TVSquad

I'd just like to say that there are a lot of TV sites on the web, but TV Squad is "The Best TV Site That Has Ever Existed Or Will Ever Exist On This Planet Or Any Other." And that's official, by the way.

Now that I've announced that, there seems to be a little battle going on with the cable news channels and even the regular networks when it comes to coverage of this year's Presidential election. CNN reminds us every three and a half minutes that they are "The Best Political Team On Television," almost as much as they remind us that "we're in The Situation Room"), and now CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric has jokingly named her team of Jeff Greenfield and Bob Schieffer "The Best Political Team In The Galaxy." They liked that, especially Greenfield, who used to be the political expert over on CNN.

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.

First off, I'd just like to point out that Chris Matthews is the most annoying political analyst on television.

Now that that's out of the way, did anyone watch the New Hampshire primary coverage on CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News? If Chandler Bing was covering the primary, he'd say "could the networks be more wrong?" (If Chandler Bing really existed and commented on political coverage).

Um...I'm really not sure what to make of this video from CNN. It's not Dancing with the Stars exactly, but there is dancing and there are stars.

It shows the new Fab Four - Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer, Lou Dobbs, and Larry King, with Cooper definitely the "Paul" of the group - dressed as Christmas elves (complete with funny hats, green suits, red and white stockings) and doing a bizarre dance to the tune of "Jingle Bells." OK, obviously, it's just their heads pasted on top of elf bodies. I wonder if they had to get the permission of the four anchors to do this or if it's just something CNN decided to do on their own. I can't imagine Dobbs being thrilled with it but I can see the other three laughing at it. Oh, I'd pay money to see Dobbs or Blitzer do their shows in those outfits.

You can "Elf yourself" at Office Max's elfyourself.com.

A while back I called Anderson Cooper "The Four Million Dollar Man." Looks like we're going to have to call him something else.

CNN has just given the anchor of Anderson Cooper 360 a big increase in pay. Cooper will be paid $50 million over the next five years. Yes, that's 5-0. That comes out to be $10 million a year, but it's up to you whether you want to call Coop "The 50 Million Dollar Man" or "The 10 Million Dollar Man."

So readers, is he worth it? It's really hard to judge whether one person is "worth" the amount of money they are given, whether it's Michael Jordan, Julia Roberts, or Anderson Cooper. But Cooper does indeed seem to be the future of CNN, the "face" of the network, if you will, and it looks like they want to lock him in for a long time to come.

Cooper hosts his nightly show at 10pm and also contributes to 60 Minutes over on CBS.

• OK, how about one last wrap up of the Oscars? This one is from Ken Levine, and very funny.
• Wait a sec...the Geico caveman went to The Oscars?
• Mary-Kate Olsen writes for The New York Times.
• Kristin over at E! Online has a video interview with Heroes braineater Syler (Zachary Quinto) and has news about the (possible) future of Studio 60.
• TV Guide's Michelle Heller goes behind the scenes at The Late Show With David Letterman.
• Wolf Blizer likes the Situation Room satire they did on Saturday Night Live this past weekend.
• And, here's video of CBS News veteran Bob Schieffer singing a country and western song.

One of my favorite moments of the hours and hours and hours of Anna Nicole Smith coverage on the cable networks was when CNN's Lou Dobbs told Situation Room host Wolf Blitzer what was coming up on his show at the top of the hour. After he told viewers what was coming up (Iraq news, Wall Street news), he promised that for the entire hour there would not be a single mention of the death of Anna Nicole Smith.

Now it's Jack Cafferty's turn. And he did it on Wolf's show too. Video after the jump!

Some more talk about Wolf Blitzer's recent interview with Dick Cheney, when we were once again reminded that Cheney don't like talkin' about his lesbian daughter. Hmm. His buddies are scolding people for mentioning Mary Cheney and using children as "political props". Every time I see that clip of the "What? Are you going to kill me?" presentation, I laugh for about five or six... hours. It's not good for my health.

Senior Media Critic John Oliver stopped by to elaborate. I liked the list of fourteen things that Cheney's willing to talk about (well, what we heard of it, anyway). Political Activist Chrissy Gephardt (!) also chatted with Jon about the issue. Good sport.

John Kerry made an important announcement about his decision to not run in 2008... Well, actually, it wasn't a real announcement, it was just Kerry completing his concession speech.

Wolf Blitzer interviewed Vice President Cheney... Of course, Blitzer wanted answers and Cheney wanted to avoid giving answers, especially when it came to his pregnant daughter, Mary, who is in a gay relationship. I don't think Jon even needs to do Cheney jokes anymore... All he needs to do is show a clip and then quack for, like, five minutes.

TVNewser posted what looks like a pretty awful typo on Monday's edition of CNN's The Situation Room: a picture of al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri and a cut-out in the shape of Osama bin Laden. The headline next to that picture is "Where's Obama?"

Obama? It may be a slip of the keyboard, but putting a picture of al-Qaeda and the name of the junior senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, together, seems like it would be sort of a Freudian slip, don't you think? For one thing, "B" and "S" aren't close to each other on a computer keyboard, and for another thing, the potential presidential candidate has been accused of being associated with radical Islamic militants. Anyway, Raw Story has the entire sequece of events, including Wolf Blitzer's on-air apology to Obama (the video of which is at Crooks and Liars). If I were Bob, I'd say something like this: "This would be something I'd expect from Fox News, not CNN," but I'm not, so I won't.

[via Lost Remote]

See? See? I do report on FOX News things!

The cable network not only has nine of the top ten news shows, it also celebrated it's 250th week as being #1. Yay! Balloons and candy for everyone! (Though the network is down 17% in the daytime numbers from last year, and down 25% in primetime).

Over on MSNBC, the news is good too. The network's ratings are up, which kind of depresses me because they're up since started that damn "doc block" and heading towards more taped feature programming. But Countdown with Keith Olbermann is up 67%, and that's a very telling number.

In other cable news news, remember when Anderson Cooper was brought in to co-host Aaron Brown's show, and then Brown was shown the door? Look who's co-hosting Paula Zahn's show over on CNN. Hmmm...