Monday, September 21, 2009

Still Fired Up and Ready to Go on the Air

**Updated to include links to the interviews**
My rant, and Robert Scheer interview
Dr. Andrew Weil
Andy Bichlbaum of The Yes Men
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I wrote a pretty scathing attack on the disappointing performance of the Obama administration at eight months earlier today. The response on facebook and via email has been faster and more voluminous than I expected.

The majority of the posts have been in agreement with what I wrote. In essence, that the man occupying the White House bears little resemblance in vision, action or stature to the man we voted for 10 months ago.

But there are those hopeful voices still singing the praises of the smartest guy in the room, hinting at the "he's playing chess and thinking three moves ahead the rest of us, who are only playing checkers" defense.

And honestly, I hope they're right. I'd like nothing more that to be able to write in this space six months from now that I was wrong. Truly, honestly, seriously.

In the meantime, I'm going to keep calling them as I see them...

The article I wrote earlier today was percolating in my restlessness all weekend. And I was struggling all morning to put it down on paper. Two things provided the fuel...

First was the oddly worded fundraising email from Madeleine Albright, which stated right in the subject line that it was a Referendum on Obama. Bad timing Madame Secretary.

The second was a piece I read on truthout.org from Robert Scheer, entitled "Obama's Presidency Isn't Too Big to Fail."

Misery loves company, I guess. The first thing I did after reading that essay was to track down Mr. Scheer and invite him on tonight's show (and I'm thrilled that he'll be with us for the final half hour tonight -- 9:30pm PT/12:30am ET). And then I began writing my own version of what he said!

I have a couple of other wonderful guests before I get to commiserate with Robert Scheer.

Dr. Andrew Weil, the famous American MD best known for establishing and popularizing the field of integrative medicine. He's promoting his new book, "Why Our Health Matters: A Vision of Medicine that Can Transform Our Future" and I had the opportunity to get his views on the fight for health care reform.

In addition to today being the 27th annual UN International Day of Peace, it's also the Global Day of Climate Action.

At thousands of "flash-mobs" -- quick, spontaneous actions -- around the world today, people sounded a climate alarm to wake our leaders out of their slumber and demand a fair, ambitious, and binding treaty this December 24 in Copenhagen, when the world leaders gather to reach an agreement on a new climate treaty.

In New York, The Yes Men outdid all others by putting into circulation a "special edition NY Post" with the headline "We're Screwed." The paper, all 35 pages of it, looked very real. The only indications that something was amiss was the fact that the entire thing was about the global climate crisis, and everything in this "special edition" of the Post was true!

They pulled this off in conjunction with the group BeyondTalk.net. We'll hear a bit more about it tonight with Yes Man Andy Bichlbaum.

I guess it's OK to have some hope left...

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