Another week, another guest host handling the blog round-up here at C&L. Good morning. I'm Lance Mannion and I have a blog. Don't we all?

Mine's called with wry cleverness Lance Mannion and I post about politics, movies, TV, books, and occasionally yard work and home repair. I'm also the television editor for the arts and culture blog newcritics. All our posts come with the James Wolcott Good Blogkeeping Seal of Approval. What this means for you is that since my focus isn't solely on politics, my linkages here won't do that either. For example, over at newcritics right now for your listening and dancing pleasure we have three dueling reviews of the new Bob Dylan fantasy biopic, I'm Not There.

"Dazzlingly fresh and original," says Jason Chervokas, "Makes me wonder what went wrong with movies over the past thirty years." The movie offers "20 REASONS TO BE STUCK INSIDE A MULTIPLEX WITH THE OVERPRICED POPCORN AGAIN," promises the Shamus. "All bizarre medicine show bread and circus with no real insight into Dylan’s connection to the past," grumps Tom Watson.

Meanwhile, on the political front. Julia, of Sisyphus Shrugged, made her debut at Firedoglake Friday with a long and thorough post detaling the weirdnesses, thuggery, shady dealings, and romantic longings of Rudy Giuliani's BFF and now secondary albatross around the neck, Bernie Kerik. Josh Marshall has some more details on Rudy's new and heavier albatross, the Shag Fund.

MediaBloodHound explains why Tom Brokaw is still the only one of the big three network anchors who doesn't understand how he and his colleagues failed us in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq: His "professionalism" gets in the way.

And Tom Tomorrow channels Bill O'Reilly's Advice for Young People.

That's all for now. Lots of good reading for a lazy Sunday afternoon. I'll be back tomorrow with a shorter introduction and links to shorter posts for your Monday morning drive time.

Send tips to me at lance at sign lancemannion bigolddot com.

Monday Night Football skit Video Clip

We had to upload another version because of all the traffic!

Video

MSNBC Pat Buchanan said:

Stick to the facts Chris!

The "Chris Matthews Show" on Sunday night turned from a somewhat objective venture into an exercise in the misuse of facts. Can the host of a show at least be able to interpret simple arithmetic?

Using a Pew research Poll conducted on Nov 11:

People who watched Fox News: 71% voted Bush 22% voted Kerry.

Listened to radio: 62% voted Bush 36% voted Kerry.

Watched Big Three Networks: 43% voted Bush 50% voted Kerry

Internet: 53% voted Bush 43% voted Kerry

Read newspapers: 45% voted Bush 50% voted Kerry

Matthews: There's some strange parallelism out there. Cable news and radio (talk) radio is conservative, newspapers and broadcast news is liberal.

Is that a republican talking point?

Also while making that statement, didn't Matthews indict his own network as being conservative?

Tucker Carlson pointed out that he thought more viewers on CNN voted for John Kerry.

How does Matthews arrive at that conclusion looking at the facts in front of him? If anything this poll showed that Fox News and talk radio, which is dominated by Limbaugh, Hannity and Savage are skewed heavily to a conservative audience, while newspapers and Broadcast news are much more balanced in it's viewership. The surprising number was the Internet. Conservatives often complained how hostile the internet was to Bush during the campaign, while the after hours online polling that cast John Kerry as the clear winner in all three debates, "was misleading."

NewsMax: Network Snub: ...ABC anchorman Peter Jennings, for instance, begged off on making the trek - saying he was "feeling under the weather," according to the New York Post.

Then the NY Post: ...Although the pope's death is arguably the television news story of the year, network news divisions are treating it like just another funeral Mass.

ABC News anchorman Peter Jennings — the last of the Big Three still on the air — was feeling under the weather and stayed home.

It was announced Jennings has lung cancer. Get well Peter.