Flush twice... it's a long way to Sally Quinn's place!

Pundit Pap
for Dec. 21, 2003
Semi-silly Season
by JJ Balzer

Dec. 21, 2003 -- NEW YORK, NY (apj.us) -- Usually, the couple of Sundays before the New Year -- and the first Sunday of the year -- are occasions for fluff among the Sunday pundits. But there was some big news last Sunday, an event that forced most of the Beltway's opinion elite to take the morning off: the capture of Saddam Hussein. And it should surprise nobody that the story remained topic one of the Sunday DC media circle jerk -- after all, the oh-so-complacent Washington bureaus of the networks and big city newspapers have kept the capture of Saddam as the number one story for seven news cycles, spinning it as a "big win" for the Imbecile Prince and his Neo-conservative Junta. Forget that there were more bombings, more dead GIs, more Iraqi soldiers abandoning the military, and continued insurgency activities -- and especially that Tom Ridge has raised the domestic alert level to "orange" -- Little George must have his Good News!

This Week
Feelin' Trippi
Players: George Stephanopoulos, Howard Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi, Democratic presidential candidate and former NATO Supreme Commander Wesley Clark

Steph welcomed Joe Trippi, and threw him a bone by asking if any of the other Democratic presidential candidates are in a position to beat his boss Howard Dean. Trippi, however, did exactly what his Republican counterparts do (which in this case wasn't a bad thing): changed the subject and talked about getting Democrats connected to the presidential selection process. (Hmm... no bashing of the other candidates? Interesting.)

Steph then cut to his campaign segment with Wesley Clark. First, Steph asked Clark about the semantic differences between Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein, and Clark also was able to shift the issue to one of leadership, touting his experience as NATO Supreme Commander, and talking about the process of campaigning and communicating. Steph said that Democrats are focused on who can beat Bush; Clark said that Democratic candidates are on the same page, and in the area of foreign policy, he's the only candidate with real experience as a negotiator.

There were segments of Clark in Brussels and back on the campaign trail in New Hampshire, followed by more interview footage in which Steph asked about a meeting between Clark and Dean's team about the possibility of being Dean's running mate. Clark made it clear that at this time he is running for Commander-in-chief. Clark also ripped the Bush Boy a new one for the Saddam "sideshow" when Al Qaeda and other terror groups remain a threat -- and while Osama bin Laden and his accomplices are responsible for the 9/11/01 attacks, the buck stops with Junior of failing to protect our national security. (Ouch! No Dean-bashing today. Are both the Clark and Dean campaigns calling a truce and focusing on the former Texas governor?)

Steph then returned to Trippi in an effort to try to trump up a "two different stories" scenario. And while Trippi did dispute the story as described by Steph, the fact remains that the stories are not mutually exclusive.

Trippi's best moments were responding to criticism of Dean's assertion that America is not safer with Saddam in custody (Clark disagrees with Dean on this point) by pointing out that 51% of Americans agree with Dean and we've done a lousy job on terrorism. Trippi also took a swipe at the "establishment" Democrats, specifically Dick Gephardt, Joe Lieberman and John Kerry for supporting Smirk's Feud with Saddam so eagerly -- and only seemed a bit weak when Steph confronted Trippi with questions about whether or not Dean took a meeting with key Enron players.

Funny how the press refused to ask the very same questions about a certain "Kahleefawnia" governor's pre-election meetings with Kenny Boy Lay.

Can anyone say hypocrite?

FAUX News Sunday
Bring back Tony Snow!
Players: Chris Wallace, Gen. Richard Myers

During the opening teaser for FNS, Chris Wallace got one of the big news stories of the week completely wrong: "Qad'hafi caves on WMDs."

Huh? Qad'hafi has been trying to reach a deal with the US for a decade and has been offering to tell all about his WMDs for years. "Caving"? Not true, Chris.

Chris's first guest was Gen. Richard Myers, and the first topic of discussion was "breaking news" that well over a hundred insurgents are in custody. Wallace and Myers rumor-mongered about alleged plots to kidnap members of the Iraqi Governing Council and exchange them for Saddam (big deal -- we'd be surprised if these sort of plots didn't exist in the chaotic stretch of land that is Iraq). There was a lot of discussion about troops staying in Iraq through 2004 (so much for Smirk being able to get them out of there in time for fixing next year's election). Myers does not seem too bullish about finding WMDs, but tried to fool viewers into thinking that tons upon tons upon tons of them must, just must be somewhere in Iraq.

And since neither Wallace or Myers could find WMDs in Iraq, they promoted rumors that Qad'hafi was close to having a nuclear weapon (we'll see about that -- maybe -- in coming weeks, unless of course that turns out to be as reliable as all that data about yellowcake in Niger). Wallace also pressed Myers about whether or not the threat level should be raised in the US (keep in mind that a few hours after airtime Tom Ridge would do just that after days of rumors and intimations that such a move would be made), and Myers correctly said that was Tom Ridge's call. (And we've just gotta ask: what the hell is Wallace doing asking a member of the military that question? Is it now the military's responsibility to declare security threats? Roger Ailes sure must want that to be the case.)

There was also an uneventful appearance by Dick Gephardt -- until Chris Wallace attacked Gephardt for saying last year that we were more unsafe as a nation than we were four years ago and criticizing Dean for "saying the same thing." Gephardt, for once, showed spine and called Wallace, who quickly morphed from a respectable correspondent and journalist when he was over at ABC to just another Rupert Murdoch butt-boy at FOX News, on his silly gambit by saying that Dean was talking about the capture of Saddam, and he had been talking about failed homeland security.

We noticed that Wallace has adapted the rude, snotty FOX News habit of cutting off Democrat guests before they are able to complete their answers.

That little gambit became tiresome two years ago, when Barney Frank had the cojones to call snot-nosed Georgetown insider Brit Hume on his rudeness.



Meet the Press
Sunday morning nausea with Tom DeLay
Players: Tim Russert, Tom DeLay, James Carville, Mary Matalin

Tim Russert gave Tom DeLay the total softball treatment. For taking the trouble to appear on Russert's little show, DeLay got::
1) The opportunity to praise Smirk for personally capturing Saddam;
2) The opportunity to deflect from our failures in Iraq by claiming it's part of the "war on terror" (this despite the fact that the leaders of the organization that attacked us, Al Qaeda, are thought to be in Pakistan or Afghanistan);
3) The chance to spin his claim that Saddam would attack US cities with his nonexistent WMDs by saying that WMDs were not the only reason for going to Iraq and Saddam "was doing" WMDs, that Saddam was a terrorist, and that Clinton failed in the war on terror (this despite the fact that the military came closer to wiping out the leadership of Al Qaeda under Clinton than at anytime after 9/11/01);
4) A clear opening to declare that the US is winning the war on terror (shades of "We can win the war in Vietnam");
5) The opportunity to rebuff Tim for daring to suggest that Howard Dean is right that Osama bin Laden is a bigger threat;
6) The chance to say -- completely unchallenged, mind you -- that Gen. Wesley Clark was "removed" as NATO Supreme Commander (that is, by the way, a lie) and Al Qaeda "can't do anything right now" (right, tell that to all the Turkish Muslims killed in attacks on Turkish synagogues)
6) An opportunity to amplify on lies and name-calling of Democrats by claiming that they have no right to criticize Smirk for fabricating a war against Iraq (DeLay's heroes must be Stalin and Mao given his apparent support for silencing dissent and right-wing social engineering);
7) An opportunity to bash Dean as a "cruel extremist" (probably in retaliation for Dean correctly calling the Bush Boy a "miserable failure"), the claim that Dean will lose in a Smirk landslide, and that anything Dean says is cruel and extreme, making an extra effort to lie about Dean's position on UN participation in Iraq (DeLay did his best to characterize Dean as a "Cuckoo's Nest" wacko and extremist -- but then, he's one to talk);
8) A complete deflection from the issue of Smirk's record spending by attacking -- you guessed it -- Howard Dean and non-privatized Medicare while claiming that he forced Bill Clinton to sign bills (that Clinton was intent on signing anyway -- nice try, Tommy);
9) An open mike to try (none too successfully) to defuse criticism of his scheme to use a charity as a conduit to raise megabucks for the right wing of the GOP by somehow this is an attack on a charitable cause and he sees "nothing wrong" with his scam -- "they can criticize me all they want to, I'm gonna take care of those kids" (Bushit, Tommy -- the only people you were interested in taking care of were energy lobbyists, media moguls, subsidized agribusiness scamsters, and big pharmaceutical manufacturers)

You guessed it: Tim hardly followed up on any of DeLay's dishonest nonsense. Tim, a guy who socializes with Donald Rumsfeld despite the fact that it is a conflict of interest and a violation of the most fundamental journalistic ethics to socialize with the people one covers, doesn't see it as his job to challenge the assertions of an ultra-right-wing legislator, easily the most dishonest and corrupt Republican in Washington today. You think Tim's going to get tough with a member of the Grand Old Authoritarian neo-Fascist Party? Don't make us laugh.

Then, in keeping with recent annual tradition, Tim played host to James Carville and Mary Matalin -- two "insiders" heavily vested in the Washington insider media incest status quo whose cloying "odd couple" shtick was tired even before the name Monica Lewinsky had been engraved on the American psyche. Yawn. Big yawn. Reading between the lines, Carville sounded as if he'd prefer that Clark be the Democratic presidential nominee -- but will put on the gloves to back Dean, perhaps a tad reluctantly. And as for Mary Matalin -- well, the words "Bizarro world" will suffice.