IN A CATEGORY BY HIMSELF

Believe it or not:

The Magazine Publishers of America's American Society of Magazine Editors has added a category to its annual magazine cover awards: Obama. This new category is the only ASME category focused on a single person, and highlights the reverential attitude for the President widely held in the magazine publishing community.

It's true; scroll to the bottom for details.

JUST ASKING

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders: "If the Democrats' health care package is so great, why are President Obama and Democrat congressional leaders so hungry to share the credit for its passage with a Republican?"

LETTERS TO CAMILLE

Paglia responds to her readers:

On Obama's administration:

Yes, ever since week one of the Obama administration, I have been doggedly calling for heads to roll. As months of crass ineptitude drag on, however, the blacklist of those who should be tagged for the guillotine gets longer and longer. The most recent fiasco, of course, was sending the president of the United States on a humiliating fool's errand to beg for the Olympics as a Chicago boondoggle. I cheered when splendiferous Rio de Janeiro rightfully got the gig.

You are correct to argue that the cluster of appointees around a person in power reflects his or her belief system and modus operandi. However, it is a mark of leadership to recognize the need for professional evolution beyond an old comfort zone. Obama is approaching a turning point which will define his political future, if he has one. He is surrounded by some mighty small potatoes who need shoveling into the dumpster. The petty provincials need to go, and far more sophisticated and world-savvy analysts must urgently be brought on board.

On Sarah Palin:

I too have been repulsed by the elitist insults flung at Sarah Palin in the massive, coordinated media effort to destroy her. Hence I have been thoroughly enjoying the way that Palin, despite all the dirt thrown at her by liberal journalists and bloggers, keeps bouncing back as if unscathed. No sooner did the gloating harpies of the Northeastern media think they had torn her to shreds than she exploded into number one on Amazon.com with a memoir that hadn't even been printed yet! With each one of these amusing triumphs, Palin is solidifying her status as a bona fide American cultural heroine.

Yes, the snobbery about Palin's five colleges is especially distasteful, given the Democratic party's supposed allegiance to populism. Judging by the increasingly limited cultural and factual knowledge of graduates of elite schools whom one encounters working in the media, blue-chip sheepskins aren't worth the parchment they're printed on these days. Young people forced through the ruthlessly competitive college admissions rat race have the independence and creativity pinched right out of them. Proof? Where are the major young American artists, writers, critics or movie-makers of the past 20 years? The most adventurous and enterprising minds have gone into high tech. We're in a horrendous cultural vacuum because our status-besotted education industry is geared toward producing not original thinkers but docile creatures of the system.

There's more. Read it all.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

This is what a "big mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick" looks like.

And this is what a blithering idiot looks like.

Via PowerLine.

WHO'S PARTISAN?

The Obama administration has declared political war on the Fox News Channel, claiming that "it really is more a wing of the Republican Party."

Well, maybe.

Fox's news operation ... slants conservative ... in the choice of topics: fiscal irresponsibility, the expansion of big government, an imperial judiciary, the war on terrorism, radical Islam, crime, teenage out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and the culture wars.

Fox has filled an ideological vacuum left by the likes of CNN and MSNBC.... Fox consciously - even proudly - caters to God-fearing, gun-toting, red-state viewers. It speaks to the populist, patriotic and conservative values embodied by Middle America - principles that have been consistently mocked by media elites.

Which, perhaps, is the reason its ratings are soaring while its competitors are moribund.

THREE YEAR COLLEGE DEGREES

The three-year solution. Think of how much money could be saved if the Ivy League schools would just send a diploma on acceptance. And the new graduates would probably be better off, too ....

Linked through Hot Air.

BLACKBALLING CONSERVATISM

Diana West on the vicious, public campaign to blackball Rush Limbaugh as a potential owner of an NFL team.

Keith Olbermann. In addition to his nightly gig on MSNBC -- a numbing blend of Leftist politics and something approaching Tourette's syndrome -- Olbermann is a co-host of NBC's "Football Night in America," the pre-game show that leads into "Sunday Night Football." Naturally, that would be Sunday night NFL football.

Olbermann calls an accomplished and best-selling conservative author, commentator, blogger, wife and mother a "big mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick," but such dehumanizing venom doesn't count as controversial, or even lightly strain his NBC-NFL connection.

A must read.

Link from Michelle Malkin.

GIVE ME A CHOICE

At present, I don't have a choice - at 65, I have to sign up for Medicare if I want to receive Social Security benefits, even if I have excellent coverage on my wife's plan. No Medicare, no Social security.

But that may be changing.

Seniors who want to collect their Social Security benefits and opt out of Medicare won a court victory recently that hopefully will pave the way for them to be able to do just that.

U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary M. Collyer denied a motion to dismiss the plaintiffs claim [that] the federal government has no right to force them into Medicare while holding their hard-earned Social Security benefits hostage.

If Ross Perot - and I - want to pay for our own health care, shouldn't we be allowed to?