As beautiful as you.

It's rumor at this point, but oh my (from Mediaite):

Meet The Press Reportedly in Jeopardy as NBC Looks to Cut Back DC Bureau

As we head into 2014, the fate of the longest-running news program on television is starting to look uncertain. According to a new report from the New York Post’s Claire Atkinson, NBC News chief Deborah Turness is looking to make some major cutbacks at the network’s Washington D.C. bureau, where Meet The Press is produced.

Atkinson quotes one unnamed executive as saying, “Instead of getting better, NBC News has been getting worse [since Turness arrived earlier this year.] It’s a mess.” In October, the reporter cited rumors about Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski adding Meet The Press hosting duties to their already full 15 hours a week on MSNBC.

Meet The Press, which used to be the perennial first place finisher on Sunday mornings over ABC’s This Week and CBS’ Face The Nation, fell to a 21-year low over the summer and has been coming in third place behind those two show for much of 2013.

...

 Dear Ms. Turness,

Give me a week and I can fix "Meet the Press".  Seriously, send me a check for what David Gregory makes in one week and I will fix your flagship show.

Unless, that is, you're goal is to continue appeasing your sponsors and personally enriching Mr. Gregory by using MTP as a dung wallow for every shit-slinging, Both Sider shill, lie-spouting Republican hack and Wall Street parasite who wants to roll one more re-retread of player-out Beltway drivel into my living room and sell it to me as the received wisdom of our culture's best and brightest.  

A few days ago I was surprised and honored to learn that my little chef-owned-and-operated diner out here in the e-xurbs of Left Blogistan is a finalist in the Weblog category of Best Individual Blogger.

First and foremost, my sincere thanks to the readers who nominated and voted for me. I have always had deeply ambivalent feelings about awards in general. I still do. However, as my friend darkblack reminded me on a previous occasion:

"...if respect is offered, politeness accepts with grace and humility. The relentlessly humbling effect of real life will continue apace."

Damn right. 2008 was a wild, humbling year many of us, and I am deeply touched that readers and fellow bloggers thought enough of my work to do this.

Second, like most things, this comes with bad news and good --

The bad news: Weblogylvania is not a caucus state, so the fearsome database of special, sneaky rules which I paid David Plouffe some big cake to dope out for me is pretty much useless.

The good news: Weblogylvania is like Chicago in that you can vote multiple times. So yay us!

The bad news: Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White has said he will not process my paperwork for this award.

The good news: There is no paperwork; you just go here and click. But don't tell Jesse. He means well.

The bad news: According the Law of the Conservation of Taint, Harry Reid has vowed to refuse to seat me as long as I continue live in Illinois and Governor Shakedown is still at large.

The good news: I still have my "Joe Lieberman" mask left over from Halloween, so slipping past him should be no problem. Also, a couple of years ago when YearlyKos was in town, Glenn Greenwald got Top Gallant Sails-drunk and showed a bunch of us some sweet sleeper holds.

Third, for new readers and old friends, this also seems an opportune moment to put up a short "Best Of..." list from 2008:

Understanding the Right: Junkie Logic

Being John Maverick (Me abusing Photoshop)

The Large Badloan Collider (Fake Physics + Bad Economics = Big Fun)

On That Day (9/11 Anniversary)

Talking to ourselves

The Negrological Constant

Dear Traitors (Proof that I can be brief)

One of the more popular chapters from my ongoing "Sunday Morning Comin' Down" series.

Advise to Arianna Huffington on Bad Graphics

Because he is not one of us

Seabiscuit vs. War Admiral (Average post, inexplicably widely read/linked)

Madness on the Half-Shell (Abusing Photoshop again)

Polls open Monday January 5, 2009 and close Monday January 12, 2009.

Rules are here.

Thank you.

Gilly got a much-deserved write up in the NYT today.

The GNB has all the links and such here, as well as a lovely wreath of words from Jesse Wendel and some well-delivered corrections to the general tone of the piece (For example, somebody tell Matt Bai that he voided his poetic license when he decided to trowel on the "po' lonely guy" bathos when in real life those that knew him say Steve was not that way at all.)

Still, I can easily believe that someone like Gilly was a man alone in an entirely different sense: a man who could see things with a clarity that others did not see at all; who was every day terribly troubled by events (and their likely consequences) that others were not even aware existed.

And that particular Cassandric watch tower can be a very lonesome dwelling.

So to put it better than I ever could, I'm going to shamelessly steal respectfully borrow some words from another writer I admire greatly. One who was also simultaneously hugely talented and under appreciated. Who harrowed a living out of the air with just his pen, who possessed that singular gift for reaching into his writer's bindle and plucking out exactly the right word, and who died far too young and unrewarded.

Edgar Allan Poe -- "Alone"

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
...

It's a poem which reads dark and rather melancholy, and is therefor a pretty accurate reflection of my own, inner emotional state -- one of selfish anger that I will never read another new post from Gilly again.

But then from somewhere I hear Steve admonishing me -- "Yeah, whatever. Now fuck your self-pitying bullshit and get back to work." -- and I know that this

is so much more the right coda to the Big Guy's life and work.

Rest in Peace my friend.

just ain't worth the busy.

Just a quick note to say;

1. Thank you all so very much for the kind, funny, thoughtful comments. I am acutely aware that lately I have been in less of a position to respond than I would like (my parole officer already thinks it's odd that I spend as much time as I do "building websites for needy Barsoomian orphans" as my community service obligation stipulates.) I'll work on that. But I wanted you to know that I do read and revel in them all.

2. Regarding the post below, a BIG h/t to ultracool liberal ma driftglass, who taught her tribe that being able to (albeit, in my case, badly) bust into "Money", "Sabbath Prayer" or anything from "The King and I" as the occasion demanded was every bit as important as good manners and fancy book larnin'.