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(cue FDL theme music)

(deep-voiced announcer) "Welcome to Sunday Talking Head Thread at Firedoglake, with your host Christy Hardin Smith. This Sunday, Christy is on vacation, but sitting in for Christy this morning is . . . Peterr?"

(FDL theme music crashes to a halt) 

Umm . . . I'm not actually sitting in for Christy. I'm really on my way to work (Sunday mornings are kind of busy on my schedule, being a pastor and all), but I put this together in Christy's absence for everyone to reflect upon the preaching done at those self-serving Sunday morning TV ego-worship events wonderful public discourse alive in our great nation as seen on this delightful Sunday morning. I always enjoy stopping back here in the afternoon to catch up on what I missed.

Here's the lineup for the Sunday talk shows, as described by the various network websites themselves . . . 

Newsmakers (C-SPAN): Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK; National Republican Campaign Committee chairman), with reporters Josh Kurtz (politics editor at Roll Call) & Jackie Calmes (national reporter at the Wall Street Journal).

Meet The Press (NBC): National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley talking about Iraq, and then four senators on Iraq and the "first 100 hours": Christopher Dodd (D-CT; 2008 presidential candidate), Joseph Lieberman (D/I-CT [yes, that's how MTP mis-identifies him on their website]; chair of Homeland Security & Govt. Affairs Committee), John Kyl (R-AZ; Senate Republican Conference chair) and Chuck Hegel (R-NE; Foreign Relations Committee).

This Week (ABC): National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and Rep. Jack Murtha (D-PA) on the president's plan for Iraq; Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) on his agenda for 2007; and the roundtable with George Will, Katrina vander Heuvel, and Fareed Zakaria. 

Face the Nation (CBS): Senators John McCain (R-AZ; Armed Services Committee) and Barak Obama (D-IL; Foreign Relations Committee) on the plan for Iraq.

CNN Late Edition (CNN): Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari, Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI, Armed Services Committee chairman), Pakistani prime minister Shaukat Aziz, Gen. Richard Myers (former Joint Chiefs chairman), and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA, Foreign Relations Committee member).

Fox News Sunday (FOX): An exclusive interview with Vice President Dick Cheney, followed by a panel discussion of Iraq and the first 100 days of the Democratic Congress with Fox News Washington Managing Editor Brit Hume, Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol, NPR Senior National Correspondent Juan Williams and NPR National Political Correspondent Mara Liasson.

Random thoughts and questions . . . Who could have anticipated that the Vice President would give an exclusive interview to Fox? No one expects the spineless inquisition! . . . What's a female member of Congress have to do to get booked on one of these shows - become a reporter? . . . I'm guessing that Stephen Hadley will like the green room a lot better at NBC, where he'll have Short Ride Joe to chat with instead of Jack Murtha at ABC . . . 

Iraq's the big topic, but only one show is going to sit down and talk with, you know, an actual Iraqi. Good for CNN, and I hope Wolf makes the best of it. I'm not holding my breath, mind you, but we'll see.

In keeping with Christy's tradition of birds on this Sunday morning thread, I wanted to show you a picture of the bald eagle that The Kid, Mrs. Peterr, and I saw over Christmas, perched in a tree on the shore of the little lake where my parents live. Alas, since we had gone out fishing and not birding, we didn't have a camera in the boat to point at the majestic bird sitting regally on a branch not more than thirty feet away from us. Mrs. Peterr, the photo-bug in the family, was not at all happy at missing the opportunity. When we got back to my folks' dock, sans fish, I asked them why them why they didn't tell us about the eagle so we could have brought the cameras. "Oh, that's right - he's new around here - sorry about that."

Oh well, we'll bring the camera next time we go fishing there. But meanwhile, here's a Crested Lark, which according to the blogger Siflayhraka is "fairly ubiquitous in Iraq" and has a song that is "melodious and varied, with mournful whistles and mimicry included."

Mourning and mimicry in Iraq - sounds about right for this morning, don't you think?