4/27 - Daily Show, Colbert Report, Commander in Chief

New footnotes for the Daily Show (guest Robin Williams), the Colbert Report (guest Bill Kristol), and Commander in Chief (Ties That Bind).

Guest: Robin Williams

Guest: Bill Kristol

Commander in Chief: Ties That Bind

posted by Stephen Lee @ 4/28/2006 09:52:00 AM   

4/26 - Daily Show, Colbert Report

Here are footnotes for Wednesday's Daily Show (guest Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal) and Colbert Report (guest author Sebastian Junger).

Guest: Kimberly Strassel

Guest: Sebastian Junger

posted by Stephen Lee @ 4/27/2006 08:35:00 AM   

4/25 - Daily Show, Colbert Report, Boston Legal

Here are footnotes for Tuesday's Daily Show (guest Tom Selleck), Colbert Report (guest "End of Faith" author Sam Harris), and Boston Legal (Race Ipsa).

Guest: Tom Selleck

Guest: "End of Faith" author Sam Harris

Boston Legal: Race Ipsa

posted by Stephen Lee @ 4/26/2006 09:12:00 AM   

4/24 - Daily Show, Colbert Report

Here are footnotes for Monday's Daily Show (guest former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy) and Colbert Report (guest radio host Hugh Hewitt and a special report on Money & Politics: The Machine That Ain't Broke).

Guest: Efraim Halevy

Guest: Hugh Hewitt

posted by Stephen Lee @ 4/25/2006 08:50:00 AM   

4/23 - West Wing (Transition), The Sopranos (Luxury Lounge)

New footnotes for The West Wing and for the The Sopranos.

Also, if you're in the New York area, please join me for a West Wing finale party the evening of May 14. Check back for more details, or email me at footnotetv@gmail.com to get an email update.

posted by Stephen Lee @ 4/24/2006 11:16:00 AM   

4/20 - Daily Show, Colbert Report, Commander in Chief

New footnotes for the Daily Show (guest Sen. Ted Kennedy), the Colbert Report (guest Ralph Nader), and Commander in Chief (The Price You Pay).

Guest: Sen. Ted Kennedy

Guest: Ralph Nader

Commander in Chief: The Price You Pay

posted by Stephen Lee @ 4/21/2006 09:33:00 AM   

4/19 - Daily Show, Colbert Report, Law & Order

New footnotes for the Daily Show (guest Dennis Quaid, with a comic strip based on President George W. Bush's recent comment about his being "the decider," the Colbert Report (guest Caitlin Flanagan), and Law & Order (Thinking Makes It So).

Guest: Dennis Quaid

Guest: Caitlin Flanagan

Law & Order: Thinking Makes It So

posted by Stephen Lee @ 4/20/2006 09:32:00 AM   

4/18 - Daily Show, Colbert Report

Here are footnotes for Tuesday's Daily Show (author Ryan Nerz) and Colbert Report (ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero). I could not footnote Boston Legal as the show was pre-empted for coverage of a live rescue operation involving one of New York City's trams.

Guest: Ryan Nerz

Guest: ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero

posted by Stephen Lee @ 4/19/2006 08:28:00 AM   

4/17 - Daily Show, Colbert Report

Here are footnotes for Monday's Daily Show (Jon Meacham) and Colbert Report (Reza Aslan).

Guest: Jon Meacham

Guest: Reza Aslan

posted by Stephen Lee @ 4/18/2006 07:31:00 AM   

4/16 - The West Wing (Requiem), The Sopranos (Live Free or Die)

New footnotes for The West Wing and for the The Sopranos.

posted by Stephen Lee @ 4/17/2006 08:59:00 AM   

4/15 - SNL (Lindsay Lohan)

New footnotes for the April 15 episode of Saturday Night Live, hosted by Lindsay Lohan, are on-line here.

posted by Stephen Lee @ 4/16/2006 10:46:00 AM   

4/13 - Commander in Chief, Daily Show, Colbert Report

Commander in Chief returns after more than two months with a new episode depicting President Allen's first State of the Union address and a flap over an embarrassing photo of the First Gentleman.

Also, I finally caught up on a Daily Show episode (Sharon Stone) and a Colbert Report episode (Robert Greenwald) that I missed last week due to a business trip.

posted by Stephen Lee @ 4/14/2006 07:49:00 AM   

4/9 - West Wing - Election Day Part II

New footnotes for part 2 of the West Wing's final Election Day episode. Even as Leo's death forces some tough choices, Vinick and Santos both end up winning their respective home states, leaving the election to be decided by Nevada and Oregon. The final electoral map as well as the map from the real-life 2004 election are below with Republican states in red and Democrat states in blue:

West Wing Election

Real-Life 2004 Election

Also, the New York Times reported today that the show's producers originally intended for Vinick to win the election, but decided after John Spencer's death that it would be too sad to have Leo both die and lose the election. Article on-line here.

NOTE: This is a corrected entry. I incorrectly used the 2000 map instead of the 2004 map in the original version of this post.

For more footnotes, go here.

posted by Stephen Lee @ 4/10/2006 08:42:00 AM   

4/8 - Antonio Banderas

New footnotes for the April 8 episode of Saturday Night Live, hosted by Antonio Banderas. Lots of discussion of immigration issues, given the failure of a compromise Senate bill earlier in the week

posted by Stephen Lee @ 4/09/2006 10:55:00 AM   

4/6 - Daily Show, Colbert Report

A day late due to my being out of town for business, but here are footnotes for Thursday's Daily Show (Josh Hartnett) and Colbert Report (Markos Moulitsas Zuniga).

Guest: Josh Hartnett

Guest: Markos Moulitsas Zuniga

posted by Stephen Lee @ 4/07/2006 07:56:00 AM   

4/5 - Daily Show, Colbert Report

The Daily Show had a special episode on race as well as guest General Tony Zinni, and the Colbert Report had Harvey C. Mansfield as its guest. I'm away on business Thursday and Friday, and I'll catch up on Law & Order and Thursday's Daily Show and Colbert Report when I get back.

Guest: General Tony Zinni

Guest: Harvey C. Mansfield

posted by Stephen Lee @ 4/06/2006 07:39:00 AM   

4/4 - Daily Show, Colbert Report

The Daily Show had Studs Terkel (as well as Sen. John McCain) and the Colbert Report had Rev. Jesse Jackson as guests last night.

Guest: Studs Terkel

Guest: Rev. Jesse Jackson

posted by Stephen Lee @ 4/05/2006 08:40:00 AM   

4/3 - Daily Show, Colbert Report

The Daily Show had Ricky Gervais and the Colbert Report had Michael Smerconish as guests last night.

Guest: Ricky Gervais

Guest: Michael Smerconish

posted by Stephen Lee @ 4/04/2006 10:34:00 AM   

4/2 - The West Wing - Election Day

New footnotes for part 1 of the West Wing's final Election Day episode. As the episode ends with a handful of states being called by the networks, Vinick has Indiana (11 electoral votes), Kentucky (8 electoral votes), and West Virginia (5 electoral votes), whereas Santos has Pennsylvania (21 electoral votes) and South Carolina (8 electoral votes), leaving Santos slightly ahead with many more states and 485 electoral votes still to be called. The electoral map looks like this:

Josh's concern over the accuracy of exit poll data is reminiscent of what happened in the 2004 election, where media organizations' exit polls generally overstated support for Senator John Kerry and understated support for President George W. Bush. A January 2005 self-evaluation by the exit polling organization (on-line here) found that the exit polls overstated Kerry's support nationally and in 26 states beyond the standard margin of error and overstated Bush's support in four states beyond the standard margin of error.

The polling organization said that it found no systematic problems in how the exit poll data was collected and processed, but did identify several factors that may have contributed to the larger-than-expected error and to Kerry supporters being overrepresented in exit polls. These factors included: distance restrictions placed upon interviewers (several states, including Minnesota, tried to keep interviewers at least 50 feet away from polling locations), weather conditions, oversampling of women, and qualities of exit poll interviewers such as age and training.

Regarding Leo's death, Democratic Party rules for the 2004 election (on-line here) dictated that in the event of the death of the party's presidential or vice-presidential candidate after the party convention, the Democratic National Committee was authorized to fill the vacancy.

For more footnotes, go here.

posted by Stephen Lee @ 4/03/2006 09:18:00 AM