Sunday Morning Talk Show Round-Up
I wish I knew of a “Sunday Morning talkshow Watch” out there in cyberspace, so that I can keep apace with the stupidity that flows from there… without actually having to watch too much of it… (if I’m watching television on a Sunday — I may as well watch footabll). It’s here that the political figures of our time have their discussions and parlay their talking points, and it is here that the chattering classes pontificate and set up the boxed-in-perimeters of political debate for for the week.
The closest I have are the comment section in the major blogs (dailykos and eschathon), and a google search reveals this snarky commentary — where we learn what a pathetic figure Tom Daschle is, and where we can witness the John Thune strategy of Bush synchropantry in full force… (the debate he wishes to win the South Dakota election: Is Tom Daschle emboldening the enemy?)
Russert then cited, of all “reliable” editorial pages, The Wall Street Journal — against Daschle ,of course. Thune just kept wailing South Dakota, South Dakota, South Dakota while the millions of out-of-SD residents turned the channel.
The full transcript is found here. I’m unsure if I want the major Sunday morning political talk shows covering debates for the competitive Senate races… not that I don’t want to see some of those, but there’s a place for those type of political junkie items — CSPAN. I’d prefer that all of the Sunday talk programs for this week cover the more pressing issues — international relations, national security, and Iraq.
So we turn to ABC’s “This Week”, where we find Iraq’s interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi partaking in Bush’s “improved” “Baghdad Bob” routine, to the nth degree.
“It’s not getting stronger; it’s getting more desperate. We are squeezing out the insurgency,” he said in an interview to be aired today on ABC’s “This Week.” Allawi called the attacks, which now number in the dozens each day, the insurgents’ “last stand, so they are putting a very severe fight on Iraq. We are winning.” The prime minister cited recent progress in reducing the violence in several cities. […]
Then he hit us with the Flypaper Strategy Approach of why… we… must… prevail (and why we must fight to preserve his power-structure):
“Iraq is fighting this war on behalf of the civilized nations. It’s not something unique to Iraq,” he told ABC. “If this is not happening in Iraq, New York will be hit, Washington will be hit, London will be hit, Paris will be hit. We need the help of the international community. It’s a fight for everyone.”
From the comments section of dailykos comes this nugget:
He really understands the power of the menacing glare.
And, George Will sayseth this:
George Will finally spoke some truth today, after pointing out what’s happening in Russia and how it contradicts Bush’s blatherings: “to these eyes, it does not seem that democracy is on the march around the world.”
Otherwise, I guess the Lugar – Biden team serve as the opposing viewpoint to Allawya… (not in a left versus right or dove versus hawk sense, but in the realists versus fantasists sense.)
Looking at the Fox News guests, I’m a bit confused. John McCain makes sense as a guest. Bill Richardson makes sense as a guest. (experience with North Korea, nukes, energy, and on and on). But… who the heck cares about Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty? (By the way: that’s a two to one Republican to Democratic guest ratio.)
Now, we turn to one of my favourite Republicans, on Face the Nation. On the same program is John Kyl, co-chairman for the third incarnation of “Committee on Present Danger” along with Joseph Lieberman. (Two other unnotable figures round out the panel discussion.)
Looking at the transcript, it goes like this. John Kyl: This is just like World War II, and everybody loves World War II. We’re more or less fine.. Chuck Hagel: You’re on crack, but I’m diplomatic about these things so I won’t use these words. We need to do different things than what we’re doing now.
Another example of the new political paradigm pitting realists against fantasists!
The only other discussion of note is probably the Seymour Hersh — David Frum discussion… but Seymour Hersh is on enough of a media tour that I can see (and hear) him elsewhere. I don’t really think that David Frum has anything to offer to the discussion at hand… even if he did coin the phrase “Axis of Evil”.