Raise your hand if you’re surprised about this….

Jay Carney with Joe Biden and Robert Gibbs

Lloyd Grove has a veeeerrrry interesting post up at The Daily Beast on Obama’s new press secretary Jay Carney. Unlike Robert Gibbs, who had easy access to the president, Carney doesn’t even report directly to Obama. According to Grove Carney

is expected to be far more responsive to the needs of his erstwhile colleagues than the sometimes flippant Gibbs. The 39-year-old Gibbs, a trusted Obama confidant since the latter’s 2004 Senate race, has experienced occasionally tense relations with press room regulars and is notorious for not returning phone calls.

Carney is a champ at returning phone calls.

But he’s not an Obama insider—hardly an advantage when toiling for an insular politician who is naturally wary of newcomers and relies on a tight circle of advisers and intimates. Some White House veterans, including at least one former presidential press secretary, worry that Carney won’t receive the necessary access to Obama, and other policymakers at key meetings, to speak from the podium with the authority that Gibbs unquestionably enjoyed.

Carney will report “to White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer, who in turn reports to senior presidential adviser David Plouffe,” according to this story in the Washington Post

With Carney’s appointment comes a major structural shift: All of the operations of the press and communications shops will move under the control of communications director Dan Pfeiffer. Previously, the press shop had reported to the press secretary. Carney will technically report to Pfeiffer, something of a downgrading of that role, although they are expected to function as equals.

Grove talked to Ron Nessen, Gerald Ford’s press secretary about the Carney appointment.

“If the press secretary is not reporting directly to the president, his boss, I think it’s going to be a disaster,” Nessen told me, adding that he made sure to meet with Ford every day at 11 a.m. for half an hour before briefing the press. “How can you accurately reflect the president’s thinking if you have to go through two layers? That was one of the conditions I made with Ford when I took the job—that I would have direct access to him, and that I could attend any meeting I wanted.”

Anne Compton, WH correspondant for ABC news also expressed doubts about the access Carney will have to Obama.

“I became suspicious when the president didn’t announce [Carney’s elevation]; Bill Daley did,” Compton told me, referring to the new chief of staff. “When Tony Snow came on, Bush announced it. When Scott McClellan left, Bush announced it. I think this time, it was stunning, and it was stunningly clear when the president did not make this announcement that the new press secretary will not be duplicating what Robert Gibbs has done for the past two years.”

Just exactly whom does President Obama deal with directly? I assume Axelrod was also a confidante, along with Gibbs, but they are leaving the WH. I know Valerie Jarrett is very close to Obama.

Anne Compton told the Daily Beast’s Grove that David Plouffe is the one who will be in meetings with Obama. So he’ll be briefing Dan Pfeiffer and then Carney will get everything from him?

It looks like Obama has decided to find a new way to give the press as little real information as possible. With Gibbs, it was dismissive, snarky treatment of press questions and refusal to return phone calls; with Carney, it will be friendly, responsive behavior, but little firsthand knowledge to share with the media.


8 Year Old Saudi Girl’s Message to Mubarak (Updated)

Check out Juju’s message to President Mubarak to the right. What a smart girl!

Mona Eltahawy:

When people want to know who’s in charge, and when people keep trying to ring the Islamists’ alarm bell, the people answer: “We’re in charge.”

The thousands of Egyptians braving the brutality of Mubarak’s security apparatus are having none of it. It’s about freedom and dignity for them, not about the dictator and the Islamists. It’s the West that’s hung up on that. And it’s hung up on it because for decades the West has sided with “stability” — which has come at the cost of the freedom and dignity of Egyptians, Tunisians and other Arabs.

More:

One of the main demands of the protests is an end to Mubarak’s rule. In presidential elections later this year, he was expected to seek a sixth term in office. I would sincerely love to see Mubarak go, and if he does, those Egyptians who smashed through fear must be the ones to decide who they want to replace him.

They don’t want a Mubarak-lite. They will not sacrifice their freedom and dignity so Western allies can feel better about Egypt — which means a future government must reflect all those Egyptians out there, day after day.

On the Palestine Papers… from the Christian Science Monitor:

Why Palestine papers didn’t spark outrage against Abbas’s government

But the Palestine papers published by Al Jazeera have further dented Abbas’s already low credibility, calling into question his ability to negotiate a lasting peace deal.

This is an Open Thread on Egypt, the Palestine Papers, and the rest of the Middle East…and whatever else is happening this Saturday evening.

To the left: A picture of the human wall protecting the Cairo museum, circulating on twitter.

Update

Stacyx has a brilliant post up calledEgypt: Democracy For Me But Not For Thee — she has said everything I’ve been thinking watching the Western media’s coverage and said it better than I could! Please go over and read the whole thing.

Teaser:

As I watch some of the coverage of what is going on in Egypt it’s interesting to see that some of the biggest supporters of “democracy” and “freedom” have now decided that maybe democracy isn’t such a good thing. At least not when it comes to Arabs.

It’s a rehashing of the theme of ‘Fear of a Muslim Planet’ and quite a few commentators I have seen or heard or read are now offering us all a false choice between a corrupt, oppressive dictatorship in Egypt and crazy, America-hating Islamists, as though there is nothing in between those two things. This is interesting because thus far the protesters in Egypt seem concerned with things like food prices, unemployment, repression, government corruption and nepotism, etc. as opposed to promoting Islamic fundamentalism. We’ve heard a lot about the Muslim Brotherhood in the media over the last two days and while I think that discussing any role they play in these protests or their aftermath is certainly very important, a lot of the commentary seems to be hyping a threat that really hasn’t manifested itself, at least as of yet.

Update II

From the Tahrir demonstrations:


CSM: “Inspired by Tunisia, Egypt’s protests appear unprecedented”

Egyptians protest in central Cairo today. Photograph: Khaled El Fiqi/EPA (Click image for live updates from the Guardian)

Good afternoon everyone. I wanted to put up a quick thread of the headlines and developments coming out of Egypt so we have a place for us to discuss and keep adding more links as they become available. It’s a true shame that Obama’s upcoming SOTU is driving so much of the news coverage today, not to mention a convenient distraction since “power to the people of the Middle East” doesn’t exactly fit the Western media’s narrative. Take a look at what is going on–it is simply incredible.

Guardian: “Protests in Egypt and unrest in Middle East – live updates”

CSM: “Inspired by Tunisia, Egypt’s protests appear unprecedented

NYT: “Broad Protests Across Egypt Focus Fury on Mubarak

BBC: “Egypt protests: Clashes in Cairo on ‘day of revolt’

BBC: “Anger of protesters in Cairo ‘surprised police‘”

BBC: “Egypt protests: Three reported dead in ‘day of revolt’

Twitter

Looks like censors are hard at work trying to stop the twitter revolution:

WaPo: “Twitter blocked in Egypt as protests turn violent (Video)

Heredict.org is tracking the reports of twitter outage in Egypt today (H/T Minkoff Minx who found the heredict.org link via the AFP’s report on the twitter blockage)

Live Tweets

Nonetheless, the revolution continues to be tweeted. Check out Blogs of War for live tweets (H/T Taylor Marsh)

Another good place to check for updates: Ahram online

via the WaPo link above — “Live updates: Opposition groups protest on Police DayAhram Online will be posting updates about planned protests by opposition activists in Cairo and elsewhere

Also, some links on Lebanon’s Day of Rage…

Guardian: “Lebanon protesters clash with army over new Hezbollah-backed PMSupporters of previous prime minister, Saad Hariri, clash with troops and burn tyres as Najib Miqati assumes office

Guardian: “Lebanon’s ‘day of rage’ – in pictures

NYT: “Amid Protests, Ex-Lebanon Leader Assails New Premier

And, on Tunisia…

LA Times: “Key diplomat says U.S. approves of Tunisia revoltJeffrey D. Feltman, assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs, says Washington has offered Tunisia ‘whatever support is appropriate and requested’ in conducting a nationwide election.

Update –Video on Cairo protests posted on youtube by Al Jazeera English a couple hours ago:

Update 2 — see the twitter/live tweet section above. I added some links.

Update 3 — Amazing Photo (Egypt, Jan 25) circulating on twitter:



CNN’s Extremist Shill

Where's the blood?

For some reason, the media has decided to respond to right wing outrage for perceived ‘liberal’ biases by allowing access to any one with a half truth to tell or some radical right viewpoint.  It’s one thing to air the views of a politician holding a public office–like Michelle Bachmann–whose grasp of reality, history, and science is demonstrably lacking, it’s completely another thing to hire and continually promote some one with extremist views and agendas.  This is especially true when it is for no other reason than to air a given view point in some perceived act of fairness when no equally extreme voice on the left exists any where on the network.  In fact, no equally extreme leftist voice exists in any media outlet.

Again, I say perceived fairness  because there is never a real left wing equivalent out there equal to the likes of Red State’s Erick Erickson.  If so, they’d have also hired at least some equivalent of Noam Chomsky or some one who is honestly liberal and honestly left wing.  The continued employment of  Erick Erickson goes beyond even the lowest standards set by the likes of the Buchanans.   He’s about one hyperbole short of Pat Robertson; but just barely.  The deal is that this guy is no Bob Novak or George Will conservative.  He’s an extremist and radical because he constantly advocates violence and uses revolutionary rhetoric.

Here at RedState, we too have drawn a line. We will not endorse any candidate who will not reject the judicial usurpation of Roe v. Wade and affirm that the unborn are no less entitled to a right to live simply because of their size or their physical location. Those who wish to write on the front page of RedState must make the same pledge. The reason for this is simple: once before, our nation was forced to repudiate the Supreme Court with mass bloodshed. We remain steadfast in our belief that this will not be necessary again, but only if those committed to justice do not waiver or compromise, and send a clear and unmistakable signal to their elected officials of what must be necessary to earn our support.

Size or physical location?   WTF kind of demented language is that? This man just made a call for women to be dehumanized into incubators, to have their liberty and privacy removed, and to have their personal religious viewpoints usurped by his own.  How can CNN justify maintaining the likes of Erickson without–minimally–giving air time to a Marxist which would be a leftie equivalent.  Bet yet, they need to fire him.

Nearly every one who has cracked a legitimate history book and read documents written by the founders knows that the basic ‘state’s rights’ vs. federal government’s rights was about slave ownership. The constitution was crafted carefully so that slave owning states could find enough leeway in the ‘state’s right provision’ to allow slavery.  That was  the purpose of the entire deal in a nutshell.  The 13th amendment was required to close that particular loophole.  The descendant’s of those folks that scream state’s rights now and limited constitutional authority support similar devious schemes that prevent key individuals from fully exercising their constitutional rights.  They used it for Jim Crow Laws until specific laws and SCOTUS findings closed the loophole.  They’ve extended its use to women’s bodies and medical treatment and relationship status for GLBT.  Erickson’s terminology of judicial usurpation is justification for involuntary servitude and seeks to deprive certain classes of people of their liberty.  That is radical.  How can CNN provide a safe harbor for a radical?

Any one who invokes the term ‘state’s right’s’ invariably is evoking the use of state laws to abridge  some one else’s liberties and freedoms.  Putting Erickson and his arguments on TV is like handing the public airways over to slave owners and folks that rationalized Jim Crow Laws.  He’s absolutely no different.  His outrageous positions are far out of the mainstream .  My guess is that CNN would never hire Noam Chomsky or socialist Brian Patrick Moore a seat for one segment, let alone an ongoing salaried position.  But Erickson not only uses radical language, he uses revolutionary language.  This makes him an extremist.

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Gaslighting America

Some people really do live in alternative realities.  A good deal of them are not confined to obscure blogs or city street blocks screaming things that people frankly know aren’t true.  However, if you manage to get yourself a show on Fox News and you get to repeat the lies day in and day out, people think some one may actually fact check you.  Critical masses of people can mistakenly believe the lies. Glenn Beck just keeps gaslighting America and a good number of people appear to be stupid enough to believe him.

I frankly can’t watch him.  He’s so obviously got issues that you wonder how he has managed to escape treatment for mental health problems.  I guess if you’re a gravy train, people will ride you no matter what. What really bothers me is that he actually does have an impact on some people.

Just ask an obscure 78 year old professor retired from CUNY, Frances Piven, who is receiving death threats because Beck’s decided that something she wrote 45 years ago has brought the “United States to its knees”.  It’s amazing to me what a really disturbed mind can self create.  Facts are abused out of necessity.  Beck seems to think if you just keep writing the same things and saying the same things over and over you can gaslight enough of the people enough of the time.  He manages to make a living and stay within the disturbed little bubble he’s created to rationalize his own failures.  He’s empowered by delusions and denial and paid very well for them.  Every thing that happens to Frances Piven as a result of his words is just one more symptom of poor little Beck.  It’s all about his suffering, his problems, his brilliance, and his deluded truth.

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