TVSquad

Even though everyone knew he had been battling cancer for quite some time, this is still very sad news.

Tony Snow, the newsman who became White House press secretary and then returned to the world of journalism, died early this morning. He had been diagnosed with colon cancer years ago and had beaten it the first time, but then it came back and he had been undergoing chemotherapy treatments at the time of his death.

Snow joined FOX News Channel in 1996 and hosted FOX News Sunday and was a political analyst for the network. He also hosted his own radio show and used to fill in for Rush Limbaugh on the radio (and later Bill O'Reilly). Snow replaced Scott McClellan as press secretary at the White House in 2006 and left the position in September 2007, saying he wasn't leaving because of his health but because of financial concerns. He became a political analyst for CNN earlier this year.

Snow had a wife and three kids.

Tim Russert, the chief political reporter for NBC and host of the long-running Meet The Press, died of a heart attack this afternoon. Russert was recording voiceovers for Meet The Press and collapsed.

This is obviously sad and odd because he was young, but it's also crazy because we're in the middle of an election year, and Russert was one of the faces of NBC and MSNBC when it comes to politics. He was an unabashed political junkie and was front and center in this year's election, being involved in all of the primary coverage and even participated in debates along with colleague Brian Williams.

Russert worked in for Democratic Senator Daniel Moynihan's campaign in the mid 70s and in the early 80s worked on Mario Cuomo's campaign for Governor of New York. He joined NBC in 1984 and became moderator of Meet The Press in 1991. He also wrote two books.

(S18E18) Oh, boy. Jack McCoy is up to his neck in trouble now. This Law and Order season finale -- number 18 -- was a maze-like story that started with a gold merchant being murdered, wound its way through high-class escort services, and landed at the desk of the governor of New York. Any resemblance between this story and the demise of real-life New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was completely on purpose.

In true Law and Order fashion, the part about the hookers and the Governor was ripped right from the headlines. Unlike reality, though, the fictional governor was even more slimey and reprehensible than Spitzer seemingly. I'll explain it all, and go into more details about how it comes to bear on the characters on L&O after the jump.

I guess in a world where a wrestler and an action hero can both be a governors, anything is possible. Eddie Izzard, cross-dressing stand-up comedian who's currently playing Traveler Wayne Malloy on The Riches, is thinking that in ten years or so, he might want to go into politics. Yes, you heard me.

In an interview with Newsweek.com, Izzard feels that he might want to participate in European Union politics. What's his big issue? "People are very worried about sovereignty and the loss of sovereignty. I think the stakes are if we don't make the European Union work, then the world is screwed. End of story."

Slate magazine is running an article regarding how weak most of what passes as political satire on television is. They quote heavily from Russell L. Peterson's new book Strange Bedfellows: How Late Night Comedy Turns Democracy into a Joke and also take some time to body-slam CNN's new comedy show, Not Just Another Cable News Show (Wait. What? CNN has a new comedy show on it? I thought that was the thing Wolf Blitzer hosted every day. Are you telling me that's not a comedy?)

Peterson's book, at first blush, seems to be another overly-alarmist, semi-academic attack on pop-culture -- Darrell Hammond is destroying democracy? Really? -- that I usually just ignore. Well, maybe it's the Tylenol PM I took to ease the pain of being in Utica tonight, but after reading Slate's discussion of it, I started to come around to Peterson's way of thinking...

Here is an unimpeachable truth: anyone who wants to be president probably shouldn't be president. If you spend $400,000,000 for a $400,000 a year job, you're either stupid or corrupt or (most likely) both. In an ideal world, a presidential hopeful accepts the nomination with reluctance, George Washington style.

It's with this in mind that I'd like to start a movement to draft the one man who I think can turn this country around. The one man who has the credibility and the credentials to unite a society fractured by war and recession. The one man who connects with young and old; gay and straight; really, really gay and butchy gay. That's right, I'd like to nominate Simon Cowell for president.

As the race between Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barak Obama heats up for the Democratic party presidential candidacy, here comes news that should throw the spotlight onto Hillary...if she's savvy enough to say yes. During a recent visit to The Tyra Banks Show, Hillary revealed that "if (paired) with one of those really good partners" she would someday like to compete on Dancing with the Stars. When the powers that be at Dancing heard that, they wasted no time in sending the former first lady a formal invitation. While they acknowledge that the show is not currently in production, dancers from the show are performing around the country in Dancing with the Stars - The Tour. They invited Hillary to choose any one of the dancers and take a try at a cha cha, pasa doble or tango. Or, if she prefer, she could always call on hubby Bill for a pas de deux.

I wouldn't call myself a political junkie, though I guess I do get that way every four years. The massive coverage the election gets from the news channels is both way overdone and endlessly fascinating.

Last night I watched the coverage of Super Tuesday. My plan was to try to stick to one station, since they'd have the results eventually, but my remote trigger finger got itchy and I was surfing all night. Here are a few random thoughts I jotted down.

1. I couldn't watch CNN, at least not all night.. Those giant screens and all those graphics. At one point Wolf Blitzer was standing next to a massive lineup of 24 different pie charts, and I think he wanted to just throw his notes down and walk down the street to the nearest bar. John King was doing all these fancy things with his fingers on a screen, and it was hard to follow and kind of glitchy. It was the world's most insane PowerPoint presentation.

It's nice to see that two political pundits can set aside their differences and show some bipartisanship on an issue that is critical to the well being of this country.

That said, I think I could have picked some opponents that would have made for a much better commercial. Don't get me wrong, I know politics is in the air and it was very timely to have Carville & Frist together in a commercial, I have two quick ideas that could have worked just as well.

HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher returns for a new season this week, and Maher is going to return without writers, like most of the late night talk shows (except Letterman and Ferguson).

Two big segments of the show, Maher's opening monologue and his show-closing "New Rules" segment will be gone when the show returns. That's too bad, since "New Rules" is usually one of the best parts of the show (the monologue isn't long enough to really miss). Maher will go into the audience to talk to people. He should fare better than all of the other late night shows, since 95% of each episode is made up of a roundtable discussion with guests and perhaps a satellite interview. Though I wonder if some celebs and politicians will decline to appear on the show?

The show returns this Friday at 11pm Eastern.

It seems like Dr. Stephen T. Colbert never stops working. Not only does he lead one of the most consistently funny programs on TV, but he spent 2007 releasing a new book, I Am America (And So Can You!), and running for president. And what was the rest of America doing? Obsessing over Sanjaya's hair. Colbert's brief but exciting 2008 campaign showed us that there are bigger and better ways to have fun.

(S02E03) My TiVo didn't start taping this episode on time, so I missed about the first three minutes of the show when I was putting my kids to bed. If I missed something significant, please forgive me (and let me know in the comments!).

Tonight was a more Tommy-centric episode, and was also uniquely, for Brothers and Sisters, devoid of slapstick. I know, I know. I take this show too seriously. It's a soap opera. It's supposed to be melodramatic. But I really enjoyed the fact that they played this episode straight. Though, I will admit that when I saw that next week promises more "antics," I was also a bit relieved by that because this episode was really intense.

God's Warrior, a CNN documentary, will delve into the world of religious fundamentalism.

A lot has been said about religious fundamentalism in the United States, but CNN's doc, hosted by reporter Christiane Amanpour, has a wider scope, looking not only at Christian fundamentalism here at home, but Jewish and Islamic fundamentalism around the globe. The doc will also feature the final television interview of the late Jerry Falwell, who passed away back in May. The report will center on how certain groups wish to bring religion and politics together, and how this is happening everywhere in the world, not just the United States.

Law & Order actor and former senator Fred Thompson hasn't officially announced he's running for president, but based on opinion polls, people seem to like him.

The man who played D.A. Arthur Branch on the Law and Order franchise is also being endorsed by his ex-wife and former girlfriends.

Lorrie Morgan, a country music singer whom Fred dated, said, "women love a soft place to lay and a strong pair of hands to hold us."

First of all, I think it's great that Freddy Fred knows how to treat a lady. I'm someone who could use a few lessons in treating women right, since the last two I dated got loose from their chains, ran into the road, and were both hit by a garbage truck. Also, you have to feed them every day, which is sometimes easy to forget.

(S03E23) I have to admit, I swore at the end of this episode/season Edie was going to end up getting pregnant. I was so not expecting this. If you haven't watched tonight's episode yet, I suggest you stop reading now and NOT click on the link for the rest of the post.

Gaby
Let's go ahead and start with Gaby since today was her big day. Her little hissy fit that Bree was late certainly took on new meaning after seeing her fight with Victor from the night before. Wow, how many excuses is she going to make for him? It's not too late to get the wedding annulled, or is it? He and his father seem to have a lot of power, and I am not convinced she could get out of the marriage at this point. I think they would do what they could to stop her, regardless of what that might entail.