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!

Terrorism Plots In The U.S., More Fun At The U.N., Family Pics Interpreted As Child Porn, Possible HIV Vaccine, And John McCain Interview

Hi everyone. A lot going on tonight. As I often (okay, basically never) do, this evening I sat down to watch my local news. Did I find the usual nice normal story about the latest shooting and/or stabbing? No! Terrorism has come to my neck of the woods! Well, almost. As we learn from Anderson Cooper, American Michael Finton converted to Islam while in prison, became a John Walker Lindh wannabe, and just tried to blow up a federal courthouse in Springfield, Illinois. Eep!

If that's not bad enough, we also learn that in Texas, a Jordanian in the US illegally, was plotting to give a Dallas office tower the WMD treatment. WTF? Is this crazy terrorist day? Did I miss the memo? Okay, this all didn't just go down today. From Jeanne Meserve we learn the details of how the FBI investigated and thwarted both plots. Normally all we hear about is government screw ups, so total gold star to them.

Like celebrity deaths, I guess news about crazy terrorists also comes in threes. Today Afghan immigrant Najibullah Zazi was charged with conspiracy to use WMDs. We're shown EXCLUSIVE stills of him buying stuff at a convenience store. From Susan Candiotti we learn that this allegedly included hydrogen peroxide, a shower cap, hair rollers, and nail polish. Apparently, this stuff is used to make bombs, but um, hair rollers? Maybe he likes to look pretty while he's being an evil doer.

For discussion of all this, we're joined by Peter Bergen and former FBI specialist Don Clark. They talk bombs, and then ponder what's up with all these U.S. terror plots lately. We all know that Britain has a problem with homegrown terrorism, but the conventional wisdom has been that America is cool in that area. Peter notes we might have reason to worry that isn't so. Or maybe it's just a coincidence or something. Either way, sleep tight! Le sigh.

Because one day of U.N. fun just isn't enough, we now transition to Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, getting a little pissy that Holocaust-denying Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was even allowed to speak. To lay down some analysis on this bad boy, David Gergen and Reza Aslan are stepping up to the plate. The Gerg is happy Netanyahu brought this stuff to the table, but also believes the U.N. is a place where everyone should get a say--even batshit insane, members-only-jacket-wearing dictators.

Reza pretty much agrees with the Gerg, but also wants to point out that Netanyahu isn't exactly a member of the U.N. fan club, so there are several thing going on here. They then start talking about Obama's foreign policy and the Gerg admits he's had concerns the prez isn't strong enough. May I remind you of the POTUS's awesome Jedi-like fly-killing skills? Also, he totally didn't hesitate to take out those pirates. (That seems like forever ago, doesn't it?)

Change-up now to the specific topic of Iran, with Reza noting that the priorities of the U.S. and Israel differ when dealing with the country. He thinks the U.S. needs Iran to accomplish our other foreign policy goals. The Gerg, on the other hand, thinks it's all going to be about the nukes. "I believe that the central purpose of what we're going to be focused on as an international community is whether the Iranians are willing to freeze their nuclear weapons development," he tells us.

But Reza has heard something he does not like: "David, it's not a freeze of a nuclear weapons program. It's a freeze of uranium enrichment. Let's not conflate the two. These are two different issues." Ooh, tiny polite snap! The Gerg counters that they're not separate issues, and is about to go on, but then says, "let's leave it there for now." What? No! It was just getting good. Argh! Don't get me wrong, I hate arguing, but the Gerg and Reza wouldn't do that. Instead we would have had an intelligent debate between two people who don't fall into the tired left vs. right spectrum. How often does that happen on cable news? Never. And it didn't happen tonight either.

Transitioning now to an outrageous story of how one family practically had their lives ruined just because they took pictures of their children. A.J. and Lisa Demaree snapped some normal bath time photos of their three little girls, took them to be developed at Wal-Mart, and were promptly accused of engaging in child pornography. We're shown the pictures (kids faces are blurred out) and they are completely innocent.

But what happened to A.J. and Lisa was not innocent at all. They join us live and we learn they were placed on a sex offenders list and had their children temporarily taken away. Lisa was even suspended from her job for a year. All this and they did NOTHING wrong. They're now suing the city, state, and Wal-Mart. I fully support protecting children, but it's kinda terrifying how easily the state can just take your kids from you. Hopefully they won't have any long term issues due to being separated from their parents.

For the legal lowdown, we've got Jeffrey Toobin, who differs with the Demaree's lawyer in that he believes Wal-Mart does have a responsibility to report questionable pictures. I gotta go with Jeff on this one. As much as I hate Wal-Mart, I think they're the least at fault here. But Jeff does note he thinks the people at the store and the Peoria PD must have perverted minds themselves to think the pictures were erotica. True dat. The lesson in all of this? According to Jeff (and what I wrote in my notes while watching the Demaree's interview) is use a digital camera.

Next up, swine-flu-survivor Sanjay Gupta is here to talk about a possible HIV vaccine. That would be awesome! What's interesting is that the vaccine is a combination of two other vaccines that previously failed. Also of note, is that because of mutation, there might actually be different vaccines for specific parts of the world. Complicated stuff. In any regard, availability is years away, but it's a good step.

On now to "The Big 360 Interview." Fancy-pants graphic! Anderson got himself an EXCLUSIVE with non president John McCain. In all honesty, there's not much here, but I'll expand on that in a second. For now, let's skip to the part where Anderson brings up his new favorite topic of how we're nation building in Afghanistan. And I say that without snark, by the way. You keep pressing, baby! However long it takes until this mission is better defined.

McCain responds, like Lindsey Graham the other night, by saying we need to first get the security situation under control before we can progress on other fronts. "unless we do what we did in the surge in Iraq, which is clear, hold and secure areas, then it's very difficult to defeat an insurgency," he says. I'm sorry, this is crap. Everyone paying attention knows that the "success" of the surge was brought on by a multitude of factors (such as putting insurgents on the payroll) and was not strictly due to a troop increase. So...how are we going to replicate those factors in Afghanistan? And do we want to? And dude, where is the follow up?

Anderson then reads a quote from McCain that basically says we shouldn't send men to fight a war that the public isn't behind. He brings up the recent poll numbers on the war and wonders if Afghanistan will "end up being, once again, the incredible efforts of our troops in the field bearing this thing alone." I got this one. Go out on the street and grab five people. Ask them to first give you a summary of the last episode of "Dancing with the Stars." Then ask them what they know about what's currently happening in Afghanistan. There's your answer. The troops are already bearing it alone.

Okay, then there's some more stuff, but it's all very talking point-esque. So on to the lightening round! Yes, for real. Speaking of "Dancing with the Stars," our anchor wants to know what McCain thought about Delay's (child-frightening) performance. McCain says he actually spared himself from seeing it, which leads Anderson to recommend he hit the YouTube. I will take that to mean that the Silver Fox is not a big fan of the senator from Arizona.

Our next stroke of lightening is a question about Ghadhafi's tent, specifically, uh, what's it like in there? They both chuckle and McCain says "bizarre," but let's back this train up, shall we? Okay, the other day they led with the very serious outrage (OUTRAGE) over Ghadhafi pitching his tent and now it's a joke? I think you need to choose, guys. Anyway, like I said, I wasn't hugely impressed with this interview, but I do give big props that Anderson is actually doing interviews nightly now. Variety is the spice of life. I won't love them all.

Finally tonight, David Mattingly joins us to talk about a dead census worker, which sounds like it could turn into something bigger. But I'm tired and am going to just wrap things up. The show was good again. It felt like a lot was covered and not much ridiculousness. The ratings last night were pretty good, so...lock in the formula, 360! I think you finally got it. (Watch, now tomorrow we'll get 30 minutes of speculative sensationalism.) That'll do it. Until we meet again.

Gadhafi Pitches His (Literal) Tent On Trump's Property, Flooding Continues in Georgia, Edwards Update, And Lindsey Graham Interview On Afghanistan

Hi everybody. We begin tonight with Moammar Gadhafi's quest to pitch his tent. Uh, it's not what you're thinking. Anderson Cooper tells us the Libyan leader hasn't been on US soil for 40 years because we used to consider him a sponsor of terrorism, but now we don't. So...he's here! And he brought a tent. Yes, as in something that you camp in. Except it has air conditioning. Fancy!

But this whole tent thing is not going well. Central Park said no to the pitching. Englewood, New Jersey? No squared. It's not so much the tent that has people riled up per se, as it is the occupant of the tent, who happens to be responsible for murdering a bunch of Americans. So you can see why people have their "no vacancy" signs out.

The crazy twist of the story--you know there had to be one--is that it turns out that Gadhafi has found a place to pitch that tent: on the property of Donald Trump. Yes, the Donald. Could this get weirder? Well, I guess it could have been Kanye. Anyway, Erica Hill has more details, including a quote from Trump Organization that talks nonsense about having business partners all over the world. It sound like they're trying to play it off that they didn't know this was going to happen.

But whatever, people do business with evil all the time in the name of the almighty dollar. Hello! Halliburton and Iran? Also, we learn that 360 tried to get Trump on the show, but he declined. Praise the Lord for small favors.

For discussion of this, we're joined by Brian Flynn, brother of one of the Pan Am Flight 103 victims, and author and television host Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who helped keep the tent out of Englewood. As you might imagine, Brian is not happy. It is noted that Gadhafi won't actually be staying in the tent, but using it to meet visitors. Rabbi Shmuley wants people to protest and make it impossible for the Libyan leader to use his "terror tent of shame" for this purpose. Terror tent of shame? Really? Okay.

Back from commercial, they talk a bit about Gadhafi's embrace of the terrorist just (supposedly compassionately) recently released to Libya. "He kissed Gadhafi's hands. And we Americans need to tell Gadhafi to kiss a different part of our anatomy entirely. The fact is, he does not belong on our soil. Donald Trump should tell him, you're fired," says Rabbi Shmuley. Okay seriously, is this guy auditioning for something? This is getting more bizarre by the minute.

Then Rabbi Shmuley advocates for a potential boycott of Trump Organization, depending on how things go. I'm on-board with that even without the whole terrorist tent thing. Brian says that he will protest. Finally, they bring in Bedford town attorney Joel Sachs by phone and he talks to us about zoning laws, which is riveting television. Just sayin'.

Transitioning to the awful flooding in Georgia, which has now taken at least nine lives. David Mattingly is again on the case, this time in Cobb County. The water is actually receding, but it's left behind massive devastation. We see some of this devastation in a subsequent piece from David as he tags along with a family returning home. To make matters worse, many of these neighborhoods were not in flood zones, so the home owners did not have flood insurance. We've heard that story before. After the dramatic video is gone, I hope 360 remains on the story for the disaster to come.

Moving on to the news that Elizabeth Edwards does not want her husband to cop to being Rielle Hunter's baby daddy because it would give him an excuse to see her. We're then played a clip of John doing his whole "I'm sorry," routine (from previously) and I literally cringe because I think we're about to get one of those "why do men cheat?" segments. But thankfully, no! Actually, what we get is a Joe Johns piece that I don't think has any significant new information from what we heard last night. Oh well. Beggars can't be choosers, I suppose.

Next up, Anderson tells us that the Pentagon has asked General Stanley McChrystal to hold off on asking for more troops for Afghanistan because the Obama administration is rethinking their strategy. Does it really matter if he formally asks for them? Everybody already knows he wants them, thanks to the leaked report from yesterday. But public support for the war is way down, so there's that.

Here to talk about the subject is Republican Lindsey Graham, advocate of more troops. He trusts the generals. Anderson points out that counterinsurgency requires a civilian component and we don't really have that on the ground in Afghanistan. Graham seems to agree, but notes that security is so bad right now that civilians couldn't do anything anyway. Fair point, I suppose.

Anderson then drums on the Al-Qaeda-is-not-in-Afghanistan thing, which we've been hearing from him quite a bit. Graham apparently falls in the camp that thinks that if we leave, the Taliban will take over and let Al Qaeda back in. Okay, but are we saying we have to wipe out all of the Taliban then? Given that they're a part of the population, that could take decades because it would involve winning over all hearts and minds. Plus, are we really prepared to commit resources in every country that could potentially harbor Al Qaeda? The Bush doctrine didn't work. Do we want to invade Somalia?

That ponderance falls in line with Anderson's next question: "is nation building something we really want to be involved with in Afghanistan?" This seems to go right over Graham's head, because he states that the surge of troops is not for nation building. But we can't win this militarily. Basically everyone admits that. So what is he talking about? Sigh. This interview was a good start regarding furthering the dialog (and Anderson did fine), but man, where's Michael Ware when you need him, you know?

On now to the "Prime Suspects" series. Tonight's topic: the Craigslist killer. Randi Kaye does the honors. Normally I hate this stuff, but I will admit to being slightly intrigued by Internet forensics, which is how they caught the guy. I will also admit to laughing and being weirded out that they had someone read the emails for voice-overs. To be filed under: "was that really necessary?" Anyway, somewhat interesting, nonetheless.

Next up, Anderson tells us that Tom Delay busted some moves on "Dancing With The Stars." "We'll show you his version of the cha-cha," he says. Oh God, do you have to?! We're later played the clip, which is just...horrific. Nightmares, people! Nightmares! If you really want to traumatize yourself, I'm sure it's on Huffpost. I'm not linking because I can't afford to be responsible for anyone's therapy bills. "Give him credit. He fully committed to it," says Anderson. Erica then alludes to the ass shots, which were...oh God. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

The "shot" tonight is a drug task force taking a little break to play with a suspect's Wii. Yeah, that's a no no. This brings Erica to ask if Anderson's Wii came with a bowling game. We all remember Anderson's rather awkwardly received birthday gift, don't we? Anyway, Anderson so clearly has not touched that Wii, which is evidenced by the face he is making. But he gives us an affirmative to the bowling anyway. Hopefully his Wii found a new home with people who will love it. (Rereading, this paragraph sounds rather dirty. Seriously, did they have to name it that?)

The show was okay. I understand the outrage over Gadhafi, but I kinda didn't get the intense tent focus. Also, it seems like the Edwards stuff could have just been a headline. Yay to the Lindsey Graham interview though. Not exactly groundbreaking, but a good start in what I'm sure is about to be a long national conversation. That'll do it.