Fire Maria Shriver's Ass and NOW!

The Times brings us a really interesting - and sadly, not surprising at all - story about how NBC - and specifically, The Today Show - has to ask Maria Shriver's opinion before they book guests to discuss topics like... well.. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Maria's hubby.

The blurring of politics and celebrity, governance and journalism, has made it difficult to discern exactly which agendas are at work here. Government officials become commentators, reporters marry politicians and actors run for office. You might expect Ms. Shriver, a longtime, well-respected member of the NBC family, to get a heads-up about Mr. Leamer's appearance, but giving the wife of a governor the right to approve a guest on its network, whether out of personal loyalty or the desire to maintain access, would be a remarkably bad move for a major news organization.

I suppose this would explain part of why the MSM has spent so little time covering the quite large and ever-growing anti-Arnold protests in California.