Twelve aspects of American life  - particulary, Washington D.C. and its surrounding suburbs — that have changed in my absence…

1) When I left, the D.C. Metro system was in the process of installing electronic platform signs. That system is now complete, and tells me the scheduled arrival of Metro trains in some alternate dimension, because it rarely if ever aligns with the arrival of the trains at the station I’m at.

2) When I left, every other Metro escalator was broken. Now… okay, that’s pretty much the same.

3) Everyone has an Ipod.

4) Everyone has a PDA, and is addicted to it. It seems like very few people carry a laptop computer.

5) D.C. has a baseball team… that wants 20 bucks a ticket to watch one of the all-time most painful rebuilding seasons.

6) My local Harris Teeter appears to have roughly eighty different kinds of mustard. The prices at Harris Teeter are high, but I can usually balance that out from all the free samples they offer.

7) I now have a stunning variety of cable channels and shows on-demand. And there ain’t %#$^% on that I want to watch. The price of flat-screen televisions is strikingly inexpensive compared to a few years ago, but before I make the expense, I have to ask myself, just what am I going to watch that I need the big screen for? Law and Order episodes? Yeah, Jack McCoy’s self-righteousness loses its nuance on the smaller screen.

On a related note, if you click through the channels, and you hear the phrase, “Is that how it happened when you raped her?” in an accusatory tone, there’s a 99.8 percent chance you’re watching an episode of “Law and Order: SVU.” Also, “We found the bucket of severed ring fingers and pigtails over here, Lieutenant.”

There’s now vitamin-infused Coke. If I’m drinking a Coke, I’ve pretty much decided that I’m not interested in vitamins.

9) What the hell happened to George Michael? I’m used to a ludicriously over-the-top homer with a combover doing the sports, the kind of man who would say, “Last night’s thrilling 9 to 6 overtime win over the Houston Texans, a fantastic start in the first preseason game, has everyone at Redskins Park saying the same thing: This is our year to win the Super Bowl.” Now I’ve got some perky young blonde woman. Thank God Jim Vance and Doreen Gentzler are still there to do the local news.

10) Tony Kornheiser doesn’t write a column anymore, but the Post transcribes bits of his show with Wilbon. Talk about phoning it in. Great. No more of his sports columns, which were actually funny, and more of his wocka-wocka Fozzie Bear schtick on Monday Night Football.

11) Cam, you would know this - any local talk radio besides Washington Post radio?

12) There’s a schlocky done-in-twenty-minutes-with-a-budget-of-four-dollars-and-eighty-cents horror movie coming out every week.

Marshall: Wow. Great post, Jim. It’s amazing how much things have changed around here in just the couple of years you’ve been gone. Mind if add a couple?

13) One of the greatest restaurants on the east coast — the Labratorio del Galileo — is closed while its building is razed and rebuilt.

14) There’s a new director and a new panda at the national zoo, and the zoo is poised for a remarkable turnaround after several years of tough times.

15) The Democrats control Congress. But the less said about that, the better.

16) The old Wilson Bridge was brought down by explosive charges, not careening traffic, and one of the two spans of the new bridge is now complete.

17) The Air Force Memorial, sitting atop a ridge overlooking the Pentagon, officially opened to the public.

18) The Redskins suck. Oh. Wait. Nevermind.

19) The Washington Capitals… Oh. Wait. Nevermind.

20) National Review has expanded its lineup of three or four blogs to something approaching a million.

21) The massive new addition to Tyson’s Corner Center opened, complete with movie theater and food court.

22) Katie Couric took over the anchor desk at CBS and promptly returned the network’s flagship evening newscast to the cellar where it belongs.

Cam: Local talk radio? I think Michael Graham might still be doing his show on WMAL, but honestly I haven’t listened.

I think there’ve been a coupel of other changes since you left… I have two more kids now. And a dog. You can actually have the dog as a housewarming present if you’d like.

Let’s see… other new things…

- Red Zebra broadcasting. I hate the fact that ESPN radio is all static-y now.

- Wegman’s has moved into the area (and is worth the drive).

I might think of some others later. I just wanted to show that yes, I am still contributing (feebly) to the blog.

My friend Rob Bluey has a great piece in the Hill today arguing that its time to establish a Capitol press gallery for online journalists.

For those reader who aren’t beltway junkies, reporters who cover Capitol Hill are provided their go-almost-anywhere credentials by one of three press galleries — print, periodical, or radio & television — based on what sort of outlet they work for. These galleries are administered by the reporters themselves.

Needless to say, that has made it next to impossible for even the most professional blogger to get credentials to cover the Capitol, and that makes it difficult to gather news and conduct interviews in key locations with members and their staffs.

Rob’s suggestion to create a new gallery in an outstanding one and one that I heartily endorse.

Go and read Rob’s whole piece and more from Rob on this topic on his blog. He makes a compelling case, and one that I hope the many members of Congress and their staffs — who claim to have embraced new media — will hasten to embrace.

Jim, as the only one us who has ever held actual Capitol Hill credentials, what say you?

Jim: I’m kinda “eh” on the idea. For starters, while it’s nice to have the credentials, the only place I can think of that you really can’t get to as a member of the public are the press gallery offices themselves (and its nice, but limited, workspace) and the set-aside spots in the galleries above the House and Senate floors. There are public galleries for both chambers, of course, and while a press pass gets you a table to work on in most hearing rooms, almost all hearings are open to the public on a first-come, first-serve basis. (The notable exception, of course, are hearings that deal with classified information.)

Here’s the other thing - at the kickoff fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in Washington, Code Pink protestors were taken away after chanting and protesting from the press risers at Hillary Clinton campaign events. Twice. In both cases, they claimed to be media. I don’t like this rampant credential-ism, but the actions of these loons is forcing the hands of event organizers.

As I’ve noted in previous posts, I’m less of a fan of what the blogosphere has become than I was a few years back. I don’t know if I trust bloggers to “police themselves” to behave in a professional manner. Even if you think a Congressman has made the stupidest comment of all time, your options are to a) point out a factual error and ask them to clarify or b) to ignore it and move on to the next question. There are lots of fine bloggers I trust, but a lot I wouldn’t trust to behave in a professional manner; I fear most press conferences would turn into the hallway confrontation that Congressman Obey had with those antiwar folks. Of course, once you started credentialing some bloggers and not others, people would start screaming “BIAS!”, etc.

So I foresee a lot of problems, but that’s just me…

Cam says: I too see a lot of problems, but I think it’s worthwhile. And, to be blunt, if there’s any place where “rampant credentialism” should be present, it should be in the Capitol. After all, freedom of the press is for all Americans, not just the one’s the government calls journalists.

Here’s a topic for discussion - considering how my co-bloggers are generally enthusiasts of new media. Andrew Keen writes in the Weekly Standard about the dirt-cheap user-generated ads run by Doritos during the Super Bowl:

IT’S AMATEUR HOUR at the Super Bowl this year. On Sunday, 90 million television viewers on CBS will be subjected to commercials made by “You”–Time magazine’s Person of The Year for 2006. Three Super Bowl XLI advertisers–Doritos, the National Football League, and Chevrolet–will all be running 30 second commercial spots made by amateurs. The Web 2.0 revolution in user-generated content has infiltrated the American living room. These amateur creators, who Time praise as “people formerly known as consumers,” are now providing the entertainment at the biggest event in the media calendar.

This is not good news. The shift from professionally produced to user-generated advertising makes us poorer in both economic and cultural terms. The arrival of user-created commercials at Super Bowl XLI represents the American Idolization of traditional entertainment–the degeneration of professional content into a “talent show” for amateurs.

We, the conventional television audience, are certainly losers in this new fashion for user-generated advertisements. We have traditionally watched Super Bowl commercials to be entertained by memorable ads. Often, these commercials are more memorable than the game. Occasionally, they even represent significant cultural moments in American history. Few of us, for example, can remember who won Super Bowl in 1984 (Los Angeles Raiders 38, Washington Redskins 9), where it was played (Tampa), or who sang the national anthem (Barry Manilow). But most of us can remember the Chiat/Day produced, Ridley Scott directed, commercial for the Macintosh computer, with its Orwellian subtext and its indelible explanation of why “1984 wasn’t going to be like 1984″.

As I hear about the hype and buzz surrounding user-generated content, of YouTube, blogs, fan fiction, etc., I’ve wondered if I was in the minority of… well, not really liking much of it. The crap-to-value ratio seemed like searching for needles-in-a-haystack/diamonds in the rough. Sure, maybe there are some untapped creative geniuses out there, but finding them in the mess is an arduous task. Yes, blogging brought some new, interesting, insightful voices to our attention. It also gave a soapbox to a bunch of loud and obnoxious loons.

On paper, this is why we have the media structures that we do — the multiplex is supposed to give you the best movies available at any given moment, the papers and magazines the best writers, the publishers the best authors, the television the best shows. Radio, personalities that you actually want to listen to for an hour or two, or just good music.

We like to believe “anybody can do it!” And indeed they can. But not everyone can do it well. Sometimes professionalization has its benefits. In the writing/journalism sphere, I will say from personal experience that having editors is sometimes frustrating, but generally, they’re there for a reason, and often they can actually improve the quality of the work.

Flip-side: I don’t always like what mass media has to offer, either. And yes, when you see the umpteenth movie in which Eddie Murphy plays ten parts and they’re all loud and annoying, or the tenth movie in which Hannibal Lecter eats people, you want to kick Hollywood so that they try something new. But I’m not sure user-generated content is telling us much more than there are a lot of starving artists and garage bands out there. And generally, they achieve modest success for a reason.

Cam: How about we just say most content in general sucks these days. Seriously. With all the crap that’s on television, I watch 2 1/2 hours a week (24, House, and The Office). I can’t tell you the last time I bought a cd from a “popular” artist. There’s just a lotta crap out there.

Marshall: Sorry, but Keen is spouting elitist horse poo. I agree with our two commenters, who both observe that one of the Doritos commercials was the best of a very weak Super Bowl crop.

More broadly, blogs and other online tools that lowered the barrier to entry on everything from video to book publishing consistently demonstrate that there are great minds and talents out there who are no longer subject to the whims of gate-keeping editors. This can’t be anything but a good thing. Granted, there’s a lot of crap. To be sure, not every writer is Hemmingway. But that’s okay. Every person does and should have a voice.

Here’s what we know for sure. Bloggers, even the bad ones, are better informed and more likely to engage and influencers others than the average American. They consume enormous amounts of news. They think, and they express opinions — even if those opinions are often less than clear. That’s real dialogue, and it can only be good for our society.

Jim: Okay, the general opinion so far seems to be pretty supportive of User-Generated Content. Maybe I’m being too hard on it. I do tend to think that people get better at skills (writing, singing, putting together web-videos, etc.) with experience. (Back when I was cartooning, somebody once described it as, “you have 10,000 bad drawings in you; the 10,001st will be good. So get started on those 10,000.”) and that the rise of user-generated content has brought a lot of rookies into the pool, with the results about what we would expect. But I’m judging this new media while it’s still new; in ten years, bloggers may be as useful and informative as any other media.

And yes, it is good that the gatekeepers are less powerful than they used to be, and now anyone can set up shop and try their hand at these new fields.

Cam and Marshall have been good about writing new posts, so here’s my latest conversation-starter: 

Kay S. Hymowitz writes a great, and lengthy essay on what Paris Hilton’s fame says about America. An excerpt that really hit home:

Paris is exhibitionistic in a way that goes beyond the everyday sluts and hos of contemporary popular culture. When Janet Jackson arranges a wardrobe malfunction, we may rue the decay of prime-time television, we may boycott her albums or send angry letters to the FCC, but we recognize that we have seen a performance—a publicity-ravenous, cheesy performance, but a performance nonetheless. Paris, on the other hand, trumpets her name-your-pleasure promiscuity in a way that speaks only of unthinking, careless decadence. It’s not that she is a working girl willing to go too far to sell her next record album; it’s that she is above morality. She can do whatever she wants, and she’s proud to rub your nose in that fact day after day. How could you not hate someone who thinks she doesn’t have to live in the same world as the rest of us?

I’m kind of annoyed that I even know who Paris Hilton is; I’m even more annoyed that I keep getting told about her on at least a weekly basis. I don’t think I watch that much television or gossip rags, and yet I keep getting told more and more about her.

I mentioned this argument that Paris Hilton is some sort of Nieschean Uber-Celebrity, Fame Beyond Good And Evil, to Mrs. Hillaryspot, [Yes, every time the blog name change, my wife’s name changes] and she said, “no, when she screws up, she gets punished with bad publicity.” But for Paris Hilton, there truly is no such thing as bad publicity. Sleeping around? Public drunkenness? This woman’s career took off with a sex tape. A bad movie? A ”music career” that never requires her to sing live? They just bounce off her, and she just keeps on going. She’s like the frickin’ Terminator of sleaze culture.

Even if everything Paris Hilton touched never made another red cent, she could still afford to live like… well, Lindsey Lohan and she would still be taken care of well into her retirement years. She’s rich beyond our imagination, the media is obsessed with her and will not stop covering her every move, and no one — N-O-O-N-E — is willing to intervene in her life, or to tell her that this isn’t the way anybody is supposed to act. Her parents clearly don’t care. Her friends clearly are just enjoying the ride. She has no role models in her life, no authority figures, no one she has to be accountable to.

This ain’t the pop culture I want any future kids to grow up in. And yet, I don’t know how to “push back” against Paris Hilton culture.

Jim: Wow - I spend a coupla days drinking twelve gallons of Guinness in Dublin and return to you guys are at each other’s throats! Time to play peacemaker.

My opinion of Studio 60 is based on about four episodes, probably four of the first five. The rave reviews perked my interest, and I really liked the opening episode. Liked a lot of the second one. Third one started to lose me. By the fourth one, the flaws were clear.

Studio 60 has some strong moments, but by comparison, it’s comparably weaker and less entertaining than Sorkin’s other shows, Sports Night and The West Wing. In Sports Night, we very quickly established a connection with the main characters — particularly Jeremy, who was the living, breathing embodiment of every one of us who has gotten a big break and become desperately obsessed with not screwing it up. All of the characters loved their jobs, they were extremely driven, they mostly got along, and all of them had a particular vulnerablility. The balance between wish fulfillment (boy, I wish I worked in a place like that!) and drama (urgh, boy, it must be tough to work with someone you have a crush on, and fear acting upon it because you’ll screw up your work) was just right most episodes — plus some great soap-opera storylines and plot twists for what was arguably still a half-hour sitcom. (”You’re wearing my shirt, Gordon.”)

While the political preachiness had a much more central role in The West Wing, the drama came easy. This was the presidency, for Heaven’s sake! Assassination attempts, foreign crises, scandals brewing and breaking — we knew the stakes were high, week after week. And because these people were running our country, while we may have wanted to wipe that smug Hollywood liberal smirk off their face, we did want them to succeed in protecting Americans, and there was something I envy in the characters’ idealism, their steadfast belief that in the end, all of their struggles would be worth it because they were building a better country.

On Studio 60, the big question is, will a bunch of extremely wealthy Hollywood types put on a successful show this week? And because the stakes are much lower, viewers don’t get as emotionally invested in these characters. Also note that the show had a fascinating opening - the old executive producer having a breakdown live on television, declaring so much of modern TV crap. (Really? At least today we have complicated, drawn out dramas like 24, Lost, House; well-put-together procedurals like the CSI shows, the Law and Order family, Bones… I would have pointed to the 1970s, the 1990s era of the endless Friends wannabes, and the reality show craze as worse eras in television history) When you open with that, you’re throwing down a gauntlet. And the creative genius protagonists come up with… a parody of Rodgers and Hammerstein, with the chorus referring to “an intellectual reach around”?

Huh?

And then we never actually saw the much-discussed sketch, “Crazy Christians,” which was some sort of creative line in the sand that our heroes were standing up for; the refusal to show the sketch is seen as ipso facto evidence of the network’s closed-mindedness, prudishness, fear, etc. So let’s see it, guys. Honestly, I’m doubting that there’s much that can be mocked about Christianity that hasn’t been mocked already. Stop telling me these guys are geniuses, and start showing it.

Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford are likeable, talented actors, but I just don’t relate to their characters, who often come across as snide, condescending, prima donnas. I don’t really care if the reporter from the New York Times hears their secrets. I don’t really care if Perry and Harriet get together. (I really liked Sarah Paulson in Down With Love and her brief, but important scene in Serenity, but in Studio 60, we’re constantly being told how talented, funny, and sexy Harriet is, and I’m just not seeing it.)

I understand Studio 60’s been picked up for a full season; I hope it can work out its kinks and turn into an hour of engrossing television. I think the show where they had to keep breaking into the broadcast over the copyright to a joke was a funny one. Still, at its heart there is the question of what is at stake for each of the characters, and right now “will they do a good show, will the ratings be high enough, will the network suits be appeased” just isn’t enough.

The simplest solution? Make the sketches on the show actually funny and daring, instead of the fairly blah mush we’ve gotten to see so far. (I’m thinking of “Pimp My Trike,” the “Science Schmience” game show, and the bear joke.) When it’s not blah, it’s just bizarre – Juliette Lewis hosting Meet the Press? The Nicolas Cage show?

(Side note: Studio 60 is clearly based on Saturday Night Live, and yet SNL hasn’t been consistently funny in years, and doesn’t seem very groundbreaking or edgy. “Lazy Sunday” was funny for its innocence and light-heartedness. Where do we find edgier comedy these days? South Park, The Daily Show, the Colbert Report? Chappelle? One of the stand-up acts on Comedy Central?)

I can hear it now – “Okay, wise guy, what’s a daring sketch comedy idea?”

Well, Saturday Night Live did a funny sketch when Romanian dictator Choucheschu died – a funeral in which the assembled mourners scrounge for something nice to say about him. A similar sketch could be done for Saddam. Or maybe the Western press comes in and can come up with all sorts of nice things to say about him, appalling the Iraqis? Picture a George Galloway type: “I’ll say this for Saddam - he had no use for Neocons, and I find that quite admirable in a man.”

Or how about Gerald Ford and Saddam Hussein meet in the Afterlife Waiting Room?

“I am not afraid of Allah’s judgment, American Dog. I will seek my fate first, and step ahead of you. Pardon me.”

“Oh, no. After all the grief I got for the last one, I’m not pardoning anybody.”

No? Well, Shempu is a sketch waiting to be written.

It’s from Mary Katharine Ham, and it needs no comment from me.

But believe me — you need to watch. Oh boy do you ever.

The On Tap gang met for the first time on Election Night 2004. Cam brought Jim and I in to serve as analysts for his show’s Election Night coverage. We’ve been friends ever since.

On November 7, we’ll be doing the sequel — Election Night coverage on Cam’s show. (Cam, what time do we go on the air?)

So tune in on Election Night and get your fix from us. We’re much more interesting than those bums on network news.

Cam: We begin our coverage at 8 p.m. Eastern on NRAnews.com. At 9 p.m. Sirius Patriot 144 picks up our coverage, which will conclude at 1 a.m. Eastern.

Jim: Folks, you have a lot of good options for Election Night coverage, but I’m going to urge you to tune in to Cam, either over the web or via Sirius, whether or not you’re into gun stuff. Of course, if you’re into Second Amendment issues, you really have no excuse to not watch; nobody’s going to cover the races that matter to you the way Cam & Company will.

I’m not gonna completely self-promote; I’m going to instead promote Marshall’s knowledge, gut instincts, research, and horse sense. Imagine a Stuart Rothenberg free of Inside-the-Beltway thinking, or a Michael Barone with less tendency to evoke Mr. Spock from Star Trek, or John Zogby who didn’t suck. Or a Dan Rather who didn’t make #%& up.

In fact, I understand the RNC has a clear system for interpreting indicators for Election Day:

• Bad polls? Ignore.
• Bad headlines? To be expected.
• Cranky bloggers? No big deal.
• Candidate scandals? We can endure ‘em.
• Marshall Says We’re Gonna Have a Bad Year? PANIC!

I’m only half-joking; Marshall’s earlier bad vibes about this year were my only “Oh, ^$#@#, Republicans are going to get their asses handed to them” shudder so far this cycle.

On Election Night 2004, Marshall and I were the first to declare Bush the winner. And it wasn’t just guessing; we looked at Kerry under-performing Gore in blue states and said, “If he can’t do better than Gore here, he’s not going to do better than Bush in the red states he need to win.” Thus, early in the evening, we called every state correctly except Wisconsin, and that was probably only in Kerry’s column because of voter fraud in Milwaukee.

Seriously, Marshall’s plugged in in the political world, I’ve got the Hotline to Obi Wan, and Cam is the ringmaster of the whole circus. Honestly, for sheer fun and laughs to go with the early word and inside scoops, there is no place I’d rather be on Election Night.

Okay, other than watching the early returns in Monica Bellucci’s bedroom.

Finally saw the 24 season finale.

It sucked.

I judge this an uneven season. Started off with some of the biggest shocks in series television — they killed my second favorite character! They killed my third favorite character! They maimed my fifth- oh, wait, no, they killed him too!

There was a lull after the first four episodes, then it picked up again with the attack on CTU. Those episodes were some of the classic, “Oh my God, I can’t believe that happened!” moments that separate “24″ from most other action shows on TV. On other shows, the good guys find the bomb in time and defuse it; on this show, the bomb goes off and we watch dozens of CTU employees including Edgar die horrific deaths. (There goes my sixth favorite character! Look out, Mike Novick!)

But honestly, the show lost momentum after the clash at the natural gas plant; the revelation about President Logan felt a little tacked-on (he was more interesting as a simply incompetent, in-over-his-head president instead of a sort of split-personality, bumbling-in-public, ruthless-in-private ubervillian). And the “shock” ending of Jack being kidnapped wasn’t all that shocking. The moment Jack was informed that Kim was on the phone, the whole situation screamed “TRAP!”

Time for a nutty theory about 24: If the show were created anew today, the producers would drop the “real time” format as it gets ignored more and more every season (never mind Jack not complaining about being awake for 24 hours; no character complained or even noticed this year that they had been dealing with terrorist crises for 24 straight hours). It would make more sense to have four six-hour arcs, with each one picking up a few days later — clues from one attack lead to a raid on another terror cell, which prompts the mastermind to launch another attack as a diversion, etc.

Another observation: The promos for next year’s shows, including “Standoff” and “Disappeared” suggest that Fox wants to duplicate the success of “24.” I had a great idea (to me), too bad no one asked. Use some of your supporting characters (Tony and Michelle would have been a great pair) and create “CTU: New York” or “CTU: Washington” or Chicago, showing us the adventures of another branch of CTU elsewhere in the country. (The lesson of 24 is that all terrorist attacks occur somewhere in Los Angeles, and the President spends most of his time there, as well.) On the CTU spinoff, drop the “real time” format (while keeping the clock motif and reminding viewers of the time) . Of course, the President, Chief of Staff, etc. would be the same, so those actors would have to do double duty, the way Fred Thompson periodically shows up on various “Law and Order” spinoffs.

Anyway - here’s hoping that Season Six is more consistent. And that CTU gets rid of its Affirmative Action Program for Terrorist Moles. (”In order to promote a diverse workforce, we at CTU are committed to hiring and promoting employees who are on the payroll of terrorist groups, and/or evil conspiracies.”)

Jim: On the theme of Wonkette’s new Time gig and her huge advances (and not-so-swell-selling book), here’s more news about those who have gotten huge advances and not-so-huge sales:

HBO is plowing ahead with a sitcom based on “The Washingtonienne,” the D.C.-set novel inspired by Cutler’s blog of same name in which she discussed her exploits with a boatload of men around town in such glorious detail.

The pay-cable network project is being developed by Sarah Jessica Parker’s Pretty Matches production company.

(BookStandard noticed that The Washingtonienne has sold 14,000 units, as tracked by Nielsen BookScan, since coming out June 1.  14,000 x $23.95 = $335,300. Her advance was $300,000, according to an invasion of privacy suit. The advance is taken out against the author’s share of profits from sales; my back of the envelope calculation of Cutler’s share of the sales is between $40,000 and $50,000. Unless I’m missing something, her publisher must have taken a loss on this deal, and a pretty big one.)

But anyway - of all the tales of Washington that HBO could tell, we need to hear the romantic troubles of a woman who sleeps around Capitol Hill? I know lots of people who work on the Hill. By and large, they’re decent, largely boring, often idealistic folk who have come to D.C. to make a difference, and are willing to work long hours for low wages in order to make some impact in the political world and legislation. It’s not sexy or glamorous.

I dread this program, and I cannot understand why the world keeps throwing more fame and fortune at a woman best known for sleeping around and putting her exploits up on the web. I’m not quite sure who was reading her blog anyway; who wants to hear about the sexual adventures of an entry-level Hill staff assistant doing the horizontal mambo with committee staffers? I mean, I’d rather read the ramblings of three guys who used to meet at a bar…

(briefly passes out from irony)

By the way - the woman herself once said, “I was only blogging for, what, less than two weeks? Some people with blogs are never going to get famous, and they’ve been doing it for, like, over a year. I feel bad for them.”

Cam: What’s not to understand? Hollywood loves a whore. If you, Jim Gerahty, had been Condi’s boy-toy, you too would be well on your way to being a millionaire. If Marshall had been selling his body to the likes of Elizabeth Dole, he’d be rolling in the bucks. If I got caught sleeping with Sarah Brady… well, you should slap me upside the head, but you get the idea.

It’s all about sex and scandal. Hollywood loves it, the book publishers love it, even though the jury’s out on how much mainstream America loves it. I know that I personally have better things to do than to watch what the latest celebrity whore is up to these days.

Jim: My relationship with Condi is NONE of your business!

 No Secretary of State ever looked this good in these boots. Sorry, George Schultz.

It was a long fight, but finally, Cam has emerged victorious.

Mike Wallace, a pioneering figure of American broadcasting whose on-air persona at 60 Minutes came to represent the press as watchdog of those in power, said yesterday that he will retire as a regular correspondent at the end of the current TV season in May. CBS announced that Wallace, who will turn 88 on May 9, will remain affiliated with the most successful program in the history of network television as correspondent emeritus, though it was vague as to what his duties will be. Wallace was one of two founding correspondents for 60 Minutes, TV’s first prime-time newsmagazine, in 1968.

The tale of Cam’s battle with Mike Wallace can be found here. I know I ought to be saluting Wallace for his decades of widely-hailed work, but the way the old coot handled the objections to his mockery of Heston left a sour taste in my mouth. Plus, you know, it’s CBS News, the network of Fake But Accurate™.

 “Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!”

Cam: I am as responsible for the resignation of Mike Wallace as a mouse fart was responsible for Hurricane Katrina. I can only take credit for Wallace being told he can’t do 2nd amendment related stories any more, and even then I must give a lot of credit to Vaughn Ververs, who harped on the CBS suits until they actually responded.

I have a lot of work to do in the self-promotion department, don’t I? I guess if I were a certain host.. maybe named Schill O’Schmielly or something, I’d be saying:

“That’s right, we brought down this stalwart of the Sauronic Eye Network. We did it, you and I. Primarily me, because you know, I have a talk show and you don’t. And that’s why it’s so important that I look out for you, because otherwise you’d just be left to fend for yourself, and you’re not really smart enough to do that. Here, come sit on my lap. Have some falafel. Let me grab the loofah and scrub your back for you…

Hey, where are you going?”