WELCOME TO DAYBOOK, our daily collection of media and politics hits/misses from a wide variety of sources plus fun videos and (and at the bottom) musical picks. Return for updates all day. Keep up with fresh items via tweets. E-mail: epic1934@aol.com. To increase type size hit the middle "A" above right.

AFTERNOON UPDATES

Kathleen Parker—newly named CNN co-host—writes today that Obama is the First Female President, and that”s why he is failing. "Obama may prove to be our first male president who pays a political price for acting too much like a woman." Although she notes he is "endowed."  

Glenn Greenwald: Study finds that media called waterboarding "torture" for decades—until our side started doing it.  And more on media "servitude"… Meanwhile, Joe Klein interrupts his vacation to attack Greenwald,  for hitting his pal, Jeffrey Goldberg, and ends up suggesting Glenn is  "a twisted, deluded soul." Of course, Klein has long been ripped by Glenn in his own right—and expect more of same later today.

Sen. Feingold on why he is not backing current form of FinReg bill.

Slate: Sordid sex on Emily DIckinson’s couch—while she was upstairs and knew all about it! Yes, it’s true.

My new piece here: "Who’ll Be the Last Soldier to ‘Die for a Mistake’ in Afghan?" And, yes, we know who it was in Vietnam.

Hurricane Alex may actually help the gulf oil situation, and probably won’t hurt it in any case.

— WEDNESDAY ON THE LINKS 

Full wrapup on the Kagan hearings at Talking Points Memo, with conclusion: "She sailed through," even though Sen. Jeff "Not In" Sessions basically called her a liar over and over. Fun revelation about Jews like her tending to spend Christmas Day in Chinese restaurants… She’ll  join Roberts Court already super-activist, despite GOP denials.

Tweet of the Day from Stephen Colbert: "Why does looking at animals covered in oil make me sad, but looking at animals covered in oil and deep-fried make me hungry?" He also has more serious take on BP making light of disaster.

Rolling Stone brought  war home—Afghanistan tops survey of news coverage 1st time in 7 months… Petraeus in hearings Tuesday claimed he backed Obama’s plan/hope to withdraw troops next July but flexible on that. Also, might loosen rules of engagement—so Afghan civilians, beware.

Birther control: New CBS poll finds one in four Americans believe Obama born outside the USA, but NYT‘s Ross Douthat says, Aw, they don’t really mean that, nothing to see here. Also he takes heart from the fact that many of these people simply don’t know that Hawaii is one of our fifty states.

STIMULATION NATION  Dave Leonhardt: This is no time to stop stimilus spending, private sector not ready to pick up load.

BREITBART OR BLACK BART?  Andrew Breitbart puts a $100,000 bounty on archives for Ezra Klein’s (now closed) liberal list-serv, the one that got Dave Weigel in trouble (and Dave then wrote a mea culpa for Breitbart’s site). But even if someone wanted to help him, might be a little difficult to get at.

WARNING TO MSNBC FANS  Network has just hired Mark Halperin as senior poltiical analyst, meaning he’ll be on all the campaign panels with Keith, Rachel, Chris, Pat…

DEMS HAVE NO ENERGY?  They compromise and compromise on climate bill  and still getting nada from the GOP.   Also still struggling on Fin Reg.

KING ABDICATES  Larry King announces retirement (but will he stick to withdrawal timetable?)  The last time I was on his show it was, to say the least, memorable: seated next to man who dropped the A-bomb on Nagasaki, one of the crimes of the century.

JON ON BUSH-WHACKING  Stewart tackles Fox News and others complaining about Democrats blaming everything on Bush—by showing how same folks blame everything on Clinton, even today. Also Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon figures in it.

KOS AND EFFECT  Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos going after his longtime pollster Research 2000 for allegedly producing fraudulent results. When FiveThirtyEight put in its two cents, the pollster sent a cease and desist letter, which Nate Silver says he will ignore.

PALIN’s DUTCH TREAT  Eureka! Sarah Palin gets a Reagan fact very wrong, at a college no less. Meanwhile, a candidate in Nevada she helped inspire, Sharron Angle finally sits down with prominent media guy in Nevade to defend her wackiness and walk back of her views, such need for insurrections against Obama.

FOOLS RUSSIAN  Those arrested suburban "spies" seem more out of The Russians Are Coming than a great cold war thriller. What secrets were sending home from, say, Montclair?  Perhaps the location of David Carr’s backyard grill there.

PENTAGON TURNS JAPANESE?  Marc Ambinder:  "What used to be known in warfighting as ‘psychological operations’—or ‘psyops’—will formally be known to the Pentagon as ‘Military Information Support Operations’—or MISO—pronounced,  Miso, as in the soup."

DC CONFIDENTIAL  Jay Rosen: "Did you know the Washington Post’s rules on confidential sources are themselves confidential? Ombud can’t link to them."

— TODAY’s LAFF

It’s only June and we’ve already featured half a dozen wacky ad spots/videos for GOP candidates, and no surprise, most come from Alabama or Arizona. Here’s the latest from gun-toting a Mama Grizzly from Arizona. Aw, shoot.

— TODAY’s MUSIC

More true today than ever: This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco.