Posted on 06/23/2007 5:00:21 PM PDT by Phsstpok
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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Immigration and the election horse race are the focus this week, which must mean that things are going fairly well in Iraq, therefore that question must be ignored (except in the abstract as a source of depressive conventional wisdom, of course). I get the impression that the so called "compromise" bill is fairing no better this time out than last and I think the line up is an indication of that. Though typically stacked against the supporters of preserving our sovereignty and protecting our security the fact that they are left with some of the less appealing defenders of amnesty and presenting voices that have been effectively moving things against the bill this week is key.
NBC Meet The Press - Only Lil' Timmah seems hell bent on trying to set up a cliché confrontation between a "good and decent progressive supporter of poor downtrodden and innocent undocumented Americans" (Gutierrez) and a "nasty fascist right wing racist hate monger" (Buchanan). I have a feeling the show will resemble a bad SNL skit more than it usually does. The one thing that's certain is that they'll both say nasty things about McChimpy Bushitler, so Lil Timmah will be happy.
CBS Face The Nation gets much more parochial wallowing in the potential of a "Great New York Race" between Her Heinous, Rudy and this cycles Ross Perot in waiting, The Bloomberg. Again, both Koch and Rollins have been saying nasty things about McChimpy Bushitler of late so the dinosaur media will be pleased. Sam Waterston is a reliable liberal, but you never can tell what he might say about Fred Thompson. No doubt Ol Bob has high (or low) hopes about some great sound bite emerging.
Fox News Sunday serves up a pro amnesty RINO facing off with a pro amnesty Dhimmicrat. Papa Wallace must be so proud of his little boy. There is a classic roundtable with Brit, Bill, Juan and Mara, so we can hope for a return of the smack down. I'm hoping that Brit will stop letting Chris and Juan "run out the clock" and just stomp on them one more time like the old days. It appears that they need it desperately.
CNN Late Edition gets eclectic with its long format program, for which I salute them. Kaye Bailey Hutchison has stated flatly that she will not vote for cloture, which withdraws the fig leaf from those counting on her for cover. She is going to have to protect herself against the powerful interests in Texas that have been pressuring her to vote for amnesty, so she still may offer up some weasel words, but I think she's going to be comfortable in her position by Sunday. Ron Wyden is not your typical Northwest Liberal Dhimmicrat. Though he is reliably left on most things, particularly environment and defense issues, he's also a co-sponsor of a measure making English the official national language. He's done other surprising and thoughtful things in the past, as well. I love it when people surprise me. Next they move on to the President of the State of Vietnam, Nguyen Minh Triet, who is in the US for high level meetings with American government and business interests. I find it telling that PBS has declared him a "reformer" while at the same time he has stated that human rights in Vietnam are no big deal and certainly no concern of ours. Finally they cover the Palestinian civil war, though you probably won't hear the word "civil war" mentioned once. Count on the focus being on blaming Israel and demanding that the Israelis make some new concessions to make things right. The DBM won't be happy till the Zyklon B flows through the shower heads again.
ABC This Week provides potentially the most interesting point counter-point with Teddy "the swimmer" Kennedy bloviating about the evil racist conservatives who hate all people of color followed (separately) by Jeff Sessions speaking up for Americans of all stripes against hostile invasion. I'm holding my breath expecting some sleazy "will you stop beating your wife" type ambush from Georgie Steponallofus during the Sessions segment. I'm confident that Lil Georgie won't ask Teddy to praise President Bush for his "steadfast support of immigrants rights" but he will no doubt fish for some Bush bashing bites from Sessions.
The Saturday Shows should already be on as I write this, but the breaking news about the missing pregnant women in Ohio. From the listings I don't think we're missing Much. The Beltway Boys blather on about Bloomberg, Hillary and the poor state of Bush. The phrase "nothing to see here, move along" was invented for this show. CNBC's Tim Russert Show is hawking Michael Beschloss' book on "Presidential Courage" in making unpopular, though ultimately correct, decisions. It's safe, however, as Beschloss has already indicated he doesn't think that applies to McChimpy Bushitler, while he's a constant fixture at pro-Carter and Carter sponsored events. No bias there. Fox News Watch opens with ABC's Taliban 'graduation' video and appear to cast doubt on it's authenticity which would therefore dismiss the threat posed. They also focus in like a laser beam on the Clinton's Soprano's ad, offering up more contributions in kind to the Hildabeast. The Journal Editorial Report also focuses on the Bloomberg announcement, but my gut feeling is that they will effectively dismiss the significance, except as a media phenomenon, so that we can all move on. They also plan to discuss the administrations actions so far in relation to the Palestinian civil war. The latter is perhaps the most significant event of the year and only this show and CNN LE appear to have any interest in it. Typical of JER, and even a blind biased anti-American news organization can stumble across a real issue once in awhile. Just like a blind sow finding an acorn.
I trust that I've read the trends this week on the immigration bill correctly and that these shows will mark the stake through the heart of the current exercise in back room back door legislation. I think that one of the Republican candidates (particularly Fred) could make quite a case for running against that sort of elitist disregard for the wishes of the people without allowing it to be couched as jingoistic "nativism" (a ridiculous term to use in this country on this topic). The fascination with "The Bloomberg" fits right into the pattern of ongoing meaningless news obsessions of the dinosaur media (can you say Paris?) and their simultaneous refusal to meaningfully engage issues such as the emerging success in Iraq or the murderous debacle among their beloved Palestinians is proof that they are doomed, if not already dead and just awaiting burial.
This should be cross posted to my blog at Wizards.townhall.com later today. I have finally caught up over their and I hope to keep up to date from now on. In fact I'm going to change the format just a bit when posting this in light of the success of the technique I used to get caught up. This analysis will still be first but then I'm going to try putting all of the show by show posts into one big Post number 1. If I end up falling back to separate posts you'll know that I found an upper limit to the length of FR posts.
This thread 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.
Politico.COM has The Buzz of Compromise instead of their previous Sunday Talk Show Tip Sheet
I really don’t know.
Viewing patterns don’t generally collapse over night, so I doubt it’s being hurt significantly yet. There have been stories he was unhappy about ratings, but those stories have been out for months. I wouldn’t connect it to this.
I do think the other shows are trying to compete with FOX on this though. Why else guests that trump anything Fox is offering this Sunday? I could see conservatives tuning into any of the others for a change. In small doeses, but if they like it, they could come back. I have no doubt that no matter how liberal they are, they’d love the ratings conservative viewership would offer and this is an issue they can cater to conservatives on without alienating many Democrats as well.
BTTT
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