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Sunday shows: What you missed

Sun, 23 Jun 2013 16:46:00 +0000

This week, on a Breaking News! edition of the Sunday shows: Where is Edward Snowden right now? (He's on a plane to Moscow.) Where will Edward Snowden be going next, then? He's fast, Edward Snowden. And the most important question of all: should Glenn Greenwald go to jail for having Edward Snowden as a source, and also for having an annoying tone sometimes? ABC's "This Week," NBC's "Meet the Press," and CBS' "Face the Nation" will solve these questions, and more.

First up, "This Week": Fast Eddie Snowden is hot on the move. How does he keep "bedeviling" US officials like this? It's a "cat-and-mouse game," and the U.S. "lost this round," says the breaking news correspondent.

Host George Stephanopoulos is now talking to Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the NSA. Mister General, Stephanopoulos asks, how did you let this guy out of Hawaii in the first place? Alexander is mentioning 9/11 and how Edward Snowden is making us vulnerable. "We are now putting in place systems" to track those with high-level security clearances. For example: "We've changed our passwords." Good luck, hackers.

Sunday shows solve Syria and government surveillance!

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 18:30:00 +0000

Today on the Sunday Shows: War in Syria. The U.S. arming "the rebels." The Surveillance State. A world of terror, danger, chaos and impending doom. And so ABC's "This Week," NBC's "Meet the Press" and CBS' "Face the Nation" will seek to answer the metaquestion: Are you proud of us, Daddy?

First, and solely because it starts a half-hour earlier than the other shows, we'll check out "This Week," where Jonathan Karl is substituting for George Stephanopoulos. "Is the U.S. going to get involved in another war in the Middle East?" Always, Jonathan Karl, always. Let's see what Marco Rubio has to say.

Rubio, a war-friendly Republican, says that President Obama blew it by waiting so long to get involved in Syria. (Assuming this really is the broad change in strategy it's been billed as.) Now who are we giving arms to? Al-Qaida "elements." What would President Rubio have done? Karl asks. Well, Rubio never would have allowed it to get to this point, of course. If Rubio were president, Syria would be a sunny democratic Utopia already, because he would have managed it so perfectly, you just have no idea how perfectly President Rubio would have done things.

Sunday Shows meet Glenn Greenwald!

Sun, 09 Jun 2013 18:30:00 +0000

Welcome to your recap of this week's "Sunday shows," where the hot topic is how the government has access to everyone's phone and Facebook and video sex chats all the time, EVERYONE FREAK OUT, NOW. We'll be watching ABC's "This Week," NBC's "Meet the Press" and CBS' "Face the Nation," and yes, in that priority order.

"This Week" promises to be a grand old time, as some producer has let civil liberties reporter and commentator Glenn"zilla" Greenwald on national television again to scorch the earth. Greenwald, of course, has been the lead reporter behind a number of top-secret leak reports this week.

"You are really on a roll," George Stephanopoulos congratulates Greenwald, of "the Guardian newspaper." (Full disclosure: I am a contributor to the Guardian U.S.) What are the key findings of your stories this week? Greenwald, talking super-fast to get it all in, has two. From the transcript:

Watching the Sunday shows so you don’t have to

Sun, 02 Jun 2013 17:28:00 +0000

Welcome to this week's Funday Shows recap, a look at all the hot chatter on NBC's Meet the Press, CBS's Face the Nation, and ABC's This Week. The topics under discussion this week include: Is Eric Holder the worst human being in history? Has he killed off any remaining semblance of Freedom of the Press in this country? Why aren't we bombing Syria yet? Are IRS employees dancing too much, and are we not going out of our way to humiliate them enough?

"SUNDAY SHOWDOWN!" George Stephanopoulos greets us, to open This Week. It's a political consultant versus another political consultant! Whose talking points will win? "Let's get right to it" with David Plouffe versus Karl Rove, before you even have time to run to the bathroom. Arianna Huffington, Gwen Ifill and the WSJ editorial page's Paul Gigot watch from the other side of the table.

Stephanopoulos shows poll numbers that indicate the public doesn't especially care about any of The Scandals, today's hot lead. Forty-four percent find the IRS targeting scandal the most important, however. And Karl Rove says if you look "inside the numbers," the public is still very unhappy with the economy. And the IRS collects taxes from the economy, so there you go: biggest scandal ever, searingly pertinent to all.

Sunday morning show round-up: More talk about Benghazi talking points

Sun, 12 May 2013 16:43:00 +0000

The Benghazi talking points were (still) the talk of the morning with the Sunday politico set, bringing in Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and others to discuss the revisions made to the Obama Administration's talking points following the Benghazi attack. (Controversy, sure. Cover up? Well, not really.)

Meet the Press

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa tells "Meet the Press" that Hillary Clinton is "not a target" of the Benghazi probe that seems to be, you know, targeting the former Secretary of State. More from NBC News:

Sunday morning shows tackle gun control, immigration, gay marriage

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 18:11:00 +0000

While the pope sent out a message for peace on Easter Sunday, the political shows celebrated the holiday with clergymen who brought a message for gay marriage on the heels of this week's DOMA hearings.

Archbishop of New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan stopped by ABC's "This Week" with a desire to clarify the Catholic Church's stance on gay rights, saying, "We're not anti-anybody." He said, "Well, the first thing I’d say to [gay people] is, ‘I love you, too. And God loves you. And you are made in God’s image and likeness.'"

However, he maintained that gay marriage is not recognized by the church, saying, that if you are gay, "you’re entitled to friendship," and that the Catholic Church has "got to do better to see that our defense of marriage is not reduced to an attack on gay people."

On "Fox News Sunday," Archbishop of Washington Cardinal Donald Wuerl echoed Dolan's sentiments, even likening gay marriage to divorce: "We do that same thing with people who are married, divorced and remarried. We say, you know, you're still part of the family, but we can't recognize that second marriage … and it's never been a great problem."