Sorry for the hiatus, folks. But between the dodgy servers and pictures of Katherine Harris’s breasts did you even notice? If I had to sum up yesterday’s chatfest with one word, it would be this: amneleaksty. Immigration and Fitzgerald investigation dominated — which makes sense when you realize that Fitzgerald’s grandparents were probably immigrants.

Hot topics:
• Immigration bill: “bureaucracy of rubber stamps” or “lack[ing] compassion”?
• Leak investigation: Specter says the President needs to come clean, Kerry says “This was not a declassification to educate America, this was a declassification to mislead America.”
• Nuking Iran. Scary!

Quotes to live by:
• Stephanopoulos wonders “how do you solve this Rubik’s cube” of the budget?
• Dionne asks “What did the president forget and when did he forget it?”
• George Will gets legalistic: The President “was trying to discredit, punish, or seek revenge against a critic… where in the federal statues does it say that is forbidden?”
• And in case you’re wondering why he lost: Russert introduces Kerry thusly as the man who won “48.3 percent” of the popular vote.

Kerry: “I thought it was 49.2″
Tim: “48.3 — But who’s counting?”

After the jump: The most optimistic man in America, the calm and cool Joe Wilson (really), and a testy Schieffer.

MORE »

This Sunday’s shows undertook a major military operation. Between the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and “Operation Swarmer,” talking heads all but saluted. Russ Feingold managed to grab some of the spotlight, and his motion to censure President Bush gave Bill Kristol another chance to rock Chris Wallace’s world: Feingold “is smarter than the Democratic congressional leadership” and “deserves credit for taking a principled stand, and I honestly think he’s winning this debate.” That sound you heard is Nancy Pelosi’s head exploding. Dick Cheney did “Face the Nation” but did not make much news beyond the world’s most awesome Freudian slip: “Most of my predecessors spent a good part of their time as President–Vice President running for President.

Also, debuting this week on ABCNews.com was “The Green Room,” a brave attempt to wring every possible bit of hot air from the “This Week” panel while they stand around uncomfortably after the show wraps in the nondescript, motel-ish decor of ABC’s DeSale St. digs. Personally, I have always found pre-show green room chatter more interesting (everyone’s trying out their lines) and the whole thing strikes me as an empty attempt to show us another side of people who are basically one-dimensional, but I applaud this Taylorite approach to news content and hope that less practiced pundits do something stupid and/or inspired backstage in the future.

Top topics: Iraq, Feingold’s censure motion and by extension the NSA wiretap program.

One-hit wonders: Boston College’s Sweet Sixteen chances (”Meet the Press”); Joey Cheek, humanitarian (”This Week”); Mark McClellan, TREKKIE (”Fox News Sunday”)

Quotes to live by:
• Dick Cheney admits that shooting someone in the face is “one of those situations that’s difficult, that generates controversy.”
• Chris Wallace, SUPER GENIUS: “It seems to me that the Senators who are most critical of [the NSA wiretapping] program are the ones who know the least about it.”
• George Will lays it out: “We need to define victory down.”
• Sam Donaldson is totally high: “Russ Feingold threw the long ball… but it might connect, as the Washington Redskins learned in the mid-70s.”

Also, Shorter Chris Matthews Show: David Gregory observed that “George Bush is the George Clooney of Washington… but that’s a little bit of a patina.” Wha?

Full rundown appears after the jump.

MORE »

This week’s Sunday shows were best viewed with 20/20 hindsight.

Top topics: Dubai ports deal (dead) and the Southern Republican Leadership Conference straw poll (meaningless). This was leavened with some talk of Iraq and a single, lonely reference to Saturday’s Gridiron show.

Quotes to live by:
• Chris Wallaces curses us out: “Do the Democrats have — pardon the expression — a Newt Gingrich?”
• Bill Kristol also has the first Arctic Monkeys seven-inch: “I liked McCain before it was cool for conservatives to like McCain.”
• Everyone (except surprise mystery guest Joe Biden) avoids saying they’re running for President, though Huckabee does announce for 2016.
• Hospice-bound Art Buchwald stays wry: “I believe in God, but I’m not too certain that the people who are telling me that ‘it’s God’s will’ are the people I want to be listening to.”

Full rundown after the jump.

MORE »

Editors’ note: Don’t miss Ana Marie Cox’s Washington Post live chat, starting today at 11:30 AM. You can access it here, where you can also find a link for submitting questions to the Original Wonkette about BlackBerry disaster averted. Happy chatting!

Chatology this week slightly enlivened by the appearance of Stephen Colbert, though it was offset by Chairman of Joint Chiefs Peter Pace doing a half-Ginsburg; he has the kind of whispery monotone that made us fall asleep during filmstrips in health class. Most notable segment: Bill Kristol channeling Arianna Huffington in his disappointment in the administration, causing massive freakout on the Fox set and Chris Wallace to utter the Quote of the Week: “My whole universe has been rocked.”

Top topics: Potential (or ongoing?) civil war in Iraq; Katrina tapes; Dubai port deal.

One hit wonders: Two hits for the criminal investigation into Pat Tillman’s death (MTP and FNS); Oscar talk on “This Week”

Quotes to live by:
• Stephen Colbert on his Oscar expectation: “a lot of jokes [about] abortion… it’s a funny word, like guacamole.”
• Peter Pace moderates his view on Iraq: “I wouldn’t put a great big smiley face on it.”
• Juan Williams on DHS/FEMA infighting: “I’m going to put that off to two big boys having something in the back yard.” Well, someone saw “Brokeback Mountain.”

Full coverage continues after the jump.

MORE »

In this edition of Chatology, Department of Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff pulls a half-Ginsburg, spinning through both Meet the Press and This Week. On various issues, Chertoff blames Michael Brown, Mary Matalin blames the media, Joe Lieberman blames Chertoff, Evan Bayh blames the Democrats, and David Gregory blames himself. Random wisdom from Ari Fleischer: “You can be right and still be bonkers.” Speaking of which: Cheney is “almost like the wizard dealing with the muggles” — Howard Fineman.

Full rundown and highlights after the jump.

[Ed. note: Don't miss Ana Marie Cox's appearance at the National Press Club, this Wednesday, February 22, at 6:30 PM. For more details, as well as information about how to obtain tickets to this free event, click here.]

MORE »

* Cheney takes full responsibility for shooting accident: “The image of him falling is something I’ll never be able to get out of my mind. I fired, and there’s Harry falling. And it was, I’d have to say, one of the worst days of my life.” [WP, NYT, W$J, USAT, WT]
* Cheney, in choosing Brit Hume, avoided the “elephant-in-the-room issue” of his lack of candor with the press; Fox News is considered a “secure location.” [WP, NYT, LAT, LAT]
* Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) helped allocate $48.7m in Pentagon spending to a clients of a top aide’s husband. [USAT]
* Congressional report faults response to Katrina as partisans debate what to do. [WP]
* Rice requests $75m to advance reforms in Iran. [WP, NYT, LAT]
* Cheney, Chertoff take responsibility without specifying mistakes. [WP, NYT, USAT]

MORE »

5:58 PM: We’re sitting in front of our TV and ready for this show to get on the road. Tired of Fox News’s relentless coverage of Neil Entwistle — we love tabloid trash as much as the next guy, but Entwistle’s not even interesting trash.

5:59 PM: This interview is probably going to be pretty anticlimactic. Most of the juiciest parts have already been released.

6:00 PM: Unless we learn about a magic bullet, or Lynne Cheney on a grassy knoll, this is going to be a non-event. But hey, this is our job…

6:04 PM: How long is this going to run? We have to meet people for drinks at 7.

6:05 PM: Why Brit Hume? Okay, we can see why. But if Cheney were to appear before, and gain absolution from, the Oprah, this controversy would evaporate instantaneously.

More after the jump.

MORE »

James Wolcott, yesterday:

The most ludicrous thing [Brit] Hume said was that though this new information made Whittington’s condition more serious, it didn’t alter ‘the underlying facts of the case.’ It seems to me that if Whittington suffers permanent injury or dies from the accidental shooting, that would create an overlying fact that renders the ‘underlying facts’ irrelevant.

MORE »

Citizens of Wonketteville, fear not. As we promised, your beloved Wonkette Emerita, Ana Marie Cox, will be making regular appearances in these pages. Last week, she liveblogged the SOTU. This week, she drops the science of “Chatology: Digesting the Sunday Spew,” a weekly round-up of the Sunday shows that will typically appear each Monday. (This week’s installment was held up for various technical reasons that we won’t bore you with — oh, and the Super Bowl had something to do with it too.)

And now, without further ado, Ana Marie Cox.

AMC: We worried that this was too late in the day for a recap of the Sunday shows, but, hell, you’re still watching that GoDaddy.com ad, anyway, aren’t you? [Ed. note: This was drafted on Super Bowl Sunday, in case you haven't figured that out.]

This week’s line-up: This Week, Fox News Sunday, The Chris Matthews Show, Meet the Press and Face the Nation.

Guest Ginsburg Rating: Deputy director of national intelligence Michael Hayden gets a 2 out of 4, showing up on both “This Week” and “Fox News Sunday.” Rep. John Boehner ties, guesting on “FNS” and “Meet the Press.”

What Everyone’s Talking About:
1. NSA wiretap program. All the shows hit it except for “Chris Matthews,” but he tapes on Friday afternoon and you know, this hasn’t really been in the news and no one knew the hearings were coming and plus he’s got to have time for his self-indulgent commentary at the end, so he’’s excused.
2. John Boehner’s election as House Republican leader. Again, 4 of 5 shows and again Matthews marching to a different beat.
3. SOTU detritus was hit by everyone but NSA and Boehner got more focus, so we’re dropping its ranking to three.
4. The “cartoon controversy,” which always sounds like it should be about Bill O’Reilly but it’s not. Played on everyone but Matthews (perhaps he doesn’t want to compete with “Hardball”) and “Face the Nation.” (This is the story they all should have led with).

One hit wonders: “This Week” on girls’ self esteem (you go!), “FNS” on the surgeon general, “Chris Matthews” on “Brokeback Mountain” (apparently you can tell a lot about a country by the popular movie it produces), and “Face the Nation” on Nixon and outhouses. No shit.

Quotes to live by: Mehlman says Hillary Clinton “seems to have a lot of anger” (especially around the issue of infidelity); Hayden pleads, “I can’t tell you how much I’d like to go into the operational details of this” (he also can’’t tell us how much he’d like to kill us if he did tell us); Boehner brags, “I have 11 brothers and sisters and my father owned a bar” (and don’t forget those 11 kids can still kick your weedy anchorman ass); Andrew Sullivan pines for “big daddy government” (preferably in leather).

There were no appearances by Joe Biden. Could someone call his house?

Comprehensive, even exhaustive, summary of yesterday’s non-sports-related showboating after the jump.

MORE »

• Reliable Source: Brit Hume grills Bush on his iPod habits. Bush: “I’ve got the Shuffle, the, what is it called? The little. . . Lightweight, and crank it on, and you shuffle the Shuffle.” [WP]
• Lloyd Grove’s Lowdown: President Carter consulted “a woman in a trance to locate a downed government plane in Africa.” [NYDN]

ABC’s Jake Tapper nudges James Dobson to come a little more clean about his top-secret-cross-my-heart-hope-to-die conversation with Karl Rove. Dobson, as you may recall, claimed that the information he heretofore could not reveal was that Harriet Miers is an evangelical Christian. And here we thought she was a man. In any case, Dobson pointed to his Fox News interview the day of the nomination as an example of his decorum: “And that is the last time that I said that I had information that was confidential and that I really couldn’t talk about.” But what did he say? Tapper does that reporter thing and discovers:

[G]o back to that Fox News transcript … Namely, Dobson says “In her long career, she has been willing to stand up against the American Bar Association with regard to the policy on abortion. That took a lot of courage. She has — she is a conservative Christian.” MORE »