Washington, DC — I just don’t get or support the harsh conservative media criticism that followed Ted Koppel’s last show devoted solely to reading the names and showing the pictures of the American soldiers who died in the Iraq war.

Tonite’s show — the same format, entitled "The Fallen" — was very powerful. 

Any objective viewer of the American faces that passed across the screen saw a broad cross section of white, black, hispanic, asian warriors; every possible ethnic background. Many were female. Most seemed to be 21 years old or younger. Some were as old as 48, perhaps older.

Ted Koppel made the point in his wrap-up that most of us, unless we know someone in the Iraq theater, don’t think much about the horrendous news stories from Iraq. We should.

On Memorial Day, 2005, we honor our soldiers’ service and our families’ sacrifice. Thank you.

Washington, DC — When Charlie Cook talks, people listen. Cook — the Robert Parker of political and campaign analysts — said on Hardball tonite that Frist "made a lot of mistakes" in his dealings with Harry Reid on the filibuster showdown, and said the net result has been that "respect has gone down enormously" for Frist among his GOP Senate colleagues.

The Bolton fiasco today has put Frist behind the 2008 eight ball today, but leave it to Pat Buchanan to tell it like it is. After bashing Frist yesterday for filibuster fumbling, Buchanan observed tonite, correctly, that Reid and the Democrats "over-reached" on the Bolton gambit and have set themselves up for a big Frist comeback. Pat’s right. Frist will — he must, now — come back with the nuclear option and just push the button. Unless he does, he can kiss 2008 goodbye, and it’s now a virtual certainty Frist will go to the mattresses.   

Frist was on the mat enduring severe pain from a Reid half-Nelson, and Frist will turn it  around next week after Memorial Day weekend. Charlie Cook is right, though. Frist is on shaky ground with the presidential nominating wing of the GOP, and if he can’t produce now, he’s toast. The next several weeks represent the biggest political challenge of Frist’s relatively short career. Betting this evening is on Frist to reload this weekend and kick some Harry Reid ass next week. It’s time, and he has the power and opening to do so.

Reid, who recently called George W. Bush "a loser," will soon be wearing that hat himself.

New York, NY — With increasing frequency, due to the rapidly fragmenting media marketplace and incessant cable news coverage, politicians and personalities get a hot hand that they play out on the public stage before their two minutes of fame is over. Fifteen minutes of fame, much less five, is just not in the cards.

Until the next cyclical up-tick of attention, they hope, those covetous of media attention are either never heard from again, enjoy just sporadic attention, or, maintain through sheer public relations expertise and persistence a recurring high profile, year after year.

In New York the past year, those enjoying the hottest hand at the epicenter of the Zeitgeist have been Martha Stewart from the world of business, and the Clintons, collectively, from the world of politics. While Martha accomplished a somewhat lengthy, concentrated press hit surrounding her prison ordeal, the big return to Bedford, N.Y., and the launch of her newest enterprise, the Clintons have accrued a slow, steady stream of attention and news coverage month after month.

But unquestionably, the hottest personality and brand on Broadway is Donald Trump – by far. The brilliance of The Apprentice is not just the show, and its encapsulation of what it takes to achieve “success” in the American business world, but the fact that Trump, through the series, has humanized himself in a way no advertising effort could possibly hope to accomplish. Donald Trump has transformed himself into a somewhat likable personality. Go figure.

Admittedly, the only shows I ever watch on TV are sports, local news and cable news programming – it’s been that way for over two decades and it’s not about to change. “Boring,” I’m told. I plead guilty to narrow-mindedness in my viewing selection — but I do watch and enjoy The Apprentice, primarily to watch Trump fire people with what he calls “those two beautiful words.”

The fact the Trump brand is on fire in New York, and throughout the nation, has manifested itself in a variety of ways: Trump has garnered enormous media attention the past month with his unfair but newsworthy attacks on George Pataki and the Freedom Tower – even earning live coverage of his news conference from CNN and the rest of the cable news pack; Trump’s gig as a Dominos pitch man has been a marketing success; We will now have an online Trump University – which was also just covered live by CNN this week upon its announcement; and in a display of clever horizontal marketing by NBC, Trump recently completed an interesting multi-part interview on MSNBC’s The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch – arguably the best, most creative show on cable programming – to coincide with the season’s final episode of the The Apprentice.

Trump made an interesting observation during the Donny Deutsch interview, which is reflective of his understanding of the broadcast medium, and human nature, for that matter. He pointed out that those who are successful and effective on TV, whether politician or entertainer, are those individuals who come across on camera exactly the way they come across in person. Simple, but so true.

Martha, the Clintons and all the other media savvy operators in New York will still get their share of coverage, but Trump has been hot at one time or another in the 80s, the 90s and now. This cannot be said for anyone else.

Washington, DC — While the reporting about GOP activist Grover Norquist’s historical linkage to Jack Abramoff in today’s New York Times story by Kate Zernike and Anne Kornblut is accurate, it would be a shame to see Norquist’s integrity and excellent personal reputation sullied by furthur association in the media with this particular lobbyist.

Despite the fact he could have cashed in to make millions years ago, Norquist, who has maintained a modest lifestyle for over two decades, has always placed his beliefs and professional activism above cold hard cash.

And now to see him splashed over the pages on the NYT in a manner that creates in the mind of readers a suspicious linkage to a sketchy operator like Jack Abramoff is unfortunate.

Grover is surely passionate and hardcore about his beliefs, but he’s not unethical nor a stereotypical greedy DC scammer. Washington would be better off to have more Grover Norquists — people who stay in Washington for the cause, not just for the money.

Washington, DC — While many of us oppose almost every aspect of U.S. Rep. Barney Frank’s legislative agenda, one must admire his integrity, intelligence and wit. Always a favorite to watch in the chamber, his brilliant mid-1980s rhetorical duels with then-rising House member Newt Gingrich were as fascinating as they were entertaining.

And despite Frank’s well publicized brush with ethics issues in the late 80′s, he was up front about it, despite the uproar created by his liaison with Steve Gobie.

Barney Frank deserves praise for blasting his party chairman, Howard Dean, for
smearing Tom DeLay with the worst type of character assasination. Dean said yesterday that Tom DeLay, ”ought to go back to Houston where he can serve his jail sentence,” referring to allegations of unethical conduct against the Republican leader.

Dean’s remark, in a speech to Massachusetts Democrats at their party convention, drew an immediate rebuke from Frank, one of DeLay’s harshest critics.

”That’s just wrong,” Frank said in an interview on the convention floor. ”I think Howard Dean was out of line talking about DeLay. The man has not been indicted. I don’t like him, I disagree with some of what he does, but I don’t think you, in a political speech, talk about a man as a criminal or his jail sentence.”

Howard Dean is more than just a loudmouth — he’s a loudmouth with horrendous political judgment.

Washington, DC — I really liked Dennis Miller on Monday Night Football, and I liked his show on CNBC, until he started dissing people for their weight, their appearance, their nationality and other inexplicable moronic putdowns. The more Miller let his personality come through, the less likeable he became.

For a while, it was a hip new show to showcase Republicans, and the show hit paydirt by booking Dick Cheney and other Administration stalwarts. The show seemed to peak towards the end of the 4th quarter of 2005, and then… dullsville. Perhaps it was the vacuous guests on the "Varsity" panel with manufactured pop political credentials. I kept watching, but only because of no other remotely decent cable programming options in that time slot.

The one who deserves his own show is Mike Murphy, Dennis Miller’s production consultant, and an intriguing, likeable personality himself. Besides being one of the best GOP operatives in the country — perhaps the best when you consider his total skill set package — he was the one who helped give the show a little edge, and a little coolness. Murphy, a former Georgetowner, moved to L.A., and has ’08 presidential aspirants beating down his door.

Now its just Donny Deutsch on CNBC for my cable programming enjoyment — and that’s just great. His show is getting stronger week by week.

Washington DC — Sitting amongst four tv monitors as I work, the blur of talking heads discussing Michael Jackson, Paula Abdul, Donald Trump and all the other irrelevancies and trivialities now considered "news" whisks by.

But every so often, a new talking head with an air of substance and gravitas — CDC’s Julie Gerberding for instance — emerges on the scene.

Richard Falkenrath, CNN’s security analyst, is one of those people.

A Bush Administration veteran, Falkenrath not only has access to excellent white house sources to provide guidance on his commentary and analysis, he’s substantive and authoritative without being a stiff.

Time for him to call his agent and get more dough and a longer contract from CNN.

Washington, DC — As someone who has known for some time that conservative pundit Tucker Carlson has been a longtime fan of Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, it was great to see his interview with Dead bassist Phil Lesh on his recent PBS show.

It was also interesting to find out that Tucker saw over 50 shows — just shy of Ann Coulter’s tally of about 70 shows, she said, while at the University of Michigan back in the 80′s.

As a proud Republican Grateful Dead enthusiast with 187 shows under my belt from 1977-1995, herewith in celebration of the band’s status as classic Americana, a transcript of the Tucker Carlson-Phil Lesh interview courtesy of the Tucker Carlson Unfiltered website:

Carlson: For four decades Phil Lesh has been playing music with Bob Weir and Bill Kreutzmann. For thirty of those years they were joined by Jerry Garcia in the Grateful Dead. It was one of the most innovative acts in American music. Evolving from Bay area acid rock to bluegrass and almost everything in between. As its bassist, Lesh may have been the band’s most musically adventurous member. I saw Phil Lesh play with the Dead more than 50 times, and when he came to Washington to talk about his memoir, Searching for the Sound, I interviewed him, unapologetically, as a fan.

For our viewers who aren’t as familiar with the Grateful Dead, one of the things that comes out in your really nicely written excellent book —

Lesh: Thank you.

Carlson: Is how much you all toured.

Lesh: Yes.

Carlson: Give me an overview sense of the last 40 years.

Lesh: Well, we started out playing for dancers in the ballrooms of San Francisco in the  late 1960′s. And that’s really what we’ve always thought of ourselves as, as a — essentially a dance band, a lot like the swing bands of the 1930′s and 1940′s. We always wanted to — we just wanted to play for more people. Because the way we thought of our music was as kind of a communion ritual, sort of we commune with each other and form what we thought of as a group mind. And that brings the music out and then we can transmit that to the audience and they send us energy back. And so that was the main reason we played music was to get that communion going and that sense of community.

Carlson: How would you describe Grateful Dead music? It seems to go all the way from acid rock to almost country. What is it?

Lesh: Well, it’s something that has — it’s a kind of music that has a wide range of influences in it. And so from the beginning, we wanted to try and blend and fuse, really, all of those influences. And so we consciously tried to look at the music as being texturally greater than the sum of the parts.

Hoest You’re early music was influenced by L.S.D. You have this amazing description of being at a show and somebody puts a bunch of acid in your orange juice and you get on stage. And you’re not sure what this device is in your hands.
It’s a bass, as it turns out, which you played.

Lesh: Yes.

Carlson: Did L.S.D. make the music better?

Lesh: It didn’t do that much to the music — it didn’t make anybody play better or worse. What it did was, fuse our minds together in a kind of telepathic manner that allowed us to — see the best part about making our kind of music is when the music is pretty much playing us and there’s no one there at all moving the fingers. That is to say we all subassume our identity in a sense in a greater whole. We call that — the group mind. That’s the tool that we use to open the valve to that pipeline which funnels that greater music down through us. Stravinski once said I am the vessel through which the music passes. In the case of the Grateful Dead, that’s also the case.

Carlson: The Grateful Dead, at least from the outside it appeared to be a libertarian spirit, a reluctance to tell other people what to do. It struck me as a kind of nonpolitical band at least from the outside. Other bands always lecturing you from the stage. No one from the Grateful Dead, the shows I went to, anyway, was lecturing you who to vote for. You’ve got this amazing line in the book, I want to read it to you, a show you played in 1966 in the panhandle of San Francisco, you said there was a Buddhist chant led by Alan Ginsburg. After that, poets read, bands played. We even had some leftist politicos ranting the only bring-down of the day.

Lesh: I’m referring to the human being there.

Carlson: Yeah. When all these bands became political, all the bands in your world, why did you all choose not to?

Lesh: Because we felt that what we were doing was more — I hate to use that word because it’s almost a cliche — religious. What we were doing was religious in the sense of the word, which means to bind together. We were trying to create a community of spirit with the music and the political harang and — again, it was just like a cop trying to tell people what to do, legislate morality or legislate private behavior. It was just anathema to us.

Carlson: But you have these wide-eyed fans who love you. Isn’t it tempting to send a message?

Lesh: The metaphor of the band cooperating and collaborating and being one organism, that’s the message.

Carlson: If it’s a religious movement, you have all these religous followers, what did you think of the Dead Heads?

Lesh: God bless their little pea-picking hearts, as my mother used to say. I’m going around now and doing book signings. In the past I’ve done blood drives. It is just the most wonderful experience to meet these Dead Heads face to face, just like you and I right here and shake a hand and get a smile and all everybody wants to do is say thank you. Thank you for changing my life.

Carlson: So you never thought that there were people taking it too seriously, devoting their lives to going on tour, for instance?

Lesh: Well, there was — yeah, people were doing that and I saw that, and I think we all did as the last great American adventure. You can’t hitchhike or run away with the circus or ride the rails anymore. Going on tour with the band, any band, really, is an adventure. There’s a little uncertainty, a little danger. Generally it’s a safe environment and you can extend yourself. You can explore other realities and still come back and tell the tale the next day.

Carlson: I was amazed to read that for all the touring you guys did, 30 years, almost full time, a lot of the time it seems like.

Lesh: Yes.

Carlson: You weren’t making a huge amount of money. Why?

Lesh: We started out — it’s strange. Up to a certain point before we had our big record in 1987, we weren’t really making that much money. We were supporting ourselves and we put everything into the general kitty. And the band and everyone else drew salaries. And pretty much, you know, cost of living salaries. They’d go up from time to time. And the idea was to put everything back into equipment and, you know, to increase — to enhance, rather, the experience and the technology of presenting the music.

Carlson: Why couldn’t you ever capture your sound in the studio?

Lesh: We — you know, I don’t think any of us ever believed it could be done. Because there’s just so much — there was just so much range to it. Not necessarily only dynamic range or — but there’s just so much emotional range to it and we just — we found ourselves in the studio always trying to tone it down, which really isn’t what we do. We’re not about turning it down. We’re about opening it up.

Carlson: I was impressed and amazed that you let people tape your shows with high-tech equipment. You’re best known for live touring. Your albums don’t sell as well as your concerts. You’re giving away the product. How does that work, and why was that a good business decision?

Lesh: It was a good business decision because we didn’t think of it as a business decision. It was that libertarian spirit, I think, that prompted it. It just started happening rather spontaneously. We started noticing microphone stands in the audience. We thought, OK, they’re taping the shows. It was first cassettes and digital audience tape and mini disk, and now it’s hard drive, I guess. But management came to us and said, well, we can’t let them do that and Jerry just stood right up and said, listen, after we’ve played it, we’re done with it. They can have it. Let them do whatever they want with it. We did ask them not to sell it, you know, just trade it. Give it away. That’s what happened. People would copy their tapes and give the copy to a friend or to a sibling or to a parent, even. And it was the smartest thing we ever did. It just —

Carlson: Really? Because I never —

Lesh: It disseminated the music.

Carlson: Yeah, but I never bought your albums when I was little. I just got tapes for free.

Lesh: We didn’t care. We only made the albums because it was maybe what we were supposed to do. You know, you make records. It brought in a little money, you know. It was interesting to play in the studio and see what could be done with it. But that wasn’t why — that wasn’t why we were playing music, to make records.

Carlson: You have this description in the book of Jerry Garcia in his later years staying home and building model trains and teaching his cat to fetch.

Lesh: I saw it with my own eyes.

Carlson: Were you surprised when he died? When Jerry Garcia died?

Lesh: I wasn’t surprised. I was shocked and saddened and, in fact, devastated, but I wasn’t surprised. Really, we’d all been waiting for this a long time. He’d been really sick in 1986, again in 1992. And he couldn’t seem to shake the habit. But to his eternal credit, he was really trying to turn it around when he died. He’d gone to Betty Ford. That hadn’t worked out for him. But right after that he came back and he checked himself in to another facility. Which — for rehab. And he clearly hoped that that was going to help. So — but it was — it was really hard to make the decision to tour at all, for me, because after Jerry’s death I didn’t really want to do it. I didn’t think I wanted to play music with anybody but him. He was the reason I joined the band in the first place.

Carlson: Phil Lesh. This is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.

Lesh: Thank you.

Carlson: Searching for the Sound.

Lesh: Thank you. Good to be here.

Washington, DC — When GOP consultant Terry Holt initiated his guest hosting gig in the "Novak" chair on CNN’s Crossfire, it took him a while to adjust to the teleprompter, the studio audience, the folks screaming in his ear, looking for the right camera, and all the rest. He looked a little frazzled and hurried — but who wouldn’t be? My time in politics saw many a TV interview I’m embarrased to look back on today — having just reviewed an old compilation reel for laughs a few weeks ago.

Regardless, Holt is getting his groove back from his days as the Bush 2004 campaign’s primary TV face. His pairing with Donna Brazile, very good on TV herself, is a nice fit, and their dual schtick gets smoother each time they appear.

The key to Terry’s improvement is the calmness and confidence of his manner, as well as the fact he doesn’t appear to take himself too seriously. Combine that with the fact his personality is appealing, he’s not personal in his counterpoints, and that he smiles more than he did initially and you have a quality Crossfire guest host getting better each week.

Washington, DC — While it’s not a full-throated cry, the DC rumor mill is rife with talk and speculation that, in the end, when it’s all said and done, Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison won’t run against incumbent Rick Perry in a GOP primary.

Albeit highly speculative that Kay will not run, there is an undeniable undercurrent in  town that’s very unfavorable to her initial political positioning against Perry, and a perception, fair or unfair, that her chances of defeating Perry in a barbaric, highly-charged, negative primary slugfest have diminished during the first quarter of 2005.

Her first problem is essentially structural from a party hierarchy standpoint. A sitting GOP Senator challenging a sitting GOP Governor for his job is a ballsy enterprise, and the onus is on Hutchison not just to present a rationale for her candidacy, but a rationale as to why Perry should not be re-elected.

This is no easy task, especially in the GOP where the tradition of waiting one’s turn upon the exit or defeat of an incumbent is almost an unwritten rule. While this possible GOP primary actually reflects the primacy of the GOP in Texas, it would not be unfair to speculate that many of Hutchison’s Dallas metro GOP base — longtime, establishment party stalwarts — don’t have the stomach for a nasty intra-party primary. It’s not their nature, nor, really, is it Kay’s. Yes, her primary for the right to take on Bob Krueger had its angry moments, but it was a necessity, not an option.

While Perry has suffered during his tenure in comparison to the looser, more likeable, more-comfortable-in-his-skin George W. Bush, a reasonable rationale for his ouster isn’t even close to being achieved by Kay Bailey.   

From an ideological perspective, the chatter is that Senator Hutchison will have a major problem on abortion and probably taxes due to the fact that running against Washington-based incumbents opens a treasure trove of oppo research hits on procedural matters pertaining to budget votes. Perry, who has some possible vulnerabilities surrounding the state property tax, will have the most opportunities on the tax/budget issue — just by the sheer volume nature of what will be available in the CQ roll call vote tallies.

When asked about the local perception of Kay’s chances, one Austin Republican in state government — no real fan of either Rick or Kay — singled out abortion as Kay’s biggest problem. "Her abortion position is not well defined, malleable and exploitable, big time, and she’s in a precarious position — no question about it." Asked about the "Kay won’t run" rumor mill in Texas GOP circles, another Dallas-based GOP activist said it was on a "slow burn" but "it’s definitely out there."

Like it or not, spin wars are an integral part of the game. It’s only May, but it ain’t good that on Kay’s DC turf, she’s losing the perception game to Perry, as well as losing the initial sparring on the home field in Texas. Kay has been a good Senator and advocate for Texas, but if she hopes to knock of Perry, she needs to begin articulating the most basic campaign 101 necessity: a rationale for her candidacy and a rationale against the incumbent. There’s no sign of either.

Later This Week: A look at the Tennessee ’06 GOP Senate primary for Bill Frist’s open seat.