Newsday Learns An Important Lesson

As pointed out here on the Pulpit, charging people for news is one sure way to get people to stop reading your news. Three months into their own 'pay to read' experiment, Newsday.com has a total of (35) paid subscribers. Yes...THIRTY-FIVE. They paid $4 million to upgrade the site to accept payments, and have made $9,000. Heh. Good riddance. That's the price you pay for not reading the Pulpit Newsday.

Next up: The New York Times.... I'm looking forward to that crash and burn.

Brown Win In Massachusetts Throws A Lifeline To Democrats

I suspect that the Scott Brown win in the race for Massachusetts senator will throw Democrats a lifeline. Unlike statements made earlier in the week that the Senate may delay seating Brown until they can pass a health care reform bill, I think Democrats will move to swiftly seat Brown.

The reason is simple: Democrats running for re-election in 2010 want out of the bill as fast as possible. They might push a watered down bill, which, like Keith Olbermann suggested, will only "mandate child-proof medicine bottles". I doubt they will even do that, as it will continue to keep the health care issue (which is now a Democratic albatross) in people's minds.

I also predict that the "tea bagger" jokes that have been repeated countless times by Democrats on television will suddenly fall out of favor. I bet making fun of the tea party movement Isn't going to be as popular with elected Democrats as it once was. This will leave it up to democratic mouthpieces (like Olbermann) to keep it alive. Eventually, even he'll be asked to tone it down, for fear that it will only serve to stoke voter anger against Democrats.