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First of all you did a magnificent job on Hardball yesterday. You were passionate and well-reasoned and forceful. You were obviously the one in control; a veritable Tweety-tamer. Now a few important issue-oriented questions to guide me in my quest to become a serious political analyst/journalist:
To what do you credit the strange hold you have over Matthews? It's been obvious in the past but yesterday he threw caution to the wind and sublimated himself to you on the air. You have many obvious and compelling charms. Which of those do you think Mr. Matthews himself finds most irresistible? Can you palpably sense, even via remote, when you give him a thrill up his leg?
If Matthews were President and you were Secretary of State do you think, in a reverse of the Condi/Dubya "misspeak", President Matthews might refer to you at a dinner party as "my wife, er, I mean Madame Secretary."? Is it my mis-perception or are Chris' lips extra-moist when you're a guest?
If I wanted to become a "political analyst", would it be better preparation for me to watch reruns of Entertainment Tonight or study clips of Michelle Bernard?
Would I be more likely to get a job as "political analyst" if I emulated Michelle Bernard or drooled like a Saint Bernard? What, in your opinion, is the major difference between the two?
Why is there such obvious enmity between you and Ms. Bernard? Do you think Matthews, knowing how much you two hate each other, books you together because he's forming his "Team of Rivals"?
If that's the case, do you consider Chris Matthews the Abraham Lincoln of punditry? Do you think Michelle Bernard considers herself the emancipated Sally Hemings of Chris Matthews' Monticello? Are you the Marilyn Monroe of the Hardball Camelot?
Do you think that since the cutting edge of jounalism now includes projecting the phantasms of ones imagination onto the subject and then "analyzing" those projections as if they were fact, that "old school" media figures such as yourself will become anachronisms?
Do you consider yourself too old to change and adapt to the future? Is that what Ms. Bernard was referring to when she said you were "over the hill"? (I don't actually have a link for that, but I'm sure I read it somewhere, probably in the NYT.)
Anyway, Joan, thanks for helping me out. Maybe someday soon we'll be on the same panel, but be warned -- as a political analyst I won't be able to cut you any slack.
