I have to say that the McLaughlin Group discussion was pretty milktoast tonight. Obama's meeting with Russian leaders and Palin (oh pulease!) were the top discussion points. Boring.

Monica Crowley wasn't there. She was replaced by an overweight white male from something called the Washington Examiner. Never heard of it. He was a cliche of himself. Come on McLaughlin, summer is tough, but you can do better than that.

OK, OK, there was one part that we had to give McLaughlin credit for - he did recognize Michael Jackson's philantrophy and said he should be credited for it. Thanks for that John. I've already written about Michael Jackson's passing on my myspace page. www.myspace.com/markdonhammusic . I liked Michael. But the conservative press especially has beat up on his a lot. So I was a bit surprised by McLaughlin's outreach. Is that called "compassionate conservatism?" The republican party would do well to listen to McLaughlin more, and Limbaugh less. But even that isn't going to help them that much in the short run.