It's that time again, Friday, and like a slasher movie villan, the Chat & Chews are waiting at the gate to be released on the public. The Chat & Chews air on Sundays. Check your local listings for air times.
ABC's This Week will have the following guests:
Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M.
Sen. George Allen, R-Va.
Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.
Claire Shipman, ABC News
Paul Krugman, New York Times
George Will, alleged bow tie sporting alien from outer space*
Kinky Friedman, running for governor of Texas, author, musician
Topics will include:
. . . are we nearing a tipping point with Iraq? In the last week, the missed deadline to draft an Iraqi constitution, a new call for the president to withdraw U.S. troops, and continued casualties in Iraq have all given added momentum to the nation's antiwar movement -- a movement personified by Cindy Sheehan. How will this affect the Republicans in 2006? I'll ask Sens. George Allen, R-Va., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., Republican leaders with very different views of the war.
With regards to Hagel, we'll note this from Friday's Democracy Now!:
Sen. Hagel: US 'More and More Bogged Down' in Iraq
Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said Thursday that the United States is getting "more and more bogged down" in Iraq and stood by his comments that the White House is disconnected from reality and losing the war. Hagel mocked Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion in June that the resistance in Iraq was in its "last throes," saying, "Maybe the vice president can explain the increase in casualties we're taking. If that's winning, then he's got a different definition of winning than I do."
Friedman will discuss "[r]unning as an independent" for the governor of Texas, Bill Richardson will discuss border issues.
For the roundtable, Shipman, Krugman and George Stephanopoulos will discuss "Iraq and Cindy Sheehan, rising gas and oil prices and the just-released John Roberts documents" while George Will frowns a lot, sighs, smirks and makes what passes for "insightful" and "witty" only amongst the most educationally starved sets.
Claire Shipman's inclusion means one woman will be present, Cindy Sheehan will be 'discussed.'
She's fit for a topic, why not fit for a guest?
NBC's Meet the Press comes on with big promises -- why does it seem like so much bluster?
SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD (D - WI)
Foreign Relations Committee
SEN. TRENT LOTT (R - MS)
Author, "Herding Cats: A Life in Politics" Intelligence Committee
LARRY DIAMOND
Author, "Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq" Fmr. Senior Adviser on Governance, Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq DAN SENOR
Fmr. Chief Spokesperson, Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq
We'll hear the differing analysis and opinions of two former advisers of the administration's team in Iraq: Larry Diamond, former senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and author of "Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq" and Dan Senor, the former Chief Spokesperson for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.
Differeing analysis and opinions? Wow! That would be a first. Will we really get it? Magic 8 Ball says "It is doubtful." Here's why:
The contributions both Diamond and Phillips make to understanding what has taken place in Iraq are considerable. But there is a sense in which one of their most important contributions is inadvertent. For both their books illustrate and exemplify the extraordinary consensus about the duty to intervene that has arisen over the course of the post-cold war world. We have not yet begun to pay the price for this--not because we do it ineptly but rather because it rarely seems possible except on the far fringes of the political right and left, what with the "historic compromise" between the Bush Administration and the human rights movement over humanitarian intervention, if not over torture, rendition, the Patriot Act and myriad other issues, to have a serious conversation about whether the United States has any business trying to create democracies by force of arms. Instead, the consensus not just of these two writers and activists but of the great and the good from the Kennedy School of Government, to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, to the thirty-eighth floor of the UN, to 10 Downing Street seems to be that we--whether the "we" in question proves to be the United States, the UN or that mythical entity, the international community--must learn to do this sort of thing better, more effectively, perhaps more humanely. It is not only L. Paul Bremer who suffers from hubris.
That's from David Rieff's "No Exit Strategy" (The Nation) where he reviews both books. The "debate" between Diamond and non book author Senor (Magic 8 ball predicts) will follow the same pattern: "quibbles" over how to do an invasion. The issue of whether or not it should be done will not be addressed. We couldn't ask before the invasion, we can't ask even now apparently.
Note to Timmy, we're still waiting for real debate on Meet the Press. Magic 8 Ball notes that there are no female guests on Meet the Press.
CBS' Face the Nation promises less bluster, offers one female guest and seems interested in what could be termed "kitchen table issues" which could lead to less speculation and more actual information but then, that's the "beauty" of the Sunday Chat & Chews, you just never know if the Cracker Jack box contains a prize or not.
Host:
CBS Evening News Anchor Bob Schieffer
Topics:
Gas Prices, Real Estate Bubble, Economy
Guests:
Glenn Hubbard
Dean, Columbia Business School
Former Chairman, White House Council Of Economic Advisers
Robert Reich
Professor Of Social And Economic Policy, Brandeis University
Former Secretary of Labor
Mike Allen
The Washington Post
Anne Kornblut
The New York Times
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