The scramble for meaning …

Today’s Buzz ...
From last night’s program:

You know, it’s interesting to watch so many of the pundits and wonks desperately trying to unravel themselves from the steadfast predictions and ‘coronations’ being made less than one week ago, post-Iowa caucus.

There was one great line of the night (unfortunately on The Daily Show, not 360°) which I’ll get to later, but as for 360°, we’ll start with:

Bill Richardson to withdraw: No official announcement yet from the Richardson camp, but speculation is rampant. Another highly experienced candidate bites the dust. (Update: announcement made - he's out!)

Bloomberg gathers “data”: John King had a report on the activity that Michael Bloomberg is currently engaged in – gathering voter-related “data”, as JK described it – for a Presidential run. Well, there’s one thing we can be sure of – if Michael Bloomberg joins this campaign as an independent candidate – himself – then he lacks honesty right upfront, as he has stated far too many times, in unequivocal terms, that he is not running – himself. However, my thought is that - assuming the report is correct – he’s doing this to support a run by someone else. Who? Possibly someone like Chuck Hagel? How about Colin Powell? We’ll have to wait and see, as no decision will be made until after Super Tuesday results are in. And if it looks as though Obama is the candidate of choice, there will probably be no further action on that front – for the moment. More intrigue, as if we needed it!



Last night’s Democratic political analysis courtesy of:

Candy Crowley, Ralph Reed, David Gergen

Last night’s Republican political analysis courtesy of:

John King, David Gergen, Ralph Reed

I normally don’t highlight stories from the News Bulletins, but this one is different – it’s a follow up to the Megan Meier story – the 13-year-old Missouri girl who committed suicide after online harassment from what turned out to be a neighborhood mother of one of Megan’s classmates. Federal charges are now being considered (thankfully) – this is the summary from Erica Hill:

"In L.A., federal prosecutors now considering whether to charge a woman with defrauding MySpace by allegedly creating a false account and using it to harass a Missouri teen who ultimately killed herself. A federal grand jury has issued subpoenas as it looks into the suicide of Megan Meier. The 13-year-old thought she was communicating with a boy on that MySpace site, but police say it was actually the mother of one of Megan's former friends, who was sending her cruel messages."

Finally - a possibility for some justice in this very sad story!



There was a segment with Jeff Toobin going through the ‘map’ of the upcoming primaries and caucuses – a little too confusing to remember, which is why I posted the link to a comprehensive calendar yesterday – I’ll add it to the sidebar later today – but here is the schedule for the upcoming CNN debates:



Dyson vs. Holmes: It was almost difficult to know what the ‘discussion’ was about; Professor Michael Eric Dyson and Republican Strategist Amy Holmes have ‘sparred’ before, so I’ll let the intro from AC set the stage: "COOPER: As you just heard, Bill Schneider saw no apparent racial effect in Clinton's win over Obama yesterday or in the answers to polls, but some did, insisting that the pollsters were lied to by people who said race wouldn't be a factor in how they voted when it really was. The theory is called the Bradley effect. It's happened to candidates in the past. Michael Eric Dyson, Georgetown University professor joins us now. He's the author of "Debating Race" and an Obama supporter who believes it did play a part yesterday. CNN political analyst Amy Holmes says it did not. Both join me now." And they were off and sparring!



Channeling political elocutionists: I’d been giving some thought to this subject, so I was pleased to see Tom Foreman’s piece on which ‘speech mentor’ the leading candidates have been attempting to model themselves after. The list goes like this:

• Obama / MLK and JFK

• McCain / Reagan

• H. Clinton / B. Clinton

• Romney / unspecified CEO

• Huckabee / unspecified minister

I’d have to say that I pretty much agree with Tom’s assessment – whether they’re successfully channeling is a whole other topic:



And the magnificent shot of the day – courtesy of the rambunctious Pacific Ocean in the Northwest:



Other notes from last night:

I have to admit that the best line of the night came in the form of a question on The Daily Show – from Jon Stewart to guest John Zogby (President of polling firm Zogby International) – about the media’s obsession with ‘predicting outcomes’:

“My point is ‘Why can’t we wait?’ What do you think it is in terms of the media that makes it so that they have to know – before they know? So that they can say they know - and then come back and go ‘I guess we didn’t know’?”

Zogby’s response – after several seconds of silly (but somewhat uncomfortable) silence – was that he was still his family’s ATM and still had to make money – but admitted that he (and his company) really didn’t know why New Hampshire turned out the way it did. He was kidding about the ATM part (sort of), but not about the ‘not knowing’ part. You can watch the full segment here – it’s rather enlightening:



Jon also took a few ‘shots’ at the high-tech ‘wizardry’ of the campaign coverage – including the possibly failed “pizza” gizmo - see video clip below screen cap:





BTW – thank God that Jon & Stephen are back !!!!! I think that’s all I need to say on that subject!!!

Other notes from today:

John Kerry has ‘endorsed’ Barack Obama. A snub to his former running mate, John Edwards, to be sure. I guess the endorsement is valuable because of the information and advisement that can be shared, but otherwise – is that something really something to promote? Just a question ...

Also – Eric Volz will be interviewed on 360° this evening, with a follow-up piece shown tomorrow night. As you’ll recall, Eric is the American that was wrongly convicted of murdering his former girlfriend and jailed in Nicaragua, until his sentence was recently overturned and he was finally released.


Tonight on Anderson Cooper 360°:


Update # 1 (thank you, Judy!):

Anderson will have a new segment airing on this Sunday's 60 Minutes - here's a link to a video clip and the segment summary below:

WAR AGAINST WOMEN - The civil war in Congo is an ethnic conflict, but gender has become a crucial factor, too, as women are bearing the brunt of one of the horrible weapons used in the war: rape. CNN's Anderson Cooper reports. Michael Gavshon and Drew Magratten are the producers.



Thanks very much for visiting - updates posted as needed - have a terrific Thursday!