Sunday, April 27, 2008

Reverend Wright Speaks Out And More FLDS Raid Coverage (Thursday's Show)

Hi everybody. Anderson Cooper is off and probably racking up some frequent flyer miles somewhere, so tonight Campbell Brown holds down the fort. Hey, remember that whole Reverend Wright controversy that just wouldn't go away? He's baaaack. That's right kids, after the story had finally run its course through the news cycle, Obama's number one annoyance has decided we weren't quite done talking about all that. Sigh. Reverend Wright, can I give you some advice? Shut up!!! And I say that with the utmost respect. You are not helping. It's like when Bill Clinton started talking about the Bosnia sniper story again after all the chatter had finally died down. C'mon people, this isn't rocket science: if you want a story to stall and die, you don't talk about it. Talking about it moves it forward into the next cycle. There's no way they don't know that.

So anyway, seeing as though Reverend Wright majorly buttered 360's bread the first time around, they're all over it this time too, giving us extended clips from Wright's sit down with Bill Moyers. I love Bill Moyers, but I always forget to watch his show. He and David Brancaccio are my PBS guys. Is it weird that I have PBS guys? Mostly I just like saying Brancaccio. I heard Moyers speak a few years back and he was really good. Unfortunately, some jerk had to pull the fire alarm right as he was finishing. What are you going to do? If you've noticed that I'm kind of weaving around here, it's because I am so over this pastor drama. Obama has said all he can on the topic and it's time for all of us to move on.

But...we're totally not moving on. Instead, we've got discussion with David Gergen, Roland Martin, and the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins. The Gerg pretty much holds my "shut up" view, though he's much more polite about it. Of note is when Tony gets to talking and says that even evangelicals that have problems with the country's policies, don't pray for damnation of the country. This causes Roland to pipe up and claim Wright never prayed for damnation of the country and the two go back and forth on the issue until Campbell simply changes the subject.

Oh, what the hell? Look, either it was taken out of context or it wasn't. There is a right answer here and I'm getting sick of this whole "we'll let you decide" crap. People are busy. They don't have time to be constantly reading a whole transcript or watching multiple speeches. If I'm expected to do all that work anyway, what possible motivation do I have for watching the news half the time? I don't want them to tell me that person A said this and person B said this. I want them to tell me that person A said this, person B said this, and then we checked it out and discovered that person A is the one who is right. It's not always going to be that black and white or easily verifiable, but like I said, either Tony is taking him out of context or Roland is wrong. C'mon most trusted name in news, which is it?

We then move on to some more Wright clips from Moyer's show and Roland and Tony kinda tango back and forth, culminating in Roland awesomely popping his top: "Secretary of State Colin Powell had to apologize for what took place when it came to Chile and Pinochet. We have had American officials apologize because of what our government has done, what happened in Iran with Mossadegh, overthrowing him, what happened in Nicaragua? I mean, the Reagan administration completely ignored the laws of the United States. And that's a reality there. We can't deny what we have actually done. We have done good. We have done bad. That's called American history." Whoa. You don't usually hear that on CNN. Go Roland.

Next up, we have a Candy Crowley piece on election math. Oh, so much better. Anyhoo, hey, have you heard that Clinton actually has the most votes? She totally does. Of course, you have to count Michigan...where Obama was not even on the ballot. And then there's that pesky problem of Obama leading in the popular vote, states, and delegate count. But, you know, other than that, she's totally winning.

Transitioning now to a Susan Roesgen piece on all those kids taken from the Yearning for Zion ranch. Most are being separated from their mothers and sent to group homes. Also, DNA has been taken to try to determine who belongs to who. After Susan's piece, she tells us the children will be schooled in the group homes, so as not to subject them to more trauma. She notes that even her red shirt could scare them because they are taught that red is the devil's color. Yikes. Red is the devil's color. Black is supposedly sin. I wonder what other colors mean.

From here we have discussion with Jeffrey Toobin, and Carolyn Jessop, who they might as well just hire at this point. Then we go into a Gary Tuchman piece on the phone call that started it all. Turns out that it might not have been a 16-year-old that called at all. It might have been Rosita Swinton, a 33-year-old pretending to be a 16-year-old. Obviously the woman has some mental issues. But chew on this: If Swinton is the caller, she committed a crime...and she also might have just saved a few hundred kids from further abuse. Bizarre.

The Shot tonight is poor Pierre, a penguin cruelly afflicted with, well, baldness. But don't cry too many tears for Pierre. Biologists made the little guy a wetsuit and Pierre is back, baby! He's even growing back his feathers.

The show was okay. You can probably tell I'm over the Wright coverage, which sucks for me because as of this blogging he opened his mouth AGAIN. Hm, I think I know what 360 will be talking about on Monday. Sigh. But hey, they are more than welcome to prove me wrong and give a little coverage to Iraq, Afghanistan, New Orleans, troop mental health issues, infrastructure, Darfur, government corruption...and on and on and on. C

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