I enjoy watching Meet the Press. I chose it long ago because of Tim Russert and I’m okay with David Gregory. He gets accused of being too nice and friendly, but I like that. Both men have a cordial air; they’re not into attacking. I seldom watch FOX news or MSNBC or even NBC because I don’t like being yelled at or that sarcastic, “I’m smarter than common people” look on Matt Lauer’s face when he interviews conservatives.

I record it and sometimes I miss it, but this morning I listened to parts of David Gregory’s interview with the President. He still reminds me a bit of Jimmy Carter, but he is a lot more effective than Jimmy Carter was and less preachy.

They switched to the panel and David Brooks of the New York Times said if he had a criticism of the president it would be that “he sometimes governs like a visitor from a morally superior civilization.” Which made me LOL. It struck me as so funny and then my mind went to those aliens who used to appear to Captain Kirk, all-knowing and emotionally distant as they let us earthlings fall on our faces because we amuse them.

Then Tom Brokaw rather dryly commented, “well, the middle class is going to have a date to the prom.”

Right now, the talk is focused on economy, but gun control and immigration is on the table, too. I don’t understand the deeper economical issues here. We’re middle class, though, so hopefully Brokaw is right and we won’t go stag to the party.

My daughter said “our generation is screwed” the other day, but I’m not so sure. They’re going to have some tough times taking care of all of us senile baby boomers, but we’re going to die off. I’m wondering from a sociological standpoint how our helpless old age and en masse death—-it has to happen—-is going to affect the next generation. A great big collective sigh of relief? Seriously, guys, watch the obits in about ten years. Going to soar. It might behoove young people today to go into the mortician business.

The consensus seems to be that the Republicans are the problem with the budget stalemate. I’m not so sure. Republicans make good scapegoats right now because they’re down on their luck. But both parties are entrenched in their visions of the future and where our money should go. I don’t have any answers there. Prayer?

I have a friend who’s a devout (as opposed to rabid) Republican. She sends me some pretty angry and often insulting email forwards about the president. She believes he’s amassing his own army and taking our guns so he can take over America and enforce his socialist dreams for our country. They have some evidence that can scare one to death if one contemplates it much, as I do not. They have a theory that the president actually engineered Benghazi in order to mobilize public sentiment to, uh, can’t remember the goal, but that it went wrong because the killers got mad at him for some reason.

Whatcha think, guys? I read somewhere that some wise person said we are already living in “1984″ which I’ve thought, too. Reality TV is entertaining the masses while vague faceless powerful puppeteers do what they want and get rich and more powerful.

I can scare myself to death with possibilities, but more often, I remind myself that God is real. But there were some funny lines this morning on “Meet the Press.”