HOST: The winner of the Democratic New Hampshire caucuses in one word, Panel – NDP?
NDP: I –
HOST: Liberal?
LIBERAL: Clinton.
HOST: Conservative?
CONSERVATIVE: Obama.
HOST: Five second sound-byte answer, NDP?
NDP: I still say Edwards is –
HOST: Liberal?
LIBERAL: Clinton is the broad to the White House.
HOST: Hmm…almost clever. Conservative?
CONSERVATIVE: Obamamania is pathological.
HOST: You’re watching Pundit Panel. Who wants to start the scrum?
NDP: Conservative, after the Iowa caucuses, you wrote in the National Post that “Hillary Clinton should be read the last rites and buried because there’s no way she can become President now and nobody will want to see her host a cooking show.”
CONSERVATIVE: Well, it was a metaphor, wasn’t it?
LIBERAL: I would hope so!
NDP: Okay, whatever it was, it was completely wrong.
CONSERVATIVE: Oh, no. It was absolutely the correct analysis at the time.
HOST: Yeah, uhh, NDP, maybe you should –
NDP: But, subsequent events proved it completely mistaken.
HOST: That’s why we have a daily show – so we can respond to events as they unfold.
NDP: With opinions that will be equally wrong.
CONSERVATIVE: Not necessarily.
NDP: Come on! In your column after the New Hampshire primaries, you wrote that “Rudy Giuliani can afford to wait for Super Tuesday, when he’s gonna pull a 9/11 on the other candidates’ asses!” What does that even mean?
LIBERAL: Okay, look. Conservative sometimes goes a little overboard with the hyperbole, but he’s covered the political scene for over 20 years, and his opinions are formulated based on all the research and reporting he’s done in that time.
NDP: He also wrote: “Is it my imagination, or is Chelsea Clinton looking more and more like a puff pastry with limbs?”
LIBERAL: This does not keep him from being a vicious, petty bastard, of course.
HOST: Okay, panel, if we could just –
NDP: I had one of my staff members do a little research recently. In the past 20 years, Conservative has covered 11 elections, making 237 predictions. You know how many of those predictions were accurate? Three. And, two of them were about Bill Clinton’s ability to pack away doughnuts.
CONSERVATIVE: You looked at my record?
HOST: Okay, NDP, I think you’re out of line, here…
CONSERVATIVE: You actually looked at my record?
LIBERAL: Oh, now look what you’ve done! Conservative is getting all pouty.
CONSERVATIVE: You…LOOKED. AT. MY. RECORD!
NDP: How else are people supposed to know if they can trust what you tell them?
CONSERVATIVE: They’re supposed to trust what I tell them because I’m on television telling them. When they get on television, they can be trusted by people they tell things to.
NDP: Umm…did that make sense?
CONSERVATIVE: As much sense as anything else I’ve ever said, apparently.
LIBERAL: NDP, you’re just being mean. You should look at punditry as the ultimate Zen state.
NDP: What?
LIBERAL: It’s all about living in the moment. The opinions you have given in the past are in the past – there is nothing you can do about them. The opinions you give in the future are unknowable. The only opinion that matters is the opinion that you give in the present.
NDP: So, you’re saying that Zen Buddhism is based on perpetual ignorance and stupidity?
LIBERAL: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Of course not.
NDP: Okay, then –
LIBERAL: I’m saying that the Zen of punditry works on a…flexible definition of reality.
CONSERVATIVE: Jeez Louise, you’re a pundit. Haven’t you ever been wrong?
NDP: I’ve only been a pundit for a couple of years…
CONSERVATIVE: Bastard.
HOST: And, it’s good to have fresh voices who bring something new to the discussion. As long as they don’t get carried away with personal attacks.
NDP: Personal attacks? How is questioning a pundit’s record a personal attack?
CONSERVATIVE: Are you kidding? It’s like kicking a puppy while drowning kittens!
LIBERAL: There’s that…hyperbole again.
HOST: Okay, Panel, we have to take a break here. Predictions – Liberal?
LIBERAL: Hillary Clinton zoomed past Barack Obama because she showed a little emotion. Expect her to show more emotions during the course of the campaign. They may be inappropriate – she may, for instance, look contrite in a situation that calls for anger – but she’s not used to the whole expression of public emotions thing, and despite any missteps the electorate will love her for it.
HOST: Conservative?
LIBERAL: Oh, yeah, emotions will be big. Expect Mike Huckabee to weep uncontrollably when somebody asks him a question about gun control, and Rudy Giuliani will sob if anybody asks him anything about anything that isn’t 9/11.
HOST: Okay. We’ll be back in –
NDP: Hey! What about me?
HOST: – two minutes. Stay tuned…