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It seems that in the old legacy media, whether or not political behavior is objectionable depends not on the behavior itself, but on whose behavior it is.

For example, maybe you missed this report from Byron York over the weekend.  In a commentary – a commentary! – about the Obama administration’s attacks on Fox News, Ken Rudin, NPR’s political director, first said this:

“It’s not only aggressive, it’s almost Nixonesque,” Rudin said. “I mean, you think of what Nixon and Agnew did with their enemies list and their attacks on the media; certainly Vice President Agnew’s constant denunciation of the media. Of course, then it was a conservative president denouncing a liberal media, and of course, a lot of good liberals said, ‘Oh, that’s ridiculous. That’s an infringement on the freedom of press.’ And now you see a lot of liberals almost kind of applauding what the White House is doing to Fox News, which I think is distressing.”

What makes someone “rich” in today’s economy?  If you spend twenty years working up to the level of, say, an Assistant Principal in the public schools, you could actually make slightly over $100,00 a year in Los Angeles.  A SIX FIGURE INCOME.

Easy Come Easy Go

Is that ” rich?”   To some it certainly sounds like it is.

And what if your wife works as the leader of a well-attended pre-school in your community, making possibly $42,000 or more.   Filing your taxes jointly, you are almost up to $150,000 a year.   If your mom and dad left you a small dividend-bearing stock upon their deaths, between that and your own tiny stock portfolio, you might make a little more.  Your reward for earning a master’s degree and twenty years of service, and your wife’s congratulations for being selected to be a director instead of a teacher, is that your combined earnings puts you into a near 30% federal income tax bracket.

This week,  California First Lady Maria Shriver is taking a seat on the Today Show couch and talking about the “new world” for women in the United States.  She has just released  “The Shriver Report” which offers empirical research about family life, working life, and the

Shriver on Today's Women

constant balancing act that is a reality for women who try, or need to be part of both worlds.

Maria Shriver is a good reporter and always has been.  Now she adds to her perspective, enormous life experience as a mother of four, a front row seat in political life, and eight years as a Governor’s wife touring the communities of California.

I highly encourage viewing her segments airing on the NBC Evening News, or Today, or MSNBC this week.  There is a lot to learn from her reports. It is valuable to know the source of the research as well.  The American Policy Institute, partnering with TIME Magazine, conducted polling of 3,413 people throughout the U.S.  Both men and women were polled in the study.   For your information, former Clinton aide, John Podesta, is the head of the American Policy Institute.  Scanning the initial findings, the results are telling.

This week, at the front desk of one of the leading hair salons in Los Angeles, People Magazine was being shared by a handful of women all marveling at the poise and strength of the 21-year old cover girl,  Elizabeth Smart.  Just a week ago, Smart finally faced the man who violently changed her life and robbed her of her youth.  Defendant Brian David Mitchell, appearing in U.S. District Court, sat in shackles opposite Smart.  Ultimately Mitchell was banned from the courtroom for being disruptive, and was reduced to viewing the proceedings via closed circuit TV.

It is no surprise that magazine readers, particularly women, have been shocked and horrified by Elizabeth Smart’s unveiling of her true nightmare.  The women present this week at Allen Edwards Salon in Encino, California could only

shake their heads and praise her for her courage, for her steely commitment to holding Mitchell accountable, and her equal resolve to be defined by all that she is, not what she has lost.

Associated Press is reporting that the M4 machine guns, lighter versions of the long-used M-16’s familiar in U.S. warfare, may be failing our soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.  The guns have jammed when overheated.  When firing off hundreds, if not thousands of rounds during intense battle, overheating is possible.  Machine guns also jam up if not regularly cleaned and maintained.

Life Depending Upon M4 Machine Guns

AP writer Richard Lardner writes that  “In the chaos of an early morning assault on a remote U.S. outpost in eastern Afghanistan, Staff Sgt. Erich Phillips’ M4 carbine quit firing as militant forces surrounded the base. The machine gun he grabbed after tossing the rifle aside didn’t work either.

When the battle in the small village of Wanat ended, nine U.S. soldiers lay dead and 27 more were wounded. A detailed study of the attack by a military historian found that weapons failed repeatedly at a “critical moment” during the firefight on July 13, 2008, putting the outnumbered American troops at risk of being overrun by nearly 200 insurgents.”

Broadcasters and pundits ccould be a bit more kind in their reviews of President Obama’s surprise Nobel Peace Prize.  He IS the first

Making Peace

African American to sit in the White House.  It is odd that, according to CNN, the Nobel Committee closed nominations shortly after Obama was inaugurated.  His “peace” efforts were still wet ink droplets on the page at that time.

In any event, Barack Obama will give the money to charity, all $1.4 million of it, which after taxes will be something over $700,000.  Donating the balance to charity will shelter the remainder of his government salary this year!  Those are the realities.

Past Peace Prize recipients include Al Gore, Henry Kissenger, Jimmy Carter, and of course Martin Luther King.  I thought it might be interesting to remember the names and acts of women  who have been recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize .  Turns out there’s a lot of politics…..in peace.