It seems like the same songs make the list of top 4th of July music each year. Current TV's Sergio puts them in context. I especially liked the part [/sarcasm]about the Toby Keith song where the soldiers stomp and cheer and go totally wild as he belts out:

You'll be sorry you messed with the U.S. of A.
Cause we'll put a boot in your as*, it's the American Way

He also points out the critical verse in Springsteen's "Born in the USA" [More...]

Fox News says it's official. The LA Times says it's under discussion.

There will be a massive public tribute to Michael Jackson at the Staples Center Tuesday at 10:00 a.m.

People are grumbling about the security costs. How about if everyone who ever enjoyed a Michael Jackson song kicks in $1.00. Wouldn't that cover it?

So the Washington Post has scrapped its full monty pay for play scheme. But it is important to remember that the business of Traditional "journalism" now is in fact favorable coverage in exchange for access - which can be just as pernicious. A couple of days ago, Bob Somerby linked to this June 3 Digby piece on Richard Wolffe, the fellow covering the Obama campaign while at the same time writing a book about it. Digby cited this Wolffe quote:

“The idea that journalists are somehow not engaged in corporate activities is not really in touch with what’s going on. Every conversation with journalists is about business models and advertisers,” he said, recalling that, on the day after the 2008 election, Newsweek sent him to Detroit to deliver a speech to advertisers. “You tell me where the line is between business and journalism,” he said.

More . . .

UPDATE: WaPo response below the fold.

Mike Allen of Politico actually has a blockbuster story about the total lack of journalistic ethics at the Washington Post:

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it’s a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff."

Frankly, this is simply incredible. Dana Milbank of the WaPo; he of the hissy fit over Nico Pitney asking a question at an Obama presser should have some comment on this. More . . .

I find it amusing and ironic that the great "centrist" law professor Cass Sunstein is getting roughed up by Fox for advocating for animal rights.

His nomination is being held up by Sen. Saxby Chambliss. I hope Sunstein is not expecting us "wild eyed Lefties" to go to bat for him. I sure won't.

Speaking for me only

Andrew Sullivan seems to be sitting out the health care reform debate this year (he's on a new Palinpalooza Tour right now), but we should never forget what he did to the debate in 1994, actions that reverberate to this day. d-day writes:

Unlike in 1994, when The New Republic allowed an abominable article by Betsy McCaughey to codify the Villager mindset on health care, this year they have one of the brightest wonks in the business, Jon Cohn, driving their coverage.

True enough. But d-day fails to mention who was running TNR in 1994 - Andrew Sullivan. Oh btw, he also pushed The Bell Curve into respectability and defends it to this day. Sully has a lot to answer for (see also his Fifth Column stuff, Luskin love, Gore hate and Krugman bashing).

Speaking for me only

In honor of Chuck Todd, I am announcing a new feature for the upcoming Sotomayor confirmation hearings - any acknowledgment in the Traditional Media that the Gang of 5 conservatives on the Roberts Court are judicial activists. Here is today's addition, from the New York Times Editorial page:

On another point, the ruling underscored the emptiness of the “judicial activist” label that Republicans like to use in debates over nominees to the federal courts, including Judge Sotomayor. In the firefighters’ case, she actually refused to second-guess the city’s decision — an act of judicial restraint. It was the court’s conservatives, including Chief Justice John Roberts, who voted to overturn the decision of an elected government.

(Emphasis supplied.) Half a demerit to Adam Liptak:

Eric Boehlert writes:

Kristol writes:

Here’s a highlight of Purdum’s reporting: “More than once in my travels in Alaska, people brought up, without prompting, the question of Palin’s extravagant self-regard. Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of ‘narcissistic personality disorder’ in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders . . . Is there any real chance that "several" Alaskans independently told Purdum that they had consulted the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders? I don’t believe it for a moment.

[MORE . . .]

What's funny about that clip? Joe Scarborough acts as if the phrase has never been said before. Of course he never heard it applied to judicially activist conservative jurists before. He was nonplussed. Pretty funny. Good job Chuck Todd!!

Speaking for me only

Doug Kendall writes today:

In an unbelievable post today, Wendy Long of the ironically-named Judicial Confirmation Network claims that the Supreme Court's bitterly divided 5-4 ruling in Ricci v. DeStefano was actually a 9-0 slap in the face to Judge Sotomayor . . .

But that is what one would expect from Wendy Long. And sadly, now that is what one expects from Stuart Taylor, Jr.. But this is the road Taylor has chosen to travel for a long time. For some reason he is treated as a serious legal journalist - with perches at the National Journal and Newsweek.

Rather than wondering what they are doing embracing blatant judicial activism by the Gang of 5, Taylor and his Limbaughian "Lunatic Fringe" cohorts are too busy disingenuously distorting Justice Ginsburg's dissent in Ricci (just weeks before this same lunatic fringe was complaining that Justice Ginsburg was "endorsing" Judge Sotomayor.) Even Fred Hiatt's crew decried the judicial activism of the Ricci majority, in an editorial that stated the Gang of 5 had "Flunked the Test":

Today WaPo gets rid of its best columnist Dan Froomkin. I do not always agree with Froomkin (his column yesterday on Afghanistan for instance, I support President Obama's policies on Afghanistan), but his column was essential reading. Today Froomkin writes:

I started my column in January 2004, and one dominant theme quickly emerged: That George W. Bush was truly the proverbial emperor with no clothes. . . . The ensuing five years and 1,088 columns really just fleshed out that portrait, describing a president who was oblivious, embubbled and untrustworthy.

When I look back on the Bush years, I think of the lies. There were so many. Lies about the war and lies to cover up the lies about the war. Lies about torture and surveillance. Lies about Valerie Plame. Vice President Dick Cheney's lies, criminally prosecutable but for his chief of staff Scooter Libby's lies. I also think about the extraordinary and fundamentally cancerous expansion of executive power that led to violations of our laws and our principles.

(Emphasis supplied.) To his credit (after all, Froomkin is looking for a job now), Froomkin points the finger at the Media:

People continue to gather at the UCLA medical center, at Michael Jackson's rented residence in Bel-Air and at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem.

Janet Jackson's spokesman says she's devastated and flying back to California from a pre-filming location. The autopsy is scheduled for tomorrow.

How terrible has tonight's television coverage been? I recap here. As for some of the better coverage, see below: [More...]