Anderson Cooper The Journalist

Back in the saddle again with Anderson Cooper.

Intro

Keeping Them Honest

Senator John Ensign, admitting an affair.  I’m getting sick of political affairs!

In June, the senator admitted that he’d had an affair with a staffer.  Ensign is alleged to have helped his mistress’s husband, Doug Hampton, find a job as a cover-up.

Dana Bash reported that the senator has not spoken publicly about the affair since today.  The senator purports to have recommended him for a job, but not to have overstepped legal boundaries.  He repeated that he will cooperate with official inquiries, but gave Bash a very cold shoulder.

Melanie Sloan said that the allegations against the senator are very serious.  He may have violated lobbying laws in order to cover the scandal.

The plot thickens with Joe Johns.  Hampton wrote a letter to Ensign saying that since he’d left his job as per an implied agreement and that Ensign wasn’t holding up his end of the bargain.

with Joe Johns

Anderson asked how difficult it is to prove lobbying violations.  Sloan read off a laundry list of Ensign’s proven violations.

Bash reported that Senate Republicans are absolutely silent about this affair.

Raw Politics

Job losses are still rising in the US and President Obama is looking for solutions, including a possible second stimulus, though, as Anderon was quick to point out, it may be called something else.  Ed Henry brought us the view from behind closed doors, saying that this package could take a few different forms.  Nobody is going to call this second package a stimulus package, because the rhetoric would soon flow that the first stimulus package didn’t work.

James Carville and Ari Fleischer were on the show to duke it out.

Carville and Fleischer

Raw Data

Ali Velshi was at the big wall with the numbers.  The stock market has risen 43% since the stimulus  package.  Home prices have also risen due to low mortgage rates.  Job loss has slowed, but we’re still not in the positive numbers.

The Big Wall

Carville, in true form, said that it’s not important what you call it, but something must be done with unemployment numbers.

Fleischer said that the second plan would just be more spending and that the first package was no stimulus at all, as if it had not stimulated anything in the economy.   Carville came back quickly by comparing the job loss numbers at the end of George W. Bush’s term and those now.  Fleischer whipped back by saying that Carville was just whining about the past instead of thinking about the future.

Carville reframed the new plan by saying that rather than a general stimulus, the new plan could be targeted towards those who are suffering from prolonged joblessness.

There was a math problem in defining job loss.  Fleischer in the Republican camp used the unemployment rate, which as risen, as his key indicator.  Carville in the Dems’ corner used the job less per month number as his key indicator.  Being no statistician, I can still see that job losses are bound to drop as that unemployment is bound to rise.  The question, however, is not whether the first package was going to reduce unemployment, but instead if it could slow it.

360 Bulletin

Randi Kaye today.

Obama meets to discuss Afghanistan strategy.

Four American soldiers who were killed on Friday have returned home

FTC is cracking down on bloggers who are paid to endorse a product

Best and worst places to live.  The worst: Niger, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone.  Best, Norway, Australia, Iceland.  USA: 13

Digging Deeper

A new article in the Joint Forces Quarterly reported that there is no scientific evidence that open homosexuality hurts the military in any way.  Rep. Patrick Murphy (D) Pennsylvania, told the House that over 13,000 troops have been thrown out of the military since Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was passed.

Don't Ask...

Elaine Donnelly, when asked why the other panelist, Dan Choi, shouldn’t be allowed in the military, reverted to the law.  Anderson pressed her really hard to say what harm Choi would do to the military.

Dan Choi said that the harm of kicking gay soldiers out of the military is the drastic loss in troop numbers.

Elaine was extremely rude!   She talked over Anderson several times. This whole thing was a talkover fiesta.  Anderson jumped in saying that it “turns viewers off.”

Choi is an Arabic linguist.  His skills are in high demand and he is not allowed to serve because of his sexual orientation. When he asked Elaine about that, she answered that Arabic linguists are available elsewhere.

Elaine believes that the harm of repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell will be the retirement of long-term soldiers.  Also, allowing gays in the military is tantamount to men and women living together, which she argued just doesn’t happen.

Quote of the night.  Anderson to Elaine: “Elaine, have you been to Afghanistan?”

Crime and Punishment

Anderson is going live in Chicago tomorrow.  He said that they’ve been following the Chicago beating story has been going on too long.

Kids in the Crossfire

Gary Tuckman reports.  Martrell Stevens is a brave young man (first grader) who was shot in May 2008 while sleeping in the back seat of his mother’s car.  His mother is certain that several people saw the shooting.  She said that she in fact sees the shooter every day.

Martrell is doing very well today.  He is a fast wheelchair rider and he can walk on his own with a walker.

Chicago Violence

Steve Perry talks again.  Anderson asked him if this could be the result of turf wars caused by some sort of forced relocation.  Perry fell back on the community, like he did last year.  Perry referred to urban centers as “our communities.”  I have trouble believing he lives anywhere near the communities he is lashing out at.

Perry said that had Derrion Albert been killed by a white person, then the streets would run with blood. When the violence is black-on-black, however, the media turns a blind eye and nobody speaks up.  Neither spoke up about what would have happened had the crime been perpetrated on a white person by a black person.

I like how Paulo Freire framed class violence.  In any society, there are those with power and those without.  This is easy to see at the national level, but a little sneakier at the municipal level.  In any multicultural area, the line is almost always drawn by race.

360 Bulletin

Swiss Courts have denied Polanski’s plea to be released from prison

US courts have accepted Mel Gibson‘s plea to purge his records

Elizabeth Taylor has heart surgery

Spinach and lettuce are risky foods!  They can cause illness or death!  Eck!

The Shot

5-year old acting sensation.  Mash-up courtesy of AC360′s hip producers.

AC360: Screw ‘em!