A note to our readers

Hey --

Sunday and we're done surprisingly quickly. A busy edition and a long one but one that is over. Later today Dee Dee Myers appears on NBC's Meet The Press, by the way. We had a 'heads up' post planned noting that and other things but there wasn't time to rough it out and the illustration wasn't ready.

Along with Dallas, the following worked on this edition:

The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ
and Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends.


We thank everyone for their assistance.

And what did we come up?

Truest statement of the week -- This is from an article John Walsh wrote. Walsh has gotten truest before.

Truest statement of the week II -- He has never gotten two truests in one week. No one has. (Mike said to put in that stat because his readers love it when he notes things like that.) We thought the first (and possible only) ever multiple truest should go to Walsh. Here he's responding to a flack for Pathetic Democrats of America who left a comment at his article.

Editorial: Wishin' And Hopin' -- We love this editorial. We thought about going heavy and had that prepared. But we were in Dusty mood and Dona pointed out that we had some lengthy things and also a very hard hitting edition. She recommended we go for an important topic and do it with a light touch. By the way, Ty reminds, we couldn't figure out one line we quote because I (Jim) went online and looked up the lyrics. "That's not right, it's . . .," I insisted. Wrongly. C.I. got in on it and said, "What the hell are you talking about?" C.I. then pulled down various pieces of sheet music to show the real lyrics. After we read the lyrics and then listened, I could hear that was what was being said. So be warned about trusting the lyrics online at those lyric sites. (I could not find any Dusty site online that had lyrics. I would assume a site devoted to just Dusty Springfield would have the lyrics correct.)

TV: Felons, Frauds and Fluff -- Ava and C.I.'s amazing TV commentary. I was really worried about Tuesday's speech. It's always difficult to get them to hold off on something. I didn't even ask this time. When Wednesday's snapshot was done, I did make a point to leave a call me message for them and, when Ava returned it, asked her if C.I. was holding back for the piece to go up here? She said C.I. was worried about that but that she and C.I. honestly believed that speech would be over and forgotten by the week's end. And that is how it turned out. So much for the press management the new administration believes it is so great at. Ava and C.I. open with Oprah -- the liar who sold the illegal war and now visits some of the people wounded due to her lies and promotion. They then move on to huckster Al Sharpton. Covering a blip of TV time we don't believe anyone else caught. Then it's on to Barack. Non-stop Barack. This is a powerful commentary from them and I think they've touched every base possible and then some.

More faux change from Barack -- The new 'policy' is not a return to the original policy. Barack is instead offering a policy that is half of the policy Bully Boy Bush offered. That's not change. We could have gotten that with John McCain. And you'll note Barack's treated like a savior for taking an awful policy and making it only half-awful. It's embarrassing the way his faux change gets applauded.

Amazon.com: Bargains and sexism offered -- Music article. This almost got ditched. Kat insisted on it and Dona backed her up saying this is a hard hitting edition and we need something on entertainment to add to the mix. They were both correct. The Weepies album is a great one. My favorite tracks are "Can't Go Back Now" and "Lighting Candles." We were really hoping that Amazon would continue the sale until Tuesday so we could urge you to go download it at that bargain price (entire album for $1.99) but they didn't. We'd suggest that future sales last through Tuesday. Tuesday is when new music is released, makes sense for them to offer sales through Tuesday each week. (The Weepies' Hideaway is still a bargain at $8.99 to download the full album.) As always, C.I. and Betty lead on the Diana Ross section. (And C.I. knows and loves Diana and has known her for years. C.I. says put in that disclosure before someone shows up whining in the e-mails.) E-mail address is thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com, by the way.

Crazy Ray LaHood? Not so crazy after all. -- An update to an article last week. We got a ton of e-mails on this article. A lot of you enjoyed it. And some of you praised us for the flip that comes about mid-way (Derek called it "highly cinematic"). That flip wasn't planned. The article was supposed to continue in that vein. Jess didn't care for that. He asked why we were taking the word of Robert Gibbs and C.I. had already alluded to something that hadn't really registered. C.I. explained that LaHood had been seen with two members of the commission and, presumably, what LaHood was suggesting was echoing the upcoming report. C.I. tracked down three addtional people who could confirm those sightings and Jess and C.I. argued for a new section to be written. That's where the 'flip' begins. Were it not for that, we would have written the same let's-mock-Ray-LaHood article everyone else did.

The Katrina goes to Phyllis Bennis -- While Ava and C.I. worked on the TV commentary, the rest of us looked for a hard hitting topic to write about. Elaine brought up Phyllis Bennis' bad article. Ruth and Marcia grabbed on -- there were several suggestions of topics at this point -- to Elaine's suggestion and added to it that it could be a Katrina which we hadn't done in awhile. The fact that an illustration already existed for that made it an easier sale. This turned out very well, we think.

Liar-in-chief Barack -- I'd just finished reading Ava and C.I.'s commentary out loud to everyone when Wally and Cedric both insisted that either we do a humor post or a short post or something. They said this needed to be underscored and really emphasized. So we pulled the part revealing Barack is LYING today about the 16 months and how he didn't break a promise and paired that with Isaiah's comic (thank you to Isaiah for the use of his comic). To further emphasize their catch, I posted Ava and C.I.'s TV commentary at The Common Ills mirror site this morning.

TV Spotlight: Washington Week -- Ava and C.I. wrote a lengthy commentary. Before we saw it, they gutted several things. Including a longer excerpt from Washington Week. They put that over into this and also noted some tech issues regarding the program. This is their article, by the way.

The Condi II -- Iraqi refugees do not need to return to Iraq. It is not safe. Nor is it true -- a point we forget here but one C.I. covered in Friday's "Iraq snapshot" -- that the US is in any place to call on other nations to help with the 'burden' of Iraqi refugees. See C.I.'s snapshot for more on that.

The Bronze Booby goes to . . . David Martin -- Read it and be enraged. How dare he. First off, that's an editorial comment that should have never made it into what was supposed to be a reporter reporting. Second off, that comment is designed to enrage and that no one noticed that does not bode well for those involved.

Iraq roundtable -- Rebecca called a roundtable Friday night. Third was represented by Ava, C.I. and myself. I learned how Rebecca does it so smoothly. I'm not sure it would work for me here. First off, Rebecca (as she's pointed out) has been friends with Elaine and C.I. forever (they were roomates in college). So she can get them to participate and she can also do things that I can't (she can shorthand and do so knowing that her shorthand won't lead to a longer discussion because she knows where they stand on pretty much everything whereas a shorthand attempt on my part could lead to a long discussion). She also assigns ahead of the roundtable and during the roundtable. If she wants to -- she didn't this Friday -- she can also put Elaine and C.I. on the spot and they'll humor her. (Whereas Elaine would cuss me out. I'm laughing but that's true. Ask her, she'll tell you. And Elaine and I get along very well before e-mails in a panic start coming in.) The other big thing is that there's more of a jockeying here (which I may encourage). Rebecca's roundtables are more laid back. It's also Rebecca's personality which is better at squelching things and getting away with it. Check out the start of the roundtable where Ruth's comments lead to something Rebecca talks over and hands off to someone not even trying to talk. What was going on there? We were naming people who were disappointments. Rebecca cut that off and hollered "WAIT!" Everyone did and the roundtable went on pause. Ava and C.I. noted they had everything being said and that the topic could be raised but it needed to be raised after the speech was discussed. Which was Rebecca's point in ignoring all the attempts. (Elaine, who is sick this week so we really appreciated her helping out here, told me that Rebecca saw the looks on Ava and C.I.'s face during this and that's one reason she screamed "WAIT!" and overruled the attempts to introduce a new topic at that point.) And that parenthetical, C.I.'s pointing out, is another issue. Betty, Cedric and I participated by phone. Everyone else was face to face. Rebecca makes a special point to bring in people on the phone because they're not able to see each other and whose body language means they're about to speak. But she also is able to direct traffic in person and our roundtables here are generally more spread out. With more people participating by phone.

Highlights -- Mike, Elaine, Kat, Betty, Ruth, Rebecca, Marcia, Stan, Cedric and Wally wrote this and we thank them for it. Stan? Not on the highlights but in terms of editorial decision this edition I need to give a shout out to Stan. This is a hard hitting edition and not only are the bulk of the articles here that way, the ones that ended up on the cutting room floor were as well. We're trying to get all those who are not the core six (those of us signing this note) done and off to their own things as early as possible. Stan ended up sticking around (on the phone) and helped tremendously when we were selecting which pieces were making this edition and which weren't. There are two pieces that made the final cut just because of his strong advocacy for them. Thank you, Stan.


And that's it, we'll see you next week.

-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.