The most important part of a White House reporter's job, in my view, is deciding what questions to ask Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. In my case, that importance is magnified by the fact that, unlike the big kids in the first two rows, I don't get to fire nine questions at him. Sometimes, I don't get to ask any. With that in mind, I would like your input, Asylum readers. This is, after all, ...

A new movement has sprung up that's asking Americans to put the teabags down and grab a hot cup of joe in the name of civic concern. Coffee Party USA kicks off this weekend, and it aims to show that the Tea Party movement doesn't speak for all frustrated Americans. Founder Annabel Park started the movement on Facebook, and it has quickly grown to over 100,000 members. The basic idea of the ...

Since I rarely ever watch Glenn Beck's show, let alone write about it, imagine my surprise when I learned I had been honored with a place on the Fox host's "The Wire"–meets–Bart Simpson chalkboard. While CNNBC's reporting gets some of the details wrong (everyone knows I favor Bing!ing to Googling), it was still nice to be recognized. OK, so none of this is true.) I got the ...

I recently interviewed NBC Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd as part of a series of interviews with my WH colleagues on a range of topics related to journalism, such as the effect of opinion media on White House briefings and the relative merits of Twitter. As a hopeless pop-culture junkie, my favorite question is the one related to their embarrassing TV-watching habits. Granted, ...

Amid allegations of sexual harassment and naked shower encounters with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, there's one aspect of the tale of Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) that stands out for us: Apparently, he's a "Battlestar Galactica" fan. Does this make us somewhat sadly geektastic? Maybe. In a radio interview this weekend, Massa described an incident in which he joked that he should be ...

Have you ever been watching the news and found yourself scratching your head at their choice of experts or contributors? For example, if you want to do a segment on the relative merits of smaller government, is there any more natural choice than ... Kid Rock? To his credit, Fox News's choice to have him on perplexed even the Kid himself, who told anchor Megyn Kelly "I have no idea why I'm ...

On the heels of President Obama's first medical checkup since taking office, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs fielded a barrage of questions about the president's habits, mostly on the burning issue of the president's struggle to quit smoking. (No, not that kind of smoking!) This isn't the first time the press has quizzed Gibbs on the president's intake of cancer sticks, but he was slightly more ...

The public health insurance option, while consistently popular with voters, has faced stiff opposition from the health-care lobby, and has been all but declared dead in the upcoming health-care reform summit. Until now ... Enter Heather Graham, reprising her role as "The Public Option" in a new ad for MoveOn.org. The spot tells voters to urge Congress to pass the public option using the ...

In just under a month, Oscar statuettes will once again be handed out at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre. By our calculation, this gives Academy voters fewer than 30 days to make a very important decision when it comes to the expanded Best Picture category. Namely: Will they opt for one of the eight unworthy nominees that no one will care about a decade from now? Or will they do what's right and ...

The hills are alive with pictures of U.S. Olympic downhill skier Lindsey Vonn, as America's best hope for winter gold is currently melting hearts and minds with a scorching Sports Illustrated spread. While not everyone is happy about the pics, there are several TV anchors who have become ensnared in the Vonn trap. The pictures inside the magazine are wreaking havoc with the attention spans of TV ...