Here’s something you never would have heard from a mainstream media outlet when George W. Bush was President: Hurricane Katrina was a good thing for New Orleans.

When it comes to the school system in the Louisiana city, that’s exactly what CNN reported during Saturday’s "Newsroom." 

After anchor T.J. Holmes read a statement from Education Secretary Arne Duncan — "I think the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina" — he was joined by fellow CNNer’s Roland Martin and Steve Perry who largely agreed.

As you watch the following video, try to imagine this discussion happening on CNN if Bush was still in the White House (video embedded below the fold with full transcript, h/t Story Balloon):

T.J. HOLMES, ANCHOR: Well, hurricane Katrina, a good thing for New Orleans? Well, that’s what President Obama’s education secretary says, at least saying it about the education system down there in New Orleans. That statement certainly has a lot of people talking, has us talking this morning.

The statement was made to CNN analyst Roland Martin, who happens to be in studio with us.

ROLAND MARTIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes.

HOLMES: Good to have you with us.

MARTIN: Glad to be here.

HOLMES: Also CNN education contributor Steve Perry will be weighing in in Connecticut. Roland, I want to start with you. This is an interview you were doing with Arne Duncan.

MARTIN: It was for my TV-1 show, Sunday morning news show.

HOLMES: We’ll see it on Sunday.

MARTIN: Right.

HOLMES: But there was some stuff that was put out and released. I do want to read this to our viewers. And he says "I think the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was hurricane Katrina. That education system was a disaster. It took hurricane Katrina to wake up the community and say we have to do better. The progress that they’ve made in four years is unbelievable."

MARTIN: Right before that he said "I hate to say this."

HOLMES: "I hate to say this," by he said it.

MARTIN: He said it. And this is what he was talking about. That was a decrepit school system. And so what you do is you turn tragedy into triumph. That is, you have an opportunity to totally rebuild a school system that was not educating children, where you had a high illiteracy rate in that city, a high poverty rate.

And so it was totally destroyed, so therefore they can build from ground zero.

Not only that, "The Washington Post" story you see today, he says many folks in New Orleans are saying that, as well. Other educators are saying that, that this was the opportunity, that because it was destroyed this is how you can now fix it and repair it and build it up.

HOLMES: Let me bring in now Steve Perry. Steve, you hear the statement, I assume and it sounds like a lot of people agree with it, at least. You agree with it as well?

STEVE PERRY, CNN EDUCATION CONTRIBUTOR: Of course I agree with it, but problem here is what we didn’t obliterate was the leadership. We keep retreading leaders in the public school system. Paul Ballas was the CEO of Chicago public schools, not necessarily a powerful school system, a failure in its own right, coming from there, Arne Duncan.

It’s like a bad version of the Atlanta housewives. We keep retreading the leaders and taking them from one place to another and expecting different results. We can’t just change what’s happening in the schools. We have to change leadership and bring new talent to bear.

MARTIN: But actually, Steve, in New Orleans, when you look at test scores, when you look at involvement of the schools, you have seen a change because the power structure, how the school system was being run totally changed in terms of — Ballas has a heck of a lot more control over that school system than what you had before then.

You get the fights between the mayor and the school board and you had folks in the schools, they totally changed how they run the schools. So at the end of the day, our kids, scores are going up, kids are learning more. The data is there, and it is getting better.

HOLMES: Steve, go ahead.

PERRY: But the other side of it is we often talk about the scores going up, so they go up from five percent to 10 percent, we call that 100 percent growth, but it’s still 90 percent failure.

What I’m talking about is at some point we need to change fundamentally who’s running the schools, not just move people from one part of the country to the other and making incremental change, because we’re still categorically failing our children.

MARTIN: I agree, but Steve, if you go from five to 10, your goal then 10 to 15, 20 to 30, you’re not going…

PERRY: The problem is… MARTIN: Steve, I understand that, but what I’m saying is the whole key that Secretary Duncan is talking about is that you had an opportunity to totally restructure.

If you actually — if the school system in this country were a lot like a sorry building with so many code violations, city council would have razed these schools. And so what he was saying is we have an opportunity to reconstruct how folks are being educated as the result of the devastation.

PERRY: I agree with that.

MARTIN: In Haiti, you’re seeing the same thing.

PERRY: That’s not what I’m disagreeing with. Of course that’s happening. I’m saying that we can’t have a Katrina in all of the 50 states. We have to have more than that.

And what I’m saying is the problem here is that what we keep doing is we keep retreading superintendents. They go from one community to the other. They’re like journeymen field goal kickers on bad teams in the NFL. I’m saying at some point we have to put new people in there.

HOLMES: Has there…

MARTIN: There are new people down there, as well.

HOLMES: Steve, has there been — what changes have you seen in New Orleans? You talk about that same kind of administrative structure there, but still, has there been something that caused everybody to look at that education system a little differently, or are you saying there’s really nothing that has changed down there?

PERRY: I’m not saying at that all. I’m saying there are changes. I’m saying we can continue to make greater changes.

One of the changes, they’ve been having an honest discussion about vouchers. They’re giving real choice to the student throughout the community. That’s phenomenal.

What I’m saying is that we need to make sure we have access to new leaders. One of the reasons why D.C. is doing what it’s doing is because they have a leader who comes from outside the system. She wasn’t a transplant from somewhere else and doing it in community after community after community.

What Michelle Reed is doing is she is looking at the whole problem with a different set of eyes, a new set of eyes.

MARTIN: And the problem she has is she’s dealing with the city council, she’s fighting with the mayor that supports her.

I agree we need new leadership, but here’s the reality — has that system been fundamentally changed to a certain degree? Yes. Are they seeing progress? Yes. Are things progressing, yes? Are they having parent who is finally recognize you can’t just complaint but you need to get involved? Yes.

And so I applaud the progress there. Do we need more leaders? Yes. There are people moving to New Orleans I know personally to get involved in the school system, the charter schools, absolutely.

So I will always applaud progress while at the same time calling for new leadership. I will not dismiss the progress of that happening there.

What you’re seeing at the education department is they are trying to focus across this country on challenging people to raise their expectations, challenging teachers’ unions to stop making excuses for sorry teaches, but also challenging the parents to say you cannot demand excellence from a school system if you don’t have a demand for excellence at your own home.

HOLMES: And, Steve, I’ll let you wrap it there. Go ahead, Steve.

PERRY: And what I’m saying is of course I’m applauding progress. On the same token, I’m talking about there are children right now in the schools who can’t be part of a school system with 70 percent failure rates in some of the schools. I’m saying those children need access out to schools now. And that is happening.

MARTIN: I agree with you.

HOLMES: Let him finish.

PERRY: And so we applaud the progress. The problem is that these children don’t get a chance to wait for progress to take shape. We need more now.

MARTIN: Look, I understand. I support vouchers, public school, private school, home school, online, as long as they get educated at the end of the day. That’s all I care about.

PERRY: Then we’re in agreement.

HOLMES: Gentlemen, I appreciate you both being here.

MARTIN: Tune in to my show, TV-1, 11:00 a.m. tomorrow. That’s the purpose of the interview.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

HOLMES: Fellas, we appreciate it. Good discussion, both of you.

PERRY: Take it easy, gentlemen.

HOLMES: See you, Steve.

For the record, the Washington Post has already positively reported on Duncan’s statement and included support for his comment:

Paul G. Vallas, superintendent of the Recovery School District in Louisiana, which oversees most of the city’s public schools, said he had "no problem" with Duncan’s comments about the hurricane’s beneficial effect on education.

"Local people have said that time and time again," Vallas said. "He’s not saying hurricanes are good things. . . . What he’s saying is that people were not serious about school reform [before the hurricane struck], and if they were serious, there wasn’t any progress being made. And post-Katrina, there is."

Duncan worked for Vallas when Vallas headed the Chicago public schools about a decade ago.

Vallas said that about 37,000 students attend New Orleans public schools and that average test scores have risen two years in a row.

Many schools, he said, have been rebuilt or overhauled since the hurricane, and their academic performance is improving.

Paul Pastorek, Louisiana superintendent of education, said of Duncan’s comments: "I know it’s a strong statement, but it’s actually quite accurate. It was a pathetic system before the storm."

So, test scores have risen two years in a row. That means one of them was when Bush was still in the White House.

Can you imagine how the press would have responded if Bush education secretary Margaret Spellings had made the same statement Duncan did after the 2008 school year and before the November elections?

Would the press have been so quick to agree with her sentiments?

Likely not. But now that Barack Obama is in the White House, even natural disasters have their upside.

Amazing.

British-born comedian Tracey Ullman is quite the mimic.

On "The Rachel Maddow Show" Thursday night, Ullman morphed into actress Halle Berry without realizing it.

Berry landed in hot water back in October 2007 on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" when she told Leno that a distorted photograph made her look like her "Jewish cousin."

Here’s Ullman describing how she prepared to impersonate Maddow in the third-season premiere of her Showtime program "State of the Union" –

MADDOW:  Do I always laugh like that?

ULLMAN (imitating Maddow): Sometimes. (laughs) You weren’t laughing at Doyle’s last week. (referring to Maddow’s coverage of results of special election in Massachusetts from bar in Boston). Oh, you looked so sad. But ..

MADDOW: I think I was attacked for looking more sad than I actually looked.

ULLMAN: Oh! You literally, it was going down like this. (pulling down corners of her mouth) I don’t blame you though.

MADDOW: That’s just age.

ULLMAN:  So what I did as well, Matthew Mungle, an Academy Award-winning prosthetic makeup artist, gave me a chin, so I had the Rachel Maddow, ’cause you have a long face.

MADDOW: I do?

ULLMAN:  Your nose, I tried to make a nose and it didn’t look right.

MADDOW: OK …

ULLMAN: Yeah. It looked really kinda Hebrew …

MADDOW:  … I can imagine …

ULLMAN: … And you’re not. So…

MADDOW (after laughing):  Distantly, but yeah, OK …

Much different than what Berry told Leno?

As I understand it, Maddow was raised Catholic by a mother from Canada and father of Russian descent and she is, as Maddow told Ullman, "distantly" Jewish.

Not only did Ullman trim back on the prosthetics, she took a pruning shear to the humor, at least while impersonating Maddow (follow this link to the "State of the Union" segment). Ullman nails Arianna Huffington, who’s hardly a challenge to any comic worth her salt, along with Meghan McCain, Christiane Amanpour and Barney Frank, but her Maddow comes across as safe and uninspired.

"They had 140 players on the field and the other guy had one, other team had one guy, and they lost to him."

So said Keith Olbermann Friday about President Obama’s meeting with House Republicans earlier in the day.

Shortly after Chris Matthews gushed on fawned over the President during MSNBC’s two hour special on the event Friday, the "Countdown" host unashamedly uttered superlatives of his own.

These included Olbermann claiming Obama is one of the 1000 smartest people in America (video embedded below the fold with transcript, h/t Story Balloon):

KEITH OLBERMANN: Yes. Well, you and I had this conversation when we went to the White House, that it was, it was really one of those moments where you thought, well, maybe we do have one of say the 1,000 smartest people in the country is the President of the United States. Maybe he`s 999. Maybe number 83 – we don`t know.

But that sense that you have that guy knows what he`s talking about under almost all circumstances and almost all topics is overwhelming. And I think this is the entree into it, to what degree it changes anything.

I would imagine there are – we`ve already heard from some of them. There are Republicans who are going, "What did we do that for?" And you know, I`m – you remember this, Chris, better than – as clearly as I would have, if not better, the story about when Rose Mary Woods was supposedly the one who erased the tapes on the White House Dictaphone or whatever it was, the 18-minute gap and for some reason, they let "Newsweek" into the White House to her desk to photograph her reaching back and having to do something physically impossible to erase the tapes.

And it looked stupid and it was just a disaster because it was towards the end of the Nixon presidency. Leonard Garment said afterwards, "I don`t know why we did that." Everything went wrong. All we`ve seen off the record, on the record from the Republicans after this tells you what maybe will change.

I don`t know that it`s necessarily for the better. They may be saying, "We`re never going to get close to him again. We have to avoid him as much as possible, and we certainly can`t be seen trying to negotiate with him because we`re not negotiating from strength." They had 140 players on the field and the other guy had one, other team had one guy, and they lost to him.

Fitting analogy, for MSNBC hosts are now almost as impartial as local sportscasters.

General Electric and NBC must be so proud. 

It may not qualify as a tingle up the leg, but Chris Matthews gushed and fawned over President Obama’s performance in front of House Republicans Friday like a teenybopper in the presence of a rock star.

During MSNBC’s two hour special about the event, Matthews told co-hosts Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann, "I don`t know anyone else in the country that could have done what the president did today."

The "Hardball" host unashamedly continued, "All thrown together in this arena of a bit over an hour today showed me that we do produce probably the best candidate and best president we can in this system you can imagine in the world. And so I think our political process has taken to the top the person that ought to be there" (video embedded below the fold with transcript, h/t Story Balloon):

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Whenever you doubt – and I`m sure we all do about the effectiveness of our political process, the ability to take to the top the best people in our country and to see the long primary season, the long battle for the nomination, the long battle for the general election produces the best person.

I don`t know anyone else in the country that could have done what the president did today in simple ability terms. To be able to do what he did in terms of temperament. I don`t have it. Keith, you and me – maybe Rachel, the temperament to put up with those questions which were not really questions.

The ability to put up with adversarial remarks, the snarkiness. The ability to think through and outthink everyone of your challengers. The ability to command – that kind of information, even to the point of knowing how these wars were financed through supplemental appropriations, little of bits of knowledge he displayed tonight.

All thrown together in this arena of a bit over an hour today showed me that we do produce probably the best candidate and best president we can in this system you can imagine in the world. And so I think our political process has taken to the top the person that ought to be there. And that would be my take-away after all this today.

Good grief.

Is this really what qualifies as journalism at MSNBC today?

"Never before have you seen an allegation of corruption going that close to the governor’s office in modern history."

So said a Democratic consultant in North Carolina reacting to the latest casualty in the ongoing investigation of former governor Mike Easley.

The scandal has brought down Easley’s wife, bankrupted his coffers, disgraced a state university, and now, most recently, set federal charges of extortion against Easley’s own closest assistant – with more and more signs pointing back to Easley’s doorstep.

How did the national media react to the latest turn? By burying the details and then complaining about citizens who might vote Republican as a result of the scandal.

To see the full scope of corruption afoot, behold this disturbing account from CBS’s Raleigh affiliate last Friday:

The laundry list of charges facing a top aide to former Gov. Mike Easley could mean that federal investigators are mounting a serious case against Easley, a former federal prosecutor and a former FBI agent said Friday.

A grand jury on Thursday indicted Ruffin Poole, who was Easley’s top aide and legal counsel during the governor’s two terms in office, on 51 counts of extortion, bribery, racketeering, mail fraud and money laundering.

[...]

Easley isn’t named in the indictment, but observers said the level of detail in the 64-page indictment show that investigators have interviewed witnesses extensively and might have made deals with some as they continue to work on the case.

"The U.S. Attorney’s Office came down with a sledgehammer here," said Dan Boyce, a Raleigh lawyer who spent seven years as a federal prosecutor.

The indictment noted that Poole became known among Easley’s top contributors as "Little Governor" because he was the person tasked with resolving any problems donors faced with state regulators and with lining up appointments for them to serve on state boards and commissions.

Sounds pretty bad – unless you’re the Washington Post. That news outlet chose to cover the indictment in quite a different tone:

"Never before have you seen an allegation of corruption going that close to the governor’s office in modern history," Crone said.

[...]

In previous election years, the corruption associated with Black and Wright didn’t bleed over into other legislative districts by hurting the prospects of other Democratic incumbents just by association. It shouldn’t happen this year, either, Hackney said.

"I don’t see how Ruffin Poole’s indictment affects somebody running for a House seat in eastern North Carolina if there’s no direct connection," said Gary Pearce, a Democratic strategists who used to work with former four-term Gov. Jim Hunt.

Hackney and other Democrats are hopeful the economy will turn around by the November elections so they’ll have some more positive things to talk about with voters.

So you see, even though federal agents exposed systematic corruption all over the state, Easley and Poole don’t reflect anything bad about the Democratic party, and shouldn’t be lumped in with other Democrats.

Except for the fact that before this all came out, Easley was a powerful Democrat who was known for his influence as a superdelegate.

Back in 2008 when Barack Obama had grand ambitions of winning key states in the Bible belt, Easley was almost a rock star.

In May of that year, the NY Times used its blog to ooze about his "powerful endorsement" in the primary. US News called him a "coveted" recruit. Over at Politico, Ben Smith gushed that Easley was a "meaningful ally" with "a popular name and a symbolic validation."

Easley spent all of 2008 hobnobbing with DNC brass, even traveling to Chicago for a meeting with Obama. Democrats treated him like royalty, and the mainstream media couldn’t get enough of him.

Of course, if Easley had been governor of a state no one cared about, the Democrats might have been more pro-active about shunning him. Even before North Carolina held its primary, signs of corruption had begun to trickle out:

Several media organizations sued Gov. Mike Easley on Monday, claiming his administration has routinely flouted the state’s public records law by deleting official e-mails.

The suit seeks a court order preventing state employees from deleting government e-mails and requiring officials to ensure that people in their departments comply with the state public records law.

The e-mail debate has raged in the weeks since a fired Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman said Easley’s administration had an unwritten policy to delete e-mails daily.

Easley was already viewed with suspicion for his botched handling of the Mike Nifong Duke lacrosse fiasco. As the email story broke, voters inside the state became increasingly disconnected from the fawning adoration in the national media.

The email fiasco was the beginning of a massive unraveling. As more revelations appeared, Democrats reacted…by not doing anything. Easley kept his seat as a superdelegate, and party loyalists in NC defended him to the end.

In May 2009, federal agents arrived to address the growing accusations. The Associated Press covered it with a bland report that mentioned his party affiliation at the very end:

The state Board of Elections is investigating at least 25 trips that Easley took on private jets after The News & Observer of Raleigh reported that he didn’t pay for some flights.

The Democrat stepped down earlier this year because term limits prevented him from running again. He is now a partner at a law firm.

Easley did not immediately return a telephone message.

That was it. A year after being the center of attention, Easley’s status as a Democrat was suddenly a footnote, a detail that wasn’t important to the story.

By June, Easley’s wife Mary was removed from a cushy job at NC State University, along with three prominent leaders of the school who resigned, under exploding suspicion the job had been a campaign gift.

The Associated Press covered the story by promoting school officials who called it a "distraction." The piece managed to talk about the Easley couple – and longtime Democrat Erskine Bowles who runs the UNC system – without a single mention of the word "Democrat" anywhere.

Just a few months later in October, Easley was fined by the Board of Elections in an official tribunal. Apparently those "distractions" had been illegal. The Greensboro News and Record reported that the Democratic party was also held responsible:

Already, federal prosecutors have used a grand jury to probe Easley’s dealings while in office. Judging by subpoenas and witnesses connected to those hearings, the probe extends beyond campaign finances.

But the elections board was focused on whether Easley or his campaign intentionally skirted a variety of campaign finance laws. In its ruling on Friday, the board said the state Democratic Party, the Easley campaign committee and Easley himself bear some level of responsibility.

The mainstream media basically ignored this development altogether. This once "powerful" and "popular" trendsetter among Democrats was now just an obscure governor who had nothing to do with national politics.

Three months after the Board of Election tribunal, enter the indictment of Poole. Finally faced with indisputable proof of statewide corruption, the media have no choice but to report the story – not to ask why Democrats keep ending up on trial, but to pout because Republicans are getting an advantage.

The Easley scandal is a prime example of how the media love Democrats who are useful in winning elections, but suddenly disinterested when that same person embarrasses the Democrat party. Mike Easley was a darling, a celebrity, and a mover and shaker, until he became a liability.

Oh, and lest the media try to convince you it ends with Poole, check out this little detail about Beverly Purdue, the current sitting governor of NC:

Since last summer, the campaign has uncovered a total of 31 flights aboard private planes that were previously unreported. The donors who provided 21 of the flights have been reimbursed, while the others were included on amended campaign finance reports as in-kind contributions.

The combined value of the 31 flights was more than $25,400.

State campaign finance laws forbid corporate donations to candidates and limit individual contributions to $4,000 per election cycle.

Campaign treasurer Oscar Harris said that campaign officials have been auditing Perdue’s campaign finances after the campaign shifted to a new software program. The officials have come across the previously unreported flights in the process, he said.

Purdue served as Lt Governor under Easley and won the election by campaigning against the culture of corruption. But I’m sure she doesn’t represent anything bad about her party either.

New York Times columnist Frank Rich would have rebelled against the notion that opposing President Bush’s policies was unpatriotic. But he can shamelessly declare that opposing Obama’s agenda is unpatriotic – even if you’re John McCain. Rich wrote on Sunday:

If [Harry] Reid can serve as the face of Democratic fecklessness in the Senate, then John McCain epitomizes the unpatriotic opposition. On Wednesday night he could be seen sneering when Obama pointed out that most of the debt vilified by Republicans happened on the watch of a Republican president and Congress that never paid for "two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program."

Rich wasn’t going to find it ridiculous that Obama was blaming Bush for an "expensive" Medicare entitlement that Democrats voted for and/or felt wasn’t expensive enough – just as Obama blames Bush for the deficit effects of TARP, which he voted for. Rich only found fault that Obama wasn’t tougher – and used Times economics columnist David Leonhardt for backup:

The president’s indictment could have been more lacerating. Crunching Congressional Budget Office numbers, David Leonhardt of The Times calculated that of the projected $2 trillion swing into the red between the Clinton surplus and 2012, some 33 percent could be attributed to Bush legislation and another 20 percent to Bush-initiated spending (Iraq, TARP) continued by Obama. Only 7 percent of the deficit could be credited to the Obama stimulus bill and 3 percent to his other initiatives. (The business cycle accounts for the other 37 percent.)

Leonhardt certainly did write that Obama was "responsible for only a sliver of the deficits, despite what many of his Republican critics are saying." But Rich left out the other major concept of Leonhardt’s analysis: "The second is that Mr. Obama does not have a realistic plan for eliminating the deficit, despite what his advisers have suggested."

The BYETTA Let’s Talk Atlanta will be making it’s stop at Atlanta’s Dogwood Festival at Piedmont Park which will be taking place April 13th – April 15th.

Upon visiting the BYETTA Let’s Talk booth at the festival you will be able to speak to Delta Burke who is currently the spokeswoman for the Let’s Talk Campaign. She along with Virginia Valentine, Chef Smith and Nikki Kimbrough of Bally Total Fitness, are trying to spread the word on the importance of a healthier more active lifestyle when battling diabetes.

If you suffer from diabetes or are the caretaker of someone with diabetes and are in the Atlanta area please stop by and see what the BYETTA Let’s Talk Campaign has to say. After all, knowledge is power.

Related Posts

1. FDA Warning On Byetta – Is It Safe?
2. What Does the Diabetes Drug Byetta and the Gila Monster Have in Common with Causes Weight Loss?
3. BYETTA Let’s Talk in Boston

A rather disturbing document surfaced on the Internet Saturday with grave implications concerning how the Obama administration is recruiting interns from public schools to assist in advancing the President’s agenda along with his desire to get Democrats including himself elected.

Even scarier, the internship application recommends participants read Saul Alinsky’s "Rules for Radicals."

According to Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs, this document was passed out in an eleventh grade class in Massillon, Ohio:

An Atlas reader, Chuck, has a student in the eleventh grade in an Ohio High School. Her government class passed out this propaganda recruiting paper so students could sign up as interns for Obama’s Organizing for America. 

Here’s the scary overview:

In week one, this is the recommended reading list:

Nice. Let’s get America’s youth to read Alinsky’s "Rules for Radicals!"

For those thinking this might be a ruse, the OFA website does indeed address this program. This was posted on January 13 in the site’s Community Blogs:

Don’t Miss Out: OFA’s Spring 2010 National Organizing Internship

 Earn credit for school and help change the world!

From his earliest years as an elected official, President Obama has encouraged young Americans to believe that their efforts can change their world for the better.  If you are passionate about reviving the economy, making the United States a global leader in clean energy, and want to be on the frontlines of political change, apply for an OFA internship today. No prior experience is necessary. Spring Semester Internships are currently available with Organizing for America – Nevada.

Apply for a Spring 2010 internship before the January 31st deadline by filling out this application.

Learn how grassroots organizing can win an election, impact policy, or change a neighborhood. Take an active role in advancing key legislation including reform in health insurance, energy, education and more.

The online application reads:

Organizing for America-Nevada is currently accepting applicants for our Spring Internship. Interns will work jointly with our Regional Field Directors to build a strong grassroots network across Nevada, and help us to pass President Obama’s legislative agenda. Activities will include recruiting and managing volunteers, organizing service and press events, voter contact activities, voter registration, and administrative support work. You need not be a student to apply. Credit is available at most schools, but it is the sole responsibility of the student to make the arrangements. Applications will be accepted through January 31st, 2010 for Spring term. The internship will last until the end of Spring term, and Interns commit to at least 12 hours per week. 

The following was posted at Environment Link on January 8:

Organizing for America (OFA) has two priorities: (1) organize support for President Obama’s policy agenda, and (2) build and strengthen the grassroots organization we built during the 2008 campaign by training and empowering people to have an impact in their own communities.  The most important thing OFA does is build support for and educate citizens about President Obama’s policies for change.

Our national internship program will connect students all over the country with our organization already on the ground — working to make the change we fought so hard for a reality.

The internship will last from January 11-May 7, but the start and end dates are obviously flexible based on a school’s schedule.

The internship requires a minimum of 12 hours per week, and would be based out of our Seattle office.

Clearly this is a real program recruiting students from coast to coast. Readers are highly encouraged to review all the pages of this application at Atlas Shrugs.

Exit question: Is this something that should be happening at public schools funded with tax dollars, and isn’t this a question media members should be asking? 

Watching the media’s inability to find relevant investigative news during the Obama era is like watching a bald-headed fellow named Fudd hunting for ‘wabbit’. 

Such is the case of the main stream media’s complete and utter ignorance involving the administration recently steering a $25 million no-bid contract to a Democratic campaign contributor. 

While Fox News reporter James Rosen did an in-depth investigative report (and follow up) on the deal with Checchi & Company – despite working for what the administration considers a non-news network – the entire media establishment had ignored a significant reneging of campaign promises, right up until that deal was canceled.

Doing his best impersonation of a crystal ball, NewsBuster Tom Blumer correctly foretold the future when he questioned the media response to the story:   

"Will the rest of the establishment press risk the tattered remnants of its credibility, follow the White House’s suggestion, and ignore the story because it’s coming from Fox?"

The answer…

… has been a resounding yes.

With the initial reporting by Fox nearly a week in the books, the MSM has completely ignored the story.  Despite the Obama promises that "the days of giving government contractors a blank check are over."  Despite, as Judicial Watch analyzed (emphasis mine throughout),

"Across the government, more than $543 million in federal contracts have been awarded so far without competition under Obama’s $787 billion stimulus program."

In contrast, the infatuation that the media previously held with another no-bid contract in times past, Halliburton, received epic coverage right out of the gate.  The announcement of Halliburton’s ‘sweetheart deal’ saw a blitz of media headlines almost immediately:

• Dallas Morning News:  Old Boy Network Behind Contracts?
• Houston Business Journal:  Congressman looking into Halliburton’s Army pact
• Agence France Presse:  Halliburton Handed No-Bid Iraqi Oil Firefighting Contract
• Washington Post:  Contracts to Rebuild Iraq Go to Chosen Few
• San Francisco Chronicle:  Questions dog Bush policy on contracts to cap Iraqi well fires
• Seattle Post-Intelligencer:  Contracts doled out to rebuild Iraq are questioned
• New York Daily News:  Cheney’s ex-firm scores

Meanwhile, the media response to Obama’s ‘sweetheart deal’ has been significantly underwhelming.

Since Fox News published the story of Checchi & Company’s deal on January 25th, its mention has only graced the pages of Investor’s Business Daily, the Daily Caller, and various conservative blogs.  

This is clearly a conscious effort by the media to ignore a newsworthy piece.  As the Fox report surmises, "Figures … show that no-bid contracts have been common under administrations controlled by both parties."

Undoubtedly true, but that would suggest an equal amount of coverage for both parties, possibly more so for the one who promised to end the practice.  However, to paraphrase the above excerpt, the media obsession with said no-bid contracts is only common under administrations controlled by the Republican party.

Further, the story took an interesting turn yesterday in that the contract has been subsequently canceled, and still Fox remains the only network to cover the situation. 

"Joseph A. Fredericks, director of public information at USAID, told Fox News the Checchi deal was actually a renewal of an existing contract, awarded in 2004 by the Bush administration after a competitive bid process."

Yet, the media remains quite disinterested, despite USAID feeling it necessary to take action based on the inappropriate nature of the deal.

Going back to Tom Blumer’s post, he stated, ‘I don’t know why I’m relaying this to readers.’

Well Tom, somebody has to…

If the folks at the Associated Press lose their loving feeling for Barack Obama, his presidency could be in a lot of trouble.

Consider if you will an article the wire service published Thursday shockingly titled "Can Obama Get Any Other Democrats Elected?"

"Barack Obama built a powerful campaign organization and got himself to the White House," Liz Sidoti’s piece began.

"Now, as head of the Democratic Party, he’s expected to get other Democrats into office, too."

Then came the surprising attacks:

But, judging by his one-year track record, he’s not getting it done.

The list of White House failures is growing: It hasn’t galvanized the legions of 2008 Obama backers in three major statewide losses. It hasn’t prevented primary challenges for at least two vulnerable Senate Democrats even though Obama endorsed them. And it hasn’t recruited strong candidates for Senate seats once held by Vice President Joe Biden and the president himself.

And the hits just kept on coming:

Based on roughly two dozen interviews with lawmakers, party leaders and political operatives nationwide, it’s clear that many Democrats feel Obama hasn’t fully embraced his role as party chief. It has them questioning the strength of his political muscle and faulting his advisers for paying too little attention to the fast-approaching 2010 midterm contests.

Some of these Democrats complained on the record. Others asked for anonymity to avoid angering Obama and his team. Altogether, they described an ineffective political operation. They suggested Obama’s team is overly focused on his likely 2012 re-election bid. And they blamed the White House for a muddled message about what he’s trying and accomplishing as president.

Checking that link to make sure this really was an AP piece?

I understand. I checked it thrice.

In the end, this is just one article published eight days after Scott Brown’s shocking victory in last Tuesday’s special senatorial election in Massachusetts.

But if Obama’s poll numbers continue to plummet, and the Democrats do poorly in Novembers midterms, the former junior senator from Illinois might be faced with a tremendously disenchanted press as he turns his focus to his own reelection.

To be sure, that’s not something he’s ever had to deal with.