We've added a couple new shows. Kristi discovered them on Kentucky Educational TV. One is called "To the Contrary," and the other is called "Inside Washington." We also watched them last weekend. This and last weekend we watched "Wall Street Journal Week in Review," "Chris Matthews Show," "ABC Stephanopolous show," a tiny bit of "Meet the Press," "Face the Nation," and the shows above. We also watched the McLaughlin Group, which is shown on KET on both Friday evening and late Sunday morning, after the two shows above.

I was waiting to write about last weekend's shows until I got a chance to look at the transcript for the McLaughlin Group. I finally got around to looking at it yesterday. I was going to paste in the words if necessary, but I'm not going to bother. Suffice it to say that both Pat Buchanan and Monica Crowley made amazing statements about the "liberal press" and "white guilt." Buchanan won the outrageous comment, however, when he combined the two concepts by saying that the press, which he apparently thinks is mostly white, is pro Obama because they are liberal because they missed covering Selma and are guilty about it. That about floored me.

The rest of the shows are getting repetitive talking about the presidential race. Nothing really substantive has been said and will be said this close to the election. There were a couple interesting moments. Chris Matthews had on the same panel today that he had 2 years ago, Katty Kay, Clarence Page, Joe Klein, and Nora O'Donnell. He showed a video of them all predicting whether or not Obama would get the Democratic nomination. Page and Klein, the males, predicted that he wouldn't, and Kay and O'Donnell predicted they would. They "high 5ed" each other after the video was shown. That tickled me.

The other most interesting thing of the day was that the two most conservative commentators, George Will and Charles Krauthammer, both are predicting an Obama landslide, with long coattails. The "liberal" commentators are not willing to go that far. David Axelrod, interviewed more than once today, was very reserved, but confident, about the election. Will predicts that Obama is going to going to get more than 380 electorale college votes.

I'm not sure if these arch conservatives are trying to lower expectations so low that the republicans can claim some kind of victory if McCain comes even a little bit close, or whether, because the republican party has strayed so far from the traditional conservatism that they are totally disgusted and don't care. But I do find that very interesting.

Ellen Goodman, and the New York Times have both written, and I agree and do think it is interesting, that even though the polls are predicting a clear Obama victory, both nationally and state by state, the regular Dems are holding their breath because it's too good to be true, and we all know how ruthless the republicans are in stealing elections. That could have something to do with the conservative predictions by the more liberal commentators.

John McLaughlin himself really came off to Kristi and I as being very anti-Obama and hostile in this week's show. We'll see the transcript when it comes out. He does not want Obama to be president, or at least it sure seemed that way to us. He's a very powerful man. But with Will and Krauthammer throwing in the towel in a big way, one wonders whether or not the republicans have the will to stand in long lines in cities surrounded by Obama supports? I doubt it. It's going to be a survival thing, and you have to be really inspired to face up to that, and I think the response of Will and Krauthammer show that that kind of inspiration is lacking in the republicans.

Of course, I predicted many weeks ago when McCain was throwing all the dirt at Obama and it wasn't sticking to any degree, that we maybe heading for a landslide. I stand by that, although I share the fear of all the other Dems, and only hope that there are enough lawyers nation wide to monitor the election well enough to insure that the republicans will be scared to try and overturn such a huge majority for Obama. We'll see on Tuesday. Have fun! Elections are wonderful! Go Vote!

In that regard, I just have to comment as a post script that the long, outrageously long lines that people are having to stand in to vote in early voting are completely outrageous. They totally undercut someone like McCain's assertions that he supports America no matter what, and that our democracy is the best in the world. What a joke. Our democracy is sick and in big trouble. Money talks and s__t walks. That's an old street saying in the U.S., and that's what the republicans want to continue. Their message is to hold onto what you have and don't share anything with those less fortunate than you. If the U.S. populace votes for that message, then heaven help us.