eight investigations of representatives. all eight just happened to be african-american. and the head of the independent body that refers the cases to the house ethics committee is porter goss. the bush cia director who approved the destruction of the torture videotapes. gene robinson joins us. day 106. the figure on the possible fines, $17,600,000,000. and a question about this. is this a rerun? tea time. the liberty leaders fife and drum duo split up because the fife player doesn t think the drummer is conservative enough. the drummer got pete bested. and sharron s new obtuse angle. we needed to have the press be our friend. hold on, wait a second. to be your friend? we wanted them to ask the questions we want answered so they report the news the way we wanted it to be reported. the candidate believes in a free press, made up of stenographers. all the news and commentary now on countdown . will they let me say that? good evening from new york. the senate
so lola, how did whoopi and joy and barbara walters and the rest do with the president? you know, it s easy to write the view off as this frivolous show that a bunch of women just sitting around chatting, but these women really took him to tass sxk they asked him some tough questions. they asked about bp. they asked about shirley sherrod. they asked about why he doesn t identify as biracial and why he only identifies as african-american and they let me stop you there. that was barbara walters question that elicited a very interesting answer. and it s the kind of question you wouldn t have heard on meet the press. exactly. i agree with you. and i think you had an interesting mix. you had everything from mel gibson to president obama talking about the stimulus package. and i do think the view provides that type of forum where the conversation has breadth and it s allowed to range. i ve got one minute left. i want to go ahead, aaron. you nailed it, howie. this is why
and it really hasn t changed since then. and now it s having its lunch eaten by other shows like the view, which are ostensibly for entertainment but are doing a better job but have their serious side. i ve got half a minute. lola, you may have noticed that chelsea clinton got married yesterday. really? there s been an avalanche of coverage. she just wanted to have a private wedding. why have the immediate qula gone so crazy over this? because it s chelsea clinton. it s glamorous, it s beautiful. enk wants to know about the dress. she s a beloved girl. we ve watched her grow up. so people feel really invested in her. and she s a good girl. she s a strong girl. and she s managed to turn out just fine. and i think people are just really also into the idea of there s this lovely beautiful family and people enjoyed the wedding. for the record and people love a wedding, howie. but front page of the new york times, not for the first time. but when jenna bush got married
in but culturally it s light years away. if you live here you lose power when it rains, as i did for five days this week. let me turn to president obama going on the view. that was an interesting decision by the white house. let s play some of, that beginning with a question from joy behar. ahmed, what is your assessment of how wikileaks okay. we ll come back with that clip. obviously, that was christiane amanpour and her pakistani guest. but let me ask you, aaron barnhart. there was this, i don t know, controversy about why should a president of the united states go on daytime television? i don t understand why it would be seen as undignified in an era when presidents go on leno and letterman and the daily show if you re a candidate. you almost wonder if it s a little bit of a double standard by gender because after all, the late-night talk show hosts are men. you know, we re in this funny setting where news and entertainment just constantly shake hands with each other
published material that drew denunciation of the white house. plus an anchor known mainly for her overseas exploits joins the sunday morning line-up. our report on christiane amanpour making her debut at abc s this week. i m howard kurtz, and this is reliable sources. it s not that the criticism is not legitimate. the media did perform badly by and large in the sacking of shirley sherrod. liberal journalists did say some awful things about conservatives on that off the record discussion group. conservative commentators did accuse the mainstream media of schilling for obama, by not getting exercised about that new black panther controversy. there are serious questions about what rolling stone s michael hastings did with general mcchrystal. but never in my professional lifetime has the media bashing been so deafening, so personal, and so much of it carried out by some pundits against other pundits. here s just a brief sample. for weeks fox news and its friends have be