Bookmarked: GPS

Week in, week out, the most intelligent hour of Sunday morning news analysis comes from CNN's Fareed Zakaria.

Take today, for example (with no slight to Joe Biden's forceful appearance today on Meet The Press, which was must-see viewing).

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

But back to Fareed. If you're not a regular GPS viewer, you need to be. Just for moments like this:

Fareed Zakaria comments on Peterson and Greenspan from last week’s MTP, gutless cowards with nothing to lose pander on the Bush tax cuts expiring. Bush tax cuts the big black hole of the deficit. If they don’t have the courage of their convictions [they have convictions? /s] then how can anyone expect the politicians to have any….

For shame, says Fareed.

Yep.

Fareed Zakaria, guest MTP panelist Rachel Maddow, forceful Joe Biden — what Sunday morning could be, ought to be.
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crossposted at firedoglake's Seminal

Not Scared

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Earlier Sunday on the Fareed Zakaria GPS show on CNN [am I the only one who has noticed that this show is so far and away superior to the usual talking points/spin/counterpunch faux machismo of the rest of the Sunday morning talking heads shows...and oh, go ahead, count in most all the during-the-week drivel—yes, I'm lookin' at you Sit! Wolfie and Papa Bear and 'annity the 'orrible—that is supposed to pass for news or conversation or M$M opinionizing or whatever....]

Zakaria was interviewing the owner of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai. Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata Group, spoke with resolve about plans to rebuild the historic structure built by his great-grandfather.

But he said something else that sticks with me. And says a lot about him. And a lot about US.

"We will not let this event take us down...
"We were indignant, but we're not scared."

Here Stateside, we've been scared since 9/11. Scared of everything including our own shadows. It's been the meta-modus operandi of America. Keep everyone good and scared.

Until November 4.

We're a country ready—more than—not to be scared again. And for all the mega-military might of the good ol' US of A, being not scared is coming to us, not courtesy the establishment white-faced leaders of government and media and business.

But from faces treating us as grownups, talking intelligently, with thought and clarity. Faces like Obama. And Zakaria. And Ratan Tata.

And we are the better for it.
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(crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette)

Summer Broke Out

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In all its bright, sunshine-y glory, summer burst through this weekend. Birds are breeding, marigolds are bloomin' in the marshes, and despite occasional thunderstorms with a little added hail, the big, wide, wonderful world beckons.

So I've got a couple suggestions for you for summer weekends to come.

Jason Linkins over at Huffington Post liveblogs among the Sunday morning gasbag shows so you don't have to watch and does it with a sublime touch. Mandatory reading. Exactly the critique the shows' denizens deserve. And I bow to anyone who can actually, at this stage of the Democratic nomination marathon, still muster the intestinal fortitude to watch any show featuring either McAuliffe or Icky Harold.

And speaking of the overexposed...Wolf Blitzer, he of the interminable five breaths questions, has finally maxed out his airtime, one hopes. He is not the host of CNN's new foreign affairs show on Sunday.

Fareed Zakaria, GPS launched Sunday with an in-depth conversation with Tony Blair. Tony has not worn the Bush years well. But then who among us have? A roundtable conversation notably showed that yes, Dougie Feith truly is as awful as we believe. Thank you, Christiane, for educating him that one uses both carrots and sticks.

Dougie is like that schlub on the grade school playground whom neither team wanted to choose for kickball so he contented himself going over by the fence and plucking the wings off butterflies.

Oh, and, China? Owns us all.

What I learned this morning (yes, Manhattan, it's still morning in the rest of America when GPS airs, there is a world west of the Hudson....):

that intelligent journalism and commentary can actually happen when one moves one's own ego, spin, and "balance" out of the way. (And if you happen to be a Sunday morning gasbag denizen, and don't think I'm talkin' to you, go read Linkins)

Putting GPS on my auto-tune. Thanks, CNN.

Back in the U.S.S.R?

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While the aging media are pursuing their long-overrun horserace on the Democratic side of the ticket, with occasional asides to note that they loves them some John McCain, the world is spinning on without us.

I won't say that for the past seven-plus years, thanks to Team BushCo and the corp media backup dancers, we have been as isolated from reality as North Korea, but... Well, let's just say I won't say it.

Meanwhile, perhaps there are signs that said media are actually looking out at the world again. The first is interesting. Fareed Zakaria has been signed by CNN to host a show on international affairs. May we say: long overdue!!!! [CNN's International Hour is far too small a slice of their broadcast pie] with a side of: please get rid of the Screeds: Dobbs and Beck.

The second is alarming.

Now, coming from the world of fiction, I'm a believer in foreshadowing, especially in real life. Yes, I tirelessly, even tiresomely, repeat that bite of Bush's: I don't care about dictatorships as long as I get to be dictator....

So the Breaking News this morning that the president of Belarus has named Vladimir Putin as his prime minister gives me pause.

Something tells me Minsk is not a place Rochelle, Rochelle is going to want to visit anytime soon.