Welcome to Press the Face, a Sunday-morning talk show liveblog where you can respond to the Sunday talks with your opinions, support, refutations, or ravings. The larger goal is to provide meaningful accounts of the the shows for those who are unable to watch them, but it's also an opportunity to share our thoughts in real time as armchair spectators of the sport of political discussion.
Well, the Repubs have done it again--they have managed to extract concessions from Democrats that would have been unimaginable in a context of mature adult interaction. Rather than work out their conflicts in a spirit of true compromise, where both sides give a little and get a little, Congresscritters followed a dynamic that is neither productive nor functional. Republicans threatened to take their sandbox and go home, and Democrats tried to hold out until they just couldn't bear it any longer, then gave the GOP much of what they wanted. The current batch of lawmakers would never have passed my persuasive writing class, where I taught Rogerian argument as the most effective way to arrive at a balanced compromise in any conflict. Too bad members of Congress don't have the emotional and philosophical discipline of the average college freshman, or this near-shutdown of the government would never have been so much as a gleam in John Boehner's eye.
A review of the liveblog ground rules may be found here.
Sunday Talk's latest post has a list of the scheduled guests.
Here are links to the shows:
The Chris Matthews Show
Face the Nation
Fareed Zakaria GPS
Fox News Sunday
The McLaughlin Group
Meet the Press
State of the Union with Candy Crowley
This Week with Christiane Amanpour
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Also, don't forget to record your nominee for the Money Quote under the blockquote comment of each show.
Let us go then, you and I. . .