I watched Chris Matthews, most of ABC Sunday Morning, a little of Meet the Press, and Face the Nation. I have to give Matthews the nod today as having the most interesting show, although ABC Sunday Morning came in a very close second.

Matthews had Michelle Norris, well known NPR reporter, Joe Klein from Time Magazine, Andrea Mitchell, long time NBC commentator (and wife of Greenspan) and John Heilemann, from New York Magazine. All in all, I would call it a solidly middle of the road/conservative leaning panel.

Of course they were talking about the presidential campaign as it bounced out of the conventions. What I would call the statement of the day, Joe Klein, who I have always considered to be a very mainstream, sort of middle of the road, national reporter, said, in regard to a discussion about McCain's acceptance speech last week at the Republican convention, and it's lack of specific policies, that McCain, "doesn't care about policies," and "doesn't know about the economy." Klein went on to describe McCain's speech as "truly offensive." Wow!

Norris made a good point which i agree with that Obama has not yet defined himself with the public in general. While Obama is the candidate of two major parties who grew up poor, in a mixed race, one parent household, and McCain grew up in some privledge, being the son of a prominent top brass military leader, the Republicans have cast Obama as an elitist and lightweight celebrity, out of touch with the poorer people. And while all agreed that Obama had gone a long in making that point through the Democratic convention, I agree with Norris that Obama has some work to do on that front.

I will interject an editorial point here - that, as the discussion went on during the morning, it became clearer and clearer to me that the Republicans, including McCain himself on Face the Nation, were pushing Palin's immediate celebrity status. The audacity of the Republicans knows no end really - trying to paint themselves as the party of change when they've been in power for the last 8 years, and now, pushing Palin into instant celebrity status while at the same time criticizing Obama for being a celebrity. Wow number 2!

Andrea Mitchell went Republican big time. I was actually a little taken aback by how Republican she went. During the course of the show she raved about Palin, and even went so far as to say that Palin would cut significantly into Obama's support from former supporters of Sen. Clinton. She specifically mentioned Michigan as a state where she thinks that Palin can help, and that Michigan could very well be the next Ohio in terms of being the state which decides the election. And, when Heilemann, during the "tell me something I don't know" segment, said, "Michigan is going to be the key state," I thought, "Oh oh, better make sure and double check the voting machines there.

But that wasn't even the most outrageous thing that Mitchell said. After fawning over Palin for the whole show, she said, in response to comments about the lack of specific solutions to the nation's problems presented at the Republican convention, that the Republicans "don't need solutions" during the campaign, only to "identify the problems," which she said Palin was doing by callng herself a hockey mom.

One thing that was discussed on all of the shows, (well maybe not Meet the Press, but I didn't see a lot of that) was Palin's avoidance of doing any kind of interview with any of the big time mainstream press folks. Apparently she now has gone the longest of any Veep candidate in recent history without doing a major interview.

In fact, Bob Schieffer, on Face the Nation, brought this up to McCain. Schieffer had started out the show by saying that McCain was on Face the Nation for the 65th time, the new record. They obviously were really chummy. But, after asking McCain about when Palin was going to do one of these major interviews, and McCain saying, oh, she would do one soon, Schieffer said, ok, "we'll have her on here next week." McCain looked taken aback, and quickly said something like "that soon?" as the show faded out.

Another interesting moment in the Schieffer interview was when Schieffer asked McCain if he approved of the way that the Republican convention had mocked Obama's service as a "community organizer." McCain said he didn't, but that it was all the Democrats fault because of how they had been attacking Palin.

Obama was interviewed by Stephanopolous on ABC Sunday Morning. He did pretty well, although I wouldn't call it his sharpest interview. He made one slip that I expect will reverberate around the conservative blogs. Stephanopolous was questioning Obama on whether or not the McCain campaign was assisting the rumormill that Obama was really a Muslim. Stephanopolous asked whether or not Obama thought McCain himself was involved. The questioning had been kind of rapid and there was some confusion I thought as to where the questioning was, but Obama, trying to clarify things before he answered, said, "you mean about my faith as a Muslim?" Stephanopolous quickly said, "you mean as a Christian." Obama said something like, without breaking a beat, "well, whether or not I am a Muslim." But, it provides a short film clip of Obama, if edited correctly saying, "my faith as a muslim." It will be interesting to see if the Republicans use that in the future.

I also think Obama is going to have to improve his answer on whether or not the surge has worked. Sure it isn't a simple answer, but he needs to figure out a short, direct way to say that. He still appears to be avoiding answering the question directly, and that is hurting him.

I watched several minutes of Brokaw interviewing Biden, and it was an interesting part of the interview. Brokaw was questioning Biden about whether or not he had a conflict of interest on the bankruptcy bill, in which his son worked for a bank, and Biden split with Obama on voting for the bill when Obama voted against it. Biden tried to minimize the concern by saying that he had no contact with his son about the bill, and that his record is one of being a poliician that got in the banks and big corporations faces, and just go ask them. It was somewhat effective, but we all know how Washington works.