Guest lineup for the Sunday TV news shows:

War and immigration are the themes the dinosaur media wants to talk about this week, but the failed car bombs in London and the apparently successful car bomb attack in Glasgow will blow everything else away.  Don't be surprised to see some of the "sillier" issues and players (in the grand scheme of things) pushed aside (Leahy's subpoenas, Gallagher and Green on the fairness doctrine etc.).  Between now and when these shows tape who knows what other events will change the shape of the dialogue.

All things being equal the big three (ABCCBSNBC) are setting up straight attacks on the Bush administration, based on Iraq and the dustups with Leahy and Waxman's respective star chambers.  Fox and CNN cast their respective nets a bit wider.

NBC Meet The Press gives leaky Leahy an unchallenged pulpit from which to preach against all things Bush.  I'm willing to guarantee you that no question will be raised about Leahy's own position during the Clinton administration defending executive privilege in the face of (Republican) subpoenas.  Nor will there be any irony invoked if he chooses to take a shot at Cheney about classified documents.  They don't call him leaky for nothing.  Lil Timmah has thrown away all pretense of objectivity or non-partisanship, particularly since the Plame fraud.  This looks like more of the same.

CBS Face The Nation tees up Richard Lugar, thanks to his public statements calling for "redeployment" our of Iraq (as the way to secure Iraq).  You begin to wonder if there's something wrong with the water up on Capitol Hill.  Ol Bob's show is the most likely to stay doggedly on their anti-Bush message and ignore the terrorist attacks (not to mention the growing signs of success in Iraq).  They are the most ideologically reliable leftist organization on the air.  They get a fax from Howard Dean (or Hillary) and they carry out their marching orders.  The big question for me is what is Lugar's motive, particularly his timing?  Is this payback for something Bush did (or didn't do) to him?  Is he auditioning/posturing for the VP spot on some Pubbie's ticket as the anti-war balance to a pro-war candidate?  It just doesn't make sense to me.  As Bill Kristol points out in his Weekly Standard piece Lugar's goals directly conflict with his proposed actions.  It's gotta be something in the water.

Fox News Sunday is the first of three shows (as scheduled in my market) to prop up Secretary Chertoff.  No doubt the intent in booking him was to trash the bigoted racist nativist Neanderthals who defeated the shamnesty bill, that enlightened solution to all of the immigration problems, now and forever.  Instead that topic will likely get short shrift in favor of discussions of the car bombs in the UK.  I wonder if anyone will suggest that car bombs might be coming across our southern border?  Brit, Bill, Juan and Mara make up the roundtable.  Though the prospect of a smackdown still lurks, I'm more interested in seeing how Juan is treated after endorsing the Supreme Court's racial preferences ruling this week.  The attacks have been fairly vicious, though not widespread.  I'm betting he's had some behind the scenes arm twisting, so I'm expecting him to back off his endorsement of the ruling, particularly as his masters in the DNC and MoveOn have decreed that this issue will be one of the key themes in next years elections.

CNN Late Edition also serves up Chertoff for the same reasons as Fox, but with the rest of the cast, particularly King, Brzezinski and Kissinger, this could actually be an interesting and meaningful discussion, even if they aren't on together.  Clyburn, Davis and Ginsberg run the risk of being bumped for more relevant talking heads.

ABC This Week matches Chertoff with Lieberman.  I believe that Lieberman was being set up for an attack following his endorsement of an attack on Iran, but the events in the UK will probably change the tenor of the entire show.  This could get interesting and I might just break down and watch Curious George this week.  On their roundtable each player was selected for a specific line of attack, Ruth Marcus to handle the Cheney bashing, Bay Buchanan for the jingoistic knee jerk reaction to the Bush immigration bill, Donna Brazille to promote the fantasy of a Bloomberg candidacy insuring a Dhimmicrat presidential win and Cokie Roberts to play up Hillary's new personae.  Marcus is likely to be bumped in favor of some terrorist expert, perhaps Fareed Zakaria or some other reliable Bush bashing international "expert."  Buchanan will probably stay, but will be goaded into making intemperate remarks about "ragheads" instead of "wetbacks."  Donna Brazille will likely be sidetracked by talk of the Goracle throwing his hat into the ring.  There will be a lot on display depending on how he gets treated by Hillary's most loyal myrmidon.  And Cokie, well, she'll just be Cokie, lauding the capabilities of a now triumphant Dhimmicrat House and Senate to solve all known problems, if only those nasty obstructionist conservatives would get out of the way.

The Saturday Shows will likely have less time to adjust but may well be preempted as they were last week over the missing mom murder case.  The Beltway Boys the immigration bill, the attacks on Cheney and McCain's collapse.  Pretty standard fare.  CNBC's Tim Russert Show takes on God.  Lil Timmah doesn't think small, does he?  Fox News Watch continues to descend into tabloid hell.  All they need do is look at MRC and they'll have weeks of real and substantive issues of media malfeasance to examine.  But nooooooo!  Finally the Journal Editorial Report does a substantive examination of this weeks Supreme Court rulings and the long term implications of the Robert's court.  Bringing in Ted Olson for the debate just emphasizes how much better this show is than anything else on all weekend.

Bottom line, this weeks shows seem like their caught up in a Robert Burns wee mousie moment, with the best laid plans of mice and the DBM Gang aft agley.  I'm betting NBC and CBS make either no change or minimal adjustment to spin the terrorist attacks as somehow Bush's fault, but otherwise sticking to their game plan.  Fox and ABC will likely adjust fairly well, thought the probably don't need to change their guests.  CNN will be the most flexible, as usual, which isn't that hard given their two hour format.  There are producers for all of these shows scrambling frantically as I write this, trying to anticipate how this will play out and what meme will emerge.  They will be terrified as they may actually have to discuss events that are unfolding without a preconceived outcome for their guests to promote.  Scary times.

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!

Here is a link to the show by show analysis, with lists of guests and links to articles and resources to help understand who they are and why they are on the shows.

Here is a link to The Sunday Morning Talk Show Thread 1 July 2007

Mark Kilmer has posted his excellent preview of the Sunday shows over at Redstate.COM.

His review of the Sunday shows is here.

Politico.COM has their Sunday Talk Show Tip Sheet