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The 60's Happened. (May 4, 2008). Barack Obama was Tim Russert's guest for the full hour on Meet the Press. They discussed the Rev. Wright controversy and the process that Obama went through in handling the events of the last week. Russert asked Obama to account for why he hadn't more fully distanced himself from Rev. Wright until this week. Obama said that in his Philadelphia speech he'd denounced "the words," not "the man." But this week he felt that Rev. Wright "doubled down" on his previous remarks and that made it necessary for him to distance himself more definitively than he had. And Russert said to him: 'Could you have done this better. In retrospect, given how things played out, what have you learned from this? Could you have done this better?' Obama replied 'Well, in politics they say it's good to pull the Band Aid off quickly.' I guess he was saying, Maybe I didn't do that in this situation, but now I've learned. Let me ask you that same question. Could Obama have handled this better?

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Contexts, Normalcy and The Wright Stuff. (April 27, 2008). Congressman Artur Davis from Alabama was part of a "group debate" on the Stephanopoulos show. Davis is an Obama supporter. His argument was that the trouble Obama is having in winning support from white working class men will remedy itself if Obama is the Democratic nominee, so people don't need to be so hysterical about it. He argued that at this stage of the primary process in 1992, Bill Clinton was at 26% among white male voters. And that every primary that the Democrats have had for the last ten cycles or so, except for 2004, the process went until June. So basically what you're seeing is a normal state of affairs for the Democratic Party. Do you agree with his description of normalcy?

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The "Good, Good, Good," the "Bad, Bad, Bad" and Jimmy Carter. (April 13, 2008). Let's jump in on the discussion about Obama's "elitism."

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Katrina (Not the Hurricane) Blows the Establishement Cool. (April 6, 2008). There was another round on how the Democratic nomination process is wrapping up.

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Beyond Boomers (March 30, 2008) It's time to get past the old battles of the 60s, to get past the political categories and allegiances defined by the baby boomer generation. So, says Matthews...

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Obama, Clinton and the "Deep Down." (March 23, 2008) I'd like to talk about how Barack Obama's speech on race is being talked about.

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Obama, Contexts, and Bailouts. (March 16, 2008) The Stephanopoulos panel discussed the controversy over Barack Obama's relationship to Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

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The Starter Isn't Always the Closer. (March 9, 2008) There are a series of cul de sacs that the Democrats are driving through right now and trying to figure out how to get out of.

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Broder's Caution. (Feb. 10, 2008) I was struck by David Broder's remark when Tim Russert said to him 'What do you see, what's the scenario?' in their discussion about how the super delegates are going to decide things on the Democratic side.

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Hillary Gets Real(ity). (Jan 13, 2008) Here's one thing that I take away from Hillary Clinton's presentation on "Meet the Press." She frames the campaign between herself and Barack Obama as a choice between "rhetoric and reality."

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Obama, McCain and the Paradigm Shift. There are two questions going into the New Hampshire primary. Will Obama do what he did in Iowa, meaning he not only wins it, but in the process he destroys the myth of invincibility surrounding Clinton?

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McCain's No Paradox. Here were a couple of things that interested me. The main refrain is about Obama and Clinton and "change" vs. "experience."

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Ron Paul and America's Sea Change. (Dec. 23, 2007) As the pollsters and analysts on Meet the Press put it, we're on the eve of the voting and there's no clear front runner on either side.

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Obama's Strategy Pays Off. (Dec. 17, 2007) The Chris Matthews crew discussed --what else -- Iowa. They talked about how Hillary appears to be losing momentum while Obama is surging. What's happened?

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Rudy the New Yorker (Dec. 11, 2007) Rudy Giuliani did an hour on "Meet the Press" with Tim Russert. Russert's strategy for the Giuliani appearance was to try to pursue concerns about his judgment and his character.

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"A Question About Logic" (Dec. 2, 2007) The latest polls on the presidential from Iowa show some slippage. What's being said by some analysts about Hillary Clinton is that the "inevitability strategy" is a good strategy-- until it stops working.

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"Are The Times They Are A-Changin?" The "Meet the Press" panel discussed the dynamics in the Democratic and Republican primaries. First up was the Democratic primary where the Iowa polls have Obama ahead, Clinton in second place and Edwards in third. Statistically it's a dead heat.

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"It's Not About Me." (Nov. 18, 2007) I'm going to start by asking you some questions about Hillary Clinton. "The Chris Matthews Show" had a discussion about the demonization of Hillary.

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Stop Talking. (Nov. 11, 2007) Barack Obama has had a good couple of weeks. At the Democratic Party debate in Philadelphia, Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner, came under fire from Obama and John Edwards, as well as Joe Biden and Chris Dodd.

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1968 Redux? (Nov. 4, 2007) The roundtable on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" discussed the Democratic debate last week. It was pointed out that the debate showed "the core of Hillary's vulnerability."

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Winning, Voting and Ties. (Oct. 28, 2007) The big question on Chris Matthews was: can Obama catch up? The Clinton campaign's strategy from the start was to project inevitability, to bolster Hillary's position and to scare other people out of the race.

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Obama's Vacuum. (September 16, 2007) I'm going to give you a compressed characterization of the debate between John McCain and John Kerry on the war policy and ask for your thoughts.

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The Politics of Certitude. (September 9, 2007) General Petraeus came back from Iraq to testify before Congress and give his report on the status of the surge.

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Politics of the Absurd. (August 26, 2007) Senator John Warner has come forward with a proposal to begin a drawdown of American troops in Iraq.

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Karl Rove and the Dialectic of History. (August 19, 2007) Today was "Karl Rove Day" on the talk shows. Rove resigned his position as Deputy Chief of Staff at the White House last week.

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Fights, Comebacks and Asterisks. (August 12, 2007) "Meet the Press" featured a dialogue between Harold Ford, Jr. of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos, billed as a debate between the centrist wing of the Democratic Party and the liberal wing of the party.

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Getting Past the Pros. (August 5, 2007) There were three views offered on the remarks Obama made about Pakistan in a speech he gave at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in D.C. this week.

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Is There a Big Bopper in the House? (July 29, 2007) The lead story on every show was the Hillary/Obama fight at the CNN/YouTube debate and the follow-up rounds in the days after the debate. This is one description of what the fight was about: New vs. Old, continuity vs. change, war vs. anti-war. How would you define what the fight's about?

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Was He Used? "The Chris Matthews Show" had a segment about the immigration vote in Congress and the politics surrounding it. This issue is cast as very polarizing, and in many ways it is.

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Back to the Future. Michael Murphy, a Republican strategist on the “Meet the Press" panel gave his capsule summary of the presidential election: “If you win the future, you win the election."

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The Tier Machine. We watched New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson on “Meet the Press." Richardson is one of a number of second tier presidential candidates running in the Democratic primary.

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Apocalypse Now? Let's start with the Chris Matthews Show discussion about Mike Bloomberg and Chuck Hagel running as independents for the presidency and vice presidency.

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The Consequences. Let's talk about John McCain who was on "Meet the Press." His position on the war in Iraq is that we've got to focus on what he calls "the consequences of failure."

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The Unvarnished Truth? George Tenet, former CIA director, was on Meet the Press. Tim Russert tried to discover whether Tenet was an honest broker in the run up to the war or an enabler, someone who crossed over into politics, into marketing, into the business of selling the war to the American people, rather than being an objective analyst of the conditions in Iraq and Iraq's role if any -- in 9/11. Let me begin by asking you whether you accept that framing -- that bright line distinction between honest broker and enabler?

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The Year of the Vaccum. The McLaughlin Group pointed out the following statistic: 76% of Democrats are happy with the choices in the Democratic field and only 50% of Republicans are happy. They'd like to see some more candidates. What does that snapshot tell you about where we're at in the presidential race?

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Explaining Blacksburg. On "The Chris Matthews Show," the panelists put forward four basic explanations for the Blacksburg, Virginia shootings. Let me begin by asking you what your reactions are to these four different explanations.

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Broken Hearts, Broken Politics. Chris Matthews looks at the financial reports from the presidential candidates...and, of course, observes that Obama nearly matched Hillary in dollars raised and doubled her in terms of numbers of contributors -- 100,000 for him, 50,000 for her. Matthews then asked the following question: "Does this mean that the Democrats are not ready to commit to Hillary Clinton?"

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No Forgiveness. Charlie Rangel, a guest on "Meet the Press," says he encouraged Obama to run for president and told him you're talented, you're young, you're very bright, you have a lot to give and you'll always regret it if you do it -- grab the moment and run. And, Rangel is supporting Hillary Clinton .... Is this the move of an honest broker? Is this the move of a smart political player? Is it both?

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The Waiting Game. Last week the House voted 218 to 212 to impose a date for withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. Now the action goes to the Senate. What's your view of the congressional action on Iraq at this point? Is it important, is it not important?

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Decision Time. I'm going to start with Richard Perle, former chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, one of four panelists on "Meet the Press" discussing the war in Iraq. One would like to say he's the last of the neo-cons, but probably not. Tim Russert asked him 'Has the investment in Iraq been worth it,' and Perle says 'That's the wrong question. You can't ask that..."

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Topsy-Turvy Times. It's amazing, isn't it? I'm talking about the extremes to which the establishment will go to deny the existence of the independent movement. That's the obvious factor in all of this. The independent movement is more than a third of the electorate, yes?

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She's Vulnerable. The newest polls show the black vote starting to shift away from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama. Chris Matthews made the point that this shift undercuts "the inevitability factor"--a major component of the Clinton strategy.

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Upturns, Downturns and Turnouts. I guess we have to start with the story that everybody in the political pundits' universe is talking about – the Clinton/Obama collision this week. I have a theory about it.

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Turning Point? John McLaughlin asked his panelists 'Is this the turning point in the war?' He's referring to the congressional votes this weekend. The House passed a resolution disapproving of the troop surge in Iraq. The Senate was not able to muster the votes, but came within four votes of doing so. Says McLaughlin, 'The tide is turning and this is the hinge moment.' Would you agree?

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Obama and the Zeitgeist. Barack Obama's candidacy is, potentially, a very big deal for the country. How could it not be very big for an African American man to be running for president? It's not an abstract political issue. It's something we're going to have to be attentive to, hour by hour. I think it's very complicated.

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The Moral Independence of the Independent Movement. We watched John Edwards on "Meet the Press." He made a lot out of having gone through a process of reflection on the war, that he's come out the other side, and that he's being honest with the American people. Tell me your reactions to him.

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They're In. And They're Off and Running. If I had to come up with some kind of "vest pocket" description of the shows today, I would say this: There are so many possibilities for the presidency, and so few possibilities for Iraq. That seems to be what the discussions were about.

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All Alone at the Top? Is George Bush alone at the top? That's a good question and hard to answer. I'll tell you why. Because he's certainly alone on Iraq and what he's done with this war. But today's "alone" is tomorrow's "deal."

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Presidents, Principles and Politics. Commemorations and discussions about President Gerald Ford were a focus point today, including Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon after Watergate.

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You Can Change Your Eggs...But. At one point in Tim Russert's interview with Newt Gingrich, who was discussing U.S. options in Iraq, Russert asked him something like "What does real change mean?"

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Changing Course in Iraq...and in America. It was Baker-Hamilton Day on the talk shows. James Baker laid out the following premise: 'We're not going to win militarily in Iraq. There has to be a political victory. How do you define a political victory? There has to be some kind of national reconciliation.' Let me start by asking - what's your reaction to his premise?

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Back to the Past, or Deconstructing Arnold. Arnold Schwarzenegger was on "Meet the Press." Here's some of his political approach: It doesn't matter what party you're from, it's all about the people. The reason we've been successful is that we don't look at issues as "Democrat" or "Republican" issues, we're doing the work of the people. Does that make him a new kind of politician?

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Continuing the End of History. Did independents gain greater political strength off of the results of the election? There's an old saying in politics: Power is what power does. If you don't exercise it, there is no power. Power as an abstraction means nothing. So the answer depends on what independents do.

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Independents are Controlling the Action. It was the independents that made the war the issue of the campaign. Where else did it come from? It didn't come from the Democrats. It didn't come from the Republicans. It came from the independent movement.

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Benchmarks or Stenchmarks: It's all a Matter of Semantics. If you listen to the pundits now, they want to make it sound like there are real differences between the two positions (on the war). But, obviously, there are not. Both parties supported the war. They supported all the appropriations. There never was much of a difference between them on this question and there still isn't.

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The Obama Drama. In addition to the war, another focus on this week's shows was the potential presidential candidacy of Barack Obama. Bob Novak commented that his popularity is a measure of the resistance within the Democratic Party to a Hillary Clinton candidacy.

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Bush Gets Taken to the Watershed. The Bush press conference announcing adjust-ments in his Iraq policy was a big topic this week. John McLaughlin called it a "water-shed."

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 Moving On. ...the world is moving on. McLaughlin would say that third world (so-called) insurgencies are growing, that the creditability of the U.S. is decreasing, that the balance of power in the world is shifting, that the drive for self-determination in the Arab world and Africa and Latin America is strong.

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On the Road. Is there such a thing as American moral leadership or American moral standing that is being eroded?

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Selling the War. The strategy of moving the front of the war on terror to Afghanistan, to Iraq, to the Middle East and off of American soil has been successful. Still, Cheney has to defend the position that this makes us safer in the long-term.

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Who is Coming to the Table?
Here are two different views of what's going on in the Middle East ...

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The Shadow Knows. Sunday, July 9, 2006. One of the big stories this week was Joe Lieberman's announcement that he's going to petition to run for re-election as an independent in Connecticut, in the event that he loses the Democratic Primary. 
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Hans Blix for President. Sunday, June 4, 2006. There's an argument out there coming from a lot of places.... It goes like this. People are tired of the two extremes.

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