Michael Beschloss

The network news divisions just never stop making deals to promote the Kennedy family and the omnipresent Kennedy mythology and mystique. Katherine Fung at The Huffington Post reports that ABC will air a two-hour special on September 13 promoting interviews with Jackie Kennedy recorded months after the JFK assassination with liberal historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.,  a major figure in Kennedy myth-building. 

At least Fung notes reports out of the UK that Caroline Kennedy made this deal with ABC in exchange for getting the "Kennedys" miniseries dropped from the History Channel. The whole special is intended to sell a book (and audio) organized by liberal establishment historian Michael Beschloss. The ABC trailer for this special is truly sickening, and carries the usual assumption that every last American finds it endlessly fascinating to ponder the lives of these allegedly heroic, historic, and glamorous people. The announcer gushes:

MSNBC's Chris Jansing dismissed as "complicated" a new House rule in the 112th Congress that requires every piece of legislation being considered to have a statement laying out where in the Constitution the Congress has the authority to legislate on that particular matter.

"How complicated though, are we about to see things if the Republicans say you have to have a constitutional reason for every bill that goes before them," Jansing asked historian Michael Beschloss shortly after 10:30 a.m. EST on her January 6 "Jansing & Co." program.

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On Tuesday morning’s Today show, NBC substitute anchor Lester Holt and correspondent Savannah Guthrie all but expressed regret over President-Elect Barack Obama having to make an “adjustment” -- not being able to “just pick up and go anytime he wants” due to “not just Secret Service, but a traveling corps of journalists now follows his every move, even in Hawaii.” Guthrie reported on the “signs Obama is growing a bit frustrated with all the attention.” The on-screen graphic accompanying her report inflated this apparent frustration on the part of future chief executive: “Man in a Bubble: Obama Chafes at Constant Scrutiny.”

Holt introduced Guthrie’s report with a lament over Obama’s seeming predicament: “He may not be president yet, but Barack Obama is getting an early taste of what life as leader of the free world is really like -- a lack of freedom, and an entourage documenting his every move.” Guthrie then began her report along a similar line: “Obama came here to Hawaii to get away from it all -- get one last vacation in before becoming president. But even here, he can’t just pick up and go anytime he wants, and that’s been quite an adjustment for the president-elect.”