Wherefore Art Thou Anderson? (First Hour)
Well darn. Only my second day reviewing and Anderson has already gone MIA. I gave him an A- last night, I don't know what more he wants from me. Anyway, my title is a bit misleading. There's no need to play 'where in the world is Anderson Cooper?' because he's apparently in Afganistan. Not quite as deadly as Iraq, but still comes with heart attack potential for the fans. I hope he's not (more) nervous about going there now that he's been Robert Novaked by Radar. So tonight our consolation prize is John Roberts. Could be better, could be worse I suppose.
We lead with Bush's latest speech and the revelation that, hey, we've been keeping people in secret prisons. This is interesting seeing as how the administration was absolutely furious when the Washington Post broke the story. But now it's all good to talk about apparently. Ed Henry gets us caught up with a piece that touches on the political aspects of the prisons and the Hamdan decision. Also mentioned is that the black ops sites are now closed and the detainees are at Gitmo. They show a clip of Bush insisting we don't torture and I have to laugh. No, we never tortured anybody.
Next up we have an interview with Joe Klein and David Gergen. I really like David Gergen and from now on will be referring to him as 'The Gerg'. Just cuz. The Gerg is one of those rare species of Republicans that is not insane. We may disagree on some stuff, but when he talks I don't feel like I've been sucked into another dimension. I cannot say that about most Republicans nowadays. Anway, another reason I love The Gerg is that he has great chemistry with Anderson. That might sound weird, but it's true. Unfortunately, Anderson is not here and there is no chemistry with John Roberts. Oh well. The subsequently discussion revolves around the fact that the administration wants to set the democrats up to oppose legislation, which wil then make them look weak on terror. Jerks. If they spent as much time actually fighting the damn war as they do manipulating the public dialog we maybe wouldn't be losing.
Candy Crowley continues with the political with a piece on how basically Bush is a rip current that is pulling congressional republicans under. I like the sound of that. Following the piece we transition into a round table with Candy, Ed, and Bill Schneider. The consensus is that these Bush speeches are to rally the base, but connecting the Iraq war with the War on Terror might actually be hurting the popularity of the latter. An interesting tidbit is that while people don't like Gitmo, 68% still want to keep it open. I guess the question is where do those people go if Gitmo is closed? Into our regular prisons? That might not be so bad. I'm with the British in that I think terror should be fought with good intellingence, but more like law enforcement.
We go to Kabul now where Peter Bergen (author of "The Osama Bin Ladin I Know") discusses the 14 Al Qaeda people that were transferred from the black ops sites. Peter believes most of them are important, but one guy's connections might be exaggerated. He also indicates that saying these guys gave us good info would be a "reasonable statement". However, I'd like to know how he can be sure. We've gotten a lot of bad intelligence from guys that just told us what they thought we wanted to hear, so color me cynical. The recent Pakistan deal (which I linked to last night) is mentioned and Peter said this is just the beginning. That is not good people, not good.
Back in the studio now and we've got Jeffrey Toobin for legal analysis of the proposed tribunals. It's great to see Toobin discussing something other than John Karr. Seriously, what a way to waste a guy. Anyway, according to Toobin the tribunals will look like a military court martial and under the president's proposal, secret evidence can be used that the defendent doesn't have access to. Sounds fair...if we were in China. Hmmm. The bottom line here is that this is all going to take a long time to decide and will most likely be left to the next president to clean up. One of many things left to clean up I'm sure.
Now we're on to Warren Jeffs. You didn't think we'd go more than a day or two without polygamy did you? Like usual, Gary Tuchman is on the case. We get a piece from him about Jeffs in court and then live Gary discussing the case. And blah blah blah. Yadda yadda yadda. I am so over this story. Apparently CNN is not. Dan Simons gives us a piece on the Lost Boys angle. You remember them. Jeffs kicked all these poor guys out of the community.
We end the hour with The Shot. Tonight's shot is of a reporter getting the crap beat out of him . No really. Perhaps I misunderstood the premise of The Shot because I always thought it should be something quick and light hearted. And without blood. But that's just me. That's it for hour one. Tonight gets a B-
We lead with Bush's latest speech and the revelation that, hey, we've been keeping people in secret prisons. This is interesting seeing as how the administration was absolutely furious when the Washington Post broke the story. But now it's all good to talk about apparently. Ed Henry gets us caught up with a piece that touches on the political aspects of the prisons and the Hamdan decision. Also mentioned is that the black ops sites are now closed and the detainees are at Gitmo. They show a clip of Bush insisting we don't torture and I have to laugh. No, we never tortured anybody.
Next up we have an interview with Joe Klein and David Gergen. I really like David Gergen and from now on will be referring to him as 'The Gerg'. Just cuz. The Gerg is one of those rare species of Republicans that is not insane. We may disagree on some stuff, but when he talks I don't feel like I've been sucked into another dimension. I cannot say that about most Republicans nowadays. Anway, another reason I love The Gerg is that he has great chemistry with Anderson. That might sound weird, but it's true. Unfortunately, Anderson is not here and there is no chemistry with John Roberts. Oh well. The subsequently discussion revolves around the fact that the administration wants to set the democrats up to oppose legislation, which wil then make them look weak on terror. Jerks. If they spent as much time actually fighting the damn war as they do manipulating the public dialog we maybe wouldn't be losing.
Candy Crowley continues with the political with a piece on how basically Bush is a rip current that is pulling congressional republicans under. I like the sound of that. Following the piece we transition into a round table with Candy, Ed, and Bill Schneider. The consensus is that these Bush speeches are to rally the base, but connecting the Iraq war with the War on Terror might actually be hurting the popularity of the latter. An interesting tidbit is that while people don't like Gitmo, 68% still want to keep it open. I guess the question is where do those people go if Gitmo is closed? Into our regular prisons? That might not be so bad. I'm with the British in that I think terror should be fought with good intellingence, but more like law enforcement.
We go to Kabul now where Peter Bergen (author of "The Osama Bin Ladin I Know") discusses the 14 Al Qaeda people that were transferred from the black ops sites. Peter believes most of them are important, but one guy's connections might be exaggerated. He also indicates that saying these guys gave us good info would be a "reasonable statement". However, I'd like to know how he can be sure. We've gotten a lot of bad intelligence from guys that just told us what they thought we wanted to hear, so color me cynical. The recent Pakistan deal (which I linked to last night) is mentioned and Peter said this is just the beginning. That is not good people, not good.
Back in the studio now and we've got Jeffrey Toobin for legal analysis of the proposed tribunals. It's great to see Toobin discussing something other than John Karr. Seriously, what a way to waste a guy. Anyway, according to Toobin the tribunals will look like a military court martial and under the president's proposal, secret evidence can be used that the defendent doesn't have access to. Sounds fair...if we were in China. Hmmm. The bottom line here is that this is all going to take a long time to decide and will most likely be left to the next president to clean up. One of many things left to clean up I'm sure.
Now we're on to Warren Jeffs. You didn't think we'd go more than a day or two without polygamy did you? Like usual, Gary Tuchman is on the case. We get a piece from him about Jeffs in court and then live Gary discussing the case. And blah blah blah. Yadda yadda yadda. I am so over this story. Apparently CNN is not. Dan Simons gives us a piece on the Lost Boys angle. You remember them. Jeffs kicked all these poor guys out of the community.
We end the hour with The Shot. Tonight's shot is of a reporter getting the crap beat out of him . No really. Perhaps I misunderstood the premise of The Shot because I always thought it should be something quick and light hearted. And without blood. But that's just me. That's it for hour one. Tonight gets a B-
posted by eliza at 12:17 AM
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