Trashy performance
AP Photo
The incident didn’t generate the media coverage that Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” earned at the Super Bowl in 2004, but rapper M.I.A. flipping off the camera during Madonna’s Super Bowl performance Sunday night is another indication that the halftime show is hardly family friendly. M.I.A. stomped her foot on a pedestal before she sang “I don’t give a s—” and gave the middle finger to the camera. NBC attempted to blur the obscene gesture, but was a millisecond too late. M.I.A. reportedly could be fined if the FCC decides to punish the network, but that’s unlikely. CBS was fined $550,000 for Jackson’s bare breast incident, but the verdict was overturned by an appeals court. The Parents Television Council noted that NBC and the NFL shouldn’t have been surprised by the gesture after hiring a lineup “full of performers who have based their careers on shock, profanity and titillation.” Perhaps the host network each year needs to run a disclaimer warning viewers that the halftime show is for mature audiences.
Too many debates
TV ratings continue to shrink for the Republican presidential debates. Is that any surprise? Nineteen, count them 19, debates have been staged so far, not including informal candidate forums. How many more of these Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney verbal showdowns can viewers stand? After peaking at 7.6 million viewers for a debate Dec. 10 on ABC, audiences mostly have been on the decline. The Jan. 26 debate from Jacksonville, Fla., reached 5.4 million viewers on CNN. However, the network isn’t complaining. That’s well above its 735,000 daily average. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, is among those who want to see the debates end. He said they have turned into mud-wrestling contests and are driving up negative impressions of the party’s candidates. Fortunately, viewers will get a break this month. The next debate isn’t scheduled until Feb. 22 from Mesa, Ariz.
Out on a limb
AP Photo/CareerBuilder.com
Budweiser’s Clydesdales, Coca-Cola’s polar bears and CareerBuilder.com’s chimpanzees have all achieved fame through Super Bowl commercials. If Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo were in charge of casting, however, the suit-and-tie-clad chimps would be in danger of losing their starring role. The zoo is campaigning to stop CareerBuilder from airing its scheduled commercial Sunday, claiming that the anthropomorphized portrayal of the endangered species will make viewers less concerned about wildlife conservation. The company has been featuring chimps in Super Bowl ads since 2005, but a new Duke University study has added fuel to the critics’ fire. The study’s leader, assistant professor of evolutionary anthropology Brian Hare, is especially worried that Africans will be misled and attempt to capture and sell the wild primates to Westerners as pets. We’ll go out on a limb and say that television viewers around the world are highly evolved enough to recognize the entertainment value of a commercial without going bananas, unlike the researchers.
Puppet court
Corruption trial puppets in cross-examination (AP Photo)
It’s “Sesame Street” meets the unseemly side of politics. With cameras barred from a high-profile corruption trial, a Cleveland, Ohio, television station has puppets acting out the steamy testimony about hookers, gambling and sexually transmitted diseases. In one scene, a furry hand stuffs cash down the shirt of a puppet prostitute. WOIO news director Dan Salamone brought up the idea of using the puppets to lampoon the trial and give a glimpse of what’s happening in the federal courtroom. Because cameras aren’t allowed, other stations have relied on artist sketches of the proceedings and videos of longtime Democratic power broker Jimmy Dimora walking into court. The puppets are in addition to the station’s regular coverage of Dimora’s trial. Although some people have criticized the station for blurring the lines between news and entertainment, Salamone defended the segments, saying it’s no different from when newscasts end with a lighter, humorous story. Oklahoma has its own share of trials that easily could be lampooned similarly.
New GOP chairman
You may have missed it Friday, but the Republican National Committee replaced Chairman Michael Steele with Reince Priebus, the former chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party. National GOPers are banking on Priebus to erase the party’s $22 million debt while simultaneously revving up the fundraising machinery for the 2012 election cycle — when political history’s most prodigious fund raiser, President Obama, will be leading the charge for Democrats. Some estimate Republicans will need to raise $400 million the next two years if they hope to retake the Senate and defeat Obama. That’s a lot of cabbage. Steele fell out of favor primarily because of fundraising problems, the national committee’s spending priorities and uncertain leadership with the rise of the Tea Party movement. One of Priebus’ challenges will be managing cooperation between the ideological cousins while restoring confidence in the GOP among some of its biggest donors. Priebus comes to the job having managed a Republican resurgence in the Badger State that toppled incumbent Democrat Sen. Russ Feingold and reclaimed the governor’s mansion last fall.
End the great divide?
Interesting thought from U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., concerning the State of the Union speech on Jan. 25. Instead of having Republicans sit on one side of the House chamber and Democrats on the other as they traditionally do, why not mix everyone up in a spirit of bipartisanship? Udall says he hopes such a seating arrangement will “begin to rekindle the common spark that brought us here from 50 different states and widely diverging backgrounds to serve the public good.” Sure, and they could start each day in Congress by singing “Kumbaya.” OK, that’s a little harsh. Udall’s suggestion certainly couldn’t hurt anything. Maybe if South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson were seated among a bunch of Democrats he wouldn’t blurt out “You lie!” while Obama is speaking, like he did during a 2009 address. Maybe a different seating chart really would foster greater cooperation. Maybe … nah!
Have a nice trip? Yuk, yuk, yuk
Is it really news when a big-name politician takes a prat fall — on stairs, boarding planes, etc.? Think about it: What is the “news” in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stumbling as she boarded her plane in Yemen the other day? That she’s clumsy, perhaps clumsier than the average person? Please. London’s Daily Mail newspaper had a full report on Hillary’s trip (har!), with several photographs — and, of course, video. Yep, Hillary ended up on her knees alright. So what? Most people can’t fathom how many flights the secretary takes, and most of the time she boards them using the old-fashioned mobile staircase instead of the passenger-friendly jet ways most people use — for the obligatory photo of her smiling and waving. Or in Yemen, stumbling. Hillary will have to be more careful. Back in the 1970s, President Ford had a run of missteps, caught on cameras, that fed into a media-driven perception that Ford was a klutz. No matter that Ford, a former University of Michigan football player, actually was well-coordinated. A few more false steps from Hillary and she’ll be peppered with cracks like the one from someone in Texas, logged into the Mail’s comments section: “She probably tripped over her ego.” Hilarious.
Shielded from the Tax Man
Timing is everything, even in death. The children of Elizabeth Edwards will pay no estate tax on the wealth their mother left them after succumbing to cancer Dec. 7, and they have Republicans to thank. The GOP was mostly responsible for getting the federal estate or death tax phased out as part of the Bush tax-cut package. For 2010 the death tax rate was zero. Because of when Edwards passed away, the $1.5 million estate she left Cate, Emma Claire and Jack won’t be subject to the death tax. According to the Raleigh News & Observer, Edwards likely has other assets in a trust for her children. No mention of estranged husband John in her will, to no one’s surprise — except maybe his.
Opposing the queen
Item: U.S. Rep. Dan Boren, D-Muskogee, was one of 19 Democrats who didn’t vote for Nancy Pelosi in Wednesday’s contest for House speaker. The vote itself was academic; John Boehner is speaker because Republicans outnumber Democrats in the new House 242-193. More significant is the strain within Democratic ranks, illustrated by the largest repudiation of a party’s candidate for speaker in nearly 90 years. As Chris Casteel reports in The Oklahoman, Boren’s vote was no surprise. He had told numerous town hall meetings last year he wouldn’t support Pelosi in the speaker’s vote, and he didn’t. “I kept my word,” he said, voting instead for North Carolina Democrat Heath Shuler.
A couple of points. As mentioned, there must be a number of unhappy campers in the Democratic cloakroom because Pelosi is still leading their parade — even more than were willing to oppose her publicly. (On the flip side, it’s amazing that a guy like Virginia Democrat Gerry Connolly, who eked out an 800-vote victory in November over an opponent he beat by 12 percentage points in 2008, still voted for Pelosi.)
As for Boren and others who defied her, wow! The old adage says you don’t take on the king (or queen, as it were) unless you’re sure you can knock ‘em off the throne. Pelosi’s still there. It’ll be interesting to see how they handle those awkward situations in the House elevators. Seriously, keep an eye on Boren and the others to see if Pelosi follows through with another old saying: Don’t get mad, get even.
Captain crunched
As tempting as it is to bemoan the Navy’s loss of an obviously capable officer — you don’t rise to the command of an aircraft carrier by being anything less than stellar — Capt. Owen Honors’ rapid defrocking over some reportedly coarse and sexually explicit videos in which he starred was necessary. Shipboard life is notoriously salty, and lots of USS Enterprise crew members probably laughed themselves silly to see Honors, the ship’s executive officer when the videos were made in 2006 and 2007, doing the things he did. Honors surely did it for the laughs. But now he’s a laughingstock, unceremoniously yanked from command of the Enterprise, which he’d held since May. Military leadership is a combination of intelligence, decisive analytical skills and charisma. But it’s also about judgment, and Capt. Honors’ dishonorable comportment showed he’s lacking in that department — which is why he’s contemplating a career out of uniform now.
