Below the fold: AK-Sen, GOP shenanigans, funny vidoes, etc.
The Lineup (link back here, if you're copying to another site):
- Meet the Press: Bob Shrum (D), James Carville (D), Mary Matalin (R), Mike Murphy (R). Topic: Decision08
- Face the Nation: Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO); Rep. Peter King (R-NY); roundtable of NYT's David Sanger, Politico's John Harris and CBS' Lara Logan; late addition: NYPD Chief Raymond Kelly
- This Week: Rep. John Murtha (D-PA); Iraqi Pres Jalal Talabani; roundtable of Sam Donaldson, Cokie Roberts, and George Will; late addition: FBI public affairs asst dir John Miller
- Fox News Sunday: Newt Gingrich (R-GA); US Amb to Iraq Ryan Crocker; activist/author Ayaan Hirsi Ali
- Late Edition: Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA); Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL); Elizabeth Edwards (D); Donna Brazile (D); J.C. Watts (R); WMUR pol. dir. Scott Spradling; WMUR's Jennifer Vaughn; NH Union Ldr's Tom Fahey; Tagg Romney (R-Mitt's son); roundtable of Candy Crowley, John Roberts and John King
More TV Alerts (all subject to change) (would appreciate a link back to this diary or my Penndit post, for those copying this to other sites.)
- CNN: We Were Warned: Out of Gas on 6/2 (11pm)
- Political Capital with Al Hunt (Bloomberg): World Bank pres Robert Zoellick on 6/1 (repeats, throughout weekend)
- Conversations with Judy Woodruff (Bloomberg, weekend): Al Gore on 6/2
- Chris Matthews Show 6/2-6/3: Joe Klein, Cynthia Tucker, Patrick Healy, Kelly O'Donnell discuss "Did the Clintons have a twenty year plan for two Presidencies - his and hers? Will Gore run? Which Republican does Fred Thompson hurt most?" Quotes here.
- Newsmakers (C-SPAN, 10am): FBI asst. dir. for public affaris John Miller on 6/3
- 60 Minutes: re-broadcast of Jack Kevorkian interview on 6/3; re-broadcast of Iranian pres Mahmoud Ahmadinejad interview on 6/3
- Road to the WH (CSPAN): John McCain in IA on 6/3; IA Dems' "Hall of Fame" dinner feat. everyone except Obama on 6/3;
- NH Dem Debate (7pm ET) on 6/3 on CNN
- CNN has Sojourners conference on faith, values and politics with Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama on 6/4
- Charlie Rose 6/4: Carl Bernstein
- The Daily Show: Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) on 6/4; Paul Rudd on 6/5; Michael Barone on 6/6; Iddie Izzard on 6/7;
- The Colbert Report: Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) on 6/4; Leon Botstein on 6/4; Jessica Valenti on 6/5; Carl Bernstein on 6/6; Cullen Murphy on 6/7; Michael D. Gershon on 6/11; Josh Wolf on 6/12; Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) on 6/13; Daniel B. Smith on 6/14; Toby Keith on 6/18; Anne-Marie Slaughter on 6/19; Will Schwalbe on 6/20; Vincent Bugliosi on 6/21;
- Today Show: Matt Lauer from Cuba on 6/5;
- NH GOP Debate (7pm ET) on 6/5 on CNN
- Regis & Kelly: Jerry Springer on 6/5
- Tavis Smiley: presidential historian Michael Beschloss on 6/8
- Ellen DeGeneres Show: Al Gore rerun on 6/13
Steve Gilliard, RIP
Link. I had prepped the Sunday Talk diary before reading of Gilliard's passing, so the tone of the diary doesn't reflect what happened. Tributes and mourning are taking place here, and since I rarely read his blog, I'll let others do the tributes.
Sunday Talk Ratings for Last Week's Shows
Hotline 6/1: "For the week of 5/27, NBC's "Meet the Press" won with a 2.2 rating/7 share and 2.898M viewers. CBS' "Face the Nation" had a 2.0/6 and 2.866M viewers. ABC's "This Week" had a 1.7/5 and 2.315M viewers. "Fox News Sunday" had a 0.8/2 and 1.110M viewers." Last week's guests here.
Did anyone watch Richardson on MTP last Sunday? Was he really as bad as the CW says he was? I thought he came across as someone who really should be running against Pete Domenici (R) in the 08 US Senate race in NM..
Things That Annoy Me
You know how we get annoyed with Democratic Party v. Democrat Party? OK, well, the Camden County Democratic Party (in NJ) is listed as the Democrat Party on primary ballots. The county clerk is a Democrat, BTW, and this appears to be part of the official name... a situation worth rectifying, no?
Dan Froomkin: Underappreciated
Froomkin on the Fitzgerald memo on sentencing Libby Dots connecting to Dick "Last Throes" Cheney.
Whoa
Ace of Spades (conservative blogger) on Bush (right-wingers not happy with Bush on immigration...really unhappy)
Message To The Left: I'm not saying you should impeach him, I'm just sayin', you know, go with your hearts.
(HT Blogometer)
How's Our Bench in AK?
And don't say Tony Knowles. We've got to move beyond him. Anyways, does it sound as though Ted Stevens is going to be in the Senate for much longer? (My rule? When you get your own tag at TPM Muckraker, you're not just smelling smoke... your pants are on fire...) Stevens is up for re-election in 2008, and it sure would be nice to see the Dems replicate what they did to Conrad Burns, up in AK.
Anyways, enjoy Ted Stevens' greatest hit:
Rove... using the courts to prosecute a Dem?
The Alabama connection... that certainly seems more than smoke...
Oops
Mistaken identity
Right-wing flamethrower Ann Coulter was soaking up the adulation of an admirer in Palm Beach, Fla., who gushed about loving her writing. Only problem, say Rush & Molloy, was when the "fan" wondered aloud, "You ARE Candace Bushnell, aren't you?"
Pitter Patter
That's the sound of an election coming...
Fresh off winning election to the Senate in the fall of 2002, Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) entered the chamber as a staunch conservative, voting with a majority of his GOP colleagues nearly 94 percent of the time in the 108th Congress.
In 2005 and 2006, Coleman sided with a majority of Republicans on less than 85 percent of the votes he cast in the 109th Congress. Now, facing re-election in 2008 in a state that's grown increasingly hostile to Republicans, Coleman is voting with his GOP colleagues just 79 percent of the time so far this year.
Coleman's not alone. Across the board, Republicans have shed their partisan natures while Democrats have grown more sure ideologically in the first five months of the 110th Congress. The average GOP senator voted with a majority of Republicans on nearly 92 percent of roll calls in the 108th -- while Democrats stood at less than 85 percent. And so far this year the average Senate Republican has voted with his or her majority just 83 percent of the time. (Democrats are now voting together 90 percent of the time.)
[...]
No one has seen their partisan leanings fall more in the past five years than Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.), who first won election in 1996 and has so far dodged any tough challengers for the fall of 2008. Smith was with a majority of Republicans on more than 94 percent of his votes in the 108th Congress, but is now down to just 73 percent of his votes siding with most Republicans.
Fred Thompson: Lazy
Dick Polman on Thompson
It's truly a sign of GOP desperation that he is being touted so ardently, given the fact that (a) his eight-year Senate career was, by all accounts, undistinguished, in part because he reputedly had an aversion to working hard, (b) he was assailed by conservatives during the '90s for failing, in their eyes, to energetically probe Bill Clinton's campaign donations (c) he has never championed any of the social conservative causes that animate GOP primary voters, and (d) he has zero executive experience.
Who gets this awful feeling that a second Katrina-like debacle will befall the nation if Mr. Lazy is pres? Or that his administration will be as scandal ridden as Bush's?
McCain: Fake
Fired McCain Campaign Aides Sound Off
Two former aides hired to spearhead religious outreach for presidential candidate John McCain say that they were virtually ignored by the campaign and that McCain's top campaign strategists are intent on winning votes of religious voters without having to develop serious ties to faith communities. [...]
"It's an attitude about the Christian community that they don't like to have to do [outreach] but that they need to do it," Haynes said, referring to the McCain campaign's religious outreach plan. "Like, if we can get what we want without having to get too close [to religious people] and not make a big display, we'll do it."
Giuliani: Forgetful
Rudy Attacks Hillary For Wanting To "Go Back To The Nineties" Giuliani also would like to forget all the BS he's pulled. More here.
Lieberman: Delusional
Bush: Embarrassing
Bush:
"I want to make sure the Albania people understand that America knows that you exist"
Calendar Alert
Scooter Libby sentencing this Tuesday, and after that, the investigation is no longer on-going... and the WH should feel free to answer all questions about the administration's involvement in the outing of a CIA agent.
Headlines
- These Ads Kept Mitt Romney Out Of The Senate
- Schumer Seeks to Limit Medical Use of Highly Enriched Uranium
- The Good Bill Nelson calls for Darfur no-fly zone, peacekeepers in Sudan and nearby Chad... The Bad Bill Nelson is for torture a.k.a. the ineffective way of getting intel
Fred Thompson is on crack Oops, should read, "Thompson: Dem Takeover Of Congress Wasn't About Iraq"
- Right-wing radio talk show host Laura Ingraham is sensitive. Also sensitive? BushCo. Luckily, there are people like Gary Kurpius who have some sense on the issue.
- Scalia's daughter gets probation for DUI She drove drunk with kids in the car.
- George Allen (R-VA) forms PAC called "Good Government Action Fund" BTW, Hotline Last Call noted that the acronym for the PAC is "GGAF." A gaffe is the nicest thing you could call macaca-gate.
- This SERE training... wasn't this 'demonstrated' in G.I. Jane? Anyone know how real or not-so-real the movie's depiction was?
- Lou Dobbs is a liar, but he's got the top-rated show on CNN in the 25-54 demo. Too many people watching Dobbs whine.
- Donald Trump makes sense for a few minutes. P.S. Your daughter has so totally had a cigarette, despite what you say publicly.
- Dan Bartlett is leaving the Bush administration. What are the odds that in two weeks we will find out that he shoplifted from Target a la Claude Allen? Anyways, whatever the reasons for Bartlett's departure, when media types wax poetic about him, what they really mean is that Bartlett leaked info to them.
This Week in 08 Campaign Reporting
The campaign trail is long. Reporters get bored, so sometimes things are added in to make an article pop. A look at the weirder stuff and the funnier lines.
Giuliani
Mr. Giuliani has made upgrades. The comb-over, his decades-long insistence on combing his hair across a substantial expanse of cranium, is history. His remaining hair is slicked back and comes to rest in a tight nest of graying curls.
Creepy. Digby has more on this NYT love letter article.
Jessica Alba Thinks Harold Ford Is Hot
Ready for some positive news about the Ford family? Well, here's some that's good for Harold Jr., at least.
Those intrepid journalists at InStyle magazine report that the hottest woman in Hollywood -- depending on whom one asks, and the reliability of that person’s eyesight -- Jessica Alba has some affection for the former congressman turned Fox News analyst, DLC chairman, etc.
"He is so cute; he's adorable and he's single," the Dark Angel told the mag.
Well, Jessica, when you dump Cash Warren, give Harold Ford, Jr. a ring.
Obama's daughters
As their rented RV rumbled across wooded northern New Hampshire this weekend, Sen. Barack Obama's two daughters searched for something distinctly different from the voters their father sought.
"The only disappointment they've had so far is no moose," Obama said Monday. "They expected that they were going to run into one any moment." [...]
Still, there were colorful moments involving the girls when the family made impromptu stops at restaurants and stores.
"When are we going to do fun things?" Sasha asked at one political stop.
"This is fun things," the senator replied.
When the family later visited at The Brick Store in Bath, N.H., which bills itself as the nation's oldest general store, Sasha waved a dollar bill she had been given, triggering instructions from her father to put it away. "You don't want to flash your money around," he said.
Sasha Obama for President '48!
(BTW, I had 2 more snippets for this section, but they were lost when I accidentally deleted the desktop post it note that it was on. I also lost several other items, but I checked the front page after a couple of days away from DKos... and found most of what I lost covered there.)
W00t!
Obama's doodle sold for $2075 on eBay. The money went to an advocacy group for sufferers of neurofibromatosis. I wrote about this last Sunday, and I was right about who was in the drawing. Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, Dianne Feinstein and Ted Kennedy. (Pats self on back, lol.)
Speaking of drawing, here's a WSJ sketch of Obama. I don't think it looks enough like him. I don't know... something's off about it. link
Perhaps WSJ should ask Obama to doodle himself and submit that for WSJ's use?
Democrats & Basketball
Barack Obama enjoys a game of pick-up basketball, and his "signature move is to fake right and veer left." Ex-VA Gov. Mark Warner calls himself "an aging hoopster". John Edwards hearts his UNC Tar Heels, and legendary UNC basketball coach Dean Smith is a JRE supporter. Of course, everyone, knows that ex-Sen. Bill Bradley (D-NJ) had game. Know of any other major Dems who play basketball?
The Funnies
Bush's Verbal Bloopers:
Will Ferrell as George Bush on Global Warming:
The Politico asks the 'tough' questions: What does summer mean to you?
Republican Senate staffer: "It means the heat causes John McCain to become more irritable."
Maybe he'll tell someone to f--- off in the GOP NH debate on Tuesday. That'd be a YouTube blockbuster.
Need YOUR Suggestions
Mulitple Choice Mitt is one 08er with an appropriately derisive nickname. But we need nicknames for McCain and Giuliani. (We'll get to the GOP second tier should they start moving up in the polls.) Suggest some possibilities, and they'll be put in a poll for next Sunday's Sunday Talk fest.
The Flak/Flack Jacket Poll
Images via Think Progress.
Lieberman:
McCain: