There were a few noteworthy moments in the Sunday News Shows for today. First, on Chris Matthews, he played a short clip of the first couple lines of "My Country 'Tis of Thee" as sung by Aretha Franklin at the inauguration on Tuesday. Then, he pulled out this clip of black and white tape from the 30s I believe, of Marian Anderson singing (and he allowed the entire song to be aired) the same song at the Washington Monument, after there were objections to her singing at the inauguration of FDR because of her race. Eleanor Roosevelt, according to Matthews, had stepped in and set up this particular event. It was quite moving, and I had never heard the story before. "My Country 'Tis of Thee" is one of our best (non-national anthem) patriotic songs, along with "America the Beautiful." Kudos to Matthews for the filmclip, probably the highlight of the morning.

Also on Matthews, they discussed whether or not Obama was going to allow prosecutions of Bush administration officials for their handling of prisoners - torture and abuse and the like. The most interesting comment was one that while Rep. Conyers may hold hearings in his committee, that Reid would block it in the senate. Uh huh? So the law doesn't apply to certain people? Only those who get picked up with a joint, throw the book at them. That kind of hypocricy really gets me. One more strike against Reid.

It also was stated that Holder's nomination for Attorney General is being held up by the republicans for a promise that he will not go after the Bush administration. I guess, since the nomination is still on hold, Holder hasn't promised.

But, I had previously seen an interview with Pelosi recently in which she had also said that bringing these kind of issues up in regard to the war on terror wasn't something she was interested in, but that she was interested in delving into the U.S. Attorney firings. So, I guess when all is said and done, it will be interesting to see what happens. Probably nothing. But anyone with a joint better keep it hidden or else!

Another interesting tidbit was at the Roundtable on the Stephanopolous show on ABC. At one point, Mr. Hoity-Toity himself, George Will, made a comment about a economic study in the past which he said indicated that economic stimulus basically didn't work, and Paul Krugman jumped him immediately and said, "That study doesn't say that, it says that you should use monetary policy first, but we've reduced interest rates to about zero, so there's no monetary policy left for us to act on." Will for once in his life looked befuddled. I loved that.

Face the Nation had Veep Joe Biden. When Schieffer asked Biden about whether or not we had notified the Pakistan Govt. before this latest drone strike in Pakistan, which happened after Obama became president. He wouldn't answer the question.

On Stephanopolous' sunday funnies segment, there was a hilarious spot from Jon Stewart, in which he showed a photo of Osama Bin Laden wearing the same hat that Aretha Franklin wore while she sang at the inauguration. If you saw it, you know what he means. His caption was, "Aretha's inauguration hat is making a worldwide fashion splash, Osama Bin Laden was seen wearing it," or something to that effect. Very funny!