NY23: Dede's progressive credentials; Who's worried about Doug Hoffman?

Conservative TV ad depicting Dede Scozzafava as the liberal she really is? "Dirty tricks!" cries Politico.

Allahpundit links both my American Spectator report and the exclusive report from 73wire. Allah's worried but, then again, Allah's always worried. Steve Doocy? He's not worried:

Me? I'm not worried either. Why? See, there's a guy named Dan working on the Doug Hoffman campaign. Dan's from South Carolina. Compared to a South Carolina GOP primary, this situation in NY23 is s Sunday school picnic. Dan's working hard, but he's not worried. And if Dan's not worried, why worry?

You know who's really worried? MoveOn.org:

The Sarah Palin wing of the Republican Party could get a big boost if a far right, third party candidate wins a three-way House race in upstate New York. Election Day is Tuesday. Can you contribute to help Democrat Bill Owens pull out a victory?

(Hat-tip to Eric Odom at 73wire.) "The Sarah Palin wing of the Republican Party" -- I like that! Paul Begala's worried, too:

The tea party crowd hopes to use Palin's endorsement in the NY-23 special election to send one of their own to Congress on the very first anniversary of President Obama winning the White House. And we can't let that happen. The inmates have taken over the asylum, and are abandoning the Republican candidate in favor of the extreme conservative.

Dan Riehl acts like he's worried, but I don't think he really is. He's lovin' this "war raging in the GOP" stuff. He's linked by Erick Erickson. Life is good. This is a win-win situation.

Some other NY23 headlines: Mitt Romney punts, but we pretty much expected that, didn't we? Nothing to worry about. Don't worry. Just work.

UPDATE: OK, some people are buying the Scozzafava campaign's spin that Hoffman "ducked" the Plattsburgh debate Wednesday. In September, Hoffman challenged Dede to debate and she turned him down, instead arranging with her NPR friends to do this debate in Plattsburgh. (The NPR station's manager uses his blog to deny that he would be unfair to Hoffman -- and then attacks Hoffman.)

Hoffman's spokesman Rob Ryan told me the Plattsburgh NPR debate was "the perfect venue for Scozzafava and Owens to debate who's more liberal." And if Hoffman is "ducking" debates, how come he's appearing in a TV debate today in Syracuse?

Republican Dede Scozzafava, Democrat Bill Owens, and Conservative Party Candidate Doug Hoffman will all take part in a debate at the NewsChannel 9 studios Thursday night at 7pm on NewsChannel 9.

That's why I'm leaving this morning for Syracuse. It would help if some people would at least learn to make a phone call or two before jumping to the unwarranted conclusion that the liberal MSM spin is always true.

UPDATE II: Just watching that "Dede: The Best Choice for Progressives" ad at Ed Driscoll's blog, and I'm thinking: Genius!

It's a two-carom shot: Scozzafava is identified as the liberal she is, and in a positive way, so as to draw "progressive" votes away from the Democratic candidate, Owens.

Get it? The whole point of the ad is to confuse liberals (as if liberals weren't already confused). Politico is freaking out, but this is one of the most fiendishly clever ad campaigns in American political history -- using Scozzafava as the "spoiler" for the Democrat.

UPDATE III: Jonah Goldberg is not worried. Colorado Republicans are not worried.

Balloon Boy? Total PWN!

Just watching the Sheriff's press conference. Oh, there will be thoughtful essays written about the 24/7 cable TV environment, the voracious demand for cheap programming that led to the "reality TV" genre, the resulting fame-quest of obscure idiots, "American Idol," et cetera, et cetera.

But nobody will pay me to write one of those essays, so I'll leave it to the "Style" section of the Washington Post or whoever else gets paid for such stuff.

Moral of the story? People watch too much TV. They begin to believe that being on TV (i.e., what is meant today when we say someone is "famous") is synonymous with wealth, popularity, happiness, et cetera. So they devote their lives to a sort of pilgimage, worshipfully seeking their own place on the idolatrous TV shrine.

These people are fools. TV makes them stupid. Turn the stupid thing off occasionally and read a book, fools.

If anyone actually wants or needs more than that, hit the tip jar for $50 and I'll post an insightful, thought-provoking 1,000-word column by tomorrow morning.

Allah won't link it, but Allah never links me. Allah Hates Me. Because I Suck.

A short lesson in why TV news sucks

Former Reagan administration official Bruce Bartlett tells the tale of how an economist friend of his, Richard Rahn, got bumped from an appearance on the Jim Lehrer PBS show because another economist, Russ Roberts, had written a rap song about economics.

This would be funny, except that Bartlett explains that such show-biz calculations utterly dominate the process of booking talking heads:

Anyone who regularly does TV interviews knows that one is always required to do a pre-interview in which a producer feels you out as to what you will say in response to certain hypothetical questions. It would be simpler if they just came out and said, "We are looking for someone to go on air and say Obama is the anti-Christ (or whatever). Are you willing to do that?"
Such a method, however, is crass and offends the dignity of potential guests, so instead the producer will talk around the issue. She (they are almost always female) will say something like this: "We are thinking about doing a segment on whether Obama is the anti-Christ and looking for guests who will debate this topic. If we had you on what would your take be?"
If you say that the idea is ridiculous you will be thanked and the producer will move on to the next name on her list. Eventually she will find a crazy person like Alan Keyes to say what she wants him to say or someone so desperate to be on TV that he will play Devil's Advocate and pretend to believe that Obama is the anti-Christ for the sake of 5 minutes of air time.
Sometimes, however, the producer hasn't been fully clued in to what it is she is supposed to do and accidentally books a guest unwilling to play the proper role. When this happens, the guest will later get a call canceling his appearance on the grounds that the segment "went in a different direction" or similar BS.

A few weeks ago, I got the "went-in-a-different-direction" explanation from a CNN producer. She'd called one evening to ask me to be on a show the next day -- discussing something I'd written about at The American Spectator --so I'd planned my day with the trip to CNN's DC studio in mind. Showered, shaved, dressed, got in the car and was already en route (it's 70 miles from my house to DC) when the producer called to say they'd changed their plan.

C'est la guerre. You can't really complain. It's just show business. If you want to understand why TV news is show business, you need to read Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death.

And, yeah, the assistant producer who books the guests is almost always female. It's the "assistant" part, you see. The "senior" or "executive" producer, on the other hand, is almost always a guy.

Funny how that works: Sexism creates lots of "assistant producer" opportunities for women who are never going to make it to "senior" or "executive" producer. And yet no network gets sued for discrimination. Why? Because to file a lawsuit would be bad for the assistant producer's career. And thus it is her ambition that makes her vulnerable to exploitation.

So David Letterman shags the office help like he's Mick Jagger on tour in '72 and, if it weren't for a blackmailer, we'd never know about it. If you sensed some unease on the part of TV news shows in discussing the Letterman scandal . . .

Well, it's show business.

The Sour Grapes of Wrath

"In the 21st-century 24/7 cable-TV era, it sometimes seems there are two kinds of people: People who are TV-famous and people desperately trying to become TV-famous. Back when I was a young man with rock-star dreams, losers who wanted to impress you would drop the names of famous record producers who were supposedly interested in their latest demo tape. Nowadays, the same type of people are bragging about how their agent is this close to getting them a 'development' deal for a reality-TV show. But enough about Levi Johnston . . ."

'Morning Joe' vs. 'Fox & Friends'

This morning, I happened to be awake at 6 a.m. -- did I mention I love my wife? -- and while Mrs. Other McCain was in the shower getting ready for work, I relaxed contentedly by toggling back and forth between "Fox & Friends" and MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

Fox fans can crucify me for saying this, but "Morning Joe" is the better program, and the superiority of the MSNBC show was blindingly evident today. While "Fox & Friends" had on Geraldo Rivera to talk about Rhianna (allegedly) getting beat up by her boyfriend, Joe Scarborough, Mike Barnicle, Pat Buchanan and Mika Brzrzbuyavowelski were talking about real news -- especially the economic meltdown and the inability of Congress or the Obama administration to do anything to stop it.

Excuse me for thinking that gotterdammerung on Wall Street is more important than a domestic-violence case involving two second-rate pop stars that no one over 30 ever heard of until Chris Brown (allegedly) beat Rhianna to a bloody pulp.

OK, there may be some kind of "counterprogramming" rationale behind Fox producers going with celebrity tabloid news at 6 a.m., but there is a word for that rationale: Wrong. Most of those who get up at 6 a.m. and switch to the early news are essentially serious people. They're in a hurry, getting ready to go to work, and they want to hear about news that makes a difference in their lives, which doesn't include the obnoxious Geraldo sharing gossip about two pop singers.

Furthermore -- and Steve Doocy's my Facebook friend, so I want to be careful how I say this -- the "Fox & Friends" crew seems too lightweight. The "Morning Joe" crew is anchored by a former congressman and features a veteran political adviser in Buchanan. Barnicle doesn't impress me much, but Brzrzbuyavowelski, though hopelessly liberal, is at least a smart, serious liberal.

To employ an overused word, the implicit gravitas of the MSNBC crew gives them more leeway to joke around amiably like a bunch of buddies just talkin' news, whereas Gretchen Carlson and Brian Kilmeade lack that sort of heft (Doocy wasn't on the show this morning). My impression is that Kilmeade is a hometown favorite in the New York market, so Fox isn't going to pull him from the show, and I wouldn't want them to pull my buddy Doocy, which makes Carlson the prime candidate for replacement, if the executives want to tinker with the formula.

Bay Buchanan? Kate Obenshain? I don't know. They need somebody with a credible government/politics background. They need to change something. The whole mood of the Fox show is wrong for the current economic and political climate.

Any serious news junkie toggling back and forth between Fox and MSNBC in the mornings -- and this isn't the first time I've done this in recent weeks -- can't help but notice the difference. "Fox & Friends" feels too fake perky-cheery like "Good Morning, Orlando" or something, whereas "Morning Joe" exudes a vibe that is simultaneously confident, smart, and relaxed.

Roger Ailes needs to be paying attention, because whatever the total Nielsen numbers, he's losing "the eyes of the influentials," to borrow a phrase from Jon Henke.

UPDATE: I'm getting some push-back in the comments, which is OK, but Hyscience agrees with me. To those who only watch Fox, you should try toggling between "F&F" and "MJ" some mornings. Maybe it's me, but the Joe show is less show-biz, more laidback, and I like that -- even if Barnicle and Brzrzbuyavowelski aren't to my taste.

Christian Toto on 'Big Love'

The HBO hit:

Sex. Religion. Intolerance. Acceptance. It’s all here, and the new episodes blend those ingredients with considerable finesse.
It’s still dicey enough material to push some viewers permanently away, but those who embraced Tony Soprano's whack-a-gangster exploits should find enough moral wiggle room to relish the drama here.

He's got a point. It's hard to picture people calling up their cable providers and cancelling their HBO in outrage: "Foul-mouthed murdering Mafioso, OK. But I absolutely draw the line at polygamy!"

'Preachy beyond belief'

"With the possible exception of Roman Polanski, I suspect I might have been the only adult male over the age of 40 who watched the second-season opener of the ABC Family dramedy The Secret Life of the American Teenager earlier this week. . . .
"[A]part from the vaguely titallating premise and promise of the show's title, the thing is safe as milk. Skim milk. Soy milk. . . .
"It's preachy beyond belief and, for all the bad stuff that's supposed to happen to the characters, it plays out in a world that is about as menacing and gritty as the dancing gangs in West Side Story."