Sunday After the Wipe Out

Sunday After the Wipe Out

Well, just in case you thought that having the first female Speaker of the
House would change the look of the Sunday shows, stuff it. Only Maureen Dowd,
and I assume Maura Liasson, represent the ladies.

Oh, and there's not a single Democrat represented on \”Meet the Press,\” unless you consider Stay the Course Joe, who only changed his rhetoric on Iraq to mimic the American people after Lamont beat him in the primaries. He's no James Webb, that's for sure.

This Week: Senators Joe Biden and Carl Levin; and Josh Bolton.

Face the Nation: Majority Leader Harry Reid; John Bolton

CNN: Senator Charles Schumer and Josh Bolton

MTP: St. McCain launches I want to be president, part deux: Independent
Joe Lieberman; Maureen Dowd and David Gregory.

Fox: DNC chairman Howard Dean and Dan Bartlett.

Below is the reality you won't see represented or discussed on the shows this morning.

It is the year of the experienced woman, and they touched up their roots last week to be ready for their election day red-carpet moment. The experienced Democratic women did, that is. While Nancy Johnson in Connecticut and Sue Kelly in New York and Ann Northrup in Kentucky — all good, experienced women — were defeated in seats that will be hard for Republicans ever to win back, the Democrats not only elected more women, but the most prominent faces of their party are wearing blusher these days. Another dismaying development is that the gender gap in voting, which had been eroding, especially in the last two elections, is on the rise again. Exit polls showed that, in congressional races, women voted 55 percent to 43 percent for Democrats. (Republicans didn’t do so hot with men either this time. They voted 50 percent to 47 percent for Democratic candidates, which is amazing and sobering.) And though I don’t know for sure that more women than men consider themselves independent voters, I have a suspicion that this is the case. Republican congressional candidates really got slammed by the independents, who, according to exit polls, voted 60 percent to 38 percent for Democrats. … The Year of the (Democratic) Woman Democrats are running — and electing — more women candidates than Republicans are.

More women candidates, but still very few seen on Sunday. We aren't seen very often on cable during the week either. Chris Matthews does manage to get females on his half-hour NBC show most of the time. Not enough, but oh well, we won't
quit pushing until it changes. Get ready for a long, slow haul.

What are you reading this morning? There's the Iraq inquiries coming, for one. The LA Times sees fights brewing everywhere, without understanding that some of us want to get as far away from special interest groups as we can get. Fill me in on what else is happening, because I'm sleeping in.