Countdown Monday: Wright Hook
Posted: Monday, April 28, 2008 8:59 PM by Countdown
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Blogging the Countdown
Wright Hook:
The idealized version of that event we all learned about in a social studies class, redolent of chalk dust, was about the issues, was about the character of the aspirants, was about the struggle to divine who would best serve the nation. It was not about the candidates' girlfriends, their marrying-into-money, the things they had said 30 years before, nor their spiritual guides. And the last one of those perfect American presidential elections was... in 1792. When George Washington ran unopposed and only six of the states even had popular votes. Our fifth story on the Countdown: the Reverend Jeremiah Wright is back, not by the hand of Clinton nor the hand of McCain, but by the hand of... Jeremiah Wright. And tonight, Senator Obama has a fateful and, perhaps, decisive decision, to make about him.
Target: Tar Heel State:
As we mentioned, the first anniversary of the first Democratic Presidential Debate... Was this past Saturday. Meaning as a television series, they have lasted longer -- by eight days -- than did Jackie Gleason's "The Honeymooners". Our fourth story on the Countdown: with the North Carolina and Indiana primaries now eight days off, as the polls open and close like a camera shutter... A proposal from Senator Clinton for a 22nd debate, no moderator, just the candidates head-to-head for 90 minutes. She says "just like they did it in the Lincoln-Douglas debate" even though that's not how they did it... And even though it feels like the first 2008 Democratic debate occurred well before the first Lincoln-Douglas debate.ODDBALL: Rocket War is renewed and a guy that paints with his tongue.
McChange of Heart:
Presidential candidate John McCain has now not once, but twice, crossed ethical guidelines laid down for presidential candidates by... John McCain. In our third story tonight, he's such a maverick, he not only doesn't play by other people's rules...He doesn't even play by his own rules.
Worsties...see below.
WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD:
Lame Duck Leftovers: The correspondents at the annual White House Correspondents' dinner like to think, as the old bromide goes, that Washington is Hollywood for ugly people. Well, they're never uglier than at the Correspondents' dinner... And the parallel is less Hollywood or the Oscars, than today's regular Monday weekly luncheon at the Hawkeye Restaurant of the Kiwanis Club of Keokuk, Iowa. In our number one story on the Countdown: actually I should just apologize right now to the Kiwanis Club of Keokuk, Iowa. And the Hawkeye Restaurant.
