Michael Duffy

NBC's Andrea Mitchell this weekend named the Tea Party as her Person of the Year.

Two others on the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show" disgustingly chose WikiLeaks' Julian Assange (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Time magazine's Michael Duffy said this weekend that the liberal part of Barack Obama's presidency is probably over.

Maybe more surprising, no one on the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show" - including the host - disagreed with him (video follows with transcript and commentary):

These must be really desperate times for the Democrats, if the syndicated Chris Matthews Show that was aired over the weekend is any indication, as both the host and one of the guests claimed Barack Obama would need to tap into military, musical and even mystical powers to get a health care reform bill passed. During the intro of his show, Matthews declared that Obama "must now lead the band with all the music and magic he has in him" and guest panelist Michael Duffy, of Time magazine, reported that Obama is going to unleash "the infantry, the air cover, the artillery" on Congress to get health care passed. [audio available here]

The following exchanges were aired on the February 28 edition of The Chris Matthews Show:

Chris Matthews believes it's too soon for George W. Bush nostalgia.

Such was discussed during this weekend's syndicated program bearing his name.

In fact, Matthews made this his big question of the day asking his guests, "Will there be George W. Bush nostalgia this November when his book comes out?"

To his discredit, Matthews was the only person of the five in front of the camera that felt the answer was no concluding, "I think he needs a little more time to be away" (video embedded below the fold with transcript):  

Time magazine hasn’t devoted a single article to Attorney General nominee Eric Holder yet. (He’s drawn one short mention since being nominated.) This is a big change from eight years ago, when Time had a blazing cover story on George Bush nominee John Ashcroft. With a close-up of Ashcroft’s half-darkened face peering out with a one-eyed Cheneyesque glare, Time asked SHOULD THIS MAN BE ATTORNEY GENERAL?

In their cover story, Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy suggested the Ashcroft nomination was a viciously ugly Bush move, as they began:

So you fought a long and painful battle to become President of the U.S., and it will soon, at last, be Inauguration Day. The Bible your dad used is back for the swearing in, 16,000 yellow roses, 500 lbs. of peach cobbler, tons of fireworks and Ricky Martin are all being readied for the gala celebrations, and you have only yourself to blame if all people remember from this historic week is the historically ugly struggle you ignited in the halls of the U.S. Senate.

Despite the more hysterical predictions we've heard of late, the evidence continues to mount that if the earth was warming, it stopped quite some time ago.

Of course, don't expect this fact to be widely reported, if it indeed even makes it into any U.S. newspapers or television broadcasts.

Read the entire interview from The Australian, but a couple of admissions are quite striking:

[Updated w/video clip, 14:21 Eastern, July 30]

Something happened on Sunday's "Chris Matthews Show" that likely shocked virtually all viewers on both sides of the aisle: the panel, stocked with liberal media members as usual, actually discussed reasons why America shouldn't pull troops out of Iraq.

In fact, not only was this issue seriously debated, but some of the statements made could have come from well-known conservative columnists like Fred Barnes, Bill Kristol, and Charles Krauthammer.

Video (3:09): Real (2.29 MB) or Windows (1.91 MB), plus MP3 audio (1.06 MB).

Yet, this panel was comprised of the Washington Post's David Ignatius, Time's Michael Duffy, NBC's Kelly O'Donnell, and U.S. News and World Report's Gloria Borger.

The shocking discussion was set up thusly by host Matthews: