Bloggingheads hits homerun with timely Iran election diavlog

h/t BJKeefe

It's fun to watch Eli Lake agree with the liberal Reza Aslan. Like Brendan, Lake is one of my favorite neocons. He's a thinking mans neocon. If you're looking for more details from two of the more knowledgeable foreign policy heads from both sides of the political spectrum, I highly suggest watching this diavlog. These diavlogs are of the type that make bloggingheads.tv one of the better resources on the web.

A must read with Aslan in The Daily Beast for some more background on the protests.

Oh the irony in the GOP

Considering the joke Meghan McCain's father made at Chelsea Clinton's behalf.

If you don't remember:

"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?
Because her father is Janet Reno."

It sure is amusing reading the younger McCain's critique of David Letterman's Bristol Palin joke.

The most frustrating part of McCain's complaint is she continues to peddle the nonsense that the joke is about 14-year-old Willow Palin. No where in the original joke did Letterman mention Willow by name and in his apology the following the day he specifically says he was referring to Bristol.

I'm not defending what he said. In my opinion, neither Letterman nor the older McCain's jokes are defensible. But I wish Meghan McCain would just shut up already.

Mo Dowd Just Isn't as Funny as She Thinks She Is

When NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd is on, she's hilarious and on fire. It's just that more often than not her columns scream laziness.

I'm far from a fan of the Edwards' family, but you got to love Elizabeth Edwards defending herself and taking a slap at MoDowd:

In response to a recent New York Times column by Maureen Dowd that called Edwards's new book, Resilience, "just a gratuitous peek into their lives, and one that exposes her kids, by peddling more dregs about their personal family life," Edwards says Dowd is way off base and adds that she'd have been "foolhardy" to think she'd be protecting her kids by not writing about her life.

"My children aren't protected from the death of their brother, my breast cancer, or any of the things that have happened in our family," says Edwards. "They're smart kids, they have Google alerts. They already know." Dowd, she adds, "has written an editorial where she clearly does not understand this."

"Least. Welcome. Convert. Ever."

War criminal and former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor is apparently a convert Jew for Jesus:

Q. So he's now a practicing Jew?

A. He's now a Jew. He's practicing Judaism.

Q. Tells us about that? What led him to that?

A. Because of the difficulties, he always wanted to know God in a very diffent and special way. From a very small boy -- because we talk about his childhood a whole lot -- he asked himself questions about Christianity. Too many questions about why certain things happened. And why, this one and that one. Just too many question in Christianity and the whole thing about Christ because he does believe in Christ. When he got to the Hague, he got to know that he really, really wanted to be a Jew. Wanted to convert to Judaism. And that...

Q. Does that mean he has rejected Christianity then? Because that's quite a radical departure.

A. No, no, no he hasn't rejected Christianity. He has always been a Christian. He just decided to become a Jew. He wants to follow the two religions.

Favorable Obama Coverage

It's impossible not to notice that NBC is the White House's favorite network. As a supporter of Obama, I can't say I'm terribly bothered. For all of the hate spewed on Fox it's nice to see the White House have a favorable balance. I'd prefer it was MSNBC, but when they have Liz Cheney on around the clock, NBC may end of being the liberal sister to MSNBC.

CNN's John King is not a fan of the Obama Conan O'Brien plug:

King: It's my school of journalism, it may not be everyone else's school of journalism, but it's my school of journalism is that I interview all these guys with respect. I respect the office, I respect the people, I respect anybody that puts themselves out there like that. But, I, you know, I need to protect myself and my integrity and my credibility, and the President of the United States, you know, God bless him, God bless the one before him, and God bless the next 200 to come. I'm not going to ask them for an endorsement or a product endorsement. I think that's way over the line.

I agree with King. It was tacky. Cute, but tacky. The Daily Show mocked NBC's "Real World" coverage of Obama:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
The Real World D.C.
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Economic Crisis

h/t Michael Calderone

Stay Classy National Review

"Unfortunately, there’s not a good shorthand term for the psychology behind this kind of behavior. “Racism” doesn’t, I think, capture it. But there’s this deranged fascination with walking up to the line and dancing around there in hopes of getting called on it. Then you get to become indignant. Because, again, the contemporary right’s main view on race is that actual racism against non-white people is only a tiny problem compared with the vast social crisis that allegedly exists around people being vigilant against racism." - Matt Yglesias

Salon has more on this classy cover.

As Andrew Put It: Know Hope

Longterm prisoner and torture victim from Yemen does a spectacular varial 180 in a promotional video for Activist, the new skate- and streetwear brand from Amnesty International
h/t Andrew Sullivan

Obama in Cairo

h/t Oliver Willis

This video from the White House reminds us just how many Muslim Americans we have. It's a must watch, but I'm sure there will be those on the right who it scares mightily. Today President Obama is giving his big speech to the "Muslim World." Michael Scherer at Time sets the scene in Cairo. The NY Times tells us the goal of the speech. Ben Smith also previews the speech. Bin Ladin is threatened by Obama and thus threatens the U.S. You can watch it live streaming now. Full speech is available here. Mark Ambinder gives highlights here.

Oh Snap, John Cole.

I was just telling Oliver the other day how much I love Balloon-Juice. John Cole is fast becoming one of my favorite bloggers on *the left,* though I'd hardly call him a lefty. He's representative of the Democratic Party I'd like to belong to.

This rant against another of my favorites, Andrew Sullivan, captures Cole's skill of cutting through the b.s perfectly. A must read.
----------------
Now playing: J Dilla - Blood Sport (feat. Lil' Fame Of M.O.P.)