Posted on 10/21/2006 12:32:12 PM PDT by Phsstpok
Preview and analysis for Weekend Talk Shows, 10-21-06 and 10-22-06
Just over two weeks left and the wheels appear to be coming off of the DBM/Dhimmicrat juggernaut. Ford has imploded and probably provided the image of the election with his dismal stunt "confronting" Corker. You can just see his world crumble as he stands there, and he knows it. Lieberman is kicking MoveON butt in Connecticut and beginning to hint that he'll caucus with the Republicans if the Dhimmicrats don't give him his seniority. Burns, who everyone counted out, is within striking distance in Montana and Steele is neck and neck in Maryland. And then we have analysis of the polls (example 1, 2) that are starting to show up in the blogs and be discussed by the talking heads pointing out the absurd distortions of party affiliation. The major polls are using "fudge factors" (in Zogby's case it's secret sauce) that have a 5 to 13 percent advantage for Dhimmicrats in their samples, while historically it's not been higher than 4 for either party in decades and is typically 2 or less on election day.
They're cooking the books and they know they're going to get caught. I have a feeling a lot of them are beginning have some sympathy for how Ken Lay and his partners felt as it began to fall apart on them.
So how do I read the shows this week? Very mixed. Some last minute efforts to patch up the "narrative" they want to try to make us follow, countered with some carefully phrased hedging about how things can change. There has also been a marked increase in stories in the DBM about GOP dirty tricks, doctored voting machines, hints of racism or unfair advantages (getting GOP voters to actually vote is an unfair advantage, dontcha know?). They're preparing themselves for failure, not victory and it's a frightening prospect for them.
NBC Meet The Press may have the most emblematic show this week, what with the "great black Democrat hope," Barack Obama, in for a combined interview and anointing. he is a rock star in the media's eyes and the more they hype him the more impact he can have when stumping for their candidates. And he is being talked up as a serious contender for the Presidential nomination in '08 (or is he being positioned as Hillary's VP and token symbol magnificent gesture?). I don't think that lil Timmah actually believes that Obama's a serious candidate for President after not even one full term in the Senate, but he's a perfect symbol to focus future hope on if things do fall apart for the Dhimmicrats on November 7. And then their panel is made up of reliable voices of doom for the Republicans. They have to beat that drum harder for the last two weeks! It looks like a very confused show.
CBS Face The Nation has got attack dog Chucky Schumer and what they think is lap dog Libby Dole. I know Schieffer has a handful of quotes about how poorly she has done running the Senatorial campaign and she's not an infighter, at least not in public. CBS, true to their ideological roots, is going all out to patch up the holes in the Dhimmicrat campaign momentum and they construct their show for that purpose. No back sliding or hedging for them. I expect this to get nasty and personal fairly quickly, even if it is subtle. Schieffer is very good at subtle. The inclusion of a pollster who is predicting doom across the board for the Republicans displays the agenda nicely. Amy Walter also has the advantage of not being a household name and not being one of the more recognizable pundits will be able to go out on a limb further than some of the others who are starting to hear footsteps. Watch for her boss, Charlie Cook, to do a much more convoluted and "nuanced" dance on MTP.
Fox News Sunday continues to give the Senate undue deference, in my estimation, and they've assembled a panel of "experts" on foreign policy, all things military and the true state of the American electorate (whom they see two to 4 days per month). The only thing that these guys truly have in common is that they all think they're not only the smartest person in the room, but they're the smartest people on the planet and way smarter than that rube in the White House. All he has to do is listen to them! Never mind that he did listen to them, all of them, in the run up to Iraq, and they all said the same thing. And these four all went further than Bush in their rhetoric and dire warnings about Saddam's WMDs and they'd been doing it for years before Bush got to town. All of them, even beagle face Levin. But Chris Wallace will genuflect and elicit their wisdom about how wrong the President is and how they have a plan (each of them a different one) that will solve all of the problems everywhere. And Sir Richard Branson is going to single handedly solve the Global Warming crisis, his good buddy Bill Clinton asked him to. How many times do you expect Clinton's Global Initiative will be mentioned as an olive branch to his heinous? I'm betting quite a few, not just today but for some time to come. Daddy Wallace probably lectured Chris about "burning his bridges" once or twice since the interview. The standard panel offers ample opportunity for smack downs what with only three shows before the election. I expect Mara and Juan to be relentlessly "on message" from the faxes they no doubt got from the DNC. It will be interesting to watch Kristol and Hume to see what line they take, based on the assumption that they know the White House talking points and might have some inside information on the polls Rove has. If Brit begins to caution Mara and Juan on their positions or if Kristol begins to get that know it all smirk I'll know I'm reading the tea leaves pretty well.
ABC This Week offers up the most grotesque set up I think I've ever seen with selected and edited portions of Georgie Steponallofus' interview with President Bush, followed by a "rebuttal" by John F'n Kerry. And you know Kerry's been given ample time to (have his speech writers) study the President's comments (and focus group test his responses). He's been trying out some of his lines on the road this week, with several "zingers" I'm sure he's anxious to whip out. Bush made a "gigantic blunder" in Iraq. The Iraq war is manufacturing more terrorists. North Korea built a bomb and we can't do anything about it because we've "lost leverage" and "credibility." Never mind that he, his party and the DBM have been screaming at everyone about how they must not support Bush no matter what. Or that the terrorists set off a bomb and then wait to see if the Dhimmicrats will slavishly march out to the waiting microphones to condemn Bush and not them. Nope, that would make too much sense to view things that way. It's all Bush's fault™. And to top things off they trot out the "classic roundtable" of Bush haters to tout the impending doom of the Republicans, which is also all Bush's fault™. I actually expect Will to defend Senate and House Republicans (at least the RINOs and elite, like himself). If I'm right he'll try to set up any victory as being due to the RINOs bucking Bush and any failure as a referendum on Bush.
CNN Late Edition has their usual "cast of thousands" ranging from retiring Bill Frist to rising media star Andrea Koppel. Like all of the shows this week they seem fixated on the Senate and appear to be looking to that body as the seat of wisdom in Washington. Along with Frist they have Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and Senator Jack Reed. Hutchison has made statements this week that put her in the position of agreeing more with Reed than Bush, which will let Wolf try to corner Frist into some sort of admission about how bad things are in Iraq. All of these shows are fishing for sound bites, but Wolf is one of the best in the pregame setup, IMHO. In one of the weirdest twists we have both Zbigniew Brzezinski and Alexander Haig being trotted out as "experts" on how things should be handled around the world. Funny, in dealing with the Middle East and things like North Korea I don't remember either of them being all that successful. Both are cold warriors with believable credentials for discussions on super power relations, but Afghanistan or North Korea? I don't think so. But they'll both say that it's all Bush's fault™, so they'll earn their appearance fees. The media types selected to deliver their collective wisdom, having never actually done anything but talk in their lives, are Ornstein, Allen and a second generation Koppel. Koppel will probably be relatively neutral, as she's still the new kid and hasn't established herself yet. She also doesn't strike me as one of the really strident hype ambitious types, but is more about building up a rep for solid work. Orenstein is the bomb thrower in this crowd, with a new book detailing how the legislative branch of government is broken (and the Republicans broke it). Mike Allen is the wild card, with an article that questioned the conventional wisdom about a Dhimmicrat sweep that came out right at the height of the feeding frenzy over la cage aux Foley. Of course it was written before the Foley scandal broke and got drowned out by that scrum, but it's still out therr and, if he trots out some of the thinking put forward their he might just provide CNN with the cover to say that they were "fair and balanced." Oh, c'mon. You know they want to!
The Saturday shows offer up some interesting meat this week, starting with Mort and Fred apparently starting to hedge their bets and even daring to raise the Reid land deal. Two primary possibilities related to Reid suggest themselves to me. They're either confident that he won't be in a position to hurt them, whether because he's going down or because he'll lose power after November 7, or they're going to debunk and dismiss the charges as mere political dirty tricks by desperate Republicans. I lean towards the latter but hold hope for the former. Tim Russert matches the "let's all think about '08" of having Barack Obama on MTP by having John Edwards wife Elizabeth, on his CNBC show. She's written a "profiles in courage" type of tome dealing with tragedy through the help of both friends and strangers. It may be that it's a form of "it takes a village to survive cancer," but her shot at Hillary in a separate venue this week adds an odd dissonance to that notion. I don't know when this show gets done, but if it was after that shot about Hillary not being happy due to her life choices I wouldn't put bets on lil Timmah asking about it. Fox News Watch finally addresses the obvious slant in reporting on the election this year. If they are true to form it will be a combination of "it's not real, we didn't do it and the bias is really in favor of the right wing." That last will be from Neal. And then the Journal Editorial Report gives us Mark Steyn. Have I said I really like the Journal Editorial Report?
So, a mixed bag this weekend with some attempts to shore up the most recent "master strategy that is guaranteed to win back Congress for the rightful masters of the little people™" and a bit of butt covering in case the plan doesn't work. I actually think that the big story to come out of this election will be the fall out from the Dhimmicrats not winning either chamber, or even losing some ground. The devastating impact on both the Dhimmicrats and DBM if that should happen will, I think, prove final and fatal for both institutions as we know them. Someone mainstream is going to twig to that in the next two weeks and be able to make it a convincing argument. That person will break out as the new "pundit extraordinaire." Unfortunately, if I'm right that the DBM will be discredited as well as the Dhimmicrats, there may be nowhere for that new king of all punditry to go pontificate because we may see all of the screaming head shows replaced by reruns of Gilligan's Island and the syndicated version of Deal or No Deal.
Sorry to be so late posting this time. I'm getting set to travel on business both this week and again the week after. I should be able to put up next weeks thread, perhaps even sooner than today's, but the first Friday in November is probably right out. I may not even get anything up before the Saturday shows are history. But I'll try.
This will be cross posted to my blog at Wizards.townhall.com. 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!
Here's a link to Mark Kilmer's excellent preview of the Sunday shows over at RedState.COM. He beat me again this week.
I'll also post a link to this Sunday's live thread here when it is up.
have at it.
First, thanks for your efforts. This is a really good thread and I'm sure I'm not alone in enjoying the preview.
For FNS, the common thread is each guest is they are their party leader of the two committees that are being talked about on FNC. I would guess the topics will revolve around current events and their committee leadership positions.
Lugar, majority chair of the Foreign Relations Committee
Warner, majority chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee
Biden, ranking minority member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Levin, ranking minority member of the Armed Services Committee
Don't know why Branson is on other than comic relief.
It's the millions billions he committed to Clinton to help fix Global Warming and other noble causes.
From the "Coming On Fox News Sunday" essay
Finally, our Power Player this week is multi-billionaire businessman Richard Branson, who made his money in 200 businesses in 30 countries and is now looking to give much of it away to fight global warming, the spread of AIDS, and other social problems.
What he's actually done, at least on global warming, which is where the bulk of his $3 billion pledged through Clinton's publicity machine is going, is to have committed to invest in developing cleaner fuels for his jets. I've read some very interesting analysis of this effort. He's investing in technologies that should solve price and availability problems for his airline as well as improve the "greenhouse gas" issues. The best motivator of all, enlightened self interest. Oh, and it may end up royally screwing over Hugo Chavez as the oil his country extracts is apparently among the nastier type, environmentally.
I like Branson a lot, particularly since he's backing commercial space ventures big time. I'd love it if he's the Bill Gates of the next 20 years built off of that. How about he funds a commercial venture to go to the asteroid belt and find and exploit the materials there? That's well within his grasp in the next 20 years. Probably far less of an investment, relatively, and less daunting an undertaking than Ferdinand and Isabella funding Cristobol Colon way back in 1492. And the odds that Branson would make a profit are actually pretty good.
I don't like or dislike Branson.
He can be a power player all he wants to be as long as he's not there to talk about American politics.
I didn't mean that to come out harsh if it did. Maybe I should put a ROFLOL at the end of it.
I even knew what Harwood looked like. What's worse is that I recognize most of their voices from the kitchen. I am in serious trouble.
Phsstpok, did you happen to see Captain Ed's piece on Star Trek today? If you are or were a fan, you might enjoy it.
Just getting to your wonderful thread..
GAG ME...Fred Barnes just said that Osama Obama reminds him of John Kennedy in 1960!!!! He and Mort were just WAY over the top, IMHO, in their cheerleading for Obama.
I can't imagine WHY Hillary would want Obama anywhere NEAR her!
First of all, he is treated like a rock star...and she is less charismatic than a ROCK....
Plus, she already is married to the first black POTUS...and so she has all of the black voters...AND, he is even more socialist than she is!!
You may be right...but, this guy isn't qualified to be the Senator that he IS...let alone a POTUS, if something happened to her. (not that she is either)
What the heck poll are Mort and Fred using...not the ones I've been seeing.
First and foremost, where is Bill Sammons when you need him?
Republican advantages (per Fred)
Mort compares the GOP "These are the stakes" ad to the Johnson "daisy ad" from 1964. Fred disagrees, but doesn't articulate it well (surprise, surprise, surprise).
Mort cites Zogby poll on Bush approval (sub 40%) and generic poll data (dims up big). Then he cites NPR polls showing Dhimmicrats having more "voter intensity" in tight races. NPR and Zogby. Go figure why Mort would cite clearly biased Dhimmicrat polls.
Cites Burns, Dewine, Chafee and Santorum as problems (but he likes Chafee!!!!!!!).
Kean v Menendez - Mort says Menendez, Fred says Kean
Talent v McCaskill - Mort says toss up, Fred says Talent
Ford v Corker - Mort says toss up, Fred says Corker
Allen v Webb - both say Allen, Fred says big time
Predictions: Mort, Dims pick up 25 in House and enough to take Senate. Fred, 18 in the house but only 4 in the Senate.
Now on to Obama and Reid.
Mort: Reid's stuff is hardly "Watergate." The illegal use of campaign funds was chump change. It's not going to trump the Foley scandal.
Fred: Reid is protected by the D by his name. The press is protecting him.
Obama UP because of his book and media cheerleading, he's a really uniter not a divider, will end up was VP (Mort)
He's enormously charming, which Hillary is not. Dims are looking for a savior and that should scare Hillary, who isn't. Vanity article says he's not a radical (Fred)
Maliki DOWN because he can't rain in militia, four months is long enough to judge that he is not the right leader (Fred)
Maliki is protected the worst of them all, Sadr, and he won't "fix the Iraq constitution (Mort)
Coming up, Dims are going to sweep the state houses and that will impact the next Presidential race (Mort)
(Side issue - the save Darfur folks have a new ad that only mentions Bush, along with "other world leaders" in passing, unlike the previous one which blamed him for the genocide. It specifically calls for steps like a no-fly zone and again demands action, but doesn't put it all on Bush.)
Bob Ehrlic, MD Gov, DOWN, trailing in the polls, issue is crime, Ehrlic ad blaming O'Malley, if Ehrlic wins it's the upset of the year, R could win in Michigan, IL, Minnesota, R to D, Arnold will win in CA, lesson is "be moderate," Hillary must choose between Richardson and Obama for VP (Mort)
Five states where Dims ahead for picking up governors seat, CO, NJ, NY, MD, ?? fifth state, DE? Arnold will win, don't raise taxes, Bill Richardson will win in NM, he has a great ad, "let's watch" (Fred)
Buzz, Richardson or Obama for D can be met by Menendez or Rice for R (Mort)
I missed Fred's last point... Sorry about that.
Now on to Fox News Watch.
I read CQ's Star Trek is Fascist post and am working on a note to him. It's an interesting post and the seperate article he's reacting to is good as well.
thanks
I have to tell you, MM...(as I hang my head)...that I flunked your political geek test!! (I always lose at games anyway, so no biggie)..
I could only answer ONE question...Bono traveled with O'Neill, right??
I do not know the rest..
BUT, I think you may have stumbled on a new FReeper game!!! How fun!!
I muted the TV after Fred compared Obama to JF Kennedy..
Plus, they are ALWAYS pro-democrat take-over, both of them.
oh..but I DID notice that ALL of their people with UP arrows were DEMS!!
Again, gag me.
The whole program was yucky. How's that for an adult analysis.
Great review of the show, Phsstpok...but, you already do so much...I don't think you want us getting used to reading your transcriptions too!!! LOL
LOL....works for me.
Newswatch was equally as yucky.
Opens with clip of Bill Kristol predicting as many as a 40 seat pick up for Democrats under "worst case scenario" as sign of media bias (WTF????? That tells me tons about their position on this question - why not show Steponallofus or Perkie™ Katie Couric?)
Greta van Sustern and Larry King plus syndicated Psychiatrist Ablo interviewed Karr
I'm trying to build up a reservoir of good will before I drop off of the radar for much of the next two weeks. I don't want anyone forgetting about me, dontcha know? After all, we live in the Internet age. Two weeks is a lifetime (at least it will seem so to me). Nice thing about this set of trips, I'll have good access from the hotels in Austin and Chicago where I'm staying. I just won't have much time. This week my host is going to be wining and dining me each night and next week that will happen, plus my wife is with me and my daughter is in her freshman year in college in Chicago. I anticipate a total of 12 minutes free during the work week both weeks.
Next weekend will be an orgy of FReeping!
Then I'm in a race to my downtime surrounding my expected transplant, which I hope gets scheduled sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. My main target now on the timing, besides the fact that my vision is basically worthless, is to get it done before my insurance starts making me pay an additional 10% of "normal and customary" after January 1 of 2007. I hate it when that happens, especially with something like $5,000 worth of surgery. I don't have a spare $500 right now, do you?
No problem. I read it as you apparently meant it.
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