Gregory Ascendeth, Part Deux

Well, it's now official. David Gregory will take over the helm of Meet the Press. I think he is a pretty good choice (although I've also grown fond of Chuck Todd ("Chucky T" to us MSNBCer's)). But Gregory is tough, and won't let people roll him. I think he'll have to learn to balance the toughness with the respect factor that Russert had mastered. That's the way to do it. (I read somewhere in the summer that one of the hardest things to do was to knock these tried and true politicians off their talking points. I tend to believe that is true.) For example, Tim was pretty tough on old Tricky Dick Cheney, but fair enough that Cheney still did his show. It reaped benefits as Cheney was haunted by his "greeted as liberators" quip on MTP in the Iraq war build-up.

But, most importantly, it is a significant prediction break-through for me personally. See my June 23 post predicting Mr. Gregory's pending appointment (click on the "Predictions" label and you'll get there). Now I am going to advocate a review of the tape of the Hagler/Leonard fight to get that overturned. I don't know what to do, though, about my "Ghost" fiasco. Thoughts, dear readers?

Gregory Ascendeth

This summer I predicted that David Gregory would be tapped for the Meet the Press gig (see post on June 23). Looks like he might be gathering steam, as he will now host MSNBC's election night coverage, rather than Olbermann and Matthews. Also looks like he's being "groomed" for the MTP spot, per this article.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3i425366f6874393a74ad59e9c25b234b7?imw=Y

Biden Time

I was a Biden man before I was a Baracknafile. I've been burned by David Brooks before (he has turned on my main man from Illinois and gone all conservative on me--I feel like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football). But he wrote a nice piece today on Biden's good qualities. We shall see:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/opinion/22brooks.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

More On Saturday

Well, this is very interesting. The Voodoo Blues is now apparently opening for Barack Obama (of sorts). The Old Capitol Blues Festival, where we'll be competing in the ICBC Blues competition on Saturday afternoon, will be one block from Sen. Obama's rally with his new veep choice.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/sweet/1116586,CST-NWS-sweet20.article

The competition will pause momentarily for Sen. Obama and his speech. We are slated to hit the stage from 12:30 to 1:00. Obama speechifies at 2:00. The note we received from the ICBC President was that plans were to press ahead--e.g., he still thought we'd be able to park near the stage, they're just anticipating a short pause. I don't know--that's hard to imagine. But boy, will it be exciting!!

As of yesterday, it looked like Biden was rising fast. Joe was my actual favorite in the Presidential field until it became apparent he had no legs and had to drop out post-Iowa.

Prediction

I love to make predictions. Sometimes they are wildly right (I correctly foresaw the Cardinals taking the 2006 World Series even though they stumbled, bumbled and fumbled their way in to post-season that year (remember the Astros closing in fast while the Cardinals reeled?)). But just as often (if not more often), they are stupefyingly wrong: I confidently asserted Marvelous Marvin Hagler would knock out Sugar Ray Leonard in the late '80s. Woops. The worst of all might have been after seeing "Ghost" in a sneak preview (on a double-bill with Days of Thunder, no less). It was a very rare instance of seeing a main Hollywood feature without knowing a gosh-darn thing about it in advance (think about how much you typically know about a movie before plunking down your hard-earned cash at the box office). After seeing that towering pile of junk, I prognosticated (with my usual air of arrogance) to Sharon that it would last all of one weekend (maybe not even a full weekend), then (definitely) straight-to-video and (to a moral certainty) never heard from again. (I still think that's the fate it deserved.) Double woops and a half.

But to get proper credit, I have learned the hard way one must make a prediction in advance--it does not help to say after the fact that you were secretly harboring a premonition of events to come all along (a trick I've tried to no avail).

So, while we learned this weekend from Brian Williams that Tom Brokaw will be helming Meet the Press through the November elections (which has to be a temporary fix), I will make my prediction on the permanent successor to Russert: David Gregory. I think they are grooming him for that spot. I'm not saying I think he's the best or my top choice, necessarily. But I predict he is going to get it. You heard it here, if not first, at least before it was announced.