Last month's Harpers had an excellent piece on Obama.

Do you really think anyone who watches Meet the Press would change their vote because Dole was a bitch? I just can't see that happening.

No. I'm surprised if anybody not obsessed with or involved in politcs watches the show at all.

And most of my friends in teh business don't watch it either.

I watch it because I like solid journalism, not really because it is informative. Femgar has tolerated it from the first, but she don't really LIKE being up at 8am on Sunday to watch morons bloviate on talking points.

May be a generational thing... a hunk of boomers and before knew that there were certain "forums" of public discourse you needed to connect with to stay informed... Cronkite, 60 minutes, MTP... I bet the MTP and 60 minutes demographic is way AARP.

And the impact of MTP? I think his performance on it started to erode the Dean wave in the Dem party before the fiasco in Iowa. But that may be a niche market too.

Then you've got people like my dad who dont watch it because "Russert is a nce guy, but he's way too liberal."

The impact of those institutions (throw in the New York Times as well) has been greatly eroded in the past few years because they have been described ad nauseum as liberal and left leaning.

I still believe that the Dean campaign was destroyed by opposition from deep within the democratic party - the crazy Yeaaaagh scream notwithstanding.

Yep... but they are also "fodder" for the "public sphere" (c.f. Habermas) where ideas like "too liberal" are constructed in the first place.

You see "the sunday rounds" discussion on all kinds of blogs, right and left. So it almost doesn't matter who sees them, but rather what's said about them. I.e. the hallowed sound bite.

Oh, I completely agree that they are still incredibly relevant. And yeah, a good soundbite on a Sunday show will stir the pot of national debate on say, Imus on Monday morning more than a thoughtful editorial anyday of the week.

I'm just the messenger on the erosion thing---I don't happen to agree with the belief.

I'll offer up this, since I know you've a penchant for semantics:

To the extent that hubris transcends arrogance, that is one of the most damning faults of this administration.

Interesting. How about hubris made them unconcerned about their perceived arrogance.

Trace that amazing post-election "I've got political capital and I am gonna use it..." period. Hubris making them totally unguarded about the arrogance they were transparently showing to America.

NYT has an editorial that sums up my thoughts on this election, and I will post here.

***

Editorial NYT

The Difference Two Years Made

Published: November 5, 2006

On Tuesday, when this page runs the list of people it has endorsed for election, we will include no Republican Congressional candidates for the first time in our memory. Although Times editorials tend to agree with Democrats on national policy, we have proudly and consistently endorsed a long line of moderate Republicans, particularly for the House. Our only political loyalty is to making the two-party system as vital and responsible as possible.

That is why things are different this year.

To begin with, the Republican majority that has run the House — and for the most part, the Senate — during President Bush’s tenure has done a terrible job on the basics. Its tax-cutting-above-all-else has wrecked the budget, hobbled the middle class and endangered the long-term economy. It has refused to face up to global warming and done pathetically little about the country’s dependence on foreign oil.

Republican leaders, particularly in the House, have developed toxic symptoms of an overconfident majority that has been too long in power. They methodically shut the opposition — and even the more moderate members of their own party — out of any role in the legislative process. Their only mission seems to be self-perpetuation.

The current Republican majority managed to achieve that burned-out, brain-dead status in record time, and with a shocking disregard for the most minimal ethical standards. It was bad enough that a party that used to believe in fiscal austerity blew billions on pork-barrel projects. It is worse that many of the most expensive boondoggles were not even directed at their constituents, but at lobbyists who financed their campaigns and high-end lifestyles.

That was already the situation in 2004, and even then this page endorsed Republicans who had shown a high commitment to ethics reform and a willingness to buck their party on important issues like the environment, civil liberties and women’s rights.

For us, the breaking point came over the Republicans’ attempt to undermine the fundamental checks and balances that have safeguarded American democracy since its inception. The fact that the White House, House and Senate are all controlled by one party is not a threat to the balance of powers, as long as everyone understands the roles assigned to each by the Constitution. But over the past two years, the White House has made it clear that it claims sweeping powers that go well beyond any acceptable limits. Rather than doing their duty to curb these excesses, the Congressional Republicans have dedicated themselves to removing restraints on the president’s ability to do whatever he wants. To paraphrase Tom DeLay, the Republicans feel you don’t need to have oversight hearings if your party is in control of everything.

An administration convinced of its own perpetual rightness and a partisan Congress determined to deflect all criticism of the chief executive has been the recipe for what we live with today.

Congress, in particular the House, has failed to ask probing questions about the war in Iraq or hold the president accountable for his catastrophic bungling of the occupation. It also has allowed Mr. Bush to avoid answering any questions about whether his administration cooked the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. Then, it quietly agreed to close down the one agency that has been riding herd on crooked and inept American contractors who have botched everything from construction work to the security of weapons.

After the revelations about the abuse, torture and illegal detentions in Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Congress shielded the Pentagon from any responsibility for the atrocities its policies allowed to happen. On the eve of the election, and without even a pretense at debate in the House, Congress granted the White House permission to hold hundreds of noncitizens in jail forever, without due process, even though many of them were clearly sent there in error.

In the Senate, the path for this bill was cleared by a handful of Republicans who used their personal prestige and reputation for moderation to paper over the fact that the bill violates the Constitution in fundamental ways. Having acquiesced in the president’s campaign to dilute their own authority, lawmakers used this bill to further Mr. Bush’s goal of stripping the powers of the only remaining independent branch, the judiciary.

This election is indeed about George W. Bush — and the Congressional majority’s insistence on protecting him from the consequences of his mistakes and misdeeds. Mr. Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 and proceeded to govern as if he had an enormous mandate. After he actually beat his opponent in 2004, he announced he now had real political capital and intended to spend it. We have seen the results. It is frightening to contemplate the new excesses he could concoct if he woke up next Wednesday and found that his party had maintained its hold on the House and Senate.

Confessions of a non-morning person:

(SCENE: EVERY SUNDAY MORNING)

8:01am
"Kyyyyle, time to get up. Come watch Sunday Morning with me"
-Mmmmph. Blach. Mmmf blacha blach. Dreamt I wuz ...Git that thing... away... book report...(Zzzz)

8:22am
"Yooo hoo. Come in here and watch this. I made coffee."
-(sigh) Guh. Mmmmbah. ... alright, I'm up.

8:45am
- (Coffee in hand, yelling at repubs on tv, fully awake, enjoying program)


Every friggin Sunday. I can't wake myself up, and it takes her half an hour, but once I finally get up, I'm the one glued to the set.

I knew mine was a keeper when she started referring to MTP as "Russert" though there is an occasional struggle for the remote when its time to flip away from that CBS Sunday Morning show with Charles Osgood (that I like as well, but still, if its sunday morning--its meet the press)