While Sitting Here Minding My Own Business ...

someone is always emailing me, or writing something that causes me to dash off to dusty corners of the interwebs and look stuff up. Sometimes it's Stoaty Weasel, who is always "making" me buy books - like when she writes about stuff like The Great Boston Molasses Flood (excellent book on that here). And sometimes it's one of my siblings, who are nearly as weird as me.

In this case, a simple discussion between little sis & me about whether (1) we should catch a show by guitarist Laurence Juber and (2) at which venue (he'll be at 2 fairly local spots this coming May). Now, I'm the family no-talent, but with 3 sibs that are musical, we talk about this stuff a lot. To enlighten me, she sends me this video of Paul McCartney & Wings, with Juber as a side man (he's the one that's neither McCartney nor Denny Laine, if that's any help. I have no more-technical description to give - I are dense). I find the video exceedingly cute - especially Macca (as the British tabloids call him), who's just as handsome as his early Beatle years, 15+ years prior.



So, after I've survived the excruciatingly slow "download over dialup" and played it 1 or 2 (or 8 or 10) times (complete with samba-ing around the joint in my jammies), it occurs to me that McCartney (actually, the whole crew) looks just like the illustrations of Jazz Age illustrator John Held, Jr. Whose work I've always loved, but it occurs to me that I've never searched him out in the ether. So ... she's off! (but you knew that)

Some Held pix:









More Held info here and here.

That second link is where I found the map woodcut (which I'd never seen before) - the author of the article calls it a "denunciation of notable places and things. 'Americana', for example, is a denunciation of all of the stereotypical symbols of American culture."

I dunno. For somebody who (in this case) is allegedly depicting a distaste for "rum runners" and "bootleggers," he certainly made a tidy profit off the alcohol-fueled antics of the Jazz Age American sheiks and flappers - and made their behavior look darned attractive, overall. I hate it when I find something in my internet sifting that queers my liking of someone/something I previously held in good regard. I think I shall just take the words embedded in the western states at face value:

"If You Don't Like This Country Go Back Where You Came From"

Or, if you started out here, pick some spot you find more beguiling. Cuba, anyone? Iran?

So there.

Merry Christmas

"Some Mistletoe For You"
by
Louis Wain

The following is, of course, not really a Christmas song, but the sentiment is perfect for the season - particularly after the year we've had. While visions of sugarplums dance in your heads, may your dreams bring you peace and renewal.




WRAP YOUR TROUBLES IN DREAMS
Ted Koehler, Billy Moll, Harry Barris
1931

What price happiness,
What price happiness?
Who can truthfully say?
But for every share, with tears we pay.

Love is happiness -
I've had happiness,
But it ended one day.
Now I look at life a different way.

When skies are cloudy and grey
They're only grey for a day -
So wrap your troubles in dreams
And dream your troubles away.

Until that sunshine peeps through
There's only one thing to do:
Just wrap your troubles in dreams
And dream all your troubles away.

Your castles may tumble, that's fate after all
Life's really funny that way.
No use to grumble, just smile as they fall -
Weren't you king for a day?

Just remember that sunshine
Always follows the rain.
So wrap your troubles in dreams
And dream your troubles away.

Video from a very silly Mack Sennett short, but the only one I could find with Bing. He recorded this song 4 times in his career, so he must have enjoyed singing it as much as I enjoy hearing him.

Got Candy?

Dry Bones - The Delta Rhythm Boys

This Post

is for my sister ... and only she knows why!!!



Hot Jazz Band - Christopher Columbus



Christopher Columbus
Andy Razaf, Leon Berry 1936

Mister Christopher Columbus
Sailed the sea without a compass.
When his men began a rumpus
Up spoke Christopher Columbus:

"There is land somewhere
Until we get there,
We will not go wrong,
If we sing a swing song.

Since the world is round,
We'll be safe and sound,
Til our goal is found,
We'll just keep rhythm bound."

Soon the crew was makin' merry
Then came a yell, "Let's drink to Isabelle,
Hum, bring the rum, Ho Hum."

No more mu-tin-y,
What a time at sea,
With di-plo-macy
Christy made his-to-ry.

Mister Christopher Columbus
He used rhythm as a compass.
Music ended all the rumpus,
Wise old Christopher Columbus.


Happy Columbus Day!

Talk Talk

DrewM. has a post up at AoS: Success At Nuclear Talks! Iran Agrees To....MORE TALKS!

Wow, more talks! That's so awesome. This is so much different than all the talking and inspecting of Iranian facilities we've been doing until now. No, this is nothing like the almost 10 years that came before. It's different because this time it's S-M-A-R-T.

See? You don't, do you? Because you're a wingnut.

*snip*

EXCLUSIVE: Must Credit Ace Of Spades HQ---Obama plan to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons uncovered!

Step 1-Talk to Iran
Step 2- ???
Step 3- Victory!

*le sigh*

Speaking of wingnuttery, there's confessional talk in the comments of this Stoaty Weasel post of conversion to same and how it came to be for some folk.


All this talk makes me weary made me think of this:



Prolly my favorite "garage" number - Music Machine MySpace.


Talk Talk
Music Machine (1966)

I got me a complication
And it's an only child
Concernin' my reputation
As something more than wild
I know it serves me right
But I can't sleep at night
Have to hide my face
Or go some other place

I won't cry out for justice
Admit that I was wrong
I'll stay in hibernation
'Til the talk subsides to gone
My social life's a dud
My name is really mud
I'm up to here in lies
Guess I'm down to size
To size

Can't seem to talk about
The things that bother me
Seems to be
What everybody has
Against me
Oh, oh, all right

Here's the situation
And how it really stands
I'm out of circulation
I've all but washed my hands
My social life's a dud
My name is really mud
I'm up to here in lies
Guess I'm down to size
To size

Talk talk Talk talk Talk talk Talk talk


Yeah, I know, I have strange musical tastes - from Gilbert & Sullivan to garage punk/psychedelia in 2 posts! :-D

I Can Die Happy

I'm on iowahawk! Hey, I'm unemployed & don't have much to live for.

My submission letter:

Having endless respect (okay, slavish worship) for the talent that is Burge, as well as life-long love of all things Gilbert & Sullivan (particularly The Mikado), I imagine the noble iowhawk as the humane Mikado himself. Who else in the the blogosphere could be described thus?

A more humane Mikado never
Did in Japan exist,
To nobody second,
I'm certainly reckoned
A true philanthropist.
It is my very humane endeavour
To make, to some extent,
Each evil liver
A running river
Of harmless merriment.

My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time —
To let the punishment fit the crime —
The punishment fit the crime;
And make each prisoner pent
Unwillingly represent
A source of innocent merriment!
Of innocent merriment!

(more here and here)

No one, that's who. And he's saving Teh Arts - A true philanthropist! Bow! Bow! to iowahawk!

Your humble servant,
iamfelix

********

Check out how the program started here and here.


From the 1982 Stratford Festival, The Humane Mikado:

Well, Well, Well, You're Feeling Fine

Seniors and about-to-be-seniors-Boomers (of which I am one), wake the hell up. If you don't think your ass is going to be out on an ice floe if this thing passes, you're crazy. The only way this abomination can work is with extreme rationing of care ... you know, that horrible thing that eeeevil "Big Business HMOs" started doing when that total coverage model for every hangnail, burp and damaged hair follicle was found to be unsustainable. C'mon ... you were screaming about it constantly!!!ELEVENTY!!!!

1. If it was in any way beneficial, wouldn't the hogs at the trough in Congress be taking it for themselves first, instead of staying outside of it?

2. Who is expendable? Not young, working taxpayers. Or "the children." Can you say Booooomers? Sure you can. And the largest generation in the history of ever is on the cusp of becoming the largest, health-challenged demographic in the history of ever.

Found at American Digest, via Aardvarks and Asshats.



UPDATE: This, from Carin at Is This Blog On? on healthcare in France.

UPDATE II: The NY Post, Perils of Obamacare: The Three Big Lies.




UPDATE: Another video, as the first is inop:

I *SO* Love This

My guitar-playing sis sent this to me, and it's wonderful. Frank Vignola and others playing a medley of Hoagy Carmichael's beautiful Stardust with the Tommy Dorsey band's signature tune, I'm Getting Sentimental Over You. It's the most unsentimental version of that number I've ever heard, and it swings like crazy.




More on music: Mark Steyn on the Jerome Kern /Dorothy Fields number Pick Yourself Up, which was recalled to him by a line from (of all places) Obama's Inauguration speech. (Mark's complete take on that here with The Audacity of Dull). It's from the Astaire/Rogers gem Swing Time, and Mr. Steyn says:

On screen, it’s one of their best numbers together. Astaire’s delightful in his game efforts to dance badly, landing on the floor just in time to be admonished by Rogers to pick himself up, dust himself off, start all over again. Then, after she says disgustedly, “I can’t teach you anything”, Astaire goes into a machine-gun rat-a-tat-tat and sweeps her up and across the floor. This is one of Ginger’s best numbers: watch the way she’s initially bewildered and tentative over Fred’s sudden display of virtuoso terpsichore and then surrenders to the pure joy of the moment.

Here's the clip from Swing Time:



*sigh* I just bought the DVD of that flick - Now I must go watch it.


UPDATE: (Next day) Yep, I watched it, and now I have to include this - A Fine Romance, "a sarcastic love song."





A FINE ROMANCE (1936)
Dorothy Fields & Jerome Kern

A fine romance, with no kisses;
A fine romance, my friend, this is.
We should be like a couple of hot tomatoes -
But you're cold as
Yesterday's mashed potatoes.

A fine romance, you won't nestle;
A fine romance, you won't wrestle.
I've never mussed the crease in your blue serge pants -
I never have the chance,
This is a fine romance.

A fine romance, my good fellow,
You take romance, I'll take Jell-o.
You're calmer than the seals in the Arctic Ocean -
At least they flap their fins
To express emotion.

A fine romance, with no quarrels;
With no insults and all morals.
You're just as hard to land as the Ile de France -
I never get the chance,
This is a fine romance.

A fine romance, with no kisses;
A fine romance, my friend, this is.
True love should have the thrills that a healthy clime has;
We don't have half the thrills
That the March of Time has.

A fine romance, with no clinches;
A fine romance, with no pinches.
You never give the orchids I send a glance,
No, you like cactus plants!
This is a fine romance.

Again ... *sigh*.

More Basie Worship

I may just go on forever, posting all the songs I looooove.

The Count Basie Orchestra, In A Mellotone:



I'm sure Trombonology would agree that's some hot trombone-ing. For another great version of this tune, see this CD:



Stuff Smith - Dizzy Gillespie - Oscar Peterson (the whole CD is a keeper)

Now that I've mentioned Stuff, I need Stuff stuff:



The tune is Bugle Call Blues. He has a completely different style than Venuti (mentioned below), but I admire them both immensely.

Back to Basie - With Oscar Peterson, Slow Blues:



Piano heaven! One commenter at YouTube says, simply, "Elegant." And how.

One more Basie-Peterson, doing one of the Basie Band's signature numbers, Jumpin' At The Woodside.



Finally, from the 1955 movie Rhythm and Blues Review, the Basie Band and One O'clock Jump:



Basie Worship Part 1 here.

More Video

I know I'm doing practically nothing but video - still, I had to put this one up. The incomparable Teddy Wilson & the Dutch Swing College, 1976, doing the Gershwins' Lady Be Good. Check YouTube for more on Teddy & Teddy/DSC; they have lots of wonderful stuff there.




One more: My favorite Swing/Big Band, that of Count Basie, doing Corner Pocket, a real favorite number of mine (1962):



How could anyone not love that?

UPDATE: Another reason to love Basie:

My Sister Is Funny

I was emailing back-and-forth with my sis (mentioned in the post below), and I asked her if she'd seen the pic of the shirtless PE Obambi that was sending the press into such paroxysms of ecstasy -- see The Anchoress for a good roundup. She said she had, and that all she could think of was a Ren & Stimpy episode entitled Ren's Pecs, where, according to Nickelodeon:

After being tired of being pushed around on the beach one too many times. Ren's dream of having huge muscles comes true, after Stimpy makes a personal sacrifice (the fat in his butt!)

I had missed this gem, so I had to look around the Web for it. Apparently, after the operation, Ren goes off to Hollywood and Stimpy is lonely and sings this song:



I wonder if Obambi used butt-fat? If so, whose?


Totally unrelated, other than it came from the same conversation: A video of Joe Venuti, my favorite Jazz violinist, playing Sweet Georgia Brown (Italy, 1974). Joe was not only a consummate musician, but a tireless prankster, and the stories were legend. From the link:

Did Venuti really get a piano pushed out of a hotel window and make a bet on what pitch it would sound when it hit the ground? When a saxophone player’s tapping foot bugged him, did he really nail the guy’s shoe to the bandstand? While on a live TV show sponsored by a hair cream, did Venuti show his bald spot and remark that’s what the product had done for him? Did he actually send Wingy Manone, the one-armed trumpeter, a single cuff link as a Christmas present one year?

The great thing about scat-singing is that it does not require translation from the original Italian. Joe was quite a handsome devil in his youth:



Sort of youthful Ray Milland, pre-Lost Weekend. Hubba hubba!

Some Of My Favorite Songs Are

...extremely old (in case you haven't noticed). I like the old versions, and am overjoyed when someone comes up with a nifty new one.



My sister - pictured above in her precocious youth - has bought 3 new guitars in, like, a month. If she wasn't so good, I'd think she was cwazy. (I have a brother who's also an excellent musician). Anyway, this has prompted a lot of guitar discussions. I normally lean toward pianists (from Fats Waller, Nat Cole & Count Basie to Leon Russell & Ray Charles), but I do love me some Chet Atkins.

Here's Atkins and Suzy Bogguss, with fiddle player Johnny Gimble, doing one of my old favorites, After You've Gone (1918, composer Turner Layton, lyrics by Henry Creamer):



Next, Atkins and Mark Knopfler, I'll See You In My Dreams (1924, composer Isham Jones, lyrics Gus Kahn):



"British Invasion" duo Chad & Jeremy, Willow, Weep For Me (1932, Ann Ronell):



Just for good measure, The Mamas and The Papas, Dream A Little Dream Of Me (1931, composers Fabian Andre and Wilbur Schwandt, lyrics by Gus Kahn). It's not really a video, just a shot of the album cover, but the sound quality is good:



Eric Clapton, Nobody Knows You (When You're Down And Out) (1923, Jimmie Cox):



Piano & Big Band - Dr. John & Rickie Lee Jones, Makin' Whoopee (1928, composer Walter Donaldson, lyrics Gus Kahn):



One more piano! Diana Krall (another non-video video) doing If I Had You (1928, Ted Shapiro, Jimmy Campbell & Reginald Connelly):



A song I love so much, I bought this old sheet music - I even love the cover:



The Prince of Wales' favorite fox trot! That's the abdicated Edward, not upChuck - a king, dear, uncrowned.

I Love To Singa

I've already mentioned my fondness for Cab Calloway - Here he is with Al Jolson, doing I Love To Singa, from the movie The Singing Kid, in 1936. My dad hated Jolson, but I find him sort of weirdly fascinating.



My most favorite version of that song is this one, though - "Owl Jolson" in a WB Merry Melodies cartoon, also 1936.



You hotcha!
You crooner!
You falsetto!
You ... Jazz singer!!!

Merry Christmas, One And All!

I'll Be Home For Christmas -- Bing Crosby (1943)

The Christmas Song -- Nat 'King' Cole (1953)

White Christmas -- Jo Stafford (1946)

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas -- Judy Garland (1944)

I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm -- Billie Holiday (1937)

Jingle Bells -- Benny Goodman and His Orchestra (1935)

Christmas Blues

It's old (as they say at AoSHQ), but it's one of the first things that made me LOL via email, and it still cracks me up.

How To Sing The Blues

1. Most Blues begin, "Woke up this morning."

2. "I got a good woman," is a bad way to begin the Blues, 'less you stick something nasty in the next line: "I got a good woman -with the meanest face in town."

3. The Blues is simple. After you get the first line right, repeat it. Then find something that rhymes ... sort of: "Got a good woman - with the meanest face in town. Got teeth like Margaret Thatcher - and she weigh 500 pound."

4 The Blues are not about choice. You stuck in a ditch: You stuck in a ditch, ain't no way out.

5. Blues cars: Chevys and Cadillacs and broken down trucks. Blues don't travel in Volvos, BMWs, or SUV's. Most Blues transportation is a Greyhound bus or a southbound train. Jet aircraft and state-sponsored motor pools ain't even in the running. Walkin' plays a major part in the blues lifestyle. So does fixin' to die.

6. Teenagers can't sing the Blues. They ain't fixin' to die yet. Adults sing the Blues. In Blues, "adulthood" means being old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.

7. Blues can take place in New York City, but not in Hawaii or any place in Canada. Hard times in St. Paul or Tucson is just depression. Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City are still the best places to have the Blues. You cannot have the Blues in any place that don't get rain.

8. A man with male pattern baldness ain't the Blues. A woman with male pattern baldness is. Breaking your leg 'cuz you skiing is not the Blues. Breaking your leg 'cuz an alligator be chomping on it is.

9. You can't have no Blues in an office or a shopping mall. The lighting is wrong. Go outside to the parking lot or sit by the dumpster.

10. Good places for the Blues:
a. highway
b. jailhouse
c. empty bed
d. bottom of a whiskey glass

Bad places:
a. Ashrams
b. gallery openings
c. Ivy League institutions
d. golf courses

11. No one will believe it's the Blues if you wear a suit, 'less you happen to be an old man, and you slept in it.

12. Do you have the right to sing the Blues?

Yes, if:
a. you're older than dirt
b. you're blind
c. you shot a man in Memphis
d. you can't be satisfied

No, if:
a. you have all your teeth
b. you were once blind but now can see
c. the man in Memphis lived
d. you have a retirement plan or trust fund

13. Blues is not a matter of color. It's a matter of bad luck. Tiger Woods cannot sing the Blues. Gary Coleman could. Ugly white people also got a leg up on the Blues.

14. If you ask for water and Baby give you gasoline, it's the Blues.

Other acceptable Blues beverages are:
a. wine
b. whiskey or bourbon
c. muddy water
d. black coffee

The following are NOT Blues beverages:
a. mixed drinks
b. kosher wine
c. Snapple
d. sparkling water

15. If it occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it's a Blues death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is another Blues way to die. So is the electric chair, substance abuse, and dying lonely in a broken down cot. You can't have a Blues death if you die during a tennis match or getting liposuction.

16. Some Blues names for women:
a. Sadie
b. Big Mama
c. Bessie
d. Fat River Dumpling

17. Some Blues names for men:
a. Joe
b. Willie
c. Little Willie
d. Big Willie

18. Persons with names like Sierra, Sequoia, and Rainbow can't sing the Blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.

19. Make yer own Blues name (starter kit):

a. name of physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple, Lame, etc.)
b. first name (see above) plus name of fruit (Lemon, Lime, Kiwi, etc.)
c. last name of President (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, etc.)

For example, Blind Lime Jefferson or Cripple Kiwi Fillmore, etc.

20. I don't care how tragic your life; you own a computer, you cannot sing the Blues. You best destroy it. Use fire, a spilled bottle of Mad Dog, or shotgun. Maybe your big woman just done sit on it. I don't care.


Apparently there are no prohibitions against being a cookie:




The real deal: Merry Christmas, Baby -- Charles Brown.




LATER: Here's a guy I've always liked -- Leon Russell -- It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry (1971)

Suffer, Excess Baggage, Suffer!

This number is also from the movie "Stormy Weather" (see below).


For the video-deprived, here's a link to a RealPlayer audio of the same number:

Fats Waller & Ada Brown -- "That Ain't Right" (1943)


One never knows, do one?

Q: What's Better Than This?

A: Nothin'.

Cab Calloway & the wonderful Nicholas Brothers, in a clip from the 1943 movie "Stormy Weather."



I should have said the eternally-youthful Cab Calloway. Nearly 40 years later (73 years of age), he was still tearing 'em up with his most famous number in 1980's "The Blues Brothers."



Hi-de-ho, indeed.

And Now For Something Completely Different or: A Major Link-O-Rama

Someone else I love (probably because I am a blockhead), Ian Dury! (More here)

Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick




And the flip-side of the original single:

There Ain't Half Been Some Clever Bastards




An 80s song I still love (it's one you either love or despise):

Puttin' On The Ritz - Taco




I wonder what Irving Berlin would have thought of that version of his creation. (Let alone this one). From "Irving Berlin in Hollywood," by Ian Whitcombe:

It was all very well for Broadway and Hollywood to call for the fashionable integrated song but the fact is that we remember the Berlin numbers and not the plots of these shows. Perhaps he knew this all along because after a follow-up movie, "Follow The Fleet" and other commissions for which he delivered the required work, he was happy to let Twentieth Century Fox in "Alexander's Ragtime Band" celebrate his hit-making life through a cavalcade of songs ranging from the ragtime years up to the current craze for Swing. Ethel Merman did her usual fine job of enunciating "Heat Wave" as if she possessed a built-in bullhorn. Berlin thoroughly approved of her way with his work (just as he did Jolson's and Astaire's) because she respected both words and music-something the Swing Musicians neglected, even ignored. After hearing Benny Goodman's interpretation of "Blue Skies", in which the tune got buried, he told the King of Swing: "That was the most incredible playing I've ever heard - Never do it again!"

Blue Skies -- Benny Goodman & His Orchestra (1935)

Just because, one of my favorite versions of that number by Maxine Sullivan, on whom I bestowed the highest honor that's in my power to give -- named one of my cats after her.

Blue Skies -- Maxine Sullivan & Her Orchestra (1937)

More great Maxine (the singer, not the cat):

Stop! You're Breakin' My Heart -- Claude Thornhill Orchestra with Maxine Sullivan (1937)


To prove I have the strangest musical tastes in the galaxy, here's a link to a really fine blog piece on someone else who fascinates me, Bert Williams. The whole blog is swell, nice writing with a huge range of music types. Just my thing.

Hit me! Hit me!


LATER: Unlike Allan Sherman, I still love the Beatles:

'Tis The Season

Picture from Cheezburger.

'Zat You, Santa Claus? -- Louis Armstrong & The Commanders (1953)

LATER: It's not really a Christmas story ... and yet, each time I see their names (Maddie & Ivy), my brain wants to sing the Christmas song "The Holly and the Ivy," so maybe it is ... hmmmm ... anyway, the latest tale of these 2 cats is up at StrangeRanger. Their "conversations" always crack me up.

BUMPED: Ann Coulter -- Spot On

AND MORE NEW: JUST TO PILE ON the Silky Pony, this from doubleplusundead.


MORE NEW! Post (AoSHQ) from Ace:

I really can't fucking believe the media is now deciding whether to report big stories of national scope based on whether someone they like might be distressed by their reportage.

Of course I can believe it; I have to believe it. It's what they're doing, obviously.

I guess the New York Times didn't like Cindy McCain all that much when it reported on McCain's non-affair with his non-paramour.

Should media organizations be required to disclose which people they "like" and wish to "protect," and which people they "don't like" and "don't wish to protect," so that we might know beforehand where their biases may lie?

Seems like a bona fide conflict of interest, more so than many others. If the media is in the tank for Elizabeth Edwards, we need to know that, in order to properly evaluate their coverage of her husband.

As Ann Coulter said in the column (see below) that started this post, if this had been Mitt Romney, the media would have been camped on his front lawn since the first mention, chasing his wife through the supermarket and accosting his grandkids at their elementary schools to "get the TRUTH!" And it would have mattered not-at-all that he was no longer in the running for the nomination or was not currently in some political/public service position.

*sigh*

FATS WALLER & HIS RHYTHM (1936) -- "It's A Sin To Tell A Lie"


NEW! 08-08-08: AoSHQ by DrewM "Edwards Admits Affair, *NUANCE* But Denies Child"

John Edwards repeatedly lied during his Presidential campaign about an extramarital affair with a novice filmmaker, the former Senator admitted to ABC News today.In an interview for broadcast tonight on Nightline, Edwards told ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff he did have an affair with 44-year old Rielle Hunter, but said that he did not love her.

As one of the commenters puts it: "Well, that puts the whole 'love child' thing to rest."

********

Ann Coulter on the non-coverage of the John Edwards (alleged) love-child scandal (which is just a microcosm of the problems of most of today's media coverage).

A Washington Post reporter defended the total blackout on the National Enquirer's John Edwards' love child story, telling the Times of London: "Edwards is no longer an elected official and he is not running for office now. Don't expect wall-to-wall coverage." This was the perfect guy to talk to because if there's one thing they're careful about in London, it's tabloid excess.

Isn't there some level of coverage between "wall-to-wall" and "double-secret probation, delta-force level total news blackout" when it comes to a sex scandal involving a current Democratic vice presidential and Cabinet prospect?

Hey, what sort of "elected official" was Ted Haggard again? He was the Christian minister no one outside of his own parish had ever heard of until he was caught in a gay sex scandal last year. Then he suddenly became the Pope of the Protestants. And yet, despite the fact that Haggard was not an "elected official," the Post gave that story wall-to-wall coverage. And what sort of "elected officials" were Mel Gibson, Rush Limbaugh and Bill Bennett?

*snip*

I assume it would be jejune to point out that the MSM would be taking the wall-to-wall approach, rather than the total blackout approach, to the love child story if it were a story about Mitt Romney's love child or, indeed, Larry Craig's love child. They'd bring Ted Koppel out of retirement to cover that. Katie Couric, Brian Williams and Charles Gibson would be anchoring the evening news from Romney's front yard. They might even get Dan Rather to produce some forged documents for the occasion.

So true, especially the fourth paragraph. Read the rest here.

UPDATE: Heh - Tim Blair: Unknown Story Referenced.