I think we could find plenty of photogenic people for our Intertubes News Show. I'm actually pretty cute, fwiw.

That's nice to know, but it's beside the point I was trying to make, which is that if the #1 thing that a news medium has going for it is that it's peerless at providing tasty eye candy, it's inherently untrustworthy.

Don Henley got all polemical about this in one of his songs, about 25 years ago. So did Frank Zappa, about 10 years before that. And while I've never met anyone who disagreed with the observations and conclusions contained in "Dirty Laundry" or "I'm The Slime", I notice that most everyone is still spending many hours a week, fitting their minds inside of that Box.

I no longer live in a television household, but for the past three years I did. I only watched it occasionally, but that experience was sufficient for me to conclude that a steady diet of today's television advertisements is liable to lead a huge proportion of the unfortunate victims to chronic hypochondria, if not outright premature aging.

I may not be as downright intolerably handsome as I used to be, but there's no point in hastening matters along. Call it vanity, but I'm back to keeping my television exposure to a minimum.

I miss DCLaw1. Don Henley does the Henry David Thoreau Foundation/Library. They have a nice web? I met Don Henley. Big deal. But he's just as 'normal' as any cabbie. The cabbie can take you to visit Walden.

Ask the cabbie?

It's the same location where Walden Pond is... of course there is development. Thoreau wrote `Life in the Woods, 'Civil Disobedience, and Lawyer Ghandi was inspired about: `passive resistance, etc.,

Will Bunch:

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/Barack_on_torture.html

Monday, April 14, 2008
Obama would ask his AG to "immediately review" potential of crimes in Bush White House

Tonight I had an opportunity to ask Barack Obama a question [...] The question was inspired by a recent report by ABC News, confirmed by the Associated Press, that high-level officials including Vice President Dick Cheney and former Cabinet secretaries Colin Powell, John Ashcroft and Donald Rumsfeld, among others, met in the White House and discussed the use of waterboarding and other torture techniques on terrorism suspects. [...]

[...] Here's his answer, in its entirety:

What I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my Attorney General immediately review the information that's already there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued. I can't prejudge that because we don't have access to all the material right now. I think that you are right, if crimes have been committed, they should be investigated. You're also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt because I think we've got too many problems we've got to solve.

So this is an area where I would want to exercise judgment -- I would want to find out directly from my Attorney General -- having pursued, having looked at what's out there right now -- are there possibilities of genuine crimes as opposed to really bad policies. And I think it's important-- one of the things we've got to figure out in our political culture generally is distinguishing betyween really dumb policies and policies that rise to the level of criminal activity. You know, I often get questions about impeachment at town hall meetings and I've said that is not something I think would be fruitful to pursue because I think that impeachment is something that should be reserved for exceptional circumstances. Now, if I found out that there were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws, engaged in coverups of those crimes with knowledge forefront, then I think a basic principle of our Constitution is nobody above the law -- and I think that's roughly how I would look at it.

- - Barack Obama 04/14/2008

- - Posted by Will Bunch

* * * * *

John Dean:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28002772

'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Wednesday November 26, 2008

OLBERMANN: This is not that complicated. A, the Bush administration has acknowledged it waterboarded some terror detainees. B, even John McCain acknowledged that waterboarding is torture, therefore C, the Bush administration tortured people. [...] As for what President-Elect Obama will do as president, he's not expected to pursue criminal charges or take high level investigations in the absence of specific new evidence but he is said to consider a 9/11 style commission [...] Time now to call in John Dean, White House counsel in the Nixon administration, columnist now at findlaw.com. And also the author of "Broken Government" and "Worse than Watergate." Good evening, John.

JOHN DEAN, NIXON WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: Good evening, Keith.

OLBERMANN: Are you surprised by the president-elect's idea of this commission? Does it seem that it's treating this issue a little academically?

DEAN: Frankly, I am. I'm not sure it's academic the way they're thinking about it. It's clearly contrary to what we talked about earlier in a prior broadcasts how he told Will Bunch earlier this year, that immediately upon becoming president if he were elected, he would have his attorney general investigate this very question as to whether these war crimes are just stupid policies or very serious and egregious crimes. A commission is far away from that. A commission is passing the buck. And I've got to tell you also, Keith, in the unraveling of Watergate, we had many high level discussions about how to make it all go away without anybody having liability. We considered many times a commission.

- - John Dean, with Keith Olbermann, 11/26/2008

Candidate Obama, 4/14/2008 (as quoted by Will Bunch):

"I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt."

* * * * *

Obama more or less admitted, back in April, that, it was up to THE REPUBLICANS to decide whether or not it was okay to investigate the GWB White House.

...We on the right notice such things as high level Clinton advisors (Stephanopolous) anchoring the ABC news. How about the proposal that Karl Rove do the same at CBS? Naturally the former is business as usual for Glenn, while the latter would produce apoplexy. -- shooter242

I rather doubt he would see them differently for the reasons that your implying. But, there are very good reasons to see them differently, nonetheless.
These 2 men are not comparable political actors. Rove was a highly successful, highly feared Republican operative/hatchet man for years before he joined the Bush administration. Stephanopoulos was..... a very young man with exceptionally good hair for years before he joined the Clinton administration. They have very different histories. If Stephanopoulos has a record of leaving shattered careers in his wake... this is the first I've heard of it.

I'd be damned surprised if Glenn were real hot on the presence of either of these spinmeisters in high or influential positions in our national newsmedia -- but complaints against Rove can be made on sound grounds that don't hold for Stephanopoulos.

Having said that.... when has Glenn said much about either of these strange fruits of modern American politics?