Where have you gone, Ray Suarez?

For anyone who doesn't get the reference, Suarez was the longtime host of NPR's Talk of the Nation.  Last I knew, he had moved on to Jim Lehrer's PBS show.  He was a remarkable journalist, speaking fluently on a wide array of topics and he asking the most pointed, informed, enlightening questions I could have imagined.  He was a joy to listen to, regardless of the topic, and I frequently scheduled travel time for the 1-3 p.m. time slot to hear his show.

I don't catch much of the show anymore, and Neal (Neil?) Cohen strikes me as something of a lightweight.  He also seems to be enamored of his role in the beltway chattering class and it really colors his questions.

But today I caught a piece of the show where some giggly guest host was having a "political round table" with another beltway chatterer questioning whether Obama was "laughing too much" and showing a lack of...I don't know...somberness (apparently that is not a word but I don't care) by appearing on Leno and talking about the NCAA tournament on ESPN.  

Beyond missing the absolute irony of holding this discussion on a "intellectual" news program, they relied for support of this hypothesis on a guy traveling the country for the first hundred days who talked to a few people in a diner this morning.  Gallup would be proud.

And this is the high end.  I'm starting to think we deserve whatever fate we get...