Continued Korea, Bloody Iraq, and Missouri's Senate Race (Tuesday's Second Hour)

We begin the hour on North Korea again and kick things off with a repeat of the Barbara Starr piece before moving to Dan Rivers live. Dan says that people in South Korea believe the North will conduct other nuke tests, but nobody really has any serious fears that they will invade. However, they are nervous that North Korea is now fast tracking their program and if Jung Il ever gets backed into a corner he will have his finger on the button. Yikes.

On now to a taped interview with Anderson's former Channel One colleague, Lisa Ling. Can I just say that Lisa Ling is awesome? She gave up a sweet job on The View so that she could cover real news. She may not be as high profile now (and I imagine she makes less too), but she has my respect. Anyway, Lisa actually went into North Korea, posing as an assistant to an eye surgeon. "Is it the freakiest place you've ever been?" Anderson so elegantly asks. Lisa explains that it's a beautiful country, but weird and extremely closed off. There is no advertising other than propaganda, no satellite dishes, and the few books and magazines they have are all about dear leader. Lisa believes that the people of North Korea really do believe what Jung Il tells them. Of note is that after the eye doctor she traveled with helped people they would rush to thank dear leader's portrait, not the doctor. This is interesting and scary all rolled into one. After the interview we have a rerun of the Tom Foreman piece about the Japanese girl that was kidnapped by North Korea.

Transitioning now to another Tom Foreman piece, this time about Iraq. Once again, whether or not they are in a civil war is up for debate. I can't believe we're still discussing this. It's a civil war. Period. Thousands of people are dying every month. They didn't call what happened in Rwanda genocide until after 800,000 were already slaughtered. It's a civil war. Of note in the piece is the fact that due to oil, Iraq has the potential to become a wealthy nation. The problem is there is lots of oil where the majority Kurds and Shia live, but not really any where the majority of Sunnis reside. Hence the fighting for power. This is why I don't think Joe Biden's proposal to split the country up is going to work.

Next up we have an interview with Anne-Marie Slaughter who joined us last hour and Somer Shehata of Georgetown University. Slaughter thinks we're already in a civil war. Thank you! She also thinks that the way to deal with this is through negotiation and Shehata agrees, saying we need to bring Iran in since they've got their fingers in everything over there anyway. Shehata also believes that by acknowledging how bad things are maybe that will then lead to change. Um, has he met Bush? Because that's totally not the way things work anymore.

Moving on to a John King piece on my own state's senate race. Republican incumbent Jim Talent is up against state auditor Claire McCaskill. Go Claire!!!! Seriously, Talent is a total rubber stamp for the Bush Administration. And he's kind of a jerk. And he keeps lying about Claire. What's sad is that he's the better of my two republican senators. Anyway, as luck would have it, my mother called me during this piece, so I really don't know what was said. Pesky parents, man. I kid. After John's piece we have all the Karr crap again. You know, just in case you couldn't get enough of it the first time through. I'm not kidding about those roaches, Anderson. To end the night, Anderson makes me love him again by calling Miles and Soleded the O'Brien twins and then dorkily adding, "they're not really twins." That's all folks.

Screencaps by sherynroyce.