Today was an interesting day for the news shows. I really liked the discussion on the Chris Matthews shows about the future of the newspapers and the print news industry. Actually, the moment of the day came on that show when Chris Matthews played the famous clip from the movie, "All the President's Men," which showed Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman playing Bernstein and Woodward talking to Ben Bradley, editor of the Washington Post during the Watergate investigation late at night. They had a conversation with "Deep Throat" and awoke Bradley and got him out of bed.

The movie scene showed Bradley talking to the young reporters, telling them that the constitution and our way of life was at stake in all of this, and more than just the presidency. Then, the show switched from the clip to Matthews asking the real Woodward about it. And, in the moment of the day, Woodward explained that Bradley had not made the speech about how the constitution et all was not at stake, but had said something else. In fact, Woodward said that he and Bernstein had recently reviewed their notes that they had made about this meeting, and that their notes found that what Bradley had actually said was , "OK, now what do you we do." Woodward postulated that this was the perfect answer. Maybe so, but that may be a bit of revisionist history. I don't know. But, the several minute segment was historic, and Matthews is to be congratulated on the high quality moment.

Kristi and I were both struck by how all of the contestants, um, I mean, participants on the Matthews show all like to have a cup of coffee first thing in the morning and read the paper. We plead guilty! I don't believe newspapers will "die," and I hope that Woodward is right when he says that more contemporary thinking business leaders from the industry will adapt to a new model that will continue to fund the investigative reporting.

And, I would be amiss if I didn't mention that Tina Brown, someone I don't know a lot about, but apparently head of an online news blog, also was on the panel and had some interesting perspectives on the new news industry. She believes it is pretty much heading on line. And, all of the other contesta...um..participants...said that they respected her, and several had worked for her. Kristi and I both commented to each other that we didn't want to lie in bed with our coffee and some kind of electronic device - we want a newspaper!

McLaughlin Group had an interesting, out of the mainstream DC issue of the moment stream, discussion, about Obama and our relationship with other nations. Poll numbers show that we are a lot more popular now in other countries around the world, well, with the exception of Israel, where Obama is one point less popular than Bush but still over 50%, than we were with Bush. Buchanan condemned it because he said Obama had sold out the U.S. Where Buchanan often has a point, though, Crowley was off the wall. She kept referring to the U.S. as the only superpower, and that somehow that gave us special authority to do what we must to the world. But the fact is that the only thing the U.S. is superpower in is military spending and stockpile of nuclear weapons. On all other measures of importance, we rank down the list. Zuckerman showed himself to be an Israeli apologist. McLaughlin himself noted that improved relations with other countries translated into easier military and economic negotiations.

I give McLaughlin credit for thinking outside the box and tackling the foreign relations issue. They also discussed whether or not the United Nations should have their own army. As one might expect, there wasn't a lot of strong support for that, and whatever support there was was tempered by a reality check of the problems. But it was something I hadn't even thought of, and I appreciate McLaughlin bringing it up. If he's bringing it up, someone in authority must be talking about it.

There was some talk about Obama, health care, and his domestic popularity. The Charlie Cook comments of the last few days, where he says that the Dems are poised to lose a bunch of seats in congress in the next election, were discussed. I don't buy it. Cook has been wrong a lot, and he was wrong when I was right early on when I predicted Obama would get the Democratic nomination. Cook is wrong now. It's way too early to make such a prognostication. I agree with those that say it all depends on the economy and the employment situation. And, it's a long time until November, 2010. I think already the stock market has turned around and come a long way from it's lows. What that means is still uncertain. But, the key figure is going to be unemployment. If those figures start inching down, and Obama focuses on keeping the deficit under control, and gets some kind of health care that controls the premiums, the ability of the insurance companies to drop people, and doesn't add terribly to the deficit, then the Dems may very well add to their majority. I've said for many weeks that I don't believe a republican strategy to block the Dems from getting health care is a long term strategy to regain public support. I stand by that.

All in all, a strong day for the talk shows.