The Sunday News Shows (some of which actually air on Friday) were pretty good this week. It's going to hard to narrow it down to a few things.

I guess the first thing that I have to mention is the discussion on "Comment on Kentucky" about the governor's proposed constitutional amendment to bring casino gambling to Kentucky. This is his issue, and he was re-elected, and he has a decent change of getting this through the legislature.

So his people have proposed an amendment to the Kentucky constitution, which is pretty specific about how many casinos and where. One of the provisions apparently is one that allows casino gambling and slots at race tracks. According to the discussion, the proposed amendment allows a certain number of casinos and race tracks, only they can't be within 60 miles of one another.

When this came up in the discussion, I am pretty sure that it was Mr. Wellman (the host) who first mentioned Player's Bluegrass Downs in Paducah. The owner also owns the Harrah's riverboat casino across the river in Metropolis, Illinois.

Wellman mentioned the track in Paducah, and it was followed up by a discussion of several of the panel about the possibility of that track moving to near Ft. Campbell, which would then open up Paducah to be eligible for a casino. That, it was concluded, could result in Paducah having a casino in addition to Metropolis. More likely that the Metropolis casino would move. A similar story but with less detail had run earlier in the week in local and statewide media.

I have always thought that Paducah coveted the Metropolis casino. And frankly, it may do better in Paducah than it is doing in Metropolis. And, the economic impact of that little move across the river would be a lot less than if it pulled out and went to the Gulf coast, or someplace like that. People could keep their jobs. It would hurt the Metropolis city government financially. That would have some real effects.

But I don't think Paducah will like the casino in the long run. Oh sure, lots of money in the short run, but in the long run? The one thing about time that you can be sure of is that it keeps going. It may or may not happen, but the odds of the casino moving to Paducah if the door opens is probably greater than the odds of there being casinos at both Metropolis and Paducah.

While I did have to deal with that local issue first, I can't honestly say that worldwide it is the most important - it isn't. And I give the McLaughlin Group the prize for having the courage to put the most important worldwide story going on right now first where it belongs. That story is the conflict with Iran and whether or not Israel may attack Iran's nuclear facilities with or without assistance, coordination, or blessing of the U.S.

McLaughlin, Buchanan, and Clift all gave the odds of an Israeli attack at 1 in 4 (Clift said 4 or 5). Mort Zuckerman (yuck) gave it a 1 in 2 odds. But there has been a lot of attention going into this lately. I read Mr. Ferguson's war-mongering ravings in a recent Newsweek beating the war drums. Scary stuff. Although I do like the Newsweek better since Tina Brown took over, the one part of it that I don't really like that much is Ferguson's columns. He's arrogant and condescending - a bad combination. But a subsequent current Newsweek news article about the relationship between Israel and the U.S. over Iran was very telling. Bottom line - we don't know what they are going to do - we aren't working together on this. Isn't that incredible considering the amount of money we give Israel? But Newsweek isn't the only media covering this by far.

And then, this evening, just a bit ago, as I was thinking about writing this, it was reported on NBC nightly news, as their lead story, that the U.S. administration had gone public with a request to Israel not to attack Iran. That is so huge! It means that they aren't telling us what they are going to do, and that we have to resort to such desperate means because we are truly afraid that they are going to do something really stupid. It goes from scary to scarier.

I am so glad that the administration did this. Iran had asked for resumption of 6 nation talks. Sanctions were getting more and more support worldwide. And, Iran is a very powerful nation - not anywhere in the same league as Iraq. The potential for a solo Israeli attack on Iran to accomplish all the goals without a lot of backlash is just about nil. But Israel has what seems to be a trigger happy government. I hope they come to their senses and begins real negotiations about how to live peacefully in this world equal with everyone else.

The other news story that got a lot of attention was Santorum and the possibility of his winning the Michigan primary. I just can't get over his rich supporter and his "aspirin between the knees" comment for birth control A good friend of mine who lived in Pennsylvania while Santorum was in office there told me that his big problem is that he can't shut it off. He will say things like he is against birth control. Can you imagine him going to California and saying that?

McLaughlin said he that he predicted Romney to win Michigan. In fact, he said it "will" happen. I wonder how he knows? I guess we will see. Isn't politics fun?