Episode 137, with guests Jacob Weisberg and Howard Wolfson

Jacob Weisberg and Howard Wolfson are our guests this week.
Show produced by Katherine Caperton.
Original Air Date: February 8, 2014 on SiriusXM “POTUS” Channel 124.
PoliOptics airs on POTUS on Saturdays at 8 am, 4 pm and midnight and on Sundays at noon and midnight.
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This week, one of my favorite quadrennial moments – the Winter Olympics – opened last night in Sochi, Russia under the watchful eye of Vladimir Putin, whose government spent billions dressing up Sochi for 17 days under the global spotlight on the ice and snow. We’re hearing that the hotels aren’t ready, the gays aren’t wanted and the corruption is rife, but all that might be forgotten as our complaints refocus on NBC truncating Olympic contests to tape-delayed runs and a flash of the medal standings.

This is my first show back since returning from the World Economic Forum in Davos, where I made a new friend in the Alps: Jacob Weisberg, the chairman of Slate, author of Bushisms and The Bush Tragedy and, as I found out last Saturday, a toastmaster extraordinaire. His sendup of our mutual friend Jake Siewert, suggesting Jake made Faustian bargain and sold his soul, was a classic for the ages.

Then, Howard Wolfson joins us for a third visit to PoliOptics. Wolfson, the former Deputy Mayor of New York City under Mike Bloomberg and spokesman for Hillary Clinton on her last presidential run, is now penning a column for The Daily Beast, not about politics, as one might expect, but music, his lifelong passion. But as Howard reminded us this week, the two are easily linked in political protest songs. Having just bid farewell to the legendary Pete Seeger, we’ll catch up with Howard about how music and politics go hand in hand.

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