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24 Jan 2011 01:26

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Politics: Max Headroom: Andrew Wakefield denies autism study fraud

  • The autism/vaccine guy speaks out: In recent weeks, Andrew Wakefield’s name, already synonymous with a questionable autism study from over a decade ago, has been dragged through the mud further amid reports that the report is an elaborate fraud. He still stands behind his study, claims the reporting of Brian Deer was completely, utterly wrong, and emphasizes that he did not personally profit off the study as reported. Credit to Alisyn Camerota, who hits him pretty hard with questions the whole way through. It’s weird that this interview isn’t getting much attention at the moment. (Note: He said he was going to upload some proof to his blog, but we see absolutely nothing new there.)
  • Shouting at your laptop If you’re like us and do searches on newsworthy political topics on YouTube every once in a while, you might run into this guy. This guy, a conservative, likes yelling really quickly. it’s his whole schtick. Here, he’s yelling about Keith Olbermann. He’s like a combination of Billy Mays (God rest his soul) the Micro Machines guy, and Rush Limbaugh. Mostly Rush.
  • Backed into a birther corner On “Meet the Press,” our boy David Gregory was chattin’ up our good friend Eric Cantor, basically trying to get him to say something bad about birthers. Cantor, eventually realizing that he couldn’t weasel out of Gregory’s line of questioning, gave him a half-answer on the question. Honestly, Cantor was right the first time. Why are we talking about this still?

30 May 2010 23:27

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Politics: Max Headroom: Dr. Uncomfortable is ready to see you


  • Never discuss this again On Fox News today, this doctor discusses how women’s sexual desires go down as a result of taking birth control pills. The awkward silence at the end, just a second or so, feels like 20 minutes.

  • playing politicsThe Obama/Joe Sestak thing is kind of annoying because it happens often enough that calling people out for it is lame, but you expect more from Obama. At least this “Meet The Press” panel does.

  • Not a man from NantucketJames Carville sounds like the angriest human being alive in claiming that the entire federal government would’ve helped if the oil spill happened in Nantucket. We’re trying not to rhyme.

24 May 2010 11:12

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Politics: Rand Paul not exactly getting ripped by Kentucky’s local news

  • Nice find by The Atlantic. Rand Paul may be getting trashed on by the Washington establishment, but local coverage in Louisville seems to not be critical of him at all. This is WAVE, the NBC affiliate in the area. They actually seem to have gotten an interview with David Gregory, too. Too bad they wasted it on boilerplate reporting. source

23 May 2010 21:58

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Politics: Max Headroom: How pundits handled Rand Paul’s various fails


  • Canceled meetingThis summation that opened up “Meet the Press” kinda says it all. Paul said a lot of controversial stuff and then backed away when the spotlight got too hot. Gregory had a lot of questions to ask.

  • Sam Donaldson’s slam We forgot about this dude, and how awesome he can be at times. The way he pronounces “Maddow.” The way he takes Paul to task. “He didn’t say yes, but he didn’t say no, either.” Ow, that stings.

  • Maddow’s a “TV character”Sarah Palin suggests that Rachel Maddow was using Rand Paul’s appearance to make him sound stupid. To some degree, likely true. This doesn’t explain his comments about regulating BP on Friday.

18 Apr 2010 23:26

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Politics: Max Headroom: Geraldo’s unlikely lifeline? Mike Huckabee

  • Geraldo nearly killed Bizarro Hippie Express chairman Mark Williams was on Fox News’ “Geraldo at Large” talking about extremism in the movement, except in reality, he was on the air to rail on Geraldo Rivera (he even calls him out for his yellow journalism!). Mike Huckabee looks like an unfortunate bystander to this trainwreck.

  • Clinton on extremism Earlier this weekend, Bill Clinton said some stuff about extremism that suggested another Timothy McVeigh could come out of the bizarro hippie movement. It drew a lot of scorn from the right. This clarification during ABC’s “This Week” makes his position sound entirely reasonable.
  • colbert on fact-checking We love this clip for three reasons: First, it name-checks journalism smart guy Jay Rosen (one of our smart people we love reading on our iPad); second, it makes a reasonable suggestion for fact-checking Sunday shows; and third, it holds David Gregory’s feet to the fire for not doing so.

10 Jan 2010 22:49

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Politics: Max Headroom: Ahnold still feels aftershocks from “True Lies”


  • RNC VS. DNC: RAWR On “Fox News Sunday,” pretty much the only news show worth watching nowadays if you’re being sarcastic, DNC chair Tim Kaine and RNC chair Michael Steele took on the Harry Reid thing. And they both answered as you’d expect, really. Michael Steele comes off as a douche.

  • Painting: terminated When California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger speaks, paintings fall down. Was it perhaps a result of the aftershock of speaking to the effervescent David Gregory, or maybe the Eureka quake last night? Either way, we’re freaking amused, just like David Gregory.

  • Bad point, bob A week ago, we were giving CBS’ “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer credit for making a pretty spot-on point about the political echo chamber. How does he follow up? Well, by talking about what we could learn from dogs. Uh, WHAT?@! This is an e-mail chain letter.

16 Aug 2009 22:20

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Politics: Max Headroom: Sick of talking about health care yet?

  • Not so public Kathleen Sebelius, the Health and Human Services Secretary, spent her morning trying to explain to John King how the single-payer public option wasn’t needed to reform health care.

  • Not so public Kathleen Sebelius, the Health and Human Services Secretary, spent her morning trying to explain to John King how the single-payer public option wasn’t needed to reform health care.

  • AARPing biased Fox News stacked the deck against Obama in this interview with an AARP leader on whether they support his health care plan, prefacing it with a slanted two-minute introduction.

  • Not so public Kathleen Sebelius, the Health and Human Services Secretary, spent her morning trying to explain to John King how the single-payer public option wasn’t needed to reform health care.

  • AARPing biased Fox News stacked the deck against Obama in this interview with an AARP leader on whether they support his health care plan, prefacing it with a slanted two-minute introduction.

  • Captain obvious Usually-bright journalist David Gregory was on “Meet the Press” this morning analyzing the health care debate, saying it’s gotten away from Obama. No, really bro? Duh. Way to call it, man.