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Sunday Morning TV Gripes

Random thoughts while zipping through the Sunday morning shows, from the tape-delay of the Olympics to the surprising revelation that Peggy Noonan and Hugh Hewitt are hypocrites
Stephen Kaus
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Resident of Bay Area

Resident of Bay Area
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Random thoughts while zipping through the Sunday morning shows:

  • Peggy Noonan says on This Week that the Administration does not speak seriously about economics, but rather "sounds like some kind of mix between 'rah-rah' and gobbledygook." Does she not realize that the ability of those in government to speak seriously about economic issues ended when she penned the words, "read my lips, no new taxes" for George Bush 41?

  • Also on This Week, shouldn't Jake Tapper have asked Tim Geithner about the NY Federal Reserve's advice to AIG to keep the payments to its counter-parties secret. I understand that Geithner claims he had recused himself by the time of Darrel Issa's e-mails, but, for example, what was his position on the secrecy? Instead, Tapper sat there and listened to Geithner's mantra about avoiding a depression about a hundred times.

  • Speaking of Tapper, is there a rule against a Sunday morning host demonstrating a personality? For every other type of TV program, that is how one attracts viewers. As annoying as Russert was, he had one, as does Stephanopolis. Isn't it obvious that one of the networks should hire Gwen Ifill?

  • Hugh Hewitt on Reliable Sources (debating Arianna) says we should excuse Beck and Palin for exaggerating and not knowing much because they are successful demagogues (not his words), but condemns Keith Olberman as a "joke" and a "sportscaster" who "doesn't know anything." Hewitt has no problem that Palin said that Obama "tells us to sit down and shut up," and than cannot back it up with a single example. To me, Hewitt is the most annoying reactionary twerp of them all.

  • I am not going to do a separate item on it again this year, but NBC's contempt for West Coast sports fans continues to be manifest in its tape-delaying coverage of the Winter Olympics here even though the Games are in the Pacific Time Zone. NBC is the only network that still tape delays sports. I pray that Comcast straightens this out or that ESPN gets future Olympics. If NBC wants to tape delay on NBC for those who like the costumes and personal interest stories, fine, but they have umpteen cable networks and could offer the events live there. (This is the big point Tim Goodman missed in his San Francisco Chronicle apologia. NBC showed the Golden Globes twice in San Francisco. Once live at 5 p.m. and then again at 8.

    • The Miracle on Ice was not the same here, where we already knew the score. Also, see here.

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