“I was down there a month ago, before most of these talking heads were even paying attention to the Gulf. A month ago, I was down there talking to fisherman, standing in the rain, talking about what a potential crisis this could be…”

Reenforcing the narrative that his administration is slow off the mark, the president kicks off his first visit to the Gulf playing catch-up on the Terror in Times Square incident. A minute or so later, a smiling President Obama is complaining, or joking, that he is actually giving his remarks while standing in the rain.

Either, the president thinks telling people that he was “standing in the rain” gives him added street cred, or, as the video suggests, it annoyed him then, and obviously still pesters him today. Either way, he’s still all wet.

Reporting from the Gulf coast, and looking eerily like Ira Glass,

Ira Glass

Rachel Maddow has been going off half cocked, kicking sand in the faces of BP, government inspectors, American consumers, and ranting about the ethics of personal responsibility.

Dictating solutions, but never facilitating them, watch as she twirls one of the caramelized clots of oil around the tip of a stick, looks at it with feigned disgust, and then casually just tosses it back onto the beach.   

Pushing the limits of the journalist’s role as detached observer, Maddow is clearly out of touch, and her performance demonstrates why her newscast is called a show. 

Instead of pointing at them, if every journalist covering the oil disaster in the Gulf scraped up just one tar pattie, and threw it out, the beaches would be clean. Granted, we don’t want to see Brian Williams swaggering around in a haz-mat suit clearing the coast line; that’s not a journalist’s job. But, if you are actually going to interact with the environment for the sake of theater, either film one of the workers with shovel in hand, or pitch in yourself.

“When should journalists put down their cameras and notebooks and help their subjects?”

As soon as they put down their notebooks and become a character in their own story.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

“Yes, we brought it up early, and often.“

With capitulations from the Under Secretary like,

“It (Arizona) was mentioned as a troubling trend in our society, and an indication that we have to deal with issues of discrimination, or potential discrimination, and that these are issues being very much debated in our society,”

the State Department should go ahead and switch the motto on its Website from, “Diplomacy In Action,” to, “Diplomacy Inaction.”

I know, I know, to a man with a hammer, everything is a nail, but this is
China; a country where there are more political prisoners than there are people in the entire state of Arizona-illegal immigrants included. So, let’s get real.

Propagandizing to a bus-load of American journalism students visiting China on a study abroad program last summer, Chinese Spokesman, Yoichi Shimatsu’s statements made it clear, that in China, not only is the Dalai Lama considered a criminal, he is a Nazi war criminal, responsible for the deaths of countless innocents, and deserves to be shot on sight.

“The Chinese? They don’t want to talk about him any more; our duty is to shoot him…I mean what do you expect us to do? Have a war crimes trial?”-Yoichi Shimatsu

Denouncing the Dalai Lama as a Nazi is in itself not news. Since the publication of former Nazi, Heinrich Harrer’s, “Seven Years in Tibet,” the Dalai Lama’s association with Harrer has been touted for years as suspect by groups and individuals opposing his views.

But, when a spokesman for the Chinese Central Government goes rogue in front of group of wide-eyed Americans and declares that the Dalai Lama should be shot-then, that is news.

Featured regularly as a guest panelist at the Tibetology Research Center in Beijing, Shimatsu is a former editor of the Japan Times Weekly, and a venerated public speaker in China on Tibetan affairs. In this capacity, and supported by the full thrust of the central government’s, “Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the U.N.,” Shimatsu’s bizarre accusations go unchallenged inside of China, and are widely accepted by its intellectual elites and body politic.

Obsessed with how it is perceived by westerners, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ presentation of its “Intellectual Dialogue on Tibet,” on its Website, is predictably innocuous. Billed as an, “academic workshop,” the outward appearance of the conference is a benign charicature of a group of thoughtful, dedicated scholars, pooled together with one aim: A peaceable resolution to the Tibetan Question. Spotlighted as a famous film documentarian, Shimatsu’s praise of the Tibetan people is prominently advertised on the government’s site.

“Now I work in the Tibetan-inhabited areas of the Sichuan and Gansu provinces, where Tibetan people enjoy a substantial right to speak in local government, since many officials are Tibetans. I’d like to talk about the future of Tibet and the next-generation of Tibetans. The next generation doesn’t refer to those of the young age, but to an increasing number of modern Tibetans who, instead of being restricted to traditional agricultural and nominal lifestyles, tend to present themselves more on the international stage and communicate in multiple languages.”

What isn’t made public to the outside world, is the Chinese Central Government’s deliberate channeling of its sinister views of the Tibetan people through its chief spokesman, Yoichi Shimatsu in his relentless campaign to vilify the Dalai Lama as a Nazi.

Transcribed from a similar conference in 2008, the following text was e-mailed to me from one of my contacts in China; it is the only English version of the event on record.

Accepted as fact, here is an excerpt of Shimatsu’s epic testimonial:

“Part of this story is a legend that I am now trying to confirm with hard research. Atop Hitler’s bunker, it has been told, there was apparently a phowa puja held, a Buddhist ceremony in which the Yellow Hat monks prayed for Hitler’s return and rebirth as a living Buddha. This is how madly fanatic these people were. When I have met with senior monks, they still express admiration for Hitler as a great man with supernatural qualities.”

Monks in Tibet love Hitler; this is the real Intellectual Dialogue on Tibet occurring inside of China.

A transcript of Shimatsu’s entire testimony will be made available on this site in my next post titled, Tea Room Confidential

“The Times stood still. Its slow reflexes — closely following its slow response to a controversy that forced the resignation of Van Jones, a White House adviser — suggested that it has trouble dealing with stories arising from the polemical world of talk radio, cable television and partisan blogs.”

Admitting that The Times was, “slow off the mark,” Managing Editor Jill Abramson conceded to Hoyt, that the paper suffers from some type of, “insufficient tuned-in-ness to the issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio.”

What came across as a wry comment, Executive Editor Bill Keller said the Times would assign an editor to “monitor opinion media,” and, brief the editorial staff, “frequently on bubbling controversies.”

WHAT???

The fact that there hasn’t been some college intern shackled to a steam pipe somewhere deep in the bowels of the Times’ building “monitoring” Mark Levin like some WWII code breaker this entire time is simply incomprehensible.  

Hell, I’ll do it; I’ll do it for free.

Set me up in the furnace room with a long string and two dixie cups, and I’ll transmit these “bubbling controversies” right up into his office,

Hey Bill, come in Bill-do you copy?

This just in from “The Wilkow Majority,” and “Breitbart,” Islamic Extremists Radicalizing on American College Campuses. 

American Muslim students want to kill Jews-Repeat, Muslim students want to kill Jews, do you read me? OVER 

My Dixie cup runneth over with silence.

I particularly like that Keller calls breaking news, “bubbling controversies,” and that Abramson insinuates that this bubbling process is merely a by-product of Roger Ailes having an attack of indigestion.

Moving forward, more than a year later, Hoyt’s, “Acorn Revisited,” examines the outcome of Keller’s sage strategy, and the paper’s subsequent, disjointed coverage of Acorn.  

“At least 14 reporters, reporting to different sets of editors, have touched it since last fall. Nobody owns it.

Bill Keller, the executive editor, said that, ’sensing the story would not go away and would be part of a larger narrative,’ the paper should have assigned one reporter to be responsible for it.”

YOU THINK?

Strapped to a belching furnace and choking on soot, I’m your guy on this Bill.

Have you heard the one about Solicitor General Kagan’s “Botched argument” on the Citizens United case before the Supreme Court? It bubbled in six days ago; I found it on RCP, courtesy of Hot Air, by way of the Mark Levin show.

Unlikely that the Times is going to take its news cues from Sean Hannity, but it’s just as unlikely that some of the topics Hannity covers are ever going to bubble up to Keller’s desk organically.

Like I said, I’m your guy.

But, if you can’t remember the plays that got us there, here’s a brief recap, that includes the players that helped steer this, “too big to fail” piece of legislation to victory.

February 2010

All dinged up and sensing a blitz from Boehner on the right, the Obama Administration, lagging out of the huddle on second and long in its final drive to push health care reform over the goal line, downed the ball early in the fourth quarter, and retreated safely to the side-lines to regroup.

Fearing a Stupak safety, Obama, the play caller, in search of a new charm offensive, made several modifications to his game plan; including his roster.

Carrying water for the O team in a bucket drilled with holes, Obama’s Budget Director, Peter Orzag suffered the first casualty.

Told to grab some wood as punishment for his behind the scenes antics, Orzag’s D.C. panty raids certainly were putting the “OMG back into the OMB.” (as if it ever had it)

In his place, and himself rebounding from a sprained tongue, an injury he endured early on in the campaign, Austan Goolsbee shuffled out onto the field, all wide-eyed and dewy in his shiny new uniform asking,

“Where do you need me chief?”

“On the Sunday shows kid, I need you on all of the Sunday shows,” said the president, patting Goolsbee on his backside.

With a head for numbers as big as Mark Kelso’s helmet, Goolsbee nodded, and with little notice from the press, was christened the administration’s new pet geek.

Once shepharding Orzag to the front of the pack, sizzling profiles like this one in the NYT’s, trumpeted him as the modern prototypical Washington power player on the rise-the new, Swing King of the Nerd Herd.

Between gulps of Red Bull and Diet Coke, the bespectacled Orzag could be found most mornings, on the North lawn of the White House, boiling down mind-numbing spreadsheets into bite-sized phrases like, “deficit neutral,” for a bevy of morning talk shows and their audiences. Then, in January, just two months prior to Mr. Obama’s passage of his historical health care reform package, Orzag, zigged.

Scooped by The New York Post, Orzag was forced to publicly confirm rumors in January 2010, that his estranged girlfriend, Claire Milonas, had given birth to a baby in November 2009, and that he was the father. To make matters more confusing, Orzag, a divorcee with two children of his own, issued a statement, jointly with his ex-girlfriend, while courting his new one; ABC’s, Bianna Golodryga-whom he met at President Obama’s first White House Press Correspondents’ Dinner.

“We were in a committed relationship until the spring of 2009. In November, Claire gave birth to a beautiful baby girl.

Although we are no longer together, we are both thrilled she is happy and healthy, and we would hope that everyone will respect her privacy.”

Plagued by a series of mini-scandals since transition, the administration fielded its hurry up and wait offense, and executed its next batch of plays with Goolsbee, not Orzag as its mouthpiece.

Anecdotally, I knew this was true-I hadn’t seen old Orzag on the air peddling obfuscated CBO estimates as half-truths since February, and with all of the shouting, cursing and spitting epitomizing the national debate on health care reform, March was madness for the administration, and for the country-but no one in the press bothered writing about the O team’s fourth quarter switch. But it happened.

Tracking Orzag’s dip in coverage, it’s apparent the administration gave him the hook in February.

Here, RCP compiles a list of press events with Orzag-nothing in the crucial month of March.

The same for the NYT’s.

And, aside from posting a recent Tweet from Orazag’s current…uh..fiancee, even his fan site, Orzagasm.com halted its coverage in February.

Filling in, Goolsbee, a youthful and articulate former economics professor from the University of…..yep, you guessed it, Chicago, seemed a natural successor; a perfect fit as the O team’s new face behind the numbers.

Not convinced?

Here’s Goolsbee on The Daily Show, dated February 2010.

After January 2010, Orzag was merely a rim shot for Jon Stewart.

But, it’s not as if there’s been a total media blackout on Orzag. Recently, Congressional Republicans gifted the conservative blogosphere with clips of his testimony before President Obama’s Commission on Fiscal Responsibility, with him saying,

“Under current policies, our projected deficits amount to about 5 percent of GDP in the second half of this decade, much higher than would be prudent or sustainable.”

Goolsbee added to the April media fracas, creating his own flap on Morning Joe over his refusal to rule out a Value Added Tax (a national sales tax).

And yet, ”America’s Affordable Health Choices Act” (H.R. 3200) is a reality.

Apparently, with recent reports surfacing that,

“New Congressional Budget Office estimates predict the health care overhaul will likely cost about $115 billion more in discretionary spending over ten years than the original cost projections.”

the president feels the worst is over;  it’s time he let Orzag out of his box.

But how?

“Orazag Weighing Obama’s Appeal to stay on as Budget Director“

Yeah right….to get Orzag back into the game with one swing, the White House needed a “positive” reason to show some public support for him; staging his departure does the trick.

What makes me think his departure announcement is a fig leaf?

According to Martha Joynt Kumar’s, “Managing the President’s Message,” a typical White House devotes five times as many people to communicate policy decisions as it does to the actual amount of individuals crafting them.  

Welcome back Pete!

In a country with a city actually called, “Faisalabad,” it turns out, as expected, Faisal Shahzad is not an uncommon name in Pakistan. Curious about what kind of accidental traffic other Shahzad’s were experiencing on their FB pages in the wake of the Times Square Bomb Square, I contacted this Faisal Shahzad , from Lahore, who had this to say,

“Re: Good or Bad day to be named Faisal Shahzad
Hay,
yeah people in Pakistan are discourage him n me , my family, my friends everybody in my country hate terrorism and we believe if he is involved in it, he must be punished.
I heard about this incident but now I don’t want to concentrate on such things, I don’t know who the hell they are who are disturbing my lovely world, I wish everything will be smooth and in peace in whole world,
I also request you to pray for whole world and my country too, these terrorist have no religion, they are simply animal.
You take v.good care ov urself n God bless you and your countery
Regards,

Faisal Shahzad

Can’t wait to see FaceBook’s Six Degrees of Separation after I friend him!

Tomorrow’s inbox: Osama bin-LadenD.C. is Following you on Twitter!

Coming in at the nine minute mark, the punchy remarks drew some gutteral “oooohhhhs,”  and mixed laughter from the audience; suggesting there are some in the room who still want Politico to get their comeuppance.

Firing a shot at Politico, Executive Editor at the NYT’s, Bill Keller told the New Republic’s, Gabe Sherman a year ago that,

“Politico has focused on an inside game. I’m not sure if it translates to an outside game.”

With one foot already in the tar pit, a miffed Keller even ripped Politico’s stamina packed, steroid driven business model saying,

“I’m not sure how they get scale, and, if they don’t, I’m not sure what the business model is.”

Responding in kind, and proving that bad news travels fast, Politico’s John Harris widened the fault lines, bitch-slapping Keller faster than a Jet Blue D.C. shuttle run touching down in NY, saying,

“Bill seems to be suggesting that only mass audience, general interest news sites- those that replicate as closely as possible the mission and content of traditional daily print papers can survive. My own view is that the falling profits and staff cuts at papers across the country highlight the perils of this approach.”

Spotlighting the feud between Politico and traditional print dailies, Obama’s timely comments at the WHCD ignite and renew the  conversation. Is Politico the future of political reporting? (YES) & What is a Politico Story?

Here is Politico’s leaked  internal memo:

What is a Politico Story?

Calling the device a home-made pressure cooker, NYC Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said in a press conference that,

 ”It would have caused a significant fireball.”

Here is a video of what happens when just a single propane tank explodes.

In addition to expensive hydrating lotions, FishBowl D.C.is reporting that other ridiculous products, like eye serum, cleansing wipes, and complexion bars, were all crammed into swag bags and given out as gifts to Russert and other media luminaries attending the Time & People Magazine party Friday night, at the St. Regis in D.C.

Because stand ups are so grueling on a reporter’s feet, Russert’s complimentary, “Tip Toes Foot Petals” are certain to bring him welcomed relief. Using his ecosystem journal, (whatever that is) he can now track how many times he’s filled up his Sygg black panther water bottle,  topping off his day basting in a silky stew of, “Tokyo-milk perfumed bath soap,” while watching, “By the People,” HBO’s signature documentary film chronicling Barack Obama’s rise to the presidency.

As an added note, if HBO’S love letter to Mr. Obama isn’t enough to satisfy a D.C. journo’s sweet tooth, a copy of David Plouffe’s book, “The Audacity to Win,” can easily be purchased under, “Good Reads,” on the White House Press Corps’ Website . Curiously, Plouffe’s banner ad is prominently displayed well above the book, “Watchdogs of Democracy?” by Helen Thomas. As First Lady of the D.C. Press Corps, she must really love our president to give up that kind of placement.

(To their credit, the first story featured on the site is a video with a banner reading, “Obama lies 8 Times about C-SPAN Coverage.”)

Interviewing Thomas briefly in 2004 inside the Republican National Convention for a local weekly, I asked her about the Kerry Campaign’s decision to make his military record the centerpiece of his candidacy. Already a few champagnes deep into the reception, she said,

“Kerry should go back to being a war protestor”

Enamoring President Obama, tonight, she’ll  be seated at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on the Presidential dais, along with other notables, including the event’s MC, Jay Leno.

Despite Hollywood heavies swooping in on private jets, White House Correspondents’ Association President Edwin Chen promises that tonight’s event will be the most eco-friendly dinner in its 96 year history.

“The association is taking action to reduce the carbon impact of its annual black-tie gala; these actions include using as much as possible renewable energy for the event, paper products, supplies and services that reduce the threat of global warming, deforestation, toxic wastes, hazardous chemicals and species extinction.”

Hence, the ecosystem journals.

Forwarding its way through the e-mail circuit, and picked up by all of the biz-blogs, The Primer went viral on the web in 2008.

I received it in an email from an old acquaintance who is still in the mortgage business. -Freeper

This is from Adam Nash’s biz-blog,

Two email forwards tonight as posts.  My apologies.

This one will appeal to you finance fanboys out there.

My copy of the Primer was forwarded to me by a former Citigroup manager,  at the height of the meltdown.

With renewed public interest into the nebulous inner-workings of sub-prime lending on the heels of the grilling Goldman Sachs took on the hill this week, and, in light of that spectacle, I’m ”betting long,” that The Sub-Prime Primer will resurge on the Web.

Get Educated and Laugh

The Sub Prime Primer

As far as I can tell, its author is still unknown.

Also, here is a brief review of Adam Nash’s blog.

Walled deep behind his LinkedIn profile inpenetrable to direct contact, Adam Nash is one of those techno-economics junkies. His blog, PsychoHistory, has a similar force field surrounding it, keeping Nash, and his in-box clear from all web rabble. The site is glossy, highly organized and freaky cool.

As I am typically lost in a cul de sac of obscure policy tracts groaning beneath the weight of their own statistics, stumbling onto a site like Nash’s is a welcomed change of pace. With top posts like, “How to convert FLAC,” and, “How to mount NTFS drives,” for me, landing on Nash’s blog is like landing on Mars; where everything comes as a surprise.

Boasting over 1 million hits, with a 4/10 Google Page Rank, Nash’s site certainly caters to an elite group of readers; “finance-fanboys,” as he calls them. Incredibly, his site also features a tab, labeled, “Coins,” for over enthusiastic Numismatists. (Phew!) If that’s not enough to make your socks roll up and down, take a whack at why Nash “loves timber as an asset class.”  I mean, where else on the Web are you going to find the words, love and timber used together in the same sentence?

Apparently, right here.

Bearing  some fairly bizarre results,  a Google Search of, “love, timber,” reveals that, aside from Nash’s entry, “I Love Timber” T-shirts for kids are available on the Web, and Country-Western singer, Patty Loveless has a song called, “Timber, I’m Falling in Love.”

Lumber aside, when it comes to economics, my only companion is, Leonard Read’s graceful essay on free market principles, called, 

I, Pencil

In celebration of Web-diversity, I strongly recommend, Psychohistory.

To contact Adam Nash: 

First, go to Harvard Business School, graduate, apply for a technology-based patent, purchase a premium LinkedIn subscription, make 1,000 connects with it, and then, drop him a line.