Meet the Press' shopworn roundtable:

You won't want to miss this:

A big week in politics and a full agenda for the Obama administration. What does the resignation of National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair mean for the nation's security and for the state of this country's intelligence gathering community? How do Tuesday's election results reflect on the President? And what does it all mean for the November elections? And as the uncontained oil spill in the Gulf continues to threaten the coastline and the region's health and welfare, how has Washington managed the response and cleanup effort and what will be the long-term ramification of this disaster? Our roundtable weighs in: The New York Times' Tom Friedman; The Wall Street Journal's Paul Gigot; NBC News' Andrea Mitchell; and The Washington Post's Bob Woodward.

It's hard to imagine those characters saying anything fresh or insightful. And they already have prominent media perches where they can be read or heard, so why are they on MTP instead of, say, a professor of political science who might have a different perspective?

UPDATE: I posted too soon. From ABC's This Week promo webpage:

... our classic roundtable. Sam Donaldson, Cokie Roberts and Donna Brazile are back together again with George Will to talk about all the week's politics ...

"Classic" roundtable, as in "a bunch of folks who used to be on the show 15 years ago".

I watched those programs back in the '90s. But since the rise of the Internet as a source of news and opinion, the Sunday shows look completely irrelevant, and nowadays I only check in once in a while out of curiosity. I'd love to know how much of their current audience is composed of people without Internet access in their homes.

UPDATE2: I updated too soon! This from the Fox News Sunday webpage:

Semi-Super Tuesday provided a glimpse at the electoral atmosphere facing both political parties: Rand Paul delivered a victory to the Tea Party movement in Kentucky, but another conservative favorite lost a special congressional election in Pennsylvania. Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin gives us her take in a 'Fox News Sunday' exclusive.

The upside here is that Andrew Sullivan will probably go a little more nuts over the Palin appearance, which is usually fun to watch.


posted by Quiddity at 5/22/2010 10:33:00 PM