Senate Timeline Vote, Michael Ware Smacks Down McCain, ANS Crap, Raw Politics, Polygamy, And A Sex Addict Priest (Tuesday's First Hour)
Hi guys. We're starting with real news tonight. Yay! Anderson tells us that the Senate has voted 50 to 48 to keep the timeline for withdrawl in the Iraq spending bill. Hey, they actually did something. Suzanne Malveaux then joins us live for more and we learn that Bush is ticked. Oh, big surprise there. He's painting this as the democrats against the troops. Whatever. Republicans Gordon Smith and Chuck Hagel voted with the democrats and I think that makes it bipartisan. After all, that's what they always say when Lieberman is the only one that crosses over. And besides what position are they in to say that anyone is against the troops? Or are we forgetting about Walter Reed and all the other facilities? Grrrr. Anyway, Bush will veto of course because God forbid he listen to anyone besides the voices in his head and Dick Cheney.
Next Anderson tells us that this month was the first time the Pentagon called the sectarian violence in Iraq a "civil war." Wow. Nice of them to catch up a year too late. We're then shown a clip of Kyra Phillips in Iraq interviewing Admiral William Fallon. It's kind of surprising to see Kyra over there and it seems like she's been there for a while. I don't know for sure though since I usually can't watch during the day. I don't even know exactly when she's on. Anyway, this Fallon dude is in some serious denial because he says there is no civil war. Mmmkay. Kyra asks if this conflict could go on for generations and Fallon notes that we've had troops in places around the world for decades. Well, yeah, but they weren't being blown up every day. Then there's some talk about Iran, but I'm totally distracted because of that damn sound effect. Anderson Cooper make it stop! Seriously, it's like a cross between a metal noise and a bird squawking. Again, worst sound effect evah.
Moving on now to a live interview with Michael Ware and Anderson begins by playing him a clip of John McCain saying there are some places in Baghdad that are secure. Apparently Michael was on The Situation Room this afternoon to call BS on this statement and his response has now been spread all over the Internets. This I suppose is a repeat performance. Anderson asks Michael if what McCain said is true and Michael is all, "absolutely not!" He thinks McCain has gone way out on a limb with this and what he said is "ludicrous." Michael's not playing here, "If he knows any part of this city where Americans can walk, then I would appreciate the senator coming and telling me that, and we will go and take that walk together." Oh, snap! Have I mentioned lately how much I love Michael? He then explains that sectarian violence is down because the death squads are all members of the Iraqi security forces, which are with the Americans all the time now. Also, the violence might be down in Baghdad, but it's spreading now to places like Diyala. Anderson then gives Michael some stats that show violence is decreasing and he wonders if they're legit. Michael thinks they could be, but right now it's way to early to make any comments about the surge. Finally, Anderson asks Michael if there is anywhere in Baghdad he could go without his security for more than 10 minutes. "No. I'm afraid to say there isn't," says Michael. Well that's depressing. Stay safe Michael.
Transitioning now to...Anna Nicole Smith crap! Oh joy. I guess I should be thankful we got about 11 minutes of actual news first this time. So anyway, tonight we're talking about her son. I think. Can't say I was really paying attention. There's a Rusty Dornin piece and then Court TV's Lisa Bloom and forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht are back. After all that garbage we've got BREAKING NEWS out of the Philippines in Manila. Two gunman have seized a bus filled with 32 children and two teachers. Oh! C'mon, not kids. Sigh. Well, nobody knows anything right now so we're moving on to "Raw Politics" with Joe Johns. First up, trouble for Hillary Clinton. Apparently about half the adults in the US say they won't vote for her. I guess I'm included in that statistic-for the primary anyway. Next Joe tells us that the "FBI got a spanking on Capitol Hill today." Oooh, sounds kinky. Or not. It seems Director Robert Mueller is in some trouble over the agency taking shortcuts. Arlen Spector has his boxers in a twist over Mueller giving inaccurate data for surveillance warrants. Seeing as though Spector's MO is to get riled up and then roll over, I really wouldn't worry about that if I were Mueller. Finally, Jim Webb explains that whole gun thing. The story is he was going to get on a plane, so he left it with his staff. Okay then.
Next up we've got some polygamy. Seriously? Anna Nicole Smith and Warren Jeffs in the same night? Well, now I think they're just messing with me. Okay, so Gary Tuchman is on the case again (who else?) and he gives us a piece on Warren Jeffs' court hearing. Apparently Jeffs has become a sad little shell of a man and he tried to say something in court, but the judge wouldn't let him. We also get a lot of the requisite footage of nice as can be Gary getting shunned by Jeffs' followers. Poor Gary. If he ever comes here for a story I promise not to shun him. In fact, I will make him cookies. Or, okay, buy cookies. After this piece we get Gary live and Anderson notes that Jeffs' demeanor is different now. Gary agrees and tells us that one time they even saw him drooling. What? Ewwww. From here we're on the phone with a hostage negotiator for more coverage of that breaking news. They still don't know anything, so yeah, we take a trip to speculation city.
Finally tonight we have a Drew Griffin piece on a sex addict priest. I didn't pay very good attention to this story, but from what I gather that's about what it boils down to. He's a priest! He's a sex addict! OMG, he's a sex addict priest! Meh. Okay, so he did steal church money to pay for prostitutes and he has a secret son, but whatever. The show was again pretty crappy. Maybe there was a lot of good stuff that got bumped for the breaking news or maybe we would have been subjected to more polygamy and ANS. I guess we'll never know. During the breaking news I checked the other networks and CNN was the only one covering it. So I guess tomorrow we'll be reading about how they owned the story. However, what did we really learn? We got a bunch of speculation and Anderson "uhing" his way through the same little bit of information over and over.
CNN is great with breaking news because they have people everywhere, but I wish they would just give the facts and that's it. Once the facts are reported they can then go back to their regular news and have the breaking news continously on the crawl (you'd think that would be the crawl's purpose) until there's more information for them to report. Of course that will never happen because it's all about being first. What cracks me up is that throughout 360 they were all over it and then as soon as 360 was over they went to taped Larry King. This is by no means the first time they've done that. You think if it was important enough to bump half of 360's stories it would be important enough to actually stay live. Although maybe they came back live after a bit. I don't know. I turned it off. So anyway, it was great they started with real news and Michael Ware was awesome as always, but D+
Next Anderson tells us that this month was the first time the Pentagon called the sectarian violence in Iraq a "civil war." Wow. Nice of them to catch up a year too late. We're then shown a clip of Kyra Phillips in Iraq interviewing Admiral William Fallon. It's kind of surprising to see Kyra over there and it seems like she's been there for a while. I don't know for sure though since I usually can't watch during the day. I don't even know exactly when she's on. Anyway, this Fallon dude is in some serious denial because he says there is no civil war. Mmmkay. Kyra asks if this conflict could go on for generations and Fallon notes that we've had troops in places around the world for decades. Well, yeah, but they weren't being blown up every day. Then there's some talk about Iran, but I'm totally distracted because of that damn sound effect. Anderson Cooper make it stop! Seriously, it's like a cross between a metal noise and a bird squawking. Again, worst sound effect evah.
Moving on now to a live interview with Michael Ware and Anderson begins by playing him a clip of John McCain saying there are some places in Baghdad that are secure. Apparently Michael was on The Situation Room this afternoon to call BS on this statement and his response has now been spread all over the Internets. This I suppose is a repeat performance. Anderson asks Michael if what McCain said is true and Michael is all, "absolutely not!" He thinks McCain has gone way out on a limb with this and what he said is "ludicrous." Michael's not playing here, "If he knows any part of this city where Americans can walk, then I would appreciate the senator coming and telling me that, and we will go and take that walk together." Oh, snap! Have I mentioned lately how much I love Michael? He then explains that sectarian violence is down because the death squads are all members of the Iraqi security forces, which are with the Americans all the time now. Also, the violence might be down in Baghdad, but it's spreading now to places like Diyala. Anderson then gives Michael some stats that show violence is decreasing and he wonders if they're legit. Michael thinks they could be, but right now it's way to early to make any comments about the surge. Finally, Anderson asks Michael if there is anywhere in Baghdad he could go without his security for more than 10 minutes. "No. I'm afraid to say there isn't," says Michael. Well that's depressing. Stay safe Michael.
Transitioning now to...Anna Nicole Smith crap! Oh joy. I guess I should be thankful we got about 11 minutes of actual news first this time. So anyway, tonight we're talking about her son. I think. Can't say I was really paying attention. There's a Rusty Dornin piece and then Court TV's Lisa Bloom and forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht are back. After all that garbage we've got BREAKING NEWS out of the Philippines in Manila. Two gunman have seized a bus filled with 32 children and two teachers. Oh! C'mon, not kids. Sigh. Well, nobody knows anything right now so we're moving on to "Raw Politics" with Joe Johns. First up, trouble for Hillary Clinton. Apparently about half the adults in the US say they won't vote for her. I guess I'm included in that statistic-for the primary anyway. Next Joe tells us that the "FBI got a spanking on Capitol Hill today." Oooh, sounds kinky. Or not. It seems Director Robert Mueller is in some trouble over the agency taking shortcuts. Arlen Spector has his boxers in a twist over Mueller giving inaccurate data for surveillance warrants. Seeing as though Spector's MO is to get riled up and then roll over, I really wouldn't worry about that if I were Mueller. Finally, Jim Webb explains that whole gun thing. The story is he was going to get on a plane, so he left it with his staff. Okay then.
Next up we've got some polygamy. Seriously? Anna Nicole Smith and Warren Jeffs in the same night? Well, now I think they're just messing with me. Okay, so Gary Tuchman is on the case again (who else?) and he gives us a piece on Warren Jeffs' court hearing. Apparently Jeffs has become a sad little shell of a man and he tried to say something in court, but the judge wouldn't let him. We also get a lot of the requisite footage of nice as can be Gary getting shunned by Jeffs' followers. Poor Gary. If he ever comes here for a story I promise not to shun him. In fact, I will make him cookies. Or, okay, buy cookies. After this piece we get Gary live and Anderson notes that Jeffs' demeanor is different now. Gary agrees and tells us that one time they even saw him drooling. What? Ewwww. From here we're on the phone with a hostage negotiator for more coverage of that breaking news. They still don't know anything, so yeah, we take a trip to speculation city.
Finally tonight we have a Drew Griffin piece on a sex addict priest. I didn't pay very good attention to this story, but from what I gather that's about what it boils down to. He's a priest! He's a sex addict! OMG, he's a sex addict priest! Meh. Okay, so he did steal church money to pay for prostitutes and he has a secret son, but whatever. The show was again pretty crappy. Maybe there was a lot of good stuff that got bumped for the breaking news or maybe we would have been subjected to more polygamy and ANS. I guess we'll never know. During the breaking news I checked the other networks and CNN was the only one covering it. So I guess tomorrow we'll be reading about how they owned the story. However, what did we really learn? We got a bunch of speculation and Anderson "uhing" his way through the same little bit of information over and over.
CNN is great with breaking news because they have people everywhere, but I wish they would just give the facts and that's it. Once the facts are reported they can then go back to their regular news and have the breaking news continously on the crawl (you'd think that would be the crawl's purpose) until there's more information for them to report. Of course that will never happen because it's all about being first. What cracks me up is that throughout 360 they were all over it and then as soon as 360 was over they went to taped Larry King. This is by no means the first time they've done that. You think if it was important enough to bump half of 360's stories it would be important enough to actually stay live. Although maybe they came back live after a bit. I don't know. I turned it off. So anyway, it was great they started with real news and Michael Ware was awesome as always, but D+
posted by eliza at 1:51 AM
4 Comments:
Hm, I was thinking D-. And only not an F because Michael Ware is beyond amazing and they were smart enough to use him well for a few minutes. I had recorded this show and actually fast-forwarded through all but about 25 minutes of it, tops. 360, please . . . you know we love you, but no more ANS, no more Warren Jeffs, and no frickin hour of speculation about a hostage situation in the Phillipines. I can't even figure out why that was news at all (well, okay, five minutes; I'd have been interested for five minutes), let alone for an hour.
Anon4:22, I too often find AC360 vastly improves if watched taped, FFWD button at hand. It's sad, really. It could be so much better. - Teri
There was no reason to spend so much time on that story in the Phillipines, but "breaking news" grabs attention, but it loses it's impact when they don't have any real details and are just speculating.
ANS and Warren Jeffs, dear lord. At least 360 didn't make us suffer through Jeffs' sickening singing this time.
Michael Ware is awesome, it's good to hear such indignation coming from a reporter. He made McCain look like a fool.
That sound effect was killing my ears, it's awful and needs to stop NOW.
At least 360 didn't make us suffer through Jeffs' sickening singing this time.
Well, I guess there's that.
That sound effect was killing my ears, it's awful and needs to stop NOW.
I swear to God I'm about to form a coalition to get that thing killed.
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