The Sunday chat and chews. Yawn.
Before we start off with that, let's note that on the NBC's Meet the Press "about page" the mistake still stands:
Since those beginning days, "Meet the Press" has interviewed First Ladies Eleanor Roosevelt, Nancy Reagan, Rosalynn Carter, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Laura Bush appeared on "Meet the Press" the first three years of her husband’s presidency. Other notable women appearing as guests over the years on "Meet the Press" include: Barbara Jordan, Shirley Chisholm, Jane Fonda, Phyllis Schlafly, Geraldine Ferraro, Gloria Steiner, Elizabeth Dole, Madeleine Albright, Tipper Gore, Condoleezza Rice, Nancy Pelosi, Shirley Temple Black and Caroline Kennedy.
There is no "Gloria Steiner." It's Gloria Steinem. That mistake has been up for years. We'll continue to note it until they correct it. It's insulting at this point, they have been advised (if you'd like to be listed as someone notifying them, just add common_ills@yahoo.com to your e-mail to mtp@nbc.com and we'll start noting it.
The point of their list is to give the impression that Meet the Press does a good job including women on the show. It doesn't. It wants you to have that impression.
And it's apparently not important to the nonsense show (or to NBC or MSNBC) that they brag about having "Steiner" on as a guest. It's insulting to Gloria Steinem and it's past time Tim Russert's joke of a show and the apparent joke of a staff said, "Enough, we'll fix the mistake. We're sorry." (At The Common Ills we won't hold our breath on that happening. Though we may start doing a count down of each day.)
So here's the group that Tim Russert & staff feel you need to hear from:
SEN. PAT ROBERTS (R - Kan.)
Chairman, Intelligence Committee
SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D - W. Va.)
Vice Chairman, Intelligence Committee
FORMER SEN. BOB DOLE (R - Kan.)
Author, "One Soldier's Story"
1996 Republican Presidential Nominee
KATE O'BEIRNE
National Review
EUGENE ROBINSON
Washington Post
Will Russert ask Bob Dole about the fact that he was awarded a Purple Heart for an injury he wrote of (previously) as something he caused himself (by accident)? Considering that Dole questioned John Kerry's Purple Hearts, perhaps Russert could ask that?
(Again, we won't hold our breath here at The Common Ills.)
Diversity? Let's see there's one woman to four men, plus big Tim of course. What about the political spectrum? Three Republicans and two Democrats. Plus big Tim.
Don't expect much from "quiet game" playing "liberal" Eugene Robinson.
From Bob Somerby's The Daily Howler on February 18, 2005:
Pretending to love the working class, Robinson rues his cohort's advantages. We have options, but our gardeners don't. And not only that: Unlike Robinson's privileged liberals, his gardeners "have no forum to bemoan the state of the political economy."
But why don't Robinson’s various servants have a useful forum like that? Of course! They don't have it because people like Robinson help run the press corps--vacuous people who say that they’re "liberals," although it's quite clear that they're aren't. Indeed, how does a modern press "liberal" behave? Robinson shows us this morning:
First, they create burlesques of liberal concerns, pretending that "liberals" are running around saying that Wal-Mart is "the face of pure evil." The public hears a silly burlesque of a progressive concern, not an intelligent formulation.
Second, they please the Limbaugh World by saying the press corps is full of such liberals. Everywhere he looks he sees them, the pundit lets us know.
Then, of course, the key final point: Man, are we liberals a bunch of big hypocrites! We pretend to care about working people. The fact is, we just flat-out don't.
Readers, why is it? Why don't Robinson’s various servants have a "forum" to further their interests? Let's say it again: They don't have a forum like that because men like Robinson talk about drivel. Indeed, such pundits may even believe that they’re "liberals"--but it's time someone informed them they're not. There are real concerns real progressives express, concerning the real welfare of Robinson's servants. But Robinson, yelling "liberal," will never express them. He says he's a liberal--and he may even think it. But someone should tell him--he's not!
Over at ABC's This Week, the guests are:
Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., Republican Conference chairman
Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., senior member, Foreign Relations Committee
Eliot Spitzer, New York attorney general
Andrew Motion, British poet laureate
A poet? Well he's going to read a poem to Charles and Camilla, as in Prince Charles. This Week, always hitting the hard topics everyone else shys from. (That was sarcasm.)
And just when you thought things couldn't get worse, check out the "roundtable:"
Washington Post columnist EJ Dionne
Cokie Roberts, "just back from Rome"
George Will
Just back from Rome? Of course, where else would an old gas bag like Cokes Roberts go? Where's there's no story, there is Cokie Roberts.
And what of Blinky? Over at CBS's Face the Nation, Blinky's topic will be Iraq, Social Security and judges.
Guests will be:
Sen. Harry Reid
Minority Leader
Democrat - Nevada
Sen. John McCain
Republican - Arizona
Michael Duffy
TIME Magazine
If you drink early, remember that the hot new drinking game is taking a sip every time Blinky Bob Schieffer blinks. (Stock up on the booze, you'll need it for the half hour.)
Whenever we do the Sunday Chat & Chews announcement here (which were asked for, I have no interest in these programs), there's always a number of e-mails saying it's important to watch these shows to find out "what's going on." As if.
You're going to hear the same thing you've heard them say everywhere else, more often than not. You'll have a lot of white men. You'll have a lot of timid hosts or lackies. And good grief, you'll have Cokes Roberts again. We'll be doing an entry on Ring of Fire tonight and for those who delight in the continual decline of Cokes and her ever tarnished reputation, look for that.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.