Lugar Flips On Iraq, Press Briefing On VP, Jessie Davis Update, Raw Politics, Tammy Duckworth's Husband Goes To Iraq, And Madagascar (Monday's Show)

Hi everybody. Happy new week. We kick off the show tonight with the BREAKING NEWS that Republican Senator Richard Lugar has decided that, you know what, he's not really down with this war after all. This is big news and worthy of graphics because Lugar is very respected and one of the most influential members of Congress on foreign policy. Up until now he stood behind the president's Iraq policy, but now he's saying we need a new direction. Way to catch up to the American people there, Lugar. Dana Bash then joins us live with the details. Lugar is only calling for some troops to come home; the rest he wants to be redeployed in the region. Hmm, that sound suspiciously like what Jack Murtha proposed a blue moon ago. At that time everyone was talking about how well he was respected and what a big deal that was. And yet here we are. Sure, Lugar is a Republican and Murtha is a Democrat, so it's a little different, but I don't see how Lugar doesn't get smeared here, just like Murtha. Dana notes that now the Democrats have some red-state Republican cover to say that the surge isn't working. She says Lugar doesn't want to wait until September to do anything.

Speaking of September, Anderson reminds us that's when everything involving the war is supposed to come to a head, but recently there's been some backing away from that. Wait, were we actually supposed to be believing them about that whole September thing? I'm so cynical. I just assumed everyone knew that was BS. Nothing's happening in September, people. But a cool thing is happening right now. 360 is, like, holding them accountable for what they said. Anderson notes the new message seems to be morphing into something different lately and then we get played a bunch of clips "Daily Show"style. Yay 360! Do that more often. Because I don't know if you've noticed, but most everything they say doesn't match up to what they've said previously. The sad thing is I don't think they care. I mean, they have to know this stuff is on tape, right?

For discussion about all this we're next joined by David Gergen and Michael Ware, who is apparently back in Iraq. Michael doesn't really know what's with all this September talk stateside because everyone on the ground is downplaying that deadline. Not to mention the fact that all the troops for the surge have just arrived. Anderson notes that it seems the administration is trying to backpeddle. Well, it's one of the few things they do well. The Gerg agrees there's some backpeddling going on, but he thinks this Lugar thing is huge because it has the same kind of weight as the Iraq Study Group. Um, what? Psssst. Gerg, the ISG was ignored. Aw, what would we do without our optimistic-for-no-reason Gerg? Anderson then asks if any political progress is going on in Iraq. Michael says no and that actually on the ground there's not even any expectation the government will meet the benchmarks. And that's if you even want to call what they have a government, which, you know, you probably shouldn't. As Michael has said many times before, Maliki has no power to deliver. Anderson points out the US has no plan B. Hell, we hardly had a plan A.

Moving on now to our scary, scary, vice president. Anderson tells us that Cheney is trying to claim he's not a member of the executive branch (what the hell?!), but points out that he sure seemed to like the executive privilege when it came to his energy task force. That's right Anderson, you point out that hypocrisy! We then get played clips from the press briefing where poor Dana Perino silently curses Tony Snow for not being there to take the brunt of the questions against this ridiculousness. Somewhere, Scott McClellan is thanking his lucky stars it wasn't him. He was my favorite because he'd get all red. If they're never going to tell you the truth, you might as well get your kicks out of watching them squirm, you know?

Ed Henry, who was at the press briefing, then joins us live. He notes that the VP doesn't want scrutiny, but the legal argument he's using is "absurd." You think? And shouldn't we all be completely freaked out that our VP is suddenly declaring himself a member of a whole other branch of government? Lord, tomorrow he'll be claiming he's a judge. Ed also notes that Bush invited some high schoolers to the White House and they handed him a letter that asked him to promise the detainees are not being tortured. Bwah! Those are some awesome kids. Ed points out how even people like Secretary Rice can't seem to stand up to Cheney and here you have high schoolers doing it. If only high schoolers ruled the world. It's not like DC can get any more childish anyway. Okay, so the first 15 minutes of the show? Excellent. Let's see more of this.

Transitioning now to Jason Carroll with the latest on Jessie Davis. Unfortunately her body and that of her unborn child have been found. The father, Bobby Cutts Jr. has been charged with their murders and another woman, Myesha Ferrell, has been charged with obstruction of justice. Jessie's mother had the opportunity to stare them both down in court. There is a rumor that Cutts confessed, but he says he's innocent. And that's about all we know right now, but we still had to have an interview with reporter Todd Porter after the piece. Whatever.

Coming back from commercial, we're rocking out to Leo Sayer's "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing," another entry in 360's campaign song contest. Okay, what does that song have to do with politics? C'mon people. Next we move on to "Raw Politics" with Tom Foreman and I'm bummed because this is always a great segment to blog, but since it goes so fast, without the transcripts I'm going to have to half phone it in from now on. I love my readers, but I'm not getting carpal tunnel for you. Just saying. We begin with the news that Michael Bloomberg (who's not even running!) would be at 17% in the polls in three-way race with Clinton and Giuliani. I guess the media got tired about speculating about Fred Thompson. Tom also tells us Romney's most favorite contributer just might be...Romney. Also the Supreme Court has smacked down campaign finance reform. We also learn that Elizabeth Edwards is pro-gay marriage (yay!), and Ted Kennedy sang on spanish radio. I don't know why. To scare us, I guess.

Next up we've got some headlines and that's followed by some Anderson Cooper and Erica Hill pimping of Larry King's Paris Hilton interview. Through some banter that I'm sure was in no way suggested by the higher ups, we learn that CNN didn't pay one penny for the interview, unlike those media whores at NBC. So see, CNN is so above it all. Because obviously the money was the only disgusting thing about having a no talent drunk driver flood your news network when we're in the middle of two wars. Okay, in seriousness, if the coverage stays only on Larry King, which admittedly is a talk show, than maybe CNN is above it all. But I'm guessing that's not going to happen, so all this back patting is pretty pathetic. Tonight's "What Were They Thinking?" covers that $50 million pants lawsuit again. It turns out the suit has been thrown out. Well, there's a shocker. Anderson is glad because now there can be no more anchor laundry puns. He gives us his best Ron Burgundy: "Stay classy, San Diego." Ha!

On now to a Sanjay Gupta piece on Tammy Duckworth. You might remember her as the Iraq war veteran that lost both legs in 2004. Then in 2006 she ran for Congress and lost by less than 5,000 votes (which might have been due to evil robo-calling-Grr!!!) Now she's facing another challenge: her National Guard husband has been called to Iraq. This is the first time he's been deployed and they're being practical about it. In fact, they're planning for his death. God. Sanjay is also shocked, but, you know, it's the smart thing to do. Losing somebody is hard enough without having additional decisions to make and things to do. Tammy says that her hubsand is under orders to come home and she out ranks him, so he better do it. Let's hope he does.

Transitioning to a Jeff Corwin piece where we're taken high above Madagascar to get a gander at all the deforestation. It looks pretty bad in some places and we learn that without forests the soil just kind of melts away. Unsustainable agriculture is the primary cause of the environmental catastrophe going on. Aw, poor Madagascar. Looks like a cool place. The Shot tonight is the World's Ugliest Dog and man, they're not kidding. That's a face only an owner could love. So okay, the show tonight was pretty good, but what the hell happened with the second hour? The whole thing was a repeat. Very annoying. If I would have known that I could have flipped over to the Daily Show. And yeah, that's probably why they didn't say it was all going to be repeated, but way to alienate your regular viewers, you know? So for the first hour I'll give them a B+ with a side of Grrrr! for the repeated hour.