Weekend Watchdog Wrap-Up

A particularly egregious Sunday as the talk shows hosts once again go 0-for-3 for the Watchdog.

ABC's This Week host George Stephanopoulos was happy to ask Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell about the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). But he didn't bother to ask about McConnell's communication director who, as ThinkProgress reported, was complicit in the smear campaign against the SCHIP beneficiaries and advocates in the Frost family.

On CBS' Face The Nation, Sen. John McCain repeated his claim that "there are many experts, as is well known, believe that Iran is within about two years of reaching a tipping point ... achiev[ing] enough technical capability and enough material that inexorably they would acquire a nuclear weapon or weapons."

And host Bob Schieffer did not mention that the chief of the International Atomic Energy Association has said the opposite. His words, from a recent Newsweek interview, are actually worth repeating:

..I don't see Iran, today, to be a clear and present danger. And our conclusion here is supported by every intelligence assessment I've seen that even if Iran has ambitions to develop nuclear weapons [which it denies], it's still three to eight years away from that. We need to continue to do robust verification. But we do not need to hype the issue. What we need right now is to encourage the moderates in Iran.

Finally, Fox News Sunday didn't challenge House Minority Leader John Boehner's claim that he wants a bipartisan compromise on SCHIP, even though the bill that Bush veteod already is a bipartisan compromise.

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