Talk/Talk: Colin Powell, Bronx Guy

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Below are excerpts from this week's Talk Talk, Colin Powell, Bronx Guy. Every Sunday CUIP's president Jacqueline Salit and strategist and philosopher Fred Newman watch the political talk shows and discuss them. Here are excerpts from their dialogue on Sunday, October 19, 2008 after watching "The Chris Matthews Show", "Meet the Press", "The McLaughlin Group" and "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

Newman: I thought it was powerful. I like Powell. He's a Bronx guy.

Salit: Yes, he's a Bronx guy.

Newman: It was thoughtful, well considered and well presented. It will have some impact. There are a lot of liberal moderate Republicans who have felt very left out during these last eight years, who share Powell's sentiments. If they weren't already going to go with Obama, this will certainly influence them. I thought it was well put and thoughtful. And I thought that Brokaw's response to it was truly biased.

Salit: Indeed.

Newman: I don't think Brokaw followed even the limited rules that exist for television moderators. All of his questions were based on 'some people are not going to like this.' There was not a positive question on the list. I didn't think very much of that.

Read Talk Talk in its entirety here.

Dear Hankster Friends, Bloggers, Sloggers and Others:

Inspired by my blogging/slogging friend and colleague Robert Koulish at Koulflo Memo (one of the panelists on "Blogging the World" that I hosted last Sunday morning at the performance conference/festival Performing the World), I've decided to sit down and write you a letter. It's 5:45 on Friday evening and I have just gotten home from work.

I use my "15 minutes" in the morning (and I loved Koulflo's description of sitting down with a cup of coffee... ahhhh! I love that time of the day -- and you have probably seen any number of photos from that hour taken out my window~) to alert you to news articles from the night before that are of interest to my community organizer pals around the country.

You know it as "TODAY'S NEW HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS".... [Micah "Personal Democracy" Sifry called me a "professional independent voter" on Twitter in response to my posts during Tuesday's debate hosted by Tom Brokow, which I took personally as rather snarky, but that's ok... at least he's listening....] [and BYAM (between you and me), Tom Brokow was my college (VCU) graduation speaker.... I graduated in Jan. bec. I quit in 1970 before i realized that i didn't have anything else to do ..... and went back and got a BFA and then spent the next 38 years creating a mainstream location for political radicals.]


So I'll try to incorporate what I'm "thinking" about in my daily posts... For instance, given that the old left/right paradigm is dead, where can you find a post-partisan dialogue? Are we really stuck with like-minded partisans in separatist coffee dens and sports bars? Can we have a strenuous debate among regular people who actually do disagree on everything without killing each other?

I did something new and interesting this week: I logged on to BlogTalkRadio with Jazz Shaw and others. Very enjoyable experience! Michael Sticking was a guest, along with Lady Logician... Tune in!

So all that to say, our time is up. Enjoy the sunset. See you next week! - NH

New Hampshire Primary: The Independents

Don't miss New Hampshire independents on NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw at the top of The Hankster. Independents Betty Ward, Kevin Drew, and Bart Hunter talk about how they as independents will be making their decisions about voting in the upcoming primary in New Hampshire where 44% of the voters are independent and can vote in the primary of their choice.