Trust me after my

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Trust me, after my performance today on Reliable Sources my own show right after Spin Room is a done deal. Mark my word, it’s in the bag.

Actually, I can barely remember anything that happened after Howie Kurtz introduced me. And it seemed like the whole thing lasted about nine seconds, even though I’m told the segment ran for six or seven minutes.

Kurtz led off with gusto. He laid out the White House vandalism story; described my rebuttal article in Slate; and then said something like: “Joshua Marshall, aren’t you just shamelessly shilling for Bill Clinton?” (or something like that
Hmmmm … As nearly as I could tell this got a chuckle from Bernie Kalb and Chris Caldwell (I think in sympathy, but who knows).

My first thought was to say, “But, of course …” But then I thought, okay, okay … maybe that’s not the best approach to take. Then I launched into it. And I have no idea what I said after that.

Just between us, Kurtz seemed a touch prickly. My theory is that maybe he ran into Andrea Mitchell at a Washington cocktail party and she told him to give me a good working-over as payback for the Slate piece. But who knows. (Actually, Kurtz was quite gracious off-the-air.)

But Bernie Kalb. I really like this guy. As a viewer of Reliable Sources I always figured Bernie for a bit of a curmudgeon. But he was great. Gracious, avuncular and he was wearing a turtleneck (which was very cool in my book). The whole thing went by so quickly that I can’t quite remember why else I thought he was great. But he was great.

P.S. The show airs on Saturday at 6:30 PM EST and Sunday at 11:30 AM EST.

P.P.S. If you’re interested in all the twisted details, here’s the actual transcript — it’s the second-to-last segment.

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