In the world of framing issues (or "political spin," if you prefer), there are a few cardinal rules. One of them is when you are trying to scare people, it helps if the example you use (and the words you choose to describe it) are actually scary.

[I should mention before I get going here that this article's headline has nothing whatsoever to do with the FCC, or radio or television broadcast rules... just so no one winds up disappointed.]

I read a recent opinion article by Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post, and I found myself actually agreeing with him. This, I should point out, was not his intended purpose (since he's a pretty conservative guy, and I am decidedly not). Because I was agreeing that his "nightmare scenario" actually sounded pretty good. Read it yourself, and see what you think.

Because (are you sitting down), Krauthammer's big bugaboo, his big boogeyman spectre designed to send us all screaming out into the night... is "fairness." America being "fair" is such an awful, frightening, downright terrifying future for our country, that all good citizens should rise up against it. To the barricades! To fight for Unfairness For All!

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Here's a quick quiz: Do you know the difference between England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom? If you do, chances are you are one of my Canadian readers, who assumably learn such things in school.

OK, the whole issue is kind of silly, and is nothing more than an introduction to what I really want to talk about, but I did want to react to the whole tempest in a teacup. Plus, it's Thursday, when I traditionally get a bit disjointed in subject matter. Ahem.

For those of you wondering what I'm talking about, the story is that President Barack Obama is (fill in your own right-wing insult), because when speaking to the press in a joint press conference with Gordon Brown, Obama said "England," when he should have more properly said "the United Kingdom" (to be more inclusive).

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What a morning!

I awoke to the sounds of my clock radio, and of President Obama giving an extraordinary speech across the airwaves. I'll just transcribe what I heard for all of you here, without comment:

I, President Obama, have taken this opportunity to speak to all of America. Because I'd like to make a confession to everyone. While my efforts at reaching out across the aisle in Washington have been mixed, at best, I have to admit that my efforts at reaching out to the mainstream media have been somewhat less successful. So, in order to lay to rest some rumors and downright conspiracy theories, and in a sincere effort to shelter the media from the embarrassment their unfounded stories have undoubtedly caused them, I'd like to come right out and admit a few things to everyone.

To begin with, my Inauguration speech was horrible. Boy, that was an absolute stinker of a speech, huh? About the only thing worse was Aretha Franklin's hat, right? And when I gave the speech, although only a few right-winger pundits picked up on it, when I said I valued "hard work," that was actually code, which hid the fact that I am really a secret conservative.

Yes, it's true. As we all know, liberals never did a stick of work in their lives, and so I was truly speaking to my natural constituency there -- conservatives.

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No, I am not getting an early jump on April Fool's Day -- you did read that headline correctly. The United States Supreme Court, by letting Virginia's ruling in Jaynes v. Virginia stand, has carved out a constitutional right to send anonymous emails, as long as the subject matter is politics or religion. To put it another way, no law can be passed to restrict (or even breach the anonymity) of such spam, because the law itself would be deemed unconstitutional.

That's a pretty serious precedent to set, but very few realize the full implications. The Washington Post, reporting on the Supreme Court's decision not to take up the case, didn't even mention any such repercussions at all. Or, for that matter, the subject of the constitutionality of anonymous political spam (which, legally, is the most interesting thing about the case).

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Hoo boy.

In the era of Michael Steele, Sarah Palin, and Bobby Jindal, it's pretty hard to stand out in the world of conservative lunatic ravings. But Andrew Breitbart's recent opinion piece in the Washington Times truly raises (lowers?) the bar for the rest of the field in right-wing Crazytown. His thesis is that liberal blog commenters are ruining things for the conservatives' attempts to have a nice online chat.

That sounds like I'm exaggerating, but sadly, I'm actually toning his comments down. Read his whole piece if you don't believe me. It's worth reading, because YOU -- quite possibly a Huffington Post commenter -- are apparently what is ruining everything on "the Internets" for conservatives.

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Those who do not know history are, as we all know, doomed to repeat it. But there should be some sort of special doom reserved for those who actually do know their history, and choose to ignore it anyway. Amy Domini recently wrote a wonderful article in The Huffington Post about this phenomenon as it relates to our current financial crisis. She went back and dug out a New York Times article from when Congress passed the bill which created this whole mess. While there are some minor factual errors in her writing (as I remember it, George Bush was "elected" in the year 2000, not 1999), reading the reprinted Times article is just absolutely stunning. It covers the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, the financial regulatory law that was passed as a result of the Great Depression to keep the banking industry from doing stupid and reckless things.

Anyone who is currently pointing fingers at Republicans for championing "deregulation," and demonizing them for doing so needs to read this, to brush up on their history. This Clinton-era bill passed the House 362 to 57, and it sailed through the Senate with a whopping ninety votes for it, and only eight against.

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In an admirable spirit of egalitarianism, President Obama has opened up the White House Easter party for children (the annual "egg roll") so that anyone who is lucky enough can get a ticket online. The official website to apply for tickets has reportedly been a bit overwhelmed, but because they are randomly accepting reservations on-and-off throughout the day (instead of starting at one set time), there is still a chance for any member of the public to get one of these tickets.

But, although I have no plans to attend, I have to applaud them for making the tickets so available. [Full disclosure: I believe I attended one of these when I was about five, although I don't know whether we made it in to the White House grounds or just attended alternate events in the park across the street. Hey, I was five, I don't remember all the details perfectly....] But opening up the White House egg roll to the general public is the right thing to do, meaning that even if you don't manage to get tickets, everyone still has the same chance. It's basic fairness.

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[Note: Updated below.]

President Obama is taking your questions now, and will answer them tomorrow. In a move to make Obama more accessible and answerable to the public, the White House web site is soliciting questions from the public for Obama to answer on their new "Open For Questions" page. So, given the opportunity, what question would you ask the president? Personally, I would choose: "Will drug policy be included in your new science-based approach to government, or will you let politics continue to trump science in this arena?" Because there have been two specific news items in the past few weeks, and while they are almost completely unrelated, they both come from the "science/politics" debate on drugs. The first is the "morning after" pill, and the second is medical marijuana.

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I waited to write this until after President Obama held his second prime-time press conference, so I could give my reactions. President Obama did his usual job of unflappably answering questions in an intelligent and adult manner. This will come as less and less of a shock to the media and the public as time goes on (as the memory of what preceded him fades).

Obama himself didn't make much news. There were a few memorable lines, such as "I'm not going to lie to you" -- again, the shock of hearing such things will wear off with time, I'm sure. About the only newsworthy thing Obama came up with was a challenge to congressional Republicans to put up or shut up on the budget. He made this point several times, essentially saying: "Where's your budget, guys?" But for the most part, Obama was content to restate his case for his budget plan and for fixing the economy. And, almost as an afterthought, on his final question the president hit a thematic high point on the subject of "persistence" -- making his point (persistently, one has to say) that this is exactly what the American people should expect from him on all sorts of issues -- the persistence to follow through on them and get something done.

But while Obama's performance can be summed up in a paragraph, that would make for a very short column. And we can't have that.

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It may already be too late to even suggest this, but I think we need a better term than "toxic assets" (or "toxic mortgages" or "toxic" anything else) if we're trying to convince people to buy them. I mean, has any marketing campaign in the history of advertising been successful using the word "toxic"? Even actual poison (bug spray, for instance) largely avoids this word, unless in some reassurance that the product is "non-toxic to pets."

To be fair, this term has largely come from the media. Which means it already may be too late to re-frame the issue. Because, like a pit bull on a juicy bone, the media gets attached to some terms and refuses to ever give them up. But for anyone trying to sell the Obama/Geithner plan to clean up our financial system, it really would be a good idea to come up with another snappy term to replace "toxic" with.

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