By request.

As frustrating as it is for you and me to have to deal with our hopeless beltway media, imagine how frustrating it must be if you are Obama. Well, now you don’t need to imagine:

In a little noticed aside at the end of Thursday’s jobs summit, Obama effectively painted the press as an obstacle to not just the much-needed economic recovery, but to America recovering its 20th Century position as an economic powerhouse.

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But then Obama made a turn, and went after the press, specifically the group of network correspondents who had interviewed Obama on his trip to Beijing. The full passage follows after the jump.

Obama: But it’s not going to come easily and it is going to require a level of cooperation and a willingness to work strategically together that we have not seen over the last several years. And frankly, this town and the way the political dialogue is structured right now is not conducive to what we need to do to be globally competitive. And all of you are leaders in your communities—in the business sector and the labor sector, in academia, we even have a few pundits here—it is important to understand what’s at stake and that we can’t keep on playing games.

I mentioned that I was in Asia on this trip thinking about the economy, when I sat down for a round of interviews. Not one of them asked me about Asia. Not one of them asked me about the economy. I was asked several times about had I read Sarah Palin’s book. (Laughter.) True. But it’s an indication of how our political debate doesn’t match up with what we need to do and where we need to go.

Pretty pointed stuff, and I have little doubt that the president was actually irked by this at the time. Through both the campaign and his presidency, Obama has made little secret of his disdain for some of the horse-race, tabloid elements of the press corps—though his political and communications staff are not above sometimes exploiting those same tendencies for their own benefit. Obama meets regularly off-the-record and on-the-record meals with columnists who his advisers see as more intellectually substantive (or politically influential). But he has not done the same with beat reporters, whom, as he suggested Thursday, sometimes do a disservice to the country with the journalistic equivalent of ambulance chasing.

Is there any doubt in your mind that Obama is not 100% correct about the press being an obstacle? Think of all the mindless crap churned up the last few months in the media. Christ, Chuck Todd’s twitter feed alone justifies Obama’s remark. At any rate, this reminds me of one of my favorite Obama quotes from last year:

I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, ‘You know, this is a stupid question, but let me … answer it.’ Instead of being appropriately [the tape is garbled]. So when Brian Williams is asking me about what’s a personal thing that you’ve done [that’s green], and I say, you know, ‘Well, I planted a bunch of trees.’ And he says, ‘I’m talking about personal.’ What I’m thinking in my head is, ‘Well, the truth is, Brian, we can’t solve global warming because I f–––ing changed light bulbs in my house. It’s because of something collective’.

For some reason, I have this clip running through my head right now:

You get the point.

Mister C asks of the Jesus retail store ratings:

Where is Neiman Marcus? too Jew from the get-go?

Am I reading too much into The War On Christmas when I think that forcing retailers to talk about the Baby Jesus is especially troubling in light of the fact that so many retail stores were founded by Jewish Americans? Anyway, a lot of the big department stores (Saks, Bergdorf, Neiman, for example) have huge Christmas displays—isn’t that enough already?

Is there something a bit more sinister than meets the eye with all this forced Jesusism? Or have I just had too much to drink?

I guess that when I think of forcing people to say “the baby Jesus thanks you for this purchase”, it just sounds like something out of Medieval Europe to me.

For christ sakes Steelers.

At least you have sucked so much this season I won’t have to put up with this shit in the post-season.

After the collapse the last month, I may rename my cat Brady.

In the comments of yesterday’s post about the possible Swishboating of Charlie Crist, someone (I can’t find it now) pointed me to this piece by nice-guy, Sam’s Club Conservative Reihan Salam. The entire piece is about how it isn’t about whether or not Crist is gay; in other words, it’s an extended and obvious exercise in raising doubts about Crists’s sexual preference while pretending to focus on other issues.

I guess what strikes me about the article is what an asshole Salam is. I have the exact same reaction to Ross Douthat, with his holy wars, his cruel caricature of chunky Reese Witherspoon and so on. And these are the two who are constantly held up by Sullivan and the TNRers as the kind of smart, decent, virtuous conservatives we should all love and admire.

This all goes, of course, to something that John has touched on before.

It’s very strange to me that the entire conservative movement worships Ronald Reagan, whose greatest political asset was that he didn’t some across as an asshole, and yet there are almost no contemporary conservatives—in the media or in elected office—who make any effort to come across as something other than an asshole. I just don’t get it.

I guess today we see how complete the Steeler’s slide is, as they host the Raiders at home. If they lose this one…

House-to-house fighting has turned The War On Christmas into an unwinnable quagmire:

We’re asking YOU to decide which retailers are “Christmas-friendly.” They want your patronage and your gift-shopping dollars, but do they openly recognize Christmas?

Please post your rating and share your comments, which will go directly to retailers and appear on this site. Then, forward them to a friend!

Who knew that Best Buy hated the baby Jesus so much?

Comment: Totally disgusted with Best Buy. Got my weekly ad in the paper wishing everyone a Happy Eid al-Adha. Never saw anything from Best Buy wishing customers a Happy Thanksgiving or Merry Christmas. I have spent thousand at Best Buy over the years. Won’t spend another penny there. BB hope you have a Happy Eid al-Adha. I’ll be having a very Merry Christmas spending my $$$’s at another electronic store.

Comment: I wish I knew about this store prior to my purchase. The service was good and they were friendly. No Happy Holidays, no Merry Cchristmas nothing. Now I know why. Last time I shop here.

Gap too:

Comment: I went into the store and asked a manager about their Christmas policy. The manager was very polite,but didn’t know anything about their Christmas policy. She took my number and promised to call me when she had more information. I never heard from her. I will not shop at Gap. There are plenty of other stores out there to take my money. Merry Christmas

Comment: I have shopped at GAP since I was in high school. Unfortunately for GAP and its sister companies, I will no longer be patronizing any of their stores until a drastic change is made in their advertising in regards to honoring the GOD who gives them each breath.

Comment: First thing I notice is that they are only playing non-Christian Christmas songs (Jingle Bells, etc.). Unacceptable. I ask a clerk, “What is the reason for the season?” and I get back “What?”. I buy a shirt and when they ask me what kind of wrapping paper, I reply that I want nativity paper or something showing the baby Jesus. They say they only have snowflakes and snowmen and green/red paper. What does green and red have to do with JESUS?

Here is your thread.

Also, here is a great video about Evelyn Bridges, the woman who rescued Bitsy. She was named the “Person of the Week” by her local tv station.

Two dogs is more than twice one dog.

This ought to make you want to bang your head off your desk:

As the Senate convened a rare Saturday session, 10 Democratic senators continued intensive talks on the public option, with the goal of agreeing on a framework that can garner 60 votes. They are considering proposals that could win the support of one Republican, Sen. Olympia Snowe on Maine.

“As long as both sides are willing to give a little, we can meet in the middle,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). “It may not be exactly what I’d like and exactly what they’d like, but we’ll meet in the middle somewhere.

You know, as much as our national political chattering classes are enamored with the baby Jesus, I find it amazing that none of them ever managed to hear the story of King Solomon. For the life of me, I don’t understand the workings of a mind that says “That is a terrible idea, but if we do it halfway, it becomes better!” As Tim has noted before, a weak public option is worse than no public option at all, and a carelessly constructed public option will just become a dumping ground for high-risk patients that will require billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars to prop up. A couple years ago I said that I thought health care reform was inevitable, the only question would be how bad we would make it and how quickly we would bankrupt ourselves with it. I thought at the time I was being too cynical, but the moderates in both parties are proving me wrong.

As such, we now charge forward in the spirit of bipartisanship, with every Senator apparently eager to rush home to show off their half of the bloody baby. At least Ben Nelson will be able to suckle at the insurance company teat for the next ten years or so of his life. A real patriot, that guy.

I have no idea whether or not Charlie Crist is gay, mostly because I don’t care. But, given that a lot of people do seem to think he’s gay, I have to wonder if the teabaggers will do something like this to him:

The NRCC has been quick to attack Tennessee state Sen. Roy Herron, who has emerged as the Democratic candidate for the seating of retiring Blue Dog Rep. John Tanner—and along the way, they seem to be using some rather interesting rhetoric.

Herron is a former minister and an attorney, and he has taught at both the divinity and law schools at Vanderbilt, his alma mater. He has been married for 22 years, and has three sons. He has also written several books, including Tennessee Political Humor, How Can a Christian Be in Politics?, and God And Politics. However, the NRCC says Herron isn’t being honest about his social liberalism.

Over the course of the past week, the NRCC has mounted a series of attacks on Herron that taken together could suggest they’re trying to say that Herron is gay or effeminate. The NRCC denies that’s their line of attack, and the Herron camp hasn’t publicly raised the issue (see late update below), but take a look at what the NRCC has been saying.

Am I wrong to think that, sooner or later, Rubio will pull this trick out of his teabag? And if the teabaggers challenge Lindsay Graham for acting sanely on a few issues (say, climate change), will he get hit with this too?

At some point, hitting below the belt has to seem like a very tempting option for Hoffman crowd.

Via Sullivan, apparently Slate held a write like Sarah Palin contest, and we missed it. Some of the entries are truly excellent:

“The campaign path once led me into the homey kitchen of June Asbel, where the aroma of toasted almonds and nutmeg mixed with a sense of American perseverance and optimism.”

I am sure you all can do better. I’m going to think about my entry for a while, but you all can start in the comments.

I went to a fascinating wine tasting yesterday at the nearby New York Wine and Culinary Center. The wines were all Long Island merlots. I wasn’t expecting to like them all that much because (a) I don’t like New World merlot much in general and (b) I don’t like Long Island (a few Billy Joel songs notwithstanding). So I was surprised that…I loved the wines! They don’t taste like other New World merlot at all—to me, they tasted liked Bordeaux only much more herbal, a bit more acidic, and a bit less fruity and tannic. The wines were from the wineries that form the Merliance: seven wineries on Long Island that make merlot as their flagship wines. These are Wolffer, Clovis Point, Pellegrini, Raphael, Sherwood House, Castello di Borghese, and McCall.

Having never had these wines before, I wasn’t able to get a great sense of the differences between the different estates: vintage variation was more striking. The 2007 vintage was fantastic, the 2004, 2005, and 2006 vintages more variable (2005 has the best reputation, 2006 the worst, but I actually like 2006 the best of the three within this limited sample size). The vineyards are primarily in the North Fork of Long Island, though Wolffer is on the South Fork.

These wines, in general, are lower in alcohol than California bordeaux blends and also more food-friendly. They also have a fascinating spice/herbal quality that I’m embarrassed to describe for fear of sounding too much like Paul Giamatti, so I’ll just quote Appellation America (by subscription only, unfortunately):

“Heady violets, rich plum, huckleberry and Darjeeling tea aromas are accented by complex and exotic aromas of lemongrass, cilantro, ginseng, bay, Seville orange, and white pepper, which develop an amazing bouquet of cedar, sandalwood, and tobacco with age.” A bit much, ya think? Yet this complexity itself is the common thread of the region.

These wines aren’t cheap—most have suggested retail between $20 and $30, though I find them a bit cheaper at my local shop. But I think the 2007s, as good as they were, are an excellent deal. For purposes of comparison, I tasted a lot of red wines in Oregon last weekend and the only reds I liked better than the 2007 McCall and Wolffer were much pricier.

This tasting was a real revelation, one of the most surprising I’ve ever been to.

We have our first snow of the year, so clearly global warming is a hoax.

When I flip through the channel guide on my tv, the infomercials are labeled as such. How is this different from infomercials?

But Beck has recently come under fire from liberals alleging a conflict of interest. The criticism spiked after he used one of his trademark blackboard illustrations to provide tips for weathering “the three scenarios that we could be facing: recession, depression or collapse.” In the case of a total collapse of the economic system, he recommended that his viewers construct “fruit cellars” and rely on what he called “the three G system. It’s God, gold and guns.”

[.....]

Peter Epstein, president of Merit Financial Services, which advertises on Beck’s show, says gold retailers expect favorable coverage from commentators on whose shows they pay to advertise. “You pay anybody on any network and they say what you pay them to say,” said Epstein. “They’re bought and sold.”