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Another Reason to Ignore Policial Pundits on TV

Posted Dec 30th 2007 12:28PM by David Koller
Filed under: Politics, Media, TV, Young Turks

On the PBS NewsHour from Friday, December 28, the political round table discussion touched on the reaction of the Presidential candidates to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan. David Brooks, New York Times columnist and conservative political pundit, stated that four candidates "addressed" the difficult issue: Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, Fred Thompson and John McCain. He then listed the candidates who handled the subject poorly, or "sidestepped" the issue: John Edwards and Hillary Clinton. "Most of the candidates," he said, "and most notably Clinton, have punted on [it]."

So what happened between Friday and Sunday?
On Sunday David Brooks returned to the airwaves on the round table of ABC's This Week. On this program, he again listed the candidates who laid out a "Presidential", realistic and sane policy for Pakistan - Biden, Thompson and McCain, and in addition, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. What? Didn't he just say on Friday, two days earlier, that Clinton and Edwards sidestepped the issue? (He added that Bill Richardson's proposals were dangerous, which he didn't even hint at on Friday, while Romney, Giuliani and Obama had no policy at all.)

There may be a detailed, legalistic argument based on his exact words that Brooks can use to wiggle out of this apparent contradiction regarding Clinton and Edwards. Or maybe he just changed his mind from the taping on Friday to the taping for the Sunday show. (Certainly I have much more significant objections to David Brooks, such as the way he always manages to conclude that no matter how terrible Bush Administration and Republican policies are, you have to ultimately support Bush and the Republicans so they can continue to do more of the same.) More likely though, he is just full of hot air, filling time with words, and like most conservative TV commentators, shouldn't be taken seriously.

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