Kim's Nukes and Foley's Emails (Tuesday's First Hour)

Hello everyone. Anderson's back, though I have to say I wasn't all that thrilled with tonight. How are y'all liking the new set? Yowza, it's big! It's something I'm going to have to get used to. Announcerman is bugging me again. "Is Kim Jung ll completely losing it?" Um, did he ever have it? They're never going to stop with the over-the-top intro are they? Anyway, we begin by learning that speculation that North Korea had tested another nuke actually turned out to just be an earthquake. How messed up do things have to be when people are happy about an earthquake? Dan Rivers then gives us a piece in which the first test is discussed. There's still a lot of confusion as to what really happened and why they did it, though it seems they feel threatened by the US. Following this we get a clip of the Wolfbot interviewing Secretary Rice and she reinterates that there is no intention to invade or attack North Korea. Yeah, we've heard that song before. I believe the last country she sang it to was Iraq.

On now to a Suzanne Malveaux piece and the partisan fight over how the situation got so bad. Hmm, who will the republicans blame. Who could it be...oh yes, Clinton. Of course. For those keeping score at home, Clinton apparently caused 9-11 and now he's screwed up North Korea. And he has an evil penis. Just saying. George Bush is the actual president right now and his policy is a total failure, but yes, let's talk about Clinton. Because that's helpful. McCain is the leader in the Clinton bashing, adding another reason to the list why McCain is a pandering jerk and not the maverick the media makes him out to be. Back in Bushland, W sternly states that a nuclear North Korea is unacceptable. However, they actually have nukes and we're not doing anything so...way to show them. The truth is that policy problems go back to the 70's and everyone is to blame. The difference between Bush and Clinton is that Bush is still in a position to change course and do something about it, but we all know how he hates the course changing.

Next up we have an interview with New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, who worked on the North Korea issue under Clinton. He's ticked about the finger pointing and advocates a combination of direct talks, UN sanctions, and six party talks. Anderson wants to know if direct talks reward bad behavior, but Richardson doesn't believe they are a concession. Plus, we're not in the best position right now, so you do what you can. After the interview Anderson informs us the blast was actually intended to be bigger and this leads us into a Jamie McIntyre piece. Apparently North Korea told China they were testing a 4 kiloton bomb, but the actual blast was only 1/2 kiloton. Of course North Korea is playing it off like a success, but it seems something probably went wrong. A second test may be coming soon.

On now to a Tom Foreman piece about the world's nukes. He gets out the map (Tom loves his maps) and we see that there are enough nukes out there to destroy the world several times over. Lovely. The US alone has 10,000. I think that will probably take care of it. Sheesh. Anyway, Tom lays out who has nukes and who the nuke having wannabies are. Then he proceeds to freak us all out by saying that North Korea might try to sell nuke technology to the highest bidder. Terrorists. Nukes. OMG, we're all going to die!! Or, you know, for once the country could not freak out. Aw, who am I kidding?

Transitioning now to Arwa Damon live in Iraq where it's been a hell of a night. A fire at a military base got to ammunitions holdings, causing huge explosions for three hours. There is no cause known yet for the fire, but Iraqis living by the base are of course completely freaked out. Even normally stoic Arwa looks freaked. The rest of the news from Iraq is...well not any better. In fact many Iraqis are now recieving threats that they must leave and if they don't they're killed. And people wonder why they're not happy about the freedom we brought them.

Next up we have a Dana Bash piece on the Foley scandal. Jordan Edmund, a former page has testified and Hastert has threatened to fire any staffers that new about Foley. And what about yourself, Denny? Then we have a piece from Mary Snow on Tom Reynolds, the congressman who knew last spring about the situation and all he did was tell his supervisor. Reynolds has made ads to apologize for his inaction, but he's in a tough race. I'm sick of the Foley scandal because even though info keeps coming out it seems like nothing actually happens. Where's the accountability? All I see is the republicans pointing fingers everywhere and the news media speculating on how this will effect the election.

On now to a tease of a taped interview with John Walsh and then a live interview with John Mercurio of National Journal's Hotline and for a second I get confused and think it's six in the morning. What's John doing on 360? He's an American Morning man. Trying out the night life I guess. Anyway, he and Anderson discuss, what else? How this will effect the election. Anderson thinks things fade quickly and he wonders if we'll all still be talking about this next month. John thinks voters are having a visceral reaction to the scandal and it will stay alive because new developments keep happening. I actually agree with both of them. We've got many more news cycles before the election and anything can happen (I'm watching you Rove!), but I think for some voters this was the straw that broke the camel's back.

The Shot tonight is a wife carrying championship. Don't ask me, I just report and review. Our last piece of this hour is a Keeping Them Honest from Randi Kaye involving a lottery scam from Canada. Randi Kaye interviews a woman who received a check in the mail and a notice that she won $100,000 in a Canadian lottery, but would need to wire $2500 to pay taxes. The women didn't remember entering a lottery, but it had been from three years ago, so she wasn't sure. Anyway, of course it's a scam and the money is gone. I've got several issues here. First off, why does Canada hate America? Second, this is a Keeping Them Honest? The segment was born out of holding officials accountable over a disaster that left bodies in the streets and now they're using it for lottery scams? Really stupid lottery scams. For the next installment they might as well do a piece on being wary of Nigerians who contact you by email, wanting to make you rich. I mean, geez! And lastly, the women in the piece seems very nice, but oh my God, who falls for this? A lot do apparently, but, um, duh. Also, she says she's ashamed to tell people what happened...yet she's on CNN. Mmmkay.

Tonight was just okay. I'm thankful we're not into missing white girl territory, but even though they're covering news, a lot of the "coverage" is just speculation. I'll get into a specific issue I have with their election coverage in the second hour review. C+

Screencaps by stillife.

What's your take on the North Korean test? Should we be freaked? Also, who else hated the lottery piece?