First, on "This Week": "TRAITOR OR HERO?" This is, what, a month into the Snowden saga, and these are still the first words to appear on a news show? "TRAITOR OR HERO?" You're on a troll, Stephanopoulos.

And here is Julian Assange, from his safe room in London, tie knot loosened. An ABC News correspondent gives us some background: "Who is Julian Assange?" Is he destroying the world? Or is he just a dude in the Ecuadorian Embassy.

What can you tell us about Edward Snowden, Assange? For example: where is the little shit hiding? "I wish I could answer your question in more detail." Red eyes and a cough, he sounds like he has a nasty cold, the poor guy. Now he is making Edward Snowden's story all about himself. The two face very similar investigations, he says, both from the same court in Alexandria, Virginia, where you've got a low chance of receiving "justice."

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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.

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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.

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"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:

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"What a funny joke," I thought. I mean, the bookers probably don't even have phone numbers for Sens. Ron Wyden and Mark Udall! When are those two on TV? It could take ages to look that kind of thing up. And McCain is probably already in the green room, right now, waiting for Sunday morning. (Though hopefully he's not at the NBC green room, as "Meet the Press" is being preempted by tennis this weekend.)

Sen. McCain is on one of the Sunday news talk shows nearly every weekend. (Graham is often on one of the others.) This happens despite McCain not having any important leadership position or even expertise on any particular topic. McCain fancies himself one of America's foremost foreign policy experts, but he is actually just a belligerent hawk. Neither he nor Graham is actually on the Senate Intelligence Committee. They just love cameras and bombs.

The problem isn't just those two: It's the entire rotating stable of camera-seeking elected officials and predictable talking heads, a majority of whom are white and conservative. The guests who aren't partisan are Beltway centrists, more concerned with politics than policy.

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Let's recap the scandals, in case you have been too busy having message board debates about Star Trek or deciphering new Kanye lyrics to pay attention:

1. Benghazi. Republicans insist the White House did something evil and incomprehensible involving talking points following the September 11, 2012 attack on the American consulate in the Lybian city. Recently, the White House released an email chain showing the process of drafting and revising the talking points.
2. The IRS. The IRS reportedly targeted conservative nonprofits for extra scrutiny of their tax-exempt status.
3. The Associated Press. The Justice Department sought access to, and received, a massive trove of phone data of AP journalists, as part of its investigation into a leak.

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On the IRS scandal:

Dan Pfeiffer, a senior adviser to President Obama, addressed the IRS scandal, saying that the law is "irrelevant" though the actions of the IRS were "outrageous and inexcusable."

“I can’t speak to the law here. The law is irrelevant,” he said on ABC's This Week. “The activity was outrageous and inexcusable, and it was stopped and it needs to be fixed to ensure it never happens again.”

When pressed by host George Stephanopoulos, Pfeiffer explained: “What I mean is, whether it’s legal or illegal is not important to the fact that the conduct doesn’t matter. The Department of Justice has said that they’re looking into the legality of this. The president is not going to wait for that. We have to make sure it does not happen again, regardless of how that turns out.”

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., on the other hand, said that he cannot believe that the misconduct by IRS employees was so limited in scope. “I can’t believe that one agent sort of started this,” he said on CNN’s State of the Union. “It seems too widespread.”

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On Syria:

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on CBS' Face The Nation that without some international involvement in Syria, "the whole region's gonna fall into chaos."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., argued that the solution is not sending American troops to Syria, because that would be the “worst thing America could do right now."

“I think that the American people are weary," McCain said on NBC's Meet The Press. "They don’t want boots on the ground. I don’t want boots on the ground."

But Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said we can't rule anything out. "I don't think you want to ever rule it out," she said on Face the Nation. "Obviously, we don't want to do that unless it's absolutely necessary." Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., who appeared with McCaskill, disagreed: "I would go even beyond that, I would say no" boots on the ground. "We don't need to put boots on the ground but we need to enable their neighbors, the neighbors of Syria, to bring some sort of peaceful resolution to this."

On the Boston bombings:

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On gun control:

Michael Bloomberg, who launched a $12 million ad blitz to push for gun control, promised that Congress would have a vote on an assault weapons ban. “We've been fighting since 2007 to get a vote. We are going to have a vote for sure on assault weapons and we're going to have a vote on background checks,” he said on "Meet the Press." Bloomberg added: “If we were to get background checks only, it wouldn't be as good as if we got both, but look, we demanded a plan and then we demanded a vote. We've got the plan, we're going to get the vote."

Wayne LaPierre later slammed Bloomberg's effort. "He can't spend enough of of his $27 billion to try to impose his will on the American public," LaPierre said on "Meet the Press." He added that Bloomberg is "so reckless in terms of his comments on this whole gun issue."

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I don't watch the Sunday shows. Basically ever. I watch clips if something particularly stupid happened, but for the most part, you can get everything you need to know about what happens on these shows by reading the brilliant liveblog by the Huffington Post's Jason Linkins, America's foremost Sunday show interpreter. While no one should pay attention to these shows, as long as millions of Americans watch them under the mistaken impression that they're seeing serious discussions of our most pressing issues with our wisest media observers and most influential political leaders, they should probably be monitored.

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On “Fox News Sunday” today, Wallace pressed LaPierre on if he regretted running an NRA ad that made an issue out of the Secret Service protection provided to President Obama’s two daughters. The ad, which suggested the president was hypocritical for protecting his kids while opposing the NRA’s plan to put armed guards in every school, was widely viewed as reprehensible, and even the NRA’s top lobbyist acknowledged it was probably “ill-advised.”

But LaPierre stood by the ad’s message today, telling Wallace that every child is in danger in schools. Wallace noted that Obama’s children “face a threat that most children do not face.” “Tell that to the people in Newtown," LaPierre responded.

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- On racism:

Powell criticized Republicans for continuing to invoke racist tropes in attacks on President Obama. "There's also a dark vein of intolerance in some parts of the party," Powell said on "Meet the Press." "What do I mean by that?  What I mean by that is they still sort of look down on minorities." 

He cited Sarah Palin, for one: "When I see a former governor say that the president is 'shuckin' and jivin'.' That's a racial-era slave term." And John Sununu, a Mitt Romney surrogate during the campaign, for another. "[Sununu] didn't say [Obama] was slow, he was tired, he didn't do well; he said he was 'lazy,'" Powell said. "Now, it may not mean anything to most Americans, but to those of us who are African Americans, the second word is 'shiftless,' and then there's a third word that goes along with it." 

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On “Meet the Press” today, all pretense was gone and diplomacy jettisoned as Obama placed the blame for a potential cliff dive squarely on Republican intransigence. “The only thing I would caution against, David, is I think this notion of, ‘Well, both sides are just kind of unwilling to cooperate.’ And that's just not true,” Obama told host David Gregory.

“I mean if you look at the facts, what you have is a situation here where the Democratic Party, warts and all, and certainly me, warts and all, have consistently done our best to try to put country first,” he added, paraphrasing John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign slogan. The clear implication: Republicans have not put country first, prioritizing ideology instead.

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Every Sunday morning, the big four broadcast networks all air their FCC-mandated "public affairs" programming, which consists of a host (a white guy) interviewing the same dozen lawmakers, journalists and pundits in a rotating order. The lawmakers are usually not the most powerful members of Congress -- often they're somewhat marginal figures in terms of influence, in fact -- and the pundits and journalists all generally share the same, or very similar, worldviews. The only people I actually know who watch these things do so out of professional obligation.

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Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said on Fox News Sunday that Republicans should give in on higher tax rates for the wealthiest Americans, and use the leverage to push for entitlement reform. "I actually am beginning to believe that is the best route for us to take," he said.

“A lot of people are putting forth a theory – and I actually think it has merit – where you go and you give the president the 2 percent increase that he's talking about, the rate increase on the top 2 percent – and all of a sudden the shift goes back to entitlements,” Corker said. “And all of a sudden, once you give him a top rate on the 2 percent it's actually a much lesser tax increase than what he's been talking about."

Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., continued to argue that Republicans should accept Obama's offer to keep in place tax cuts on income below $250,000 a year, but raise taxes on the wealthy. On CNN's State of the Union, Cole said: “So just let’s make sure for the 98 percent, they know they’re not. We can continue to fight on the other two percent and the higher rates."

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Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday that the GOP has to push for immigration reform and offer the middle class a more positive message. He also distanced himself from the social conservative wing of the party, saying that someone like him has no business imposing his pro-life views on female voters:

Over on ABC's This Week, McCain's buddy Sen. Lindsey Graham, R.-S.C.,  said that as the so-called fiscal cliff approaches, he is backing away from conservative activist Grover Norquist’s steadfast opposition to raising government revenues. Couching his position in concern about crippling the military, Graham explained:

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Benghazi:

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), the top Republican in the Senate Intelligence Committee, told "Fox News Sunday" that he expects Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, will testify before the Senate about the Benghazi attacks. "At some point [Rice] needs to come in and say what the president or the White House directed her to say," Chambliss said.

On NBC's "Meet the Press," host David Gregory also pushed chair of the Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), on whether the White House and Rice had misled the public in saying early on that the attacks were spontaneous protests, while intelligence pointed to a terrorist plot.

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As for the storm, everyone, of course, said their focus is on the well-being of people in the storm’s path, but pundits couldn’t help but try to find the political angle as well. There seem to be two main theories: One is that the race will essentially be frozen in place as the media and everyone else shifts focus away from the election for the next few days. Since Obama remains slightly ahead in key swing states, this scenario is seen as helping him by preventing Romney from gaining traction. Obama could also earn points by “looking presidential” while leading a successful federal response to the disaster, pundits said.

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Iran

Fox News Sunday saw Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) tow a hawkish line on Iran, calling the crippling program of sanctions currently in place a "miserable failure." "Time for talking is over he said," echoing Bibi Netanyahu's call for the U.S. to draw "red lines" over Iran's nuclear ambitions. "We should be demanding transparency and access to their nuclear program," Graham said.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) defended the sanctions program against Graham's attacks, "There's unrest in the streets of Tehran and the leaders in Iran are feeling it," he said.

David Axelrod echoed Durbin's point during his appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," "They're [Tehran is] feeling the heat. And that's what the sanctions were meant to do. So if they're sensible, they're looking at that and saying it's time to set aside our nuclear ambitions and save our economy."

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"Just because they call a piece of legislation an equal pay bill doesn't make it so," Rubio said. "In fact, much of this legislation is, in many respects, nothing but an effort to help trial lawyers collect their fees and file lawsuits, which may not contribute at all whatsoever to increasing pay equity in the workplace." [h/t Huffington Post]

On the evening of last week's presidential debate, a top Romney aide said the candidate would have opposed the Fair Pay Act when the legislation was proposed in 2009 but the following day, but would not repeal the act if made president.

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