This week's Sunday shows were best viewed with 20/20 hindsight.
Top topics: Dubai ports deal (dead) and the Southern Republican Leadership Conference straw poll (meaningless). This was leavened with some talk of Iraq and a single, lonely reference to Saturday's Gridiron show.
Quotes to live by:
• Chris Wallaces curses us out: "Do the Democrats have -- pardon the expression -- a Newt Gingrich?"
• Bill Kristol also has the first Arctic Monkeys seven-inch: "I liked McCain before it was cool for conservatives to like McCain."
• Everyone (except surprise mystery guest Joe Biden) avoids saying they're running for President, though Huckabee does announce for 2016.
• Hospice-bound Art Buchwald stays wry: "I believe in God, but I'm not too certain that the people who are telling me that 'it's God's will' are the people I want to be listening to."
Full rundown after the jump.
Fox News Sunday
Hunter, Pence interview, Chris Dodd interview
Rep. Duncan Hunter and Mike Pence. Hunter: President was let down by his advisers, "having all the information, he would have stopped this deal." Pence "wakes up every day thanking God" that President Bush is defending this country. Just not the ports. Pence blames the "process." "The Royal family of Dubai knows that though this particular deal was not possible," we appreciate their new role in our war on terror. Which is apparently to help get Democrats elected. Hunter going on about need for ports to be American-owned, points out that UAE has similar prohibitions: "You couldn't open a hamburger stand in Dubai!" So much for Mama Wallace's Infidel Burger Barn.
Much talk about how none of this is Bush's fault, "let down by a rubber stamp," in Hunter's words. Almost as bad as when he was broken up with by a stapler. Mike Pence totally grown in a vat with other white-haired Ken-doll Republicans like Bill Sammon.
Now, Chris Dodd quizzed about level of "demagoguery" and anti-Arab bashing in port deal criticism. "Not everyone choose words I would use;" he'd go with "towel head." Jake Weisberg's "Three Stooges" Slate piece being thrown at Dodd: "Doesn't he have a point?" Dodd: "For what you get these days, that's mild." Ouch. Wallace: "Do the Democrats have -- pardon the expression -- a Newt Gingrich?" Well, he is a four-letter word.
Panel time! Brit Hume's pocket square is on a different panel than he is. Or is it a flag for one of those countries I can
