These fluffy interviews are always a nice event for the politician in the guest chair. It gives them an unparalleled opportunity to come on and spout Republican-friendly facts and numbers without any fear of being called out by the host. For example:
REICHERT: The other thing that I'm hearing from people is let's get control of this budget. Let's reduce our spending. Let's reduce the deficit. But people don't always hear the good news about what's happening. You know, last year we passed a budget that was a 1% across the board cut. There was $40 billion worth of cuts in the budget.
Luckily for the congressman, Carlson didn't skip a beat and segued into a hard-hitting discussion of just how good the economy is, what with all those unfilled orchard jobs available over in Eastern Washington. One might expect an informed host to be armed with some range of basic facts to prevent any unnecessary bamboozlement of their audience. For example, a simple google search might reveal a Congressional Budget Office document that lists the 2005 actual budget as $2.154 billion, and the 2006 projected budget as $2.313 billion. A little math reveals a budget increase of $159 billion, or 7.4%, which is quite a difference from a $40 billion decrease.
It's such a shame that right-wing radio listeners so often miss out on the "good news" that keeps coming out on the budget, Iraq, etc.