Sunday Talk Buzz:


"The Chris Matthews Show":

I normally don't find anything substantial while watching this CM ego-trip, but the debate today's show about Al Gore running for president in '08 was semi-interesting. Contrary to what had been getting out about Al's '08 aspirations, his recent speeches and appearances to promote his new global warming documentary have apparently fired him up enough for him to seriously consider a run, according to the gaggle of self-important journalist on TCMS. Joe Klein, Katty Kay and David Gregory all have Gore running in an effort to stop the juggernaut of his old foe Hillary. Really?!? Sounds fun....

But what was more intersting was how these media elites treated Al. Nothing but contempt as far as I could tell. They regarded him as sort of an amusing side-show, and viewed his challenge of Hillary as pure suicide. Will this change before Gore decides?



"Meet The Press"

Russert presided over what may have been the most explosive and entertaining MTP ever. Tim may drive me crazy, but it's still the best Sunday program out there.

First up was Sec. of State Condoleeza Rice. Oh, excuuuuse me, DOCTOR Condoleeza Rice. Yep - at least that's what the caption said when they introduced her; "Dr. Condoleeza Rice". Sure, she has a Ph.D or whatever - but I have never seen anbody use that in her caption before. She's the Secretary of State for crying out loud, isn't that enough? Aaaaargh.

OK, now that that's out of my system, I shall continue.

Russert hardly grilled Dr. Condi, although he pressed her harder than I've seen before. Dr. Condi was unusually tounge-tied on sevral questions, most notably on the iliegal NSA eavesdropping and phone call database. She stammered her way through that with the ususal Bush administration BS - "it's terrorists, I mean, we're defeating terrorists with this, I mean we protect people and that includes their rights...." etc. etc.

No better luck on the issue of Iraq, and whether the continued violence there should warrant the withdrawl of U.S. troops.


MR. RUSSERT: With this new prime minister, this new government, will there now be significant reductions of American troops by this fall?

DR. RICE: (!!!!) Well, we are going to sit with the prime minister and his team and make a determination on how the security situation is going to best be addressed. But clearly larger numbers of Iraqis are being trained, clearly they’re taking on more security responsibility. And it has always been the plan that as they take these responsibilities, we will have less to do. I think it’s already the case that we spend a great deal more of our time on training, but there are still some difficult places to deal with, and we want to make sure that we have the forces there that are needed. That’s why the president talks about conditioned-based withdrawals.

MR. RUSSERT: But you’re optimistic we’ll be able to have some withdrawals by this year?

DR. RICE: Well, I’m, I’m optimistic that the Iraqis are taking more security responsibility and are better trained. I, I think it would be premature before we’ve had a chance to talk with the new Iraqi government to start talking about precisely what’s going to happen in terms of our own forces.


Overall, same old thing from Dr. Condi.

Things got way more interesting when Russert brought up two outspoken GOP (again!!??) politicians, Sen. Lindsay Graham and Ga. Congressman Charlie Norwood. The issue was immigration, and Timmy wanted to stage an impromptu debate on the MTP set, which the two GOPers went along with. Russert started it off fair enough, with this question (generally here) : "What do we do with the illegal immigration problem? Do we round up 12,000,000 people or give them a path to citizenship?". This "setup" has riled the right, but I see it as a valid question, seeing how that's how the right views the issue. Graham and Norwood saw no problem either, and the "debate" moved on. This appearance on MTP has given me an amazingly clear and horrifying view at the ideology of the right-wingers in Congress on the issue of immigration. Norwood was scary in his anger, hatred and, most importantly, in his naivety.

Norwood made dozens of comments that were frightnening, but here's some of the best (worst):

(some paraphrasing here) Russert asked about "mass deportations" - Norwood - "We don;t want mass deportations. We know that will never work. If we can set up a program where the illegal immigrants can leave the country and go back to Mexico thorugh attrition, that is what we want. We can send them back to Mexico, and then they can try to get back in - that's not mass deportations."

Russert asked about Bush's plan to put National Guard troops on the border - if that will be enough to stop illegal immigration. Norwood -
"The President's plan is a good start. But, honestly, I think the number of troops needed is 30,000, over 30,000. And they need to stop people from getting in."

And, finally, Norwood's grand plan to "clean up illegals":
"What our plan would do is allow immigrants to stay and work in this country. What I think would work is if we put up 200 or so, more than 200, Ellis Islands throughout the country. Illegal immigrants could chenck in there, get id's and chips, say they won't do anything bad, amd go back to work. This would not disrupt our economy. The only one's that wouldn't chenck in are terrorists or criminals..."

Yikes.