Before blogging, there were proto-bloggers, and I have encountered another example: Rose Kennedy.

I have commemorated proto-bloggers before. For example, something John Keats did in 1816. And, in the first year of my own blogging, I told you about my grandfather, Pop. And though I can’t find where I've blogged about it, there's something I myself used to do in the 1990s. I'd read the paper NYT at the dining table in the morning and if I found something distinctly interesting, I'd tear it out and put it on the other side of the table, where my sons would see it when they eventually came into the room.

Anyway, the proto-blogger I discovered today was Rose Kennedy. As a consequence of reading that Rebecca Traister article about RFK Jr. — blogged here — I started reading his book "American Values/Lessons I Learned from My Family." 

Here's what I consider to be like blogging:

What did Tom Brokaw say that had him apologizing so awkwardly last night on Twitter?

Let's read the original text, the transcript for "Meet the Press." I saw the show at the time, and I wasn't paying that much attention to the words. I was noticing how old and out of it Tom Brokaw looked and sounded. He is speaking on a panel moderated by Chuck Todd, and the subject, at this point, is the government shutdown. Brokaw says:

I really didn't think that you could widen the gap between the Beltway and the rest of the country any more, until this happened. And now, it's completely gone. 

Notice the incoherence. What is "completely gone"? The "gap"? He means the gap is much greater now, so he's saying the opposite of what he means.

I mean, you know, I told you earlier that I talked to these westerners who began by saying, "Like Trump, like his policies." Then, they said, "Wish he’d stop, wish he would stop tweeting all the time." Last time I talked to them, "He's a clown. I can't stand him. But it's still the policies that we believe in." 

How often does 78-year-old Tom Brokaw go out west and reinterview characters who give him the clichés he needs —  "stop tweeting all the time," "clown"? He's in trouble for what he said about Hispanics, but "these westerners" is also a stereotype.

But anywhere I go, Republican, Democrat, or Independent, "Why can't they talk to each other and find common ground?" Every community in America finds a way to build a new school or to do something about downtown. But here, we can't do it, because we breathe the same air. And it's toxic, in its own way, about what needs to be done and how seriously people take their very minute positions on something.

That's just generic ranting about how people in Washington can't work together.

Next panelist Hugh Hewitt opines that dealing with the political situation in Venezuela is "going to bring us together," and Chuck Todd expresses skepticism. Then Yamiche Alcindor, the White House correspondent for the PBS NewsHour, talks about the new bipartisan committee that will be looking at border security, and they are going to "actually talk about facts and, maybe, try to get on the same page."

It's at that point that Chuck Todd — with the skeptical remark, "The problem is in Wyoming and in South Dakota, they think they need a wall, and in Texas and in Arizona, they don't" — throws it to Tom Brokaw, and Tom Brokaw says the things that will get him in trouble:

"I write this letter at 4 A.M., the dawn of my new existence as an accused sexual predator."

Said Tom Brokaw, quoted in "'My New Life as an Accused Predator': Tom Brokaw Privately Attempts to Discredit his Accuser" (Vanity Fair).

"Mr. Trump, what's left in your life? You're 33 years old, you're worth all this money, you say you didn't say you want to be worth a billion...."

"No, I really don't. I just want to keep active and keep busy and be interested in what I do, and that's all there is to life as far as I'm concerned...."

Tom Brokaw, David Gregory, and Chris Matthews daintily allude to Obama's masculinity deficit.

On yesterday's "Meet the Press," Tom Brokaw said it was "just inexplicable" that the Obamacare website "suddenly landed the way that it did, in utter chaos." The President should have pressured "Kathy Sebelius and other people" about the "rollout" which was "going to be our big play for the second term."

"Big play" picks up on that football metaphor Obama used 4 times in his November 14th remarks. "We fumbled," he said, though in real football, it's an individual player who fumbles. But here was this "big play," and somebody fumbled. Was it "Kathy"?

The moderator David Gregory, immediately steps up to frame the next question in macho terms: "Who's got the muscle?" The manly (though 50-years-dead) JFK somehow shoulders his way into the conversation. Gregory turns to Chris Matthews and says:

You were making the point to me this week about, you know, where's his Bobby Kennedy? Who's got the muscle? When the president says, and he did say, "The user experience of this website is everything," who had the muscle in the White House to get it done and make sure the president gets what he wants?

Muscle, muscle, muscle. If a right-winger had phrased the question that way, somebody would call this misogyny. These 3 men — Brokaw, Gregory, and Matthews — are hankering for a muscular man who can nail the big play. He depended on a Kathy when he needed a Bobby. And here's what Chrissy Matthews said:

Everybody goes to their battle stations when there's chaos. 

I'll see you your football metaphor, and raise you a military metaphor.

You always go to where you've been arguing before. But I've always been arguing this president doesn't have a chain of command, a very clear line of authority and unique responsibility. I remember Sebelius, who I like of course, most people do like her, she's a public servant. 

She's liked. Kathy's likeable enough. She's a good servant.

But when she was asked, "Who's in charge?" in that committee, under oath, she started to talk about someone, the head of C.M.S., who handles Medicare and Medicaid. Among 30 or 40 other responsibilities, this person had the rollout responsibilities.

And was "this person" male or female? Female. Marilyn Tavenner. Can you say her name without vaulting back in time to your old macho icons Jack and Bobby? They knew what "responsibilities" to give their Marilyn.

Matthews reaches even further back, to an even manlier man:

Look at Japan, the occupation of Japan, it simple: Put one guy in charge, Doug MacArthur. 

Put one guy in charge. Doug. Call him Doug, not Douglas. Not — in the style of "Kathy" — Dougy. He's Doug. And there was a guy! Put one guy in charge.

You put somebody in charge and they're uniquely responsible for its success or failure. Obama doesn't do things that way. He's got floaters, like Valerie Jarett, floating around. 

Floaters. Like Valerie Jarrett. The disrespect! They can't even spell her name right in the transcript. Floaters, like Valerie Jarrett, floating around. Matthews being a good Democrat somehow feels secure that the double meaning of "floaters" won't bring on the accusations of racism that would surely have burst forth if a Republican had talked about Jarrett like that.

He doesn't want to have a real chief of staff, like a Jim Baker.

He's saying — it's hardly subtle — that Jarrett's not a real man. You need a man. A man like Bobby or Doug or Jim.

He doesn't want to give authority to people, and I think it's been a real problem.

So what does this say about Obama, not wanting to bring in real men, who take charge, who make the play, who exert authority? He's not man enough to work alongside real men? He needs to play with the ladies, ladies who don't know their place — who dither and float?

"Tom Brokaw declined his invitation to this year's White House Correspondents’ Dinner because of Lindsay Lohan."

"'Somewhere along the line, it began to freewheel out of control,' the renowned anchorman told Politico about the celeb-filled soiree, 'and the breaking point for me was Lindsay Lohan.'"

The trouble-making actress was invited as a guest of Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren at the 2012 dinner. Page Six’s Cindy Adams recalled how Lohan disappeared a few times to the bathroom for a cigarette and tipped a bathroom attendant a crumpled $100 and said, "You’re too old to be doing this."

Hey, Lindsay's right. We're all too old.

"Sperling Admits Obama Misled in Debate: The President Did Propose the Sequester."

"We put forth the design of' the sequestration, Sperling finally admits after a long back-and-forth."



Here's the whole "Meet the Press" transcript. Here's the part about Bob Woodward:

Romney ad uses archival news footage and Tom Brokaw is not pleased.

Brokaw — who wants the ad withdrawn — says: "I am extremely uncomfortable with the extended use of my personal image in this political ad. I do no want my role as a journalist compromised for political gain by any campaign."

Extended use? The ad is 30 seconds long. And how does it "compromise" Brokaw's role as a journalist? Anyone can see it's the archival footage of the news from 1997, and the point of using Brokaw is that it makes it plain that this is the straightforward news of that time, not any pumped up, slanted presentation.

Unless...

... unless — ironically! — Tom Brokaw's role as a journalist is already — in the minds of viewers — compromised. I mean, when you look at this ad, do you think: Oh, there's that terrible left-leaning NBC News making what Gingrich did look as bad as possible? Or do you think: That's the regular, professional news as it appeared in 1997, informing us of some disturbingly bad things Gingrich did?

Obviously, Mitt Romney is using the clip on the theory that you'll think the latter, and therefore it boosts Brokaw's reputation as a neutral journalist. Brokaw's objection is self-undermining.

IN THE COMMENTS: Lem says:

I have the copy of the U.S. Constitution, and it doesn't say anywhere anything that anybody can make Tom extremely uncomfortable with the extended use of his personal image.

The mess that is "Meet the Press" had me laughing until tears ran down my face.

We watch the NBC show on DVR and pause frequently to analyze, dissect, and mock. Here's today's transcript. They had Walter Isaacson, the author of that terrific new biography of Steve Jobs, and then they also had Tom Brokaw, NBC's retired news anchor, who also has a new book. It might make a mildly appreciated Christmas present for any members of the "greatest generation" who still survive in your family. Pushing Brokaw's book, they subjected us to text like this:

John McCain on "Meet the Press."

Did you watch? To me, McCain sounds exhausted or sick. Maybe he has a sore throat. He let out an immense sigh when he was in the middle of talking about Colin Powell . At one point, he misspoke and said, emphatically, "We've got to get government spending out of control." (He immediately corrected himself, but still...)

Whenever he found the chance, he would stress that Barack Obama has a far-left ideology, and whenever he needed a different argument -- such as when Brokaw confronted him with his own statements in favor of making the rich pay more taxes -- he would resort to the argument that different times require different solutions. How can you use these two rhetorical strategies alternately? It's incoherent. I'll write more about that when I have the transcript to work with.

What did you think?

UPDATE: Now, we've got the transcript. (Video here.) Let me show you what I mean about incoherence:

MR. BROKAW: Well, let me ask you about that business about spreading the wealth around ... which has been a favorite phrase now of the McCain campaign. And also your vice presidential candidate has used the word "socialist" and "socialism." ... Do you honestly think that Barack Obama would have as his advisers--Warren Buffet; Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve under Ronald Reagan, who is widely credited with saving the economy at that time; Bob Rubin, former Treasury secretary; and even Chris Buckley, the son of the godfather of the modern conservative movement--both endorsing his economic policies and help shaping them if they thought he was a socialist of some kind?

SEN. McCAIN: All I know is that Senator Obama's record is very clear. It's his record, not Volcker's record, not anybody else's. He started out in the lefthand lane of American politics and has remained there. He has been judged the most liberal United States senator. Biden's number three. "Joe the Biden" is number three. Bernie Sanders is number two. And, and I respect that. But let's not, let's not call it anything but it is.

MR. BROKAW: Well, he...

SEN. McCAIN: He's voted for tax increases, against tax cuts, has advocated raising capital gains tax. Another, another anchor, Charlie Gibson, said, "Why would you want to raise capital gains taxes and--when you know that that could decrease revenue?" He said, "It's a matter of fairness." He said to "Joe the Plumber," it's "spreading the wealth around." I, I--his political philosophy is very, very different about what he believes is future of America's concerned.

MR. BROKAW: Well, can we, can we...

SEN. McCAIN: I believe the worst thing you can do is raise taxes.

MR. BROKAW: Can we share with the audience, then, a couple of...

SEN. McCAIN: Sure. Sure.

MR. BROKAW: ...your comments about taxing wealthy Americans?

SEN. McCAIN: Sure.

MR. BROKAW: This is from April 11th, 2004. It's MEET THE PRESS...

SEN. McCAIN: Mm-hmm.

MR. BROKAW: ...and this is what you had to say about wealthy Americans and taxes at that time.

(Videotape)

SEN. McCAIN: I voted against the tax cuts because of the disproportional amount that went to the wealthiest Americans.

(End videotape)

MR. BROKAW: And then this is what you had to say on "Hardball" back in 2000 to Chris Matthews.

(Videotape, October 12, 2000)

SEN. McCAIN: Here's what I, I, I really believe, that when you are--reach a certain level of comfort, there's nothing wrong with paying somewhat more.

(End videotape)

SEN. McCAIN: That's what--listen, even the flat tax people somewhat pay more. Even--you put into different, different categories of wealthier people paying, paying higher taxes into different brackets. I mean, and the, and these are different times, my friend. These are times of the biggest financial crisis we've faced in America.

Note the "my friend" that slips out as McCain tries to switch to the "different times" rhetoric that, as I said in the post, is incoherent with the argument that the 2 candidates represent starkly different ideology.

Brokaw pushes him on the use of the term "socialism," pointing out the inconvenient fact that "the $700 billion bailout ... has the United States government buying shares in American banks, in effect nationalizing those banks to a degree" and needling him about "your own mortgage plan of spending $300 billion to buy bad mortgages from banks, having taxpayers who have done the responsible thing, in effect, subsidize people who've done the dumb or wrong thing."

McCain again resorts to the "different times" gambit:

Because we are in a financial crisis of monumental proportions. The role of government is to intervene when a nation is in crisis. A homeowner's loan corporation was instituted in the Great Depression. They went out and they bought people's mortgages, and, over time, people were able, then, to pay back those mortgages. And the Treasury actually made some money.

The question wasn't whether it was a good idea. It was how can you call Obama "socialist" when you support things like this? You should have to say something along lines of: Well, it's socialism all right, but sometimes that's just what we need and it works out pretty well, so it's fine.

Or you could say: We're just blowing off steam when we call it "socialism," Tom. You know that. It's like when I called Cindy a ... whatever, Tom, I know Cindy's a human being, and Obama's not a socialist. It's a figure of speech.

MR. BROKAW: Let me ask you quickly about your $300 billion bailout of, of mortgages. Some people have said, look, if there's a homeowner out there who's done the irresponsible thing and a bank is looking at that foreclosure and saying, "Hey, I don't have to work this out. I can just get the government to pick it up," why should a taxpayer in Waterloo, Iowa, or in Akron, Ohio, have to subsidize somebody who has done the dumb, wrong thing?

SEN. McCAIN: Well, in simplest terms, if their neighbor next door throws the keys in the living room floor and leaves, then the value of their home is going to dramatically decrease as well. And again, this has been done before. As I said, during the Great Depression and...

MR. BROKAW: And that's when Republicans called it socialism under FDR.

SEN. McCAIN: Well, look, in the Great Depression, there were some things that worked and some things that didn't work. But for the government to do nothing in the face of a massive crisis of proportions that we have not seen, I mean, it's hard for us to imagine how, in, in retrospect, how serious the Great Depression was, but the fact is that Senator Obama, by the way, opposes that, that; and I want to use some of the $750 billion to go and buy those mortgages and that, I think, will stabilize the market. It's not the only thing that needs to be done, but I think it's a vital first step so Americans can realize the American dream.

So, McCain has nothing on the ideological point about socialism. He's gone completely over to the pragmatic side of wanting to do whatever works. And yet, he's not persuasive that this idea would work. It's a big, outrageously expensive program that spares people from the consequences of their poor decisions. But let's just do it, because the times are difficult.

Rush Limbaugh tripped all over himself yesterday, talking about Colin Powell.

From the transcript of yesterday's Rush Limbaugh show:

Isn't this, by the way, the Colin Powell who was first appointed to a big job by Mr. Conservative, Ronald Reagan? Wasn't it Ronald Reagan who pinned the four stars on General Powell? It was, ladies and gentlemen. And wasn't it George H.W. Bush who named him chairman of the Joint Chiefs, another Republican? And wasn't it George W. Bush who named him secretary of state? Yes, another Republican. By tomorrow this time, the political impact of the Powell endorsement will be mostly irrelevant, but his betrayal will be forever.

Betrayal? Is Colin Powell "General Betray-Us" to you? Presumably, Powell deserved the positions the Republicans offered him, and these positions were not in exchange for future party loyalty. Powell never even stated that he was a member of the Republican Party. He was an independent thinker, which is one reason why his support was so valuable. [ADDED: Has Powell identified himself as a member of the party? On "Meet the Press," he kept saying "the party," but does at one point say "my own party." I was influenced by something Rush said on the Monday show: "I'll never forget Powell threatening with running for president back in 1995, remember that? And he wouldn't identify what party he was from. He had these approval ratings in the seventies. He knew if he identified himself as a Republican or a Democrat, that he'd lose some of the numbers, he wouldn't take a position on abortion, for example. Everybody on our side was so excited about Colin Powell. I said, 'Folks, don't you think it matters whether or not he's a Republican or Democrat? He won't tell us.'" Back to the Tuesday transcript:]

And you people in the Drive-Bys [i.e., the mainstream media] who have been out there claiming that my disagreeing when Powell says his endorsement of Obama is not about race, and I say, yes, it is, it's totally about race, is a transformational figure, what else is transformational about Obama if not his race?

Everybody knows that Democrats in the media think history is being made here. What's so hard to admit you're supporting a guy because of race? And they're trying to tell me that I'm being racist and that I'm accusing Secretary Powell of being a racist. I'm not accusing him of being a racist. The Democrats have gotten away with defining our language or redefining our language for far too long....

What I said, my simple quotes to Jonathan Martin. "Jonathan, he says it's not about race. Okay. I'm going to search all the inexperienced white liberals that he's endorsed. I'll get back to you with what I find." Not only is that not racist, it's brilliant, if I say so myself, because it expresses it in a number of ways. What I'm saying is, well, this is interesting. He says it's not about race, but where all the inexperienced white liberals? Of course it's about race. And then when I said -- now, nobody brings this one up -- but he said he couldn't deal with two more Republican appointments to the Supreme Court. I said, "I didn't know he disliked John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia." I guess he also doesn't like the fact that it was Republicans that made him who he is. This is betrayal.

You know, it's possible to like and respect John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and still think the next 2 appointments should be made by a Democrat. That's my thinking on the subject. Political moderates tend to want a balanced Supreme Court, and replacing Stevens, Souter, or Ginsburg -- the 3 most likely departures -- with a reliably conservative Justice would upset the balance we have known for the lasts 20 years and more.

As for all that material about race, here's what Powell said:

So, when I look at all of this and I think back to my Army career, we've got two individuals, either one of them could be a good president. But which is the president that we need now? Which is the individual that serves the needs of the nation for the next period of time? And I come to the conclusion that because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities--and we have to take that into account--as well as his substance--he has both style and substance--he has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president. I think he is a transformational figure. He is a new generation coming into the world--onto the world stage, onto the American stage, and for that reason I'll be voting for Senator Barack Obama.

Powell used the word "transformational" in the context of generational change and also "who he is," which we can take to include Obama's race. That is part of "his ability to inspire." But it's absurd to say that race is the only reason Powell would support Obama. Limbaugh is relying way too much on a strained idea of party loyalty.

Tom Brokaw immediately pressed Colin Powell on the matter of race, saying: "And you are fully aware that there will be some--how many, no one can say for sure--but there will be some who will say this is an African-American, distinguished American, supporting another African-American because of race."

Powell said:

If I had only had that in mind, I could have done this six, eight, 10 months ago. I really have been going back and forth between somebody I have the highest respect and regard for, John McCain, and somebody I was getting to know, Barack Obama. And it was only in the last couple of months that I settled on this. And I can't deny that it will be a historic event for an African-American to become president. And should that happen, all Americans should be proud--not just African-Americans, but all Americans--that we have reached this point in our national history where such a thing could happen. It will also not only electrify our country, I think it'll electrify the world.

So he openly stated that he's excited about the prospect of a black President.

Back to Limbaugh:

What General Powell did is betrayal, and of course he's gonna say it's not about race, but if Biden were the nominee you think he'd be endorsing Biden? Do you think he would endorse Hillary? It's possible. I'll tell you why.

Ha. Limbaugh backs down from his own theory! He loves his theories so much that he can't resist spinning out another one, even when it screws up the last one.

Because in addition to the race factor here, what's most important to Colin Powell is Colin Powell.

Huh? Suddenly, Powell is a big egoistic careerist?

And that means what's most important to Colin Powell is his standing in the New York-Washington elite corridors of power, and he has been on thin ice since the Iraq war and since he went up there to the United Nations and made the case for Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. So this gets him back in good graces, this gets him back in good stead....

After a commercial break, he goes back to the issue of race:

Just one more stab at this, folks, this Colin Powell business. I'm not calling him a racist. I'm saying he's disingenuous. It's not about racism. It's about his lack of candor. He can't admit what's obvious. Race plays a huge role. The whole campaign is about race. It's "historic." Why is it historic?

Hey, read the transcript I just quoted. He wasn't disingenuous. He said it! "And I can't deny that it will be a historic event for an African-American to become president."

Why can't you Democrats acknowledge this? What's so hard about it? Just say it! Be proud of it! It would have been refreshing if Secretary Powell had stated the obvious, not danced around it. But, see, if he'd admitted it was about race it wouldn't have helped him with the media.

With the help of the media? Look at Brokaw's question! Limbaugh was tripping all over himself in this segment, and what would be so hard about admitting he was wrong? Just say it! Don't dance around it!

That was the worst debate ever.

Says Politico:

How the hell did candidates manage to be so timid and uninspiring at a time when American troops are in two problematic wars, the world financial markets are in scary free fall and the Dow has lost 1,400 points since Oct. 1? This is a moment history rarely sees — and both men blew it.

The debate was bad in ways that debates are often bad. The ultra-badness comes from being bad now.

So Tom Brokaw is fretting about criticism that NBC shows favoritism toward Obama.

On Sunday, I commented on how odd it was that Tom Brokaw ended a "Meet the Press" interview with Steve Schmidt and David Axelrod by saying -- seemingly out of nowhere -- that "in fairness to everybody here" he should tell us about a poll showing that, 53 to 42 percent, Americans think McCain is better suited to be commander in chief. That made me suspect that "Inside NBC, they are fretting about criticism that they show favoritism toward Obama, so Brokaw thought it might help to lob out a glaring hunk of McCain favoritism."

So I was very interested in this-behind-the-scenes report:

In an interview here after Sunday’s ["Meet the Press"] broadcast, Mr. Brokaw said that over the summer he had “advocated” within the executive suite of NBC News to modify the anchor duties of the MSNBC hosts Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews on election night and on nights when there were presidential debates....

Mr. Brokaw said he had also conducted some shuttle diplomacy in recent weeks between NBC and the McCain campaign. His mission, he said, was to assure the candidate’s aides that — despite some negative on-air commentary by Mr. Olbermann in particular — Mr. McCain could still get a fair shake from NBC News. Mr. Brokaw said he had been told by a senior McCain aide, whom he did not name, that the campaign had been reluctant to accept an NBC representative as one of the moderators of the three presidential debates — until his name was invoked.

“One of the things I was told by this person was that they were so irritated, they said, ‘If it’s an NBC moderator, for any of these debates, we won’t go,’ ” Mr. Brokaw said. “My name came up, and they said, ‘Oh, hell, we have to do it, because it’s going to be Brokaw.’ ”

I was right.

***

This is good too -- Brokaw showing his exasperation with Schmidt and Axelrod:

“They didn’t come very prepared on the economy,” he said. “They’re both trying to give the impression they’re involved, but plainly they’re not.”

“I was interested in how the two of them stuck by their budget programs,” he said. “There was nothing that Obama has proposed that he’s willing to cut. McCain insisted he could balance a budget with spending cuts. Give me” — and here he paused for emphasis — “a break. Nobody believes that, in either case.”

Absolutely right.

Tom Brokaw's bizarre idea of what fairness required.

Steve Schmidt and David Axelrod were on "Meet the Press" this morning, and they spewed talking points and evaded the questions asked by Tom Brokaw. Here's the best example of that:

MR. BROKAW: Let me just share with you what The Wall Street Journal had to say about the opening statements of your two candidates at the debate the other night.

"The debate took place amid the backdrop of the financial crisis, and perhaps most disappointing was how neither man seemed to have anything useful to say about it. ... What neither man showed was any real insight about our financial market issues, or any political courage in offering a solution."

Are you going to have to go back and replate [sic] your economic program, Mr. Axelrod, going forward, because of the changed conditions that result--as a result of this bailout program?

MR. AXELROD: Well, first of all, I don't accept the premise of the Journal piece. The fact is that Senator Obama's been warning for a year and a half about this crisis--about the possibility of such a crisis because of the lack of oversight and greed on Wall Street... But the decisions we make are to prioritize, and this is what Senator Obama said that night, are to prioritize the middle class. What was phenomenal about that debate was that in 40 minutes on the economy, Senator McCain never once mentioned the middle class, never talked about the struggles people are going through. We need to create an economic recovery plan that puts at its core the middle class in this country.

MR. SCHMIDT: Well, Tom, you know, this was a debate about national security, about foreign policy. You never heard the word victory from Senator Obama when it came to wars this country's fighting. But we did talk about the middle class.....

Translation: The Wall Street Journal is absolutely right! The candidates have no real insight about our financial market issues and no political courage in offering a solution.

I'm skipping all the other blah blah blah, which you can read at the link. It's about Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, al Qaeda, etc. Then Brokaw ends the interview like this:

MR. BROKAW: In fairness to everybody here, I'm just going to end on one note, and that is that we continue to poll on who's best equipped to be commander in chief, and John McCain continues to lead in that category despite the criticism from Barack Obama by a factor of 53 to 42 percent in our latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

Gentlemen, thank you very much. I wish we could spend the rest of the day talking about these issues. But you're invited back, and I hope you'll make your second appearance right here on MEET THE PRESS.

What? Why was it a matter of "fairness to everybody here" to end the debate with a thudding, unanswered poll result? At the end of a discussion in which both candidates were perfectly well represented by their mouthpieces, Brokaw thought fairness required him to say, essentially, "Well, the American people still think McCain is much better on these questions."

Brokaw began the discussion by saying "We're not going to get into this business about who won and lost the debate." He made a point of not presenting Schmidt and Axelrod with poll numbers on that subject. And none of his other questions were based on polls, nor did Schmidt and Axelrod bring up any polls. So why did Brokaw end like that?

My guess? Inside NBC, they are fretting about criticism that they show favoritism toward Obama, so Brokaw thought it might help to lob out a glaring hunk of McCain favoritism. Sorry! That just looked really weird. Consequently, it reinforced the perception that NBC favors Obama.

UPDATE: I was right!

John Kerry does a terrible job of representing Barack Obama on "Meet the Press."

As Joe Lieberman dominated every exchange, John Kerry seemed to think it would work to sit back and make Stan Laurel faces:



Kerry's performance hit rock bottom when he struggled to keep up with Obama's latest position on offshore oil drilling:

MR. BROKAW: Let's, let's talk about energy for a moment, if we can, because there have been several developments this past week that are important. A bipartisan coalition of 10 senators...

SEN. KERRY: Yes.

MR. BROKAW: ...five Democrats, five Republicans--want to expand offshore drilling and they want to end a tax credit on oil companies. Senator Obama, in the past, has often said that he's opposed to offshore drilling.... Now, having said that, here's what Senator Obama had to say over the weekend: "My interest is in making sure that we've got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices. ... If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage--I don't want to be so rigid that we can't get something done." I can already hear the bloggers saying, "Flip-flop." Here's a guy who just...

SEN. KERRY: Sure.

MR. BROKAW: ...a couple of months ago said, "No way we're going to do this," now he's opened the possibility of it again. Two weeks ago on this program Vice President Al Gore, who's the godfather in the Democratic Party of energy policies, said, "No way should we drill offshore."

SEN. KERRY: I agree with Al Gore, and I don't want to. But, but Barack Obama...

MR. BROKAW: You, you--so you don't agree with Senator Obama?

SEN. KERRY: Well, I don't agree--here's, here's what I think his position is demonstrating. He still believes we should not drill offshore.

What?!

MR. BROKAW: But he's prepared to do it if necessary.

SEN. KERRY: He has not changed--what he's prepared to do, Tom, is break America's gridlock by honoring a bipartisan effort if that is the only way to move us towards alternative and renewable fuels and, and, and an energy policy that's comprehensive. I think what you see in the response on this drilling is really the difference in how they might govern. Barack Obama doesn't want to drill offshore, doesn't believe it's the thing to do.

What?! So you're saying that Obama's newest statements on the subject are just some meaningless politicking that you won't even pretend to believe temporarily while he gets himself elected?

There's a very--there's a four-state carefully circumscribed proposal in that, that, in that initiative that, that could conceivably allow some drilling.

that, that... that, that...

Can anyone listen to this part? Kerry gives off the signal that he's going to blather and smokescreen and do that thing his erstwhile fans called "nuance" in 2004.

could conceivably allow some drilling....

But what? But we shouldn't believe it will lead to any drilling?

He doesn't want to do that.

He doesn't? So Obama muddied his position, opened himself up to the accusation that he's flip-flopped, and the take away point really is just that he doesn't want drilling? Thanks a lot, Kerry.

Obama, do not send Kerry out to represent you again. He's terrible.

But if that's what gets us to the energy independence and to the other efforts, I think Joe Lieberman actually supports--now, he didn't support drilling. He's changed and moves in that direction.

"He" — who? I can't even tell if he's talking about Obama or Lieberman. So the point is, I think, that Obama wants to get some legislation through and he's willing to accept some provision that happens to be in it because it only opens a possibility of drilling, and he doesn't support drilling? I thought Obama wanted people to think he was open to offshore drilling, but Kerry is squelching that belief. How is Kerry trying to help Obama?

But here's the bottom line.

Go to the transcript for the news that oil companies make too much money and need to be taxed more. Let's skip a step ahead, and pick up in the middle what Lieberman's saying when he gets the floor again:

... John McCain says we need to drill offshore. That's American oil, we need to bring it into the market to help lower gas prices and make us energy independent. Barack Obama says, this weekend, maybe, and, and, if, but. He did not endorse--he did not come out with a strong decision, Obama, and say, "I'm for offshore drilling." And I predict to you he'll find reasons not to be for it if this comes to a vote in the Senate.

SEN. KERRY: Are you for it now? Have you changed?

SEN. LIEBERMAN: I am for it...

SEN. KERRY: You've changed.

Oh, so Kerry was talking about Lieberman before. That's a distraction. We're talking about Obama and McCain, aren't we? Or is Kerry more concerned about the Senate-level debate about what legislation gets passed?

SEN. LIEBERMAN: ...because of the crisis. That's...

SEN. KERRY: You're now for it.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: ...absolutely right, because of the facts.

I want to take a minute from a personal perspective...

MR. BROKAW: Are you--you're--and you're not for it, Senator Kerry, under any circumstances.

SEN. KERRY: It is an absolutely fraudulent offering to America.

Is this helpful to Obama, who's been reframing his position?

SEN. LIEBERMAN: It, it is not.

SEN. KERRY: Drilling--let me tell you why. We only...

SEN. LIEBERMAN: My buddy here is filibustering this morning.

Yes, exactly! Kerry is being a Senator. Has he forgotten his role of helping Obama? But he wasn't invited onto "Meet the Press" to do his Senate work.

SEN. KERRY: We only have, we only have 3 percent of the world's oil reserves. Sixty-five percent of the oil comes from the Mideast. The problem with global climate change is oil. The problem for our security is our dependency on oil.

MR. BROKAW: So what you're saying...

SEN. KERRY: If we go out and drill more oil, even temporarily, when it doesn't come to the pump for about seven years, you're not dealing with the real crisis, which is moving America's innovation...

The same old Democratic talking points... I thought Obama trying to get away from that.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Well...

SEN. KERRY: ...and creativity, the creation of new fuel.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: ...here, here's the difference. Here, here's the difference. Senator Obama, Senator Kerry say no to offshore drilling, no to nuclear power and...

SEN. KERRY: No, I don't say no to nuclear power.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: OK, hold on. Senator Obama certainly does. John McCain says we got to have all of the above. In the short term, we need to drill for American oil where we can find it and get it safely. That's offshore. Secondly, John McCain has presented--and we need nuclear power. Secondly, John McCain has presented the most bold alternative energy--wind, solar, electric car, hydrogen car--proposals that are around today.

I want to say just a word about the, the racial question here. And I, I speak personally. In the first place, the McCain campaign is, to use Barack Obama's words, raising the question is he a risky guy? But it has nothing to do with his name or his skin color. It has to do with his lack of experience and bad judgment, his unreadiness to be president. When you use the expressions that Senator Obama did three times this week, you're making a personal insult to John McCain.

I, I know John McCain. I've been with him for 20 years, private and public. This man does not have a bigoted bone in his body. His wife and he adopted a baby from Bangladesh, who, who they love. It's just wrong for Senator Obama to have done that. It was right for the campaign to call him on it. Let me just add a final word, Tom. In 2000, Al Gore gave me the extraordinary honor of being the first Jewish-American to run for national office, and Al Gore said he had confidence in the American people that they would judge me based on my record, not on my religion. And I urge Barack Obama to have the same faith in the American people that they will judge him on his record, or lack of record, certainly not on his name or his race.

MR. BROKAW: All right. We want to move on if we can.

Yes, let's move on, now that Joe Lieberman has just done a triumphant 2-part dance on the supine carcass of John Kerry. And that's it for the discussion of oil drilling. Is Brokaw playing it straight, biased against Obama, or just painfully aware that John Kerry is pathetically incapable or perversely unwilling to help Barack Obama?

Tom Brokaw is the new host of "Meet the Press" — until November.

This is good — for us and for NBC. Can you imagine if they'd given it to Olbermann or Matthews?

The "Meet the Press" tribute to Tim Russert.

Are you watching? (It will be up later for on-line streaming.) [ADDED: Here's that video.]

They are doing a nice job. The graphic still said "Meet the Press With Tim Russert," and they opened to an empty set with Tim's empty chair in the middle, then tilted down to Tom Brokaw. (The initial view of the top of Brokaw's head was — unintentionally — humorous.)

The show is full of interesting clips of old shows — including one just now where he used the expression to "saw your leg off" to Bob Kerrey, a man who's had his leg sawed off.

ADDED: Tom Brokaw breaks up as he tries to quote something Russert said a lot: "What a great country."

AND: At the end of the show, Brokaw reminds us that it's Father's Day and tells us we could honor Russert — who was a devoted son and father and wrote a couple books about fathers — by honoring our own fathers. Then there's a photo montage played over Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road." (Russert was a big Springsteen fan.) They return to the empty set. On screen, the words: Tim Russert/Managing Editor.

Very nicely done. I especially enjoyed the sequence of clips where he confronted various interviewees about whether they intended to run for President. Hillary Clinton's adamant noes were hilarious.

Let's talk about the New Hampshire primary.

Are you watching the results on TV? What channel? I'm hanging out on MSNBC at the moment. I knocked NBC the other day, so I want to make a point of saying I love listening to Tim Russert and Tom Brokaw, who are on Chris Matthews' show right now. I was doing a little CNN before, but it got a little too Lou Dobbsy, so I changed channels. And let's give Fox News equal time. (I'm back in New York City, and I had a hard time finding Fox News, which isn't clustered with the other news channels the way it is in Madison. The New York cable channels are annoyingly jumbled.)

Anyway, the polls close soon. Are you all excited?

ADDED: Hmmm... Mitt Romney was arrested long ago for sledding on an ice block on a golf course. And he was once in a car accident in Paris in which some French cop wrote "Il est mort" on his passport. (Source: Fox News.)

AND: Fox News is saying Obama wins, but it's not a blowout, so Hillary can claim some species of victory. And McCain over Romney, but "too close to call."

MORE: Zombie! Will Hillary fight her way back?

AND: MSNBC calls the Republican contest for McCain, while the Democratic race is too close to call! Ooooo!

AND: Mitt: "Another silver." He wants the gold, but who's done better than 2 silvers (and Wyoming gold)?

MORE: Wow! What a disappointment for Obama-lovers. Can it be that Hillary and her crying turned things around? Did people see how much Bill Clinton wanted to keep going and feel sympathy? Or is it a case of: New Hampshire voters not wanting to be told what to do? But when I read of the huge turnout, I assumed a big Obama victory. I guess her collapse was quite odd, and the news that it wasn't real makes sense.

AND: Huckabee speaks. Expresses enthusiasm at doing at all well. "This ole southern boy... in New England...."

AND: McCain speaks. The chant is "Mac is back." He can't call himself "The Comeback Kid," because he's not a kid. But it's a great comeback. "I'm going to New Hampshire, and I'm going to tell you the truth.... I talked to the people of New Hampshire. I reasoned with you." Did anyone ever concede like that before? I reasoned with you. Beautiful. [ADDED: Mmmm.... "concede" isn't quite the right word!]

AND: Uuuuggghhhh.... I'm reeling in shock! Hillary overcame The God Obama? Noooooooo!

AND: Did people just get disgusted with the hype?

It's too late to decide to attack Bin Laden, so let's attack this TV show.

ABC's "Path to 9/11," we're told, by those who want it yanked, portrays the Clinton adminstration making a strategic decision not to take out Bin Laden in a military attack. With hindsight, after 9/11, it's easy to say that was the wrong strategic decision. The question I want to raise is whether it's the wrong strategic decision to cry out about "The Path to 9/11" because of the way it portrays the Clinton administration. To say the portrayal is inaccurate is to focus everyone on the issue, to highlight how sensitive you are about it, and to set off a vigorous effort to show that it is accurate.

Perhaps we were leaving the past behind, saying things like "9/11 reset the clock for me," but now we're distracted -- distracted? like a President caught in a sex scandal... -- and we start wondering why they are making such a stink about this: Are they trying to imprint the national mind with a new story, that Clinton did no such thing and there's some vast right-wing conspiracy to subvert ABC to slander him?

No, no, no, the strategy is to imprint the national mind with a new story, that Clinton did no such thing and there's some vast right-wing conspiracy to subvert ABC to slander him, not to make you ask whether they are trying to do that and certainly not to encourage you to go rummaging through the old evidence -- what's left of it -- and feel like looking at something like this:



Now, why in hell did you look at that? Don't look at that! What repulsive right-wing prurient urge made you want to look at that Limbaugh-style political porn star... Tom Brokaw.

ADDED: And everybody also wants to look at the very parts of the show that most rile its opponents.

MORE: How insanely repressive. You know, mainstream politicians really should worry about bloggers. Ironically, the bad judgment shown by bloggers here is about wishing for hardcore repression of speech, but free speech is our lifeblood!

Clearly Bill Clinton, Sandy Berger, Madeleine Albright and American Airlines have good cause to sue Disney/ABC, the BBC, Australian and New Zealand television, and any local affiliate that broadcasts the show. How can we further help their lawsuit? I think a first step is paying close attention in each country to how the show is being marketed. Get us copies of ads, promotions, etc. that show local broadcasters and others promoting the show as true and non-fiction. How else can we help their suit?

Oh, yeah, bloggers really ought to want to encourage lawsuits by public figures who think something inaccurate has been said about them. This is the worst case of myopia I've seen in my years of blogging. You guys are complete idiots.

AND: This post is getting a lot of links. Let's check them out. Glenn Reynolds calls the original post the "best take yet" on the contoversy. Blue Crab Boulevard calls this post "pure art" (and long time readers know that I'm in this for the art). Looking at the "You guys are idiots" addendum, Dr. Sanity wields her expertise as a psychiatrist:

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the psychological mechanisms involved--DISPLACEMENT and SPLITTING-- both of which allow these idiots (I am allowed to call them that because this is a deliberate, self-imposed psychological state to maintain their denial, delusion, and hatred ) to behave in this clueless and revolting manner with regard to a TV miniseries.

Go read the analysis. Tigerhawk agrees that "the legal part of the strategy is not even slightly in the interest of bloggers" and has a lot of discussion of other blog posts, which you should read. Lawhawk hates the idea of lawsuits.

MOREOVER: Ruth Anne Adams has 11 reasons why she's watching "The Path to 9/11," one of which is that Donnie Wahlberg is giving her a Jack Bauer vibe.

48°.

That's the temperature here. Strange! It's supposed to go down to 33° tonight. It's raining now. Can it snow in August? Meanwhile, look how hot it is in NYC. Oh, my son Chris saw "An Inconvenient Truth." How was it? I ask. "It's hard to judge it as an actual movie, since it's essentially Al Gore giving a speech." What a crazy world, no? They make a movie out of Al Gore giving a speech. And then there's Tom Brokaw horning in on the global warming speechifying action. The reason I know about the Brokaw one is that, twirling the satellite radio dial yesterday, I happened upon Opie and Anthony making fun of it. I'd never listened to Opie and Anthony before, and all they were really doing is making fun of Brokaw's speech impediment and saying they didn't care about global warming -- not that it wasn't true, that they didn't care. But somehow it was really funny.