Apparently America Is Not Post-Racial Quite Yet, Updates On the Garrido And Annie Le Cases, And The Physician Side Of The Medical Malpractice Issue

Hi everyone. No point in small talk. Off we go! Anderson Cooper begins by telling us that Jimmy Carter is sticking to his comments from yesterday, that race plays a factor in all these tea party protests against Obama. You know, I thought we had solved this whole racism thing a few months ago when Obama tossed one back with a cop and a professor. Who would have guessed that wouldn't do the trick?

In a Candy Crowley piece, we get a recap of how we got to here. Remember how yesterday I said that mixing a former president with accusations of racism equals one big media freak out? Welcome to the freak out, already in progress. For the record, the Obama camp won't touch this thing with a 10 foot pole. They know better than to agree with Carter, lest they hear shrieks that the prez is playing the race card. What he thinks privately, however? Well, I guess we're going to need another off-the-record leak to find out who else the commander in chief thinks is a jackass.

For our requisite panel discussion, we're joined by David Gergen, Roland Martin, conservative activist Nic Lott, and singer John Legend. The lineup sorta makes me feel like I'm playing a game of guess which one doesn't belong. I love John Legend, but I'm not exactly sure why he's on my television right now. Then again, he's intelligent, well spoken, and yes, hella hot (hello!). So I'm not exactly complaining here. I mean, we've got John Legend and no Mark Williams. This is pretty win-win for us.

Roland totally has Carter's back and talks a bit about code words that are used to imply that someone is of the "other." Nic, unsurprisingly has a different view and notes that no racial slurs came from the podium during the protests. Oh well, that's something to brag about. When you have to specify where the racial slurs did not come from, you're not doing so hot. John thinks there's truth to what Carter said, but the comment just inflamed and distracted. Pretty much what I said. Media freak out. Now no one's talking about the real issues. Then John starts saying that he doesn't want a race war, though I'm not sure anyone has actually advocated for one.

Commercial break now and when we come back we learn that Bill Cosby plays for Team Carter. Not sure I would have guessed that. Also, am I the only one that briefly saw NBC's Andrea Mitchell? That would be a weird thing to hallucinate. Anyhoo! The Gerg hits us with some polls that show Carter is not alone. But then he says he thinks that when it comes to most protesters, the racism charge is libelous. "Seven previous presidents have tried to bring health care reforms of this kind. All seven have failed. And, as I recall, all seven were white," he says. Yes, but talk to the protesters and they'll tell you this is not just about health care reform.

John says that he believes there is some racism going on, but also talks a bit about the legitimate fear of government intervention. Hey there, mister. Quit being so reasonable. This show already has a Gerg. Anderson brings up the Nazi signs that people had under Bush and tries to equate it with what's happening now. I don't think it's the same. It sounds terrible, but Hitler/Nazi accusations are like a default these days. If they were just calling Obama a Nazi (and I hate that we're at a place where I'm using the word "just" in that sentence), I wouldn't be as disturbed. This goes beyond that.

Nic claims that the majority of the protesters have legitimate concerns and the crazies are just a small fringe. This is what drives me nuts. You know what, there are legitimate concerns to be had. But we're not hearing about reasonable people working with Obama to alleviate fears over deficit spending. No. These protesters are screaming about how Obama wants to kill your grandma and turn us all socialist. They are not credible people and they are clearly not interested in doing anything that doesn't involve destroying the president's agenda. For Pete's sake, one of the tea party organizers called him a "racist in chief."

John brings up the idiocy of Rush Limbaugh and Nic counters that he's not a legislator. "Rush Limbaugh is a legitimate mainstream conservative," says John. Bingo. Nic again tries to dismiss, by saying Rush didn't march. Um, wasn't the whole 9-12 thing the brain child of Glenn Beck, a man who has said that the president has a hatred for white people? A man who is clearly batshit insane? (Seriously, I watched his show a couple weeks ago and it was one of the craziest things I'd ever seen.)

Anderson then explains the Rush incident that John brought up. Apparently there's a video of white kids beating the crap out of black kid and Rush basically chalked it up to it now being open season on white kids. You know, because Obama is president or something. For the record, it appears it was kids just generally being idiots, which I'm told happens sometimes. Nic doesn't agree with Rush's comments, but then says he might have been joking. What?! "Oh, no, he wasn't joking," says John, adding that Rush speaks for a lot of conservatives.

To wrap up, Nic, David, and John all seem to agree that we are not a racist country at heart. However, John notes that Carter was talking about a certain fringe that is racist and he shouldn't be demonized for saying so. Amen. Now can we please try to find our way to sanity? No? Well okay then.

Transitioning now to the news that bones have been found on the Garrido property, which, actually, I thought we already knew. Testing will have to be done to figure out if they're human. For discussion, we're joined by criminal pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht and former FBI agent and profiler Candice DeLong. You all know I'm not really into the speculation. Anderson seems to push the theory that the other missing girl case really matches Jaycee's, but Candice talks him down. Good for her. There just aren't enough facts yet.

We then switch to the Annie Le case and learn that the cause of death was strangulation. Pretty horrible. In a Tom Foreman piece, we get a sorta profile of Raymond Clark, a person of interest. Tom does the whole lame talk-to-the-neighbors thing. Seems pretty pointless to me. Also, at this point I hope this really is a bad guy because otherwise he's kinda having his life ruined right now.

Then we're back for more speculation with the prior guests, but I've had enough and skip out to MSNBC. Sorry guys. That's how I roll now. Anyway, when I come back, Erica Hill is wrapping up a piece about another Yale murder and how they jumped the gun with the suspect. Afterward, she gives us a little "where is he now" with info she got from his LinkedIn profile, which I find amusing. You think of journalists with their fancy sources and whatnot, but nope, sometimes they're just Googling just like you.

Our final piece of the night is from Randi Kaye and it continues this week's medical malpractice series. Tonight we meet OBGYN Dr. Wendy Fried. Her malpractice insurance clocks in at about $170,000 a year. Um, wow. Apparently her specialty is sued a lot. She had her turn in 1998 when a patient suffered a uterine rupture that required an emergency hysterectomy. Mom and baby made it, and it seemed like everyone was happy--Dr. Fried was even invited to their Christmas dinner.

But then she was slapped with a lawsuit because the patient felt the hysterectomy was unnecessary. In the end the jury found that Dr. Fried did nothing wrong. But that didn't resolve her feelings of betrayal--she had slept at the patient's bedside, and it's led to her practicing defensive medicine. So there we go. Another side to a complicated issue. This is a good series. Too bad they're dropping it at the end of the show like they don't care.

The "shot" tonight is adorable. Just watch. The show was okay. Same old, same old.