Posted on 12/23/2006 10:29:23 AM PST by Phsstpok
Preview and Analysis for Weekend of December 23rd and 24th, 2006
I'm trying a slightly different format this week. I will put the show by show analysis in the detail post about each show, rather than in this post. This is the overall analysis and a simple listing of the shows and guests for the five main shows for Sunday, sans comment, so that it's easier to see who is on at a glance. Since starting my recovery from my eye surgery I seem to have accelerated the trend I was on of getting more and more wordy each week. I'll try to cut that back, but since I'll likely fail I figure this might at least make it easier to read. <g>
CBS, NBC and Fox all go the traditional Christmas season route with what should be softball interviews with the wives of the President and Vice President. Somehow, however, I just don't think they'll be able to restrain their inner David Gregory. They also all tackle religion with an apparent common theme of what's wrong with the Christian church, complete with advice on how the DBM thinks Christians ought to "fix" things. Just a tad arrogant, but no surprise. I bet you won't see a similar examination of what's wrong with Islam or any advice to the Imams and Mullahs. CNN goes with the first of what is likely to be a full week of "2006 in retrospect" clip shows. I have a feeling that their editors are going to be picking out different clips and arranging them in a much different way than we would. ABC goes straight news for most of the show with what appears to be the new DBM narrative on the Middle East, namely trying to force feed the ISG report recommendations (at least the ones that they like) without ever referring to the ISG (because it was so universally unpopular and ridiculed).
The Saturday shows each follow their usual niche scripts, largely ignoring the huge issues we would want them to cover in favor of the Soros agenda issues. The exception, as usual, is JER, which looks to be providing a great smackdown to Kofi Annan. What with no Brit this week on FNS it is welcome that they are providing us this service.
Most of the politicians are out of town so there hasn't been much "traditional" news (their sources aren't there to tell them what to report) and the DBM is doggedly ignoring the real stories that undermine their precious "narrative." Stories such as the AP faux reporting scandal, the persecution of the Haditha Marines for daring to shoot back at terrorists, the outrageous actions of Nifong in the Duke not-Rape case, or any of a hundred other stories are either spun or simply never mentioned. The dinosaur media is more than a profession in decline, it is an active cancer which is killing our society. But then, that seems to be their objective.
This should be cross posted to my blog at Wizards.townhall.com a little later today. This post exists primarily as a heads up for who is on the weekend talks shows, what they've been invited on to push (based on their recent pronouncements) and the spin (meme) the DBM is likely trying to push based on that information. All of this is prep work for the weekly Sunday Morning Talk Show thread posted by Alas Babylon!. That thread provides a live commentary and analysis of the Sunday talking head shows, with rare insight and exceptional fact checking. we are the Jedi Council of FreeRepublic, at least in regards to these DBM gabfests. You wanna know what was said and what it meant, as well as where they messed up? Read that thread!
Mark Kilmer announced that he was taking this weekend and next off so there is no preview from him today, nor analysis tomorrow. It's up to us, folks!
Merry Christmas, everyone.
The guests for the big 5 on Sunday (alphabetically):
ABC This Week (George Stephanopoulos)
CBS Face The Nation (Bob Schieffer)
CNN Late Edition (Wolf Blitzer) - best of 2006
NBC Meet The Press (Tim Russert)
Fox News Sunday (Chris Wallace)
Below are the topics and guests announced for these programs, along with my take on the "memes" that the shows are trying to push. With each guest's name are a series of links that I found in a web search that helped me get a handle on who they are and what their likely positions will be when they are interviewed.
The Beltway Boys (Mort Kondrake, Fred Barnes)
Analysis: Not word one about Queen Nazi Pelosi's upcoming coronation, the latest Murtha ethics investigation, the latest Obama ethics investigation, the outrageous suggestion that the Dhimmicrats are thinking of giving the seat to the loser (their candidate) from Florida's contested election in the 13th Congressional district or any of a dozen other stories that actually are happening in Washington. That would require actual reporting, rather than waiting for a source to dictate some juicy tidbit to them.
CNBC's Tim Russert Show (Tim Russert)
Analysis: Does he pay for the time to do this infomercial? Did he have to pay Tom Boy?
Fox News Watch (Eric Burns)
Analysis: They don't even pretend anymore, do they? They have said nothing about the faux reporting coming out of the AP and Reuters, a scandal for their own industry that makes Enron look like a misdemeanor crime. And the implications about how their entire profession, intentionally or not, is actively betraying this country and free human beings everywhere in the face of monstrous evil is just not even a glimmer of a thought for them. I repeat my suggestion to change this to an hour show and give half of it to Media Matters and the other half to Accuracy in Media and just let them have at it. These guys might get 5 minutes at the end of each segment to defend themselves, but it wouldn't do them any good as once the topics were raised they'd have to deal with them and that would spell their end.
Journal Editorial Report (Paul Gigot) - FNC show page
Analysis: Make a note, this is probably the only place you'll see any discussion of the crimes committed during this clown's tenure. And having Rosett on tells you they aren't likely to pull any punches. This one is worth staying up for.
Analysis: Lil Timmah has found a pastor he can like, mainly because that pastor is falling all over himself praising Osama Obama (as Teddy Kennedy called him). This gives him a twofer, starting with a chance to criticize conservative Christians as knuckle dragging morons while pointing to a "real Christian" who obviously is smart (because he likes a Dhimmicrat). That way he can't be accused of being an anti-Christian bigot, dontcha know? He also gets to elicit the wisdom of Newsweek and let that font of all knowledge bestow on a benighted world the message of what's wrong with most Christians. Oh, and the Newsweek spokesman may even tell us his conclusion that this whole Messiah / Son of God business is just some tripe dreamed up in the fourth century to sell to the yokels. Seems Mr. Meacham has bought the whole gnostic / Koran version of Jesus as a "prophet" but not God's Son. Yep, the perfect guy to edumacate us igorant ijits. This from the same people that got several thousand people killed with a fake story about flushing the Koran down a toilet. I don't know about you but I detect a not so subtle pattern to the common viewpoint developing in "intellectual" circles about Christianity that is startlingly reminiscent of the most loathsome movements in history.
Below are the topics and guests announced for this program, along with my take on the "memes" that the show is trying to push. With each guest's name are a series of links that I found in a web search that helped me get a handle on who they are and what their likely positions will be when they are interviewed.
Analysis: How much you bet Ol' Bob can't resist getting Nasty to Laura? How much you want to bet she stays nice the whole time, but in the end you realize that she's gutted him like a trout? She'll wait until he says something nasty about her kids or her husband, then let him have it with both barrels... in a nice way, of course.
Below are the topics and guests announced for this program, along with my take on the "memes" that the show is trying to push. With each guest's name are a series of links that I found in a web search that helped me get a handle on who they are and what their likely positions will be when they are interviewed.
Thanks, Phss, FNS looks good!
Analysis: Chris Wallace has proved that he can be nice to Democrats, even really stupid ones like Jon Carry and The Swimmer. Now it's time for him to earn his place in the DBM pantheon of talkers by proving he can be nasty to a totally inoffensive Republican like Lynne Cheney. I bet he gets right on her case about the coming grandchild. He's looking for a Wolfie moment of his own. Then he'll make all sorts of veiled accusations about the Vice President in loaded questions on the Libby trial. Then it's on to religion, specifically Christianity, and what's wrong with it. The new Catholic Archbishop of Washington is paired with Billy Graham's daughter. The Catholic will be asked about child molesting priests and Anne Graham Lotz will be asked about why she and her brother are fighting over where to bury their parents. Oh, and they'll be asked to explain why the Christian church is the source of all of the ills in the world. Well, that's how the DBM sees it. And any mention of the flaws in Islam will be couched in terms of how bigoted Christians are for not being tolerant of their "co-religionists" for the minor doctrinal differences with Christianity. No Brit this week again on the roundtable, and Mara's out too. Ho hum.
Below are the topics and guests announced for this program, along with my take on the "memes" that the show is trying to push. With each guest's name are a series of links that I found in a web search that helped me get a handle on who they are and what their likely positions will be when they are interviewed.
Analysis: Wolfie got skunked on a regular basis by his guests. Now it's his turn to rewrite history by picking and choosing just what snippets he'll let us see and hear. By the end of the show we're supposed to believe that the wisest people of the year are Jon Carry, Howard Dean and George Clooney. If only we would have listened to them all would be well, Wolfie has spoken.
Below are the topics and guests announced for this program, along with my take on the "memes" that the show is trying to push. With each guest's name are a series of links that I found in a web search that helped me get a handle on who they are and what their likely positions will be when they are interviewed.
Analysis: Georgie Steponallofus is carefully working on the new narrative for the DBM about what's going on in the Middle East. The DBM and Dhimmicrats were in danger of letting Bush set the agenda and actually getting people to start talking about winning and they just can't have that. Dodd will be touted as an expert on all things and will be given kudo's for having the courage to ignore the White House and try to make peace in our time. He'll make polite noises about protecting Israel, but everyone knows that they are in the same position the Czech's in the Sudetenland were in 1937. Nominally in opposition they have Lindsey Graham, but you never can tell what John McCain will have told him to do and say. He might back the President and push McCain's troop increase (most likely) or he could cut the legs out from the President in the spirit of the gang of 14 and bipartisan comity. The new UN Secretary General will be asked about what the US must do and what rights US citizen's must sacrifice in the name of international peace since everyone knows anything wrong in the world must be our fault. Unlike his predecessor, there is hope that he actually is intent on doing some good, not on getting rich while attacking the US. As a South Korean diplomat he will be fully aware of what we can do for him as well as how we can be arrogant and ignorant at times (when people like Jimmah Carter are in charge or the Dhimmicrats control congress). And in the roundtable ABC has found a blogger they can like, a professional (and well known leftist) hired to do "original reporting" for the Huffington Post. You had to know it was coming.
Below are the topics and guests announced for this program, along with my take on the "memes" that the show is trying to push. With each guest's name are a series of links that I found in a web search that helped me get a handle on who they are and what their likely positions will be when they are interviewed.
The Weekend Talk Show Preview Thread is up
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It will be cross posted to my blog at
Here's a sample of my usual witty commentary...
CBS, NBC and Fox all go the traditional Christmas season route with what should be softball interviews with the wives of the President and Vice President. Somehow, however, I just don't think they'll be able to restrain their inner David Gregory...
Most of the politicians are out of town so there hasn't been much "traditional" news (their sources aren't there to tell them what to report) and the DBM is doggedly ignoring the real stories that undermine their precious "narrative." ... The dinosaur media is more than a profession in decline, it is an active cancer which is killing our society. But then, that seems to be their objective...
Extremely high gag level warning for that one.
I saw a snippit from the Lynn Cheney interview with Chris Wallace. He asked about the Libby case -- she says: Its bizare and does not reflect well on our judicial system. And she sure is right on that count. I love Lynn and hope she gets a lot more air time over the next two yeras. She is a great spokesperson for the WOT and she should be used a lot more, imho. Thanks for the preview thread, as always.
Let's add this absolutely terrific commentary by Victor Davis Hanson to the WSJ mix:
Is Annanism?
NRO ^ | 22 Dec 06 | Victor Davis Hanson
The triumph of the therapeutic over the tragic.
Everyone seems to take some joy in listening to outgoing secretary-general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, especially during the holidays. But just as with other such ethicists as a lip-biting Bill Clinton or creased-browed Jimmy Carter, Annan is as publicly acclaimed as he is privately ignored. We like such itinerant moralists — more when they are off the job than on, and always in retrospect rather than contemporaneously. As we watch them hedge, we somehow feel apologetic rather than outraged over their latest deception.
The secretary-general — introduced with fulsome praise by Sen. Chuck Hagel — recently gave a remarkable farewell speech at the Truman Library. It was delivered in his customary soothing inflection with impeccable diction, and it was just as customarily predictable — the content was as historically inaccurate as it was exemplary of what we have now come to know as “Annanism.”
More at FR link: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1757270/posts
I do have a comment on journalism in general: at the grocery checkout one could choose between Newsweek featuring Obama AND HIllary on the cover, or about 10 celebrity magazines featuring stories like "HAVE THEY HAD BOOB JOBS?" featuring Brittny (of course) and two other Hollywood blondes whose names I don't know, or a feature of Jen and Angelina with the title "SHE STOLE MY HUSBAND." The special publication of "100 People We Are Sick Of" listed lots of annoying people, but (amazingly) NOT ONE JOURNALIST! HA!
I told my husband that the magazine rack was US journalism in a nutshell...either celebrity junk or leftist propoganda. No news and precious little intellectual content in anything.
Since I may not be here tomorrow, Merry Christmas Phsstpok! Thanks for doing the preview thread every week!
I like that she speaks to truth instead of always being politically correct. Her interview with Wolf Blitzer is a classic IMO.
This News Watch thing is quite incredible. Normally, I avoid it but I'm tired of wrapping. Jane Hall believes that election polling determined that the voters demanded an exit from Iraq and so the media should be working to force that result (they are, Jane), and the President should make his decisions on war, and the safety of the citizens, based on popular opinion.
Just got home. Jane Hall is an idiot. Between her and that moronic Neal Gabler, I refuse to watch that show. Jim Pinkerton is not enough to counter the black hole of liberalism which Gabler and Hall creater. I think it sucks any intelligence into the void, so I won't watch them.
I'm chuckling in agreement. It is rare that I will allow that nonsense in my house. But I was captured by the outrageousness on parade. In a discussion about the MSM and the bloggers, Gabler also stated that "the major media sets the agenda" which is, in fact, the case.
I guess I was just in enough of a good mood to "take it." Lots of delicious cookies happening, and a chocolate-cranberry torte that I have never made before, but the aroma of which while it was baking made me seriously consider tearing into it with my bare hands. I mean the aroma could send you off the deep end :)
Merry, merry Christmas, Miss Marple.
I listened to it today as well... I alternated between incredulous laughter and anger.
BTTT
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