I never thought I'd enjoy a Presidential Inauguration as much as I did JFK's in 1960, when I was a kid and I saw it on a black-and-white television, but Barack Obama's today was every bit as good on the big color screen, and even more revolutionary. The son of an… Read full post »

According to Sam Stein in the Huffington Post, Sonia Sotomayor is "the odds-on favorite" to be chosen by Barack Obama to fill retiring Justice David Souter's seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. She now sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals of the Second Circuit in New York City. She is… Read full post »

I'm listening to Bobby Jindal - Governor of Louisiana - give the Republican response to Barack Obama's superb address to Congress and the American people tonight.

I've got to say that Jindal's speech - in delivery as well as content - is one the lamest "opposition" speeches I've ever heard any Republi… Read full post »

I saw this out of the corner of my eye on MSNBC earlier today, and couldn't believe my ears - a Republican speaking with dripping derision about "the outrage" of Obama "taking a 767 campaign plane to go visit Grandma." Keith Olbermann performed the important service of replaying and highlighting this… Read full post »

John McCain just called for postponing Friday's debate with Barack Obama, so that McCain's attention can be fully devoted to helping with our economic crisis.

I hope Obama rejects McCain's call for what it is: an attempt to take a breather from the campaign, because polls are beginning to turn against… Read full post »

I thought the high point - in terms of communication policy - of President Obama's press conference, just concluded, was his response to a jibe from CNN's Ed Henry about why Obama took a few days to express his outrage over the AIG bonuses. Obama's response: "It took us a couple… Read full post »

Amidst all the heat and abrasion of this Presidential campaign, and Sarah Palin bald-facedly lying yet again just today that Obama wants to "raise taxes," it was uplifting and conducive to civilization indeed to learn that author Christopher Buckley (son of William F. Buckley) had endorsed Obama, ten… Read full post »

I've got to say I have no respect for Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), who just withdrew as President Obama's Commerce Secretary nominee.

Gregg says he realized he couldn't be a team player in the Obama administration, much as he admired the President.

The truth, obviously, is something else: The Republicans… Read full post »

I enjoyed Barack Obama's online townhall meeting yesterday - the first ever, and a good thing for democracy, as have been so many other innovations in new media communication initiated in the Obama campaign and continuing now in his governance. (See my New New Media book, due out in September from… Read full post »

U.S. News and World Report reports that "The ratings for MSNBC's newest news show host are wildly impressive. Last week, her second on the air, Rachel Maddow pulled ahead of Larry King and even bested Keith Olbermann's Countdown a couple of nights."

I'm delighted, and not at all surprised. Maddow shin… Read full post »

Rod Blagojevich just announced that he won't resign as Governor of Illinois, and will fight the charges that Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald made against him.

I think that's for the good of the country - seriously. Our laws say that people accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty. Not… Read full post »

I've been saying for years that Shep Smith, who anchors the Fox Report on Fox News, is a class act. He did an heroic job - along Anderson Cooper of CNN, Geraldo Rivera of Fox News, and other reporters on the scene -- in holding the Bush government to account for… Read full post »

Did you see the Rachel Maddow Show tonight?

Talk about gall - and poor logic. Former Bush speechwriter David Frum, invited on the show to talk about his criticism of the McCain campaign for stirring up "fury" in the populace, took Maddow to task for contributing to the problem with her own… Read full post »

Not everyone is a fan of new media. Back in September 2004, Jonathan Klein, then a former CBS News exec, defended Dan Rather's 60 Minutes segment about George W. Bush's lack of National Guard service during the Vietnam War by observing that, "You couldn't have a starker contrast between the… Read full post »

I was unable to speak when I saw this real ballot in the Coleman-Franken Minnesota Sentate race on Chris Matthews' Hardball tonight...



Clearly, this Minnesota voter changed his or her vote from Al Franken to The Lizard People. Minnesota Public Radio today offered the following helpful details.… Read full post »

I think Howard Dean would make a great Secretary of Health and Human Services.

He's tough and compassionate. He understands the world of new media better than most - he was really the first Internet candidate in 2004, but was ahead of his time. YouTube and Twitter did not even exist back… Read full post »

Kudos to Senator Al Franken for bringing up the importance of the Internet and First Amendment today in his questions to Judge Sotomayor in her Senate confirmation hearings.

Franken asked Sotomayor if she agreed with the importance of keeping "the Internet the Internet" - or free, as it has been.

Sotom… Read full post »

The lesson of the JFK-Nixon Presidential debates is that what the candidates look like on stage - how they react, nonverbally, to their opponent's points - can be more important to voters than what they actually say.

Barack Obama clearly won on that important plank in the debate tonight. Obama was rel… Read full post »

I just saw Rachel Maddow's interview of Rod Blagojevich - I thought it was by far the best of the many I've seen on television the past few days.

The crux of at least one of the major issues was finally addressed in this interview. Rachel asked Blago what he meant when… Read full post »

Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's sexist attack on Salon editor Joan Walsh on MSNBC's Hardball last night - telling her, in response to her apt critique of Republican intransigence in responding to the economic crisis, that "I'm so damn glad you can never be my wife because I surely wouldn't… Read full post »

Another grim, outrageous, but not really surprising ruling on the First Amendment from the US Supreme Court today, which held 5-4 that fleeting or single-word expletives on broadcast television and radio shows could be fined millions of dollars.

A lower U.S. Appeals Court in New York had found the FCC… Read full post »

Reporters and commentators - for example, David Gergen on CNN last night - are falling all over themselves in an attempt to be fair about Sarah Palin's blank response to Charlie Gibson's question about the Bush Doctrine. Not just Sarah Palin has no knowledge of the Bush doctrine - so too… Read full post »

I posted my blog about Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman and Isaac Asimov in several other venues last night, including the Daily Kos, where a good discussion emerged about the impact of Asimov and his Foundation series. In the course of that discussion, a commentator - under the name of "thatvision… Read full post »

I was just looking for a few minutes at MSNBC. You know what they were reporting? Nothing, really. From 6-8PM, and who knows how much longer today, MSNBC had on its canned "Caught on Camera," with footage of events that happened years ago.

Over on CNN, Wolf Blizter in the Situation Room… Read full post »

Gotta love this ... Here's Al Franken, back in the 1980s, doing a super fine Mick Jagger, singing "Under My Thumb" ... Tom Davis, Franken's Saturday Night Live partner, is on stage playing Keith Richards and his face and guitar, too...

Good to know there's that kind of talent coming to the… Read full post »