Not to steal any of Will Vehr's thunder, but I watched McLaughlin, and then Tim Russert, and a little of the Capitol Gang tonight, and thought I'd relate a few of my resultant musings.

On McLaughlin, I think that when Eleanor Clift and Pat Buchanan agree on something, it's not only probably wrong, but it's most likely wrong squared. They both say that Sharon is the problem in Israel. No surprise--Eleanor attacking Israel from the left, because it's too dynamic and politically incorrect, and Pat attacking it from whatever direction he comes from, because it's full of Jews.

I was disappointed that Mr. McLaughlin didn't get it, however. The only people on the panel who seemed to have their heads screwed on without stripping any threads were Mort Zuckerman (unfortunately, probably only because he actually is Jewish, otherwise he'd probably be in the Eleanor camp, as he usually is), and Tony Blankley, who both recognized that Israel is in a fight for its very survival against an implacable foe.

The most interesting thing (at least to me) about the discussion was that Eleanor freely admitted that Arafat had no interest in peace. But she also said that any replacement of him other than dying peacefully in bed would simply make of him a martyr, and his replacement would be even worse. I waited in vain for someone to ask her the two questions:

• How could things be worse? and
  
• In that case, what's the point in negotiating with him?
  

On Tim Russert's weekend interview hour, he had Doris Kearns Goodwin, one of his favorite perennial guests.

She spent the beginning of the interview discussing the plagiarism charges, and how she regretted what she'd done, but how it had all been overblown, and what a victim she was.

Then the discussion turned to Presidential history. Most of it was unexceptionable (LBJ, FDR, Lincoln, what events result in greatness, etc.), until she got to Mr. Clinton, who it's obvious she still doesn't get. She repeated the standard spin that "nothing was found in Whitewater," and then said the following amazing thing (from memory, so the quote may not be exact):

"He's such a resilient guy. That's one of his great strengths. Many people would be morose and depressed about how things turned out, and how their legacy might be, but he's partying and raising money to make his family secure, and still seems to be enjoying life, blah, blah, blah..."

Doris, here's a hint. Go to your dictionary, and look up the word "sociopath." Then tell me whether or not it's a "great strength."

She also talked about listening to ball games and keeping score for her dad, when she was a kid, which she thought trained her to do historical narrative. That was nice.

On The Capitol Gang, I was first struck by the imbalance. Mark Shields, Al Hunt, Margaret Carlson, and Bob Novak. Does anyone think that the first three of those people have ever even considered voting for a Republican? Me neither. So, only three to one. Not bad, perhaps, for CNN.

What really shocked me, though, was that Novak seemed to be suffering from the same brain inflammation as McLaughlin.

I'm not going to comment more, except to say that the media (even much of the media that the public considers "conservative" or "right-wing"), doesn't get it. My next post will be a disquisition on what the conventional "wisdom" is on the subject of the war on terrorism, and my own (different) take on it.

Novak has, for quite some time, been more sympathetic to the Palestinians than most other pundits, so that's no surprise.

Actually, Buchanan not supporting Israel is a big change from his earlier position, while Novak is being consistent. Buchanan used to be a big Zionist. It's just that he's moved onto full-bore isolationism.

Ah yes used to watch those shows. But like the rest of the country I now turn to FOX News more often. I don't think they are perfect but at least they try very hard to be balanced.

Some leftist monkey on the Jon Stewart show was pushing his book on the "vast right wing plots". That FOX, talk radio, certain mags were all conspiring in some plot.

Re "Capital Gang": first, keep in mind that Margaret Carlson shares her seat with the conservative Kate O'Beirne. And second, isn't Novak the show's executive producer? I was under the impression that he left McLaughlin specifically because CNN had promised to give him a similarly-formatted show.

"Capital Gang" is certainly more balanced than Fox's "The Beltway Boys", aka Right and Righter.

If Kondracke is "right" it's a recent development. He used to be the editor of The New Republic. I think that Mort is a centrist (who seems to be more conservative because he got disgusted with Gore over the prescription drug issue--he has a wife with Parkinson's disease).

Kondracke also never misses a chance to slam the Bush Tax cut and call for raising of taxes, and he's a big Daschle supporter. Jeff Cohen called him conservative on NewsWatch a few weeks ago, but just this week he said Chris Matthews was conservative, so you have to takethat with a grain of salt (er, make that the whole friggin' shaker)