Posted 9:01 AM by Robert

O, Mickey, I Love It When You Get All Nasty And Snarly Like That!

Mickey Kaus is on a chew! Or, rather, Mickey's out to chew Nic Harcourt a new one:

Nic Harcourt? To Rob Walker's 760 words in January [the New York Times] now added Jaime Wolf's 4,271--this for a man with barely enough on-air personality to sustain a prepositional phrase. Like the L.A. Times, Harcourt's KCRW empire of the "semipopular" is a Southern California institution that seems terrific to gullible East Coasters who don't have to live with it every day. Harcourt's scared to rock. His interviews are painful and formulaic. He doesn't provide "a subtle connective tissue, contextualizing the listening experience byond just a handful of songs." He puts you to sleep. He's a menace to highway safety. ... I was going to call Harcourt's dreary parade of breathy, self-absorbed, suffocating pop "yuppie shopping music," except that if stores actually played Harcourt's synapse-numbing choices the economy would grind to a halt! ... Three consistent motifs of L.A. stand-up comedy are plastic surgery, traffic, and how lame KCRW's music is. ... Yes, Harcourt "was the first in America to play Norah Jones." I like Norah Jones. But do you want to listen to the kind of DJ who'd be the first to play Norah Jones? I don't think so.

That's just great, Mickey! I've never even listened to Nic Harcourt. But now I'm so stoked I want to jump up, run out to my car, and tune into Nic Harcourt ... just so I can say I was so bored I immediately turned him off!

KCRW? Wait a minute! KCRW is an NPR affiliate, right? Doesn't that mean it's median listener age is probably something like 48 (the NPR median)? But do you want to listen to the kind of DJ who's got a median listener age of 48? I don't think so - at least if it's not classical music!

Posted 1:50 PM by Robert

What Does The Nature Of The Most Popular Political Web Site In A Country Tell You About That Country?

Here is an English translation of the most popular political site in Russia.

Posted 8:20 PM by Robert

Could The Senate Filibuster Deal Really Be THAT Big A Democratic Loss?

The Washington Post reports on the upcoming Supreme Court appointment confirmation battle:

[E]ven if they can show that the nominee has sharply held views on matters that divide many Americans, some of the 14 senators who crafted the May 23 compromise appear poised to prevent that strategy from blocking confirmation to the high court, according to numerous interviews.

The pact, signed by seven Democrats and seven Republicans, says a judicial nominee will be filibustered only under "extraordinary circumstances." Key members of the group said yesterday that a nominee's philosophical views cannot amount to "extraordinary circumstances" and that therefore a filibuster can be justified only on questions of personal ethics or character.

If that claim is correct, it represents an extraordinary miscall by a wide range of analysts. Only hours after the Senate filibuster "deal" was announced, scads of analysts across the political spectrum rushed to explain why the terms of the deal favored the Democrats: Stone to Kaus to Sowell to the New York Times (on both sides of its nearly abolished line dividing "news" from "editorial opinion") and beyond were depicting the filibuster deal cut by the "gang of 14" as a substantial disappointment for conservatives and Republicans.

Yet, the Post now tells us that deal prohibits recourse to all of the most important ideological and jurisprudential criteria the Democrats need to satisfy their now-frantic constituencies, such as NOW:

NOW president Kim Gandy told about 800 NOW members Friday that women need to send a message that they won't tolerate "extremist" judges who set back women's rights. "This is our time. This is our challenge," Gandy said as the crowd replied by clapping and chanting, "Hell no, we won't go" and "We won't go back." .... Gandy said the group fears "a nominee along the lines of some of the extremist judges that have been put on the appellate court by George Bush."

If what the Post reports is correct and holds up in the Senate, Mr. Bush can do exactly what Ms. Gandy fears most, so long as he chooses a candidate of impeccable personal ethics and character.