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Sunday show roundup: Obama braces for impact

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 17:45:00 +0000

In clearest sign yet that President Obama has abandoned hope of averting the so-called fiscal cliff in the next 48 hours, he used a rare-Sunday show appearance to come out swinging at Republicans, something he’s so far avoided doing so as to not poison relations with his negotiating partners.

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.

Hack List No. 4: The Sunday Shows

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 17:15:00 +0000

This year, my annual list of the worst of political media highlights not just individuals, but the institutions that enable those individuals. The 2012 Hack List will be counting down the 10 media outlets that are hurting America over the next two days -- stay tuned! (Previous Hack List entries here, here and here.)

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.

Sunday show round-up: GOP Senator suggests cave on tax rates

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 16:38:00 +0000

The Sunday shows were dominated by talk of tax rates and the ongoing "fiscal cliff" negotiations. Here are the highlights:

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."

McCain: GOP can’t attack reproductive rights

Sun, 25 Nov 2012 17:25:00 +0000

On the Sunday morning shows today, the phrase "Republican moderate" no longer seemed like a complete oxymoron.

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:

Sunday show round up

Sun, 18 Nov 2012 18:05:00 +0000

As Congress investigates what the Obama administration knew, and when, about the Benghazi consulate attacks, the topic once again took up considerable Sunday show focus.

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.

Sunday best: GOP pretends no one cares about abortion

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 18:25:00 +0000

With a major storm and presidential election arriving within a week of each other, the penultimate batch of Sunday morning political talk shows before the election were dominated by talk of how Hurricane Sandy might impact the election. But abortion and Libya also made appearances. Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson wins our award for hackiest political analysis of the week (and there’s a lot of competition) for saying people care more about the GOP’s pet Libyan conspiracy theory than about abortion.

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.

Sunday show round up

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 17:49:00 +0000

With just one day to go before the final presidential debate, which will focus on foreign policy, the Sunday shows were awash with Obama and Romney surrogates trotting out party lines on foreign policy topics du jour -- predominantly the Libya embassy attacks and Iran.

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."

Rubio with Romney against Ledbetter act

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 15:43:00 +0000

Speaking on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," Sen. Marco Rubio came to Mitt Romney's defense in his opposition to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act -- one of the most celebrated pieces of legislation passed under Obama.

"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.

Durbin slams Issa’s treatment of Libya documents

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 15:01:00 +0000

The Benghazi consulate attack was once again a subject of partisan attacks on this Sunday's talk shows. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., speaking on Fox News Sunday, decried the actions of Rep. Darrell Issa regarding the release of sensitive but unclassified documents about the embassy attacks.

Issa, chairman of the House Oversight Committee overseeing an investigation into the U.S.'s handling of the embassy attack, posted raw State Department cables online late last week. Names of Libyans working with U.S. diplomats were not redacted from the published documents.

"This idea of Chairman Issa, that he's going to dump the names, in public, of Libyans who are risking their lives to support America and keep us safe, in an effort to get a political toehold in this election, is unconscionable," Durbin said

Durbin echoed the now oft-repeated charge, made by both Democrats and Republicans at each other, that Issa was attempting to "politicize" the tragedy in Libya.

The Benghazi attack will likely be a major topic in Monday's final presidential debate, which focuses on foreign policy.

Sunday best: Colbert unmasked

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 18:05:00 +0000

As Salon's own Alex Pareene can tell you, the Sunday morning political talk shows can be a wasteland of Simpson-Bowles fetishism and beltway conventional wisdomhood. Today, for example, on ABC’s “This Week,” we got a full-panel analysis of whether Joe Biden’s facial expressions in last week’s debate was “counterproductive.” And that's why, as Joan Walsh explained in our first installment last week, Salon is bringing you Sunday Best: Our choice of the best moment on the top Sunday shows.

There were a few good contenders today that deserve honorable mention, starting with what’s hard to classify as anything but a lie through the teeth from a top Romney surrogate. Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman, who has been playing the role of President Obama in Mitt Romney’s debate preparations, appeared on “This Week” to preview the upcoming debate and defend Paul Ryan’s erroneous suggestion in the vice presidential debate that unemployment is higher now than it was when Obama took office. “Unemployment is going down, as a factual matter. Why would Congressman Ryan, in defiance of facts, suggest otherwise?” host Jake Tapper asked. Portman replied, matter of factly, “I think that what he was saying was the truth: unemployment is higher today than when the president took office. Unfortunately, in the meantime, we’ve created net zero jobs, Jake.”

Sunday best: Chuck Todd loses it

Sun, 07 Oct 2012 18:31:00 +0000

What use are Sunday morning news shows in our post-truth political era? Four days after Mitt Romney lied his way through his debate with a listless, diffident President Obama, and two days after former GE CEO Jack Welch ousted Donald Trump to become Mayor of Crazytown on Foursquare, journalists and campaign surrogates had a lot of decisions to make: Would conservatives escalate, backing Romney and Welch? Would liberals fight back more effectively than Obama (OK, that's an easy one)? And would reporters on the panels lapse into easy "both sides do it" equivalence and ignore the way the Republican campaign, including Welch and Romney himself, has ratcheted up the prevarication and character assassination to new levels?

To keep from drowning in despair and nihilism over what the Sunday shows tell us about the bankruptcy of American politics, Salon is bringing you Sunday Best: Our choice of the best moment of all on the top Sunday shows. (We may occasionally have to turn to MSNBC's "Up With Chris" or "Melissa Harris-Perry," but if we put them in the mix every week, it wouldn't be a fair fight. We'll mainly focus on the productions of the big networks.)

This Sunday, there were plenty of good moments.