Being a regular viewer of the McLaughlin Group on PBS, Friday evening, I have to comment on last night's show.

I thought the quote of the evening came from Pat Buchanan, who said that "we need Russia, and Russia needs us," referring to the Bush administration's recently belligerence against Russia as being "stupid." He noted that Georgia had provoked the incident. In that vein, during the hot tip part of the show, McLaughlin himself said that it's going to come out soon that Bush approved the invasion of Ossetia. Duh. I agree with Buchanan, if you can believe that, that our posture during this whole matter has been stupid.

One thing I learned from the show, if it's true, and I'm going to assume that it is, is that the SEC under the infamous Cox, who McCain says he'd fire, increased what I took from the lingo as being the debt to collateral ratio from a more "traditional" 12 - 1 to an unjustifiable 40 - 1. This whole economic mess was blamed on that, at least according to Buchanan. I'd like to know more.

McLaughlin tagged Obama as the # 1 "liberal" in the Senate, and Biden the # 3 "liberal." I guess McLaughlin has to do something to keep his credentials as a republican. All in all, it was a good show.

Immediately following was Gwen Ifill's "Washington Week." Ifill is "too big for her britches," as we used to say about someone who thought they were better and more important than they really are. She proved she was totally out of touch by asking when all of this economic trouble was expected to "trickle down" to mainstreet. She was quickly reminded that it already had. The fact is, Ms. Ifill, that it started on mainstreet and not on Wall Street. We've been hurting for years. Ifill's show is starchy and pretty boring. She's very conservative, and I don't trust her viewpoint, to tell you the truth.