Politics

Another Saturday night, another vote on Capitol Hill on healthcare reform, and coverage of it on cable news. The vote, which essentially allows the debate to begin on the Senate floor, was 60-39, with Ohio GOP Sen. George Voinovich the only senator not to vote.

Interestingly, all the cable news channels were in taped programming and shook up the schedules to broadcast the Senate vote and related analysis.

• FNC's "Huckabee" was preempted for special coverage anchored by Gregg Jarrett.

• CNN's Don Lemon anchored coverage of the vote, which delayed the start of an AC360 special report until 8:10pmET (which had already been delayed once before).

• MSNBC began airing Lockup at 8pmET, then interrupted the documentary for nine minutes of coverage as the vote happened, with David Shuster anchoring.

• Fox Business Network interrupted the Dave Ramsey show for special coverage anchored by David Asman.

The two Fox networks were the only channels, other than C-SPAN, to carry the Democrats' news conference following the vote.

In last night's Part One interview on "The Factor," Gov. Sarah Palin sat down with Bill O'Reilly and discussed two of the most memorable interviews from last year's campaign season.

Palin called Charlie Gibson's "Bush Doctrine" question on ABC one of the "gotcha techniques" of the mainstream (or "lamestream") media and she said of the Katie Couric interview on CBS, "It was quite obvious that it was going to be an annoying interview," and that her response was the result of "my inexperience with having to deal with a badgering, condescending line of questioning."

As The Swamp points out, Sean Hannity's Palin interview on Wednesday night drew big numbers for his FNC program, its second largest audience of the year.

TVNewser will have the ratings for O'Reilly's Thursday night program later today.

The White House named four people to the Broadcasting Board of Governors, including the chairman of the group, Walter Isaacson, who is President of the Aspen Institute and former chairman and CEO of CNN. Isaacson, who ran CNN for 18 months from 2001-2003, is also the former editor of Time Magazine.

The other appointees are named in a press release from the White House, after the jump...

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With China's tolerate/hate relationship with Twitter and other social networking sites, we're wondering what @jaketapper, @chucktodd, @majoratWH, @edhenryCNN and other White House correspondents/prolific Twitterers are going to do without the service while covering Pres. Obama in the People's Republic. Guess we'll just have to see. The president arrived in China about an hour ago, so tweets CBS Radio News White House correspondent @markknoller.

• You can follow all the White House correspondents on our TVNewser Twitter list.

> Update: Tapper and Todd Tweeted from China around 9:30pmET Sunday night, with caveats...

The Drudge Report has a leaked excerpt from Chapter Four of Sarah Palin's new book, Going Rogue: An American Life. In it, Palin describes being stifled by the McCain campaign's "media blackout" and the pressure she says she received from McCain staffer Nicolle Wallace to sit down for an interview with Katie Couric.

From the beginning, Nicolle pushed for Katie Couric and the CBS Evening News. The campaign's general strategy involved coming out with a network anchor, someone they felt had treated John well on the trail thus far. My suggestion was that we be consistent with that strategy and start talking to outlets like FOX and the Wall Street Journal. I really didn't have a say in which press I was going to talk to, but for some reason Nicolle seemed compelled to get me on the Katie bandwagon.

Wallace was a political consultant at CBS News until 2008 when she left to work on the McCain campaign. Palin continues:

Nicolle went on to explain that Katie really needed a career boost. "She just has such low self-esteem," Nicolle said. She added that Katie was going through a tough time. "She just feels she can't trust anybody."

I was thinking, And this has to do with John McCain's campaign how?

Nicolle said. "She wants you to like her."

Hearing all that, I almost started to feel sorry for her. Katie had tried to make a bold move from lively morning gal to serious anchor, but the new assignment wasn't going very well.

"You know what? We'll schedule a segment with her," Nicolle said. "If it doesn't go well, if there's no chemistry, we won't do any others."

TVNewser reached out to the Couric camp for a response. There's no comment at this time. Going Rogue goes on sale Tuesday.

Update: A spokesman for Couric tells TVNewser, "The interviews speak for themselves."

FishbowlDC has a partial transcript from Oprah Winfrey's interview yesterday with Sarah Palin. In the interview, which airs Monday on "Oprah," Palin is asked about her 2008 campaign interviews with Katie Couric.

Winfrey: You do say that it wasn't your best interview. Do you think that was a seminal defining moment for you, that interview?

Palin: I did not. And neither did the campaign. In fact, that is why Segment 2 and 3 and 4 and maybe 5 were scheduled. The campaign said, 'right on. Good. You're showing your independence. This is what America needs to see and it was a good interview.' And of course I'm thinking, if you thought that was a good interview, I don't know what a bad interview is because I knew it was a bad interview wasn't a good interview.

• Related / FishbowlNY: Former Playgirl Editor Dishes on Levi Johnston Shoot

> Update: Click continued to see the clip...

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Mark your calendars. The White House Correspondents' Association dinner will be held Saturday, May 1, 2010. The ticket price of the annual dinner, at which the President of the United States speaks, is being bumped up $25 to $225 per person. According to the WHCA board, the price hike means more money will go toward college scholarships, which is the reason for the black-tie dinner -- from the current $25,000 to $132,000.

The House passed its version of the health care reform bill, getting the 218 votes needed at 11:07pmET tonight. The final vote was 220 in favor, 215 against. One republican, Rep. Joseph Cao of Louisiana voted for it.

Geraldo Rivera was hosting live coverage on Fox news. On CNN, Don Lemon anchored and MSNBC's David Shuster was in to anchor their coverage.

Now it's the Senate's turn.

So, we wonder if the White House still thinks Fox News is "not a news network." Tonight, Fox News was the only news channel [other than C-SPAN] to provide live coverage of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi making her way to the house chamber, then speaking to members ahead of tonight's vote on health care reform. CNN stayed with a taped replay of The Situation Room. MSNBC was airing a crime documentary, but mentioned that Pelosi was speaking during a scheduled live cut-in. FNC and MSNBC have teased they'll have coverage of the vote when it happens. CNN returns to live coverage at 7pmET.

With several surprises and late returns, yesterday's races delivered more drama than one would generally expect from an off-year election. Still, after the build up on the three cable news nets, some were disappointed with the extent of the coverage, especially if you were on the west coast.

During the 10pmET hour, WaPo's Howard Kurtz tweeted something that others had been wondering about MSNBC's broadcast, "The usual Countdown rerun, on Election Night?"

Rather than running a full, live "Countdown," Lawrence O'Donnell broke in with a 20-minute update on the latest election results. Afterward, MSNBC finished the replay of Keith Olbermann's 8pmET broadcast.

With the exception of one segment, all of Rachel Maddow's subsequent 11pmET program was live, as was 12amET's "Hardball."

An MSNBC spokesperson tells TVNewser, "MSNBC was live with what needed to be live and provided coverage of all the results as they came in."

In September, Keith Olbermann commented on his recurring absences, due to his father's health.

As for the other networks, Fox News went to tape at MidnightET. CNN did so at 1amET, following a Midnight edition "Larry King Live."