June 16, 2006
Hotline After Dark -- The No Britney Edition
If you didn't want to watch the Britney Spears interview on "Dateline," don't worry, cable discussed it too. Along with the House vote on Iraq and Bill Gates' decision to devote more time to charity work.
CNN's Crowley: "The resolution is merely a vehicle for debate on Iraq, the single most important issue of the election year. It is a piece of paper with no force of law, but, Republicans hope, the potential to force divided Democrats into a corner" ("AC 360," 6/15).
MSNBC's Shuster: "Republicans may be putting Democrats in a no-win situation. A yea vote on the resolution ties Democrats to Bush Iraq policies down the line. A vote against the resolution makes the Democrats vulnerable to Republican charges that the Democrats are on the side of terrorists" ("Hardball," 6/15).
Rep. Marty Meehan (D-MA): "I am personally going to vote no on it, because I think, frankly, we should have had a discussion about the war in Iraq. ... It's not a debate when the Republican leadership that control the Senate, the House, and the White House say, you vote up or down" ("Situation Room," CNN, 6/15).
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA): "I know this sounds funny with a few months to go before this election, but I think we have to look at this operation in a bipartisan way and in a non-political way" ("Hardball," MSNBC, 6/15).
GOP strategist Mary Matalin: "This is not a referendum on Bush. It's a choice. It's compared to what? What are the Democrats offering? We saw what they offered today, Kerry in the Senate. It was voted down 93-6, to pull the troops out" ("Hannity & Colmes," FNC, 6/15).
PLAY IT AGAIN JOHN
Sean Hannity interviewed VP Cheney on his radio show. He played a portion of that interview on "Hannity & Colmes":
Cheney, asked about John Kerry saying he was misled on Iraq: "I guess I'm not surprised at John Kerry switching his position yet again. ... He did in fact support our efforts in Iraq initially. He says he voted for the $87 billion before he voted against it. Now I suppose this is sort of a complete 180-degree turn that he'd started during the last campaign. The fact of the matter is they're making the charge, Kerry is now, that somehow he was misled. He wasn't misled. He saw the same intelligence all the rest of us saw" (FNC, 6/15).
LET'S TALK
Senate Maj. Leader Bill Frist was in the "Situation Room," where he got asked about pretty much everything but Anderson Cooper's interview with Angelina Jolie.
Frist, on Gates' announcement: "He took head-on the challenge that three million people die of HIV-AIDS every year, that two million people die of tuberculosis every year, that one million people die of malaria every year, and he said, I'm going to do something about it."
On cong. approval ratings: "I don't think we've done a very good job messaging what we have accomplished even over the last year and a half" (CNN, 6/15).
And then Frist played "Hardball" on the issues of Iraq and Iran.
On Iran: "I am fairly optimistic. Nobody really knows what is going to happen, but by clearly working in a multilateral, cooperative way with a number of parties at the table, that will put the maximal amount of pressure on Iran to denounce what is their goal" (MSNBC, 6/15). [EMILY GOODIN]
Posted at 07:30 AM
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