According to Sam Stein in the Huffington Post, Sonia Sotomayor is "the odds-on favorite" to be chosen by Barack Obama to fill retiring Justice David Souter's seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. She now sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals of the Second Circuit in New York City. She is… Read full post »

I never thought I'd enjoy a Presidential Inauguration as much as I did JFK's in 1960, when I was a kid and I saw it on a black-and-white television, but Barack Obama's today was every bit as good on the big color screen, and even more revolutionary. The son of an… Read full post »

Well, the first of the final Battlestar Galactica episodes, like the Final Five, was wrapped in enigma and jolting surprise...

Dee finds a child's jacks toy on "Earth" - revealed last year as a radioactive ruin of a planet, and revealed in this episode as populated entirely, at least insofar as the… Read full post »

I'm listening to Bobby Jindal - Governor of Louisiana - give the Republican response to Barack Obama's superb address to Congress and the American people tonight.

I've got to say that Jindal's speech - in delivery as well as content - is one the lamest "opposition" speeches I've ever heard any Republi… Read full post »

Another top-notch, wrenching, conceptually breathtaking time travel story on Lost tonight - 5.14 - which skirts around paradox, but is thoroughly explicable on the basis of obsessed human nature.

Daniel has returned to the island in 1977 - that is, the Daniel we know, who lost his love Charlotte, and… Read full post »

Tonight's Mad Men had a great shot on television of the 1951 Robert Wise science fiction classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still with Michael Rennie. And especially apt, because the remake will be opening this December 12, starring ... Jon Hamm. "Klaatu barada nikto."

Also appropriate because th… Read full post »

Well, once again, my intrepid powers of analysis and prediction have apparently been proven ... wrong.

Last week, I said I couldn't believe that Tony was bad. Truthfully, I still can't believe it this week, but in the Season 7 Hour 19 I just saw, Tony sure looks that way. Jack… Read full post »

I've been saying for years that Shep Smith, who anchors the Fox Report on Fox News, is a class act. He did an heroic job - along Anderson Cooper of CNN, Geraldo Rivera of Fox News, and other reporters on the scene -- in holding the Bush government to account for… Read full post »

Barack Obama did fine in the short piece of his interview by Bill O'Reilly which was aired on Fox News tonight. This piece had to do with foreign relations. O'Reilly gave Obama credit for being against the Iraq war in the first place, but asked why Obama couldn't admit that he… Read full post »

I just saw Sarah Palin in the Saturday Night Live opener.

Palin's skit revolved around the indistinguishability of her and Tina Fey's impression of her. The highpoint was a bit in which Alec Baldwin - Fey's co-star on 30 Rock - mistakes Palin for Fey.

And Palin was excellent. And that's the… Read full post »

It's being reported all over that Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews will no longer be anchoring special election coverage on MSNBC. In terms of what's ahead in this political season, this means we won't see them anchoring election night or debate coverage. They will both continue in their Countdown… Read full post »

I saw this out of the corner of my eye on MSNBC earlier today, and couldn't believe my ears - a Republican speaking with dripping derision about "the outrage" of Obama "taking a 767 campaign plane to go visit Grandma." Keith Olbermann performed the important service of replaying and highlighting this… Read full post »

Rod Blagojevich just announced that he won't resign as Governor of Illinois, and will fight the charges that Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald made against him.

I think that's for the good of the country - seriously. Our laws say that people accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty. Not… Read full post »

24 waited for tonight's Hour 18 to reveal the most astonishing surprise of the Season (7) ....

So astonishing, in fact, that I don't know if I believe it. But I'm not sure...

First, Hodges and his plan to launch missiles with bio weapons against American cities seems foiled. Tony blew… Read full post »

U.S. News and World Report reports that "The ratings for MSNBC's newest news show host are wildly impressive. Last week, her second on the air, Rachel Maddow pulled ahead of Larry King and even bested Keith Olbermann's Countdown a couple of nights."

I'm delighted, and not at all surprised. Maddow shin… Read full post »

I've got to say I have no respect for Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), who just withdrew as President Obama's Commerce Secretary nominee.

Gregg says he realized he couldn't be a team player in the Obama administration, much as he admired the President.

The truth, obviously, is something else: The Republicans… Read full post »

I was just looking for a few minutes at MSNBC. You know what they were reporting? Nothing, really. From 6-8PM, and who knows how much longer today, MSNBC had on its canned "Caught on Camera," with footage of events that happened years ago.

Over on CNN, Wolf Blizter in the Situation Room… Read full post »

The lesson of the JFK-Nixon Presidential debates is that what the candidates look like on stage - how they react, nonverbally, to their opponent's points - can be more important to voters than what they actually say.

Barack Obama clearly won on that important plank in the debate tonight. Obama was rel… Read full post »

The Sci Fi Channel has been getting a lot of flack for daring to change its name to the Syfy Channel, effective this July 7. I thought I'd be pop in to say, I have no problem with the name change at all. Here are five reasons why:

1. Words don't mean… Read full post »

Well, I predicted last week that Godric would not survive the bomb blast. I was wrong - he did survive. But I was right that he would not survive too long.

True Blood 2.9 had an ending that cried out to the cosmos, as Godric stands on the roof in the dawning… Read full post »

The most tender of the final Battlestar Galactica episodes thus far - but laced with a powerful wind-up punch ...

Just what you'd expect, come to think of it, in a story starring Sharon "Boomer" Valeri. She tells Tyrol that she's thought of him every night "since I died in your arms".… Read full post »

A quiet, emotional Lost 5.13 tonight, as befits a character - Miles - who can listen to the dead, and who is also the abandoned son of Dr. Chang aka Marvin Candle.

On the island in 1977, we see Miles meet his father - someone who left his mother and him, when… Read full post »

John McCain just called for postponing Friday's debate with Barack Obama, so that McCain's attention can be fully devoted to helping with our economic crisis.

I hope Obama rejects McCain's call for what it is: an attempt to take a breather from the campaign, because polls are beginning to turn against… Read full post »

Gotta love this ... Here's Al Franken, back in the 1980s, doing a super fine Mick Jagger, singing "Under My Thumb" ... Tom Davis, Franken's Saturday Night Live partner, is on stage playing Keith Richards and his face and guitar, too...

Good to know there's that kind of talent coming to the… Read full post »

One of the most satisfying, intellectually and emotional daring, and thoroughly brilliant episodes of Lost tonight - 5.15 - which is making me think it is well on the way to being the best series ever on television.

Among the many themes, spun and some resolved, most unresolved, that especially grabbe… Read full post »