Not So New News

By now the news is not new. ABC is setting up shop in the White House to produce its daily dose of cheerleading for the sitting President and his party. So the question must be asked, by the networks that have not been chosen. “What exactly does a network have to do to get a primo spot like that around here?” It’s not like CBS, NBC, MSNBC, and CNN weren’t swooning at the commander in chief’s every utterance.

Keith Olberman commiserated with Chris Matthews over sample Prozacs and a few stiff drinks. “I felt the thrill; I would have felt it every night for him.” He sobbed into his double martini. “I still do man…”Keith was sticking to the harder stuff and working on a way to blame Bush or Sarah Palin for the journalistic coup using Twitter. “How can I convey the level of incompetency and my complete loathing in only 140 characters? It’s not enough even for a haiku!”

The Newsweek editor Evan Thomas was spotted wondering the halls of his office building in shock. “I believed. Didn’t I believe enough? D’oh. It was that “sort of” hesitation. I should have just declared him god and been done with it. Doubt. That was my downfall. He found my lack of faith disturbing.”

So ABC’s Charlie Gibson shall deliver the nightly news from the blue room. But let’s call this show what it really is, the ultimate reality television survivor show minus annoying television host, Jeff Probst. Coming soon, “O-44-24” because Jack Bauer isn’t man enough for the job, there’s the President. Seven days a week, three hundred and sixty five days a year, every second of every day, we’ll cover him so you too can appreciate the profound historic nature of his every breath, his every thought, his every pondering moment.

Watch as the President goes to a soccer game. (Gasp!) As he orders burgers. (Sigh). As he puts his feet up on the desk to make phone calls. (This is presidential; this is what it is all about). As he swats a fly with ninja type accuracy and his cat like reflexes! And for sweeps week, Date Night! And a bonus trip abroad to some place where he and his family can kick back and relax, maybe take that shirt off to show how buff he is.

Does anyone think that there wouldn’t be a mass media revolt if Fox News had set up shop inside the Bush Oval Office? Does anyone not think they would have declared it a puppet media mouthpiece of the President? Does anyone not think that every left wing/liberal would be excoriating the blogosphere and airways about the inherent unsavory relationship between the press and the people in power if this had taken place? They would have been right to do so, but they are not squawking now because the parrots of ABC shall repeat what they believe and what the Administration wants us to hear, all in the name of access and transparency.

But it’s not too late. The other networks could come up with something even better. There must be a way to prove themselves greater toadies than the American Broadcasting Company.

So here’s my proposal. Don’t even say any news. Don’t air any programs. Just line up the stars to offer their lauds to our current president every hour, all day and all night long, until everyone, men, women and children, dogs and cats, birds and worms, all manner of bacterial life start to chant over and over again, “Obama Rocks.”

During the commercials for movies no one watches and cars no one buys, have a rolling screed along the bottom, “Obama is good. Obama is Great. We Love Him. We Love Him More than ABC. We Love Him more than our spouses, our offspring and our dogs.”

Then, we can call Jeff Probst to conduct the ultimate survivor series over the course of a single year. “Which Media Outlet Loves Him Most.” Losers get voted out into the island of Bermuda where they can suffer being marooned on a tropical island that most people pay good money to go visit.

I Made the B-team

A year ago, I applied for the B-team Catholics,a group of Catholic bloggers --you submit and if you are accepted, you get this nifty B-team Catholic Blogger widget to add to your blog. I got accepted. Now I have to figure out how to install said nifty widget. Anyway, here was my application.

If the saints are the All Stars, then aren't we all b-team Catholics?

I mean, aren't we all sitting on the bench waiting, hoping, in some cases even praying that somehow we will be the star of an ABC afterschool special? You know, the one where the really mean but exceptionally talented popular girl insults us publicly in the lunch room about our pathetic athletic skills and we cry in the bathroom but then in the game, she gets hurt and we're put in while she recovers? Then, in a string of no less than miraculous events, we play well enough to not completly lose the game for the team such that the former real mean girl recognizes our worth both as a player and a person and the whole crowd cheers as we score the winning point with our oddly awkward serve.

Making the B-team Catholics of bloggers would be like the denoument of the show, where the whole team goes out for ice cream and the coach awards the player of the year trophy to the orriginally thought stinky players who turn out to be a loveable bunch of scrubs that everyone underestimated. Cue music, credits and fade out.

Please don't make me sit on the bench for both games. I'll work on my serve and being able to set and bump and spike I promise! Or make me manager. That's right, I won't even be on the team, I'll just be with the team. I'll carry equipment. I'll clean up. I'll pass out snacks. I won't even eat one. Just, let me ride on the bus with all the really cool people please?

Sherry Antonetti, Catholic mom, blogger and B-team wantabe.

Making A Wish For Hillary

Okay. Hillary’s had her Oprah moment.

She’s been empowered by the women of New Hampshire and is riding high in the polls and tall in the saddle.

How long will this “Don’t Tase Her Bro, Just Leave Hillary Alone!” Youtube type momentum of emotional and intellectual political amnesty last? Long enough for Hill to recognize she needed EVERY Woman to identify with her. So the first thing she did was proclaim all Women immigrants are not illegal. (That's true folks).http://www.lvrj.com/news/13702902.html

To continue to successfully cast herself not as the Take No Prisoners, Leave No Evidence, Leave the Gun, Bill Don’t Eat the Cannollis! Heart of Stone Woman, but as the victim of misogynist everywhere, she went to where the women are...watching women's TV.

Selling the New and Improved Softer and Gentle Fabric Softener version of Hillary, she allowed time in her busy campaign schedule for a powder puff piece with Tyra Banks.

During the interview, she lamented how isolatory being in the White House can be, trying to tap into the SAHM experience of being stuck with the kids while the world passes by. "I was never alone, but it was isolatory." She pensively posited. What mom hasn't felt that pain? "Moms! Isolated Women in a Crowd!" on the next Ellen....or Oprah, or Dr. Phil...or White House.


Then Tyra asked that critical question that determines the leader of the free world, "If you were on a reality TV show, which one would it be?"

"Finally, Clinton announced her decision: "I think it would have to be 'Dancing with the Stars,' " she said, "especially if I could have one of those really good partners." http://www.latimesblogs.com/washington/2008/01/tyratalks.html

She laughed and reminisced about dancing in her yesteryear. She'd have been in the Joffrey if she weren't oh...running for president. What a carefree spirit she'd be if she weren't so gosh darned responsible.

Well I feel her pain and I want to do something about it.

I want us to lobby ABC's "Dancing with the Stars" to extend to her an invitation. Make her girlhood dream come true, let her show her talent and grace and femininity that was denied the chance to full flower by enduring the years of Bill's campaigns, motherhood, the pressures of her first tenure as copresident, and her obsessive love of the New York Yankees that kept her from concentrating on reforming Health Care.

She put her hopes and dreams on hold, becoming a lawyer and first lady for the good of her family, not because of anything but pure selflessness, and even now, continues to surrender herself to the needs of our great country.

We don't deserve someone as glorious as Hillary. And I don't want such a giving soul to languish in the fishbowl type existence that the White House requires. Hasn't she suffered enough? We must set her free. After all, if you love someone...

Make her dream come true, let her receive the great Homecoming Queen crown that comes from being voted number one in "Dancing with the Stars." Phone the company! Demand that ABC put her on that show today!"

After all she's done for us, it's the least we could do for her.