Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Michigan! Michigan! Michigan! (Half of Tuesday's Show)

Hi everybody. I have to say, this whole primary thing is starting to lose its shine. I think I'm going to have to break into my excitement reserves for this one. Yay Michigan! Woo hoo? So anyway, I flip on CNN to find Blitzer totally bogarting 360's time. Like three hours a day and a show on the weekend isn't enough for him. So I flipped back to the debate on MSNBC. But don't worry, I came back just in time to find Anderson Cooper hanging in the Election Center with John King, Gloria Borger, and Jeffrey Toobin, all part of the "best political team on television." If he says it; it must be true. Asks John: "Can you be on the best political team on television when you keep saying, I don't know what is going to happen?" Anderson says it's been working for him so far. What he doesn't tell us is that Jon Klein makes them say that under penalty of tasering. Just ask Rick Sanchez.

I guess I skipped over that whole winner part, didn't I? Drum roll please: It's Romney! Yay, I guess. Everyone gets to win at some point, apparently. As for the democrats, well, democracy is a tricky thing and because Michigan moved their primary up (violating party rules), the democratic leadership has basically told the state's party to suck it, and took away all their delegates. But anyway, back with our political team that has deemed itself the bestest, John tells us that after this new win, the last two weeks don't even matter now. The whole two weeks? But I thought every single thing the candidates did (including, oh my God, almost shedding a tear) was, like, the most important thing ever. But apparently now it's all about money--at least that's what John choses to talk about.

Anderson wonders if all this will help out the quietly dying Giuliani, who apparently has his heart set on Florida. "Sure. Whatever you say, sure," says Gloria. Bwah! Oh, c'mon! You're not even trying. Look, we know you're serving us BS, but at least dress it up and make it taste good. Or, you know, you could have a discussion about substance. But I wouldn't want you to hurt yourselves. "Nobody knows anything anymore," says Anderson. Well, I suppose there's always the "be quiet and look pretty" option. Toobin thinks tonight was a disaster for McCain and Anderson starts asking what he did wrong. Wait a second, we were just talking about how he's the comeback kid and now things are a disaster? Stop. Reboot. New narrative.

John tells us that Romney changed from how he ran in Iowa and New Hampshire. Anderson: "Wait. Did you say Mitt Romney changed?" I do believe that was subtle snark. Or maybe just wishful thinking on my part. It is at this point that it dawns on me that this is not going to be a regular 360. Yeah, I'm slow tonight. So the rest of this is going to be a little less indepth. We next go to our poll man, Bill Schneider, who breaks down the Romney votes, and then we're back with our political team. Once again, the talk turns to money, specifically how the republicans don't have any. Except for Romney of course. He can buy almost anything--though surprisingly, not an election. From here everybody laughs over how much Giuliani is sucking. Anderson tells us the campaign says they're happy with the three percent Giuliani got tonight. "But there's no way they're happy with tonight," he says. "Capital S-P-I-N," says John, and he draws the letters in the air with his fingers. Meanwhile, at the White House, our current prez is complaining to Laura that the evil liberal media is trying to hide things from him again by using spelling.

Next up, we mosey with John over to what we're going to call the big map/calender screen. He then goes through the schedule coming up. I hope you had your date books ready. When he gets to Super Tuesday, all the participating states turn orange and it looks like the country's on fire. Hm. After we get all politically organized, Anderson teases that they're going to see what bloggers are saying about Romney's win. I took this to mean that they were actually going to talk to bloggers, but nope. When we come back from break it's just Abbi Tatton, blog-reading fixture of The Situation Room. I'm just saying it would have been nice to have discussion with actual bloggers. But maybe they couldn't get them booked. I don't know.

Anyway, Abbi's got her own screen and she's been checking out one of my favorite blogs, dailykos. The Kossacks (as we're called) thought it might be a little fun if the Michigan members actually crossed over and voted for Romney, seeing as it creates chaos for the GOP and the democrats get no delegates anyway. Abbi's got dailykos up on the screen and notes the celebration going on, but then explains the shananigans probably didn't sway the election. Hm, the partial tongue-and-cheekness seems to be lost on Abbi. The Kossacks were pleased to be on CNN though, (the video is worth the click). John King seems kind of pleased too. " I think it's fun, and it's great mischief," he tells us. John is totally that guy who tee-peed your house in high school.

After some more talk from our superior political team, we go live to Mary Snow, who is hanging with the McCain campaign. They're understandably playing down the Romney victory. Anderson notes that McCain kind of got knocked off the air when he was giving his speech because Romney came on to give his own speech. He doesn't think that was an accident and neither does Mary, but apparently no one is really talking about it.

Up next, we have a Tom Foreman piece on the race part of the race. We all recall the little back-and-forth that Clinton and Obama had over the weekend. Well, now they've both decided to simmer down, but that's not going to stop race from being a big factor in South Carolina, where half of democrats are black. Of those voters it's pretty much split between the two candidates. African Americans love the Clintons and Bill has even been dubbed the "first black president." These feelings have lead some black leaders to proclaim Clinton more electable. But then again, after Iowa, people are taking a second look at Obama. It's anybody's game.

Following Tom's piece we're joined by Roland Martin and Glenn Beck for related discussion. Well, I see that someone left the door unlocked between the real CNN and it's baby sister, Headline News. And now look what's happened. Next we're going to have Nancy Grace barging in, accusing people of crimes. Seriously, what qualifies this man to talk about race? Speaking of Glenn, have you guys seen this video he made? I don't even remember how I got to it--probably just random clicking (it's a sickness), but I watched the whole seven-plus minutes and afterwards I didn't have the slightest idea what I just watched. It seemed like maybe I was supposed to feel bad for him or be angry at somebody, but man, talk about comfuzzling. The video got traction though, and some press, and apparently he had a botched surgery for hemroids or something. I'll just go ahead and let you write your own joke for that one.

Anyway, back in the discussion, Glenn has his boxers in a twist because he thinks everyone is past all this race stuff anyway. Glenn: "Haven't we gotten to the point yet where it doesn't matter if you're a woman, a man, a white person, a black person? " Yeah! And haven't we got to the point where it doesn't matter if you're a Christian or a Muslim? Oh, wait, apparently that still matters to Glenn. Glenn tells us that he doesn't know anyone that would not vote for someone because of race. "But that -- those are often the kind of things people don't say, but that's not what people do...," says Anderson. Exactly. Glenn doesn't want to talk to black or white people, he just wants us to talk to people. Roland tries to bring it back to the reality of politics, but Glenn has his heart set on buying everyone a Coke.

"Glenn, you seem to be talking about the way things should be or you want things to be. Roland seems to be talking about more the way things, he thinks the way things are," says Anderson. Pretty much. And Roland is right. I'd wager that Anderson agrees, seeing as though he added the "he thinks" in there kind of late. This doesn't stop Glenn from spouting his fantasy though. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice fantasy, but it's coming out of the mouth of a total hypocrite. Glenn talks about how he wants the country to be united. This from a guy who has pondered killing Michael Moore, called Katrina victims "scumbags", and proclaimed he hates families of the 9-11 victims. And if the server at mediamatters.org wasn't down right now, I'd have plenty more for you. "Just about everybody we have elected in recent years has said that they are a uniter, not a divider," says Anderson. Bingo. Empty rhetoric from them; empty rhetoric from Glenn Beck now. Seriously CNN, you already gave this guy his own show; please keep him away from the real news. Thanks.

And...that'll do it for me. I know they went another hour, but this is what happens when you train your audience to flip over at 10:00 (central). No grade tonight. Wednesday's review will be up late Thursday.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Eliza, the characters were suppose to type in order to post a comment, a lot of time don't appear. I wonder if i'm the only one having that problem?

5:00 PM  
Blogger eliza said...

Hm. I haven't heard any other complaints and I can see them. Next time just go ahead and hit publish anyway and it should refresh your letters.

5:54 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anderson
I have enjoyed your reports and have been following your various programs for about a year. Unfortunately I have been really disappointed with the way your CNN political analysts team are not reporting or analysing the news but they are carving future election results with their sarcastic remarks and baseless personal negative comments about candidates depending on the days controversies. This was especially evident when CNN constantly claimed that President Clinton back lashed at a reporter in S. Carolina, but when you watched the video, it was quiet clear that he was very calm and responding with a smile on his face. He was only guilty of turning the table on the reporter who was trying to hype an issue for the sake of rating and building news. I am an undecided democratic voter, but tonight after the S. Carolina Primary, all I heard from your CNN team was snide remarks and comments that were focused on assassinating Senator Clinton's character. As a reporter that has focused his carrier on honesty and "Keeping Them Honest" I think it is time for you to look at your own "House", keep your own team honest and keep their focus on being responsible reporters as opposed to soap opera screen writers.

11:05 PM  

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