† The Media Love Obama, But He Doesn’t Love Them Back: After White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called bullsh*t on CNBC’s Rick Santelli’s rant against the Obama administration’s plan (.pdf) to bailout no-money-down “homeowners” who have no equity in their overpriced houses, Santelli appeared on the cable network’s “The Kudlow Report” to call double bullsh*t on Gibbs over the plan’s provision to allow bankruptcy court judges to rewrite the terms of a mortgage loan:

Kudlow calls Gibbs’ singling out Santelli “[O]ne of the worst attacks I’ve ever seen on the media from the president or the White House press secretary,” adding:

This is an unprecedented White House assault on a member of the media in good standing  … [I]n some respects this is worse than the Nixon attacks on Dan Rather. … There’s a freedom of the press issue, and also a respect issue … and a bullying issue. … It could be you today, it could be me tomorrow, it could be somebody on Fox News … Does this mean this is how this White House and the Obama presidency is going to react to criticism from the media? Is this a signal of things to come, with the worst press relations we’ve seen in our lifetime?  

Stay tuned.

† Your Bonus: $0. Continued Employment: Priceless.: An article in The New York Times asks: “Should executives get to keep lavish pay packages when the profits that generated their compensation go up in smoke?”:

With losses mounting at the nation’s largest financial institutions, years of earnings have been erased, investors have lost billions, thousands of employees have been let go, and taxpayers have been tapped to rescue the financial system. But executives who helped set the problems in motion, or ignored them as they mounted, are still doing fine. Humbled, perhaps, but well paid for their anguish.

Executives at seven major financial institutions that have collapsed, were sold at distressed prices or are in deep to the taxpayer received $464 million in performance pay since 2005, according to an analysis performed for The New York Times. Almost half of that consisted of cash compensation.

Yet these firms have reported losses of $107 billion since 2007, a result of their own missteps and the ensuing economic downturn. And $740 billion in stock market value has been lost since these companies’ shares peaked in 2007, just before the housing bubble burst. …

But now, with a public backlash against excessive pay and taxpayer lifelines extended to crippled companies, the idea of recouping compensation, known as “clawback,” is gaining traction.

Clearly, these outsized compensation packages failed to encourage exceptional performance – but some argue that there will be a brain drain if top execs don’t get top dollar. “[I]s this brain drain real, or merely a bit of self-justification? And would it really matter much anyway?,” asks another Times article:

Up and down Wall Street, financial types are grumbling that their industry’s highest highflyers are getting their pay capped.

Many Wall Streeters say this would be disastrous. The sharpest financial minds will up and quit, the argument goes, and take their smarts with them at the very moment they’re needed to re-engineer their companies and restart the economy. …

John H. Gutfreund, who ran Solomon Brothers during the 1980s, says many Wall Street executives are just whining. They got used to the monster-pay they pocketed when times were good, and don’t want to give it up now. …

“People got spoiled,” Mr. Gutfreund says. As for that brain drain: Not likely, he says. “There’s always someone else coming up the ladder.”

† Depends Whose Ox Is Gored (second item): As scientists “wait with bated breath” for President Barack Obama to reverse his predecessor’s eight-year ban on human embryonic stem cell research – now scientifically moot, as several methods have been developed to give adult stem cells the pluripotent properties of embryonic cells – The Associated Press reports that experimental injections of fetal stem cells given to an Israeli boy with a rare, fatal genetic brain disease known as ataxia telangiectasia caused tumors to develop in his brain and spinal cord:

"Patients, please beware," said Dr. John Gearhart, a stem cell scientist at the University of Pennsylvania who wasn't involved in the Israeli boy's care but who sees similarly desperate U.S. patients head abroad to clinics that offer unproven stem cell injections.

"Cells are not drugs. They can misbehave in so many different ways, it just is going to take a good deal of time" to prove how best to pursue the potential therapy, Gearhart said.

† "Sicko" Healthcare Prescription Causes Adverse Side Effects For Dems (second item): The $787 billion economic stimulus package includes $1.1 billion to create a government council to “compare drugs, medical devices, surgery and other ways of treating specific conditions,” reports The New York Times:

Britain, France and other countries have bodies that assess health technologies and compare the effectiveness, and sometimes the cost, of different treatments. …

As Congress translated the idea into legislation, it became a lightning rod for pharmaceutical and medical-device lobbyists, who fear the findings will be used by insurers or the government to deny coverage for more expensive treatments and, thus, to ration care [emphasis, The Stiletto].

In addition, Republican lawmakers and conservative commentators complained that the legislation would allow the federal government to intrude in a person’s health care by enforcing clinical guidelines and treatment protocols.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed Nadeem Esmail, director of Health System Performance Studies at Canadian public policy think tank The Fraser Institute, urges Americans to “[l]ook at Canada's experience” with government-run health insurance before rushing headlong into the abyss of rationing healthcare resources:

Canadians often wait months or even years for necessary care. For some, the status quo has become so dire that they have turned to the courts for recourse. Several cases currently before provincial courts provide studies in what Americans could expect from government-run health insurance.

In Ontario, Lindsay McCreith was suffering from headaches and seizures yet faced a four and a half month wait for an MRI scan in January of 2006. Deciding that the wait was untenable, Mr. McCreith did what a lot of Canadians do: He went south, and paid for an MRI scan across the border in Buffalo. The MRI revealed a malignant brain tumor.

Ontario's government system still refused to provide timely treatment, offering instead a months-long wait for surgery. In the end, Mr. McCreith returned to Buffalo and paid for surgery that may have saved his life. He's challenging Ontario's government-run monopoly health-insurance system, claiming it violates the right to life and security of the person guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

McCreith is one of several Canadian patients suing for “the freedom to spend their own money to protect themselves from the inadequacies of the government health-insurance system,” writes Esmail. He is optimistic about their chances, because of a “landmark” ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada that “Canadians suffer physically and psychologically while waiting for treatment in the public health-care system, and that the government monopoly on essential health services imposes a risk of death and irreparable harm.”

† Updates To Previous Posts (Now Is Not The Time To Talk About Race): Calling the New York Post’s monkey cartoon "an invitation to assassination," National Association for the Advancement of Colored People president Benjamin Todd Jealous wants the cartoonist, Sean Delonas, to get canned, along with the paper’s editor-in-chief Col Allan, reports The Associated Press:

NAACP officials said that if the Post does not take "serious disciplinary action," they would reach out to organizations across the country to join them in their efforts against the tabloid.

NAACP Chairman Julian Bond called the publication of the cartoon "thoughtlessness taken to the extreme. ... Anyone who is not offended by it does not have any sensitivity."

Not surprisingly, the brouhaha has had a chilling effect on other editorial cartoonists, who “are bending over backwards a lot these days, as they try to satirize the nation's first black president,” according to AP:

The problem is, cartoonists make their living by making fun of people -  especially presidents - and exaggerating their features and foibles.

The best political cartoons are "like an X-ray machine," said Amelia Rauser, an art history professor at Franklin & Marshall College and author of "Caricature Unmasked," which examines the art form's historical role in political discourse. …

Drawings of President Barack Obama, however, must contend with America's history of degrading racial imagery, from ape comparisons to enormous "Sambo" lips. (Caricatures of the president's admittedly large ears have so far escaped scrutiny.) …

Scott Stantis, editorial cartoonist for The Birmingham (Ala.) News, said he received several complaints this week that his Obama drawings look "simian." As a conservative in a city that's 77 percent black, Stantis has learned to consider the feelings of his audience.

"Being the typical American editorial cartoonist - doughy, white, middle-aged - I'm more than willing to accept that I don't know what may or may not be offensive," he said. "But editorial cartoons are supposed to be offensive, and provocative. We're entering new waters here. What can you use or not use?"

The Stiletto wonders whether that’s an example of the courageous and frank talk that Attorney General Eric Holder is looking for – or should Lester start updating his resume, along with Delonas and Allan?