I Am A TV Junkie

Obama v. Trump Ratings Week Two -- Obama Wins, AGAIN!

I stole this very simple Trump/Obama montage from Politico. I just didn't feel like doing one myself. Sue me.

Oh the irony!!! Week two of Obama v. Trump in the ratings wasn't a head to head affair, but it was still telling. According to THR (link), the Obama 60 Minutes interview shellacked Trump's Celeb Apprentice penultimate episode by a heaping margin:

NBC’s three-hour telecast — which saw Star Jones and LaToya Jackson fired and NeNe Leakes quitting -- didn’t fare so well: Celebrity Apprentice (7 million total viewers, 2.4 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic) was the lowest-rated spring telecast for the franchise, dipping 23 percent. Dateline (3.9 million, 0.8) served as a weak lead-in, down 33 percent. The Peacock placed fourth for the night in the key demo.

CBS won the night with 60 Minutes (13.8 million, 2.3) surging 43 percent, thanks to President Obama’s only televised interview about Osama bin Laden’s death. The two-hour finale of The Amazing Race (8.6 million, 2.5) was the lowest-rated in franchise history. CSI: Miami (9.7 million, 2.0), however, ended its season with a double-digit uptick, but still was one of the series’ lowest-rated episodes.

Yeah, the Donald, you're a genius. You're blowing your series, dude. But please keep fake running for President. I figure in two more election cycles you'll be left with a counter job at Burger King at this rate.

60 Minutes Video -- Obama Interview, Complete, w/ Steve Kroft

Just in case you missed it. Compelling TV, it was.

UPDATE: Apparently there is trouble with the video embed. Click here to see this clip in its entirety. Sorry, gang.

CBS News' Lara Logan: "There Was No Doubt in My Mind That I Was in the Process of Dying"

It took me forever to find a photo of Lara Logan that I thought was appropriate to accompany this report that she'll soon discuss the brutal assault she suffered in Cairo near Tahrir Square on 60 Minutes.

You don't wanna go with a photo of her smiling or something from an formal event where she's in an evening gown and I really didn't want to use that last image of her from Tahrir, I keep looking at the men behind her in that famous image and wonder if they were the men who attacked her.

I've been watching this woman report from dangerous places for a lot of years and I have always been impressed with her courage and pluck. Though it might be easier to get a job in broadcast journalism if one is blonde and attractive and female it certainly doesn't help you do the job. It actually probably impedes the work. Certainly in a Middle East war zone it's not convenient to have blonde hair sticking out of a helmet.

So I was thinking about all those things when the news of the tragic events in Cairo came to fore.

On Sunday, the CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent will speak for the first time about what happened on 60 Minutes with Scott Pelley:

Logan lost contact with her colleagues for approximately 25 minutes and endured a sexual assault and beating that she feared she would not survive. "There was no doubt in my mind that I was in the process of dying," she tells Pelley. "I thought not only am I going to die, but it's going to be just a torturous death that's going to go on forever..."

Thoughts of her two young children helped reinforce her determination to survive the assault, she says, which finally ended when she was rescued by a group of Egyptian women and soldiers. The soldiers drove her and her team back to their hotel, where she was examined by a doctor. She returned to the U.S. the next day and went directly into a hospital, where she was treated for four days.

When Logan saw her children, "I felt like I had been given a second chance that I didn't deserve...because I did that to them. I came so close to leaving them, to abandoning them," she says.

I am also interested in finding out if anything was ever done in an attempt to find the men who did this. With all the coverage of the event at the time it was not clear at all if there was anything done toward that effort.

60 Minutes airs Sunday at 7 eastern on CBS. Logan will also be featured on the 60MinutesOvertime.com site after the broadcast.

Lotsa Clips -- So Much TV Tonight You Need a Professional Schedule Consult?

Not to worry, I've got it handled for you. Above is an image of my living room so I'm all set, but some of you might not have this set up.

First off, if you're watching football on the east coast today just dismiss this whole post. I can't figure out your optimal viewing strategy if you're committed to a show that has no definitive end time.

The big event is of course the Golden Globe Awards on NBC despite the kerfuffle with Dick Clark Productions and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and between the HFPA and the guy who came forward with allegations of wrongdoing in the organization.

By the way -- and you know I'm serious here because I haven't used the acronym btw -- it cracks me up that once again someone has come forward with allegations against HFPA. Duh, of course there's wrongdoing, we've kinda known that for a long time. Pia Zadora, remember? Sure these people may be lining their pockets and they are also hardly journalists and certainly not at the level of the the people who do that job here in the US. But the Globes is a Teflon brand, nothing sticks and nothing stays, and I think the reason is twofold: 1) The Globes ceremony itself a party-riffic event perfect for TV that NBC wants to hold on to without injury to it, and 2) No one really cares enough to do anything about the irregularities and the allegations of corruption.

Here is the west coast we are enjoying our second year of watching the Globes live (previously only the Academy Awards aired live here), which is fortunate because there is so much more tube to watch tonight.

More after the jumperoo, with clips.

That Other Bomb, in Washington at the Correspondents' Dinner ...

More from Keith Staskiewicz at Entertainment Weekly, at this link:

Watching Obama deliver one-liners made me think that, if this whole president thing doesn’t end up working out, he might be a good replacement for Leno.

Then there was Dan Abramson at HuffPo:

If you like your jokes covered in bland gravy with a side of telegraphed punchlines, then Jay Leno's White House Correspondents Dinner was a feast for the funny bone. But if "mother-in-law jokes" aren't your thing, then Leno's performance may have left you wondering why the meal stopped after the appetizers.

Richard Zoglin at Time:

Maybe it was the big laughs Obama drew that unnerved Leno, because he seemed off his game from the get-go. He started at top speed, rushed his lines, seemed too tied to his notes (no Tonight show Teleprompter) and made little effort to connect with the crowd in any real sense.

Walter Shapiro at Politics Daily:

Leno's humor was about as edgy as a Bob Hope USO routine. Typical was this (stop me if you've heard it before) bit about Obama: "He has had a share of stress. Tough economy, two wars, health care fight, Iran, North Korea, his mother-in-law moving in with him. I think that would break most men." Nothing like a good mother-in-law joke to feel so 21^st century.

And of course tonight you can watch Conan talk about Jay to Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes. It'll be the highest rated episode of the broadcast since just after 9/11 I predict.

Wanna see a clip from that? Click right here.

This might turn out to be the weekend Jay Leno jumped the shark. Let's sit back and see if that happens!

While You Were Olympic-ing CBS Airs a Must-See 60 Minutes, Watch Here!

I know that the Winter Olympics happens just once every four years and 60 Minutes is on every week, but that's why you have a DVR, people.

While you were watching elite athletes frolic in the snow and on the ice (and slide big granite stones across said ice) the adults on CBS had one of their best, with features on Blackwater and a plane crash in Afghanistan from 2004 that apparently really didn't need to happen and killed a high-ranking US officer whose wife is suing the mercenary group, a story on an amazing new energy project and one on the failure of The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to get things going at the World Trade Center site in NYC.

You can watch them by clicking the following links:

• Blackwater
• The Bloom Box
• Ground Zero

Furthermore, there are web extras for all the features. And, watching the show this way there are no fears that Andy Rooney's eyebrows will poke through the TV screen and scratch your cornea.

After all these years it's still the industry leader at what it does. While NBC's Dateline has gone all true crime and jackpot uterus on us and ABC wrangles celeb after celeb for 20/20 this show still comes correct each week with actual news. 

And people watch it. Sure, they aren't the 18-49s in large numbers but they are people and they buy stuff. Like penis pills and cholesterol and bone density drugs. And a snuggie or two.

Video -- 60 Minutes Creator Don Hewitt Dies

Per Bloomberg, Hewitt passed in his Bridgehampton, LI home today, he was 86.

From the Museum of Broadcast Communications website:

Don Hewitt is a genius at what he does--and he does 60 Minutes. But Hewitt has done more in his TV career than be the founder and executive producer of that enormously successful progrm. It was Hewitt who directed Edward R. Murrow's early TV experiment of bridging the U.S. continent with TV. It was Hewitt who, while producing-directing the first Kennedy-Nixon debate in 1960, attempted to advise Nixon to use appropriate make-up to cover his wan appearance. Nixon didn't listen, lost the debate, and lost the election.

Below, watch Hewitt talk about that historic first televised Presidential debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. It's after the jump.

And there's more from the CBS News website at this link.

Video -- Today's Conservatives v. Vietnam-Era Cronkite

I was thinking about this issue as I watched CBS Sunday Morning's coverage on the death of Walter Cronkite.

If today's conservative faction in our political system had been around during Walter Cronkite's reporting from Vietnam during the Johnson administration, we just might still be in that country fighting a war in which we had no idea what winning looked like.

Just like in Iraq and Afghanistan currently.

What would today's neocons have said about Cronkite? They would have said at first that his reporting was weak and misguided. When that didn't work they would have suggested that Cronkite didn't want America to win in Vietnam (though, once again, they would have no idea of what winning in Vietnam meant), and then, finally, when that didn't work, they would have accused Cronkite of harboring sympathies for the enemy, they would have called him unAmerican and then the gang of nutjobs at FreeRepublic.com would have started calling for his assassination.

There would have been boycotts of CBS entertainment programs, Bill O'Reilly would have his hitman staking out Cronkite's NYC home, and Ann Coulter would have made some remark about the man's moustache looking "European" and implying he was less of a man or a Nazi.

After the jump, watch Morley Safter, Diane Sawyer, and George Clooney, people who know what they're talking about (and yes, Clooney knows what he's talking about in this regard, he's a smart guy) discuss Cronkite's moment of truth on the Vietnam War.

And, you'll have to Google it yourself, but then go see what the conservative movement is STILL saying about what they call America's failure in Vietnam. They like to say that President Johnson failed to gin up the political will of the nation to continue the fight.

I and many others say it was a mistake from the get go.

Gulf of Tonkin, anyone? Anyone?

Tonight, 60 Minutes devotes their entire program to the life and work of Walter Cronkite, at 7 pm eastern on CBS.

And there's more from the CBS-owned TV.com at this link.

60 Minutes Video -- Conficker Worm Comes Tomorrow, Can You Get Ready in Time?

CBS News.com:

So far, the bad guys who created it haven't triggered Conficker. It's just sitting out there like a sleeper cell.

"Imagine a network of spies that has infiltrated a country. And every day, all of the spies are calling in for their instructions on what to do next," Trilling explained.

Asked what the worm is being asked to do, Trilling told Stahl, "That's the interesting thing. The only thing the worm is being asked to do is to ask for further instructions."

For several months, Trilling says the worm has just been sitting there, awaiting instructions,

It's that ominous, because once the hackers issue instructions, Conficker could turn menacing in an instant.

With one click, the worm's creator can instruct it to suck sensitive data, like bank passwords and account numbers, out of millions of computers, or launch a massive spam attack to clog up the works.

Two 60 Minutes clips on this after the jump. More on Conficker here.

Video -- Today's Drug War Story Comes From 60 Minutes and Anderson Cooper, Happy Spring Break!

What kills me about this piece isn't so much the reporting, it's the comments under the clip at CBSNews.com.

These people don't really give a damn about the drug war, these commenters, and they certainly don't see that a failed state next door will be a huge problem for all of us, all they care about is (and I paraphrase) ...

a) "This story lies about where the weapons are coming from" comments written by the pro-gun lobby

b) "Another reason to build big walls around the country" from the anti-immigration crowd

c) Mexican citizens who don't seem to think they need the help of anyone. Have they looked around lately? Do they watch their own news?

d) The "repeal all drug laws" crowd. One problem with that, a problem with two words, those words being crystal methamphetamine

My opinion? Special interests all around this problem will get in the middle of any attempts to fix it. Everyone will see an "opportunity" here for themselves and their agenda and no one will do anything to stop all this violence.

It makes me think a lot about the fact that I live only 100 miles from Tijuana.

So, you Spring Breakers, you steroid buyers and you 18-and-over drinking border hoppers, don't go to Mexico ignorant. I wouldn't go at all right now myself, but at least know something before you go.

Read this from MSNBC and then read the advisory from the State Dept. at this link.

The 60 Minutes segment is after the jump.

Yesterday's Mexico Drug War story from Current TV at this link.

And, lucky you, for the rest of the week I'll have a new one each day.

UPDATED: Video -- Anderson Cooper in the Pool with Michael Phelps (but not until the 11:30 mark in a 12:51 clip)

So, I guess what I'm saying is that if you're watching this 60 Minutes segment with the Olympic gold medal winner for the shirtless in-pool appearance from the the hottest, fiercest newscrush in all of TV newsdom, you should probably wait for the sextape.

No, I don't know that there's a sextape. I'm pretty sure that a journalist would think twice. At least I think he would.

Here's the clip.

LINK

And btw and not for nothing, but I prefer T.J. Holmes.

UPDATE: I thought I'd add this on a second read ... though I prefer T.J. Holmes, it should be noted that I most often prefer what I can't have. Weird, huh, a man being self-defeating in the romance area. And it is my understanding that T.J. Holmes is indeed IIW (interested in women).

Obama Video -- First YouTube Prez-Elect Address and 60 Minutes Preview

Two clips after the jump, but first ...

Steve Kroft from 60 Minutes got the big get. The first sitdown with our new President. He talks to Alissa Krinsky from TV Newser:

"I think that they were happy with the story we did, and I had a good rapport with the candidate," Kroft tells TVNewser. "And it was 60 Minutes. And as the campaign progressed, we were there at sort of every crucial stage.

"And they realized that it was a great opportunity for them, particularly at a time when they were concerned about getting the American people an opportunity to get to know the candidate."

Kroft's interview last Sunday with Obama's top aides helped make 60 Minutes the week's #1 show. Not bad for a program that recently marked its 40th anniversary.

It used to be the top rated show all the time, back before cable news. Still, for my money, the best newsmagazine program on American network television.

Also after the jump, the first YouTube weekend radio address, now with video. YouTube is the perfect place for this, and it's also at lots of other places on the web, including Change.gov.

Photo courtesy CBS News.com.

60 Minutes Turns 40 Tonight with Obama & McCain Agreeing, "It's a Recession"

CBS.com:

Both presidential candidates agree the nation is in a recession. Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain, appearing in separate interviews for a special 40th anniversary edition of 60 Minutes, say the economic term applies to the current troubles and lay out their plans to solve the situation if they are elected.

Their interviews will be broadcast this Sunday, Sept. 21, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

More about 60 Minutes from our friends at TVByTheNumbers.com:

According to our site’s demographics, about 2/3’s of you are older than CBS’s 60 Minutes. It begins its 40th season Sunday and is the longest running prime-time show on television.

(And a note to people who read Robert Seidman's and Bill Gorman's TV Ratings site, they are having DNS issues right now, so if you can't access the site, try to access the their feed until things are fixed.)

And I have a clip from tonight's 60 Minutes after the jump.

When you're watching the McCain interview tonight (before the Emmys, which are on ABC) consider that McCain got that maverick nickname by getting rid of the exact financial regulations that he all of a sudden is a big fan of.

Obama has been battling predatory lending and the end of our usury laws since he was in the Illinois Statehouse.

Obama Tonight on 60 Minutes About Joe Biden and Sarah Palin

The difference? Unlike Bush or McCain who seem to like having people agree with them no matter what the issue, Barack Obama invites differing opinions.

LINK

I Have Already Cast the Lead In Movie Version of Lara Logan's Afghanistan/Iraq Book

The interesting point here is that Lara hasn't written that book yet.

For those outside the US (or too lame to watch the news) Lara is CBS' new Chief Foreign Correspondent, though she's gonna be based in D.C., which is just stupid, btw.

She's done a helluva job covering wars that US media chiefs don't find interesting anymore. Actually, I'm not sure if there's no war coverage because the American people don't care or because big media wants us to take our eyes off the horrific nature of it all.

Anyhow, this is Lara Logan ...

And this is the woman who should play her either on TV or in the movies.

Billie should jump at the chance to do this. I would option anything Lara writes. Billie has the money. If I were her, I would start creating relationships at Simon & Schuster, which I'm guessing would be the publisher of any CBS News reporter's tome.

There's also a personal story going on, it is rumored. Purportedly, Ms. Logan is the center of a love triangle that includes among others CNN reporter Michael Ware (who we love, he's the best) and another reporter. There are rumors of a big blowout between two men in an Iraq safehouse over the lovely Ms. Logan, who can also report her ass off, don't ever sell her short. She's hardly just a pretty face. Braver than I am, for sure.

B&C Report Confirms My Suspicions -- Investigative Journalism Dying on TV

And you know what Randi Rhodes says, "If it doesn't happen on the teevee (emphasis on the first syllable) it doesn't happen in this country."

Marisa Guthrie in Broadcasting & Cable (their cover story this week):

While investigations are far from extinct, few can make the case that the scope and number of reports on network news are not but a shadow of what they once were. In the 1980s and '90s, they were the pride of news divisions and a popular primetime destination. In 1993, the last year that 60 Minutes finished the TV season atop the Nielsen ratings, ABC's Primetime Live was making its name for hidden-camera investigations. Today, the show has no dedicated time slot, and with the recent exception of Diane Sawyer's “Prostitution in America,” it hews toward crime, celebrity profiles and voyeuristic behavior labs. 48 Hours, which began in the late 1980s as a documentary program, has redefined itself as a true crime show. And NBC's Dateline has mostly pared its investigations down to a single gotcha concept such ast he controversial pedophilia sting “To Catch a Predator.”

The decline began in the 1990s when a string of high-profile legal skirmishes sent corporate counsel at the networks into a defensive posture. The actions put network news divisions on notice: If you're going to take on big businesses, keep in mind that they will defend themselves ferociously.

The other thing to keep in mind? The people who want to control the news that comes out about their companies on TV only have to buy a lot of advertising on TV to control said news. In particular, I think that we can chalk up the lack of media oversight on the pharmaceutical industry to the fact that they are the primary supporters of network and cable news.

And, in the very conspiratorial part of my brain, I think they pushed to get permission to advertise on TV just for that purpose.

This is why I get most of my investigative journalism from PBS and the BBC (through the BBC World News America broadcast and the Friday night program Newsnight, which I DVR and the rest of you should all be watching).

In particular, the kind of reporting American Greg Palast does for the BBC (this Newsnight clip after the jump, his 2007 story on African debt and vulture funds) and can't do for the US (because they won't let him do this kind of work) is what I look for on the tube.

Before I go, comments from Lowell Bergman, who works at PBS' Frontline and teaches at Cal Berkeley, from the article:

“What's really in danger is the availability of information in the public interest,” says Lowell Bergman, a veteran of CBS News and 60 Minutes. “That kind of work was never encouraged. You always had to know where the limits were. Now there isn't even a pretense of doing it.”

Bergman, who runs the investigative reporting program at the University of California at Berkeley and continues to work for Frontline, calls investigations an “anti-profit” business.

There is profit, of course. We, the audience, profit. But that's certainly not the profit that the network news divisions are considering in 2008.

Video -- The Alec Baldwin Pilot -- My Casting Suggestions

I gotta give you the clip first or it makes no sense. I've had to put the clip after the jump, but if you're clicking to this particular post, of course this makes no never mind to you.

I never know what needs to be explained and what doesn't.

The picture above of former Lost cast member Ian Somerhalder is there because he's mentioned later. And because he has very engaging eyes.

Two clips and my casting notes after the jump.

Math for Jericho Fans, Part 1 Of Many

Okay, we have an hourlong cancellation, what with Viva Laughlin going down the road we all thought it would, a short trip to ax city. So, starting November 4 we'll have 13 episodes of The Amazing Race, and I have to believe this was the right call for CBS as the network moves into a sweeps month.

If they run concurrently, the 13 eps will end on January 27th. I don't believe they will, though. There are some holidays in the mix you have to pay attention to.

I would guess that if they don't runn all in a row, you'll see the finale run sometime in February. I would guess that the next week, you might actually get to see the first of the seven Jericho episodes that are already in the can for this season.

And down the line, I think Sundays after 60 Minutes in March and early April would be a great place to put these shows.

If Nina Tassler is your boss or friend or colleague or neighbor or even your haircutting client, could you please forward her this post and ask her to comply? I think this schedule gives Jericho the best shot at coming back strong, and certainly there will be a high sampling level for the first ep, which you get the chance to run at the end of February sweeps.

One of the big plot points for the show has to be the Ravenwood storyline, that's the military contractor in the show. They could rerun Lara Logan's interview with Blackwater's Eric Prince that week and then segue right into the Jericho premiere, or do an entirely new story on the contractor situation with comments from Carol Barbee about where the show is taking the Ravenwood storyline and how the events of the day have shaped the story.

I know, filled to the brim with good ideas, huh?

For those of you who are impatient? Chillax! Good things come to those who wait.

As the situation progresses, I will continue to make suggestions like this, just to see what you think. And if you wanna tell me what you think, use the comments. Please, somebody use the comments, it's the loneliest place at this blog.

TV Week: Jericho Could Return Very Soon

James Hibberd at his "Rated" blog at TVWeek.com:

The seven-episode second season has wrapped production and the network is eyeing the show as a potential replacement for one of several time periods that might open up in the coming weeks. In other words, if freshman efforts “Kid Nation,” “Cane,” “Moonlight” or the upcoming “Viva Laughlin” tank in the ratings, CBS is considering firing out “Jericho.”

CBS’ other midseason drama, "Swingtown," is not going to be ready until next year, though network also has “The Amazing Race” and game show “Power of 10” available to fill one-hour slots. CBS scheduling head Kelly Kahl cautioned that the new freshman lineup is performing solidly and that no show is guaranteed the next opening.

“The best thing going for ‘Jericho’ is it’s done and ready to go,” Kahl says. “But it’s too early to tell what time period is going to be available.”

On the current schedule, I think Sundays at 8 (after 60 Minutes) is the best slot available, but of course, Viva Laughlin premieres there this Sunday. And yes, I have seen the pilot, but it wasn't the final cut, which I got yesterday from CBS and have not yet watched.

My big problem with Viva Laughlin is that the performers sing over the original vocal tracks of the songs, and I think that's just so lame.

If I was a Jericho activist (you know, the people who got the show put back on the sked) I would be campaigning for that time slot.

Exec Producer Carol Barbee tells him:

“We have a story broken so it tells a complete story,” she says. “By episode seven you are going to be very satisfied. We packed an entire 22-episode season into seven shows, there’s a lot of mythology answered.”

I'm waiting, right here, so let's get to it.

New Sunday Sit-Comics on Fox Tonight

New Simpsons, New King of the Hill (for those of you who watch that, I've just never managed to catch on) and a special hour-long Family Guy Star Wars parody episode.

Perfect Sunday night TV, nothing too much to think about (unlike that horrible HBO series about those people who have bad relationships and clumsy sex), a few laughs at the expense of your favorite pop culture targets, and it allows one a few good yucks to wash away all the ick from how you feel about the world after watching 60 Minutes on CBS (which has at least one new segment tonight on Iranian President Ahmadinejad, although I think the Garry Kasparov story is a repeat).

Yes, there are people who watch both 60 Minutes and Family Guy religiously.

Well, at least I do.

Wanna See Your Homeland Security Dollars at Work? You Can't, 'Cause They're Not

And I'll link you to the 60 Minutes piece that you should watch that shows you what a fricking sham the no-fly list is.

LINK -- Can't be easier than that, click that word!

I know that most Summer 60 Minutes stories are repeats with updates tacked onto them, but this is one you should really see.

Tonight on 60 Minutes, Mitt Romney Explains His Past v. His Present

Mike Wallace takes on the former Mass. Governor who's running for President, tonight on the only actual network newsmagazine (the others are phonies).

I would promo 60 Minutes more often, but they don't post clips from their interviews as much as they used to, so I have nothing to go with my meandering ramblings. So, I found this at YouTube, which kind of does the trick.

You see, the deal with Romney is that he's made an almost 180 degree turn on social issues from when he ran against Teddy Kennedy for Senate in 1994. This is footage from that debate. If you watch the interview tonight, note the new Romney, and then ask yourself if he has changed his mind or if he's just changing his tune to fit the race:

I know, you're saying, "Yeah, Joe, but that was 13 years ago." Well, whaddya think about this from 2002, when he was last ran for office?

LINK

I think this guy is just one of many people who come out of organized religion who will say just about anything to get elected. Any means to what they consider the appropriate ends. It seems to be something that is taught in church today.

This is shameful. Man of God? Isn't that supposed to mean, among other things, that you don't lie?

If I were a Mormon, I would be embarrassed about this, and him.

Look At Me, I'm a News Producer!

Okay, here's the deal. News Corp., owned by our favorite sinister media character Rupert Murdoch, has a book division, Harper Collins, that paid George Tenet a lot of money to write a book about his experiences being the "slam dunk" in Iraq guy, getting a medal for it, getting trashed by his former bosses after he left ... yada yada you know what happened with the weapons and the meeting in Prague and the aluminum tubes and the "mushroom cloud" and the yellowcake from Niger and all (all not true, btw).

So, the publicist at Harper Collins sets up the big interview for the book at 60 Minutes with Scott Pelley, and in the interview Tenet, much to CBS' delight says very controversial things that are so good not only do they preview it on Katie's struggling newscast, they leak clips to ...

... CNN, and Wolf Blitzer's producer sits Carol Costello down in front of the clips and they watch and fashion a story out of the clips so that it looks like they are bringing you news when all they are really doing is selling George Tenet's book about how they all lied to us about all the war stuff and let's all blame each other now that someone might get to the truth in order to muck up the whole narrative figuring eventually people will just switch over to Flavor of Love Girls Charm School because it's easier to understand.

See what I mean? Let's watch the clips:

FIRST

NEXT

LAST

So, let me ask you this, why didn't George Tenet just do his job and stop this mess when he could have instead of wimping out and selling his failures as a government employee as a book for cash for him and his family?

And everybody wins, except you and me and those people fighting the war, of course.

"60 Minutes" George Tenet Interview Sunday

Here's a clip from this week's 60 Minutes, with Scott Pelley discussing torture with former CIA director George Tenet:

Sounds to me like Tenet isn't denying torture here. He can get really indignant at moments, and it plays great here, but he always says, "We do not torture," like it's a policy statement, not a reportage of fact.

I'm pretty sure at this point that they're all (all cabinet officials in the years since 9/11) saying the same thing, which, as a complete thought, is this:

It is not our policy to torture. No we will not discuss with you the specific techniques that were used on specific people. Why? Because we won't. But, you must remember we were living in tenuous times after 9/11, and since then there have been numerous threats against this nation. What threats? We can't tell you. Those threats have been quashed thanks to various programs that have made this country safer. What programs? We can't tell you.

Followed by the unsaid part that plays in everyone's head:

So yeah, we did torture, because we were all scared to death that if anything else happened on our watch we'd never get control of Washington again where we jack around all the laws to favor the rich people and the corporations and keep our bank accounts growing, which, let's face it, is the new millenium's version of the front end of a Corvette (read the first and second comments there) in the late sixties, something big guys can show off instead of their penises.

Okay, I'm off the soapbox. I just don't like being lied to is all. And this guy got the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Where's mine? Where's yours? We should all get one.

Preview Tonight's "60 Minutes" Segment on Medicare Drug Plan

If you click here, this preview will open in a new window from the folks at CBS News.

Before you watch this tonight, you should know something about the Medicare prescription drug benefit and Billy Tauzin, the former Louisiana congressman who went right from working on this bill to the pharmaceutical lobby where he is lining every one of his pockets with the cash of old sick people, which he should feel really really good about. In other words, he's practically shitting on your grandparents.

Here's Tauzin's Wikipedia page.

Here's an article from Tim Noah at Slate about him. It's called, "Billy Tauzin, Lobbyist -- "I will fight for Louisiana's third district. Unless I get a better offer."

Here's an article about what happened on the floor of the House that night from the NY Times. Bribes? Payoffs? Corruption? Oh my!

Just another example of your getting screwed by your federal government.

The other two 60 Minutes segments before Rooney tonight are worth seeing, but this one is a must-watch.

I said must watch! Listen to Joe.

Bad Assignment: Katie Couric Interviews John and Elizabeth Edwards

If you haven't seen this interview on 60 Minutes, click here and the full interview (over 14 minutes) will appear in a new window. There's a version on YouTube, but it's eight minutes shorter.

Wrong call by the network. The whole time I was watching Katie grill these two with some questions that bordered on inappropriate I was thinking about her former husband Jay Monahan, who also had cancer, and I spent a lot of the interview being very pissed off at Couric for being so intrusive and so callous.

And I thought about Katie's kids, who were certainly being taken to school every day by a nanny while Jay was in the hospital and Katie was smiling and laughing with Matt on the Today set.

And when she asked Edwards the question about whether people should identify more with his campaign because of Elizabeth's cancer, I thought about Katie getting a colonoscopy live on the air and how that, to some degree was using Jay's illness and subsequent death as a tool in her TV ratings toolbox.

Katie can't be the go to gal for every cancer story that comes down the pike for this exact reason. She doesn't come off as a reporter but instead some sort of hybrid advocate for the cancer care community and the American voter. It was uncomfortable to watch.

I wish Ed Bradley was still around to do this kind of thing. He was great at it.

So, I Guess We Blame Mike Wallace

The problem is that I like Mike Wallace. A lot. Don't like the son much.

Bill-O's dad apparently liked Wallace on 60 Minutes, and Bill-O became a newswhore newsman reporter TV personality that talks about current affairs. Here's some of Wallace's interview coming this Sunday with the face of pure evil that is Bill O'Reilly:

When Kenny Chesney Told Anderson Cooper "I'm Not Gay"

You know, I've been wanting to write something for the longest time about how 48 Hours and Dateline and 20/20 and Primetime have ceased to be sources for actual news, opting instead to catch individuals in crimes, tell stories of inspiration or promote media properties owned by the prospective networks. Those things cost almost nothing to do and those stories don't seem to ruffle anyone's feathers, especially advertisers.

You see, everyone can get on board behind a show that catches sexual predators, but try doing an hour on the backdating of stock options and the people who got rich doing it. You know what? They run the companies that pay the dollars to put on the ads that keep the shows on the air.

Oops!

Then I was going to go into this thing about how it is only 60 Minutes these days that you can count on for at least one story of national or global significance, something that takes actual news gathering rather than regurgitating the work of some sting operation or local TV station or paper.

Then, I saw this:

I just can't believe that the whole Kenny Chesney, is he gay? thing is really the best use of the talents at hand here. It's no longer timely and no one really cares. Even Anderson Cooper looks like he doesn't want to be there.

Sure, I guess some country music fans will tune in. But if that's the only reason they're tuning into 60 Minutes, they certainly aren't going to tune in next week when he's not on.

One more thing ... Hey, Kenny Chesney, you ARE bald. 1997 called, it wants it's backwards baseball cap back.

"60 Minutes" -- An Irrelevant, Misguided President

I've said it previously and I'll say it again, but this time in print.

When I hear the voice of George W. Bush, my first thought is, "What's he lying about now?" Second thought? "Doesn't matter, it's a lie."

That's why I don't watch him on TV anymore, and it's as a favor to him that I even continue to read the transcripts of what he says later. Yes, I said it's a favor -- I have a much better chance of believing what he says if I don't have said Pavlovian response to his voice.

So, you should consider the fact that I watched this little snippet at ThinkProgress.org of tonight's 60 Minutes interview with POTUS an act of sacrifice. It hurt, you know, in that deep-down place where things hurt the most. FYI, from this ThinkProgress.org post:

A new report from the Center for American Progress details how, over the last 35 years, Congress has passed bills, enacted into law, that capped the size of military deployments, prohibited funding for existing or prospective deployment, and placed limits and conditions on the timing and nature of deployments.

Think about that as you watch the clip, and as you watch the show tonight, if you are that brave.

And remember, I wasn't the one who turned our US Gov't and the political process into a TV show, it was all of us who did that.

(Photo above available as a fridge magnet at this link.)