Katherine Harris & George Allen are back! Oh, and lots more below the fold.
The Lineup
- MTP: Karl Rove on his plans and the future of the GOP; roundtable of LATimes' Ron Brownstein, Portfolio's Matt Cooper, WSJ/CNBC's John Harwood, and National Review's Kate O'Beirne on 2008
- FTN: Karl Rove; Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)
- This Week: Dem debate in IA
- FNS: Karl Rove
- Late Edition: Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) and Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) on Iraq; Kurdish Iraqi Parliament Member Mahmoud Othman; Howard Wolfson (Clinton campaign); Chris Kofinis (Edwards campaign); Club for Growth's Stephen Moore; roundtable of Suzanne Malveaux, Jessica Yellin & Mark Preston
Note: Not my fault if you fall asleep while watching Bob Casey speak. The man is a cure for insomnia.
Note 2: The Dem debate in IA that airs on This Week will be re-broadcast on C-SPAN at 6:30 and 9:30pm (EDT) on 8/19.
Note 3: Show websites and AP roundup of guests don't match, so expect slightly different lineups tomorrow morning.
More TV Alerts (all subject to change)
- NOW: Are some insurance companies putting profits before people? on 8/17
- Bill Moyers Journal 8/17: Historian Martin E. Marty; Bill Moyers on Karl Rove; Melissa Harris-Lacwell & Mike Tidwell on Katrina
- Political Capital w/ Al Hunt (Bloomberg, repeats throughout weekends): Mike Huckabee (R-AR)
- Chris Matthews Show 8/18-8/19: Dan Rather, Michele Norris, Ryan Lizza, Kathleen Parker discuss "Does Barack Obama have the stuff to beat Hillary? Did Karl Rove fail?"Quotes here.
- Newsmakers (C-SPAN, 10am, Sunday): Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN) on transportation issues
- 60 Minutes 8/19: US Coast Guard; global warming & Antarctica; Simon Cowell
- Charlie Rose: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) 8/20
- The Daily Show: Rob Riggle dispatches from Iraq (really taped in Iraq); Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) 8/22;
- The Colbert Report: Nathan Sawaya 8/20; Michael Shermer 8/21; Richard Branson 8/22; Joe Klein 8/23; reruns for 2 weeks
- Leno: Chris Matthews (rerun) 8/22
- Tavis Smiley (PBS): CBN's David Brody 8/23
- Letterman: Kristen Gore 8/24
Sunday Talk Ratings for Last Week's Shows
MTP won the ratings race again. Last week's guests here. I know Kos was just representin' the site with the colors of his suit & tie, but brown suits just do not look good on men. Even if it fits properly, it looks very 1970s. So thumbs down on the suit, but thumbs up on kicking Ford's ass.
The Snowman Speaks To Mitt Romney
They're still around...
They're 'gone' in the sense that they don't hold elected office, but they're still 'involved'
Katherine Harris. A lot of people don't like her, and even some Republicans find her embarrassing. None of her uh, shenanigans, have prevented her from being "in demand in religious circles."
Speaking of former Republican members of Congress we all like to make fun of... George Allen has re-started his website. Let the image rehabilitation begin!
Don't Let the Door Hit You On Your Way Out...
Bye, Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-OH-16). Bye, Denny. Two retirements for the NRCC to deal with. My heart is breaking [/snark]
More
Beau Biden (D-DE) is headed to Iraq in 2008
Time's circulation lead over Newsweek narrows Time's circulation is 3.4M a week; Newsweek's is 3.1M. Too bad for Time that it can't put out an Obama cover every other week. The blame for Time's circ drop probably doesn't rest on (relatively new TIME columnist) Bill Kristol's shoulders, but for the sake of the snarkfest that is Sunday Talk, let's put it there ;-)
Study: Half of Web time spent viewing content (Hey, all!)
Don Imus settles with CBS
Coming up in early September... first anniversaries for Katie Couric at CBS and Meredith Vieira at NBC
Murdoch's News Corp.'s efforts against global warming. Is it a PR effort? (More corporations are doing these 'good citizen' things in general.) Or does Rupert Murdoch actually care? I don't know, but it does appear that he was pushed about global warming issues by his son, James Murdoch, who drives a Prius to work.
CIA, FBI computers used to make Wikipedia edits
Top 30 Newspaper Websites Nytimes.com is on top.
GQ's 50 most powerful people in DC list. Ben Bernanke should be higher, as should Michael Chertoff. I think Chertoff is bad at his job, but good at trying to scare people. The media jumps if he tells them to. (see his "gut" comment from earlier this summer.) Really happy to see Tom Toles (WaPo's editorial cartoonist) recognized at #48.
Michele Norris (NPR) prediction for Chris Matthews Show airing 8/18-8/19:
"In the fall, I think we'll expect to hear both in the Pentagon and on the Hill a robust discussion about the prohibition against women participating in direct combat, because if you actually talk to women who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, the ban is almost laughable. The women are on the front lines, they're in constant danger -- they're in it."
Meet the exec. producer of MTP, Betsy Fischer.
Jay Rosen on Karl Rove and the Press
Whereas I believe that the real—and undeclared—ideology of American journalism is savviness, and this is what made the press so vulnerable to the likes of Karl Rove.
Savviness! Deep down, that’s what reporters want to believe in and actually do believe in— their own savviness and the savviness of certain others (including operators like Karl Rove.) In politics, they believe, it’s better to be savvy than it is to be honest or correct on the facts. It’s better to be savvy than it is to be just, good, fair, decent, strictly lawful, civilized, sincere or humane.
Savviness is what journalists admire in others. Savvy is what they themselves dearly wish to be. (And to be unsavvy is far worse than being wrong.) Savviness—that quality of being shrewd, practical, well-informed, perceptive, ironic, "with it," and unsentimental in all things political—is, in a sense, their professional religion. They make a cult of it. And it was this cult that Karl Rove understood and exploited for political gain.
What is the truest mark of savviness? Winning, of course! Everyone knows that the press admires an unprincipled winner.
And yet many of these journalists aren't as savvy as they think they are. I think the undertone in a lot of blogger critique of the MSM is, jeebus, guys, come back down to earth and start caring about the facts and being honest.
Which brings me to this... it shouldn't be such a big f-ing deal when a member of the Washington press corps asks a straightforward question.
Also, Jon Stewart shows why he's popular. A lot of MSM types say they watch The Daily Show and find it funny, so you'd think that more would be like "Gee. Good point, Jon. Will bring that up next chance I get."
Remainders...
Mr. & Mrs. Smith Gag Reel
Bruce Almighty Gag Reel
Congrats to Jenna Bush on her engagement.
Congrats to Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY). He's engaged.
Barack Obama plays basketball (from his high school days) HT Matthew Yglesias.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D-NY) loves his NASCAR. His brother-in-law is an engineer for Hendrick Motorsports, and Spitzer loves the crashes, speed and noise of the whole thing. Spitzer joking around at Watkins Glen last weekend:
"My wife’s from Concord, N.C., a town that most of you probably know," the governor told the drivers before the race. "Her brother’s worked for Hendrick Motorsports for going on 25 years now, and I don’t want you to think that we’re going to rig anything in favor of Hendrick because of that, but we did tow a couple cars a few minutes ago."
"The No. 20 car," he added, "can be recovered at the State Police pound down the road."
That would be Tony Stewart’s car. The drivers laughed, and not long afterward, when they were introduced one by one, Mr. Stewart leaned over and asked Mr. Spitzer what officer he needed to ask to pick up his car. [...]
"My prediction, by the end of the race, it’s Tony Stewart and Jeff," the governor said, more than an hour before the end.
With just a few minutes to go, Mr. Spitzer’s prediction proved right. Mr. Stewart was gaining but Mr. Gordon, Mr. Spitzer’s favorite, seemed poised for victory.
And then he suddenly spun out, inexplicably.
"It’s all over," Mr. Spitzer said, adding with a smile, "We should have impounded Tony’s car."
Help Wanted
I plan on doing Sunday Talk for awhile to come, but in case I can't do it one week, I'll need a guest host. Anyone want to be the person I contact in case I can't do it? Post in the comments!