The Political Whore

Mrs. Former Fort Myers Beach Town Manager

This week’s HoCast marks a revamp of my format. While I will continue to do long-form interviews with political figures as podcasts, the PoHo brand will feature a fairly regular cast and a quick, funny format that looks at the top political and media issues, the Quotable soundbite and the Political Whore of the Week.

Joining me are Scott Farrell of The Farrell Files on 10 Connects and Creative Loafing Film & Television editor Joe Bardi.

Our topics this week:

1. The shameful Today Show coverage of the Obama health care newser

2. The firing of the town manager of Fort Myers Beach for marrying a porn actress (shown above)

3. The Barack Obama-as-Witch Doctor e-mail flap

4. ESPN’s multi-problems with censorship (the Ben Rothlisberger story)

5. Mary Mulhern uses tax dollars to go to Cuba

This week’s PoHo Award nominees are:

New York stripper Christy Yamanaka, who was involved in the Judge Thomas Stringer scandal. He pleaded guilty this week to one count of mortgage fraud in connection with a house the two bought in Hawaii.

And, via txt message from an anonymous politician, this nomination:
“The Jersey 44, that’s lookin’ like a real political gangbang! Even by Jersey’s standards.”

Listen to the HoCast after the jump to find out who won:

Read the rest of this entry »

A few weeks ago I announced to my wife that I would not be watching The Today Show in the mornings any more. I just got fed up with its growing tabloid style and insistence on flogging non-stories to death. Like this week’s “exclusive” multi-day interview with Susan Boyle. Or the dude trying to get his kid back from Brazil who is interviewed at least twice a week. Or the latest family with a loved one attacked by a critter/rescued from a certain death/dying from a disease/etc.

But this morning, I broke my rule and paid the price for it. Meredith, Matt, Al and the rest of the formerly great NBC morning news show led the broadcast with this top story: Barack Obama had ruined his newser on health care last night by criticizing the wrongful arrest of prominent Harvard prof Henry Louis Gates Jr. last week.

ABC’s Good Morning America apparently did the same thing.

St. Petersburg Times media critic Eric Deggans noticed, too, writing this AM:

…[W]hy did the Today show — by far TV’s most-watched morning show — spend its first segment this morning discussing what the president said about the arrest of a black scholar in Cambridge, Mass.?

Here is how the “journalists” left at NBC played the president’s desperate attempt to pull out his health care victory on the website this AM:

Read the rest of this entry »

Rev. Rick Warren, the author of “The Purpose-Driven Life,” says that gays should fight against their biological impulses, just like people have to suppress fear or anger in this interview snippet with Ann Curry of The Today Show:

The LGBT community, already not a fan of Obama’s (and apparently vice versa) is understandably miffed.

AFTERNOON UPDATE: Equality Florida sent its supporters this e-mail:

Rev. Rick Warren: Wrong Choice

President-elect Obama’s decision to have the anti-gay Rev. Rick Warren give the invocation at his Presidential Inauguration is an insult to all who believe in equality and a particular insult to LGBT Americans.

It is bad enough that President-elect Obama doesn’t support full marriage equality, but to have a deeply anti-gay minister who has actively worked to strip away our rights and compared our relationships to incest and pedophilia is too deep an insult for us to ignore.

We ask you to join with Equality Florida and sign the petition to President-elect Obama and Congress, letting them know it’s time to stop honoring those who work to take away the rights of LGBT Americans.

Watch Warren’s statements supporting Prop 8  and comparing marriages of gay couples to adults marrying children:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce1ILmS5yMo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o4QqGbQmU0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0spPzgma6Q

Nadine Smith
Executive Director

“You stay away from me!”

• Civic pride: Tampa is mentioned on the Today show! I’m not from here: The subject was a Hillsborough County Sheriff caught on tape dumping a disabled man out of his wheelchair and onto the floor.
• Obama and McCain pile up the wins.
• A reporter asks Hillary why she hasn’t released her tax returns and she responds: “Sen. Obama has some questions to answer about his dealings with one of his largest contributors Exelon, a big nuclear power company; apparently he cut some deals behind closed doors to protect them from full disclosure of the nuclear industry.” Does this answer mean that a) Hillary believes that if she released her tax returns any questionable dealings Obama has had will pale in comparison; b) It’s nothing but negative attacks from from here on out; c) the reporter took the quote out of context, or d) this is the sound of the Clinton campaign imploding?
• Poetic justice? Secretary of Defense Robert Gates slips, falls, breaks his shoulder and is taken to Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
• Roger Clemens goes before congress, probably lying his injected ass off in the process.
• Spielberg quits his gig as artistic adviser to the 2008 Beijing Olympics after complaints about China by human rights groups.
• From blow-hard to blowback: Rush Limbaugh battles the right.
• The Force is strong with these animators.