UPDATED with info about next week's reporting from NOLA...
Breaking News: former Homeland Security boss Tom Ridge says the color-coded threat-level was used for politic gain, raised and lowered whenever the Bush administration needed to distract and instill fear. Gee, ya think? Ed Henry reminds us off all the times everyone thought so while it was happening. (And here's Ms. Phebe's post from THREE YEARS AGO on it.)
But then we have to have the analysts in to discuss it, and to my utter disgust, Fran Townsend is one of them. Afterwards, Anderson asks what we think...
What do I think? I think having an insider who is now a CNN analyst comment on a story about an alleged cover-up that they themselves were party to is just plain old-fashioned bad journalism. This isn't a reporter who witnessed an event giving analysis, this is someone who was on the Bush payroll when it happened and is clearly every bit as biased now as she was then. To pretend that she is now an objective giver of truth is preposterous.
Terrorist Released -- The Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing has been released from prison in order to spend his (apparent) last few months of life at home with his family. The Scots say it was mercy, Obama says it was a mistake.
Randi Kaye reports.
Anderson then interviews the brother of one of the victims on set. Nice approach to say that the killer's name should not be remembered, tell us about your brother... That's the human touch we love to see from Anderson. Apparently, 90% of Scots were against the release, and 66 people die of natural causes in prison there every year without being offered any such compassion. And obviously having committed far less heinous crimes. Gee, think politics were involved much? It will be interesting to see whether Great Britain gets new lines of communication/oil from Libya in the future, because they surely paid blood money for it. (And if this scum suddenly has a miraculous recovery from his terminal cancer prognosis...)
Jeffery Toobin gives some analysis. He could have just said "This whole thing stinks to high heaven" and left it at that, but he was more erudite.
Bonus pic. Just because.Erica Hill with the first 360 Bulletin -- Afghan elections called a success; Ted Kennedy asks for an easing of the rules to fill his senate seat; Wal-Mart recalls DVD players that can burst into flames; South African track star required to prove she is female (and as creepy as it all sounds, some women do have male and female chromosomes but are physiologically female. She and her family may have no idea until the tests are done; however, on Campbell Brown's program, a doctor made the point that having male chromes would not make her run faster.)
President Obama goes on the offensive re Health Care. Ron Paul thinks Repubs aren't organized enough to have voted as one bloc, but isn't it amazing that some Dems are against it yet not one single Repub is for it? Hmm. Not passing the sniff test.
Next, Anderson interviews the moms of the three American hikers detained in Iran. It was sad to see how worried they are, I hope there is a solution for this soon.
Swimsuit model murdered, ex-husband named suspect and probably is already in Canada. Her fingers and teeth were removed... this guy clearly watches too much CSI and not enough of any other detective shows. Dude, you were with her the night before, had a public fight, and then went on the run. Hello, prime suspect. Enjoy the woods, because you won't be seeing much of the great outdoors once the Mounties grab your sorry ass.
Second 360 Bulletin: more than 9% of mortgages are 30-days late; Mexico decriminalizes small amounts of drugs but includes a three-strikes clause; JCPenney jewelry robbery nets $1 Million in gems but was caught on video; Milwaukee mayor's attacker admits he "freaked out" -- really, dude?
The Shot: dog slobbers on a news anchor. Yuck. (And I'm a dog lover! I just dislike slobber.)
The end. (And the REAL breaking news? No MJ update!!!)
Okay, bonus time...
The FaceBook promo that includes Anderson:
Tuesday's interview with Michael Ware and Peter Bergen:
And last night's:
By the way, I didn't hallucinate hearing that Anderson was going to NOLA for the Katrina anniversary, did I? I mean, I'm delighted that they are advertising the Afghanistan trip the week of September 7, but... no details about August 28?
Whoops -- I guess I wasn't hallucinating! Here's some info released today:
CNN To Air Katrina Anniversary Specials`Anderson Cooper 360°' Show To Air Live From New Orleans Aug. 27By R. Thomas Umstead -- Multichannel News, 8/21/2009 12:05:07 PM EDTCNN during the week of Aug. 24 will air special segments focusing on rebuilding efforts in New Orleans four years after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina as part of its Anderson Cooper 360° weeknight show.The After the Storm segments will feature reports from Cooper along with CNN correspondents Sean Callebs, Drew Griffin, Gary Tuchman and CNN's senior medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta on the latest developments in the still-rebuilding Crescent City after the decimation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The specials will look at the state of education, healthcare and crime in the city, as well as the condition of the levees that protect New Orleans from flood waters, said the network.In addition, on Aug. 27 Cooper will anchor Anderson Cooper 360° from New Orleans and will be joined by James Carville for a special tour of the city.
Thanks, CNN!
All Things Anderson is a blog dedicated to CNN's AC360 and its host Anderson Cooper.
10 comments:
360 was pretty good last nite.
Its just one thing after another with the Bush administration. Why am I not surprised. They seemed to like using fear tactics. Raising the terror threat level for political gain is just ridiculous. Another reason not to like the Bush Administration. I wish CNN would ditch Fran Townsend. She acts like nothing bad or wrong was done and tires to come up with some lame excuse as to why.
Anderson's interview with the moms of the hikers was good. I hope everything works out for them. Anderson is a very good interviewer and I think its one of his strong points. I wish he'd do more interviews like this one for 360.
The guy who killed the model is an idiot. Did he really think he could do what he did and that no one would notice or try to come after him. I read somewhere that Vh1 is not going to show anymore episodes of Megan Wants a Millionaire. I always liked that show.
I LOVE the facebook commercial with Anderson! Its too funny. I saw one last nite that featured Dr.Gupta and it was funny too.
Anderson identified Fran's role in the events at issue and in my view he was interviewing her in a challenging manner as someone implicated not requesting her analysis like an uninvolved person. What made it a bit weird was that he was talking to analyst Paul Begala at the same time and getting input from him, although it worked out fairly well since Paul had a lot of valuable contributions to make in terms of damning information.
The Tom Ridge book report is something I'd expect to see on Countdown or Maddow but I wasn't really sure if 360 would cover it so I was very happy to see it be the lead story. It certainly wasn't news to me that Bushco wasn't on the up and up when trotting out the terror alerts. Fran Townsend probably shouldn't have been asked to weigh in on this subject considering her ties to Bushco. Compassionate Release might be somewhat acceptable in certain cases, but the Lockerbie bombing isn't one of them, especially when there haven't been that many releases under this rule in the first place, why put the families of the victims through more torment? Glad to see no MJ coverage, but I could've done without the swimsuit model piece too. I hope AC360 will be heading to NOLA, but it is odd that they haven't really mentioned it.
I loved both clips on The Shot - animals gone wild. Thanks for posting the AC Facebook clip - I've been trying to catch it on tv again but they keep showing Sanjay's.
Sorry, but I have no sympathy for the hikers who supposedly "crossed the line." If you play with fire, you get burned. They knew they were in two hostile countries and there ARE other places to go hiking. The journalists were different. They were on assignment. This was part of their job, but when you do something for sport, it is totally different in my view.
I have no interest in the face book page, whether AC is featured or Sanjay. I don't get the connection between 360 and facebook. I know, CNN is trying their best to play "catch up" this way, but it has little relevance one way or the other.
And please drop the model reporting. It is totally tabloid in its appeal. To go from a discussion with a brilliant mind like Peter Bergen, to who was killed by some reality star is mindlessness.
Hi, great posts on the site today- entertaining, lively description of the show. I love having advance heads-up on what AC and 360 are doing. Orleans on location sounds good. I enjoy Anderson anchoring 360 from the field, but only in relatively safe places. I've worried continuously about Afghanistan and honestly wish he would not go, job or not. He is our special AnderC after all. But everything will be OK. I'm glad there'll be a live 360 tonight, and hope he is anchoring!
Yeah James Carville in NOLA. If anyone can take you on a tour its the Ragin Cajun. Hope this will be better than the last few trips.
I missed Watch What Happened on Bravo last night. They said Anderson was going to call in. I was wondering if you may have the footage.
When I made the CSI comment about the murdered model, this was what I was thinking but didn't say -- just posted at TMZ: A spokeswoman for the district attorney says Jasmine Fiore was identified by her breast implants, since her teeth and fingers had been removed.
Thought last night's show was pretty good -- Not surprised by Tom Ridge's announcement about the terror threat levels being political, but it was kind of nice to hear someone from the administration admit it. I, agree with you, Cyn, I don't think Fran Townsend should have been on the panel.
By the time AC360 reported about the Lockerbie terrorist's release, I was tired of hearing about this story -- but I did like Anderson's interview with the brother of one of the victims on set. Thought he did a great job on with the interview -- very sensitive.
The swimsuit model murder was creepy -- as was the picture of her that they kept showing.
Glad to hear that Anderson and 360 will be giving some more significant coverage to the Katrina anny this year. Was hoping for more than one day live from NOLA -- but maybe they'll surprise us and be live from there on Friday night, too -- I love the live remotes.
Thanks for the Michael Ware clips -- can never get too much of his passionate reporting. I'm really looking forward to Anderson and Michael (along with Peter and Sanjay) reporting from Afghanistan for a week in September. (I'm sure CNN wouldn't let them go if they didn't think it was safe, but I hope Anderson doesn't take any chances..)
Thanks for a good post, Cyn.
Judy, the Facebook page is actually really useful for getting updates and occasional behind-the-scenes pictures--much easier than following AC on Twitter because he rarely tweets and there are way too many autofeed updates from the blog that I don't care about. Even if I did care about them, there are too many and they clog up your homepage. If they got rid of the autofeed and toned down the level of tweets, I would follow.
I am *thrilled* about the Katrina update and I'm sure Anderson will be happy to get back to NOLA to do some reporting and revisit some old haunts. Thank you, thank you, CNN and 360 team!! This is exactly what I've been waiting for. :)
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