On that day for example: The Obama Administration announced its intention to issue revised guidelines on federal funding of stem cell research; Attacked suspected militants in Pakistan with a missile from an unmanned drone plane; Announced it would boycott a U. N. sponsored conference on racism because of concerns over draft language condemning Israel, Obama designates someone to the newly created post of Performance and Technology “czar;” and the oblique reference to the White House announcement that it was changing the approach to combating the Drug War by giving more attention to reducing demand through rehabilitation.

Conversely, headlines related to Republicans showed how much disarray exists in a party which abandoned its ideological foundation to feed at the trough of lobbyists cash and how Republicans continue to grasp at straws in an attempt to paint Obama as a Socialist, Marxist or whatever their focus group pollsters tell them plays to the increasingly marginalized base. For example: one headline announced that the obscure book given to President Obama by Venezuelan dictator, Hugo Chavez, during a brief encounter at the Summit of the Americas [widely denounced by the usual wing nuts] had become a best seller in the U.S. This was closely followed by the announcement that Republican U.S. Senator Ensign of Nevada was quoted as saying that Obama’s appearance with Chavez was “irresponsible.” Never mind that sometime thereafter another headline announced that Venezuela had decided to reestablish diplomatic relations with the United States by naming an ambassador to the U.S. (isn’t it amazing what a little courtesy like a handshake can do?).

Headline example number two - former Sen. John McCain’s campaign manager, Steve Schmidt, stated that the G.O.P. should now support gay marriage. Need more proof of the fractious nature of the G.O.P.? How about the headline that Megan McCain, the daughter and campaign adviser of the party’s former presidential candidate stated that there was a looming civil war within the party. Presumably, she was referring to her “feud” with several female pundits who attacked her body image in response to her public political critiques. Keep in mind that interspersed with these rotating snippets was this unattributed gem, “G.O.P.: When will all this borrowing and spending end?”

I’ll close on this last headline: “Former C.I.A. head slams Obama.” As a means of delivering information to the viewer the posting lacks context to say the least. Perhaps, you’re supposed to be mesmerized into watching another 3 hours of CNN in hopes of catching the 20 seconds they might spend on repetitive video clips of Mike Hayden speaking before Congress on something completely unrelated from several months ago [that’s the idea behind commercial broadcasting right?]. Putting that aside, in substance Gen. Hayden did criticize some of the policies President Obama has put in place, being especially critical [if not parroting Dick Cheney] of the President’s decision to close Guantanamo Bay. How conveniently knuckleheads like Hayden and Cheney forget that President Bush also announced he wanted to close Guantanamo Bay [although he apparently never did anything about it] and who abandoned use of many of the harsh interrogation tactics such as “waterboarding” which had marked his first term. Funny how that crowd suddenly got stopped appearing on the talk show circuit once Defense Secretary Bob Gates and then Gen. David Petraeus came forwarded and said that Gitmo had in fact undermined U.S. security and fostered more terrorists to join the ranks of Al Qaida and Obama made the right decision to act when he did [his second day in office] as it had restored some of America’s damaged international prestige. As a side note, shame on the majority of Congressional Democrats for voting with the Republicans to deny funding for transfer of detainees; the moniker turd blossoms comes to mind.