Thursday, February 14, 2008

Erica joins the crew ...

Today’s Buzz ...



from last night’s Anderson Cooper 360°:


Steroids in the spotlight: First, I want to say once again that I am a HUGE baseball fan. Not quite at ‘fanatic’ level, but close. I’m one of those that even attends out-of-state spring training games whenever possible! And I know that there have been many explanations about why Congress is investigating the use of steroids by MLB players. And I agree that it’s a concern as to whether or not various game records may be tainted because those who surpass them may have done so with ‘artificial’ assistance – not to mention the very poor example it sets for all levels of younger sports fans. But I still can’t quite grasp why this issue rises to the level of necessitating a Congressional hearing? But regardless, it was the lead story last night, covered by Gary Tuchman (attending the hearings), Jeff Toobin (legal analysis) and Dr. Sanjay Gupta (medical analysis). Erica Hill joined in on the discussion, as she was in the NY studio last night for her co-anchor debut.






One more map: John King gave another visual demonstration of the now more-than-likely scenario for the delegate race on the Democratic side. And the idea that the odds of neither candidate winning the required number of pledged delegates to secure the nomination before the convention is getting higher each day.



One more political panel: Joe Johns, Amy Holmes and Hank Sheinkopf joined Anderson last night to discuss the upcoming Democratic Primaries (and what Clinton & Obama need to accomplish)), the possible superdelegate ‘showdown’ for choosing the party nominee, and how to resolve the ‘banished’ Michigan and Florida delegate issue.



A Brokered Convention?: Joe Johns had a more in-depth report about the possibility of a Democratic convention where, in fact, superdelegates do end up choosing the nominee. I wrote about that yesterday (Mondale/Hart in 1984), but one post-report comment from Joe concerns me. Here’s the transcript:

COOPER: So what do the Democrats, Joe, say about this notion of super delegates being undemocratic?

JOHNS: Well, the people who support it, of course, they're going to say, it's more democratic. They say you have party caucuses going on. You have primaries in the states with low turnout. And you need some balance in there with people who've been elected by large constituencies, hence the super delegates.


Well, as we saw on Tuesday night with Jason Rae, many of the superdelegates haven’t been ‘elected’ by large constituencies, or any constituencies. Outside of the DNC, that is. And I;m certainly not picking on Jason – but I do think that the public has the right to know how each superdelegate received that status – particularly since they will most likely be so critical in the shaping of a historic election. If you want read more, there's a good article here at the CNN Politics site.



HGH in Hollywood: There was a repeat of David Mattingly’s report on 1/24/08 about the increasing widespread use of Human Growth Hormone in Hollywood – I assume as a supplement to tonight’s lead story about the baseball steroid Congressional hearings.



And to close out the evening – one more round of applause for the subject of “The Shot” – none other than Westminster’s Best in Show winner – UNO!!!



tonight on Anderson Cooper 360°:



Don’t forget tomorrow’s special AC 360°:



Thanks for visiting - looking forward to AC 360° in NOLA tonight - have a terrific Thursday!!

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