Obama's New Team, The Mumbai Attacks, Sarah Palin Refuses To Go Away (No Matter How Much We Wish It), And Wal-Mart (And People) Suck

Hi everyone. Happy New Week! We're back! I'm back. 360 is back. Anderson is back. So, what is the news giving us as a welcome back present? BREAKING NEWS that our stock market is totally tanking. Again. You know, next time I think I'd prefer just to skip the gift. Oh, and also? It's official: we're in a recession and in fact have been for a year now. In other news, the American Meteorological Society announced today that, yes, the sky is blue. Seriously, what's with all the official declarers being the last to know? Remember how everybody freaked when NBC grew some balls and called the civil war in Iraq, um, a civil war? Civil war? What civil war? All that violence is the birth pangs of democracy, you commies.

Okay, so back to our imploding economy, Ali Velshi is already at the wall of doom and he starts giving us the lowdown, saying the words "bad news" way too much for my taste. Apparently we are in a global recession, which typically lasts 16 to 18 months. So, since it's been going on for a year...four to six months to go, people! Unless of course this is like some sort of super recession. I don't know if we've had one of those. But, um, let's not start now, okay?

Moving on now to a Candy Crowley piece on Obama's new entourage--the peeps that will be running this here country during the coming years. Obama says he's a strong believer in strong opinions and hoo boy, he's chosen some. Trying to combat group think is an excellent plan though, given all the "yes men" stories to come out of the Bush administration. Let's see, he's keeping Gates in defense, tapping Jim Jones for National Security Adviser, putting Eric Holder in charge of justice, making Susan Rice our ambassador to the UN, picking Janet Napolitano to head Homeland Security, and, oh yeah, some woman named Hillary Clinton is going to fill a little position called secretary of state. Maybe you've heard of her.

Next up, Anderson tells us they, "wanted to know what deals were actually made to get the Clintons on board," and apparently Joe Johns has done a piece to tell us. So the story goes, Bill Clinton agreed to nine conditions, including publishing the names of a lot of his library and foundation donors. Okay, that is an actual deal that involved reporting and stuff, but the rest of this piece is just all info anyone could know by simply paying attention as to how government works. Like, Joe tells us that in return for Bill giving up the donors, Hillary gets time on the world stage and Obama has to agree to share the spotlight. Um, duh. This isn't super-seekret information that CNN got from their inside sources. So, yeah, great insight on those deals there that they so obviously didn't talk to you about, CNN. PS: Please stop with the Clinton obsession!

On now to the inevitable strategy session, with tonight's pontificators including Joe, David Gergen, and Hilary Rosen. Hm, anybody want to take a guess as to what is topic numero uno? It pretty much goes as so: like, oh my God, what do you guys think Clinton and Obama will talk about?! So...yeah. Then the subject changes to Obama's new posse and Anderson wonders if he risks alienating the hard left with the centrists now on staff. Okay, seriously, the media needs to stop this newly forming conventional wisdom. First of all, who is the hard left? Do you even know what they want? Because it doesn't seem like you do. Anyway, Hilary says that the new appointments will be abiding by Obama's policy and she thinks most progressives are going to give him the benefit of the doubt. Exactly.

Anderson then mentions that there's been talk of Bill taking over Hillary's senate seat. What?! Joe tells it could actually happen because they're having trouble finding takers. Then he tells us, no, he's totally lying. Bwah! You had me going there, Joe. He does deadpan better than Anderson. After this we get a clip of Bush saying he was unprepared for war, which is not nearly as satisfying to hear as I once thought it would be. I mean, he's hardly copping to anything, but years ago if he said that it might have made me cry. I needed it. Now I hear it and I don't feel anything. Does this mean I've over Bush? I don't know. The anger's still there, but it's like...it's like he can't hurt us anymore. You know?

Transitioning now to a Nic Robertson piece on the horrible situation in Mumbai. You know who I blame for this? Jon Stewart and his Daily Show peeps. Not the answer you were expecting, was it? Go with me on this: every time they go on vacation, something horrible happens. Pick a disaster and nine times out of ten they were off. This is why comedy should never take a break--if not for the laughs, for reasons of world security. Okay, so that was me giving you levity before I start telling you that 180 people are dead and it's really looking like Pakistan, or at least Pakistanis, were the perpetrators. I don't think I need to tell you how that would make a region that's already a clusterf*ck into well, a super-clusterf*ck.

Continuing with the subject, we have a taped interview Anderson did with Fareed Zakaria. I loves me Fareed (though I always forget to watch his show). This terrorist attack hit Fareed very close to home because his mother works at one of the hotels attacked, though thankfully she wasn't there at the time. He then gives us a little background on India, noting that there must have been some terrorist connection in that country as well. It seems that when it comes to the private sector, India rocks. The government though, not so much. It will be interesting to see how India responds to this. If they're anything like us, well, watch out Uzbekistan, you're about to get preemptively invaded.

Next up, we have a Gary Tuchman piece on the senate race going down between republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss and his challenger Jim Martin and...oh, who am I kidding? This is all about one of 360's favorite obsessions: Sarah Palin. They say she's back, but, uh, did I miss the part where she actually went away? I was going to compare her to some sort of bug, but that seemed a little too mean, so I'm going to go with sand. Sarah Palin is like sand in your car after a trip to the beach. You sweep it and you sweep it and you think it's all gone, but then days later, nope, still some there. So anyway, Palin is stumping for Chambliss and she's out there talking about the majority party infringin' on their second amendment rights and, uh, excuse me, Sarah? No one is talking about taking away your second amendment rights. We've kinda got a whole big financial crisis and two wars to deal with. Seriously, it's cool.

Gary then talks with some rally-goers who can't seem to get enough of the former VP candidate, with one simply saying, "Well, I mean, she's hot." Eloquent, dude. Eloquent. Oh, and poor Gary is back to yelling his questions among the unwashed journalist masses. By the way, if Martin wins, the Democrats will be one away from that magic filibuster-proof number of 60 seats, but I guess that can't compare to Sarah Palin saying things. Oh well. At least we get to see Gary. Seems likes it's been a while. After his piece, he joins us live with a fun fact. Well, not really fun exactly, but apparently the same woman that Palin lost to in the 1984 Ms. Alaska contest just sang the national anthem at a Jim Martin rally. Small (and weird!) world.

Our last piece of the night is from Randi Kaye regarding the trampling death of that 34-year-old temporary worker at Wal-Mart on Black Friday. This whole thing is just disgusting. Over the weekend I watched the cell phone video of the man getting CPR and I felt pretty guilty and dirty for doing so. Now it's on CNN. I guess I should have known. Anyway, apparently the shoppers even kept shopping after they were asked to leave because someone had died. What is wrong with people?! For Wal-Mart's part, they claim they had brought in extra security. Whatever. This is not really changing my belief that Wal-Mart is evil.

For the legal lowdown on all this, we're next joined by Jeffrey Toobin. There's a security tape of people going into the store and stepping on the man, but Toobin doubts there will be charges because there was no intent to do wrong. Although a civil suit against Wal-Mart is likely. Good! They set the stage for this. They should have given out numbers in line for the popular items. But that might mean some people would leave before entering the store, and oh, we can't have that. I hope they pay through the nose. After the Wal-Mart tragedy, they switch the topic up to the murder of Jennifer Hudson's family. I missed most of this, though there was some amusing banter about Nancy Grace. "She's totally part of our team," says Anderson. I think he's mocking. Please, let him be mocking. Heh.

The Shot tonight is one 360 obsession morphing into another. This was the tease: "just what do Beyonce and Governor Sarah Palin have in common?" Don't even try to guess, people. It's Alaska. And it's only because somebody got their "Single Ladies" dance on in the same state where Palin keeps an eye on Russia. Yeah, you're reaching, 360. You're reaching. Also, brrrr! I'm not sure why they keep bringing up Palin because it seems like most people hate her. Oh sure, there are that small group of die hards, but those are the same people that call CNN the Communist News Network and mumble about that evil liberal media that is destroying America. Just saying.

Anyway! The cold booty-shaking leads to them playing the half-naked booty-shaking and leotard-clad booty-shaking, like they did before. Erica Hill urges leotard-clad man to "shake what his momma gave him," a saying which seems to perplex Anderson Cooper. Oh, c'mon, Anderson, your momma gave you some excellent genes to shake. Ooh! And excellent jeans. Though those might have just been for the ladies. I don't know. Either way, there will be no shaking of anything from our anchor. But yesterday we got shirtless swimming, so really, who can complain?

I missed most of the first webcast tonight due to the very technical problem of me forgetting to turn on my speakers, though apparently it is Erica's belief that you should aways have a notebook and pen. Hm. In the next webcast we get a movie review. This webcast is multi-purpose, isn't it? Jerry gives, "Four Christmases" two thumbs up. Good to know. Erica says she has not been to a movie in two years because of her child. Yikes. Though really, I'm not doing much better. There was a time not too many years ago that I would see a movie every Friday. Times have changed.

Anyway, Anderson shouts about the existence of DVDs and ooh, I've got something to share. See, over Thanksgiving I was lamenting to my brother about how I keep forgetting to record Ugly Betty (shut up! It's good) and ABC's full episode player is evil. Well, he totally hooked me up with this site called surfthechannel and you can watch all sorts of stuff there. Now I'm catching up on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, a show I probably don't recommend if you are easily offended.

Okay, kinda got off track there, but then Toobin shows up and apparently his 15-year-old son is a baker. Jeffery would love to exploit this for cash because, dude, kids are expensive. Aw, he'll be sad when Junior's working all the time and he can't see him as much on holidays. My poor brother had to drive back home Thanksgiving night (about a two hour drive) so he could work the next morning. That's about it for me, though I'll also add that I noticed Anderson said he'll be "online throughout the hour." This is much better than saying he will be blogging, which usually ends up being a lie. I know it's insignificant, but the truthiness of it still irked me. That'll do it.