Powers on Palin

By Jennifer J. Foster

Kirsten Powers demonstrates in her column in today’s New York Post why she is one of the smartest, most able strategists on either side of the aisle.

Powers makes frequent appearances on Fox News Channel and writes this regular column for the Post. Although she is a Democratic strategist, she is one of those rare finds in partisan punditry, especially on TV: Her analysis is not bound by her political affiliation. She applies an even hand to her observations, and she is known to “speak truth to power.“ Just as she won’t hesitate to condemn Republican philosophies, she won’t hesitate to say so if the Democrats are doing something she thinks is dumb.

Today’s column, titled “How Obama blew it,“ is a perfect example.

Powers examines the strategic errors Barack Obama’s campaign has made with regard to Sarah Palin—and how the campaign is paying for those errors in the polls.

I highly recommend this column. It takes fewer than 10 minutes to read, but its insight will be with you all the way to Nov. 4.

In addition to plugging the column, Tom Bevan of Real Clear Politics provides three helpful examples to illustrate the kind of bone-headed commentary to which Powers refers in her column.

(Surprise: One of the examples involves Keith Olbermann.)

Treat yourself to Powers’ column—then have fun showing up your colleagues during your Political Minute at the water cooler tomorrow.

Really bad news for competitive cyclists

By Jennifer J. Foster

Cycling journal VeloNews reports that Lance Armstrong is planning to end his retirement to make a run at an incomprehensible eighth Tour de France title.

Need a refresher on this unbelievable athlete? From Wiki:

He won the Tour de France a record-breaking seven consecutive years, from 1999 to 2005. He is the only individual to win seven times, having broken the previous record of five wins, shared by Miguel Indurain (consecutive) and Bernard Hinault, Eddy Merckx and Jacques Anquetil. He has survived testicular cancer, a germ cell tumor that metastasized to his brain and lungs, in 1996. His cancer treatments included brain and testicular surgery and extensive chemotherapy, and his prognosis was originally poor.

In other words, instead of dying, Armstrong won the most Tour de France titles of anyone—ever—and he won them all in a row.

If reports of his return are true, and if Armstrong does go on to win another championship in cycling’s most iconic competition, Chuck Norris is going to have some competition for that goofy cult following he’s developed.

See also:

Lance Armstrong’s official web page

The Lance Armstrong Foundation, which exists to “unite people to fight cancer believing that unity is strength, knowledge is power and attitude is everything.“

Shakeup at MSNBC

By Jennifer J. Foster

It appears that the walls of the MSNBC complex are on the brink of buckling under the massive egos of its narcissistic hosts.

In what appears to be a last-ditch effort to salvage any shred of credibility, the network has removed Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, the two hosts who have managed to become the very face of media bias among conservatives, from their prime-time anchor positions for the remainder of the election season.

The Associated Press reports that MSNBC will use the two, instead, as commentators.

I wonder where MSNBC got that idea?

Oh, right ... because that’s Matthews and Olbermann ever did in the first place.

Longtime Washington political reporter David Gregory will replace the blustery cacophany.

SIDEBAR: You know you’ve got problems with objectivity and fairness when a move to David Gregory is seen as a move toward balance. END SIDEBAR

In reporting the move, The New York Times’s Brian Stelter wrote:

After months of accusations of political bias and simmering animosity between MSNBC and its parent network NBC, the channel decided over the weekend that the NBC News correspondent and MSNBC host David Gregory would anchor news coverage of the coming debates and election night. Mr. Olbermann and Mr. Matthews will remain as analysts during the coverage.

The change — which comes in the home stretch of the long election cycle — is a direct result of tensions associated with the channel’s perceived shift to the political left.

“Accusations of political bias?“ The channel’s “perceived shift” to the left?

Is he kidding?

This must be why Mr. Stelter doesn’t work in the Times’s investigative unit.

Matthews and Olbermann have rewritten the media textbooks on bias. Far from apologizing for it, they never even tried to conceal their political bias. They were all but defiant about it.

The two finally had the inevitable Showdown of Egos during the Republican National Convention, snarking at each other and acting like bigger jerks than ever.

Stelter observed that Olbermann’s “identity largely defines MSNBC. ‘They have banked the entirety of the network on Keith Olbermann,‘ one employee said.“

As the old saying goes: Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Longtime network anchors Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams did all they could to distance themselves from the belligerent duo without alienating themselves from corporate:

A sheepish Williams said that every family has a dynamic of its own.

“But does MSNBC have to be the Lohans?“ (Comedy Central’s Jon) Stewart said.

Matthews made light of it later, and the two made nice after saying they had “made up,“ but the damage was done. Its brand turned into a punch line, corporate had finally had enough.

“Keith Olbermann may be the ‘voice’ of MSNBC, but network executives have decided to yank the talkmeister off its politican anchor desk after the cable channel finishing dead last in the Nielsen rankings of all news coverage during the two weeks of political conventions,“ Fox News gleefully crowed.

Dead last in ratings.

When MSNBC president Phil Griffin saw those Nielsen numbers, I’m guessing he didn’t feel a furrowing up his leg, as Matthews so famously did.

Now, if we could just get rid of the obnoxious Mika Brzezinski ...