The Sunday talk shows

I'm going start off by giving Fox News Sunday their kudos for having Michael Duffy of Time magazine as their guest panelist. He gave true balance to the panel that usually uses Juan Williams like they used Alan Colmes, a whipping boy. After the first round of questions and answers, Michael Duffy, stood out as being the most knowledgeable on the panel and unafraid to state his views. After he corrected, Bill Kristol and disagreed with the direction Chris Wallace wanted to go, Brit Hume and Bill Kristol became less partisan. I don't know how much prep goes into the Sunday talk shows but Michael Duffy came prepared. Prior to the panel discussion, Chris Wallace,interviewed a couple of Tea Party congressmen and new committee chairmen Darrell Issa and Fred Upton. I was surprised that Chris showed Mr. Upton’s stance on greenhouse emission standards on his website but then pointed out that he teamed up with a lobbyist to write an article for the Wall Street Journa,l that would make a climate change denier, smile from ear- to- ear, in agreement. Mr. Upton thinks that he can convince some democrats to vote with the republicans to repeal health care. He is delusional.

Meet the Press with David Gregory had conservative columnist David Brooks, republican senator Pat Toomey, liberal columnist E .J. Dionne of the Washington Post, British columnist Katty Kay, and a professor from Yale Law, Steven Carter as his guests. Except for senator Toomey, who just wanted to deliver a consistent message of his republican talking points, the round table discussion was civil and quite informative. They said that the president would try to stay above the fray to portray a picture of being the adult in the room. It was agreed that the president will only have about 10 months to compromise; then he has to hit the trail for a partisan run for the presidency.

Jack Trapper, of ABC news, subbed for Christiane Amanpour ,and did a fabulous job, as always. I don't know if the president's chief economic adviser Austan Goolsbee is always nervous but Mr. Trapper had him on the ropes yesterday, when he asked him to predict the unemployment numbers for 2011. Most political advisers can spin their way out of a tough question but Mr. Goolsbee was over matched. I was surprised to hear ABC News director, Amy Walter, warning the republicans not to go through with their efforts on repealing health care. It might be good advice because even Joe Scarborough said it was a waste time because the legislation would not pass the senate, nor would it garner enough votes to override a presidential veto. Joe Scarborough did not  leave it at that; he went onto compare the repeal of Health Care to the house passage of the Cap in-and Trade bill.

I had a lot of catching up to do because I haven't been keeping up with our local on line forum. I did find one popular blog that was that was used by our local right –wingers as a “where have you been since Kenneth left “venue, to let out all their frustration. Alton Easton (who was 0-12 on his 2010 predictions) wrote about the misuse of president Obama’s presidential power. I used Alton's blog as material for my first Victoria Advocate blog of 2011.

I did notice that abortion became the main topic of discussion for the past two or three days. A couple of local gals (I say that with the utmost respect) stood toe- to- toe with their opponents. Victoriabybirth and Rebecca were relentless in making their argument and in this blogger’s opinion, they won the debate.

To my pleasant surprise, I doubled my followers this weekend; yeah, I know it's only four, but they are credible posters, which counts for much more. I want to welcome Legion357, a poster that does his homework and  is a formidable opponent at times