There's a piece at the CBS website (9/21/11) by Robert Hendin marking Bob Schieffer's 20 years hosting the network's Sunday morning show Face the Nation. Hendin, a senior producer for the show, writes:

From the get go, Bob made his plans known. "Our aim is to going to be very simple here: to find interesting people from all segments of American life who have something to say and give them a chance to say it," he said that morning.

The piece goes on to reveal--likely by accident--a lot about what they mean by "all segments of American life."

So to celebrate Bob's 20th Anniversary, we went through the files and looked at exactly who he's had on the broadcast. Here's a look at Bob Schieffer's 20 years at Face the Nation by the numbers:

Bob has interviewed:

Three presidents of the United States, four vice presidents, seven secretaries of state, six secretaries of Defense and 45 different cabinet members. He's also interviewed 123 senators and 109 different representatives.

Of those, a few notable names come up more frequently than others: Vice President Joe Biden has been interviewed by Bob on Face the Nation 46 times. House Speaker John Boehner, seven times. Former Vice President Dick Cheney has been on the broadcast 16 times, including this past Sunday's program. By far though, the number one guest of Bob's tenure as host of Face the Nation is none other than Senator John McCain, who has been on the program 76 times.

All segments of American life.  When did they give up on that idea?

As we noted here, there weren't many labor voices booked on the Sunday morning chat shows. One, actually--Richard Trumka from the AFL-CIO.

ABC's This Week featured four governors (two Democrats, two Republicans) talking about their fiscal problems. CBS's Face the Nation had a soft interview with New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie. Host Bob Schieffer asked him one question that began, "You have a reputation as a straight talker, I think...." Schieffer went on to play a clip of Christie bravely calling for Social Security cuts. Instead of questioning Christie's totally inaccurate premise--that you "have to raise the retirement age"--Schieffer asked him, "Should other people be saying that?"

Over at NBC, Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker could at least be challenged by another guest  on the same show. They weren't on at the same time, but NBC viewers could hear Trumka say this:

Well, first of all, this isn't about the budget crisis. Let's look at how this--his arguments migrated.  First he said it was--the budget crisis was caused because workers were paid too much in Wisconsin.  We now have studies that show they're not overpaid, they're underpaid.  In fact, people with a degree in Wisconsin get 25 percent less than their private sector things. 

Then he said it was about the pension.  Now we find out that his pension plan, unlike a lot in the country, is almost fully funded.  The assets match the liabilities. 

And then the employees said, or the members out there said, his workers said, "We'll accept your cuts." And he said: "No.  We won't accept your accepting our cuts." And the most outrageous thing that he did, and he talked about this, was he's now saying to them, "You either have to accept a loss of your rights or I'm going to lay you off." Now, no person should have to face the right of their loss of their job or the loss of their rights.  I know Governor Barbour would never say to his employees, his people down there, "You either have to give up your rights or you have to give up your job."

So there isn't much of a pension crisis in Wisconsin. State workers  aren't overpaid. And those same workers have agreed to many of the concessions Walker is demanding. If this were part of every discussion about Wisconsin, we'd be having a far more sensible discussion.

NBC host David Gregory followed with a popular right-wing argument about public workers' unions--that their political campaign contributions mean that elected officials owe them favors:

You raise a lot of money from public employees.  That goes, goes to finance campaigns to try to get somebody in office that you can do business with.  And ultimately you're supporting someone, in some cases, that you're ultimately negotiating with.  They also know that political employees, rather, public employees are politically active because they're organized by the unions.  And so they make concessions on things like pensions, on healthcare, knowing that the promises don't come due to well down the road.  Isn't this the cycle that we've gotten into that public unions have to take some responsibility for?

In other words, aren't politicians doing favors for you because you help them get elected? How often have CEOs and corporate trade associations--who have far more money than labor to give to politicians--been asked that kind of question?

A few laughs on CBS's Face the Nation yesterday (1/23/11):

BOB SCHIEFFER: And we begin this morning welcoming back to Face the Nation for the first time in exactly one year Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the person who, by the way, has been on this broadcast more than any other politician now in office.

Well, senator, you haven't been here in a year. What were you doing? Were you busy back in Arizona or what?

JOHN MCCAIN: Busy and thanks for having me back on. And it's probably the longest absence in all these years too. So I'm glad to be back.

McCain is still trailing former Sen. Bob Dole as the most frequent guest on NBC's Meet the Press. He'll pass him soon enough.

The apparent inability to have a Sunday show that doesn't feature frequent McCain appearances was best illustrated last year, when the July 4 broadcast of ABC's This Week touted an "exclusive" with the Arizona senator--who had appeared on NBC's Meet the Press exactly one week earlier.

Or this P.U.-litzer from 1999:

* PLAY-IT-AGAIN SPIN AWARD: National TV News

On April 5, network TV convened panels of experts to discuss the war on Yugoslavia. Viewers could see hawkish Sen. John McCain at 9 p.m. on CNN's Larry King Live, at 10 p.m. on Fox News Channel, at 11 p.m. on PBS's Charlie Rose show and at 11:30 p.m. on ABC's Nightline With Ted Koppel. The senator's whereabouts between 10:30 and 11 p.m. could not be determined.

On CBS's Face the Nation (1/9/11), host Bob Schieffer declared:

Democracy's arguments have never been pretty, but technology has changed the American dialogue because we can now know of problems instantly. We expect answers immediately and when we don't get them, we let everyone know in no uncertain terms. We scream and shout, hurl charges without proof. Those on the other side of the argument become not opponents but enemies. Dangerous inflammatory words are used with no thought of consequence.

Schieffer singled out one exceptional political leader: "In an eloquent statement, the new Republican House Speaker John Boehner said yesterday's attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve."  To which Schieffer added, "We must change the atmosphere in which this happened and we can begin by remembering that words have consequence. Like all powerful things, they must be used carefully."

While Schieffer sings Boehner's praises, Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone (1/5/11)  recalled a different type of Boehner moment:

Another Ohio Democrat, Steve Driehaus, clashed repeatedly with Boehner before losing his seat in the midterm elections. After Boehner suggested that by voting for Obamacare, Driehaus "may be a dead man" and "can't go home to the west side of Cincinnati" because "the Catholics will run him out of town," Driehaus began receiving death threats, and a right-wing website published directions to his house. Driehaus says he approached Boehner on the floor and confronted him.

"I didn't think it was funny at all," Driehaus says. "I've got three little kids and a wife. I said to him, 'John, this is bullshit, and way out of bounds. For you to say something like that is wildly irresponsible.'"

Driehaus is quick to point out that he doesn't think Boehner meant to urge anyone to violence. "But it's not about what he intended — it's about how the least rational person in my district takes it. We run into some crazy people in this line of work."

Driehaus says Boehner was "taken aback" when confronted on the floor, but never actually said he was sorry: "He said something along the lines of, 'You know that's not what I meant.' But he didn't apologize."

CBS Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer (10/31/10) explained on Sunday that he hates the way college football's Bowl Championship Series works--mostly because the computer model doesn't give smaller schools a chance to compete for a national championship. Fair enough--criticism of the BCS system is plentiful. But Schieffer bizarrely went on to argue that our political system doesn't work that way: "Aren't you glad that even though our system isn't perfect, we still finish our elections the right way? We vote."

He goes on to explain other ways our politics are nothing at all like college football:

What the BCS really is, of course, is all about money. It's controlled by the big schools who want only the big schools in the bowl games because they believe they'll get the biggest TV ratings.

You're asking now, why is he off on this rant? Well, it's very simple. I went to TCU, a smaller school with a very good team this year, and we want to play the big guys. But even if we go undefeated, we may not get that chance. The computers will decide our fate.

If we did our politics like that, computers would decide who wins our elections, maybe based on the strength of their opponents or their positions. And maybe there would be style points for the best yard signs. But we don't do it that way, thank goodness.

Yes, thank goodness we don't have a political system that's all about money, that discourages the participation of small parties and obsesses over trivia like yard signs. That would be horrible.

Robert Parry (Consortium News, 5/25/09) thinks that "there is no one, it seems, that the U.S. mainstream news media loves more than Colin Powell," and as proof offers "Powell's disingenuous response" to Bob Schieffer's May 24 CBS Face the Nation "question about the ex-secretary of state's knowledge regarding 'enhanced interrogation techniques,' which the International Committee of the Red Cross and virtually all other objective observers say constituted torture": Powell--whom, Parry recalls, "was a member of President George W. Bush's Principals Committee, which oversaw the interrogation policies"--claimed to an unchallenging Schieffer, "to have been kept mostly out of the loop.... He was 'not privy' to the legal memos authorizing the abusive treatment."

Such transparent tripe was left to the renegade Washington Stakeout questioner (and longtime FAIR associate) to take on:

Outside the CBS News' Washington offices after the interview, media analyst Sam Husseini asked Powell what he knew about the torture of al-Qaeda suspect Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, who made false claims linking Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al-Qaeda, lies that Powell then cited in his infamous pro-invasion speech before the United Nations on February 5, 2003.

"I don't have any details on the al-Libi case," Powell responded.

When asked when he learned that some of the bogus evidence had been extracted by torture, Powell said, "I don't know that. I don't know what information you're referring to. So I can't answer."

And when Husseini explained to Powell "that the information had been publicly discussed by Powell's former chief of staff, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson," Powell was reduced to a grade school reply of "So what?" All of which leads Parry to some questions of his own--"Did Powell participate in the Principals Committee?... Did he object to the abusive techniques... that he says 'were judged not to be torture'?--and to a pointed conclusion:

For a Washington press corps that has been up in arms challenging House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's claim that the CIA obscured key details of the harsh interrogations from congressional leaders, it was impressive to see how little skepticism was evinced by Powell's claim of ignorance from his seat on Bush's Principals Committee.

See the FAIR Media Advisory: "Does the CIA Ever Lie?: Parsing the Pelosi Torture Controversy" (5/20/09)

CBS anchor Bob Schieffer was profiled by Marketwatch, where we learn:

But don't get the false impression that Schieffer is a pushover for his important guests. When I asked him how he feels when subjects lie to him on the air or try to mislead the audience, he got right to the point.

"I want to jump across the table and choke them," he said.

Wow. First of all, this Marketwatch piece is largely about Schieffer's recent interview with former Vice President Dick Cheney. The irony is almost too much; as Colin Powell's former chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson put it to Rachel Maddow:

This is the man who, after all, said we know with absolutely certainty Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.  We know he has an active nuclear program.  We know he has contacts with Al-Qaeda.  This is the man who told more lies from a public pulpit than almost anyone else I know.

For the record, Schieffer did not choke Dick Cheney when he appeared on Face the Nation. He did seem weirdly proud of the interview, primarily because when he asked Cheney if he'd prefer Rush Limbaugh or Colin Powell's vision for the GOP, Cheney (totally unsurprisingly) picked Limbaugh. "I've never done anything that had as much resonance," says Schieffer.

Beyond that-- when it comes to misleading an audience, what about Schieffer's record?

--CBS Evening News anchor Bob Schieffer announced (2/9/06) that "for the first time President Bush confirmed today that in the months after 9/11, the government broke up another terrorist plot to fly a plane into the tallest building in Los Angeles." The fact that Bush says something does not "confirm" that what he is saying is true--and, in fact, earlier reporting by the Los Angeles Times casts doubts on Bush's claims. (FAIR Media Advisory, 2/13/06)

--CBS's Bob Schieffer (12/8/02) remarked of an earlier disavowal of banned weaponry by Hussein, "Saddam Hussein says he has no weapons of mass destruction, but should we believe him?" Schieffer asked a visiting senator on Face the Nation what would happen if U.S. experts "conclude that Saddam Hussein is once again lying, as he has so often in the past.claiming he doesn't have the weapons, when in fact we know that he has." (FAIR Action Alert, 2/1/08)

--CBS anchor Bob Schieffer asserted (6/6/04), "You could hate his policies, but it was hard not to like Ronald Reagan." But Reagan's "likeability" numbers did not score much higher than other modern presidents, including Jimmy Carter. (FAIR Media Advisory, 6/9/04)

Discussing the failed auto bailout on CBS Evening News (12/12/08):

KATIE COURIC: And it's almost, meanwhile, turning to Washington, Bob, impossible to figure out just what happened to this auto bailout in the Senate. There's all this finger pointing going on. What is your take? Can you explain it to us in simple terms?

BOB SCHIEFFER: I think frankly what happened, Katie, is that this is overwhelmingly unpopular, bailing out these auto companies with the public in general. And every poll suggests that. These leaders of the auto industry came to town first in their jet planes and now you find that the members of the union are not willing to consider a pay cut for the next two years. It was a very easy vote for Republicans to vote to block this thing. They were just doing what their constituents across the country kind of wanted them to do. That may not be the right thing, but I think in the end that's really what did them in.

Every poll suggests that bailing out the auto industry is overwhelmingly unpopular? Actually, no--really, the polls are all over the map on the auto bailout, ranging from a CNN/Opinion Research poll (12/1-2/08) where the public is opposed 61 percent to 36 percent to an L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll (12/6-8/08) finding 47 percent to 42 percent support for a bailout. One of the polls that did not find an auto rescue to be overwhelmingly unpopular was CBS's own--the network's December 4-7 poll found 45 percent approving of a bailout and 44 percent disapproving. Guess Schieffer doesn't read his network's own polls--or doesn't trust them.