Britney Spears delivers a complete show

All those crazy things Britney Spears has done in the past three years … they’ve only made her fans love her more, judging by the deafening chants of “Brit-ney! Brit-ney!” before and after she took center ring last night at the Mellon Arena.

Since she was a teen, we’ve watched Britney rise and fall, and repeat, and now her star is burning bright again, with a No. 1 single and what might be the biggest spectacle any pop artist has put on a touring stage.

By Scott Mervis, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The money saved on silly little things like live musicians has been put to grand use in a Cirque-style production with dozens of dazzling acrobats, dancers, ninjas, clowns and strong men, and circus train full of props to lock up and unleash the star.

There were no malfunctions, wardrobe or otherwise, in the Pittsburgh show. And Britney, with a head full of hair, or a fantastic wig, looked radiant and in charge as ringmaster and seductress. Each song was choreographed like a video, ranging from the S&M scene of “Circus” to the lush Bollywood of “Me Against the Music” to the Phantom of the Opera look of “Freakshow.”

Britney wore a headset mike, but there was little need to. It was all clearly piped in. The only time when the vocals seemed even remotely live was on the one ballad, “Everytime.” Unlike old pal Christina Aguilera, who had her own circus, Ms. Spears sings these songs once in the studio — with much help from auto-tune — and the rest is smoke and mirrors.

Still, the demands on her were impressive in this circus: Along with the dancing and running in heels, she spun from ropes, disappeared in trap doors and executed lightning-quick costume changes, starting with the ringmaster suit and peaking with a sheer, tattooed body suit on “Breathe on Me/Touch of My Hand.”

When she played here earlier in the decade, people would complain if it got too suggestive. Now the only boundaries are legal ones, as the girls who were screaming back then for “… Baby One More Time” are grown up and back with their boyfriends and girlfriends rather than their moms.

Last night, they got more of an interpretation of the songs than a performance of them. But they still got their money’s worth. If there were an awards ceremony for tours, the “Circus” tour would be a leading contender for choreography, costumes, stunts, props and visual effects.

The Pussycat Dolls opened with a no-frills, 45-minute set pumped with piped-in music, aerobic dancing and the stunning presence of lead Doll Nicole Scherzinger.

Obama’s public overexposure

Like the beat beat beat of the tom-tom, like the tick tick tock of the clock, like the drip drip drip of the raindrops, a voice within me keeps repeating Obama Obama Obama.

With all due apologies to the author, Cole Porter’s lyrics of “Night and Day” make a point lost on the president. No matter where he is, the Oval Office or Jay Leno‘s studio set, addressing Congress or holding up traffic in a motorcade on his way to a PTA meeting, the president is not an ordinary citizen. Like it or not, those days are behind him. The private man and the public man become one in a president. What he does, says, or doesn’t say or doesn’t do, he does before an audience.

Suzanne Fields
The Washington Times

President Obama goes out of his way to seek a celebrity’s attention, and he’s still in his first 100 days. When he makes an offhand jest about his bowling score and the Special Olympics – the sort of tasteless attempt at dark humor that anyone might make within a tight circle of good friends – the whole world hears it and the pundits can’t wait to leap. We should all “lighten up,” but if a president can’t resist going on television to banter with a comedian, he ought to leave the comedy to the comedian, who gets paid for sarcasm and irony.

Lauren Bacall and Harry Truman

It’s a shame that the eye of the camera tempts presidents to try to be the entertainer-in-chief. First lady Michelle Obama might emulate Bess Truman after Harry couldn’t resist playing the piano with Lauren Bacall in fetching repose atop the upright. Mr. Truman, on a night out at the National Press Club, was only doing what any red-blooded man might, but Bess was not amused. She told him it simply wasn’t dignified, that he was definitely not to “play it again, Harry.”

Dignity, of course, isn’t what it used to be; indeed, the concept seems faintly quaint in an era when almost anything goes. As comfortable as the president may look on the CBS show “60 Minutes,” with Mr. Leno, or in a prime-time press conference, he is spending valuable emotional and intellectual capital with the relentless exposure in the modern media. Confident and cool, he is nevertheless beginning to look a lot like a man afflicted with the hubris of show biz.

Since the campaign ended, the stakes have changed. He has yet to learn the lesson learned by Steven Chu, his secretary of energy. Asked what he likes least about his new job, he replied: “The fact that I’m constantly being told that I have to be careful what I say to the press and in public. I can’t speculate out loud anymore. Everything I say is taken with total seriousness.”

Even laughter can be suspect. Steve Croft, the president’s interviewer on “60 Minutes,” suggested Mr. Obama might be “punch drunk” when he chuckled aloud in discussing the crash of the economy. “Gallows humor,” the president later called it. But that doesn’t work for a president, whether hot or cool. Most of us didn’t expect Bill Clinton to feel our pain, and we don’t expect Mr. Obama to laugh at it.

None of this will matter much if, as he suggested it would in his press conference this week, the economic crisis soon eases. He’ll get the credit, and that’s how it should be. But there should be a bright line between behaving as the commander in chief and entertaining as a celebrity in chief.

Read the rest:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/ne
ws/2009/mar/27/obamas-public-
overexposure/

Telepromter President Goes Jumbotron!

Teased about his over relieance on the teleprompter, President Obama decided last night to use a jumbotron in only his second White House press conference.

This is like listening to the sight impaired read aloud; but we wouldn’t want to offend the sight impaired.

Eventually, in Amerian politics, even the slickest, most packaged guy will get unwrapped.

This is it.

Too bad the media assited in the packaging of the messiah before the election: now we have a president losing the confidence of the American people in a time of crisis.

What is worse is this: he seems to be losing his own confidence: his own sense of self and reality.

Related:

President, Congress, Media “Vacant” in Time of Crisis

Obama Throws In The Towel

 After Leno, Laughter on “60 Minutes,” Boredom From “No Drama” Obama

Obama Once Ruled the Media: Now He Wants To Reach You With Less Of Them

http://hoodathunk.wordpress.com/200
9/03/25/careful-or-just-not-knowledgeable/

Obama’s jumbotron in the White House..(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

 
Vice President Joe Biden is seen on a TelePrompTer while delivering remarks at the International Association of Fire Fighters 2009 Legislative Conference in Washington, Monday, March 16, 2009.(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Obama Once Ruled the Media: Now He Wants To Reach You With Less Of Them

Being president is tough: even if most people think you are the guy with more media friends and less media criticism and scrutiny than any man before you.

So after two years of cmpaigning filled with media fawning, the Obamagasm media now cannot even please the Messiah a little bit.

He wants to talk directly to the voters.

Through a teleprompter of course.

And he wants to talk only to the media and the voters of his choosing: like Black and Latino media.

He is everybody’s president but he can no longer abide everyman’s media.

This at a time of unprecedented newspaper closings and the loss of investigative journalists….

And the media he’ll choose is the direct appeal: just like the video that just went to Iran.  The Internet and talking directly to the people.

Help from the likes of Jay Leno will be O.K. and maybe some time on “60 Minutes” is good, so long as the Messiah can laugh when he wants.

Even Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesperson seems to be tired (already?) of so many thorney issues and questions now that the media isn’t still completely dead.

The media is s still a fawning puppy in Obama’s lap: but he realizes now the puppy has the ability to lay a tur * key anytime and anywhere it wants….

Joe Biden even said on Saturday at the Gridiron dinner: there is still a place for newspapers, especially if you have to housebreak a puppy….

*******************

From Politico
At a time when his Washington honeymoon is turning into a hazing, President Barack Obama and his team are launched on a strategy to sail above the traditional White House press corps by reaching out to liberal commentators, local reporters and ethnic media.

The highest-profile moments in the new approach have been well-noted, such as the president giving an interview to progressive radio host Ed Schultz and Obama calling on a reporter from the liberal-leaning Huffington Post at his first news conference.

But those moves are only part of a much larger strategy aimed at communicating directly with audiences the White House believes are more sympathetic to the president’s agenda — and one in which much of the work is being done by Obama’s top advisers.

On the day Obama released his ambitious spending plan, the administration put White House budget director Peter Orszag on a conference call with liberal-leaning writers. Senior administration aides have followed up by promoting the budget to local radio talk shows during morning drive time.

Jared Bernstein, Vice President Joe Biden’s economic adviser and a favorite of the labor-liberal wing of the Democratic Party, also held a conference call with friendly reporters.

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has done conference calls with black and Hispanic media outlets.

Read the rest:
http://www.politico.com/news/
stories/0309/20395.html

Related:
Obamagasm Media: Start Asking Questions; The Budget Is Full of Them

 Teleprompter White House: Packaged People, Messages

Teleprompter White House: Packaged People, Messages

Joe “Gimme a f&*^%$ing break” Biden isn’t packaged.  His off hand comments are legendary.

But the Obama gang of advisors wants him to learn, to grow and get with the f&^*%$#ing telepromter.

Without it, Biden is dangerous.  Even when talking about 7-11.

Even the president proved dangerous this last weekend.  Within about 48 hours he was not very inspiring in two interviews without the teleprompter, one with Jay Leno and one on “60 Minutes.”

But who would have had the forethought to tell this great communicator (1) Jokes about the Special Olympics can go south fast; and (2) Laughing about the economy and people losing their jobs, savings and lunch money isn’t funny.

Then there is Tiny Tim Geithner: a media nightmare.

Today Geithner pulled off a successful “media event.”  The White House did not allow live pictures!

This is the most managed and packaged administration yet….

Related:
 Obamagasm Media: Start Asking Questions; The Budget Is Full of Them

Geithner Makes Big Announcement With No Cameras Allowed

Biden: Give Obama a F*&^%$#ing Break
.
Obama Talks Too Much: Time to Fire Toxic Tim Geithner

Read Michelle Malkin:
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/0
3/23/fun-with-totus-teleprompter-
of-the-united-states/

***********************
Teased about his over relieance on the teleprompter, President Obama decided last night to use a jumbotron in only his second White House press conference.

This is like listening to the sight impaired read aloud; but we wouldn’t want to offend the sight impaired.

Eventually, in Amerian politics, even the slickest, most packaged guy will get unwrapped.

This is it.

Too bad the media assited in the packaging of the messiah before the election: now we have a president losing the confidence of the American people in a time of crisis.

What is worse is this: he seems to be losing his own confidence: his own sense of self and reality.

Related:
President Obama failed to sell his budget plans to the American people

Obama: Press Conference Hints at Class Warfare

President, Congress, Media “Vacant” in Time of Crisis
Obama Throws In The Towel

 After Leno, Laughter on “60 Minutes,” Boredom From “No Drama” Obama

Obama Once Ruled the Media: Now He Wants To Reach You With Less Of Them

Obama’s jumbotron in the White House..(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) 

 
Vice President Joe Biden is seen on a TelePrompTer while delivering remarks at the International Association of Fire Fighters 2009 Legislative Conference in Washington, Monday, March 16, 2009.(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

*************************

By Howard Kurtz
From CNN:

The venues could hardly be more different: Jay Leno’s couch and Steve Kroft’s hot seat.

The president, trying to get off the defensive during AIG Outrage Week, is on a certified media blitz. That’s why he played the Leno card, risking criticism that he shouldn’t be making jokes in Burbank while the economy is crumbling. That’s why he handicapped the NCAA playoff brackets on ESPN, risking criticism that he shouldn’t be worried about college hoops while the banking system remains in crisis.

That hot seat, figuratively speaking, was in the Oval Office, where the “60 Minutes” correspondent interviewed the president Friday evening.

“I think we asked him a lot of hard questions,” Kroft told me Sunday on “Reliable Sources.” “But I have to say that I found him probably more relaxed this week than at any other time that I had interviewed him.”

I asked whether he felt the need to be more polite with an incumbent president than a mere White House wannabe.

“I think that interviews with presidents are different than almost anything else,” Kroft said. “They’re sort of the last bastion of civility … particularly when you’re in the Oval Office. You’re not supposed to wag your finger at him, and you’re not supposed to get — it’s supposed to be civil. And so you always try and keep that in mind.”

Read the entire article:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITIC
S/03/22/kurtz.obama.interviews/in
dex.html

Obama said to me, “I bowl like a retard”

“If you say things like that on Leno, what do you say at home?”

That was the question posed by Hannah Jacobs, an advocate for those with special needs, on the Fox News channel during the 7-8 AM hour on March 21.

“What was he thinking?”

“He was saying, ‘I bowl like a retard,'” Jacobs said.

The reason we have so called “political corerctness” is because pwople want to point out that sometimes what you think and say is who you are: which may cause others some problems.

President Obama didn’t just make a funny joke or a gaffe on Obama the other night: he offended a lot of people who think he also revealed to us who he really is.

“He hurt a lot of American families and a lot of good people,” a reader emailed to us.

We are sure as hell that if Joe Biden said some racial slur, there would be a huge public outcry….

Just a thought…..
“This was a degrading remark about our world’s most precious and unique people, coming from the most powerful position in the world,” Sarah Palin said in a statement released Friday.
.
“These athletes overcome more challenges, discrimination and adversity than most of us ever will. By the way, these athletes can outperform many of us and we should be proud of them. I hope President Obama’s comments do not reflect how he truly feels about the special needs community.”

Palin’s son, Trig, has Down Syndrome.

Related:
American Democracy With Checks and Balances is Broken; Media, Congress Failing

 Psst: Obama; Biden Was Supposed To Be the Gaffe Prone Guy

Obama Fails During Tone-Deaf, Humorless Week: No Progress on Economy, Russia, Iran

 
U.S. President Barack Obama (L) laughs as he speaks to host Jay Leno on the NBC late night comedy show “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” in Burbank, California March 19, 2009. REUTERS/Larry Downing

Related from CNN:
“R-Word” Can Be Hurtful
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/0
3/20/obama.special.olympics/index.html

Psst: Obama; Biden Was Supposed To Be the Gaffe Prone Guy

When the Telegraph Newspaper in London lists the “Top Ten Gaffes” of the Obama Administration and Joke Biden doesn’t clean up on the Messiah there is a problem.

Houston, we have a problem.

And it is just not one problem.  Americans now must face the fact that they elected a President of the United States that is a human being: and the media  created an image, a mirage really, of Barack Obama that is just not true.

You were conned.  A lot of us were.

But this is about fair and honest media, now.

And the media is STILL trying to keep the play-acting Obama alive: despite a ton of evidence that the guy is real.  And may be real normal.  And maybe sometimes stupid.

Interesting that it has bee the Telegraph’s man in America, Toby Harnden, that has been the most reliable reporter of  Obama’s many gaffe’s — not an American reporter for an American media organization.

When will the double standard end?

Even the New York Times wants to know….. 

For the Telegraph’s Top Ten Obama Gaffe’s by Toby Harnden, google:
Harnden, Obama, gaffes

 

President Barack Obama bumps his head entering the door of Marine One…Photo by Edmonds, AP

***************

“It’s almost like they’ve got — they’ve got a bomb strapped to them and they’ve got their hand on the trigger,” President Obama said on Thursday of the banks he’s chosen to bail out. “You don’t want them to blow up. But you’ve got to kind of talk [to] them, ease that finger off the trigger.”

It may be the world’s shortest-lived gaffe: the brief outrage it spawned was of course entirely subsumed by the uproar over his comment to Jay Leno that his attempt at bowling was “like the Special Olympics or something.”

By Tobin Harshaw
The New York Times

 
U.S. President Barack Obama (L) laughs as he speaks to host Jay Leno on the NBC late night comedy show “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” in Burbank, California March 19, 2009. REUTERS/Larry Downing

Some would say it’s minor stuff — and it is: a clumsy simile for our terror-ridden time, followed by a clumsier joke for our P.C.-ridden time. But presidents don’t generally get a break on minor stuff. Gerald Ford, the finest athlete in Oval Office history, stumbles getting off a plane and America gets stuck with Chevy Chase’s career for the next three decades; Ronald Reagan, who brought about the perhaps the most significant reduction of nuclear weapons of the cold war, makes a bad joke about bombing Russia during a microphone sound check and is forever painted as a paranoid warmonger; George H.W. Bush, pork-rind eater, gives a befuddled look at a grocery-store scanner and will never shake the reputation as being out of touch with the common man; Dan Quayle, scion of a newspaper family, misspells the name of a common nightshade at a school spelling bee and his cements his reputation as an airhead; George W. Bush … well, one doesn’t know where to start with George W. Bush, but pretzels come to mind. It seems that only Vice President Joe Biden has managed to gaffe himself up the career ladder.

Besides, minor stuff often contains hints at the larger picture. “It was brilliant communications skills that carried Obama to the presidency,” note Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen of the Politico. “But the discipline and strategic focus of the campaign have yet to move into the White House. The story of the day often catches the president flat-footed or on the defensive — and regularly undercut by fellow Democrats. To Obama’s dismay, he is learning that successful presidential communications is only in part — often a fairly small part — about personal eloquence.”

The MSM didn’t seem to make much of the Special Olympics joke — The Times’s initial online story on the “Tonight Show” appearance didn’t even mention it , nor did The Washington Post’s news article on the president’s California swing – but one Special Olympian and plenty of folks in the blogosphere took note.

“So how do you categorize Obama’s statement?” asks Patterico. “Poor judgment? Thoughtlessness? Or TELLING IT LIKE IT IS?!?! Don’t get me wrong; I wouldn’t really countenance the disabled flying into an outrage over this. But I do think — like the “putting lipstick on a pig” comment — that it shows Obama has a tin ear sometimes. And that he’s often a poor communicator, despite all we’ve heard to the contrary.”

“One almost gets tired of saying it, but one must say it, still: Can you IMAGINE what the press and the Dems would do with that, had Bush said it,” adds the Anchoress, with a heavy sigh. “President Bush was no cool cat, but he was a master of self-deprecating humor. I give Obama credit for trying it out…but maybe he’d better practice it more! Patterico notes that the press is playing it down. That’s not surprising. It was a failed attempt at humor, and you know what? I’d love to ignore it, I really would. And I’ll start ignoring these Obama gaffes just as soon as the press gives them the same unending coverage they gave to Bush’s. When the double-standards end.”

Read the rest:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2
009/03/20/weekend-opinionator-obam
as-communication-breakdown/

Iran Blows Off Obama “Outreach Video” in White House Video Hell Week

President Obama is in video hell today.  His top videos are being panned and laughed at.

Americans are giggling that the president made fun of the Special Olympics while a guest on Jay Leno.

He should leave the comedy to Leno.

The Duke basketball coach said Obama should go to work on the economy and stay off ESPN.

And in Iran the Obama video offering outreach may never even get to the screen….

**********************

From Fox News

 Iran’s supreme leader said Friday that world powers had been persuaded they could not block Iran’s nuclear progress — making no mention of a new-year’s message sent by President Obama to his country, Reuters reported.

Neither Ayatollah Ali Khamenei nor Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad noted Obama’s attempt to make a “new beginning” with their country in recorded messages they issued to mark the Iranian New Year.

Obama released the video Friday to coincide with the Iranian festival of Nowruz, which marks the arrival of spring. In the video, Obama says the U.S. is prepared to end the strained relations if Tehran tones down its combative rhetoric.

“This process will not be advanced by threats. We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect,” Obama said.

A press adviser to Iran’s president downplayed the video, saying “minor changes will not end the differences.”

Ali Akbar Javanfekr told the Iranian state-run English-language Press TV satellite station that Iran will never forget U.S. meddling in Tehran’s affairs. The two countries broke off relations after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

**********************

“Obama has talked of change but has taken no practical measures to address America’s past mistakes in Iran. If Mr. Obama takes concrete actions and makes fundamental changes in U.S. foreign policy toward other nations including Iran, the Iranian government and people will not turn their back on him,” Ali Akbar Javanfekr told the Iranian state-run English-language Press TV satellite station.

It wasn’t clear how many Iranians were able to see the video, which was not aired on state television in Iran on Friday. It was likely shown on Farsi-language TV stations beamed in from outside of the country, but many Iranians don’t watch television in the first days of long Nowruz holiday that is normally filled with family gatherings or vacations away from home.

Iranians could see the video on the White House Web site, but other popular video sharing sites like YouTube are blocked in Iran.

Read the rest from the Associated Press:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.
php?id=D971PVM81&show_article=1

Lesson of the Cramer/Stewart What?

The face off between Jim Cramer of CNBC and “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart tells us about the realities of today’s new media.

The winner of this, what was it?  Debate? Gloated during his show aired on “Comedy Central.”

First, we live in the age, to a great extent, of the swallow Obama media.

Second, the newspapers are dying and that means a lot of fine critical thinkers, their ananlysis and writing will be gone, or lost or squished into the Internet.

Third, there is a lot of over-the-top self serving and a craving for “riveting” TV and radio which is needed to make money but may be degrading our social thinking and discussion.  We probably wouldn’t even listen to men like John Adams today but Jon Stewart and Rush Limbaugh have “merit.”

Entertainment and critical analysis are now mixed — and sometimes all mixed up.

This is reality.

But the Internet and our modern reality also means Michelle Malkin and guys like me have more of an opportunity to add our two cents — and more of a responsibility to think and offer criticism and ideas that have merit.

On Sided Smackdown, Riveting TV
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-d
yn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI20
05041100587.html

http://michellemalkin.com/200
9/03/14/lesson-of-the-cramer
stewart-kerfuffle/

From AP

The feud between Jon Stewart and CNBC’s Jim Cramer has been good for laughs — and ratings — but has also raised the serious question of whether the experts at TV’s No. 1 financial news network should have seen the meltdown coming and warned the public.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090313/ap_on_r
e_us/meltdown_financial_reporters

 
Jim Cramer, left, host of the ‘Mad Money’ show on CNBC, talks with Jon Stewart during an appearance on Comedy Central’s ‘The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’ Thursday, March 12, 2009 in New York.(AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)

Obama: Crisis is time of ‘great opportunity’

President Barack Obama on Saturday challenged his country to see its hard times as a chance to “discover great opportunity in the midst of great crisis.”

By Ben Feller, AP

“That is what we can do and must do today. And I am absolutely confident that is what we will do,” Obama said in his weekly radio and video address, taped a day earlier at the White House.

The work week ended on more down news, with the report of 651,000 more American jobs slashed and an unemployment rate climbing to 8.1 percent. That is the highest rate of people out of work in more than 25 years, as the recession continued to put enormous pressures on families and industries.

Obama recapped the work of the latest hectic week in his young presidency. His goal was to reassure the country that he and his team are taking specific steps to create jobs in the short term and begin to address huge issues such as health care.

Read the rest:
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20
090307/D96P7GG00.html

http://www.cheatseekingmissiles.com/
2009/03/07/the-taxinator/