Abram was first snapped by a Getty photographer outside a town hall meeting in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, carrying a sign that said "you can only pick one," universal health care or freedom. Inside that meeting, she asked Senator Arlen Specter, "what are you going to do to restore the country back to what our founders created, according to the Constitution?" MSNBC broadcast this question, which led, in turn, to interviews with Abram on CNN, FOX News, and MSNBC's own Hardball — and the above clip from last night's Daily Show. Blog commenters on the left and right are comparing Abram to Joe the Plumber, and her TV appearances do reveal some of the pitfalls of elevating non-experts to sudden pundit status.

CNN's Kiran Chetry was pretty soft on Abram yesterday, but she still came off looking pretty confused. Abram's opposition to health care reform seems to come largely from her belief that America's founders would have been against it. She says, "it doesn't say in the Constitution, give out free health care to people, bail out the auto companies." It's a little hard to imagine the framers talking about "auto companies" in the Constitution (they would've needed a crystal ball), but this oversight just highlights the fact that Washington, Madison, Franklin et al knew that the Constitution could never predict all aspects of future American life — that's why there's an amendment process, and a legislative branch. But Abram isn't on CNN to discuss the finer points of American history and governance. She obviously hasn't been coached in these matters, as she doesn't really seem to understand that the Senate is part of Congress. So why is Abram on TV? Let's look at her Fox News interview with, yes, Sean Hannity.

Hannity is even easier on Abram than Chetry, and the whole segment is kind of meta, talking a lot about how it feels for Abram to be "in the national spotlight." Again, Abram shows she's no policy wonk. She's just an ex-Democrat who switched parties when she saw how much she had to pay in taxes. About health care reform, she tells Hannity,

George Washington is rolling over in his grave right now. This is not what the Constitution wrote. The people in this country are strong enough to just ... do what you need to do.

People "just doing what they need to do" is pretty vague solution to America's health care problems — are those who lose their health insurance due to layoffs, or can't get any because of a pre-existing condition, just not "strong enough?" It doesn't really matter, though, because Hannity doesn't really have Katy Abram (or her mostly mute husband Sam) on his show for their words. His comment to Abram is telling: "I'm listening to your passion."

What's striking about Abram isn't her grasp of policy — which is frankly poor — it's the real emotion with which she delivers her somewhat wrongheaded criticisms. She's obviously angry when she talks to Specter, and she gets choked up on Fox recalling the encounter. Abram is an example Hannity can use to show that the American people are riled up, that health care reform has indeed, as Abram told Specter, "awakened a sleeping giant." But anger, when it's not backed by understanding, doesn't solve anything.

On Hardball last night, Lawrence O'Donnell (filling in for Chris Matthews) was much less forgiving of Abrams's lack of expertise. The clip above shows her admitting that she doesn't know how much money her family makes in a year, and that "my husband takes care of the bills and everything." O'Donnell pointedly asks if she would tell her parents not to participate in Medicare, since it's a single-payer system — she answers, "we don't talk politics." And when he asks her for her opinion on Medicare in general, she gets a deer-in-the-headlights expression and stammers, "a lot of the programs that are in place were not supposed to be here."

But some parts of the interview are actually kind of touching. Abram does get that some people can't afford health insurance. When she says that she thinks "the goodness of the people" can take care of such problems, she admits that it sounds naïve. It does, but at least she knows it. And when O'Donnell asks why she never cared about politics before (she mentioned this to Specter at the meeting), for example, in the wake of 9/11 or after the invasion of Iraq, she says,

[...] you know, I really didn't start even watching the news at all, I think, until maybe 1991, I guess it was, when we first went to the Gulf War. I remember watching CNN with my dad and watching the — the infrared missiles going across that you could see. And I think it — to me — maybe I'm just not that smart, but, you know, it seems like we have kind of been at war for — since then.

It's not a dumb thing to say, and Abram's statement that war "just seems commonplace now" is really kind of an accurate commentary on American life. Katy Abram sounds like a lot of people in this country — a little mystified about why the government does what it does. She's not evil, and she's not stupid, and if she doesn't quite understand Obama's health care plan and its relationship to the Constitution, she's certainly not alone. Unlike most Americans, however, she's now on TV. And like Joe the Plumber, her views now have a legitimacy they may not deserve.

The problem is that the media — especially Hannity — confuse relatability with information. Hannity wants to show us someone who's not a plant, who's "not part of any organized group," who's just like us. But just like most of us, Abram doesn't really know much about health care. And if we want to resolve what's becoming an increasingly nasty national argument, we need to start listening to people who do.

Mom Strikes Nerve At Town Hall [CNN]
Healthcare Reform Opponent Plays Hardball [MSNBC]
"Sleeping Giant" Woman From Specter Town Hall On "Hannity" [YouTube]

Earlier: Katy Lied

• Saudi Arabia's first female cabinet member, Noura al-Faiz, was recently quoted in a Saudi paper saying that she does not plan on appearing on TV unless she is granted permission. "I don't take my veil off and I will not appear on television unless it is allowed for us to do so," she said. • Annie Lobert, ex-sex worker and founder of the "Hookers for Jesus" organization, just married Oz Fox from the Christian heavy metal band Stryper. Congrats! • A recent government survey found that 1 in 3 Indian women have been abused by their spouses or partners. According to Reuters, even the women of the upper crust are not immune to the dangers of intimate partner violence, and rich husbands often use their wealth and influence to make divorce almost impossible. • It appears that Botox may not be such a bad thing after all: scientists say that the face-freezing drug may be useful in the fight against cancer. • Sydney Dupree, a male-to-female transsexual from Memphis, founded the Transgender Job Fair in Los Angeles in efforts to help herself and other transpeople find work in the rough economy. The fair includes 17 public and private employers willing to reach out to the trans community. • Over the weekend, NPR interviewed Sussan Tahmasebi, the leading women's rights activist in Iran, who believes that the upcoming elections "promise some sort of change" for women in Iran. Tahmasebi is the founding member of the One Million Signatures Campaign, which seeks to change gender-biased laws through gathering signatures. • Croatian nutritionist Dr Lejla Kazinic Kreho has discovered that sauerkraut is a powerful aphrodisiac — for men. The problem, naturally, comes in finding sex partners still interested after one consumers Kreho's recommended two servings a day. • A 93-year-old man wed an 89-year-old woman in Florida this weekend, stating that she'd had her eye on him for 20 years. After the ceremony, technicians used nail polish remover to remove the adhesive from her eye and returned it to her. • Sarah Palin will, indeed, be having dinner with the Republicans she's been so coy with for months, proving to herself that she can treat them poorly and still maintain their undying affection. Now, onto 2012! • Palin also renews her love with Sean Hannity, joining him on-air tonight to reprise her accusations that Obama is a Super Sekret Socialist. Now, if we'd only elected her, I mean, John McCain, the economy would be as peachy-keen as her spring suits!

For a bunch of people who are so pissed off over having to dig into their pockets to pay higher taxes, tactics like this don't really make much sense. However, this was reported on Hannity's America, so who really knows just how many hecklers are planning on actually attending her performance.

Angry Teabaggers Paying Garofalo To Protest Her [Daily Kos]

An article about collecting "celebrity" Facebook friends is bad enough. I mean, we all know people who are "friends" with Stephen Colbert or Dita Von Teese and for the most part it's an ironic sign of fandom. Not so in Jeffrey Scott Shapiro's deeply tragic Wall Street Journal article, which kinda pretends to be tongue-in-cheek but... isn't. For one thing, all the "celebrities" he covets turn out to be right-wing politicos. He gets sucked in to the heady world of D-list "friendship" when some minor Bush relative links to one of his articles.

I couldn't believe it — I was now friends with a member of the Bush family thanks to Facebook...After smooth-talking a cute blonde at the Capitol Hill Club on election night, I sent her a Facebook friend request. She accepted. The next day, I noticed that she was friends with former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey. I sent him a friend request and he confirmed me. Now, whenever I send a friend request to someone on the Hill, they can see right away that I'm friends with one of the most powerful Republican congressional leaders in recent history...They probably think I'm an important guy. I figure that what they don't know can't hurt them.

Um, just so, Sir. His list expands to Tinseltown - by which we mean Norm MacDonald and "a famous Hollywood actress" from Buffy. When he realizes that "friend" Charlie Sheen doesn't have any current pics, he "became suspicious." He - wait for it - contacts Charlie Sheen's publicist, and is shocked to find that he's not actually on intimate terms with with the Wall Street john.

Within a few hours I found out that my Facebook friend Charlie Sheen is not the real Charlie Sheen — even though the 1,481 people he's friends with think he is. His profile is littered with sycophantic comments, thanking him for accepting their friend requests. I guess I'm not the only one seeking self-importance and validation.

Now, Shapiro is a macher: a man with Facebook connections to numerous Republicans and D-listers, which is essentially the modern equivalent of the Algonquin Roundtable. And yet, it all rings so hollow, somehow. "Sean Hannity can't seem to make up his mind. He hasn't confirmed or rejected me yet. I can't help but wonder if he's been busy, or if he simply hasn't decided whether or not my reporting is up to par." We feel you, Mister: the Damocles' sword of Sean Hannity's approbation hangs over our heads every day.

Confessions Of A Facebook Social Climber [WSJ]

• Barack Obama made it official with Tim Geithner today, announcing that he will nominate Geither to the Treasury Department. Former Treasury Secretary Larry "Math Is Hard For Girls" Summers is headed to the top of the White House Economic Council and Berkeley economics professor Christina Romer will head the Council of Economic Advisers. Betcha she does math pretty well. [NY Times]
• Former Joe Biden aide Ted Kaufman has been appointed to fill Biden's Senate seat for two years, at which point everyone in the state assumes he'll quietly step down and let the currently-deployed Beau Biden run for it. [Associated Press]
• Susan Rice, who most people thought was about to get dicked over when it leaked that Jim Jones will head the National Security Council, is actually in the running to be our Ambassador to the U.N. [Washington Independent]
• Former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack swears he's not in the running to be Secretary of Agriculture. [Washington Post]

• Obama aide and transition co-chair Valerie Jarrett has her first graduation speech almost totally written, but it still makes her sound kind of like a cool woman to know. [NY Times]
• Speaking of cool women, Moe Tkacik fucking breaks down the financial and auto industry crises, and you'll be smarter for reading it. [New York Magazine]
• And now that she might not be running against one of them anymore, Republicans all just love Hillary Clinton. [The Daily Beast]
• Alan Colmes is leaving Hannity and Colmes but not Fox News. Yeah, Hannity's feet really do smell that bad, but he's got a contract through 2012 so somebody is buying stock in Odor Eaters. [USA Today, Politico]
• In the mean time, we're rescuing Citibank, and the Dow is going up but it's all only temporary because it's not the end of the financial fall-out anymore than today is the end of Alan Colmes. However, if you're a Citibank stockholder, it is the end of your dividends for three years. [NY Times, NY Times]

Barack Obama [Daily Show]

I mean, I know we can be sort of mean. First there was mean old "Charleee", asking you about the Bush Doctrine as though you were supposed to know that it was the single largest repudiation of post-nuclear American foreign policy and basically said we'd nuke whomever we felt like, fuck-you-very-much. And then that meanie CBS reporter snuck in a question about the major economic bailout the government had just undertaken and you felt like you had to answer it even though you hadn't yet been told what talking points to parrot yet, it was so off-putting. But, then Sean Hannity rolled over and let you scratch his belly and a little behind his ears, so I thought we were cool now.

Well, and, yes, I know that Keith Olbermann is being a total dick to you, what with donating $100 to charity of every lie that you tell, like it's your fault or something that the campaign staff won't revise the speeches you're giving to take the lies out, but he's not on the road following your campaign. And I'm sure Andrew Sullivan's list of the 12 different lies you've told had to sting, but he's just a blogger and that's not like a real reporter or producer who's going to be standing in a room with you and the President of Afghanistan for less than a minute.

So, it's good that you relented and let that CNN producer witness you talking with Karzai about his son for a whole 40 seconds earlier today. That'll totally show people you're not scared of the press and that you know how to have substantive discussions of U.S. foreign policy with important world leaders, Bush Doctrine questions be damned! I mean, it was really important that the photographer and the TV crew get footage of you talking and having serious conversations with him and Colombian President Uribe even if the entire press corps were utter dicks about insisting that their coverage of you be more than pictures of you looking Vice Presidential! And it was really well done that you got Karzai's handlers to pretend to be the ones objecting to anyone doing anything other than taking pictures — that was a master-stroke, as was your staff's insistence that it was all just one big misunderstanding when they explicitly said that no one that writes anything for a living would be allowed in the room. The press will totally buy that!

Anyway, so, like, buck up, girl! We're really not that bad! You can totally talk to reporters. You hunt moose! You shoot at wolves from airplanes! What's the worst you can do, really? I mean, John McCain's already out threatening Spain and trying to fire people he can't fire and shit. What are you going to do, start a war with Russia? Oh, yeah, right. Well, just stick to talking about your family and how you didn't really want the Bridge to Nowhere and how mean everyone is to you. That's cool. I'm sure you can work that into the answer to just about any question you're asked when you finally let someone ask you a question.

Yours,
Megan

Palin Press Relationship Gets Testy [Politico]
Palin Says She's Ready To Step In As President [Breitbart]
The Palin Protection Continues [Politico]
Sarah Palin On Bush Doctrine: Homina, Homina, Homina [TPM Election Central]
Palin “Disappointed” In “Understandable” AIG Bailout [CBS News]
Excerpts from Palin’s Hannity Interview — Part I [Time]
Olbermann Gives $100 To Charity For Every Palin Lie, $3700 This Week Alone [Huffington Post]
The Twelve Lies Of Sarah Palin [Andrew Sullivan]
Palin Bars, Then Admits Reporters To Meetings [MSNBC]
Palin In The City [NY Times]
McCain Will Not Commit To Meeting Spanish PM [AFP]
McCain Says He Would Fire SEC Chairman [AP]
Palin Hawkish on Russia [Politico]
Did Palin Really Fight The “Bridge To Nowhere”? [The New Republic]
Palin Accuses 'Obama/Biden Democrats' Of Attacking Her Family, But Campaign Can't Name One [Huffington Post]

• Noted anti-fur activist has some advice for noted huntress Sarah Palin: "She can suck it." Yet another woman with a legitimate policy disagreement with Sarah Palin. [Huffington Post]
• By the way, Todd Palin's about to break his subpoena cherry, as he's expected to be subpoenaed to testify about his role in TrooperGate. God, if only the Congress could subpoena people to testify about wrongdoing in the Bush Administration! Wait, that's right, they could, but then they wouldn't get their bellies scratched. [Wall Street Journal]
• Once upon a time, in a primary far, far away, John McCain said that former Governor Mitt Romney and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani (pop: 8,000,000, attacked by terrorists in 2001) didn't have enough national security experience to be President. [Huffington Post]

• Unsurprisingly, Sarah Palin's next interview will be with Sean Hannity next week. Apparently, Charlie Gibson wasn't fawning enough. [New York Observer]
• Not that it matters whether he was or not, probably, since McCain's now ahead in the polls for the first time. Apparently, more people think that he is inexperienced than believe that Sarah Palin is. No, for real. [Associated Press]
• Oh, and of course Sarah Palin signed off on the budgets that cut funding for rape kits in Wasilla. [Huffington Post]