Scooter Libby, Forced Suicide Bombing, OJ Stuff, A Girl Attack, And Dooms Day! (Wednesday's Second Hour)

Hey guys. Work ran late and I'm short on time, so you know what that means. Here comes your abbreviated second hour. We kick off the hour with more Hornbeck/Ownby coverage and are joined by Jessica Bock from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She looks young. I wonder where she went to school. Anyway, then we've got some weather stuff and we move into a John Roberts piece on Scooter Libby. You haven't forgotten about the whole Plame outing have you? Libby is a neocon and one of the architects of the Iraq war. He's a true believer and made his mark behind the scenes. This was a good piece, but isn't Libby a member of the Project For The New American Century (PNAC)? If so, they probably should have gone into that. After the piece Jeffrey Toobin joins us in the study for discussion. Hey, Toobin finally gets to discuss something worthy. Toobin notes this trial will essentially put how we got into Iraq on trial and that for Libby, it was the coverup that got him and not the crime itself. Anderson brings up the possiblity of a pardon and Toobin confirms it looks like a guarantee. I then quietly weep in the corner. I guess really I should just hope he doesn't get a medal of freedom.

Transitioning now to a great Arwa Damon piece on how some Iraqis are being forced into suicide bombing. She profiles a father of four who went to run errands and became kidnapped. He was then released and made to drive to a checkpoint, but his vehicle was rigged with explosives. Witnesses say he warned people, screaming the whole time, "I am booby trapped!" That's heartbreaking. They know that others have been forced to do the same because they've found them with their hands tied to the steering wheel. Lord. As if there aren't enough horrible things happening in Iraq. Following the piece Anderson has a taped interview with John Burns. John states that the new UN report stating 30,000 Iraqi civilians died last year is probably an undercount and also that Rumsfeld's departure has had a liberating effect on the military. Well, I guess in all this someone should be liberated.

Moving on to an in studio interview with Court TV's Ashleigh Banfield on the OJ money trail. It's weird to see them together because Anderson has often been compared to Ashleigh. She blew up big due to her 9-11 reporting, but then kind of faded away. Anderson's critics say he's going to do the same thing. However, what they don't say is that Ashleigh criticized the war when it was very risky to do so and she got burned. Besides, she's on Court TV. It's not like she's working at the mall now or something. In the piece we learn that all the money went to OJ's agent and then he gave the money to a front company and...I don't care. I mean, I hope the Goldman's and Nicole's family get the money, but I don't necessarily need to hear about it. During the talk, Anderson quietly acknowledges that Harper Collins also published his book. Yay, disclosure! He knows how I love that. After the interview Anderson tells us that they tried to get a comment from Harper Collins, but their calls were not returned. From you own publisher? Ouch.

Next up we have an Allan Chernoff piece that is basically just an excuse to put youtube video on the air. Oh look, one girl getting beat down by three others. Apparently the assault was over a boy. I'm not being dismissive of what this girl went through, but this kind of stuff happens all the time and they're showing it because it's sensational. One nifty thing is that the girls were immediately arrested. This leads us into a Gary Tuchman piece about how girls may or may not be becoming more violent. Assaults are up 24% among girls and I do have to agree that the girl fights I've seen have usually been more brutal than the boy fights. The increase is being blamed on, what else, the media. Yes, and Marilyn Manson really did cause Columbine. I'm not saying violence on tv and in movies haven't made our culture more violent, but it's too simplistic of an excuse. There's a correlation, but you can't tell if violent tv makes people violent or violent people like to watch violent tv. Also, some don't even think violence among girls has increased. They blame the rising numbers on more arrests and better surveillance.

On now to some blog comments on Drew's pension piece. I wish 360 would include instruction in the next update on how exactly to contact your representatives and the specific lawmakers involved. Some people don't know. We need a 101 on how to participate in democracy. Of course I can skip that lesson. I bug my congresscritter so much that he sent me a calender. No, I'm not kidding. Did you know they have an offical House of Representatives calender? Neither did I. Next up we have a Jeanne Moos pieces on...Dooms Day! Oh, it's coming people. Apparently there's a clock that has been counting down our demise since 1947, and well, now we've only got five minutes left. And I've got so much to do! Though actually somedays I'd like to just push that clock up to midnight and get it over with. After 9-11 the clock was at seven minutes, so if my math is right, we've got 12 1/2 years left before we all get nuked into nothingness. Uh, sleep tight.

So what do you think, will Libby be pardoned? Were there a lot of fights at your school? How often to do you contact your congresscritter?