Democrats Debate, Paris Reports To Jail, Hogzilla News: His Name Was Fred. Seriously.

"Morning Meeting" is a recap of our daily editorial meeting. If we had a show today, these are some of the stories you would probably hear.

Ahoy-hoy! Greetings from NYC. This is our first day with the entire BPP staff actually working from the 212. Somehow this amazing city sensed the waft of optimism in the air and promptly dumped ten feet of rain on us as we walked into work. This truly is the greatestwettest place in the world. On the bright side, I was able to buy The World's Biggest Umbrella outside the Sheraton this morning. (See photo to your left)

The Rundown after the jump.

 

First off, the show will have its own newscast and newscaster — here are a few things that we'd probably run in the newscast: Last night's Democratic debate, new details on the terror plot at JFK airport in New York, reports that the U.S. Military's plan to get Baghdad under control isn't working, video that could identify missing U.S. soldiers, Paris Hilton reports to jail in LA., a weekend sports roundup and a new survey that finds 1 in 5 people bring their laptops on vacation.

We'd put that laptop story last so we could talk about a bit at the top of the actual show. You see, while the other BPP staffers were shaking their heads and tisk-tisking in a totally predictable way, I (Luke Burbank, Doctor of Journalism) was pointing out that laptops are a totally legit thing to bring on vacation. Who are you gonna trust if you're looking for a cool dive bar in Sacramento? The 53 year-old concierge at the Westin? Or Yelp? Case closed.

Other things (some of them from the newscast) we'd expand on today:

DEMS DEBATE — Last night in New Hampshire the Democratic candidates for President got together to talk Iraq, health care and how to keep Bill Clinton off the streets (thanks Mike Gravel). Matt and I wondered why they are having these debates so early — does anyone really care yet? I mentioned that it was like watching exhibition football. Dan pointed out that it's kind of like training for these candidates. He cited the fact that seasoned candidates like John Edwards clearly have their message down, while folks like Barak Obama seem a little shaky (sort of like a rookie quarterback trying to learn the new passing offense — okay, LAST sports analogy I promise). Alison mentioned that people do seem to care at least a little bit, considering one of these recent debates drew, like, 2 million viewers to MSNBC.

IMMIGRATION — The White House is having quite the squabble over immigration with its conservative base, which makes up the majority of (dwindling) support for the prez these days. Blogs and news outlets sympathetic to the President are bearing their teeth over his immigration plan, which would legalize workers who are already in the country through fines and fees. The Administration is applying a full-court PR press on normally sympathetic blogs — trying to get them to see their side of the issue. It didn't help the Administration's cause much when Mr. Bush said that those opposing the immigration plan "don't want to do what's right for America." Oops. We thought it would be interesting to get one of these bloggers on the phone.

ROBERT GATES, RAGING LIBERAL? — Dan was fascinated with a speech Defense Secretary Robert Gates gave over the weekend, during which he cited poverty as one of the causes of terrorism. Huh? That's not something you woulda heard Don Rumsfeld saying. He was more of a "They Hate Our Freedom" kinda guy. Could this be a sign Gates wants to do things differently?

OPERATION GET CONTROL OF BAGGERS — On the subject of Bob Gates — one of the first things he did when he took the job was to stress the need to secure Baghdad. Well after months of flooding the city with extra troops and extra attention, the NYT reports today that the plan is not working. Dan had the line of the meeting: It's like they're playing whack-a-mole over there. Yikes.

MR. HOGZILLA WAS MY FATHER'S NAME, PLEASE CALL ME FRED — So remember the story of Hogzilla we blogged about last week? Well, over the weekend some new info emerged: 1.) Hogzilla was real. 2.) He was basically a super fat overgrown pet and was named Fred. For real. Something about his name being Fred made me want to laugh and cry at the same exact moment.

BPP SPORTS PAGE — Me and Alison are going to discuss the weekend's sports news with Bill Wolff (who just happens to be Alison's husband.) Look for the podcast later today.

NEW SEGMENT ALERT! — You may have noticed that lots of these stories actually happened over the weekend. A lot of time at NPR, you'll be in a Monday editorial meeting, and you'll be talking about something really interesting that happened on Saturday, and everyone will be like, "That was TWO days ago, no one cares." But what we realize at The BPP is that many of you are enjoying your weekend / hung over / not watching CNN or reading the papers and you might have totally missed an awesome story. Therefore, we think it's totally okay to talk about the weekend's news on Monday, in a segment we're calling "While You Were Out (Possibly Drinking)." Look for it!