The Page

If you've been keeping up with the blog, you'll know that I'm caught up in political coverage and that I try to read sources that represent both sides of the story. The best of these sources is The Page by Mark Halperin at Time Magazine. Mark is a regular contributor to the Charlie Rose Show on PBS and he is the former Chief Political Director at ABC News. There's been a big gaping hole at that news division since Halperin left. He doesn't have the ideal camera persona, like George Stephanopolous, but he has such a breadth of knowledge and detailed analysis, who cares about his charisma. This is definitely a case of substance over style.

The reason why I like The Page is that Halperin hits the highlights of the political news day without providing any commentary. He leaves it up to the reader to pick out the juicy tidbits.

The new Meet the Press moderator?

On my way to lunch today, I flipped through a couple talk radio stations and stopped at one where the subject was Tim Russert. The commentators were throwing out ideas for the new Meet the Press moderator -- Keith Olbermann, Bob Costas, etc. Justin Webb, the North American BBC News editor, suggests David Gregory.

I'm going to throw out Charlie Rose's name. He's used to the roundtable show format and he's an experienced interview. I try to catch his show as much as possible, but our PBS station airs his show at 11:30 PM. My one reservation about Charlie is that sometimes he interrupts his guests, and not necessarily in a good way. Occasionally, Charlie will also talk over his guests. It's an annoying habit, but I think he could definitely work on it.

However, I don't think that Charlie would ever leave his own show in NY. It's a long-running staple on PBS and I don't think he would be satisfied to only talk about politics. Tim Russert had another show on MSNBC, but I believe that show only aired once a week. Charlie's show runs Monday through Friday. Oh well. It was a good thought. Maybe, NBC would make it worth Charlie's time.