After writing that "[AIG's] remaining $1.6 trillion derivatives portfolio is like one of those delicate, world-destroying time bombs that James Bond used to have to disarm in the movies; the difference here is that the only people who appear to be knowledgeable enough to dismantle the bomb are the ones who built it[,]", the WaPo Ed Board admits "[l]ike most of the people writing about AIG, we have no idea whether this threat is empty."

Ever wonder why the Washington Post exists? In any event, a new slogan for the WaPo -- "We have no idea."

Speaking for me only

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is the latest casualty in what seems like a never-ending stream of newspaper failures. Today is its final issue.Unlike the Rocky Mountain News, it will continue as an online publication.

What's next -- the San Francisco Chronicle or the Miami Herald? Both have been struggling and it seems like newspaper closings are but a sign of the times. [More...]

When the Rocky Mountain News went under, many of the reporters who were left without a job banded together online at I Want My Rocky and kept reporting.

Today they held a press conference. They have some capital (from three Denver entrepreneurs) and will launch an online paper May 4, provided they get 50,000 paying subscribers by April 23.

The proposed publication would be called InDenverTimes.com. Subscriptions will be available on a tiered-rate system, with 12-month subscriptions priced at $4.99 a month, six months for $5.99 a month and three months for $6.99 a month.

News will be free to all, but the other features will require a subscription. [More...]

Here's what's going on that I haven't had time to write about:

• Janet Napolitano says we're going to be more involved in the war against the Mexican drug gangs. Coming soon:

  Ms. Napolitano indicated there would be more so-called outbound enforcement: checking people and vehicles leaving the U.S. to see if they are carrying contraband. She said those efforts wouldn't hamper the job of stopping illegal immigration into the U.S.

• The New Mexico Legislature votes to abolish death penalty. Law Prof Doug Berman notes a peculiarity -- that if repealed, it may not apply to the two already on death row.

This story has been going the blog rounds. This is the part that stood out for me:

Julie Mason, a White House correspondent and blogger for The Washington Examiner [and a former White House reporter for The Houston Chronicle, said] yes, news consumers care about the minutiae[.] “When I talk to normal people, they want to know what these people are really like away from the camera,” she said.

Let me put it this way Ms. Mason, you are not talking to "normal people" if they care what Bob Bauer and Anita Dunn are "really like." They are not normal people if they KNOW who Bob Bauer and Anita Dunn are. (No offense intended to the "powerful" Bauer couple.)

Speaking for me only

Via Paul Rosenberg, this is an interesting call for class warfare from Newt Gingrich:

Mr. Gingrich said today that there were "socialists" on many newspaper editorial boards, and he suggested that businesses reconsider advertising in papers that oppose their views. "I think it's perfectly legitimate in a free society for people to decide where they'll put their money and their impact," he said in an interview on the Fox television network.

I happen to think it is perfectly legitimate too. I think it would be absolutely imbecilic for corporations to do this -- they would be inviting themselves to be targets of retaliatory boycotts. In short, they will not do it imo. They'll try to influence politics in more traditional ways (by contributing, through individuals and lobbyists of course, to political canmpaigns.) But I would find it rather hypocritical of the Right to not denounce Gingrich's statements in light of their constant cries of "censorship" from the Left. I expect that I will hear crickets from the Right on this.

Speaking for me only

d-day points us to this tripe from Howard Fineman on Tweety's show, proving yet again that the Media does not understand economics:

Fineman: it's not only depressing it's counterproductive because if the new mantra is that we have to live within our means then congress has to do it too and we all have to pitch in, there has to be some . . . real hard choices made. The president keeps saying we're going to have to make hard choices. Which choices are they and how is the congress making them?

(Emphasis supplied.) It is really amazing that these fools continue to expose their unwillingness to try and understand the most rudimentary economics. The United States and the world are in an economic spiral now because aggregate demand had dropped precipitously. Since interest rates are at the lower zero bound, the only way to raise aggregate demand now is by government spending. Indeed, we need massive government spending. And here these fools are obsessed with "earmarks" (obviously they learned economics from "Don't know much about economics" John McCain. It is a disgrace.

Speaking for me only

I wrote that I would not touch upon Cramerama again but Glenn Greenwald wrote such a good post that I can not avoid it. Glenn writes:

Today, everyone -- including media stars everywhere -- is going to take Stewart's side and all join in the easy mockery of Cramer and CNBC, as though what Stewart is saying is so self-evidently true and what Cramer/CNBC did is so self-evidently wrong. But there's absolutely nothing about Cramer that is unique when it comes to our press corps. The behavior that Jon Stewart so expertly dissected last night is exactly what our press corps in general does -- and, when compelled to do so, they say so and are proud of it.

At least give credit to Cramer for facing his critics and addressing (and even acknowledging the validity of) the criticisms. By stark contrast, most of our major media stars simply ignore all criticisms of their corrupt behavior and literally suppress it (even if the criticisms appear as major, lengthy front-page exposés in The New York Times).

More . . .

But in my neck of the woods--New Orleans--Douthat will be remembered for coining the phrase "Welfare Duchess" to describe a New Orleans woman named Sharon Jasper who was living in subsidized housing and who happened to be photographed in her apartment with a big screen TV.

A few commenters nailed Douthat for the stupid, and frankly racist, remark. "Here's the double-bind," wrote one commenter, "If Sharon Jasper keeps her apartment clean and attractive and decorates it with flowers she's a crooked welfare queen, cynically scamming the Hell out of the sweaty, put-upon, hard workin', tax payin', David Duke votin' white Louisianans. Conversely if she'd let it degenerate into a filthy mess, she'd be a typical slum-dwelling black: a sub-human savage who doesn't even deserve to live indoors." [More...]

Glenn Greeenwald writes about the Freeman Affair, pointing out this bizarre Fred Hiatt tirade in defense of AIPAC:

What's striking about the charges by Mr. Freeman and like-minded conspiracy theorists is their blatant disregard for such established facts. . . . Crackpot tirades such as his have always had an eager audience here and around the world.

Fred Hiatt ought to know about the market for crackpot conspiracy theories. After all, he publishes Charles Krauthammer and George Will. But what it truly ironic is that in this very edition of the WaPo, the "crackpot theory" Hiatt derides is supported by the reporting of Walter Pincus and is "disseminated" by the "Dean" himself, David Broder. Hiatt writes that Freeman's "tirade" makes it "clear just how bad a selection" Freeman was. Perhaps. But it has long been clear that Fred Hiatt is an embarrassment to the Washington Post.

Speaking for me only

In his skewering of Howard Fineman, who has been getting blasted all over, the part I really liked was Jamison Foser's "Cramering" of Fineman, pulling out Fineman's past political pronouncements like this one in 2005:

[I]n a roomful of well-connected Democrats the other night, I was struck by how gloomy they were. They can’t stand Bush, but didn’t have much faith in their own party’s prospects. Why? Well, some of the reasons they articulated are short-term and tactical; some are purely personal; others more philosophical; and I have a few myself . . .

Two Democratic landslides wins later, that column looks pretty stupid. Even better, as Foser notes, one of the most laughable Fineman assertions was that the GOP had an insurmountable advantage in political "star power," ticking off "Rudy, Arnold, Condi and Colin." Heh. Fineman's lucky there is no tape. It could be his "buy Bear Stearns" moment.

Speaking for me only

An interesting defense actually:

The notion that President Obama has lurched to the left since his inauguration and is governing as an unreconstructed liberal is bunk. . . . [T]he Obama Justice Department backstopped the Bush Justice Department's assertion of the state secrets privilege to block lawsuits challenging wiretapping and extraordinary rendition. The administration argued that prisoners in Afghanistan cannot challenge their detention in court. It leaned on the British government to keep evidence of alleged torture secret. "Hope is flickering," lamented Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

She does sort of call him a socialist on economic matters but salves the charge by saying it is what he promised during the campaign.

Speaking for me only