News on PBS and other follies

Quick Summary of the Friday Evening Follies on PBS:

Ramesh Ponnuru proves utterly stagestruck when asked by Margaret Warner about Sen. Allen's alleged ethnic slur about a UVa Indian student being called "macaca." Ponnuru makes David Brooks look positively testoserone-crazed in his deferential responses to Mark Shields' attacks on Republican Allen. When Ponnuru kind of allowed that Democrats like Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton [Gandhi owning a gas station?] might have made their own ethnic jibes at Indian-Americans, Shields buffaloed him into a contrite ball of simpering surrender.

On the always tendentious [toward the ultra left] Washington Week, the panel was unanimously female---except for Martha Raddatz of ABC who evidently felt she should be moderator, waving her arms a la Puffington Host females and painting specious Detroit Judge as a brave constitutionalist for her silly posturing against Bush's NSA policies. After Raddatz stopped hyperventilating, the rest of the panel sagely decided that a District Judge's ruling had little or no effect, except for Raddatz's windmill arm moves reminiscent of a crazed referee.

Andrea Mitchell flubbed some facts on the Middle East, but got the major points right. Surprise good job from a newcomer named Linda Robinson from US News & World Report, who had an interesting take on how the Iraqi govt is trying to rein in Moqtader Sadr's imitation of Hezbollah---state within a state militia antics. Her thoughts that Sistani would play a pivotal role not new, but well expressed.

Cummings from WSJ had her customary calming effect, a control rod in the nuclear brew lefties like Ifill, Raddatz, and even Mitchell tonight affect for the cameras.

Finally, McLaughlin Group concurred that some sort of profiling will have to be done in order to make travel in the USA a less torturous experience.