The headline for today's installment would have to be something like: ...

"Lively Political Discourse Dead In America, Democratic Governance, The Life Of The Mind To Follow, Sooner Rather Than Later."

Okay, so I'm not a headline writer.

The "hour's," (more like half that time, deducting commercials and George's feel-good celebrity segment at the show's end), most remarkable aspect was the evidence through-out of the ease and speed with which George Stephanopoulos has made the transition to gasbag extraordinaire, which is now total and complete: Could he care less about facts? Could he care less about clarity? Could he care less about being fair to the center left? Could he be more a creature of beltway buzz and conventional wisdom? Could he care less about journalistic integrity?

No, No, No, No, and No. He could not.

Details below.

Now then, about North Korea: The subject was introduced by tape of Christopher Hill, an assistant secretary of state and a point man on negotiations with North Korea noting, quite rightly:

We have a situation where this country has simply created, has really disturbed the peace in this region. So how will the other countries react to this? Could missile programs in North Korea cause an arms race among some other countries? That's a real concern."

Maybe to Hill, but not to the President and his gang, or so methinks.

Senator Lugar, on the other hand, was clearly concerned. And pissed, seemed to me. Really, really tired of having to go to bat for the gang that can’t shoot straight. Think I’m exaggerating? When asked by George if is fair to say that North Korea has become stronger under Bush’s watch, here’s how Lugar responded, "approximately): "Perhaps they have…on the other hand, we have drawn closer, diplomatically, to China."

A good trade-off? George didn’t ask.

Before that, Lugar had allowed that Bush was on the right track with the six-party talks; my impression, stuck in Lugar’s throat was this additional thought - in contrast to his idiotic Iraq policy.

Lugar sees China as the key; they have to get tough with North Korea, and they can, because they supply that country with the means to survive, in order to keep North Koreans inside North Korea. (When your population numbers in the billions, you’re not looking for immigrants.) Which means regime change is out, said Dick.

I’ll give this to Lugar, he’s an old-fashioned conservative Republican; no, not in the mode of George Aiken, but Lugar gets what is so dangerous about this situation.

Most interesting moment, unexplored by Steph: On the matter of one on one talks with Kim, the six parties released a statement that indicated circumstances under which that could happen, the State Department agreed, then the Defense Dept torpedoed (my word) it; Lugar wants to hold hearings on what happened there.

Lugar admitted that the Japanese could decide they have to go nuclear.

And yes, an arms race in Asia is the last thing anyone should want.

The obvious conclusion Steph avoided noticing - this administration has no real policy to deal with any of these problems; for the President, and those closest to him, their new reliance on international diplomacy is just another talking point.

Back to the national political scene, Steph examined the race between Senator George Allen and James Webb, winner of the Democratic primary, for Allen’s seat - or, in the clever parlance of network news - Cowboy boots vs Combat boots, with appropriate universally understood icons to illustrate.

What wasn’t said, or even hinted at, Allen’s cowboy boots, like Bush’s are an affectation, despite both men’s historical roots in Texas, whereas Webb’s combat boots were earned.

The segment didn’t follow the two candidates around, oh no, what we were given - two separate interviews by Steph, one with each candidate, cut together to suggest a conversation of sorts.

I think the goal here was liveliness, but the result was more like goofiness.

So, we got Webb explaining why Iraq is a disaster, and the need for accountability, followed by a quick cut to Allen, sneering at Webb for being one of the "I told you so" gang, and a…wait for it…Monday morning quarterback.

Or when the subject of Webb’s service as Reagan’s Secretary of Navy came up, Allen responded with a sour aside, something like, ‘yeah, right, and how long was he Secretary for, 10 months?’ That’s ten months more than you, Bub.

It did seem that the cutting favored Allen, to the extent that he was given more opportunities to undercut what Webb had just said, but no amount of tinkering could have disguised the fact that Allen is a fool, a dunderhead, a guy for whom a slogan is always better than an idea, and that Webb, in high contrast, is a highly intelligent, learned man, cool, confidant, who comes fully equip with a wealth of experience, in combat, in education, in government, a man comfortable enough in his own boots to be full of laughter, even during a serious discussion, and best of all, even at himself.

I think Allen’s people ought to be worried, based on those cross-cuts; Allen came off as a Bush clone, minus the presidential thingee.

Webb was impressive on every score. While it’s true he was threading a separate path on Iraq between Kerry’s resolution and the Levin-Reid one, he picked up on one of the greatest vulnerabilities of the administration - those permanent bases we’ve been building in Iraq. What do they mean? How do they fit in with that constant administration dirge on Iraq - as they stand up, we’ll stand down. He would have said more, but Steph wouldn’t let him, if you can believe it. Didn’t fit the narrative - Democrats unworthy of Webb, who is an iconoclast.

Don’t you long for the day when a network pundit will pay attention to such a moment, explore it, and even remind us and someone like Webb, that it was John Kerry who said, as the presidential candidate in 2004, that he would stop all work on permanent bases in Iraq as a way of expressing in the most compelling fashion that we don’t intend to stay? Interesting "what if" to consider.

Allen, of course, took every opportunity to recast anything Webb said as cut and run, turn tail and run…slogans, slogan, slogans.

Most impressive aspect of Webb, his total comfort presenting himself as a Democrat, and his total commitment to being a Democrat. Case in point, asked by Steph what would happen if in 2008 it was Hillary Clinton vs Webb’s old pal, John McCain, Webb, after laughing at the question, in a good way, said, without hesitation, that he would support the Democratic candidate in 2008.

Webb reminded everyone that Ronald Reagan had been a Democrat, and then became a Republican; so was Webb, early in his career; he became a Republican, in part, out of a sense of alienation from that sizable portion of Democrats who were against the Vietnam War. Webb allowed that he thought there was a chance, were Reagan around to take the temperature of the current Republican party, he would consider returning to being a Democrat. Don’t think so, Jim, but nice point.

Best moment in the whole show - when Webb explained that after 9/11, he lost all his anger at those he’d been angry with for thirty years. I believed him. Which probably means Webb is as angry as most of us at the way that post 9/11 period was undermined by the political calculations of the Republican party.

The roundtable was sparsely furnished this morning; Gosh, only three pundits. Peter Beinart, Donna Brazile, and George Will.

First topic - the Bush flip-flop on preemption v. diplomacy, complete with a clip of his aggressive 2002 axis of evil SOTU, and his paean, at Monday’s press conference, to patience, diplomacy, and the American way.

George Will, who responded first, has been at this pundit thing so long that he has become a living parody of himself. George’s take on the difference between the two clips, at long last, the President has become a conservative. Everyone knows, George went on, that the government can’t run Amtrak, now he understand that the notion that you can control other nations is wrong-headed.

Or some such thing. The government can’t run Amtrak?

Brazile brought it back to North Korea, the president has a fiasco on his hands.

Beinart tried to put his policy wonk hat on, something about deterrence, our nuclear arsenal being the umbrella for China, Japan, and South Korea, so they won’t feel the need to nuclearize, but Steph blew Pete’s hat off, just at the point that Beinart was saying something positive about the Clinton administration’s handling of North Korea.

You think maybe it’s in Steph’s contract that he will, under no circumstances allow anything positive to be said about either Clinton, to protect the journalistic integrity of ABC?

Will had a good word for missile defense of course, and he had the nerve to note that since John Kennedy made non-proliferation an issue, in the succeeding years, except for some important exceptions, it’s worked, although, being the good conservative that Will is, he expressed skepticism that it would continue to work.

No discussion of the way this administration has literally blown apart the international framework for non-proliferation.

No discussion of Iraq.

No discussion of the Mexican election. You think conditions in Mexico might have some relevance to our immigration problems, if problems they be?

Well, no one at ABC appears to.

Last topic…Lieberman & Lamont. Sounds like an old vaudevillian act, doesn’t it?

I have to give some respect to Donna Brazile; I have the distinct impression that she’s been reading blogs, or talking to bloggers, because when it comes to the net roots she seems to be getting it.

That cannot be said of either Beinart or Will, who were more or less in agreement about the thundering hordes who are turning the Democratic party into a one seized by "monomania." Joe Lieberman is a good solid, liberal, but he’s wrong on one issue, so he isn’t to be tolerated.

Beinart was worse; the netroots have taken their inspiration from Karl Rove, and they are trying to turn the Democratic Party into their version of the Republican Party.

Both Beinart and Will acted as if they were talking about something shameful; imagine that, ordinary American citizens organizing themselves to have an affect on how they are governed. Fucking outrageous!

Brazile wasn’t buying either formulation. She applauded the netroots, pointed out that no one was expelling Lieberman from the party, someone was challenging him in a primary election.

She thought Lamont had come out well in the debate, that Lieberman was in trouble. She also pointed out that he had taken out a insurance policy, as he had in 2002, insisting on running for the Senate even while he was the Democratic vice-presidential candidate; Brazile felt that starting those petitions to run as an independent might well hurt Lieberman.,

Yes, Brazile is a Lieberman supporter, but she understand the critique being offered of her guy, she finds nothing about it disturbing, and, she made clear, that like Hillary Clinton, Brazile will support whoever is the winner of the Democratic primary.

My kind of woman.