Politics & baseball, ratings, lotsa photos (Gore! Kennedy! Colbert!) and more...
The Lineup
MTP: Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT); NYDN's Tom DeFrank ("Write It When I'm Gone: Remarkable Off-the-Record Conversations with Gerald R. Ford") and NYT's William Safire (Ex-Nixon speechwriter)
FTN: Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI); Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC); Politico's Roger Simon
This Week: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ); Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) & Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) on wildfires; roundtable of Paul Krugman, Chrystia Freeland and George Will; Molly Bingham on her film "Meeting Resistance" (about Iraqi insurgency)
FNS: Laura Bush; LA Gov. elect Bobby Jindal (R)
Late Edition: Turkish amb. Nabi Sensoy; IAEA Dir. General Mohamed ElBaradei; Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA); Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS); Mike Huckabee (R-AR)
More TV Alerts (all subject to change)
Tavis Smiley (PBS): Chris Mooney 10/26; ret. Gen. Wes Clark 10/29; Paul Krugman 10/30; Jeffrey Toobin 11/1
Leno: Tony Snow rerun on 10/26; Jenna Bush 10/29; Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) 10/30
Political Capital w/ Al Hunt (Bloomberg, repeats throughout weekends): Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) on taxes
Chris Matthews 10/27-10/28: David Gregory, Katty Kay, David Ignatius, Jennifer Loven discuss "Is the Bush administration headed for a military attack on Iran? Hillary Clinton asks women to vote for her to ratify her decision to stay married." Quotes here.
"Planet in Peril" CNN, rebroadcast, 10/27-28, 7pm.
60 Minutes (CBS, Sun): Nicolas Sarkozy profile; dying honeybees & the consequences; Afghan President Hamid Karzai demands US curtail use of air strikes in his country
Today Show: Newt Gingrich ("A Contract with the Earth") 10/29
GMA: Bill O'Reilly 10/29; ex-AG Janet Reno 10/30;
Regis & Kelly: Bill O'Reilly 10/29
Ellen DeGeneres: Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) 10/29
The Daily Show: WaPo's Michael Gerson 10/29; Valerie Plame Wilson 10/30; William F. Buckley Jr. 10/31; Jerry Seinfeld 11/1
The Colbert Report: Richard Berman 10/29; Craig Venter 10/30; Lawrence Wilkerson 10/31; Walter Kirn 11/1
Charlie Rose: Paul Nurse, Jeffrey Sachs, Ann Veneman, Tonya Villafana, and Peter Hotez on global health 10/29
Dem presidential debate in Philadelphia on MSNBC, msnbc.com, & Telemundo on 10/30. Brian Williams moderates.
Sunday Talk Ratings for Last Week's Shows
MTP wins again nationally and in the DC media market. Stephen Colbert's appearance didn't necessarily generate a larger TV viewing audience, but online streaming of the show was up compared to that of the previous week. Colbert's episode was streamed 257,000 times; the previous week's episode delivered 146,000 online streams.Last week's guests here.
A Baseball Memo to Politicians
It's the Red Sox or the Yankees or neither. Not both Yankees and Red Sox. OK, Rudy and Bill?
Donna Hanover is a radio host and Rudy Giuliani's second ex-wife. Hotline 10/26 had her reaction to Rudy rooting for the Red Sox:
"Let's go Rockies!"
Publicity Stunt Grading: Week 2
Last week, I gave Stephen Colbert's publicity stunt presidential run an A+ for effectiveness. Well, today I'm giving an F to Tom Tancredo for this "look at me, please" World Series bet proposal. It gets an F for lameness.
My Eyes Hurt
OK, the focus of this The Fix post was on Stephen Colbert's 'impact' on the presidential race, but I wanted to use this as a jumping off point for my continual annoyance at the lack of reportage of name ID numbers and numbers for "know enough to have an opinion about" questions in polling articles.
As for Colbert himself... Colbert on his 'presidential run' (HT No Fact Zone):
During a Q&A, someone asked him if would consider running in all the states, not just S.C. His reply: "No, because I don’t want to win. I just want to f**k with people."
More
This past week the House passed the Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act "which directs the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to develop and implement a comprehensive program to reduce the incidence of suicide among veterans." Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA) knew Joshua Omvig's parents for almost 20 years. He spoke on the House floor in support of the legislation:
San Diego reporter watches his home burn down in front of him (HT: Lost Remote)
Photos from the CA fires here. I hope all California DailyKos posters and readers are all okay.
Caption for this photo via Getty Images: "Thousands of students take part in a demonstration against the constitutional reform proposed by Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, in Caracas on October 23rd, 2007. The reform that will go to a referendum on December 2 includes potentially unlimited successive presidential reelection; lowering the voting age to 16; boosting the state role in the economy; and allowing private property while also defining a new concept of social property."
Caption for this photo via Getty Images: "German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomes former US vice president and 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Al Gore, at the Chancellory on October 23, 2007 in Berlin, Germany. In the evening Al Gore will present his documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth' at the second German conference on climate change."
Kevin Drum hits on the other reason for Rudy's popularity.
Drudge's influence is NOT waning
Ugh. ex-Sen. Rick Santorum Gets 'Philadelphia Inquirer' Column But will it get fact-checked?
Iowa High School Pulls Student Newspaper With Racism Survey
It's open season on Iraqi journalists in their homeland
6 Women who worked in McClatchy's Baghdad bureau get the International Women's Media Foundation Courage in Journalism Award. Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg speaks to some of the women honored at the awards ceremony on 10/23/07. Those pictured are Peta Thornycroft (L) of Zimbabwe, Lydia Cacho (2nd L) of Mexico and Ban Adil Sarhan (R) of Iraq.
In Inquiry, ABC News Clears Work of a Fired Consultant The case of Alexis Debat. Laura Rozen has more.
Speaking of unethical journalists, let's review what role the MSM had in pushing the neocon line on the war in Iraq. (Most of the Iraq war stuff starts on the second page.)
CA Lt. Gov. John Garamendi was on Hardball to talk about the fires in CA. He gets an A for framing. Money quotes (pushed in an NBCUniversal press release):
I've got some doubt about the value of President Bush coming out here. How many times did he go to New York or to New Orleans and still, made promises but hasn't delivered. [...] But listen, what we really need are those firefighters, we need the equipment, we need, frankly, we need those troops back from Iraq. We'll get on here, whether he comes or not, that's not really the issue. I just hope if he does come, he brings more than he brought to New Orleans.
XM and Sirius Satellite ratings
Ratings for The Daily Show and The Colbert Report continue to climb. For the week of 10/15-10/19, TDS got 1.9M viewers, while TCR got 1.5M viewers. These ratings are for the 11pm and 11:30pm airings. (In Q2 of 2007, TDS was getting 1.7M viewers, while TCR was getting 1.3M or so viewers for first run episodes.)
Remainders
Roundup of coverage of Colbert's MTP appearance here. Didn't think I'd ever see this:
Stephen Colbert is on book tour. He did a book reading in NYC 10/24/07:
Did Rep. Dennis Kucinich see UFOs?
In her latest book, "Sage-ing While Age-ing," Shirley MacLaine claims White House hopeful Dennis Kucinich had an "extremely moving" close encounter with a UFO while at her house. "The smell of roses drew him out to my balcony, where, when he looked up, he saw a gigantic triangular craft, silent, and observing him," she writes. "He said he felt a connection in his heart and heard directions in his mind." Perhaps those directions said, "Delete Shirley's number!" His rep had no comment.
They're really trying to prettify Judith Miller's role in Plamegate. The working title for the film is "Nothing but the Truth." And we all know Judith Miller was all about the truth... not.
Get your right-wing publisher Richard Mellon Scaife trashy divorce details here.
In late 2005, Ritchie Scaife peered through a window at one of her husband's many homes and saw him with one Tammy Sue Vasco, a woman whose colorful criminal history includes an arrest for prostitution. And this tryst was no one-afternoon stand. Ritchie Scaife describes Vasco in court filings as her husband's "mistress."
[...]
We learned, too, that the Tribune-Review has been a gurgling sinkhole from Day One; Scaife's lawyers say their client has pumped as much as $312 million into it over the years. And he's going to have to keep on pumping. The Tribune-Review's CEO has predicted an annual shortfall of $20 million for years to come.
A few more items in the comments...