Meet the Press Review

David Gregory is an uninformed goof-ball. Why didn't they pick Chuck Todd? That's all I got. Join us next week for our new weekly Sunday post, "This Week with George Stephanopoulos Review".

VP VP VP

Reader 'pw' writes:

I think a large part of the dislocation is that Biden IS who Hillary wanted to portray herself to be- a guy from a working class background with a lifetime spent in politics (...senator at 29- my life has been wasted...)who should appeal to the Democratic base.

Given the attributes Biden brings to the table, it's worth considering why Obama didn't pick Hillary. As was mentioned on Meet the Press yesterday:

Brokaw: And you have been spending a lot of time looking at the undecided voters, and we want to share with our viewers now just who they are. A lot of those undecided voters are women between the ages of 35 and 49, they're Catholic, they're moderate, and they're independent. They all sound like Hillary Clinton voters to me.

Chuck Todd: A lot of them were. Nearly half of them supported Clinton in the primaries. In effect, we even slice it even more. We--we're able to take a look at what our pollsters call "Hillary not Obama," and it's this group of voters that supported Clinton in the primaries, are not there yet with either Obama, supporting McCain, or sitting in undecided. And all of them look like, in this very respect, they're Democratic voters on the issues, they're picking a Democrat and generic matchups not just for president, but for Congress. So they are going to walk in that voting booth, and they're going to vote for a Democrat for Congress, they're going to vote for a Democrat for the U.S. Senate, which is why everybody knows that the House and Senate are going to pick up members. But these women are not there yet on Obama. Some of them are, are angry. Some of them--a lot of them live in rural and small-town America.

Obama's people are aware of this, and they're also aware that if they lock up another 6-8% of the electorate this race is over. Biden's national security bona-fides are legitimate, whereas Clinton's were largely perceived. And, I think it's fair to say that Obama personally likes Biden more than Clinton. Bill is also a wildcard.

Are these the reasons he didn't pick her? I think it's refreshing to see something other than electoral politics dictate campaign decisions, but I do think it's possible that the Biden selection reduces his chances in the general election visa vi a Clinton VP choice. Thoughts?

Meet the Press Review

Host: Tom Brokaw
Guests: Caroline Kennedy (segment one)
Nancy Pelosi (segment two)
Political Roundtable: Chuck Todd, Gwen Ifill, John Meacham

Recap: I'm not really sure what happened during the Kennedy segment as I dozed off after a sentence or two. I half-remember Brokaw asking her a bunch of stock questions about being Obama's "chief VP vetter" and her providing a bunch of stock answers about having performed that service. She likes Obama a lot. Brokaw, not as much.

Pelosi wasn't much better, though the energy policy questioning line was a little better. Why don't more liberals say that releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is stupid (which Pelosi was heartily advocating)? I hate to anoint myself arbiter of the blatantly obvious, but it's not meant to artificially and temporarily lower the price of oil -- it's supposed to be an emergency option in the event of disruption in supply. Trust me, you'd feel pretty stupid if you released it as a campaign parlor trick and had a violet regime change in Saudi Arabia the next day, or a massive hurricane that destroyed refining capacity on U.S. coasts.

And, maybe I'm just hallucinating, but hasn't the price of gas dropped quite a bit the last month or so (certainly a far greater reduction than releasing the SPR would cause)? I've also read reports that Americans are driving moderately less too. I'll have to get an environmental expert on the line, but I have the sneaking suspicion that subsidizing the price of oil is not the answer.

Turning back to MTP...I don't even know what the utility of having Kennedy and Pelosi as guests would be. I know the DNC convention starts tomorrow, but these people had nothing to say. Do you need to waste 15 minutes on the most consequential political show in the country to have the person that helped select Joe Biden tell you that Joe Biden kicks ass? I think not. And Pelosi? Congress is in recess, and won't be doing a damned thing until next year, so unless you have something particularly poignant to ask her, (and believe me Tom Brokaw sure as hell didn't) why have her on?

The political roundtable wasn't very interesting, and that won't change until somebody besides me catches a glimpse of the giant pitchfork jutting out of Tom Brokaw's back. Chuck Todd had some interesting things to say about the demographic trends of the as-yet undecided voter. Despite making fun of him from time to time, I like the quantitative meta view he takes of politics. I'm convinced he'd make a good MTP host, and am willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen. Could we start a petition or campaign? I'm open to suggestions. Anything to make the Brokaw and Gregory go away.

I've said it before, but I wasn't a big fan of the late Tim Russert's over the top "gotcha" style interviews, and I always felt like he let people off the hook when one or two more obvious follow-up questions begged to be asked. Boy, do I miss him now. At the very least he was smart and not just happy to be there (though he surely was that). Brokaw and Gregory don't have any real interview style at all, and can't facilitate conversations to boot.

Until next week...

Meet the Press Review

Host: David Gregory
Guests: Condi Rice (segment one)
Bobby Jindal and Tim Kaine (segment two)
Political Roundtable: Chuck Todd, Andrea Mitchell, Josh Green

Recap:
Condi -- Russia had better be good or we're going to revoke it's driving privileges and put them in time out.
Bobby -- Vote for McCain or I'm going to perform an exorcism on you in my living room.
Tim -- Virginia's an awesome state, and anybody who says otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about. By the way, vote for Obama and me for vice president.
Chuck -- If you subtract Obama's negatives from the total number of states that McCain
has TV advertising in, and divide that number by the most recent Gallup tracking poll plus 3x the square root of pi it will tell you the location of the fountain of youth.
Andrea -- If you talk to people close to the campaign-- they'll tell you the exact same thing I'm about to.
Josh -- God, I love writing articles that everyone's talking about. Thank God everyone would still rather talk about the dysfunctional Clinton campaign than anything vaguely relevant.
David -- God, I love hosting meet the press. If these guys talk for another 30 seconds I won't even have to think about an obvious follow up question to the blatant lie that guy just told. Man, I really hope they invite me back next week.

God save us all.

Meet the Press Review

Host: Tom Brokaw
Guests: Joe Lieberman, John Kerry
Political Roundtable: Chuck Todd, Andrea Mitchell, Mike Murphy, Judy Woodruff

This was a pretty unremarkable interview segment, and a pretty unremarkable show in general. Mostly it was just Lieberman and Kerry arguing back and forth, with a bewildered Brokaw looking on. Every once in a while I wonder how John Kerry lost the 2004 election, and then I see him on shows like this, hear him speak, and then I remember. Fundamentally he just isn't that likable, and uninspiring doesn't even really begin to sum it up. His criticisms on McCain seemed very defensive, and were always issued as a response to Lieberman's points. He also let Lieberman dictate the entire segment, and Lieberman was more than happy to get in three words for every one Kerry could cram in. Maybe he was futilely waiting for Brokaw to actually get control of his guests, but unfortunately (if not unpredictably) Brokaw had either blacked or passed out right after they'd gone on the air.

It was funny to see Lieberman so adamant about everything though, and the vigor with which he attacked the future of his own party, a party one would have thought he'd spent his entire life trying to make worthwhile. His complete adoption of McCain's talking points (Kerry's only good moment was calling him out on his new found support for off-shore drilling), and audition for a spot at the Republican national convention were fun to witness. I can't really imagine why they let him stay in the Democratic caucus. In fact, I think I'll do a separate post on Lieberman later tonight, and leave it at that.

I'm not sure how much commentary I can provide about the second half hour; the political roundtable segment, as slamming my face into the coffee table had really taken its toll by then. I think they talked about McCain's ads, and the VP candidates for a while, but I'm sure that nothing particularly insightful was said, and if you were looking for Brokaw to facilitate an adult discussion...well, I appreciate your childlike naivete. As usual, despite his cleavage comment, Mike Murphy said the majority of the intelligent things, though I thought Chuck Todd's prediction of a Chuck Hagel keynote address at the Democratic national convention was interesting (though I disagree). Chuck Todd's nerdom holds him back sometimes. I'd really like his gut reaction once in a blue moon, but that's just not how he rolls. Andrea Mitchell seemed like she'd gotten it together after a week in which she'd started to ask some pretty existential questions, along with the rest of us, about the role of the American media in campaign politics. Luckily, she had righted the ship and was back to her bland and unremarkable self. Judy Woodruff was about as consequential as an empty chair, which was due in large part to Brokaw's inability to effectively work her in to the conversation. Though I did love her answer to the question, "One minute to go, who's Barack Obama's VP candidate?"
Her Response: "Wow..um, either Bayh, or Biden...or Klein." Well, way to go out on a limb there Judy. You don't think it's going to be the guy, James, that lives in the apartment next to mine? Bold prediction.

Brokaw is rising to levels of facilitating ineptitude such that MTP is increasingly reminding me of a "house meeting" on the Real World. Maybe he should just throw caution to the wind and institute the conch shell meeting rules from Lord of the Flies. It would almost have to be an improvement. Maybe we should all mail him one, and see if somebody at NBC gets the hint. Needless to say, he'll be back again next week, live from China or something. At some point this week I'll decide whether I can keep watching him drive the show off a cliff or if I'm going to switch to George Stephanopoulos.

Meet the Press Review

I don't know how many loyal watchers of MTP there really are out there, though here in the District I'm sure there are more than a few. As I watch pretty regularly, I'll be doing a sort of MTP roundup/review on Sundays. MTP, and sometimes This Week with George Stephanopoulos (which I can't watch because I'm currently without a DVR) are almost the only programs on MSM I regularly watch. Other than anything with Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity of course.

Guest: Barack Obama (for the full hour)
Host: Tom Brokaw

Commentary: Seems like Obama's trying to be amazingly careful. I've always thought of him as a pretty opinionated guy with a sharp intellect, but I thought he was really thoughtfully (and not very successfully) trying to weigh his words to such an extent that his statements and occasionally even his message started to sound a little muddled, particularly in the foreign policy section.

Also: This surge stuff is not a winning rhetorical angle for him. It feels like he just wants it to be yesterday's news, which is impossible as McCain's entire campaign revolves around the issue. The politically expedient thing to do is to try to minimize it. Here's what you say if you're Obama:

"Thankfully, the security situation in Iraq has significantly improved. I don't think it's possible for anyone to know whether those improvements were due to increased troop deployments in Baghdad, the Sunni Awakening, internal Iraqi politics, or any number of other factors. Certainly, and I'm sure Senator McCain would agree with me on this, it was due to a large number of different factors, and trying to attribute it to one, whatever it might be is the same kind of simplistic X = Y, black-and-white mentality that's served us so poorly under the Bush administration. I will say this though -- I was skeptical as to whether increased deployments in Baghdad would be productive, as were a great many number of others, both inside of politics and out, including a majority of the American people. And, if my skepticism was unfounded I'm glad. I want increased security for our troops in Iraq, far, far more than I want to score a political point, which was exactly why I opposed our initial involvement in the Iraqi war, another in a long list of issues where John McCain found himself without skepticism -- in that same black vs white, good vs evil mentality that has characterized Bush/McCain policies over the last eight years .

But more importantly, and this is the crux of the issue, I believe the situation as it stands now, for whatever reason, is such that we can successfully redeploy our troops to Afghanistan; the central front in the War on Terror, and back home to the United States so that their long and deeply appreciated service can be applauded by those that care the most -- their families, friends, neighbors, and communities."

A little long maybe, but I think it's a lot better than the meandering response he's been offering up on his "surge" stance as of late.

My last MTP point is about Tom Brokaw. I'm not a fan of him hosting at all, to the point that if it's ever announced that he's doing it on anything other than an interim basis (I know he's at least doing it again next week) this might become the "This Week With GS Review" instead. I don't think he's dynamic, and I think his lines of questioning and mannerisms are plodding. Full disclosure, I've been pretty sour on him since he wrote "The Greatest Generation" which I found to be really...how shall I put this...uncompelling. Why can't they give Chuck Todd a chance? Does he not want to? He's their chief political guy for god's sake. Or even David Gregory, who I feel pretty ish about (though I loved him in the White House press corps) but who is better than Brokaw and has guest hosted for Russert in the past. What does anyone else think? Am I wrong about Brokaw? Who would you like to see?