The Republican Takeover Of The Sunday Morning “News” Shows

On my cable system, I’m forced to choose which Sunday morning news shows I watch.

My game plan recently has been to watch Chris Hayes’ new show until 9am, then I switch over to Meet the Press, followed by This Week and then I top it off with Howie Kurtz’s show Reliable Sources. Sometimes I catch Fareed Zakaria’s GPS on the repeat, depending on when the Detroit Lions are playing.

This last Sunday, Meet the Press had the following lineup.

Former Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM), 2008 Presidential Candidate – Great guy, thankfully there was a Democrat somewhere to be found on Sunday!

Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS), Former RNC Chairman – Who considering his history on race, probably shouldn’t be elevated to talking head status on a major network.

Alex Castellanos, Republican Strategist – Who was responsible for the racist ad for Jesse Helms called “Hands”.

Kim Strassel, Editorial Board Member, Wall Street Journal – Strassel has a long history of wingnuttery.

Chris Matthews, Host, MSNBC’s “Hardball” – What can you say about Chris, he’s like the crazy uncle who goes in and out of reality.

Maggie Haberman, Senior Political Writer, POLITICO – Who came to Politico via Rupert Murdoch, a great fit for her.

At 10 o’clock, I switched over to This Week with Christine Amanpour and was treated to this lineup.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio – Ringmaster of the Republican circus.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. – President Bush’s greatest enabler, or at least one of them.

And then the following panel, which couldn’t have been any better for Republicans had it been on Fox News.

George Will – I like to refer to him as “Hair Wedge George”, defender of all things conservative, facts are malleable to him.

Arianna Huffington – The Newt Gingrich protegé who has made a lot of money from liberal anger during the Bush years, but has never strayed from her Republican roots.

Niall Ferguson – This man absolutely hates President Obama and doesn’t hide it very well at all. I’ve seen him foam at the mouth.

Matthew Dowd – He was the chief strategist for President Bush’s 2004 campaign. You can imagine how he leans, right?

Those are the two broadcast network shows that I watch on Sunday mornings and as a political junky, I’ve always loved to watch the back and forth between representatives or surrogates from each party. For decades, all the Sunday morning shows had an unwritten rule (so it seemed) to balance out the show with representatives from both sides of the political aisle – sometimes even giving third party candidates like John Anderson and Ross Perot time. I absolutely loved it, it was like a ping pong match, back and forth, sometimes one side got a slam in, sometimes the other. I always scored it in my head, which party got the best of the other from week to week. Good times!