Posted on 02/10/2007 11:45:46 AM PST by Phsstpok
Preview and Analysis for Weekend of February 10th and 11th, 2007
Guest lineup for the Sunday TV news shows:
NBC's "Meet the Press"
CBS's "Face the Nation"
"Fox News Sunday"
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CNN "Late Edition"
ABC's "This Week"
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The biggest news this week was the debate over the debate on the Iraq surge. Republicans wanted to debate not only the anti-surge resolution of the Dhimmicrats and wobbly RINOs but also other resolutions and amendments. Ones that reinforced promises made about supporting the troops or even (dare I say it?) support the surge as the right thing to do. Dingy Harry Reid didn't want to allow debate on anything but the "Bi-Partisan Blame Evil America and Embrace Defeat Resolution" and so he blocked all debate rather than let a real debate break out in the middle of his debate over the debate (that's like going to a fight and having a hockey game break out). He then had a dramatic speech on the Senate floor accusing the Republicans of blocking the debate. Guess how the dinosaur media reported it? I bet they even wrote his speech for him (that way they can make their deadlines easier). All of the shows, including Fox News Sunday, got the talking points and are faithfully set up to present the Dhimmicrat spin as the Truth. Chris Wallace even opens his weekly "coming up" essay with "Republicans halt the much-anticipated Senate debate on Iraq, blocking a vote on a non-binding resolution opposing President Bush's troop surge." Well done, Chris. You've proven that you aren't going to be held to that "fair and balanced" nonsense and can be just as leftist as the next Washington reporter, maybe even be like dear old dad.
There were two other major stories in Washington this week, the Libby trial testimony by drive by media (DBM) stalwarts such as Lil Timmah Russert and the release of the report by the Defense Department IG report regarding five years worth of Dhimmicrat charges that "pre-war intelligence had been manipulated." Now, the DBM got the story 180 degrees out of whack on the surge resolution debate, so you'd think they'd be a little more accurate in at least one of these other stories, just based on the odds. But then you'd be wrong. They reported uniformly that the news media types in the Libby trial "contradicted" and "refuted" Libby's version of events and that the defense tried but failed to discredit the valiant reporters. Of course, they did fail to actually use any real quotes from the testimony to demonstrate those assertions. The inconvenient truth is very inconveniently being reported widely by bloggers who are live blogging the trial and it reads like reports from an alternate universe (see firedoglake, JustOneMinute and The American Thinker, for example, as well as the coverage at FR). Unfortunately for the DBM the bloggers are using actual quotes and not merely self serving characterizations of the testimony. And the DOD IG report? Well, I'm sure there's some colorful southernism about dogs and bowling balls and digging post holes, but I'm no Foghorn Leghorn so I'll just stick to saying the DBM is a tad short on telling the truth in their reporting (see links on the Fox News Sunday detail post regarding Douglas Feith). And once again the blogs come through where the DBM fails to report accurately and without bias.
I think I detect an accelerating trend. When they get this outlandish and demonstrably false in their reporting they are either desperate or they've lost touch with reality and have begun to drink the Kool Aid. With that, it's on to the shows.
NBC Meet The Press moves directly into the debate over the debate about the surge by talking to two opposing House leaders, Hoyer and Boehner. With the rules of the Senate inconveniently interrupting the Dhimmicrat plans there they have moved on to the House, where America's Mother In LawTM rules with an iron fist (and no mamby pamby velvet glove for old Nazi Pelosi, no siree!). I actually look forward to these two discussing this as both are able politicians and advocates for their side. I'm further intrigued by reports that Boehner is being pushed to be more aggressive, be more like Mitch McConnell. We could be well served if he would follow that advice. The panel is then stacked heavily in favor of those friendly to Lil Timmah's version of what was said in court this week. Watch for much descriptive characterization of how badly things look for Libby and how noble and honest the reporters all are. It's called circling the wagons.
CBS Face The Nation presents the other half of Teddy the swimmer's waitress sandwich as if he were a realistic candidate for president. He'll faithfully hit the Dhimmicrat talking points about the surge, the DOD IG report and the Libby trial, if asked, but he's going to be far more interested in listing the various bribes he's lined up for the voters. He's even pushing a big bribe for the number one constituency in any election, the media. He thinks that if he champions their ability to hide behind anonymous sources that the DBM will love him and take him on the same kind of ride they used to give John McCain and are now giving Obama. The fact that he got the chairmanship of the totally unsexy (though lucrative for bribes campaign contributions) Senate Banking Committee shows that he is not taken too seriously by the powers that be in his party. FTN chooses to list his membership in the Foreign Relations Committee, instead, so he's on to give the Dhimmicrat spin on Iraq and the surge. And Joe Biden, the Foreign Relation Comittee chairman, is in hiding until we forget about his "Obama is a clean African American" boo boo. Dodd's Republican counterpart is Trent Lott. The press has been salivating at the vengeance they expect him to seek on Bush and all those who betrayed him over the Strom Thurmond joke debacle. Except for being way too visible in comparison to the actual minority leader Trent has pretty much stayed on the reservation. We'll see if that holds.
Fox News Sunday presents the aforementioned Senate Minority Leader, Senator Mitch McConnell and Democrat Senator Jack Reed from Rhode Island. McConnell is emerging as a successful minority leader, having thwarted the Dhimmicrats surge for a surge denunciation. He managed to hold all of the Republicans together to continue the debate and defeat cloture, forcing Dingy Harry to halt the debate and try his Orwellian doublethink accusation of who blocked debate. As mentioned earlier Chris Wallace has cast the surge debate issue in totally 100% Dhimmicrat terms. I expect Senator McConnell to correct this in no uncertain terms, even if Chris doesn't want to give him the opportunity. Jack Reed is on instead of Carl Levin, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, because Reed is a veteran and (so far as I can determine) Levin isn't. It gives Reed more credibility when trying to argue against sending reinforcements to our troops in Iraq when their new commander says that they are needed. Plus Levin is neck deep in the DOD IG debacle and his presence might prompt embarrassing questions and even more embarrassing answers. No Brit or Mara on the roundtable this week, but Paul Gigot and Nina Easton will act as understudies. Any smack downs will be up to Bill Kristol.
CNN Late Edition offers up two moonbats, Wyden and McAuliffe, and two conservatives, Cornyn and Hunter, that the DBM would like to paint as Neanderthals (is that the opposite of moonbat?). No doubt they are destined to discuss the surge, though CNN has taken a different tack if their web page promo for the show is to be taken seriously. They ask if we need "a new course" in Iraq. I thought we were just starting a new course? I guess Wolf didn't get the memo. Their other lede is about problems in Afghanistan. Perhaps they want to distract us from Iraq in case the non-existent new course already being tried might just be working, as many reports seem to indicate. Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry's comments that have been presented as discussing a "Taliban surge" (though he isn't quoted as using that word anywhere I can find) is probably the reason he got invited on by Wolfie. His DOD bio is nowhere to be found on the Defenselink web site, though it is still in Google's cache. The page is very brief and doesn't give any real background, particularly information that might give me any feeling for whether or not he is one of the class of "Klinton Kommanders" (like Wesley Clark) promoted after the Clintonistas had purged all of the Reagan crowd from the Pentagon. It looks likely, however, that he is a political general, not a combat leader. I'll see what he says to see whether I need to dig up further info on him for future reference.
ABC This Week provides a platform for a new liberal superhero, "John Kerry, unbound!" Expect the full moonbat that is Jon F'n Carry to shine froth (sic). I bet the Dhimmicrats have encouraged John boy to plumb the depths of rhetorical excess as a way to see what attacks on Bush and Republicans in general can gain traction and which will have negative consequences. They have plausible deniability with him and can just walk away. They've done it before. I think Georgie Steponallofus is also hoping to tar his next guest, Mike Huckabee, with the "Kerry is a loser" brush by associating the two of them in people's minds. Watch for lots of questions about Huckabee's religion (read Christian extremism), fishing for criticism of Romney's Mormon faith, etc. Don't expect anything of substance. And then there's Sean Penn defending an Army officer who is being court martialled for refusing to follow his orders to deploy to Iraq. This soldier in the all volunteer Army claims that the Iraq war is illegal, of course Sean Penn is going to be there and support him. He's a moonbat, it's what they do. The ABC roundtable has some interest in that George Will has recently written praising Chicago's move to sell off assets, while Robert Reich is apparently the author of Hillary's plan to seize all oil company profits, and other socialist lunacy. I need to see if I can get George (either one) to ask Reich what he thinks about Hugo Chavez' "reforms" in Venezuela. Oh, and cafeteria Catholic Cokie Roberts will likely bring up how unimportant the debate over abortion is nowadays. She's so intent on labeling anyone who disagrees with "choice" as a "bomb thrower" that she must have failed to notice the 100,000 plus marchers peacefully assembled across the country, tens of thousands in her city, on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. They quietly and respectfully called for an end to the mass slaughter of innocents, nary a bomb in sight. There was a barely noticeable counter demonstration by pro-abortion supporters, who certainly threw their share of verbal bombs, from the reports I read. After all, it wasn't on the evening news so it must not have happened.
The Saturday shows are politics, politics, politics and then the one show that absolutely should be politics insists on going tabloid. The Beltway Boys are fully engaged in the '08 horse race. I hope someone is taping these things so that we can bring back a few choice predictions a year from now when the first primary votes are cast. Tim Russert's CNBC book hawking show is more about political posturing and the science of spin than it is about a specific race, it appears. I'm sorry I missed John Burns appearance on Lil Timmah's gab fest last week. Apparently the New York Times John Burns schooled mister Russert on the real history of the Iraq war. Fortunately NewsBusters has the info and video. Perhaps this weeks show will be equally interesting. Fox News Watch refuses to engage the fraud in their profession and instead chooses to wallow in tabloid trash. Neal probably threatened to reveal what he knows about the rest of the panel's private lives if they did address the faux reporting. The AP/Reuter's brand of fiction as reporting has now migrated to our shores after the successful try outs in the middle east. After all, if the DBM says something it must be so. Journal Editorial Report veers back to the '08 horse race, concentrating on Rudy and the chances that he can woo conservative voters. Interestingly their guest, a Rudy advisor and his biographer, is a member of a "left of center think tank." They also cover a bit more substantive issue, the Alternative Minimum Tax, which is rapidly moving away from being a tool to keep the so called rich from avoiding taxes and turning into a backdoor massive tax increase on the middle class. Years ago Tom Snyder (Wikipedia link for those who have forgotten him already) did a bit in his days as the anchor on the local ABC News in New York City about the new 1040EZ form. He said it asked "how much did you make last year?" and then told you to "send it in" (kind of like this). We're quickly moving to that state of affairs if the AMT isn't dealt with. It's typical that JER is dealing with it, while others deal with less reality based concerns.
Well, I'm back to being long winded and a bit more timely after a couple of abbreviated and late in posting weeks. That's because I didn't have any stitches removed from my eye today, unlike the last two Saturdays. That makes such a difference! I know there are probably some of you who would wish that I was a bit... less better... so as to spare you my long winded diatribes. Those who feel that way will be happy to know that this is probably a brief respite in that regard as I go back for more work on my eye next Saturday. And now my surgeon is talking about needing to put a stitch back in because he doesn't like the way one spot on the graft is looking. Sheesh, but I'm getting tired of this.
I'm going to spend much of the rest of the day writing notes to the various shows to highlight the problems with the DBM narratives that I cited this week, particularly lambasting Fox News Watch. I think I'll also add a note to Reliable Sources and do a little reality based analysis of Howie's WaPo piece about Lil Timmah's testimony. I would really like to encourage everyone to do the same kind of thing, particularly if you can point to specifics and provide links to evidence. I've barely scratched the surface on the excellent and well documented work being done on the blogs on these subjects. I'd say it's on the level of Rathergate, except this time the DBM is simply ignoring anything and everything that doesn't fit their template. We need to break through. I wish Rush hadn't been on vacation this past week. We'll have to see what we can do to change this situation ourselves.
The dinosaur media is really spinning out of control. The egregious examples this week of how the reporting diverged from what really happened and what was really said is astounding. We need to exercise the power that made us Time's Man Of The Year. Perhaps they were hoping that honor would jinx us, like a sports star being on the cover of Sport's Illustrated with an article about them being the likely winner of something. I think that's known as SIKOD.
There's actually some interesting things that could happen on the shows this weekend. However, the odds are that it will be frustrating to watch the version of reality spun out by the moonbats being accepted whole and promoted as definitive. It will be like global warming being declared an established, unquestionable, Fact, sans evidence. It's just a "consensus" that must be accepted as Truth. The growing fanaticism and religious fervor of the moonbats and their fellow travelers on all of their issues is leading them further and further into positions that I simply don't believe they can sustain, unless they are willing to take drastic, Orwellian action. And if they are challenged by some real event that contradicts their fantasy I'm afraid they could become violent. Simply examine the extreme rhetoric that even their most "mainstream" leaders are embracing.
I know, maybe I'm paranoid. But that isn't the question. The real question is am I paranoid enough? However, it would do well for us to remember our Kipling.
Rudyard Kipling A.D. 980-1016
It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation To call upon a neighbour and to say: -- "We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight, Unless you pay us cash to go away."
And that is called asking for Dane-geld, And the people who ask it explain That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld And then you'll get rid of the Dane!
It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation, To puff and look important and to say: -- "Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you. We will therefore pay you cash to go away."
And that is called paying the Dane-geld; But we've proved it again and again, That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld You never get rid of the Dane.
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation, For fear they should succumb and go astray; So when you are requested to pay up or be molested, You will find it better policy to say: --
"We never pay any-one Dane-geld, No matter how trifling the cost; For the end of that game is oppression and shame, And the nation that pays it is lost!"
(First published in A School History of England (1911))
We are being asked to pay the Dane Geld by the moonbats, hoping that our enemies will leave us alone. What they fail to address is that these enemies aren't asking for Dane-Geld. They are asking for our heads.
This should be cross posted to my blog at Wizards.townhall.com 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 valuable 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 has posted his excellent preview of the Sunday shows over at Redstate.COM. I will try post a link to his Sunday review when it is up.
I have said since the beginning that I thought that Obama would be the VP...
However, the only thing that really keeps me from being sure is that even though Hillary would be running for POTUS, it would be Osama "The Rock Star" Obama that would get the publicity and ovations...
I am not sure that Hillary could live with being in his shadow...she put up with it with Bubba, but he was her ticket to the limelight...
Now that it is "her turn"...I am not sure she would want to be in the background.
Oh...good grief...
Geraldo just said that "even if the President took us to war in Iraq on FALSE PRETENSES..let's give Gen. Petraeus a chance....I know that my MOM and I are".
Sheesh...I also heard he is going to Iraq.
That is too bad...because his report about Gen. P and the war was very negative...pretty much predicting an American loss.
Great stuff today, Phsstpok (I'm still going through it).
Everyone should be aware that Politico.com is very suspect. VendeHei is a fave of Chris Matthews, Harris is a WaPo guy, and so on.
One of the dems hopes is that the Republicans in Congress will get together and demand Bush resign (if they can get rid of Cheney first), hence the musings over the Nixon scenario.
I'm hanging in there with you on that prediction.
I am watching JER right now...
It is a very interesting discussion about Rudy Guiliani...Pro/Con..
I was going to post about it on the Rudy thread...but, I feared for my life..so I came here!! LOL
Whenever I hear people like the ones here on JER talk about Rudy...I keep thinking of that saying about ignoring the great in search of the perfect...(I know that isn't the quote..)...
I just pray that this thread, and the Sunday Talk show thread can avoid the spamming that is going on on other threads.
Are you thinking of "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." ?
Separate topic, heard a caller on Hannity the other day while driving home. She said there was a new bi-partisan bumper sticker out. It says "Run, Hillary, Run." Democrats put it on the back bumper and Republicans put it on the front.
I've been telling that all week and I simply stop after saying where Democrats put it. 99% of the people get it and I think that's more effective to let them draw their own conclusion. ;^>
Just got back from a wedding. Pretty bushed. I've got to get to bed so I can be in shape to do the thread review in time to get the top ten posted by Monday as I'm going to be out of town the rest of the week.
Night all.
Yep. That's likely. Hand the Presidency to the nations Mother in lawtm, Nazi Pelosi. Who would she appoint as VP? It would probably come down to John Murtha, Howard Dean or Hugo Cavez.
Thank you...yes, that is the quote.
My memory is shot.
See you tomorrow.
Phsstpok, thank you for this preview - this week and every week. They are so valuable and your humor is well appreciated. And after Nov., needed. I still can not believe so many Republicans or Conservatives pulled a 'well I will show you' vote!!! It has left me confused to what being a Conservative or Republican means. But that is ok - I know that 90%, and most times higher, I'm with our President.
Samantha, I still believe Barack Hussein Obama will run with hillary. And they will have a bucket full of $$$$$.
Here is a WOO HOO for Republicans holding together.
I can't stand Chris Wallace, since the beginning I've hated him. He has almost singularly ruined Fox News Sunday. I will watch his program today, ONLY because Mitch McConnell will be appearing on it.
And despite what Roger Ailes says, he is NOT a good interviewer.
Timmy the perjurer needs a little humanizing on NBC, it appears.
Good Morning, Phsstpok! and thanks again for the PING!
Have a good day.
You may be having some unfortunate trouble with your eyes, but your brain is still in fine shape!
You're such a card...you need to be dealth with...lol
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