Shields and Brooks 10/15/2010

Sleepy Mark Shields and David "Bobo" Brooks did their regular Friday Political Wrap segment - which I've been known in less charitable moments to call the Shields and Brooks Clown Show - on Friday's PBS Newshour on the Citizens United era of corporate money gushing freely into political races and President Obama's bizarre interview with the New York Times' Peter Baker. Bobo thinks that there's nothing new or especially disturbing about the Citizens United environment, and anyway he says that the Democrats did it first (of course!). He is disappointed in the lack of substantial self-reflection in Obama's interview, i.e., Obama hasn't decided he fully embrace every aspect of the Republican Party's program that he was elected running against in 2008. He later starts rambling about how Obama seems to be one of our most self-reflective Presidents, and then realizes as he says it that he's stepping on his previous comment and backpedals. Mark rouses himself from his afternoon stupor to express justifiable astonishment that Obama just before the mid-terms elections would give an interview saying essentially, oh, well, we're gonna lose big-time but it's not our fault. Transcript at Shields and Brooks on the Tea Party's Message, Obama's 'Shovel Ready' Jab. Tags: 2010 elections, barack obama, democratic party