THIS MODERN WORLD

For those of you who watched American Idol tonight and saw somebody in the audience cheering and holding a sign with a pickle on it, that wasn’t a photo of contestant Kellie Pickler, it was Associated Press hack Nedra Pickler :

Look familiar American Idol fans? Since it’s the most popular show in the world or something, lemme point out that the graphic was originally made to highlight the fact that the press routinely gives Republicans a free pass while holding Democrats to a higher standard. Atrios in particular was all over this a couple years ago and described Pickler’s style as such :

Nit Picklering being the writing of news stories admonishing Democratic candidates for daring to not explain their own inconsistencies, as demonstrated by Nedra Pickler by the inclusion of some utterly irrelevant detail.

Matt Yglesias later expanded the Nit Picklering phenomenon into an article for the American Prospect :

Pickler, a 28-year-old Washington-based reporter who covered the auto industry before moving to the campaign beat last January, took Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) to task for telling the story of a New Hampshire couple whose water supply was rendered unsafe for drinking or showering due to the presence of a gasoline additive, MTBE, without noting that they now, in fact, had potable water from an alternate source. Was Kerry remiss? Certainly no more so than Pickler, who failed to mention that the senator’s remarks came up as he was discussing the Bush administration’s efforts to shield manufacturers of the toxic substance from lawsuits. (MTBE has a propensity for poisoning groundwater). A revised version of Pickler’s story was released on the wires the next morning, now leading with the Kerry-bashing in the first paragraph, insinuating that the senator had inflicted emotional distress on the victims of his “dishonesty.” Actual harms caused by the chemical didn’t make the cut, however.
. . .
Pickler’s tic is a source of amusement, but it also has quite serious ramifications. While most discussion of media bias focuses on elite outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post, stories put out by The Associated Press form the backbone of national political coverage in the small- and medium-sized newspapers whose combined circulations far exceed the majors. These early campaign reports, moreover, set the larger story line that constrains later coverage of events. Once Al Gore got the “liar” label on the 2000 campaign trail, he was unable to shake it no matter how unfair the charges were or how much worse Bush’s behavior was. This is a movie we’ve all seen before, and it doesn’t have a happy ending.

And now her photoshoped mug has become a prop on the most popular show on TV. It’s fitting that the audience, producers, network, hosts, and contestants seem to be unaware that the sign that drew so much attention was a case of mistaken identity, since American Idol‘s Pickler is dumber than a bag of hammers, but the original pickle sign was a humorous way to protest the media’s continual double-standard towards liberals. It would be nice for this to be used to shine a light on the talking points-recycling Pickler and her Republican-boosting colleagues. but since Idol is on Fox, don’t hold your breath waiting for Ryan Seacrest to point out the mix-up.

UPDATE : In case you thought I was mistaken, here’s a screengrab from the American Idol segment that features the Pickler :

I argee with Atrios. This isn’t as weird as Evil Bert, but WTF?!

Anybody have a good connection there? I’d like to attend, but I need some Official Sponsoring Type Group to host a signing or a talk … and apparently the large, BuyBlue-approved bookselling chain with which my new publisher works (at the Festival, I mean) isn’t interested … lord, this stuff makes me tired…

… the good thing about my situation is that the book is only a by-product of the work — whether it does well or completely tanks, I still have the weekly cartoon, the work itself … I can’t imagine what it would be like to work on a novel for several years and then go through this crap, trying desperately to attract a little notice in the short window of opportunity that you’ve got immediately after publication, before everyone loses interest entirely …

My longtime email buddy Vance Lehmkuhl won Arianna’s Contagious Festival contest. And got to hang out with John Cusack.

I almost met the latter, at a bar in Boston during the last Democratic convention, which I went to with a group that included my pal Ward Sutton and one of the Farelly Brothers (and maybe Chris and Marianne Cooper, I can’t remember if they’d bailed by that point or not). A number of people gave me very strange looks as I walked in, because, as it turned out, John Cusack was right on my heels. I’d had a few too many scotches that night and didn’t actually notice my brush with greatness. Cusack quickly disappeared into the VIP nook (does every bar have one?) which, even though I was there with my very good close personal friend One of the Farelly Brothers, was off limits to me.

… Robert Smigel got kicked out of the bar shortly thereafter because the bartender had no patience for the film crew and the whole dog puppet thing. It was a strange night…

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Patrick K. Tillman stood outside his law office here, staring intently at a yellow house across the street, just over 70 yards away. That, he recalled, is how far away his eldest son, Pat, who gave up a successful N.F.L. career to become an Army Ranger, was standing from his fellow Rangers when they shot him dead in Afghanistan almost two years ago.

“I could hit that house with a rock,” Mr. Tillman said. “You can see every last detail on that place, everything, and you’re telling me they couldn’t see Pat?”

Mr. Tillman, 51, is a grieving father who has refused to give up on his son. While fiercely shunning the public spotlight that has followed Cpl. Pat Tillman’s death, Mr. Tillman has spent untold hours considering the Army’s measurements, like the 70 yards.

He has drafted long, sometimes raw, letters to military leaders, demanding answers about the shooting. And he has studied — and challenged — Army PowerPoint presentations meant to explain how his son, who had called out his own name and waved his arms, wound up dead anyway, shot three times in the head by his own unit, which said it had mistaken him for the enemy.

“All I asked for is what happened to my son, and it has been lie after lie after lie,” said Mr. Tillman, explaining that he believed the matter should remain “between me and the military” but that he had grown too troubled to keep silent.

As the second anniversary of the death of Corporal Tillman, once a popular safety for the Arizona Cardinals, approaches, Mr. Tillman, his former wife, Mary, and other family members remain frustrated by the Army’s handling of the killing but for the first time may be close to getting some of the answers they so desperately seek.

More.

So the Daily Show turned us down.

I mean, I understand that I am pretty obscure, but honestly, they have authors on all the time who are way more obscure than me.

Oh well. I guess it makes sense. What possible interest would the audience of the Daily Show have in a long-running, nationally-syndicated, prestigious-award-winning political satirist?