Iran Talk, Census Worker Found Dead, And Interview With Bill Clinton
Hi everybody. I sat down Friday night to write this post and then...didn't. It's annoying to me when I put in the effort of getting down all the story details, and then don't end up following through with the actual blogging. After all, I could have watched the show vegging out-style, occasionally losing myself in Anderson Cooper's blue, blue eyes when things got boring. What?! Where did that come from? I would never do that. Ahem. Anyway! So this all isn't a total waste, I'm just going to barrel through this thing, hitting on the points I want to make. Okey-dokey? And we're off.
We begin on the subject of Iran. Those sneaky little devils have been building themselves a secret underground nuclear plant. At least that's what our prez says, and he is not very happy about it. You best check yourself, Ahmadinejad. Because you are on notice! This moves us into a clip of Bill Clinton talking Iran, and then into discussion with Bobby Ghosh of "TIME" and Peter Brookes of the Heritage Foundation. Why is it that the Heritage Foundation is never identified as a conservative think tank? That really bugs me.
Shallow alert: I'm not much of a noticer, so maybe this isn't new, but Erica Hill seems to be wearing her hair differently today. And it looks very pretty.
On to David Mattingly reporting on that murdered census worker. Now we know he was naked, tied to a tree, duct-taped, had a rope around his neck, and the word "Fed" was placed somewhere on his body. Still a lot of unknowns though. Says Anderson: "We have been very careful over the last several days in our reporting on this not to jump to any conclusions or speculation." At the time he says these words, I am in agreement.
Cut to about 30 seconds later, Anderson introduces Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, and asks the following: "What are the options in terms of what could have happened?" Bah! You just told us you weren't going to speculate, and now you're literally asking your guest to speculate. So close! After Brian, you know, speculates, Anderson thanks him and tells us, "There is still a lot we do not know. We're being very cautious in what we're reporting on this and what we're saying." Quick tip, if you feel the need to excessively note how cautious you're being, there's a good chance you're, um, not.
(Note: this wasn't anywhere close to being 360's most egregious act of speculation. I didn't even mind it all that much. But the insistence that they wouldn't, and then turning around and having a guest do just that, was borderline comical.)
Next up, "The Big 360 Interview"!!! I feel like there should be trumpets or something. Here come the Big Dawg, Bubba, or if you want to be all proper, the 42nd president of these here United States: one Mr. Bill Clinton. And this interview is making news right off the bat because at it turns out, Clinton here has changed his mind on same-sex marriage. Honestly, I don't know whether to say, "yay!" or "Jebus, what took you so long?"
He goes on to give what I interpreted as a sincere and well thought out reason as to the change of heart. Hopefully more Americans will follow suit. On a related note, I really do appreciate 360 consistently bringing this issue up. Because others aren't. I'm guessing there's a conventional wisdom out in media-land that the issue isn't as important because it only affects a small percentage of the population. But you don't have to be gay to care about human rights.
The next subject I want to hit on is Afghanistan because Clinton was kind of awesome. He tells us that while it's true that if we don't add troops we'll fail, that doesn't mean that adding troops leads to success. "Because the surge worked, in addition to the skill of our troops, because the local Iraqis were sick of the al Qaeda in Iraq," he says. And then Anderson notes that the Afghans are currently on the fence regarding supporting the US over the Taliban. Finally, context! More of this please.
Lightening round! They really love their lightening rounds, don't they? The keeper here is the story about Boris Yeltsin staying at the White House and trying to get a pizza in his underwear. Hey man, sometimes you just want a pizza, dammit, and a little lack of clothing is not going to stand in your way.
I think I'm going to end things here. It was a good show. They've been doing a fairly impressive job lately. I hope the quality isn't just some sort of UN fluke. Keep it up, 360!
We begin on the subject of Iran. Those sneaky little devils have been building themselves a secret underground nuclear plant. At least that's what our prez says, and he is not very happy about it. You best check yourself, Ahmadinejad. Because you are on notice! This moves us into a clip of Bill Clinton talking Iran, and then into discussion with Bobby Ghosh of "TIME" and Peter Brookes of the Heritage Foundation. Why is it that the Heritage Foundation is never identified as a conservative think tank? That really bugs me.
Shallow alert: I'm not much of a noticer, so maybe this isn't new, but Erica Hill seems to be wearing her hair differently today. And it looks very pretty.
On to David Mattingly reporting on that murdered census worker. Now we know he was naked, tied to a tree, duct-taped, had a rope around his neck, and the word "Fed" was placed somewhere on his body. Still a lot of unknowns though. Says Anderson: "We have been very careful over the last several days in our reporting on this not to jump to any conclusions or speculation." At the time he says these words, I am in agreement.
Cut to about 30 seconds later, Anderson introduces Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, and asks the following: "What are the options in terms of what could have happened?" Bah! You just told us you weren't going to speculate, and now you're literally asking your guest to speculate. So close! After Brian, you know, speculates, Anderson thanks him and tells us, "There is still a lot we do not know. We're being very cautious in what we're reporting on this and what we're saying." Quick tip, if you feel the need to excessively note how cautious you're being, there's a good chance you're, um, not.
(Note: this wasn't anywhere close to being 360's most egregious act of speculation. I didn't even mind it all that much. But the insistence that they wouldn't, and then turning around and having a guest do just that, was borderline comical.)
Next up, "The Big 360 Interview"!!! I feel like there should be trumpets or something. Here come the Big Dawg, Bubba, or if you want to be all proper, the 42nd president of these here United States: one Mr. Bill Clinton. And this interview is making news right off the bat because at it turns out, Clinton here has changed his mind on same-sex marriage. Honestly, I don't know whether to say, "yay!" or "Jebus, what took you so long?"
He goes on to give what I interpreted as a sincere and well thought out reason as to the change of heart. Hopefully more Americans will follow suit. On a related note, I really do appreciate 360 consistently bringing this issue up. Because others aren't. I'm guessing there's a conventional wisdom out in media-land that the issue isn't as important because it only affects a small percentage of the population. But you don't have to be gay to care about human rights.
The next subject I want to hit on is Afghanistan because Clinton was kind of awesome. He tells us that while it's true that if we don't add troops we'll fail, that doesn't mean that adding troops leads to success. "Because the surge worked, in addition to the skill of our troops, because the local Iraqis were sick of the al Qaeda in Iraq," he says. And then Anderson notes that the Afghans are currently on the fence regarding supporting the US over the Taliban. Finally, context! More of this please.
Lightening round! They really love their lightening rounds, don't they? The keeper here is the story about Boris Yeltsin staying at the White House and trying to get a pizza in his underwear. Hey man, sometimes you just want a pizza, dammit, and a little lack of clothing is not going to stand in your way.
I think I'm going to end things here. It was a good show. They've been doing a fairly impressive job lately. I hope the quality isn't just some sort of UN fluke. Keep it up, 360!
Labels: Bill Clinton, Bobby Ghosh, Brian Levin, census, David Mattingly, Erica Hill, Iran, Peter Brookes
posted by eliza at 11:59 PM
2 Comments:
Excellent posting, as usual. I feel like if I miss the show, I can practically relive it through your thoughtfully critical, yet sometimes necessarily sardonic, eye.
@Chris: Only sometimes sardonic? Damn. I must be slipping. ;)
Post a Comment
<< Home