Oh, hear. When I asked the question about how many actual people are watching at the last post, I was actually asking a question. I wasn't making any point.

However, I am excited as all getout to learn a new word. I can't wait to get home and impress my wife with "priggish." If that doesn't impress her and relight the flame after 25 years, well, I'm in trouble 'cuz there ain't nuthin on TV tonight.

Thanks for the #s. Great blog.

LAMBERT: That was you that said that? Damn. Sorry. I meant to say, "One learned reader politely asked... "

Ch 9 didn't have a 10 o'clock 'cast in '99...did it?
I think it was grainy M*A*S*H re-runs

LAMBERT: The computer says 10.

Wow - 40 percent decline. I'd like to know the breakdown of the remaining audience - education, income, other media use, political affiliation, voting patterns. Would be useful, no?

LAMBERT: It would. The "personal" gizmo will help with that. You're guessing what? The 1% professionals are all that's left?

First, watched "The Player" again via Netflix two weeks ago. It's one of my top 10. Tim Robbins spins quite the character. Love it.

As for the numbers ... doesn't sound like they are replacing Reger or three off-air folks let go at 'CCO.

If the trend continues (maybe I've been missing it?) of stations cutting payroll that's the "bottom line" sign about the state of the audience for local TV news.

Here's a personal sign: Read someone say the other day that having people laugh *at* you as a politician is the worst possible thing, and that's what people are doing about Hillary and Bosnia. Another nail in her campaign coffin.

Well, after I'm done with a pained cringe whenever my wife turns on the local TV news I end up, at least once, mimicking the canned laughter from the fake camaraderie on the set.

LAMBERT: I told a couple of my cronies that the Bosnia bit was the final straw. She looked ridiculous. The thing is, I still like her health care plan and her mortgage "bail-out" plan more than Obama's. But she'll have plenty of power back in the Senate to push that stuff through.

What's all this garbage about Hillary having plenty of power in the Senate, or becoming the next majority leader? I'm guessing the reality is that most of the Democratic senators may like the fact that she's been something of a team player since arriving, but she always styled this approach with her eyes on the prize. After all, it's hard not to notice that Hillary is all about Hillary, even when she's under sniper fire. Majority leaders with slim majorities are required to be less divisive within their own caucus and less offensive to the minority than Hillary will ever be.

By the way, do your TV numbers take into consideration the fact that I got rid of the Sony in my kitchen?

LAMBERT: I agree that some of Clinton's influence in the Senate has probably come from her status as "presumptive President". But, despite the campaign season shrieking or "rabid" partisanship, she actually has been given credit for collegiality and compromise. If the Dems gain serious control of the Senate she is still a major player with all sorts of knowledge of and access to the widgets of influence.

As for your Sony. Since it hadn't moved off Hefner's "The Girls Next door" in three years, it had been flagged and eliminated from consideration.

I have been wondering all weekend if we'll get a report from Bob Collins on how things went when he introduced the new word to his wife. After all, the archaic meaning of "priggish" is "foppish" -- which is not usually considered a successful style of seduction.

LAMBERT: If we hear he's buying flowers today we'll have our answer.

The computer lies.
Ch 9 and 29 did a programming switcheroo in 2002, with 9 getting the Fox stuff and 29 going UPN...
At that time, late 2002, Ch 9 had Will and Grace at 10 pm. I don't believe Ch 9 began a 10 o'clock 'cast until 2006... Don't believe the Fox computers.

LAMBERT: Checking ... checking ...

To clarify an earlier question. KMSP had a 10pm newscast from 1996-2002. They stopped the 10pm news when they merged with WFTC 29. They dropped the 9pm news on WFTC 29, moved it to 10pm. So the numbers from 10 years ago represents a KMSP 10pm news cast on a UPN affiliate.

LAMBERT: Checking ... checking ...

Okay, if I follow you, everyone has stopped watching television news. And everyone has stopped reading newspapers. That means the only media anyone pays attention to now would be Drudge, Huffington, and Lambert--which are columns about what's in the papers and on TV. Crazy.

I guess the media exiles must also include Hillary Clinton, cuz, I mean...what was she thinking? Apparently it did not cross her mind that it would have been BIG NEWS had she, as First Lady, ever actually run for her life under sniper fire. I'm speculating, of course, but it just seems to me we'd have heard about that. Especially with Chelsea and Sinbad serpentining under the tracers close behind her. Seems like there also might been some kind of, oh, I dunno...REPORT...if it was official policy in situations too dangerous for the President to instead send his wife, daughter, and a comedian.

I understand Hillary's strategy has been to go after the downscale demo...but campaigning for idiots just might not get it done.

LAMBERT: It sounds like you're going be asking the Hillary in '08 committee for your $2300 back.

She still has the best health care plan.

Not sure what Hillary's supposed health care plan has to do with her being a liar. When you say it is the best plan, does that depend on what the meaning of is is? A quick check of today's headlines indicates that Hillary is in arears on payments to health care providers for her own employees and has stiffed countless vendors in primary states she has long since vacated. In fact, without putting too fine a point on it, the Clinton campaign is broke. Not the best evidence that she's the one to fix the economy or health care.

LAMBERT: When -- not if -- she gives her concession speech, will it be sufficient if she says something to the effect, "I simply cannot go on in the face of the withering, barrage-like denigration hurled at me by the Frogman of Grant"?

Then sir will you be satisfied?

Oh she does not have the best health care plan. Give me a break. A 'plan' is not something that has no chance of being implemented.

LAMBERT: Polling on the need for health care form (o.e. containing costs) has shifted dramatically since '93, when lobbying, more than practicality, shot down "Hillary-care". Ironically it is the higher potential for a "sustainable majority" with Obama as president, (far more "sustainable" than Hillary could ever deliver), that makes reform likely and possible under a Congressional realignment. And the only way it works is if it is universal and mandatory.

But if you're one who thinks our "system" is far superior to most Europeans post a comparison of your health insurance bills from say 1990 and 2008.

Yeah, that Hill's quite the fabulist. But she's got nothin' on John McCain's combat-zone shoppin' anecdotes. Who can forget his delightful anecdotes about the delightfully peaceful shopping for barbgains in the bazzars of he enjoyed during one of "fact" finding trips to Iraq.

Shopping for cheap carpets in Iraq? Don't forget your VISA card, a company of marines, rooftop snipers, armored personnel carriers and an air escort of black hawk and apache gunship helicopters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/world/middleeast/03mccain.html

"At a news conference shortly after their outing, Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican, and his three Congressional colleagues described Shorja as a safe, bustling place full of hopeful and warmly welcoming Iraqis — “like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime,” offered Representative Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican who was a member of the delegation.

"The delegation arrived at the market, which is called Shorja, on Sunday with more than 100 soldiers in armored Humvees — the equivalent of an entire company — and attack helicopters circled overhead, a senior American military official in Baghdad said. The soldiers redirected traffic from the area and restricted access to the Americans, witnesses said, and sharpshooters were posted on the roofs. The congressmen wore bulletproof vests throughout their hourlong visit.

“They paralyzed the market when they came,” Mr. Faiyad said during an interview in his shop on Monday. “This was only for the media.”

He added, “This will not change anything.”

LAMBERT: I don't get the emotional pitch of the Hllary-hating. She's never been my candidate, and this "sniper fire" stuff is self knee-capping it is so ridiculous. But the "worst liar ever"? Whoa, pally! Even if you've slept through the last seven years, I have vivid memories of Richard Nixon, LBJ and dottering, nodding ol' Ronnie Reagan.

"She still has the best health care plan." Gimme a break, O Great Lambertini. Mandating that everyone be insured will be as successful as requiring that everyone who drives has a valid license and/or auto insurance. It's a quaint thought and a commendable goal, but somewhat at odds with the way the real world works.

LAMBERT: Are you being "Frogman-sly" here or am I missing something? The punitive part of mandates are tricky for any Democrat sympathetic to low-income groups, but everything rests on cost-containment. If low-income groups have access to decent routine, preventative care, that offers a significant reduction in emergency room, ICU costs.

Say, I'm rather warming to this Frogman fellow.

Good work, sir!

I believe both Dem candidates have now been sufficiently revealed for the phony two-bit lying gasbags that they are.

To use an much over-used word, how "credulous" can you liberals be?

LAMBERT: Frogman, you have a soul mate.

snark off/

I would like to think we can agree on this:

Hillarycare circa 93 deserved to be shot down on its merits. It was an awful plan.

Containing costs isn't a realistic goal, not if the goal is to cover everyone. Costs will go up.

There isn't enough money to fund universal coverage with records modernization, prevention campaigns, and other efficiency measures. Most things in life are efficient as they can be given the effieicies available at any point in time. This system can't be made radically more effiecient.

Nor is there a lot of revenue to be had by disallowing people who earn $250k + from taking health care on a pre tax basis.

Insurance, by definition, is where everyone pays premiums based on there own risk factors. Something where some people are paying other peoples premiums is not insurance. Its something else. I make a decent but not stellar income. If I have to pay someone elses premiums, my costs do not go down.

I do understand health care is expensive. We get good quality for that though.

How is it we don't have universal care now? We have medicare/medicaid.

LAMBERT: You are a big ray of sunshine, pal. A; "Hillary-care" didn't lose on it's merits. Check out James Fallows piece on the history of that fight.

"Containing costs isn't realistic"? Brother, get me a gun. How about if we allow the government to negotiate drug prices? One of your intellectual heroes, former Sen. Rick Santorum, practically made THAT strategy a non-starter by letting pharma lobbyists in the henhouse. What was the point of that?

As Dr. Cortese of the Mayo Clinic said in that Sunday Strib interview -- we don't have a "system". Maybe we should get one.

Sadly, as with climate change, I'm left with the impression that most conservatives -- who have no plan and are defiantly status quo -- hold those views for no other reason than "liberals" like Al Gore/Hillary Clinton are for them.

Beware HilaryCare.

Viagra will be outlawed.

LAMBERT: How would you have made through prom night if Hillary were President?

OK - I grant you, containing costs is realistic when you cap premiums, and providers subsequently ration their services.

I read the Fallows piece. The one where Fallows interviews Hillary and his old college chum Ira Magaziner for deep background, and they tell him their plan was great... Convincing.

LAMBERT: I'm guessing you skipped over the parts about blatant distortion of the plans' intent and functions by the HMO industry.

The blatant distortion by the HMO's as described by Hillary. Its Hillary, its not credible.

LAMBERT: I don't think she was the only one pointing out the distortions.