religious controversies, a very loose tribute to Peggy Lee, some random Pope abuse, "Do I like men or women?", O'Connor's meltdown was subtle, but she has survived, albeit retired from music. (Some would say that retirement took place right after the second record.)

Speaking of the second record, a new remastered and expanded version has just been released, and while some of the music hasn't aged well, the remastering is excellent and the material, at times, is quite strong. "I Do Not Want What I Do Not Have", of course, boasts the hit, Prince-penned single "Nothing Compares 2 U," but also has such great tracks as "Three Babies", "Black Boys On Mopeds", and the super-catchy second single "The Emperor's New Clothes". The bonus disc collects just about everything Sinead recorded right around the release of the record. While it's great, if you're a fan, to have all this material in one place, Disc 2 doesn't offer a very smooth listen, as say, some of those excellent Sony/Legacy reissues that offer a full live show. Unreleased material like covers of Gregory Isaacs' "Night Nurse" and John Lennon's "Mind Games" are fine, but not when a 5 minute version of "Silent Night" is smack dab in the middle. Still...a nice package.

Sal "Wants What He Doesn't Have" Nunziato
Burning Wood

Slacker Thursday:

Charles Pierce
Newtown, MA

Hey Doc:

"For the sea refuses no river/ Remember that when the beggar buys a round."

Weekly WWOZ Pick To Click: "The Creator Has A Master Plan" (Pharaoh Sanders)--Once again this week, I failed to hijack the script of 24 in order to have Jack hold a gun on the bad guys until they admit how much I love New Orleans.

Short Takes:

Part The First: I got seriously hooked on this show. I admire the kids. I admire the program. But--and I ask this of any actual poets we may have in the Alter-hizzle--isn't writing and reading poetry supposed to look more like, well, fun than this? I mean, good lord, even Yeats goofed around some. And that's not even to mention the great Jem Casey, Poet Of the Pick. This seemed all about ripping out your spleen and hurling it in bloody chunks across the stage--closer to method acting lessons than writing. I'm very curious as to why I might be wrong here.

Part The Second: Young Ron Reagan seems a bit perturbed. Yoicks.

Part The Third: Is Harry Reid just going to stand there until someone on the congressional custodial staff comes by to dust him? My favorite wingnut argument in defense of the Bust A Cap In Yogi's Dome Act of 2009 is that, now, gun owners have the same rights inside a national park as they do outside a national park. Wunderbar. Tell you what, let's now make sure they have the same rights inside the Capitol--or the Statue Of Liberty, or the Oklahoma-Texas game--as they do outside.

Part The Fourth: I find myself generally in agreement with this, and genuinely sorry that John Edwards--who, as we have seen, is far less of a mensch than he portrayed himself to be--got so a'skeered of an open sewer like Bill Donahue that the two bloggers had to leave the campaign. But is the author seriously arguing here...

"Of course, the concern in the case of the faux scandal involving myself and Melissa was that Edwards would get tagged as tolerant of Catholic bigots, which is a ridiculous suggestion, because it starts with the idea that there is such a thing as someone who is "bigoted" against Catholics like you would be against a non-mainstream group, as opposed to merely critical of church dogma."...that, prima facie, there can be no such thing as anti-Catholic bigotry? If so, I would like to introduce her to the Paisleys of Ballymena, one of whom has always been welcome at American institutions regularly frequented by prominent American elected officials. I accept for the record that Ms. Marcotte is not a religious bigot but, rather, a person badly used by religious extremists. But to call "ridiculous" the notion that one can be bigoted against a specific religion--apparently just because the religion in question is a big one--leads me to believe that she really needs to get out more.

Part The Last: Jeebus Christmas, Jack Shafer's setting the bar low these days. Not for plagiarism per se--this is not a hanging offense, and MoDo should send Josh Marshall a bottle of the good stuff for his birthday in gratitude for his having pointed that out--but for "plausible--if a tad incomplete" bullshit alibis. A friend ate my homework? Please.

Back when I was a young reporter for an alternative weekly, Massachusetts passed a referendum by which property taxes in a specific municipality could not exceed 2.5 percent of the assessed value of the property therein. Prop 2 1/2, as it was called, and is still called today, was the east coast franchisee of the California "tax revolt" that began there with Proposition 13 in 1978. The basic attitude behind Prop 2 1/2 was summed up best for me by one of its authors who, when asked what would happen when the law forced local libraries to close, replied that it didn't matter because paperback books never had been cheaper. Well, we're nuts here but not that nuts. We stopped with this little bit of initiative distemper. California, it seems, has rendered itself utterly ungovernable by taking every ounce of the philosophy behind the campaign for Proposition 13--government by initiative, anti-tax phobia etc. etc.--and turning it into the very structure of government itself. It threw out Gray Davis and installed a comical buffoon in his place who seems to be unstrung by the actual job of being a governor. And, now, the voters of California have gathered themselves together again and produced something best described by an observer of Andrew Johnson's impeachment--"a towering act of abandoned wrath." I thought about the libraries when this happened this week and came to the realization that the basic philosophy behind this is that there is simply no such thing as a political commonwealth, that we, as a people, own nothing in common, nothing for which we have to be responsible to our fellow citizens, rich or poor, but especially the latter. This is what libraries were--common spaces, where people could gather and read--and surf the 'net, too--and places that we could be confident belonged to us all. They were examples of a lost idea in American life. California has determined, in a hundred different ways, that it will be ruled by the essential political dynamic of the drivetime talk-radio program. This is in no way a good thing.

Name: Jim Celer
Hometown: Omaha

Is the issue the morality of torture, or is the issue who knew the US was using torture? This should help, on MSNBC.com this morning, from Dan Balz of the Washington Post:

"But in attempting to defend herself, Pelosi took the remarkable step of trying to shift the focus of blame to the CIA and the Bush administration . . ."

Shifting blame for Bush administration policy executed by the CIA to the Bush administration and the CIA is a "remarkable step". The GOP --and evidently, some of the MSM -- hope that Pelosi becomes the issue. But we showed in November that we won't fall for their diversions any more. Didn't we?

Name: Barbara Swalm
Hometown: Portland, ME

Just One question. Where were the Republicans when it became apparent that Bush had been Misled by the intelligence community re Iraq and nukes and 9/11? They were tsk tsking about what else could Bush do-- since they were confirming the beliefs? But Nancy Pelosi couldn't possibly have been misled by the CIA, that's just stupid? Hmmmmm. I don't care what Nancy knew, it wouldn't have made a bit of difference, but why doesn't the press ask the republicans why they weren't so uppity about Bush?

Name: Michael Green
Hometown: Las Vegas, NV

Love ya, Charlie Pierce, but you're wrong, way wrong on Obama. Here's the deal: he doesn't have 60 votes in the Senate. And even when Al Franken is seated, he won't be guaranteed 60 votes in the Senate. Not just because Darlin' Arlen will be spinning like a weathervane to keep Pennsylvania Democrats happy, but because every senator is, believe it or not, an individual with individual views. I have tried several times to use a Spockian mind-meld to make them all vote together, but it doesn't work (although I'll add as a Las Vegan that proof of how good Harry Reid is as majority leader is how often they do all stick together, and how surprised so many are when they don't).

So, that forces Obama to pay attention to Republicans, even when they are as undeserving as Lindsey Graham (or insert 39 other names) is of the respect of anyone in the civilized world.

But since the Lincoln comparisons were so big for so long, I'll tell you as someone who's studied the even taller guy from Illinois that Obama is almost exactly like him, maneuvering between what we would describe today as the liberals and conservatives, seeking consensus, and even moving on his own toward a consensus on one side or the other.

Name: Don Solomon
Hometown: Boston, MA

"I think the source of the president's timorousness lies in the fact that, for all his new-politics bombast, he's pretty much decided that he's a critter of the respectable Beltway center. We should have seen that coming..."

We did see it coming. We saw all those things, the FISA vote perhaps being the worst of the bunch. And we held our noses because we also thought we saw (a) an FDR-like figure who would say "Make me do the right thing"--as Obama has done--and (b) a Kennedy-like figure who, despite caving to the Right on national security issues, would inspire so many good people to get into government that we might at least inject some honor into the bureaucracy.

I think we were right and that Obama still can be moved by public opinion from the left. It's worth noting that when Lyndon Johnson stuffed civil rights down the throat of the South, he also killed off the Democratic coalition for 40 years. When we win, we make the same mistakes the Gingrich crowd makes when they win. Obama seems to be trying a different approach. On policy issues, let's see if he makes it.

On justice issues like torture, he has to be reversed -- perhaps by the courts, every president's convenient scapegoat, or perhaps by his own US Attorneys, who as far as I know don't need his permission to indict war criminals.

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