As most of us will need a distraction from the expected carnage to be laid upon the Vikings in Tampa on Sunday, I refer you all instead to In Depth on C-SPAN 2, which runs from 11 AM to 2 PM. This is a monthly program, which features a live 3 hour call in show with an nonfiction author of prolific output and prodigious talent (thus filtering out the likes of Michael Moore and Al Franken). Despite the occasional lapse in scheduling judgment (Howard Zinn?) these programs have been fascinating and you'd be surprised how fast three hours go by listening to the observations and stories of someone like William F. Buckley, Shelby Foote, Edmund Morris, or even Studs Terkel.

The previous all-time highlight of this series in terms of stimulation (and eroticism - which does have an admittedly thin field of competition for what is after all a political program) was a couple of months ago, three hours with the brilliant and spiritual and silken-voiced and irrisistibly Irish and absolutely lovely .... Jimmy Breslin? No! Peggy Noonan. And as a perfect visual and intellectual complement, the interviewer was C-SPAN's smart, cute as a button, spunky, Dixie Chick Natalie Maynes kinda sorta look-a-like, Susan Swain (astoundlingly Google can find no image of her on the Net). I always smile when Brian Lamb affectionately calls her "Suzy" Swain, because it fits her perfectly (despite the fact that she's also the COO of C-SPAN's parent company).

Although the prurient interest will be absent (unless you, like Seinfeld's Kramer, appreciates this featured author's well-scrubbed and clean look), tomorrow's show could be outstanding. It features George Will, so I'd expect insightful political analysis, withering criticisms of the Left, amazingly precise rhetorical flourishes, and as always, an amazingly precise hairstyle.

Labels: Media-National (02-06)

Posted by Saint Paul--Link