I’m a bit misty eyed today, as I sent my daughter off to her first day of middle school this morning.  I remember her first day of kindergarten as if it was yesterday. Where does the time go?

One of her subjects is World History.  I look forward to reading the text book to see how it’s presented.  In this political climate, I worry about how our kids are taught, and a whole lot more…

This blog will be short today, as I waited at home until she arrived home from school to see how it went (Fine Mom).  And then rushed to the studio.  And I’ll rush home to spend some time with her before her bedtime… all 15 minutes.

On today’s show, I’ll speak with Howie Klein of Down With Tyranny and the Blue America PAC… they endorsed just one Florida candidate in tomorrow’s primary: Doug Tudor, who will also join me this evening.

Yes, Blue America also endorsed Alan Grayson, who participated in an online chat today at Crooks & Liars, but he’s not being challenged in the primary.  He is, however, being targeted in the general election!

***Update*** Congressman Grayson called into the show too.  He told us about the crazy cadre of Republicans who are vying to challenge him for his seat in November.  Unfortunately, the DCCC is not helping him out, so it’s up to us to make sure he has enough in his campaign coffers to stay in Congress.  He has a moneybomb going on today at www.congressmanwithguts.com.  Go and throw in a few bucks if you’re in the position to do so.

Victoria Jones checked in with a news report from the Talk Radio News Service.  Her latest piece for Huffington Post is “Hey First Amendment This — Cruel Entitles Dr. Laura and Narcissistic Saint Sarah.”

And in hour two, Nicole Belle of Crooks & Liars returns for our weekly Fools on the Hill segment, discussing the Sunday talking head shows.  Here’s her take on the Sunday shows:

So I think today’s theme is cluelessness:

Chris Matthews asks his panel if the Tea Party will have veto power over the 2012 GOP nominee.  First and foremost, they are using Sarah Palin as some benchmark of influence, which is ludicrous.  Her endorsement is by no means a shoo-in for any candidate right now, and there’s nothing that says her influence will strengthen in the intervening years.  If anything, if she opts to pursue a national candidacy herself, I suspect that the media scrutiny will result in her having even less credibility.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/node/39178

It also gives the tea party itself far more credit than they deserve.  I think we’ve seen middling electoral success from them in primary races, but they have yet to show themselves successful in full elections and given the polls for Angle, Paul and others, I don’t think they should crow just yet.

Which segues nicely into Howard Dean.  He points out to Candy Crowley that although the conventional wisdom is that the party in power suffers electorally in mid-terms, when your alternative is the Party of No, conventional wisdom may be wrong.

http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/howard-dean-name-one-thing-republican

And then we have Dick Armey, the corporate head of the Tea Party, spouting off some truly unbelievable stuff:

http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/dick-armey-medicare-trashes-constitution

He says that Medicare trashes the Constitution.  Huh?   What does he think those lazy, entitled senior citizens should do?  Work to pay for their Alzheimer’s treatment?  For proof, he brings up the example of “the” Christian Scientist, whom we apparently should feel bad is being forced to sign up for a doctor to get Social Security.  Of course, no one says he has to GO to the doctors, just sign up for Medicare.   But again, David Gregory falls down on the job of calling out this crap, and lets Armey filibuster through the segment and not allow Granholm to respond.

And then, in light of the protests on the Cordoba House in NYC over the weekend, Fareed Zakaria wants to remind Americans that we are not in a war with Islam and that al Qaeda hates factions of Islam as bad as they hate us.

http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/fareed-zakaria-gps-al-qaeda-vs-islam

By the way, a commenter made this video of the NYC protests when the haters went after a passerby, who happened to be a construction worker at Ground Zero and not a Muslim.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwaNRWMN-F4&feature=player_embedded

George Will thinks that the Mideast peace process is the biggest obstacle to Mideast peace.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/node/39185

Amazingly, I actually agree with him if only for this story:

http://crooksandliars.com/ian-welsh/israeli-pm-natanyahu-america-easily-move

I think if we really want to see Mideast peace, then the US needs to come to grips with the dichotomy between what Israel officially tells us and what they say behind closed doors.

And then Fox chooses to use Judith Miller of all people to discuss the study that American people have lost faith in broadcast news

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/node/39175

Really, what can you say about them using the person the Bush White House used to feed propaganda about invading Iraq to?