Weekend Watchdog:Cave-In Unexplained

Despite widespread disappointment at Congress’ capitulation to the White House on Iraq, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., was not asked on CBS’s Face The Nation about his prominent role in publicly caving in to President’s Bush demands even before the veto was issued

Three weeks before Bush’s veto of the Iraq bill,  Levin offered an early concession, saying he would certainly remove any timetable for withdrawal if Bush demanded it. We wanted to know from Levin: Did conceding to Bush so early damage your ability to put public pressure on wavering senators and challenge the White House’s Iraq strategy?

Also, despite a Sunday Boston Globe expose on how the leading Republican candidates continue to inaccurately connect Iraq to Osama bin Laden in painting a oversimplified “worldwide war” picture, ’08 hopeful Mike Huckabee was not asked on Fox News Sunday about his claim that “we are in the midst of a World War III.” We wanted hear him answer this question: Isn’t that the kind of oversimplified worldview, casually lumping Al Qaeda in with Iran and Syria, that President Bush did to take the country to war in Iraq?

And despite one of ABC’s own guest pundits last week calling out Washington for ignoring the underlying cause of illegal immigration—Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation said “there is no attention in this city or in this Congress to the root causes of immigration … no attention to economic development assistance to Mexico or Central America” —ABC’s This Week failed to bring it up with Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez.

Which shows that when a outside-the-Beltway liberal viewpoint sneaks its way onto the TV, chances are it will be promptly ignored soon after.

Every Friday afternoon, Bill Scher posts on the  Common Sense blog his list of Weekend Watchdog questions for scheduled Sunday talk show guests. You can add your own questions in the comment thread. He also posts contact information for the shows, so we can let them know what their viewers want asked. Every Sunday at 4 p.m. ET, Scher will offer his Weekend Watchdog assessment on Air America Radio’s “Seder on Sundays” program.

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