Sad whine, sad whine: Some of our nation’s saddest Republicans are terribly upset that Barack Obama will not put in an excruciating bad-faith appearance on some Fox News program this Sunday. You see, Obama will be stopping by the other major networks this weekend to talk about health care on “Meet the Press,” “State of the Union,” etc. etc. but has ostentatiously foregone Lou Dobbs’ highly rated Mexican vs. Lion vs. Rick Perry Gladiator Sports Match. Joe Wilson, bold idiot, decided this is unfair! “If people are going to be on the Sunday talk shows, they should be on all of them.” Joe Wilson is a public relations dare devil, he is! MORE »

Print journalism and punditry are officially dead, because Richard Wolffe killed them. He has quit his job at Newsweek and will go work for Public Strategies, the PR outfit helmed by Dan Bartlett that also employs our beloved sad cowboy Mark McKinnon. Basically, any journalist who is sufficiently competent to pen a press release is fleeing to PR now because there are no news/media jobs of any sort left anymore, except at Wonkette, the NAMBLA house blog. [Austin Business Journal]

The government rescued insurance giant AIG from its own wretched, greedy incompetence by giving the evil company $80 billion $150 billion of your tax dollars. With this insane reward for being an epic failure, AIG was supposed to rebuild its core business — which is insurance, not gambling like a drunken fool and destroying the entire global economy in the process. Instead, AIG is burning through its bailout cash by sending absurd emails to political-comedy blogs demanding clarification on whether the $125 million of taxpayer dollars AIG is spending on English football sponsorships is simply a continuing waste of taxpayer millions or a renewed waste of taxpayer millions. MORE »

The job of a public-relations professional is to make the Client look good, and FEMA flack John “Pat” Philbin certainly pulled that off last week, when he created a “press conference” featuring some very friendly “reporters” who turned out to be his own staffers. Getting a bunch of friendly questions from the “press” is no easy task for a federal agency best known for drowning thousands of poor Americans, so it should come as no surprise that “Pat” Philbin is getting a big promotion! He’s the new director of public affairs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — that’s the new-ish umbrella spy/torture agency that now owns the CIA and NSA and all the other intel shops quickly being outsourced to corrupt GOP-friendly contractors. Congratulation, “Pat”! We all look forward to your positive-message work on the promotion of torture and murder and White House-level intelligence cover-ups.

UPDATE: Not so fast, “Pat.” ODNI has revoked the cushy job offer.

FEMA Director of External Affairs Exits Amidst PR Scandal; Lands at ODNI [PR Newser]