New Al-Zawahiri Tape, Karbala Attack, 2008 Politics, Smearing Obama, Sylvia Browne, And A Pension Update (Monday's First Hour)
Hello everyone. I hope you had a nice weekend. We're kicking off the broadcast with a new camera angle tonight. Interesting. It appears Ayman Al-Zawahiri is out with a new video and we go immediately to a taped interview with Peter Bergen to discuss the subject. Peter says Zawahiri is trying to stay relevant, which makes me wonder why they're helping him. Do these tapes really need to be news anymore? I mean, he's probably got enough for a greatest hits compilation by now and none of them say anything particularly interesting. Anderson points out that the Bush Administration has kind of helped their cause in that they are letting them speak for all Muslims. You know, the whole us vs. them thing. So basically, even though there is only a very small percentage of Muslims who believe in this extremism stuff, both the terrorists and the Bush Adminstration have been using broad rhetoric.
Next up Anderson gives us the low down on the horrible weekend Iraq had. A total of 27 US troops were lost with 25 on Saturday alone, making it the third worst day since the war began. That's probably not the news Bush wanted before his big speech. This brings us to a Tom Foreman piece on a truly brazen attack that occurred in Karbala. Iraqi officials and US soldiers were having a meeting about an upcoming religious holiday when gunman in at least seven SUVs attacked with gunfire and grenades. When it was over five US soldiers were dead. What's so unsettling about this attack is that the gunman had passed themselves off as Americans and were able to get through three Iraqi checkpoints. Now the question is whether the Iraqis let them through on purpose or not. This is even more important now as the US is poised to give more military control to the Iraqis.
For discussion we've got John Burns live in the studio, sporting a toned down version of his wacky hair. I guess when you're in Iraq you really don't think much about hair products. Although I have to say that Arwa Damon is always surprisingly put together-earrings and everything. Anyway, John tells us that this attack is like nothing we've seen before. That is not comforting. I'm dreading the day when we find out that it wasn't five soldiers, but five hundred. Anderson brings up Maliki and notes that he arrested one of Muqtadar al-Sadr's men. John seems to think that Maliki is acting on some stuff he promised. However, because the Madhi army is fractured, it's possible Maliki is just taking care of things that Sadr would have had to do himself anyway. Apparently everybody's got an agenda in Iraq. I guess the question is whether or not Maliki is being played or is actually in on the plan. In any regards, I don't envy him. Because I don't think it's just his job on the line if you know what I mean.
Transitioning now to some BREAKING NEWS. California is on fire. Again. Man, they are not having a good year. We then move into a Joe Johns piece on Bill Clinton and how he's going to influence Hillary's race for the White House. It's noted that some people's feelings about Hillary may actually be because of how they feel about her husband. I guess I can believe that. I'm meh about both of them. My dad really hated Clinton. Like really hated him. Although I'd like to think that given the chance I would have turned him into a democrat. The piece of course mentions the affairs and impeachment, but really those don't look half bad compared to what the guy currently sitting in the office has done.
Next up we've got some discussion with John King, Candy Crowley, and William Schneider; otherwise known as "the best political team in the business." You know, I was watching MSNBC earlier and they say the same damn thing. Obviously one of them is lying. I love how they can just label themselves whatever they want with no accountability whatsoever. Perhaps I should start referring to myself as CNN's "best primetime viewer." Am I their best primetime viewer? Well of course I am. You just read it in this blog, didn't you? So it must be true. Anyhoo, on the subject of Hillary, Candy says she's walking a tough line between accessible vs. tough, Bill notes there's still an amount of sexual stereotyping out there, and John indicates that her fans thinks she's misunderstood. Oh this is going to be a long, long election season.
Anderson then fills us in on a little Obama smearing that's been going on lately. Apparently Insight Magazine, which is owned by the Washington Times, printed a story that Obama attended a madrassa (radical Muslim school) while living in Indonesia. Basically they made him out to be a terrorist. Anderson notes that other news organizations ran with the story without checking the facts. Just say it Anderson. It was Fox News. Just say it. And it's not like this was just a case of lousy journalism here. This was a calculated smear. Follow the money man. All the right winger press is connected. The best part is that CNN actually sent John Vause to Indonesia to check the story out. Okay, he was probably in the area anyway, but color me impressed. John finds that the school Obama went to was just a regular old public school and there's nothing extremist about it. Shocking. After the piece Anderson says, "that's the difference between talking about news and reporting it." Well, listen to you. Okay buddy, let's not get too big for your britches. After all, you are about to do a report on a psychic. Just saying.
Next up we've got an update on the Missouri miracle story. Apparently some reporter from the New York Post was able to get in to see Michael Devlin. Now a gag order has been issued because that never should have happened. Man, that paper is slimey. Okay, see that was perfect reporting for the story. Something new happened, they gave us an update, and that was that. This is how it needs to be all the time. Although actually it's not perfect because then they rerun all the Sylvia Browne and psychic debunker stuff from last week. Anderson clearly hates Sylvia Browne. I wonder if she knew the Anderwrath was coming. Seeing as though she's a total fraud, probably not.
Transitioning now to a Drew Griffin piece that updates the pensions for Congress crooks story that he's been working on for three weeks. You know, for a show that often suffers from ADHD, keeping with a story for three weeks is quite an accomplishment. I know they've been on Katrina for over a year, but this is different because it's about specific legislation. Anyway, Drew does a whole recap, but I've already blogged all this stuff, so newbies can just search my previous posts. What's new is that the House was all set to vote on their version of the Senate's bill, but instead of a vote they had an ugly bitter partisan fight. Oh boy. So close and yet so far away. Drew then joins us live to explain. Apparently the republicans wanted to wait for a tougher bill, which of course lead the democrats to ask why the hell the republicans didn't pass a tougher bill back when they were in power. I would actually side with the republicans on this one if I didn't suspect they were being evil and just looking for an opportunity to let the bill die again. Sigh. The Shot tonight is CNN's "Warrior One" which is a Hummer that the network used to cover the war back in 2003. It was bought by the co-founder of Remax to benefit the Fischer House. I love the Fischer House. I send them phone cards every Christmas. The show was pretty good tonight. B
Do you care about the terror tapes anymore? Do you think that pension legislation will ever be passed?
Next up Anderson gives us the low down on the horrible weekend Iraq had. A total of 27 US troops were lost with 25 on Saturday alone, making it the third worst day since the war began. That's probably not the news Bush wanted before his big speech. This brings us to a Tom Foreman piece on a truly brazen attack that occurred in Karbala. Iraqi officials and US soldiers were having a meeting about an upcoming religious holiday when gunman in at least seven SUVs attacked with gunfire and grenades. When it was over five US soldiers were dead. What's so unsettling about this attack is that the gunman had passed themselves off as Americans and were able to get through three Iraqi checkpoints. Now the question is whether the Iraqis let them through on purpose or not. This is even more important now as the US is poised to give more military control to the Iraqis.
For discussion we've got John Burns live in the studio, sporting a toned down version of his wacky hair. I guess when you're in Iraq you really don't think much about hair products. Although I have to say that Arwa Damon is always surprisingly put together-earrings and everything. Anyway, John tells us that this attack is like nothing we've seen before. That is not comforting. I'm dreading the day when we find out that it wasn't five soldiers, but five hundred. Anderson brings up Maliki and notes that he arrested one of Muqtadar al-Sadr's men. John seems to think that Maliki is acting on some stuff he promised. However, because the Madhi army is fractured, it's possible Maliki is just taking care of things that Sadr would have had to do himself anyway. Apparently everybody's got an agenda in Iraq. I guess the question is whether or not Maliki is being played or is actually in on the plan. In any regards, I don't envy him. Because I don't think it's just his job on the line if you know what I mean.
Transitioning now to some BREAKING NEWS. California is on fire. Again. Man, they are not having a good year. We then move into a Joe Johns piece on Bill Clinton and how he's going to influence Hillary's race for the White House. It's noted that some people's feelings about Hillary may actually be because of how they feel about her husband. I guess I can believe that. I'm meh about both of them. My dad really hated Clinton. Like really hated him. Although I'd like to think that given the chance I would have turned him into a democrat. The piece of course mentions the affairs and impeachment, but really those don't look half bad compared to what the guy currently sitting in the office has done.
Next up we've got some discussion with John King, Candy Crowley, and William Schneider; otherwise known as "the best political team in the business." You know, I was watching MSNBC earlier and they say the same damn thing. Obviously one of them is lying. I love how they can just label themselves whatever they want with no accountability whatsoever. Perhaps I should start referring to myself as CNN's "best primetime viewer." Am I their best primetime viewer? Well of course I am. You just read it in this blog, didn't you? So it must be true. Anyhoo, on the subject of Hillary, Candy says she's walking a tough line between accessible vs. tough, Bill notes there's still an amount of sexual stereotyping out there, and John indicates that her fans thinks she's misunderstood. Oh this is going to be a long, long election season.
Anderson then fills us in on a little Obama smearing that's been going on lately. Apparently Insight Magazine, which is owned by the Washington Times, printed a story that Obama attended a madrassa (radical Muslim school) while living in Indonesia. Basically they made him out to be a terrorist. Anderson notes that other news organizations ran with the story without checking the facts. Just say it Anderson. It was Fox News. Just say it. And it's not like this was just a case of lousy journalism here. This was a calculated smear. Follow the money man. All the right winger press is connected. The best part is that CNN actually sent John Vause to Indonesia to check the story out. Okay, he was probably in the area anyway, but color me impressed. John finds that the school Obama went to was just a regular old public school and there's nothing extremist about it. Shocking. After the piece Anderson says, "that's the difference between talking about news and reporting it." Well, listen to you. Okay buddy, let's not get too big for your britches. After all, you are about to do a report on a psychic. Just saying.
Next up we've got an update on the Missouri miracle story. Apparently some reporter from the New York Post was able to get in to see Michael Devlin. Now a gag order has been issued because that never should have happened. Man, that paper is slimey. Okay, see that was perfect reporting for the story. Something new happened, they gave us an update, and that was that. This is how it needs to be all the time. Although actually it's not perfect because then they rerun all the Sylvia Browne and psychic debunker stuff from last week. Anderson clearly hates Sylvia Browne. I wonder if she knew the Anderwrath was coming. Seeing as though she's a total fraud, probably not.
Transitioning now to a Drew Griffin piece that updates the pensions for Congress crooks story that he's been working on for three weeks. You know, for a show that often suffers from ADHD, keeping with a story for three weeks is quite an accomplishment. I know they've been on Katrina for over a year, but this is different because it's about specific legislation. Anyway, Drew does a whole recap, but I've already blogged all this stuff, so newbies can just search my previous posts. What's new is that the House was all set to vote on their version of the Senate's bill, but instead of a vote they had an ugly bitter partisan fight. Oh boy. So close and yet so far away. Drew then joins us live to explain. Apparently the republicans wanted to wait for a tougher bill, which of course lead the democrats to ask why the hell the republicans didn't pass a tougher bill back when they were in power. I would actually side with the republicans on this one if I didn't suspect they were being evil and just looking for an opportunity to let the bill die again. Sigh. The Shot tonight is CNN's "Warrior One" which is a Hummer that the network used to cover the war back in 2003. It was bought by the co-founder of Remax to benefit the Fischer House. I love the Fischer House. I send them phone cards every Christmas. The show was pretty good tonight. B
Do you care about the terror tapes anymore? Do you think that pension legislation will ever be passed?
posted by eliza at 12:44 AM
4 Comments:
What pension legislation? Are you referring to the one about the jerks in the pen that are still getting theirs? Cuz I hope that stops.
you know, the more I think about it, the more I wish Anderson were free to say what he was really thinking about things. He needs a TALK SHOW. no I'm serious! I'd like to know what he THINKS about this stuff he's reporting. It's rather obvious most of the time, but I'd still like to hear it.
Hey Eliza any chance you will review the State of the Union speech? I just don't think I can sit through it. I did last year and I got so mad and I think year will be worse because he is going to try and sell everyone on his idea to send more troops to Iraq. Don't think my blood pressure can handle that.
Last nights show was better. I wonder if tomorrow is going to be live. They have been advertising it all weekend as a special on slavery in America and around the world. I think it will be interesting.
@sharla-I like to hear Anderson's opinions, but I don't want him to go all Oprah. I need him to keep people honest.
@jan-I'm still trying to decide whether I'm even going to watch. Right now I'm leaning towards no. I will, however, review 360's coverage of the speech.
Blogger is being retarded. I'll post when I can.
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