Ana Marie Cox

During the 'Early Wrap' segment on Friday's CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith discussed the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan with a panel of media pundits: "The almost unknown, practically under the radar, the Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan, before committees this week being funny. She was downright funny."

GQ Magazine's Washington correspondent Ana Marie Cox agreed with Smith and added: "...a Saturday Night Live skit made live, in part because she looks exactly like Rachel Dratch. And it's perfect because Al Franken is on the committee. And I kept on watching like waiting for someone to burst into song or Unfrozen Caveman Senator." Radio host Jane Pratt chimed in: "Her joke was good, the Chinese food joke was good." Smith remarked: "Very funny. Sunday night, and Christmas."
        
On Wednesday's Good Morning America on ABC, news reader Juju Chang noted Kagan's "lively sense of humor" and later asked co-hosts George Stephanopoulos and Elizabeth Vargas "who is going to play her in the SNL skit?" Vargas replied: "I don't think they could be as funny as Elena Kagan was!"

After having already used her appearance on Wednesday’s The View show on ABC to defend author Joe McGinniss’s claim that Sarah Palin was acting like a Nazi trying to intimidate him, Joy Behar again defended McGinniss on the same day’s Joy Behar Show on HLN, and suggested that Palin is responsible for making her children into targets for daring to let the public see her family – as most politicians do – while she was running for Vice President. Behar: "The other thing is that isn`t she the one who put her kids in the spotlight in the first place? I mean, they, at the convention, when they were passing that kid out more than a joint at a Grateful Dead concert. Remember that? I mean, she started it, as far as I can tell."

Guest Lizz Winstead, co-creator of the Daily Show, then chimed in that Palin had already written about her "dumb life": "She already wrote a book about her own dumb life anyway, and, as far as I can tell, when Joe McGinniss writes about Sarah Palin, he doesn`t go into her personal life. He`s writing about whether or not she has a modicum of skill to run anything."

Ana Marie Cox on Sunday compared the Tea Party movement to the anti-war women's group Code Pink.

Appearing on CNN's "Reliable Sources," the GQer formerly known as Wonkette wasn't at all bothered by Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans disrupting Karl Rove's book signing last week.

"It's not infringing on Karl Rove's right to speak to have someone else interrupt him." 

She continued, "Code Pink was to Fox News, you know, what the Tea Partiers are to MSNBC now. I mean, Code Pink was the group that the Republicans and the GOP and Fox News wanted to have represent the Democratic Party" (video embedded below the fold with transcript and commentary): 

Don't be surprised if McCain '08 campaign adviser Nicolle Wallace passes up future chances to vent for Rachel Maddow.

Wallace did not appear on the Maddow show, agreeing instead to go on the record off-camera with her criticisms of Sarah Palin's new book, "Going Rogue: An American Life."

Maddow told viewers of her MSNBC show Tuesday that John McCain held a conference call Nov. 13 and asked that if they wanted to respond to Palin's book, to "at least avoid being interviewed about the book on TV," Maddow said --

In an unorthodox move, The Washington Post on Tuesday published two book reviews of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue -- one by liberal Ana Marie Cox of Air America radio, and one by conservative Matthew Continetti of the Weekly Standard. Continetti's is genuinely supportive. Cox's is genuinely snarky. (Obviously, it would have been nice if Hillary Clinton had received that treatment, but let's not overlook the balance here.)

There's also a snarky article by Post writer Jason Horowitz and Michael Shear headlined "The Book of Sarah embraces God & Todd."

Inside the Style section, the headline of the Cox review is "Rogue: Mostly flash, little substance. Surprised?" Isn't "mostly flash, little substance" a beautiful summation of the career of Ana Marie Cox? It's like Katie Couric suggesting Palin isn't deep.

Cox slams Rush Limbaugh in her review for calling the book substantive, even as she later confessed she only read part of the book:

The left has gotten a lot of "giggles" over the term "teabaggers" in describing Americans who attend the tea parties. For those of you who don't know, teabagging is a perverse sexual term. It is interesting to me that the left not only knew the term, but seemed very comfortable using it. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised.

Those having the most fun have been CNN's Anderson Cooper, Rachel Maddow of MSNBC and frequent guest pundit Ana Marie Cox. Last week I posted about tweeting with Ana marie Cox where she promised me she would stop using the term if I donated to a charity she was sponsoring for research in colon cancer in memory of Tony Snow. I donated $100 and was her top contributor. She thanked me and promised she would stop. She even asked if "teabaggist" would be cheating, and I said yes it would be.

Big shock here - MSNBC's Rachel Maddow agrees with the White House, which is the Fox News Channel is not really a news organization.

Sarcasm aside, on her Oct. 23 MSNBC program, Maddow attempted to justify the Obama administration's tack over recent months with Fox News. She laid out a series of events over the past few days that indicated an escalation of the feud between Fox News and the White House, specifically an effort to exclude Fox News from the White House pool.

"Well yesterday the White House said that Fox would not be among the networks invited to interview Ken Feinberg in one of these round-robin pool interviews and the other networks came to Fox's defense," Maddow reported. "They said they would bow out of interviewing Mr. Feinberg's themselves unless Fox was included, so Fox was included."

Additional Video Below Fold

When Glenn Beck reports that a top-level White House advisor has endorsed communism, accused 'white polluters' of poisoning minority communities, called his political opponents a**holes, and believes an American president was complicit in the slaughter of innocent civilians, Beck must have a hidden agenda. When the mainstream media fails to report these facts, it's all an honest mistake.

Or so one might gather from listening to CNN contributor and Washington Post columnist Howard Kurtz. Kurtz continues to waffle between a cynical take on Glenn Beck's outing of Van Jones as a truther conspiracy theorist, and an apologetic approach to the mainstream media's virtual silence on the story until after Jones's resignation.

The Times's Managing Editor Jill Abramson offered a number of excuses for the lack of Van Jones coverage last weekend, chiefly that the paper's Washington Bureau was short-staffed. This did not stop the Times from sending two reporters to Boston for the weekend to cover the non-story of Joseph Kennedy II's Senate run (which he later said would not happen).

What a difference two weeks make.

On August 30, CNN's Howard Kurtz accused Glenn Beck of attacking former green jobs czar Van Jones in retaliation for the advertising boycott the Jones-founded group Color of Change had organized against the Fox News host.

Now that Jones has been forced to resign as a result of numerous allegations uncovered and/or reported by Beck, Kurtz is wondering why most other news outlets totally ignored this story.

To refresh your memory, here's what Kurtz said about Beck on "Reliable Sources" two weeks ago (video embedded below the fold):

Ana Marie Cox, until the end of last year the Washington editor for Time magazine's Web site, concluded her Friday night (September 4) fill-in gig as host of MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show -- where she was hardly shy about conveying her liberal views as she spent much of the hour ridiculing conservatives -- by pulling open her jacket to display how underneath she was wearing a vintage “I'm Ready for Teddy Kennedy '76” T-shirt. (For the historically-challenged, Kennedy did not run in 1976.)

Now a weekend host for the left-wing Air America radio network, Cox explained: “It's a tribute, of sorts, to the fallen liberal lion.” A blogger for The Daily Beast, where the title for her last post was “God Loves Obama,” she quickly added that Kennedy was not her first apparel choice: “I actually was looking for a Wellstone shirt. If anyone can find a Wellstone shirt, very interested in it, classic.”

When four members of the media, only one of them decidely right-leaning, agree on something, viewers should pay heed: blaming conservative talk show hosts whenever someone goes on an unprovoked shooting spree is wrong.

Such was the unanimous conclusion reached on Sunday's "Reliable Sources" when host Howard Kurtz and his guests -- Mark Halperin of Time magazine, Ana Marie Cox of Air America Radio, and Jim Geraghty of National Review -- got together to discuss the predictable reaction to Wednesday's killings at the Holocaust Museum Memorial.

Most surprisingly, even the uber-liberal Cox concurred:

I do think it is irresponsible to make that a very like hard connection. I have to totally disagree with Rachel [Maddow] and Keith [Olbermann] on this. I think that that was going a little bit too far to compare him to Rush Limbaugh.

Imagine that. What follows is an embedded video of this surprising segment (relevant section at 12:00) along with a partial transcript:

There she goes again, revealing more than intended.

Hardly a broadcast of her MSNBC cable show passes without Rachel Maddow earnestly claiming to have invited a Republican guest, only to be told, thanks no thanks.

But based on Maddow's remarks on her show this past Friday evening, those claims come across as dubious -- given Maddow's censorious rationale for selecting guests. Or more accurately, those possessing the temerity to disagree with her politics.

Maddow had this to say during a discussion with Ana Marie Cox about what they perceive as more vocal criticism of Obama from Republicans who do not hold elected office (click here for audio) --

MSNBC prides itself as being the place for politics, the seemingly clever marketing slogan could be used to describe the network as the place where hosts try to use dirty humor about important political events.

David Shuster, filling in for MSNBC loose-cannon Keith Olbermann on his April 13 broadcast, and his writers probably thought they were pretty clever when they pieced an item denigrating the tax protests by using the sexual term "teabagging."  Urbandictionary.com, cited multiple times by one MSNBC guest, describes it as when a man places his testicles "onto someone's face, or into their mouth."

"For most Americans, Wednesday, April 15th will be Tax Day," Shuster said as he began a soliloquy with about a dozen separate oral sex puns. "But in our fourth story tonight: It's going to be teabagging day for the right-wing and they're going nuts for it. Thousands of them whipped out the festivities early this past weekend, and while the parties are officially toothless, the teabaggers are full-throated about their goals.

Yes -- "perhaps." Hard to believe there are people who harbor doubts about this. Not so shocking to learn they dwell on the left side of the aisle.

Former "Wonkette" blogger Ana Marie Cox, a contributor to Time magazine and The Daily Beast, appeared on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show last night to discuss, among other things, a Los Angeles Times story about Bush cabinet members receiving talking points on accomplishments they can cite from the 43rd president's tumultuous tenure.

Two of the achievements cited are that Bush has "kept the American people safe" since 9/11 and the president's work to curb AIDS in Africa. Maddow and Cox take it from here --

There really are no words, though I suppose we'll manage to find some.  Wonkette, which bills itself as "the DC Gossip," and is the creation of Ana Marie Cox, now gone on to bigger things at Time, has this photograph up of Trig Palin, dressed for Halloween as an elephant and being held in the loving embrace of one of his sisters. [H/t Damian at Conservathink.]

Wonkette appends its comment, suggesting—and there really is no way to sugar coat it—that given the choice Trig would rather have been aborted:

If you don't have immediate primary results, there is always resorting to cheap shots. On Time's Swampland blog, Ana Marie Cox dipped back into the Limbaugh-druggie jokes:

Conventional wisdom -- and, who knows, maybe it's the truth -- has it that a close night tonight for McCain will be due to talk radio. Fine. But does a not-as-good-as-it-should-be* result for McCain necessarily bode well for Mitt Romney? I couldn't help but notice the way the nets have been slugging the story: [Graphic from CNN on Limbaugh vs. McCain]

Because, you know, Limbaugh's not the one that's running. I'm sure he could beat McCain -- at least in ratings, and maybe in an election if R's opinions on drug use change dramatically -- but Romney is the one that needs to.

Time online editor Ana Marie Cox apparently believes a dated quip by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney should be considered a "macaca moment." During a Florida event on Monday, Romney, joking with a group of young people, quoted a rather lame song by the Baha Men. After asking who had a camera, he blurted, "Who let the dogs out? Who? Who?"

Now, most people would simply smile or appreciate Romney's friendly, if somewhat dorky, sense of humor. Cox, however, at Time's "Swampland" blog, wondered, "Shouldn't it be a 'macaca moment'? I suspect he's not being pilloried for it because the moment [sic] less offensive than it is cringe-inducing..." She also described the candidate's comments, which occurred at a Martin Luther King day event, as "jive talking." (Hat tip to Hot Air, who also remembered that Cox previously went after Romney for not taking proper care of the family dog.) Is Time's online editor simply looking for a scandal, any scandal, to hit Mitt Romney with?  

UPDATE: Video here.

Ana Marie Cox: not just a snarky ex-blogger turned Time editor anymore -- now a theologian who has pronounced Mitt Romney not a Christian.

The former Wonkette is all over MSNBC today. Early today on "Morning Joe," Cox cattily swiped at Katie Couric, surmising that the CBS Evening News anchor was traveling to the Middle East because she needed rugs. She has since claimed to have intended no slight to Katie or Middle Easterners. Right. Screencap from MJ after the break.

This evening, Cox appeared on "Countdown" to discuss the Larry Craig matter with Olbermann. Talk turned to the way Mitt Romney (R-Mass.) has dealt with the situation. The Idaho senator had served as Romney's co-chairman in the Senate. Romney was quick to disassociate Craig from his campaign, and Tuesday referred to Craig's behavior as "disgusting

Update 15:34 (see bottom of post): Cox explains her rug joke.

I had great expectations when Ana Marie Cox turned up on the "Morning Joe" panel, confident the tart-tongued former Wonkette would produce plenty of grist for our NB mill. But over the course of the week, Cox has been disappointingly subdued, leaving it to the congenial Tamron Hall to produce our headlines. Perhaps Ana Marie's new gig at staid "Time" magazine has caused her to hide her acerbic light under a barrel.

But the strain of being restrained was maybe too much for Ana Marie, for she began this morning's show with a catty swipe at Katie Couric.

Host Joe Scarborough began the opening chit-chat by noting that CBS Evening News anchor Couric has announced her plans to visit Iraq and Syria. That's when Ana Marie pounced.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: So Katie's going off to the war zone. Did you read that? Katie Couric.

ANA MARIE COX: Needs some rugs, maybe. I don't know.

R-e-o-o-w-w-w!

View video here.

Here's another item for the "Bush Won't Win Praise in the Media By Going Soft on Gitmo" file.

It was posted on Friday, pre-presidential colonoscopy (hence the snark about the Cheney administration), but I just came across it today.

In "Bush's Anti-Torture Executive Order! Uhm, Not So Fast," Time.com Washington editor Ana Marie Cox laments that the new Bush administration interrogation directives for Gitmo detainees will still allow sleep deprivation (emphasis mine):