Breaking: Brit Hume's Christmas Gift Bag for Tiger

A warm welcome to folks coming here from USA Today:

The golf ball rosary.

Really, there are no words.

Brit Hume, who as you know won my never-ending "thank you for being you" award for labeling Michelle Obama as "possibly an arch-liberal," now thinks out loud that Tiger Woods should convert to Christianity, because that religion offers the best deal to get out of Hell free.

I was really bothered by Countdown last night, though, because to address this issue Keith Olbermann had on Dan Savage, who is a terrific writer on sex advice and gay issues. He also apparently has theology training, but admits he is not a Christian. But what bothers me is that Savage asked Keith "where are the liberal Christians speaking out against this?" Savage is absolutely right that Brit Hume is insulting Christianity and Christians by offering Tiger Woods an "easy" way to get his mojo back.



There are lots of liberal Christians who would likely "speak out" on this, if Keith Olbermann wanted to pick up the phone. Olbermann has had on his show in the past Reverend C. Welton Gaddy and Reverend Barry Lynn. There are people at Street Prophets he could have called, or he could have pissed off the street prophets and called Jim Wallis. Olbermann, if it is a particularly slow news night and he needed to fill in a few minutes, could probably have signed Reverend Jesse Jackson to come on in and recite a few couplets on the occasion:

That twice married Mister Hume
About Tiger's soul should not presume
We all know every Christian falls
When their clubs decide where they drop their balls.

One of, certainly not the only, reasons the right has "hijacked" Christianity is that their antics make for much better television than reasonable people's.

Really, Mister Olbermann, there's no reason for Dan Savage to ask you "where are the liberal Christians on this" when those very Christians are listed in your intern's Rolodex.


Rosary and statue from here.

Chris, darling! It's not enough that we bloggers are some of the very few people in the entire media dating pool who can tolerate your indiscretions. We're dazzled by your encylopedic political mind, even when you let Pat Buchanan catch a ride with us to the dance. And such a Valentine on the Charlie Rose show last night! I'll bet you say that to all the girls...

Matthews: This is really deep Charlie. I think that I'm not absolutely sure of myself on issues. I know that my opinion, and I know that other people that I have different ones. And I feel like ending every show with not everything I say can be wrong. I mean I do think it's possible everything I said is wrong. I have a very strange view.

Some of the bloggers jumped on me. And this is what I think explains what some people think about me. When we first went into Iraq...

Rose: What do you think they think about you?

Matthews: Well they don't quite get me. They, I'm first of all a grown up and they resent that, but secondly, and also, I have a job...they don't like that either. That's really going to fester them with anger. But when we first went into Iraq and when they set it up this way or not and whether or not Mike Deaver still had his hand in this or not, you know like it all looked good, they all tore down the statues and everything looked great, I thought you know I've been dead wrong about this.

Rose: At that point everything was great.

Matthews: I thought I was wrong, but I thought it was good for the country.

Are you this subtle in the backseat of a car? Nothing about the lies leading up to war, the fact that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. We're taking down statues in a country that does NOT have WMD's or yellowcake or Osama Bin Missin' but at the time it sure felt good to you? On behalf of the country? Great foreplay, and then you rip my bra off and tell me I'm not a grown-up but you are, I don't have a "job" but you do? And THAT'S why I'm festering with anger?

Chris, that tingle up your leg is my 800,000 volt keychain date rape stun gun. I'll take a cab home.

h/t Heather for the transcript.

Pat Buchanan opens my eyes. No, Really.

Pat Buchanan doesn't like the apparent casual nature of Barack Obama's presidency. And before I join Chris Matthews in a knee-jerk giggle to the old Latin-Mass lover, I think he has a point. I made this video, which, I'm sure, Pat Buchanan has watched many times just so he can boogie to the Ting Tings:



But watching Pat catch flak for his opinion made me think a bit more about why Obama has made the choice to make the presidency more informal. It runs deeper than just appealing to young people. I was on a train in the past two weeks and gawd, are those college students today addicted to their I-phones. That's obvious, but what are they doing with them? Texting friends. People they choose to be in touch with electronically.

I've noticed a change in my own internet behavior in the past two months. I'm writing this at 2:27 in the afternoon, and true story--I have not checked my actual email inbox today yet. I have email notification and watched the messages as they have come in, but I haven't actually opened and read a single one yet.

But I have read my tweets. And sent out two myself.

You guys know I'm a Twitter believer. But I have come to see that the big bulletin board of people I WORK with on the blogs is the real essential part of my day, more than even email. Therefore, I can't imagine giving up a larger portion of my life to text messaging. Good god, how do people with those little devices ever get anything else done? (I can testify that on a train they don't.)

If Barack Obama is going to tap into the political power of the Iphone/Twitter/text generation, he has to be desirable enough on that level that he will be let into that world. It's a scary and very predictable thing that in a world awash in information, we are all becoming that selective in what kind of information we allow onto our screens.

Is it going too far to say that Obama has to be the kind of President who is also a Facebook Friend in order to have his voice heard? Excellent question, Mister Buchanan, but no matter how we answer:


kthxbye