Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

What did Big Media say after Diane Sawyer revealed that the famous Dean “scream”–broadcast more than 700 times with shocked comments each time–was the artifact of a mike that blocked out crowd noise?

Basically, “Oops!…I did it again…”*

CBS News: “Individually we may feel okay about our network, but the cumulative effect for viewers with 24-hour cable coverage is — it may have been overplayed and, in fact, a disservice to Dean and the viewers.”

— Andrew Heyward, President – CBS News

ABC News: “It’s always a danger that we’ll use good video too much.”

— David Westin, President – ABC News

CNN: “We’ve all been wrestling with this. If we had it to do over again, we’d probably pull ourselves back.”

— Princell Hair, General Manager – CNN

Fox News: “It got overplayed a bit, and the public clearly thought that, too, and kept him alive for another round.”

— Roger Ailes, Chairman and CEO – Fox News

Sorry boys, that’s not good enough. It would be nice if you could give me back my illusions about your diligent fact-checking and fair coverage. But you can’t.

No. Instead, I demand that every one of you gentlemen exorcise that inner Britney Spears.

Take off the multi-thousand-dollar suit, put on a tiny skin-tight costume, gyrate and sweat for us in front of a camera as you offer up those oh-so-lame-excuses. We’ll be here on the couch eating popcorn, making fun of your hair and lamenting how much cuter you looked when you were 15.

In not-unrelated news, John Nichols points out (The Nation):

[A nonpartisan] study of 187 CBS, NBC and ABC evening news reports found that only 49 percent of all on-air evaluations of Dean in 2003 were positive. The other Democratic contenders collectively received 78 percent favorable coverage during the same period.

(Thanks to Roland Tanglao for the link.)

Get back in those costumes, and give us another chorus…

Oops!…I did it again…
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah…

Damn it, Britney–I mean, Roger Ailes–I want my country back.

I’ll start by admitting I’ve often broken this one.

“Thou shalt not plan face-to-face meetings during winter months (i.e. months not June, July or August).”

(Thanks to Scott, who came down from the mountain with something similar.)

Thank god Martha Stewart didn’t come…

Yesterday, we threw a farewell party for Mickey, who’s headed off to Tasmania, Kangaroo Island, etc., all paid for by a fine natural history tour group.

To celebrate the hybrid nature of Australia, we had English-tea scones and jam and mounds of creamy stuff to put on top (Empire days) plus music in the background that was mostly dainty tea-party-classical interspersed with such Aussie classics as “Tie Me Kangaroo Down,” “Drunken Philosophers Song”, and “One-Eyed Trouser Snake.”

Instead of dainty little tea sandwiches, which are a nuisance to make, we had heaps of French bread and cheeses and fruit and chocolate cake and two pots of coffee for any non-tea-drinkers.

Mickey’s friends John and Lizzie brought a magnificently entertaining baby. Mickey read some hilarious short bits on duck-billed platypi. But for me, the most family-typical moment came just as everyone sat down at the food-piled-high tea table and I said,

Oh, whoops–I forgot to make any tea!