Pundit Pap - Nov. 9 - Attack of the Attacking Attackers

[realFedUp]

http://www.americanpolitics.com/20031109punditpap.html

Nov. 9, 2003 -- NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (apj.us) -- This Sunday, we saw wave after wave of attacks emerge on the Sunday morning talk show circuit.

No, we're not talking about Iraqi insurgents -- we're talking about the Washington "journalists" who host and guest on the so-called liberal media's political talk shows.

On FOX News Sunday, Pat Roberts tried to attack Democrats for allegedly politicizing the Senate Intelligence Committee. Carl Levin quite effectively counterattacked in the segment that followed, not only debunking this latest GOP attack on Democrats (by demonstrating that the memo was in fact a laying out of strategy to get to the bottom of pre-war Iraq intelligence and what exactly George W. Flightsuit and his handlers knew about it), but effectively accusing Republicans of having leaked the memo themselves after a dumpster-diving campaign. Over on CNN Late Edition -- which we seldom cover but is becoming the most consistently enjoyable Sunday program for hardcore political junkies -- Dick Gephardt sounded like he's grown a spine, attacking Dim Son, Howard Dean, the GOP leadership, the Confederate flag and almost anything and everything Wolf Blitzer threw his way. George Stephanopoulos, Tim Russert, Tony Snow and even Wolf Blitzer all seemed to be in a surlier mood than usual.

There were two underlying reasons for the growing nastiness.

First, the former lapdogs are starting to nip at the pant leg of the former Texas governor as his Big Iraq Liberation Adventure continues its spiral into chaos and possible failure -- they're no longer buying what Smirk, Condi, Rummy and "Colin Blow" are selling. In fact, the silence about the Misadministration complaining about the lack of good news was deafening this Sunday.

Second, it's all-out campaign season. Forget the fact that the Iowa caucuses haven't even been held, let alone the New Hampshire primary. It's worth noting that the press made a big to-do about Howard Dean's shrewd decision to forego public funding altogether. It's also worth noting that the predictable celebrity press corps speculated that Dean may have blundered and declared this some sort of proof that the public component of campaign finance is somehow a problem. Funny, but there are a few people out there who might remind the Superstars of Political Press Wrestling that John McCain and Russ Feingold think the problem is, well, a wee bit bigger than they imply!

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