To be fair, Cynthia Tucker is one of the better liberal pundits out there-- she is always excellent at making her point without coming off as overly defensive, apologetic, or angry. So, if we are only allowed one representative of the liberal viewpoint on a talk show, she's one of the best possible choices.

But, I certainly understand-- and agree with-- your larger point, Steve. The talk-fests on T.V. invariably skew rightward, much to our continued aggravation and chagrin.

No one wants to thought of as a pansy or a pushover. Conservatives claim the Media is shacking up with Obama. No self-respecting news program would now want to seem too favorable to Obama lest they have the finger pointed directly at them. So bring on a bunch of people who are going to tear the administration apart and throw in a Liberal so Lefties don't grouse too loudly.

Conservatives don't control much of the political dialogue these days but they have not lost an inch of influence over the Media.

Dateline: Chardon, Ohio: Sunday morning's weather forecast is for partly- to mostly-sunny skies, and a predicted high temperature in the 70s. It'll be a good morning to head up to the beach at Fairport Harbor. The kids can play on the beach, jump in the lake, and I can listen to the yammering of the seagulls.

Yammering seagulls, by the way, represents a much more intelligent form of conversation than one can find from the likes of Liz Cheney....

Minga. The only good thing about this sort of nauseating debackle is that no other than neocons watches it anyway. No one I know (and my friends and I are political junkies) watches a program with that kind of mix. It's senseless. It'slike tuning into Fox or Rush for information. All you get for your time is stomach ache and a good chance of tossing your last meal. One would be better off to tune into Tom and Jerry cartoons on Sunday morning for more reality than one would find coming from that particular line up.

It's getting to the point where all these Sunday morning talk shows are little more than strategy sessions on how to revive the Republican party. Expect this discussion to focus on what Coleman did wrong, and what the Republicans have to do to avoid these embarrassments in the future.

Once upon a time I thought of George Stephanopoulos as someone with dignity. /Sigh

And Meet the Press is no better. I've started throwing shoes at my TV when I see the Sunday morning line-up. It is so obviously tilted in a particular direction, week after week. Think about it, This Week used to have a regular Roundtable line-up that consisted of George Will, David Brinkly, Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts -- a fairly balanced discussion. But now, George Will is the only remaining regular and he invariably gets help on his right flank from the guest panalists. I am not usually one to bash the media for bias, but this skewing to the right (look at how the WaPo editorial page has become an auxillary to the AEI and the neo-con Commentary Magazine under Fred Hiatt) is something that deserves serious analysis -- not in the Bill O'Reilly mode of attacking the NYT as "far left," but a serious look at what is driving the disproportionate conservative coloration on the Sunday talk shows.

Is it the sense of a Washington Establishment under siege from the populist masses? Could be. Establishments are inherently conservative, whether Republican or Democrat. Establishments are by definition collections of elites with shared privileges regardless of their politics. Everyone who gets involved in politics today gets to make a fortune later provided they play by the existing rules. And now those rules are under attack. Perhaps the only kind of bi-partisanship we are likely to find in Washington today are the liberal and conservative Belt-way elites uniting to defend their standing and their privileges.

We could also be hearing the corporate voice defendings their financial interests against possible radical changes invited by these radical times.

Well, nobody is going to take Cynthia Tucker seriously. I mean, come on, she's black. She's obviously going to support Obama no matter what he does.

The other three, however, clearly have no pre-existing biases, and so we should listen to what they have to say.

(/howard kurtz)

Whatever, just more signs of the death of traditional media by one thousand cuts.

Especially as our nation experiences serious rates of unemployment, massive home foreclosures, and an outright mega-recession or depression, the talking heads just get more and more detached from reality. But it's a pretty good way to judge how detached much of the DC elite are which includes our Congresscritters and Senators.

For more than twenty years I watched the Sunday talk shows nearly every single Sunday from 8 AM until noon without fail. Now, I can't be bothered. I can't put up with the rotating crew of failed, pompous, incorrect Republican apologist hacks. I don't know what the color of the sky in their world is, but it doesn't reflect reality.

How do you continue to champion a party that screws up everything that it touches and then criticizes the opposition party for not doing it the same way? They just make me ill.

I watch Fareed Z's show, but nothing else.

Now that WaPo's "salon" scheme has cemented what most have already know - the MSM is a liberal enterprise - outlets like ABC are desperate to show a more even-handed approach.

I also love that Will always gets to talk first. Which of course, means he gets more time than anyone else as they bounce around the panel in order.

Last week he was on vacation. Thought, FINALLY! Someone our side gets to go first!

First up-Peggy Noonan.

Sunday morning is such a dead time slot it doesn't matter how many or how few people tune in. It's just an opportunity for the network's corporate interest to come to the fore. Documenting the Atrocities is a blog staple at this point, but I don't know if anyone else cares.

See! More evidence of the evil, liberal media!!

Having George S as the moderator is akin to Cheney providing the tie breaking vote in the Senate.

You fail to understand that Liz Cheney is such a poor advocate for her cause and so repels people from the case that she is making, that she is a net liberal. So it's rather a well-balanced roundtable.

Apparently lack of charisma is an inherited disorder.

With so many important and vital issues facing us, like the Michael Jackson funeral, it's amazing that they want to discuss Al Franken.

We're told this panel is typical--and then, we're given no examples of any previous panels.

I just looked at the four June panels for This Week. To be honest, this line-up isn't typical, especially if we're counting Dowd as a conservative, which he largely isn't.

(Dowd is largely an opportunist. He was a Texas Dem until he jumped on the Bush bandwagon in 1999. After Bush crashed and burned, he loudly jumped back off.)

Does anybody outside of the Beltway or under the age of 65 still watch the Sunday morning talk shows?

I mean seriously...I'm a lifelong political junkie, and I haven't watched one in close to twenty years.

It's talking heads talking to other talking heads...

Does anybody outside of the Beltway or under the age of 65 still watch the Sunday morning talk shows?

Are you kidding me? Kids love the Sunday talk shows. My two young daughters wake up and spring out of bed at the crack of dawn on Sunday and run over to the TV where they camp out all morning long with bowls of frosted flakes and plates of pop tarts. They usually start with Face the Nation, and end the day with McLaughlin.

By then they're too tuckered out to doing anything else so they go back to bed and sleep for the rest of the day.

That's like having a round table discussion about the Obama administration with panelists Hitler, David Duke and White Power Bill from Arrested Development.

[Notice how I went straight for Hitler there?]

"Cynthia Tucker is one of the better liberal pundits out there..."

Not good enough. Where's the progressive "pundit"? Nowhere to be found. Permanently exiled to alternative media outlets.

The manufacturing of consent, and the suppression of dissent, continues.

Lolly-pop journalism. Get your lick of conformity and the narrow beltway mindset. Pitiful.

@chrenson
I think you're underestimating the wisdom and insight that White Power Bill can bring to any discussion.

Faced with a mild recession in 2001, Bush said " We need tax relief now." His answer was a $1.35 trillion tax cut to the wealthy. It was more than 50 percent larger than the Obama initiative.

The bill’s overall cost was $787 billion—and Republicans claimed $25 billion in larded-up pork. We waited anxiously by our phone as the analysts divided that 25 by that much-larger 787. And then, at last! We had the number! The GOP’s allegation of pork and lard came to 3.2 percent!

Why didn't Stepnfetchit put on Franken if the show was going to be about him? Al would tear Liz Cheney into confetti.

Wellstone--you answered your own question.

The subject matter is almost as thrilling as the guest line-up. More Sanford? I truly love Senator Al Franken, and cannot wait to watch the CSPAN casts of him speaking on the Senate floor, but the discussions about him among our brilliant TV punditry so far (from what I've read) seem to be focused on completely irrelevant or misguided ideas, with no basis in reality, as usual.

It's going to be:

1. Al is a comedian (Wow, brilliant)
2. Al will (or won't) make any difference as #60
3. Al doesn't have any track record on the issues (not true)

Anyone want to bet that Senator Paul Wellstone will be mentioned even once?

As an Atlanta resident and one who has followed Tucker's career for years, I respectfully disagree with the commenter who described her as "one of the better liberal pundits."

Cynthia Tucker has far too often been AWOL on the editorial page of the AJC while her vile colleague Jim Wooten spewed the most doctrinaire contra-factual wing-nut talking points.

Aside from race issues with respect to Atlanta Metro Government and the Georgia University System, Tucker has very little to say. If anybody wonders why Georgia has turned so deep red in the past decade, the lurch rightward of the state's largest newspaper (which I blame on a failure of leadership by Tucker) is partly to blame.

Well at least they won't be calling Cheney a clown. Clowns laugh on the outside.

You have to hand it to Liz. Succeeding in being the son Dick never had.

Thanks for the warning Steve. You just saved me from ruining my weekend !

Don't forget that George Stephanapolous is a weaselly little shit. I could never understand how that asshole became part of the Clinton administration.

The Sunday morning pundit shows are a fucking joke. It's a litmus test for political gullability. The only time I watch is when someone I admire is a guest and I want to watch some smackdown.

The amazing thing about Liz Cheney to me is that she's like Meagan McCain -- royalty. Famous only because of who she was born to. If it's Prince Cheney of Fourthbranch, she's like Duchess of Undisclosed Location or something.

Don't be coy, Steve. We all know you'll be watching that ep raptly. You'll probably get at least two more posts out of it.

Wimbledon

If I were Cynthia Tucker I'd say "Unless you cut either of the two Bushies, and replace him/her with a progressive, I'll be watching Wimbledon instead"

There's a very easy way to deal with this. It's called the free-enterprise system. Drive down George's ratings by voting with the remote button.

What, no one from the Washington Times was available?

To be fair, .....

Why do find myself no longer reading past those 3 words anymore?

I hope the person was being ironic who said the WaPo Salon scandal proves how liberal they are.

Sheeesh. To whom do you think they were selling access?

Big Pharma. Private Insurance companies. Big Business in general.

It was a way to help lobbyists with a conservative agenda get closer to Obama and the Dems.

As if they need any more help in that direction.

WaPo proved it's tilting more to the right with that little scheme.

It's showing how much Corporate America runs the show and our MSM. Which we already knew.

"Does anybody outside of the Beltway or under the age of 65 still watch the Sunday morning talk shows?"

I'm over 70 and haven't watched them for decades. Don't put us Olds all in the same boat.

Tucker is a wooden stake designed to mark the limits of acceptable dialog, preventing anyone further "left" from participating. Its like having a choice between cream of wheat and cream of rice-no steel cut oats or grits allowed because it might be more desirable and that means they haven't figured out how to brand, market and exploit it to their advantage.

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