The Adventures of Pete Big Bear

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Washington, DC
Sunday, June 24th

Today was one of those days that makes me really realize how lucky I ma to have this job. The morning started out with a visit to NBC’s Washington affiliate to watch a taping of Meet the Press. The guests in the first half hour were former Presidential Candidate, Pat Buchanan and Rep. D-(IL) Luis Gutierez. They “discussed” immigration policy. In the second half hour their was a panel discussion about immigration and the presidential race which included David Broder of The Washington Post, John Harwood of The Wall Street Journal and CNBC, Gwen Ifill of PBS’ Washington Week, and syndicated columnist Roger Simon. (Transcript) (Netcast)

The debate between Gutierez and Buchanan was the immigration at large and H.R. 1645 specifically. I have provided a link to a congressional site that has a great deal of information about this legislation. (H.R. 1645) There was not as much discussion as it was talking at one another. Sadly, Buchanan was the better debater. He had more facts while Gutierez focused more on emotional arguments. They both could learn from each other. Gutierez needs more a fact driven argument while Buchanan, well it is Pat Buchanan. It would help if every you time you heard him you didn’t imagine you were hearing the theme music for Darth Vader in your head. The panel discussion was much more informative.

After the filming Tim Russert answered questions for about 45 minute. His down to earth manner really puts the students at ease. They asked a number of questions mostly the usual of who did you get started, how do you prepare, etc. They also asked him about the Scooter Libby trial where he had to testify and he actually became part of the story. The response was good but long, in essence he explained he heard that he was the who told Libby about Valerie Plame’s identity he knew it was false and he had to simple explain that and that was it. When asked about his favorite interviews he mentioned Ross Perot, all of the candidates, and more recently Colin Powell. He is one of my favorite speakers that the program hears, partly because he seems to genuinely enjoy speaking to the students.

Russert talks with the students

When we returned from Meet the Press we broke again into small groups and headed out to various museums in and around DC. Some of places visited will be the Spy Museum, National Air and Space Museum near Dulles Airport (Not the one on the Mall), National Museum of the Marine Corps, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. I took a group to the Holocaust Museum. They enjoyed it, as much as you enjoy a museum like that. There was a small group and we took about two and half hours to go through the museum. They read, asked questions, and we all learned a lot.

After the groups all came back to the Close I took a group to church. The are a lot of kids who wanted to go to Catholic mass so we found a church called Holy Trinity in Georgetown that had a 5:30pm service. It was a beautiful old church right in the heart of the oldest art of Georgetown. The church dates back to the 1790’s. It is located about a block away from Georgetown and therefore logically has a long association with the Jesuits. It was a nice service with a good sermon. Only a Jesuit would base a sermon Henry David Thoreau’s book Walden when explaining the life of John the Baptist.