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Preview and Analysis for Weekend of November 17th and 18th, 2007

Posted by Beowulf on Sunday, November 18, 2007 11:30:31 AM


Guest lineup for the Sunday TV news shows:

NBC's "Meet the Press"
  • Ronald Brownstein, LA Times
  • E.J. Dionne, the Washington Post
  • Gwen Ifill, PBS
  • Byron York, the National Review
  • Chuck Todd, NBC News

CBS's "Face the Nation"

  • Presidential candidate former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C)
  • Jeanne Cummings, Politico

Fox News Sunday

  • Former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-AR
  • Defense attorney Billy Martin
 CNN "Late Edition"
  • Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda
  • Presidential candidate former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C)

ABC's "This Week"

  • Presidential candidate former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.)
  • Author Kayce Freed Jennings

This week Wolfe Blitzer played the anti-Russert and restored the veneer of Hillary's inevitability claim in the debate by carefully shielding her from tough questions and turning on her "mean" rivals.  Now the MSM is free to concentrate on bringing down those they truly want to eliminate from the playing field to leave things clear for their "anointed ones."  The MSM have grown used to their position as the true constituency of the Washington politicians and they wanted to remind everyone of their power.  I feel, for example, that Fred Thompson's public statements that he refused to run a campaign by their rules singled him out for particular scorn by the ruling elites in the MSM.  They quickly constructed a narrative and have been merciless in spinning every news item to fit it.  On many of the other candidates the narrative is shifting as the competing drives for the desired outcome and the need to keep the interest of the viewers change in importance, thus the last two weeks for Her Thighness and the seemingly contrarian rise of Huckabee in the Republican contest.   But the powers that think they are don't want these trends to go too far and this week they dialed it back a bit to try to restore their carefully constructed "status quo" narrative.

NBC Meet The Press and Tim Russert take a breather after the back to back to back appearances of Obama, Thompson and Dodd (plus an appearance by Colbert to round things out) and the "notorious" performance by Russert at the Democrat debate (the right wing cad!).  Instead of a big name newsmaker they offer up an extended talking head roundtable to do a "state of the campaigns" round up.  If you take a look at the political leanings of the assembled media mavens you get a pretty good cross section of the MSM (5 left and 1 center slightly right).  Perhaps appropriately they are also celebrating the 60th anniversary of the show.  Sixty years of left of center bias.  May their era come to a swift close.

In our area CBS Face The Nation is up next and old Bob brings us the first of two appearances by the silky pony himself, John Edwards.  The amount of pandering this monster is doing to the bigotry of the hard left is staggering.  What's even more remarkable is that there apparently seems to be universal disdain for him from those he seeks to cater to.  Every once in a while there is clear evidence of a benevolent God.

Next for us in Memphis is Fox News Sunday, bringing us the (presumed) glory that is Mike Huckabee, he that the MSM seems to have been so enamored of the last few weeks.  There are plenty here on FR who honestly support and promote the ex-Governor or Arkansas.  There are also plenty of folks, here and elsewhere, who have serious doubts about significant parts of his worldview, not least of which are his views of limited government, taxation, federalism and several other issues important to me on principle.  I will say here that I understand the surface appeal of Huckabee to those here who support him.  I also emphatically state that I will actively support him over ANY of the potential Dhimmicrat nominees, as I will support Rudy, Romney or just about any of the other Republicans (except moonbat Ron Paul), however (you knew there was a "however") I am conceerned by some of the things I have found out about his background and worldview.  I'll be interested to see if his supporters address those questions/

CNN Late Edition is next in our market and they appear to be abandoning their "no one from the US" theme for at least half of this week's headline with only John "silk pony" Edwards and the PM of Japan on their advertised lineup.  I guess one could argue that a trial lawyer isn't strictly speaking an American, but then one could also argue that a trial lawyer isn't a member of the human species... but I won't go there (for now).  The session with the Japanese PM seems intent on proving that relations between the US and Japan are on the skids, but I have a feeling that isn't even remotely related to reality.  Then, of course, they move on to the viability of John Edwards as a presidential candidate.  Do I detect a them here?

This week marks a likely break in my format for this thread.  Life appears to be increasingly interfering with my ability to post this before the Saturday shows air, particularly with the seemingly random moves of these shows to earlier times.  More than that I have grown less and less enamored of these shows, with the noted exception of the Journal Editorial Report.  We'll see if I cover the rest of them in the future.  Having said that, here's the assessment of the Saturday shows (long past) for this week.  The Beltway Boys concentrated on this weeks theme of Hillary as the "comeback kid 2."  I'm sorry, I should have included a barf alert in that comment.  Tim Russert's Show on MSNBC did provide a preview of this weeks Meet The Press (while pimping for not one but two books) with authors who both condemn partisanship and imply (or outright state) that it was invented by George W. Bush.  Fox News Watch emphasizes the failings of these programs with some of the most mindless and trivial pabulum when they should be covering the momentous collapse of their profession (shhh... don't tell them... maybe they haven't noticed).  The aforementioned Journal Editorial Report has an interesting high end CEO counterpoint to the MSM darling Warren Buffet along with discussions of the issue of illegal aliens and drivers licenses as well as notice of the Goracles cashing in by selling out.  Gee, actual analysis of issues that are significant to the furtherance of human civilization.  What a concept!

I'm obviously well behind this week (so what's new?) and playing catch up.  I feel that this week is a conscious attempt by the powers that (want to) be (or think they already are) in the MSM to move back to their preferred narrative of Hillary as the inevitable nominee and eventual President.  I also feel that this week may mark a tipping point in the perception of the ability of the old media to dictate the narrative.  That means that I'm particularly interested in the narrative that comes out of this weekends shows, not only within the DBM but also the conclusions of the blogosphere.  Are we going to fall in line with the preferred perceptions of 30 rock, the Kosaks and their ilk or will we define a different and more persuasive "narrative" that will take hold?  This weekend has the potential for rearranging the conventional wisdom of this coming election.  Which reality will prevail, the one being promoted by the MSM or the real reality?

This should be cross posted to my blog at Wizards.townhall.com later today.

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 their Sunday Talk Show Tip Sheet

Show by Show Preview

Below are the topics and guests announced for these programs, along with my take on the "memes" that the shows are trying to push.  With each guest's name are a series of links that I found in a web search that helped me get a handle on who they are and what their likely positions will be when they are interviewed.

Saturday Shows For

The Beltway Boys (Mort Kondrake, Fred Barnes)

  • Meme:
    • She's back!  OK, maybe that's an exaggeration and she just didn't screw up as bad as last time... but she showed up!
    • Wow, what a concept!  The Republican candidates actually noticed that the people are concerned about illegal immigration!  Will wonders never cease?
  • Topics:
    • Hillary Clinton faces another round of attacks from her Democratic rivals — how did she do this time around?
    • The Republican presidential race gets feisty over immigration issue
  • Beltway Boys contact information beltway@foxnews.com
  • The program airs on FOX News Channel Saturdays 2 pm and 11:30 pm ET and Sundays 6:30 am ET (Note - this appears to be a permanent new time slot)

Tim Russert's Show On MSNBC (Tim Russert)

Fox News Watch (Eric Burns)

  • Meme:
    • "The questions get tougher?"  Not on CNN, at least not for Hillary!  What a joke!
    • OK, they're seriously asking with (radical secular humanist atheist) reporters are critical of something the Pope does (notice, they didn't use caps)
    • Oh, goody!  O. J. Simpson is back in court! (endless tabloid barf alert!)
  • Topics:
    • Campaign Coverage: The questions get tougher
    • Coming to America: Why are the media already critical of the pope's upcoming trip to the U.S.?
    • O.J.'s Courtroom Sequel: What will the media make of it?
  • The program airs on FOX News Channel Saturdays at 2:30 pm ET (Note - this appears to be a permanent new time slot)
  • Fox News Watch contact information Newswatch@foxnews.com

Journal Editorial Report (Paul Gigot) - FNC show page

  • Meme:
    • No, greed is NOT good, but enlightened self interest is.
    • OK, what part of "they're illegal" can't you understand?
    • The Goracle cashes in... big time!
  • Topics:
    • Opinion Journal web page: License to Drive
      • An interview with the CEO of Cypress Semiconductor on taxes, entrepreneurship and U.S. competitiveness
      • A debate on licenses for illegal aliens
      • Al Gore takes Silicon Valley.
    • Fox News Channel web page
      • Billionaire Warren Buffett says Congress should raise his taxes. But are there costs to soaking the rich?
      • Al Gore's new gig: Is he a venture capitalist or Washington lobbyist?
  • Guests
  • Journal Editorial Report (at Fox News) contact information - jer@foxnews.com
  • The program is from The Wall Street Journal and airs on FNC Saturday at 11 pm and Sunday at 6 am ET

NBC Meet The Press (Tim Russert)

CBS Face The Nation (Bob Schieffer)

Just a comment about CBS FTN's web site - could they be any more minimal?  What, do they pay their web folks by the word?  Maybe it's by the letter since they abbreviated 2008.  Goodness!

Fox News Sunday (Chris Wallace)

CNN Late Edition (Wolf Blitzer)

ABC This Week (George Stephanopoulos)

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