Let’s be blunt.  173 Toyota dealers in the United States are plain and simply un-American.  They are the members of their association that covers five southeastern states, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina and South Carolina, that have decided to pull their advertising from ABC affiliates in their coverage area.  Why?  Because ABC news has been giving what they’ve determined to be “excessive stories on the Toyota issues.”.  As I said, un-American.

They have decided they will use their economic clout to try and coerce the network into lightening up its investigation into the severe safety problems that have been discovered in their lethal product and suggestions of a coverup.  These guys don’t seem to understand that their advertising buy does not give them the right to blackmail a news medium’s coverage.

They probably don’t comprehend why they should be ashamed. The usual justification, when advertisers try to apply this kind of suppression is that they are not required to financially support anyone who is making their lives miserable.  While that’s true, it also demonstrates that they simply don’t understand, or don’t care enough about this country’s free press values. It’s sometimes and inconvenient bargain: If we are to have  commercial TV as opposed to government-controlled media , sponsors are not allowed to substitute their own control.

If anything, there has not been enough information about the mess out there, as evidenced by the thousands upon thousands of Toyota owners who are scared silly. They still don’t know how or when to get their vehicles repaired and if the company is finally being straight about what really needs fixing.  This is not an image problem, this is life or death.

And yet, here are these people, who believe their money can insulate them from the most rudimentary public accountability.  They apparently run businesses that  demonstrably place profits ahead of their customers’ safety.  It’s not acceptable.  Their bullying and/or ignorance cannot be tolerated. It’s fundamentally extortion.

Anyone who is still buying a Toyota in that region should reconsider or should certainly boycott the dealers who have signed on to this blatant attempt at intimidation.  Why would anyone trust organizations and retailers who take such ethical shortcuts and engage in what amounts to attempted blackmail.  After all, what other corners do they cut?  Can they be trusted to provide the service they promise or, in their fevered pursuit of the almighty dollar, do they allow their mechanics to do hasty and dangerous repairs, or sloppy maintenance.

The 173 dealers in the southeastern states cover about 20 per cent of the Toyota sales in the U-S. Without a doubt, many of them have the huge stars and stripes flags flying outside their showrooms showrooms.  Considering how UN-American they’re acting, maybe they should take them down.

No heart attack from digging out.  That was a good thing but there was little to do but to  spend the weekend mostly hunkered down inside.  There were no newspapers, no delivery, but who missed them?  We could read them just as easily on line. And then, those of us who didn’t lose power had plenty of TV to help pass the time.

As the anchors and frozen reporters repeated ad nauseum what we already knew…that it sucked outside…it would not have been much of a surprise to see a crawl at the top or bottom of the screen informing that the meeting of the Global Warming Action Group had been cancelled.  But the weather coverage was just one of the highlights.

Obviously the best television of all was provided by that entertainment superstar In Nashville.  Of course that would be Sarah Palin, who brought her song-and-dance act to the Tea Party Departed-From Reality show. How fitting it was that she was at Opryland to perform her version of “Achy Breaky Heart.  She called  it”Hopey Changey Stuff”

Besides her relentless criticism of President Obama, she also made it clear she’s after his job, telling Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday “It would be absurd to not consider what it is that I can potentially do to help our country”.

An absurd idea? Not at all? A possible Palin presidency? You betcha. Scary.  Happily there was more escapism on the telly.

There was this football thing, the Super Bowl. It was a terrific one at that…complete with the big upset win by the underdog Saints that came with such symbolism.  We could all share in the “Laissez les bon temps roulez” post celebration by those who still struggle with the hard times in Katrina-ravaged New Orleans.

The inspiring “Who Dat” team even made the embarrassing Who group bearable at halftime.  Besides, the Super Bowl is way more than what we see on the field. There are the many contests within the contest, where the competition is brutal. Sponsors, for instance,  pay ridiculous amounts of money in the fierce battle for attention between their commercials. It’s  hard to declare a winner this year, difficult to choose between the surprise of Tim Tebow’s mother being tackled in that insipid anti-abortion ad or the astonishment of Leno and Letterman sitting there kvetching with Oprah in a big promotional coup.

There there was the inevitable appearance by President Obama, with Katie Couric, both in need of their own promos.  The big news from that was the President’s idea for even more “Must See TV” (I know, wrong network).  He declared he was inviting the Republicans down to the White House.  Not for a beer, but for a bi-partisan conversation about health care reform.  And this one would also be on television.

Some might consider this a poll-driven gimmick.  He was was responding to all the criticism that he had failed to live up to his campaign promise to invite C-Span in to show the health care deliberations and the crazy complaint he had shut out the “Just Say No” Republicans.  So now, just like another game show host,  he was shouting to everyone “C’MON DOWN!!”  GOP leaders weren’t saying so in so many words, but they obviously smelled a setup.  And well they should.

Still, here’s hoping it really happens.  And why not spice up that Super Bowl with some of its own commercials?  Sponsors could rip off that Oprah/Leno/Letterman spot featuring maybe Obama, who does such great live shots with Mr. Announcer Boehner.  Sitting between them?  Sarah Palin.  Of course.

Obviously, the insurance companies would make big ad buys, so would the pharmaceutical giants.  It would just be another way for them to use their massive wealth to control the outcome.  The banks could do the same thing and run their Visa and Mastercard commercials.  There  could be Public Service Announcements too, on behalf of government entities like AIG and GM.

There’s no hurry, plenty of time before the plows finally get to our streets so we can emerge from our winter bunkers to get back to work.  At least those who have jobs can.  As for the program, it could have a catchily appropriate title: “The Snow Job”.

China Homeboy

All those who are focusing on the T-Party movement with all it’s fervor for rattling the Washington cage  this weekend, are missing the really important event that was the main focus in DC.

Of course that would be the big “P” party. For “Panda” of course. It too was a movement and it also involved a cage.  This “P” party, along with a second one in Atlanta, was not just a sad farewell, but one hell of a metaphor.

The pandas you see were headed  back to China. On loan and now called back.  So many in this country had come to rely on them for so much and suddenly, reality, and Beijing, wrenched them away.

Tai Shan was not the only panda at the National Zoo. He leaves his parents behind, at least for a few months, until their lease also expires and we could also lose them.  But Tai Shan was an American creation, or would it be better to say “PROcreation”.

No matter. Even though the nation’s capital went bonkers when he was born two-and-a-half years ago, so small he was nicknamed “Butterstick”, and unleashing millions of “Aaaaaaawwwwww”s, he’s out of here.  He was always an American dream owned by China, which was now taking him back. Talk about the analogist’s dream.

So the opportunists and their flock can do their thing this weekend, dancing to their silly songs at the Opryland T Party hoedown this weekend. The organizers can rake in their cash from the live ones willing to pay 500-plus dollars, largely for the Sarah Palin Stimulus Fund (She says the money will go to the ” Movement”, whatever that is). But the they’re missing the Panda point.

“Tai Shan” translates to “Peaceful Mountain”. And while the no-longer-little-guy always provided such joy to people in DC, many in Washington and elsewhere are starting to get mighty nervous about the mountain of debt the U-S owes to China.

The sadness we’re feeling now that    zoo loan is being called, is infinitesimal compared to the pain we might experience if the decision is made to pull the plug on all the money from there that is helping to keep the US afloat.

In that regard, we’re a captive of our excesses. Many of the changes we should make are the very ones they’ll be screaming about as the T Party partiers are incited into their frenzy by their panderers.

Luntz the Lyricist

Back before a couple of conglomerates took over nearly all the stations with their vanilla play lists and avatar disc jockeys, radio used to have personalities who had, if you can imagine, PERSONALITIES.

They reflected the taste of their individual communities.  Often bad taste, to be sure, but their banter and particularly the music they played reflected the characteristics and peculiarities of their metro areas. And no market was more peculiar than Washington.

It still is of course, and it’s a crying shame the locally-based DJ’s are not with us these days, what with the emergence of that singing group we hear constantly.  You know the one I mean: The SPINNERS.

They’re unique in that instead of being a choir, they sing to their choirs.  They’re always available for party gatherings with their party lines.  Their biggest hit, “Message of the Day” is adapted to every situation.  Any issue.

Like any other song and dance act they need their composers, and The Spinners have many of them.  But none has gotten more prosperous and generated more publicity for himself than that Spinner guru Frank Luntz.

Full disclosure:  Frank is a long time friend of mine and might  continue to be in spite of what I’m saying here.  We go back almost as far as the days when he was designing semantics for the 1994 long shot  Republicans …the ones who rolled over the Democrats and took over Congress.

16 years later, they are salivating at the possibility the Democrats will hand it to them once again and Frank is still writing their march music.

His stock and trade is lyrics.  He’s a memo machine, making tons of money showering  corporate clients with insights into the words they should choose when making their case.  For fun and the TV exposure he loves, he still loyally creates material for the Republican Spinners, the amen chorus that gave him his first big break.

They are salivating once again at the possibility the Democrats will hand it to them once again and Frank is still writing their march music.

When you read his stuff, you are struck by how easy it is to push emotional buttons with sinful syntax and how easy it is to cloud the issues.  Here is his 2010 list:

ACCOUNTABILITY
TRANSPARENCY & OVERSIGHT
LOBBYIST
LOOPHOLES
ENFORCEMENT OF CURRENT LAWS
BUREAUCRATS
WASTEFUL WASHINGTON
SPENDING
NEVER AGAIN
GOVERNMENT FAILURES AND INCOMPETENCE
LET’S HELP SMALL BUSINESSES
BIG BANK BAILOUT BILL
BLOATED BUREAUCRACY
FINE PRINT
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
SPECIAL INTERESTS
HARD WORKING TAXPAYERS
ANOTHER WASHINGTON AGENCY
UNLIMITED REGULATORY POWERS
DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS
RED TAPE

There are 17 pages to this memorandum.  He makes big bucks from this kind of stuff.

Obvious you say?  If so, why are the Democrats making it so easy to use those expressions against them? Frank Luntz reads the numbers.  In fact he and his counterparts drive the polls with these words and phrases.  Why can’t the Democrats gain traction with their own, like “Republican party of the rich” or “GOP protecting the bankers and insurance companies”?

Why? Because the Democrats’ Spinners are tone deaf.  There’s no harmony. Even with all their squabbling Republicans are able to sing the same tune.  The Democrats can’t carry one or even perform from the same song book.

And they can’t even get their act together on radio.  Air America has bitten the dust on the left. Meanwhile, the extreme right has the rantings of Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck and their nutcase clones dutifully reciting the Frank Luntz trashtalk.

Of course, it should be noted that Luntz’s stuff, which is mainly performed from DC, is scripted in LA.  Even he pulled out the nation’s capital and moved to Washington-West,  Santa Monica.  All of which proves that in today’s times Politics is NOT local.  Nothing is.  And the Spinners are merely lip-synching canned material that plays everywhere. The political hits keep on comin’.

You can be sure that some enterprising TV executive, somewhere, is going to take advantage of this.  In about a year, the station’s newscast, featuring the latest perky, sparkling anchorwoman, will open with “Here She Comes, Miss Amerrrrrrica”

Cue Caressa Cameron, who follows in the long line of beauty pageant contestants. who felt that looks and personality were all anyone needed to report on the tough issues of the day. Any fool can do it.

Journalism?  Facts?  Experience? Who needs them when you’ve got cute?    What does it matter that the nation is drowning in a sea of ignorance, misinformation and oversimplification?  Who cares if our clever operators are able to manipulate and distort issues with little chance of being exposed on yuck-it-up shows at 11 PM or 10:00, depending on your time zone?

Forget about that.  Television’s owners managers and cursed consultants couldn’t care less about informing the public. The name of the game is ratings delivered by gimmicks and  anchors who are 8 by 10 glossies.

Obviously this is not always the case.  There are a small few news hosts out there who are not raving beauties. But it really really helps. In fairness it must also be noted that one can have both looks and smarts. But the truth is the smarts don’t matter. Miss America wants to be an anchor because she knows full well, that in today’s near vacuum, she can find a place. She’s qualified enough.

The politicians know exactly how to game this system.  President have learned that real reporters are nothing but trouble, what with their knowledge and pesky follow ups.  So each administration comes up with ways to avoid them and deal with puff balls  instead. Even the seemingly tough ones are really set ups. Witness President Obama finessing his You Tube questioners.

Those who still argue that a democracy needs a truly informed electorate are crying in the wilderness. But wait, the emptiness is being filled with music. “Here She Comes. Miss Amerrrrrrica”