Two Shows, One Blog Post: Health Care Reform, Homeless In America, Haiti, And Anderson Cooper On Jeopardy!

Hi everyone. Last night when I sat down to do Thursday's blog post I realized that I was so tired I couldn't think coherently. Good rule of thumb is to avoid putting things on the interwebs when you're operating at the capacity of a drunk person. Then on Friday I spent the broadcast flipping back and forth between 360 and "The Devil Wears Prada."

So! What follows is the result of me essentially taking two shows and smooshing them into one, emphasizing the things I want to talk about. It's not a review exactly, but review-ish. If you didn't watch, some of this post probably won't make complete sense to you. Sorry? Consider the videos a consolation prize.

We began both nights on the subject of health care reform. Anderson Cooper has been giving the Magic Wall a little love to show us the current vote count, and it's hard not to laugh at the way he practically leaps out of his anchor chair to rush over there. Don't hurt yourself, man. We're patient people. And while I'm talking about minor shallow things, the phrase "The Big Mo" really needs to be killed dead. Just sayin'.

On Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) dropped their preliminary numbers, which became a focus of that night's coverage. We also got a good piece from Ed Henry about sweetheart deals that have stayed in the final package, despite what Obama promised. Some of my fellow progressives might grumble, but this is called journalism--everyone's feet need to be held to the fire.

My only issue was that there was no focus on what was actually in the bill, something Rachel Maddow had covered a couple days prior. But! Fast forward to Friday and not only were we joined by Sanjay Gupta to explain all that, we also got another piece from Ed that finally FINALLY called out the Republicans for rebuking all of Obama's attempts at bipartisanship. I have no idea why we had to wait so long for this acknowledgment, but better late than never. Nice job.

John King joined us both nights to talk health care reform, though you don't have to be a genius to realize that his appearances were mainly just to get in some pimping for his new show (starts Monday!). He had an online dress rehearsal Friday afternoon and I just coincidentally logged onto Twitter at that time, so I thought, what the hell, I'll watch. It wasn't bad. Nothing ground-breaking though. I certainly won't avoid it (like I did with Dobbs) if I happen to have the TV on at that time, but I can't see myself making it a part of my day like I've done with 360.

Thursday night also brought a very nicely done report about a family forced to move into a shelter. As I've previously written on this blog, I believe that one of 360's biggest blunders ever was covering the height of the economic collapse in the same way they covered the election. I don't think they would have lost as many of the regular viewers that I know they have if they had instead covered it from a more human level, which is actually Anderson Cooper's greatest strength.

The piece below is real life. Though they might not be in the exact situation of this family, there are millions of Americans out there who can relate. Unfortunately, this perspective is often lost in between all the punditry. The lack of spoken narration and point of view of the daughter were nice touches, as they made the piece more raw. I hope they produce more reports like this in the future.



It seems 360 is still obsessed with The Dating Game serial killer. On Thursday, Anderson interviewed a woman who was taken by the man when she was a child, but survived due to a tip from a good Samaritan. Admittedly, it was a pretty compelling conversation. A lieutenant also joined them to speak about the recently discovered pictures of girls and women that they've been showing. Though I normally don't like crime stories, this was a good segment. Except! Why do they keep playing that stupid Dating Game footage? It trivializes a story that's important enough to stand on its own.

Sean Penn joined us live from Haiti on Friday and man, he did not look good. He also seemed pretty damn upset, which drives home the point that things are very bad there and about to get much worse. You can't really predict an earthquake, but everyone knows these rains are coming. If God forbid thousands die...there are going to be people that will need to answer for that. Video below.



There were some other things covered both nights, but that's about it for this blog post. Now, onto the fun. Well, perhaps Anderson would quibble with my definition of 'fun'. See, on Thursday the Silver Fox was on the celebrity version of Jeopardy, battling it out with Aisha Tyler and Cheech Marin. Anyone who has been watching Anderson for a while knows that he's actually already a Jeopardy champion. We know this because he never stops telling us. Like fer serious, if the conversation ever comes anywhere near the vicinity of that game show, he will bring it up and he will gloat.

But not anymore! Oh, the Silver Fox goes down in flames! Was he beaten by smarty-pants funny-gal Aisha? Nope. It was Cheech. Yes, that Cheech. Two Ivy Leaguers crushed by a pothead. Loves it. Watching Anderson play was almost painful; not so much because he was all that terrible, but because he takes it so dang seriously and you could tell he was freaking out. He made me feel bad for him! At one point I was even pep talking my TV ("Oh, there you go. You know this one. You covered that story."), which is pretty ridiculous given that: 1) I don't know him 2) He can't hear me anyway 3) It was taped!

That's the power of the Silver Fox for you--you want to trash talk and mock, but you just can't bring yourself to do it. Much. Oh also? I clearly watch 360 way too much (duh) because I knew what category Anderson was going to pick every time he had control of the board. Anyway! Though our anchor took the loss hard, he is not without a sense of humor about himself. That night he had on Cheech to congratulate him, and let's face it, make excuses for his own performance.

Anderson also shows us an email he received from Soledad O'Brien right after the show aired. It says, "Cheech Marin beat you? Seriously, that's sad." Oh snap! That's cold. (And kinda makes me love her more.) Our anchor tries to console himself by noting that he's actually the winner among CNN anchors, though Cheech points out that's damning with faint praise. Plus, Soledad might have come in last when she played, but at least she had some money on the board. The Coop had zippo--tying for second (and third, I guess) with Aisha.

Skip ahead to Friday, and I'm flipping back to 360 from my movie when I find...Erica Hill! ZOMG, did we go back in time? No, we did not. Erica was Skyped in just so that she could have a crack at mocking Anderson's Jeopardy loss as well. Too funny. She brings up our anchor's buzzer excuse and he tries to convince us that he knew much of what Cheech did, but just wasn't fast enough. Likely story. It's okay, Anderson. I still believe you're smart. Anyhoo! Great to see Erica again. I hope his loss isn't keeping the Silver Fox up at night. He won $25,000 for Friends In Deed. No bad there. You can see the convo with Cheech below.



Finally, it's been quite a week for CNN. They hired Erick Erickson and lost Christiane Amanpour to ABC. Not the best trade. I'm not going to go into my opposition to Erickson, but you can read about why he's a bad choice here. As for Christiane, I wish her all the best and bet she'll make This Week great. It's hard to imagine CNN without her. This is a huge loss for them. If they really do lose Anderson to CBS...that would be bad. That would be beyond bad. So, if we're looking at this cynically, things just got pretty good for our anchor regarding where he stands when it comes time to negotiate a new contract. All we can do is wait and see. That'll do it.

Health Care Reform Procedural Controversy, Tiger Woods On My TV Again, Sex Addiction, Vatican Scandal, And More Serial Killer

Hi everyone. Health care reform continues to chug along at an excruciating pace, and it's not without a bump or two either. We're in the home stretch of massive legislation, which means one thing for certain is on the horizon: confusing procedural issues! In an Ed Henry piece, it's noted that our prez has been traveling all over these here United States, promising the American people an up or down vote on health care reform (helpfully exhibited in clip form-nice).

But! Now Pelosi might use what is known as "deeming," which means that House members would be able to approve fixes to the Senate bill without having to do that whole unpleasantness of actually voting for the whole bill. This is CYA at its finest. Reform gets passed and no one has to stick their necks out politically. Everybody wins! Well, except democracy.

And as a preserver of that democracy, Ed holds Gibbs' feet to the fire on the issue. Honestly, at this point I just want them to push it through and I really don't care who they have to tie up in the House basement to do it, but good on Ed for doing his job. He also notes that Republicans, who predictably are crying like little babies over this, did the same thing themselves with immigration legislation. Ed's on a roll. I just might have to give him a cookie.

Oh Also? Gibbs and Pelosi aren't even on the same page. Democrats are so frustrating. Right side of the issues, wrong side of competency. After Ed's piece, he further explains how Republicans are cynically trying to score political points off all this. Yeah well, water wet, sky blue. What are you gonna do? Pass the bill. In the end, no one will care how it got done. Declare victory and move on. Hey, it worked for Iraq.

On now to discussion with David Gergen, who has become quite the broken record these days. Again with the hand-wringing over how the bill is going down. I think I could say his lines at this point. Does the Gerg have a glitch? Somebody give him a shake and see if he turns back into that rational non concern troll that I liked so much. The stuff he's saying, you'd swear he didn't even live through the Bush administration. Also of note, Anderson Cooper did a little challenging. Credit where credit is due (yes, I'm reaching).

Transitioning now to the news that Tiger Woods is returning to golf...which means now we get to talk about him some more. Yay? A Gary Tuchman piece gives us a sum-up of all the prior drama, and explains why golf wants him back ever so badly. I don't have to go over how he slept with the equivalent of the tri-state area, do I? Anyway! Anderson reminds us that Tiger checked himself into sex rehab and we're shown several pictures of other celebs who have allegedly suffered from the problem. Because I'm sure they want to be dragged into this.

This, of course, is all just leading up to an interview with a sex addict, that sex addict being Benoit Denizet-Lewis. There's a funny little bit of information you learn when you put his name into the Google machine. You know how Anderson told us about Tiger being in sex rehab? Well, the curious thing is that Tiger hasn't actually spoken about it. In fact, our anchor stressed several times that we really don't know his exact deal. What tabloid reporter invaded the golfer's privacy to confirm the sex rehab info? Why, it was Benoit Denizet-Lewis!

So, let me get this straight: A guy who is supposedly suffering from something very real and painful, exploits a celebrity who is allegedly suffering from the exact same thing, in order to get himself publicity. In the meantime, 360 is apparently more than happy to play this game, because they themselves are exploiting the notion of sex addiction so that they have an excuse to speculate about Tiger Woods. The golfer, by the way, has never even said he's a sex addict. Good God, I actually feel bad for Tiger here. That's how fucked up this situation is.

And no disclosure that Benoit was the guy who confirmed the sex rehab?! I mean, seriously? Wow. It's funny, I already thought the situation was pretty messed up and that was before I Googled. Someone please tell me I'm mistaken about this stuff. Otherwise, I don't even know what to say. Obviously I consider the guy's credibility pretty much shot, so at this point everything he said is moot. I guess we'll just move on because...wow. (Update: Benoit writes on his blog that he did not break the Woods story, but only further confirmed, something he now regrets. Do with that what you will.)

Next up, Abbie Boudreau joins us to update the prior reporting she did on the 96 hour rule. That was the rule that said soldiers had four days to come up with evidence that would merit turning over suspects to Afghan officials. Otherwise, they had to be released. Much controversy arose from the rule, which many felt was putting soldier's lives at risk. Abbie tells us that General David Petraeus was questioned about the matter and now the rule will be 14 days instead of four. That sounds reasonable. Yay for that.

Moving on now to a Nic Robertson piece on yet more scandal of the sex variety going down with the Catholic church. This one's actually connected to the Pope, and while I do not deny it's important, I feel like my church sex scandal quota has already been met for the week (and we're not even at the halfway point!). After Nic's piece, Anderson talks with CNN's senior Vatican analyst, John Allen. It kinda cracks me up that CNN actually has a senior Vatican analyst.

Transitioning now to a Stephanie Elam piece on that "Dating Game" serial killer guy Rodney Alcala. Actually, I find their TV show angle with this story to be completely ridiculous. The guy was a contestant once. So what? They make it sound like he actually killed people on the show. But we all know it makes it more intriguing. Anyway, the police found a bunch of pictures of women and girls in the killer's storage locker.

It's not known who they are, but in a rare move, they were released to the public in the hopes of perhaps solving some cold cases. Tips have since been streaming in. We're being shown the pictures throughout the piece. My regular readers know well how much I dislike these kind of stories, but if there's a public good to come of them I have absolutely no problem with the airing. What they're doing with this piece is one of the functions of news. My problem is with unnecessary speculation and exploitation involving stories that only touch a handful of people. Lisa Bloom follows this up with the legal lowdown.

Candy Crowley has our headlines tonight, one of which is the news that a connection has been found between erectile dysfunction and heart disease. Earlier, Anderson teased the story by saying how much the early warning sign would shock us. Well, here we are and I'm not shocked. Why do they always do that? It's not exactly a new problem. I even wrote a whole blog post about it almost three years ago. Also? Why are they teasing a mere headline in the first place?

The "shot" tonight is some facial morphing done of our anchor because the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History is celebrating their 100th anniversary and they have a new exhibit on human origins. Yeah, I don't know what Anderson has to do with this either, but let's just go with it. So anyway, we're shown Neanderthal! Anderson, who yes, is decidedly less pretty. Amusingly, however, he still has the furrowed brow. Because that's how we know the news is serious, people! Anderson also shows Candy's (against her will!) and she's not looking so hot either. But she takes it well. These two actually have pretty good chemistry. Still miss Erica though.

Well, children, apparently the special theme tonight was sex. Oy. You know, last week when I noted that 360 seemed to be morphing into a news magazine and that was probably a good thing, in my head I envisioned them going in more the direction of, say, 60 Minutes. But I guess they have chosen the opposite direction, onward to Inside Edition. I don't know what to say except that I don't get it.

Going sensational only alienates viewers who they count on when they do real news like Haiti and whatnot. I used to watch a fair amount of CNN. Then came months of Michael Jackson coverage. Except for 360, the network lost me. The show keeps going back and forth between putting on a quality broadcast and catering to the lowest common denominator. Until they pick a side and stay consistent, they're never going to significantly grow their base of regular viewers.