‘Meet The Press’ – Why I Turned To ‘This Week’ And Then To ‘Face The Nation’

I’ve become a political junky during this presidential race. It’s an exciting time for our country… and one that our generation will talk about for years to come. I admit that I regularly watch ‘Meet The Press’ because Tim Russert really grills guests (whether you like his style or not). But, today I picked up the remote thinking, ‘That’s 30 minutes I’ll never get back.’

‘Press’ hosted a roundtable of experts, including Tom Brokaw, Michele Norris (NPR), Doris Kearns Goodwin (presidential historian) and others. The entire hour was focused on a chat session. What a disappointment. A roundtable is great to end a show like this. But taking the entire hour for talking heads when there is a wealth of opportunity for news was like watching paint dry. Fun, huh? Russert’s show has interviewed all the major candidates. He has pressed for answers of substance. He has confronted them on tough issues. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCrain and Mitt Romney would have been obvious guests. But on the day after John Edwards finished the race in Nevada so far behind that he can’t even be seen in the rearview mirrors… or Ron Paul slipped ahead of John McCain for second in Nevada, I expected more from ‘Meet The Press’. I expected more news and specifics about the future of this campaign and less opinion. NBC News wields great power in guest booking. I’m sure one of the 5-6 candidates who could make news would have committed.

So, I picked up the remote. I landed on ‘This Week’ on ABC to find another roundtable 30 minutes into the program. To be fair, Rudy Giuliani was scheduled to appear on ‘This Week’… no doubt at the top of the show. After so much time on talking heads on ‘Press’ I kept clicking. I landed on a John Edwards interview on ‘Face The Nation.’ Finally, there was something of substance. Bob Scheiffer really pressed Edwards about how his campaign could continue without any wins. (Note, 'Nation's web site has stale content from New Hampshire as its top story).

Here’s what I wanted from ‘Meet The Press’ and other Sunday talkers:
Hillary Clinton – Is Bill out of control? How can you control him if you’re president? How do you sustain the momentum?
Barack Obama – What the heck happened? You had that union support to sure of a vote. It failed. Where did you go wrong? Why align your opinions with Reagan?
Rudy Giuliani (again I missed his ‘This Week’ interview) – How the heck can you continue?
Ron Paul – Everyone is ignoring his second place (albeit far behind) finish in Nevada. Can you be an effective part of the convention?
John Edwards – ‘Face The Nation’ was on target. How can you continue?
Fred Thompson – You gave a speech Saturday at 7:45pm that no doubt tried to define your campaign future. But no one heard it. How long can you continue?

ABC and CBS both snagged at least one candidate to try to get answers. NBC was either shut out or decided that six talking heads for 60 minutes was far more engaging than generating any type of news.

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