V-necks are in! Even if they give you a back hump. That's what Gwen Ifill immediately telegraphed -- that and that the economy still hasn't recovered. Remember, you can have what she wore by stopping off at any flea market or driving near the border we in California share with Mexico. We saw the embroidering at the top but wished Gwen had stood up and done a twirl so we could tell if she matched it with a pink ribbon around the waist?
Remember, Gwen, the key Spanish phrase you will need is, "Tu vestido y cuanto cuesta?"
The gold, azure and pink embroidering made us wish that she had brought along a large sombrero and slapped it on top of Dan or Doyle. Dan Balz (Washington Post) and Doyle McManus (Los Angeles Times) were panelists as were AP's Charles Babington and National Journal's Fawn Johnson.
Remember that the terrorists we are after target civilians, and the death toll from their acts of terrorism against Muslims dwarfs any estimate of civilian casualties from drone strikes. So doing nothing is not an option. So doing nothing's not an option.
Right at the top of the show, Gwen plays that remark by US President Barack Obama, before she even pitches to the gang. And you're left thinking, "Okay, this may be good. They may actually get to something."
Because that's statement's insane.
Their death toll is higher than our death toll so we're not doing anything wrong?
That is the 'logic' Barack was handing down in his big speech last Thursday.
Doyle grabbed the topic of the speech and ran with it.
Which seemed like a good thing.
Until he started speaking.
Doyle McManus: Gwen, it did change a couple of things which is unusual because we often cynically look at a speech and say well this is only words and it's not going to change a thing. In this case, there are some concrete -- Let me start with the concrete ones. First, President Obama changed the rules for the targeted killings, for The Drone War. Until now, it was a pretty broad rule: A suspected terrorist who was a threat to American interests. Now it's a tighter rule. It's a continuing and imminent threat to Americans. So that doesn't cover somebody who might, for example, be a threat to the government of Yemen which had been the case before. The President said that there has to be a near certainty that there won't be civilian casualties. That's a tighter rule than we've had before.
He changed the rules, Doyle insisted. See, Doyle told us, before you had to be "a suspected terrorist who was a threat to American interests" and now you had to be "a continuing and imminent threat to Americans." No, we're not seeing a "concrete" and "tighter rule" either.
We're also not seeing the reality that four Americans were killed by drones in Barack's Drone War. Doyle avoided that topic completely. He also avoided the issue of civilians killed, children killed, he avoided pretty much everything leading us to wonder just how hard he hit the sangria before the program started?
Gwen, clearly had a glass or two as was evident by her struggle to speak, "I was -- I was -- I was mostly curious about the timing of it. Why we're having -- telling this speech? Is it a nagging problem? Is this a problem that we don't know about, that the world is looking at us?"
We would have remained shocked by Gwen's stupidity were it not for the fact that Doyle managed to top her, referring to "cumulative loose ends" -- whatever that was supposed to mean -- and insisting "but a lot of it comes from the fact that President Obama started out as civil libertarian --"
No, a lot of it comes from legal and a lot of it comes from protests.
On legal, most Americans don't know it but it's not just that The Drone War is pissing people in Yemen and Pakistan off, it's also that, this month The Drone War was ruled illegal. Alice K. Ross (Bureau of Investigative Journalism) reported earlier this month, that a Pakistan Peshawar High Court had ruled that these Drone Strikes were "criminal offences," a "war crime," a "blatant violation of basic human rights" and that the judge called for the United Nations Security Council to step in.
So right there you have a problem. If a Pakistan court is ruling The Drone War illegal, you have a problem.
Doyle went on to make an effort to try to mind read Barack. He was willing to go that far, he just wasn't willing to note the growing and mounting protests in this country against The Drone War.
If you ask us, Joan Wile's protest last month did more than anything to kick start a movement. Other protests followed. And the tone and tenor of the discussion in this country changed. It became more and more obvious that Americans were not going to continue to be silent.
But this growing movement got ignored by Doyle as he tossed aside facts to instead do his bar trick of mind-reading-the-president. Next time, he should stick to coin tricks.
Then it was Dan Balz's turn to join Gwen in an apparently drunken stupor, as he wanted to know of Guantanamo, "What has prompted him to come back to this?"
Step away from the punch bowl, Gwen, you've clearly added more than enough wine and brandy to the sangria.
Doyle offered, "It is partly that it has stuck in his craw but of course there's that hunger strike at Guantanamo --"
Oh, yeah, of course there is that.
Of course, noting that it had lasted over 100 days or why it was taking place or any details would have apparently spoiled the party buzz.
He remarked on "how successful" the hunger strike has been -- but without details or context, was anybody really supposed to have followed that?
At eight minutes in, we noted that not one of the five had touched the water glasses. Clearly, they had hit the sangria hard.
Which is how the existing revelations of the Justice Department targeting the Associated Press by secretly seizing two months of phone records from 2012 and last week's revelation of the Justice Department targeting Fox News reporter James Rosen and labeling him, in court documents, a criminal co-conspirator, got brushed aside in one of the worst summaries we've ever heard.
When it was floated that now an investigation would get to the bottom of the issue, Gwen cracked, "Except that he [Barack] also empowered his attorney general to investigate himself which is not always -- is not always going to work very well."
No, it doesn't usually work out well.
We were surprised by how Charlie Babington didn't rush to grab this story -- he is with the Associated Press. If you think he was disappointing on the show, check out the Webcast Extra and grasp how uninformed he is on the topic. AP lets him go on a program right now, during this scandal, without briefing him on the topic?
As we shook our heads, we just hoped he'd done tequila shooters before the broadcast. Someone deserved to have fun.
Clearly, Gwen agreed with us as she introduced another (superficial) topic, "The official in charge of the mess took the Fifth and then was placed on administrative leave --" The mess? Like the name of the official, it was never explained or provided.
Dan Balz would bring up Lois name a few minutes later. But no one knew, even when he brought her up, who she was.
Is she the one "in charge of the mess"? We don't know.
We know she is the one who took the Fifth Amendment. We know her job placed her over the tax exemptions. We know that the IRS targeted groups and that Lerner knew of it as early as May 2010. We know that Acting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller (he was finally relieved at the middle of last week -- or that's what we're being told now, two weeks ago, we were led to believe he was already gone) knew about the targeting. We know that he lied to Congress. We know that so did IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman (IRS Commissioner until the start of last November). In 2012, Shulman testified that it was "absolutely not true" that the IRS was targeting political groups. But this was a lie.
It was established as a lie last week in the House Oversight and Government Reform hearing Wednesday. We covered it in "Iraq snapshot" and "Sir, I gave you the wrong information (Ava)" while Wally reported on it "Time for a special prosecutor (Wally)" and Kat in "It was like Steel Magnolias at one point during the hearing." Shulman attempted to lie repeatedly. US House Rep. Stephen Lynch was among the Committee members refusing to allow him to get away with lying.
Shulman and Miller both outrank Lois Lerner in chain of command. So is she the one "in charge of the mess"? Gwen knows. But a lot of people think they know something when they're in their cups.
We were amazed at how many words were used on this topic and others when contrasted with how little was actually said. We also wondered how anyone who taken a week off from the news could have followed the discussion since names were rarely used -- unless it was to tell a joke ("When's the last time anyone cheered [Senator] Patrick Leahy?") -- and details were assumed and never delivered.
Twenty minutes in, with less than three minutes before the discussion ended, Charles Babington suddenly rushed to throw out a burst of words as though he were trying to distract everyone to avoid picking up the check. Meanwhile Fawn Johnson was treated not like a panelist seated at the table but like a server who'd forgotten to bring Gwen's extra order of guacamole on the side.
With only one female guest on the show, you might have thought Johnson would get to speak. She really didn't. And we were left to wonder, if that's how Gwen treats the wait staff, how miserly is she when it comes to tipping?
For really big laughs, watch the Webcast Extra for when Fawn Johnson advances a thought and Gwen immediately dismisses her in a tone of you-really-shouldn't-be-speaking.
Leahy got cheered, right?
For what?
For immigration reform. But what the Senate actually voted on and what it would do? These really weren't concerns to the panel. They were so disinterested we kept expecting a long shot to reveal that they were actually texting in the midst of the so-called discussion.
As it finally and thankfully ended, you pictured them all sliding out of their chairs onto the floor for a long, drunken siesta and you hopefully grasped that you learned nothing in that wasted half-hour. Gwen has finally reached the very tip of superficially and PBS allows her to remain balanced precariously there. Maybe some day, they'll round table over that.