Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnell

Lawrence, you've had a couple of good shows on balance, but it would be nice when you have a guest like Bob Woodward on to talk about Obama's wars that you not hog the conversation and ask long-winded questions. I hate to break it to you, Lawrence, but you're not that interesting. The topic, on the other hand, is.

And it was annoying to see Woodward sitting there with a silly grin on his face because you never managed to finish your question. What's worse, we heard hardly anything about the fascinating inside conflict going on between President Obama and his advisers, most significantly with his generals. (Wasn't that part of your tease? If so, it was an inexcusable lapse.) We heard a lot about Biden though (yawn), probably because he was your first interview and you wanted to get that in to impress Mr. Woodward. He looked puzzled at having to sit silent through much of the interview.

Finally, Lawrence, please spare us your lectures about Adam Green and his fellow netroots new generation progressives. It's unseemly and it makes you, Matthews, and Alter look like snarky old farts. Especially since you wrongly predicted healthcare reform wouldn't pass — therefore when it did, it seemed miraculous to all you seasoned "professionals"— and you were also wrong about the reconciliation process, whereas one of the young guns, Ezra Klein, was right about it, as he was in predicting most everything that occurred in the healthcare debate. So when Ezra laid out a roadmap for how a more progressive bill that included the public option could be passed, he was far more credible than the smug "we-know-best" ravings emanating from you, Matthews, and Alter. Bottom line, we were right: in the end the damn thing got passed with reconciliation without a single, solitary Republican vote. Months too late and brimming with uneccessary concessions to corporations and special interests.

And I can give you chapter and verse where we were right and you were wrong. So please, don't lecture us about the differences in campaigning vs. governance, blah-blah-blah. Adam Green himself noted how the President pressured Kucinich to vote for the bill with some arm-twisting LBJ-style politicking but laid off when it came to applying the same kind of pressure to Traitor Joe Lieberman.*

So Lawrence, I hope you'll get over yourself and take your own advice: When Bob Woodward stops by, for the sake of your audience, please give him the last word.
*Question for the Idiot Punditocracy: Who would be the stronger candidate in Arkansas: Blanche Lincoln or Bill Halter? This one even Lawrence might get right.