TV SoundOff: Sunday Talking Heads

by The Huffington Post News Team [courtesy of Politics on HuffingtonPost.com]

Good morning and welcome to your Sunday Morning Liveblog. Well, let it not be said that John McCain can't keep a promise! He said that he was going to take his campaign in a new, negative direction, and, wow. Just...wow. I tell you. I suppose it's actually our fault that we somehow could not turn the production of YouTube videos designed to make people feel bad into an economic growth sector, and thus save the stock market and stuff. But we sure got crazy negative with a quickness, all the same. Now, McCain has been out there lately, trying to diffuse the situation (that situation being the slavering, "pitchfork waving" trogs who've been yelling violent rhetoric (rhetoric is too kind a word) on the hustings. But, it's sort of hard to rebottle that fire, isn't it. Anyway, this liveblog will remain a safe place for all people, especially the terminally disillusioned! Commiserate in the comments, or send an email!

FOX NEWS SUNDAY

Oh sweetness. There are only 23 days until this is over? Such good news. The bad news? Gotta listen to David Axelrod and Rick Davis yammer at each other. That's where we're going to start. Maybe they'll just agree to start punching each other. Oh, well. Axelrod is Chicago, with his Machine Politics.

Meanwhile, John Lewis, who got named as one of McCain's key sources of wisdom despite the two men having no real kind of relationship, is upset at the crazy campaign rhetoric. Obviously, Axelrod isn't happy about it either. "The economy hangs from [McCain's] neck like the anchor of the Lusitania," he says. Even Rick David salutes the use of metaphor this early in the morning. Rick Davis, though, says John Lewis is "reprehensible" for voicing his concerns! Because McCain is a War Hero. I don't know why we just can't dial this stuff down. He also says that Obama drives the negative attacks on himself. Ha. I've got a video to show y'all at the commercial.

Davis' standpoint is that the things being said at McCain rallies are awful, but that there's nothing McCain or Palin is saying that is inciting it. Those people are just coming to the rallies, because they think there will be delicious pies to eat, and when there aren't, BLAAAAHHH LET'S GET RACIAL UNTIL WE GET SOME PIES.

"We let anybody who wants to come to our townhalls." Would someone please go and plug this liveblog? That would be awesome.

Meanwhile, Davis and Axelrod are yelling at each other, about their commercials. I feel kind of bad for Chris Wallace today! He's in his center square, and he just sort of looks nauseous.

Now we're going to talk about whether or not a man can be rehabilitated after bombing the Pentagon. Talking about Ayers. Of course, he never really managed to bomb the Pentagon, but the answer is, of course one can be rehabilitated. That doesn't mean Bill Ayers is. But, yeah, I'm afraid that the idea of personal redemption is central to Judeo-Christian societies.

Davis says that all of this stuff, the Ayers and Rezko sagas, deserve scrutiny. I agree! But, man, Rick Davis! You are a bit late to the party! I mean, grab a newspaper from earlier this year, and revel in the scrutiny.

Now they are getting into the Palin finding. I'm not sure I have the correct read on this: she did nothing wrong, but she abused her power in the pursuit to doing nothing wrong. Davis calls it a "kangaroo court." Judging by the one-size-fits-all, something-for-everyone decision that seems to have been handed down, that's going to really insult people who have been "tried" in actual kangaroo courts.

Now they are yelling at each other about lobbyists. Twenty four days, and we'll never have to endure this crap again, maybe. This is like the SNL debate sketch when they answer simultaneously. I'm surprised Davis didn't just yell, "MAVERICK!"

Oh dear. Now we're going to have Dopey Ed Rendell and Tim "Airbag" Pawlenty yammer about the economy. But really they are going to yammer about the two candidates. Obama is up in both these states. Why is everything trending away from McCain? TPaw says the Minnesota's pretty Democratic. Anyway, John McCain would be oppositional to the Congress and he is a War Hero.

What about divided government? Shouldn't McCain be hitting Obama for being associated with the Democrats in Congress, and their terror? No, says, TPaw, because Obama was born in the RezkoDome in a Chicago Machine Birth, midwived by Bill Ayers with bombs. Ed Rendell suggests that a cohesive government might work better. It could! It's also a pretty vulnerable way of governing. If Obama ends up President, with the Congress he's likely to have? Man, oh man. They'd better lead! They'd better get it done! Because the referendum comes in two years! And the 2012 Iowa Primary is probably in December.

Rendell says Obama has a strong arm, and can throw ropes to drowning people in the economy. TPaw says that McCain is a war hero and has thrown ropes of War Heroism. Rendell likes the Philadelphia Phillies. Everyone laughs. Actually, Rendell, in describing Obama's economic plan, leads with "investment in infratstructure." One thing you learn covering the Public Works beat, is that Rendell, as a governor, is obsessed with improving infrastructure. In a down economy, infrastructural investments are like seeding new fields. When expansion returns, you can bring new regions and communities back further, and put them on more solid footing. I'm sure Rendell has got an eye on that sort of investment being made in Pennsylvania.

Now it's time for Fox's Glower Power Panel, and the king of Glower, Brit Hume says that nothing you've seen at McCain rallies is "over the top." Awesome. Keep reaching for the stars, then, crazies! I'll say this, who says "Off with his head?" What backwater jerkwad imagines himself to be a member of the court of Louis XIV? Jeez, if you're gonna hate, then at least hate like an American. I can't take the anger of the French aristocracy seriously.

Bill Kristol, of course, is devastated that McCain won't talk about his new girlfriend, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Juan Williams agrees with Bill Kristol, because he wants Kristol to be his new girlfriend.

Hume, though, says the bottom line is that the economic crisis has sabotaged GOP hopes. Liasson agrees that there's just no point of traction for McCain, that the "fundamentals" of the race provide Obama with a wave to ride.

Kristol is advocating for Sarah Palin to appear on the show. Makes you wonder, right? Can we get to election day without Palin appearing on Sunday? I think maybe yes!

One thing that I sort of hate about the "associations" game is this: people yammer about people like Keating and Ayers and Reverend Wright and how bad these candidates are because these are bad people. But if they are bad people, then confront them! If Ayers is an unrepentant terrorist, why don't you have Ayers answer for it? The answer, of course, is that they know at bottom that news viewers aren't really interested in any of this. Not substantively. They just want to see politicians twist in the wind. And, again, not substantively.