"Tribal justice"

Back when Pat Buchanan was using his endowed chair on MSNBC to attack the Bush administration on Iraq, it was tempting to forget that he's super-duper racist.

Paul Begala can't take it no mo'

I've never been that big a fan, but he did real good work here. I don't know if the outrage was really sincere or not, but it was convincing, and I appreciated it.

He really made John King look like an asshole, too. He had already started in on the "false debate" line when King had only gotten out "We've got 56 days..." out of his mouth. It's as if he knew that King was going to leave the question open.

Rachel Maddow finally gets a show

Excellent. I'm sure this will be heartbreaking for everyone who got really attached to The Verdict with Dan Abrams, but it's for the best.

Michelle Bernard: Better labeling, please

Of the non-celebrity talking heads who regularly appear on MSNBC, few get as much airtime as Michelle Bernard of the "Independent Women's Forum."

Bernard is very good at cable news, but (or so) I would say comes out with more than her share of really stupid stuff. And not necessarily random stupidity, either. At times she sounds more than a little Republican-leaning, which would fit the pattern of gross over-representation of black Republicans (in general but especially relative to black Democrats) on cable news.

Anyway it, which is to say she has been kinda bothering me but making up for it at other times for quite a while now. Tonight on the subject of imposing a windfall profits tax on ExxonMobil, which I am also against, she dropped such horrible supply-side crankery that I figured this woman must be a regular at Grover Norquist's Wednesday meetings.

So I fire up the Google, and what do you know:

Before joining IWF, Bernard had a short stint with the 2000 Bush-Cheney Presidential Inaugural Committee, Inc. Prior to that time, she was a partner at the District of Columbia's Patton Boggs LLP.

Which brings me to the real problem here: It's bad enough to let anybody spout off on TV identified only by the Independent Women's Forum. Nobody knows what that is. I get uneasy when people from the National Review or the Nation do their thing, and those organizations' leanings are widely (if not universally) known. All we can infer about her is that she's an independent woman. And we all know independents are the truth tellers.

But she really doesn't sound all that independent, and the reason for that is she worked for Bush-Cheney '00 and at one of the most high profile and most Republican law firms in D.C.

"It's like they take pride in being ignorant."

Oh, yes. More like this, Barack.

In unrelated news, Rachel Maddow just did an excellent job putting the "McCain has 9 houses and $520 shoes" meme on cable TV, and almost making Jay Carney's head explode in the process.

Brian Williams to host MTP on Sunday

The LA Times is reporting that NBC anchor Brian Williams will host Meet the Press this Sunday. The president of NBC News says that they are still mulling their options for a permanent successor, and Williams isn't necessarily it.

I really hope it's not. I'm having a hard time putting my finger one really good justification for my dislike of Brian Williams, but the individually insufficient reasons include pomposity, scraping deference to Republicans, overeagerness to ingratiate himself to the audience personally, and make-your-teeth hurt corniness.

Of the frequently talked-about candidates, I have to say Matthews would be my preference. His tendency to say surprisingly sexist and/or racist things is a drawback, to be sure. Still, he's the only other "tough interviewer" in the bunch. Well there's David Gregory, but all the stuff I don't like about Williams applies to him, too, just with slightly less Republican-love and more(!) pomposity. Sometimes I think Joe Scarborough has finally seen the light, but it burns and these days he's too angry to be on camera for very long.

Anyway regardless of the merits Matthews would seem to be the heir apparent and he already does The Chris Matthews show in the slot before MTP. They wouldn't even have to play musical chairs with any other shows.

However it shakes out I hope they give Rachel Maddow a damn show.