Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

This fight is for everything.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

White supremacy is terrorism.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Let’s finish the job.

T R E 4 5 O N

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / CBS Sunday Morning

Reader Interactions

110Comments

  1. 1.

    Phyllis

    David Gregory’s “exclusive guest” this morning is…President McCain. Whoda thunkit.

    I’m beginning to think Gregory’s deliberately f**king with us at this point.

  2. 2.

    mr. whipple

    I can’t WAIT to see John McCain. He’s hardly ever on my teevee. I really admire how he lost gracefully and faded into the background.

  3. 3.

    Brian J

    Yesterday, while at a wake in Maryland, I saw a lot of Republican relatives. Apparently, Obama is now not bipartisan enough, because he’s constantly complimenting someone even as he’s attacking them. And this goes against what he campaigned on, which was bringing the country together and working with Republicans. Or something like that. I didn’t really bring up politics, but one uncle and the brother of my grandpa started to talk, and something similar to the sentiment above was mentioned.

    Perhaps I missed something, because I was trying not to be drawn into the conversation, but man, if I heard that correctly, now more than ever I am convinced we are living in two different worlds.

  4. 4.

    Phyllis

    @mr. whipple: Average workweek for MTP Guest Booker:

    Monday: 9:00 a.m., coffee, scan front pages of major newspapers.

    9:15: Take call from Sen McCain’s office-“Again this Sunday at the usual time?”

    9:30-Friday at 1:00: Golf, naps, whatnot

  5. 5.

    Steeplejack

    Open thread! Yee-haw. I have been up for two hours, impatiently waiting for one. And, er, now I have nothing to say.

    Looking forward to a quiet day puttering around the man-cave. Maybe a trip to Micro Center to get some RAM for a hand-me-down laptop (it has only 256 MB–eek!) and to marvel at the gadgets.

  6. 6.

    Brian J

    @Phyllis:

    I thought you might be joking, because there’s just no way he’d be on television yet again. So I went to the “Meet the Press” site, and sure enough, it’s touting an exclusive with St. John McCain the Maverick from Arizona.

    Words simply fail.

  8. 8.

    Keith

    Predicted Dick Gregory quotes for the day:
    “Senator McCain, the President rather harshly responded to a statement you made during the summit. Would you care to rehash the statement for us and tell us the entire genesis of how you came to craft said statement?”
    “Senator, is there anything else that you would like to get off your chest?”

  9. 9.

    PaulW

    Do we have a legal basis for suing the Sunday Morning talk shows for misrepresentation? Or fraud? Anything to get these idiots to start bringing onto their shows people who actually know what they’re talking about?

  10. 10.

    mr. whipple

    Gregory: “Senator McCain, at the healthcare summit Obama was rather rude to you. Is that any way to treat a war hero?”

  11. 11.

    MikeJ

    Or maybe not. Comcast has now decided I no longer deserve CBS, either.

    Using a set top box or not? I know they told me that any tvs that didn’t use a box would lose most channels and they provided a basic box for the one tv without regular set top.

  12. 12.

    Phyllis

    Wishing I had thought of the Batter Blaster. I mean, what a freakin’ brilliant, obvious idea staring one in the face. Going to get some this week to try.

  13. 13.

    valdivia

    Oh John I think your channel selection though limited is better for your mental health than having to deal with the sunday wank fest.

    I do know that here in DC we got a comcast mailer letting us know that March 16 they are switching everything to a new digital system and if you have the wrong box you are screwed. Some sort of systemic upgrade. Wonder you if you can get in touch with them via live chat or internet medium instead of having to wait for an hour to talk to their customer service.

  15. 15.

    Steeplejack

    Cole:

    Silverado just started on AMC. Can’t go wrong with that. Reruns of White Collar and Burn Notice on USA. Meh. Can’t recommend Stephen King’s The Langoliers on SyFy. Idea for a (very) short story padded out to tedious length.

  18. 18.

    Elizabelle

    If I ever run into David Gregory, in a restaurant or something, I am going to say: “Hey, I know you. You’re that guy on TV with John McCain!”

  20. 20.

    electricgrendel

    So I know you probably can’t do this given your injury, but if the televisions you are watching have boxes connected to them then you may be able to unscrew the coaxial from the cable in on the box and run it directly to the back of your television. You will need to change the input the the cable input and possibly run a channel scan. But if your Comcast network is like the Time Warner network here in Austin, then you can get basic and standard with just the cable to the back of the tv. That limited amount of cable should include CBS, NBC, ABC and the like.

  23. 23.

    Freemark

    @John Cole: If both boxes are missing channels either Comcast has a large scale outage or something happened to the line outside your house.

    If you can manage to hook one of your cables direct to the TV you may be able to get your lower channels. Analog is much less susceptible to full drop out.

  24. 24.

    DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)

    Is it possible that Gregory is actually the guest and McCain is the host of Press The Meat?

    McCain on NBC’s payroll? Now it all makes sense!

  25. 25.

    Gordon, The Big Express Engine

    So, to all the Canadians here, how much of a MUST WIN game is today’s game on a scale of 1 to 10. 10? 12? 20? A sum too large for modern math to calculate?

  26. 26.

    DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)

    @Freemark:

    When our box stops responding or showing channels I have to call the automated help line and they reset the box remotely. Seems I have to do this about every six months or so. If I am impatient I hit my A/B switch and bypass the box to get at least the basic channels until I feel like calling in and jumping through the hoops yet again.

    Charter cable here.

  27. 27.

    Maude

    @Steeplejack: I’m jealous. I’m on 192 RAM here and durn grateful for it. It was on 128. Now, on desktop and dial up, I go faster than the speed of light.
    A lot of Dell desktops come with 256 and where I tech, I am always searching for memory. Mine and the CPU’s.

  30. 30.

    Comrade Mary

    I am not a number! I am a human — OUCH!

    Say what you will, the fuckers have message discipline. Wish we did.

  31. 31.

    RAM

    John, have you tried the old standby: Unplug the power cord from the back of the cable box, wait 30 seconds or so, and plug it back in and see what happens. My Comcast box refused to let me watch anything yesterday morning; I reset it, and was good to go again. Until the next time.

  32. 32.

    HRA

    I swore off of MTP shortly after Gregory took over. I put it on today almost at the end of McArrogance-Stupidity. Bad move. Going back to ignoring it.

    A thought -when is Faux going to invite Gregory to work for them?

  34. 34.

    MikeJ

    “Tax cuts for 95% of working families.”
    should be
    “Tax cuts for working families.”

    You’re getting all liberal on us, putting in caveats and warnings. Say what you mean, even if it isn’t true in 100% of cases. And say it again. And if anybody questions it say it again. And again.

  36. 36.

    SIA

    I hope MTP ratings plummet every time Grampy is on. I mean, who watches him? Liberals and tea baggers despise him and any sensible conservatives know what a wretched Pandora’s box of crazy he dumped on the country ala Palin.

    MTP: Most Tedious Personalities.

    John can’t you get satellite? I have Dish for TV and cable for high speed.

  41. 41.

    Kiril

    @Freemark: Nope. It was to minimize the reference to science, which they felt was off-putting, particularly to women. The spelling is derived from text messaging, so popular with the kids.

  42. 42.

    Punchy

    I got ribbed yesterday for suggesting that the tsunami warnings were mostly CYA, and not appropriate for most of the countries who issued them. Told ya:

    The tsunami raised fears Pacific nations could suffer from disastrous waves like those that killed 230,000 people around the Indian Ocean in December 2004, which happened with little-to-no warning and much confusion about the impending waves.
    …………..
    Officials said the opposite occurred after the Chile quake: They overstated their predictions of the size of the waves and the threat.

    That is all.

  44. 44.

    SiubhanDuinne

    The only thing I watch on the SyFy channel these days is their occasional “Twilight Zone” marathons. (Although I imagine they’ll soon start billing them as “Twylyte Zone” marathons. At which point I will boycott them.)

  45. 45.

    MattF

    Ah, Comcast. Given Comcast’s recent merger-renaming-full page ads– activity it’s not surprising that their service is getting to the “I’m looking for a word that means less-than-abysmal” level.

    My free advice is to give it up. Teevee watching fell off the bottom of my ToDo list some time last year, and I don’t miss it.

  46. 46.

    Robertdsc-iphone

    John, I think you have to feed Tunch some more to have him stop screwing around with the remote.

  47. 47.

    J.W. Hamner

    Not paying any attention to politics this morning… about to head off to brunch, then next up is Hockey Time. I have a feeling a vengeful Canadian team is going to come down like the fist of an angry god, but whatever… good excuse to drink some beers.

  48. 48.

    SIA

    @ 28 JD Rhoades – the Dems should have Debbie Wasserman Schultz in front of the cameras every time health care is discussed. She is one smart, fearless lady.

  49. 49.

    nancydarling

    I just received a text message from my globe trotting children. They are getting ready to leave the Galapagos. They are headed for Peru, I believe. Thanks to all of you who expressed concern.

  50. 50.

    Ash Can

    I was a lot more partisan about the women’s hockey showdown. In the case of the men, I really don’t care all that much who wins. There are Blackhawks on both teams, so it doesn’t make much difference to me. :)

    ETA @nancydarling: That’s great news!

  51. 51.

    Steeplejack

    @Maude:

    In what Third World computer hellhole are you living? Even low-end Dell desktops come with 2 GB of RAM these days.

    This hand-me-down notebook, a Dell Inspiron 8600, dates from February 2005. I got it in trade from a client who moved up to a new one a few months ago. It’s a little bulky by today’s standards, but after I uninstalled a bunch of junk and scraped the barnacles off the hull it runs pretty well (Win XP). Just dog slow. It will take 2 GB of RAM, so that’s what I’m hoping to upgrade it to. To 1 GB at least. I’m not up on the latest RAM pricing, but 2 GB shouldn’t be more than $100-130. (Dell’s Web site quotes $140, but they are always overpriced.)

    I don’t know how old your machine is, but you should be able to put 256 or even 512 MB of RAM in it. Memory for old computers is really cheap–if you can find it.

  52. 52.

    NobodySpecial

    I blame John Cole for advising me to buy Dragon Age. Or for the invisible hand of Tunch coming out of my computer screen and using my info to pay for the digital download.

  54. 54.

    SIA

    WP has 3 identical comments from 3 different people. Super mind meld?

    “Say what you will, the fuckers have message discipline. Wish we did” X 3.

  59. 59.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @SIA:

    WP has 3 identical comments from 3 different people. Super mind meld?

    Or maybe . . . just *maybe* . . . they are all the same person . . . because you’ve now entered a place called . . . The Twylyte Zone.

  60. 60.

    Fleem

    FWIW, we lost all the same channels as Cole did last night, and we have DirecTV. Turning it off and on caused ALL the channels to quit; we attributed it to the snow, which always messes up the signal. But I don’t think it’s equipment problems this time since we’re nowhere near WV. Did Comcast decide not to share?

  62. 62.

    Max

    Breaking… The President is in VERY good shape.

    Obama weighs 179.9 lbs (in workout gear); Resting heart rate: 56 bpm. Blood pressure: 105/62.

    Apparently, his doctor told him to keep his LDL chol. below 130 and he’s got a little tendonitis in his knees.

    Those Kenyan’s have good genes.

  63. 63.

    plasticgoat

    Reset your cable box. Unplug it from the wall, wait a least a minute and plug it back it. It will reset.

  65. 65.

    Bad Horse's Filly

    Hmmm, has anyone considered that McCain maybe the only guest MTP can book?

    Cole: I gave up cable and switched to Dish and couldn’t be happier, 7 years later. Comcast picture sucked and if possible their customer service sucked even worse.

  67. 67.

    Steeplejack

    @scav:

    Synchronized Snark? (Yeah, we’d medal.)

    No way. We’d degenerate into one of those embarrassing intra-team squabbles and lose to the Swedes, whose language is structurally incapable of snark. (But they do deadpan very well.)

  68. 68.

    DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)

    @Freemark:

    Yup, unplugging it does nothing. I lose all channels but the TV Guide service and all that works still. One time I left it unplugged for almost a month and when I plugged it back in it was exactly the same. I think they do it deliberately so we have to call in, it keeps their computer voice from getting lonely.

    As good an explanation as any when it comes to cable service. They have great broadband but their cable TV service sucks green donkey dicks.

  72. 72.

    Max

    @valdivia: Yes.

    Linky here.

    His first official physical since becoming Pres. Next one in August 2011, when he turns 50.

    ETA – His vision is 20/20 and apparently, he’s still trying to quit smoking, using cessation tools (self-use). I’d be smoking a pack/day if I were in his role.

  75. 75.

    valdivia

    @Max:

    just read it. want to bet Tapper will be saying this is the smoking gun that proves Obama still smokes? (see the continuation of nicotine therapy which a lot of smokers continue for a long time after they stop smoking, but you know what they will say eh?)

    Also weird to read all these things about Obama no? Feels like it is way TMI. :)

  76. 76.

    Max

    @valdivia: You are right about Tapper. I see a “some people say” question for Gibbsy at the next presser.

    It’s very TMI, but I like knowing he is healthy as the proverbial horse. I used to wish W had hemorroids :)

  77. 77.

    Mike in NC

    Gregory’s “exclusive guest” this morning is…President McCain.

    Known in some circles as the “J. D. Salinger of American Politics”.

  78. 78.

    valdivia

    @Max:

    :) ah the thought of Bush and hemorroids!

    I too like knowing he is so healthy (may the FSM keep him that way) but reading about his colonoscopy and his prostate exam. Umm. weird.

  79. 79.

    gnomedad

    @Phyllis:

    David Gregory’s “exclusive guest” this morning is…President McCain.

    What does “exclusive guest” mean? That he can’t be two places at once? Thank heaven for small favors, I guess.

  84. 84.

    Phyllis

    @gnomedad: I started giggling like mad when the announcer said it. The SO wanted to know what was so funny, but alas, he is not a blog/BJ reader, so the humor was lost on him.

  85. 85.

    Steeplejack

    @scav:

    I’d rather lose to a turnip.

    We could probably pull that off as well. Think: Brick Oven Bill on the bell lap. Ngrr! Scared myself.

  86. 86.

    16 shells from a thirty aught six

    So I thought you guys were exaggerating about Sunday being all McCain, all the time. At the gym this morning I looked at a TV tuned to news for literally half a second, and saw… John McCain.

    Good lord, what an attention whore.

  87. 87.

    Drive By Wisdom

    Not content to artificially prop up the housing market by having the banks dribble out foreclosed properties and keep prices up, the 11th-dimensional chess players want to add more bureaucracy to the process.

    They must be hoping this gets them to November.

    All politics, all the time, these folks.

  88. 88.

    kay

    @Drive By Wisdom:

    Well, I disagree. It’s modeled on the Philadelphia program, where the homeowners and lenders are forced to meet and try to come to terms, if they can’t, a judge intervenes, and that’s been successful. At the end of 2008, the Philadelphia program had a 70% success rate.
    It will be hard to replicate at the federal level, because the Philadelphia model uses pro bono attorneys and credit counselors who follow up with the homeowner, but that’s the general idea. To have some entity call a halt and force the lender to make an offer, or deal in some way before going right to foreclosure.

    “The Treasury proposal would require all borrowers who are 60 or more days delinquent on their mortgage to be sought out for participation in HAMP. Mortgage companies would need to try to contact the borrower at least four times by phone and twice by certified mail over 30 or more days before going to foreclosure. “

  89. 89.

    demimondian

    @Drive By Wisdom: Hmm. It appears that the quality of the trolls around here didn’t rise during my attentional hiatus.

    In your case, sir, I recommend that you turn around and drive *back to* wisdom. You’ve evidently passed it by.

  90. 90.

    Elizabelle

    Moving on from President McCain:

    I’m not sure Sarah Palin was a good “get” for Jay Leno’s return to his Tonight Show slot.

    I’d had some sympathy for Leno (as well as O’Brien) on the transition debacle.

    Not any more.

  91. 91.

    licensed to kill time

    Can any geeks here tell me why I would lose the html tag buttons on top of my comment box? It happened two days ago after I got a few weird “database not found” msgs after trying to comment and one comment that just never showed up. I had been rolling along just fine until then, and then all of a sudden those tags were gone.

    Now I can’t link, bold, blockquote etc and the nifty text formatting toolbar I used during the last WP fail on BJ says it is “no longer compatible with FF 3.6” so I can’t use that either.

    I use NoScript and have tried “temporarily allow all this site” but nothing changes. I’m on WinXP and FF 3.6. Any ideas? Anyone else have this problem?

    ETA – I still have my edit/delete buttons after I submit a comment. FWIW.

  92. 92.

    kay

    @Drive By Wisdom:

    This is what they did in Philadelphia:

    “The order stated that a mandatory conciliation conference had to be held in all foreclosure cases where the property was owner occupied before the property could be sold at a sheriff’s sale. Investment or commercial properties were not subject to this order.

    This conciliation conference would be scheduled 30 to 45 days after the mortgage company filed its complaint against the person holding the mortgage. The person facing foreclosure and a representative from the mortgage company had to attend this conference.

    A court order would be sent to the person facing foreclosure notifying them of the conference. It would also instruct them that they had to meet with a counselor at a housing counseling agency.”

    If the homeowner didn’t respond to the letter, they went to foreclosure.

    The Order had another unintended consequence: all of a sudden, the mortgage lenders showed up in court with their “ideas”. Imagine that. They stopped completely ignoring the pleas for help from the City and got all creative about financing.

  94. 94.

    licensed to kill time

    @MikeJ:

    Bless you, MikeJ! I cleared the cache and et voila! ze buttons are back. I feel like an idiot that I didn’t think of that, thank you so much :)

  95. 95.

    asiangrrlMN

    Cole, so I’m assuming that the payment is ‘on hold’ as well? Fuckers.

    @Steeplejack: Argh! Did not need that!

    @Max: Yeah. Good to know that Obama is good to go. I need a ciggie myself now.

    As for Grampy McCain…sheesh. He’s like a third-rate caricature of himself. Get off my lawn, McCain!

  97. 97.

    Drive By Wisdom

    @kay:

    At the end of 2008, the Philadelphia program had a 70% success rate

    ie, the taxpayer ate it, or will eventually. Thank you for your reply, but on the grand scale, I do not understand what the motivation is for banks to negotiate when they are a holding onto billions of government bailouts to not flood the market now, and know they are going to get another bailout when these reimagineered mortgages fail anyway.

    Every democrat seems quite comfortable acknowledging there was a bubble, but does not think reinflating it makes it one. Perhaps I just need more hot air when thinking on the scale of 7 million foreclosures.

    Investment or commercial properties were not subject to this order.

    I predict there will be a Change on this issue soon.

  98. 98.

    Steaming Pile

    Why don’t they just fire David Gregory and make John McCain the permanent host of MTP? Saves money and time.

  99. 99.

    kay

    @Drive By Wisdom:

    I would agree with you on one point, though. Obama waited too long.
    We all should know by now that mortgage lenders and the finance sector in general had and have no intention of making any attempt to remedy the goddamn mess they made without an order.
    They were real creative when they were dreaming up that huge pile of bad debt. Interestingly, the geniuses in finance and lending ran out of ideas when it came to cleaning it up.
    They have not offered, willingly, one idea. They had to be dragged to the table in Philadelphia, and they only showed up when the Court halted foreclosures. A real show of personal and professional responsibility there, I must say. They continue to do us all proud.
    There was nothing stopping lenders from acting responsibly and not shoving the costs of their poor decisions on cities and counties and states, ie: taxpayers.
    They did nothing. They offered nothing. Incredibly, they bitched and whined and complained.

  100. 100.

    kay

    @Drive By Wisdom:

    No, the taxpayer didn’t eat it. It’s a roundabout way to a cram-down, relying on a common pleas judge rather than a bankruptcy judge, but don’t tell anyone, because cram-downs are very, very bad, for some reason, but only if we’re talking about something that is a residence :)
    We just disagree on the whole issue, probably. Are they spreading out the pain? Yup. You think that’s a bad thing, and politically motivated and venal, and I don’t.
    I think it makes sense to wind it down slowly. You probably rip off band aids, too.
    I do agree with you that I wish they had used a bigger stick, and sooner. I think a bk cram-down would have scared the shit out of lenders, and been really effective.

  101. 101.

    licensed to kill time

    Good post by Benen on an ABC “This Week” round table discussion:

    The last topic of conversation was introduced by Vargas this way:
    __
    “[O]f course, this weekend, we have a brand-new White House social secretary appointed to replace Desiree Rogers, a close friend of the Obamas who is exiting after a bumpy tenure, I would say. Cokie, you spoke with her. She was highly criticized after the Obamas’ first state dinner in which she arrived, looking absolutely gorgeous, but in what some people later said was far too fancy a dress, but most importantly, that was the state dinner that was crashed by the Salahis, who walked in without an invitation when the social secretary’s office didn’t have people manning the security sites.”
    __
    This led to a surprisingly long chat about Desiree Rogers.
    __
    Krugman sat silently while the discussion went on (and on), before eventually interjecting:
    __
    “Can I say that 20 million Americans unemployed, the fact that we’re worrying about the status of the White House social secretary…
    __
    Donaldson responded, “Paul, welcome to Washington.”

    Is K-Thug the only grownup at that roundtable?

  102. 102.

    mcc

    So I’m hearing that what John McCain used his show today for was to

    – Dig in on his claim that he was mislead about TARP by claiming that all of America was in fact mislead and in fact EVERYBODY was just as confused as he was. (He justifies this by saying that that whole thing where the bailout moved from being based on purchase of troubled assets to direct loans to the banks, amidst massive public outcry that paying good money for “toxic” things would be a huge giveaway to the banks, was in fact a big nefarious bait-and-switch attempt to give away money to the banks.)

    – Claiming that military leaders oppose a DADT repeal, he just can’t tell you who they are, and the military leaders who stepped forward to say they support a DADT repeal don’t count because they were speaking “personally”.

  103. 103.

    SGEW

    @licensed to kill time:

    Is K-Thug the only grownup at that roundtable?

    Do you really need an answer for that one?

    ETA: re: John McCain. Josh Marshall wins the day with this line: “It’s been pretty much shark hopscotch for McCain going back to late 2007.”

  104. 104.

    artem1s

    Unplug it from the wall, wait a least a minute and plug it back it. It will reset.

    my congress doesn’t seem to be working…can we try this?

  110. 110.

    allium

    @MattF: Tartarean?

    Tar·ta·rus (tärtr-s)
    n.
    1. Greek Mythology The abysmal regions below Hades where the Titans were confined.

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