President of Americans for Tax Reform, Grover Norquist may have just revealed another way to win his support that might be less politically painful than having to sign his taxpayer protection pledge. All you have to do is look great in a bathing suit! During his appearance on ABC’s This Week, Norquist suggested Republicans will take back control of the Senate in 2012 because all of the open seats will either be in Red states or because Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown and his bathing suit will be running for re-election.

The roundtable discussion portion of the Sunday morning news shows is often the most entertaining and illuminating segment of the entire program. Given that the top-of-the show politician guests try their hardest (and often succeed) to stick to their talking points and to avoid going off script, it’s often left to the roundtable participants to provide an element of unpredictability to the Sunday morning festivities. Of the three shows with weekly roundtable segments, in my opinion, week in and week out there is a clear hierarchy between the shows based on the variety of topics discussed, the diversity of guests and the overall enjoyment of hearing the conversation.

Many conservatives and Tea Party activists across the country are eagerly anticipating the entry of Texas Governor Rick Perry into the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Yet Fox Business correspondent Charlie Gasparino suggests that many New Yorkers on Wall Street, presumably of both political parties, are not at all excited about the possibility of a Perry presidency.

This morning Arianna Huffington appeared on the This Week roundtable, and found herself echoing sentiments of others like Mike Huckabee that media reports on Michele Bachmann’s migraines were completely unfair. Huffington claimed Bachmann is definitely getting the “female treatment,” and instead wished that people would focus on the many legitimate problems with Bachmann instead.

While many are concerned with the possible “doomsday” scenario of what might happen to the economy if leaders in Washington can’t reach an agreement and raise the debt ceiling, don’t count conservative commentator George Will among the alarmists. Instead he theorizes that many Americans, possibly including himself, are tired of hearing such over-dramatic and catastrophic language being used so frequently.

This is either unintentionally hilarious or merely bizarre, but either way it seemed worthy of some attention. On This Week, during an extremely sophisticated and insightful debate on the importance of the Constitution, Christiane Amanpour apparently attempted to keep the conversation at an elevated level of intelligence by showcasing an SAT-worthy word in the middle of her statement. Amanpour casually dropped the word “perspicacious,” yet such a big word apparently served as a bat signal for the ABC graphics department to go into emergency action.

Conservative commentator George Will did double duty today, first defending the Constitution from those who believe the document was intended to be interpreted flexibly, and then later on This Week, also delivering a message much less likely to be cheered in some conservative circles. Will argued that it is impossible for the deportation of all illegal immigrants in the country to ever be considered a realistic solution.

Michael Eric Dyson, professor at Georgetown University, engaged in a highly intellectual debate with George Will and others regarding the impact of the Constitution on today’s political discourse. While the panelists took turns explaining who their favorite Founding Father was and debating how flexible the Constitution was intended to be, Dyson was most fired up over some people today trying to claim they are the sole defenders of protecting the document.

On This Week, during a discussion of presidential politics, the candidacy of Jon Huntsman was briefly mentioned and conservative commentator George Will did not seem too impressed. Despite Chrystia Freeland hyping Huntsman as the “darling of elites” and as someone who “talks in complete sentences,” Will cautioned anyone against getting too excited.

Christiane Amanpour assembled a panel of women to discuss why it’s always the men that get entangled with sex scandals, and whether or not it could simply be explained by the fact that there are many more male politicians? Claire Shipman and Torie Clarke cited various research and anecdotal observations to argue that in fact women are much less likely to lose focus on the job, unlike their male counterparts.

With Sarah Palin fever sweeping across the media again, persistent Palin critic and conservative commentator George Will clearly was not excited by the speculation surrounding her potential run for President. Donna Brazile, Jonathan Karl and Ed Gillespie joined in on the conversation, yet Will had the most pointed remarks regarding how Palin is a “genius at manipulating” the infinite media attention she receives.

He was out of work a matter of hours? Rick Kaplan, who announced his exit as executive producer of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric on Tuesday, has been hired as executive producer of ABC’s This Week with Christiane Amanpour.

ABC News president Ben Sherwood announced the hire today, describing Kaplan’s mission as a bold one: “to lead This Week to #1 and to guide ABC News to dominance in the 2012 elections and beyond.”

On Sunday morning’s This Week, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani pushed back against suspicions that his country was somehow complicit in hiding dead terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. Host Christiane Amanpour asked about the strain on the relationship between the US and Pakistan that bin Laden’s presence in such a conspicuous location presents, Haqqani said bin Laden might have gotten help from some “jihadi has-beens from the eighties.”

It should have been a slam dunk. The Rev. Franklin Graham spent his weekend spouting crazy-talk about President Obama on Sunday shows, questioning both his citizenship and his Christianity. He unwisely followed up with an appearance on The Last Word, where host Lawrence O’Donnell would surely introduce Graham to the woodshed. Instead, Graham rolled O’Donnell like a junkie with a Lunesta habit.

Yesterday’s Easter Sunday episode of This Week was titled “God and Government” and focused on the unique relationship between “politics and the pulpit” according to host Christiane Amanpour. The later half featured a roundtable discussion about Barack Obama‘s faith and the perception by some that the president is actually Muslim (supported by a poll that indicates that a fifth of America think believes so.) Cokie Roberts explained the reason why: Americans are racist.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner isn’t the most popular figure in the Obama administration, on either side of the political spectrum, so the promise of four more years from him might not be the re-election boost the President might wish for. At the very end of a wide-ranging interview with This Week with Christiane Amanpour, Geithner almost seemed to recognize this, as he hinted at another term with an awkward laugh.

Is Donald Trump a serious presidential candidate or simply a promotional spectacle distracting Americans from serious issues right in front of him? The amount of media attention he has garnered in the last week — complete with rather stunning polls suggesting that he’s a leading GOP candidate — suggest a serious candidacy. But at least one of Obama’s serious advisers dismisses Trump’s political rhetoric as a frivolous endeavor that mainstream Americans see as a “sideshow.”

Republican Congressman Mike Pence admires Speaker John Boehner‘s effort in trying to negotiate with the Democrats in Congress, however feels the compromise is not good enough to justify his vote. Pence led the charge to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, and given that the deal did address his concerns about the potential for federal money to be used to fund abortions, he was not happy with the result.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates spoke with Jake Tapper on This Week and told him he doesn’t think Libya posed an actual or imminent threat to the U.S. before military operations began. Furthermore, Gates rather bluntly said “it was not a vital national interest to the United States, but it was an interest.”

As the country grieves the loss, on Saturday, of trailblazer Geraldine Ferraro, the first female candidate on a national ticket, it’s important for public figures to find the right words to take the measure of her place in history, and of her loss. Into that breach stepped George Will Sunday morning on This Week, who followed a clip of Ferraro’s inspirational words to the Democratic National Convention in 1984 with a eulogy worthy of a Vulcan tax accountant.

With the air attack in Libya underway in order to implement a no fly zone, Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi is not happy and his son Saif spoke to Christiane Amanpour to express the family’s frustration. Saif claimed he was surprised by the attack from the Americans, British and French that “terrorized children” with bombing everywhere, and warned that the western countries were choosing the wrong side in the conflict.

On This Week, Jake Tapper led a roundtable discussion that touched on George Will‘s recent column identifying the serious Republican candidates in 2012. In the column, Will dismissed Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee as not being plausible candidates, and he previously ruled out Sarah Palin for not being electable. Now he also adds Congresswoman Michele Bachmann to the list of non-presidential Republicans.

On ABC’s This Week, Tina Brown, Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Beast and Newsweek participated in a panel discussion on “female freedom fighters” across the Middle East and also revealed the new, redesigned cover for the revamped Newsweek.

In recent weeks, viewers of ABC’s This Week with Christiane Amanpour might have noticed a glaring absence at show’s end. Staple segments “In Memoriam” and “The Sunday Funnies” were nowhere to be seen, and no explanation was given. Sources close to the show say that, while recent news events have dictated tweaks in the show’s [...]

Viewers of Sunday’s This Week were treated to a powerhouse All-Gubernatorial round table, moderated by popular fill-in Jake Tapper. Although the panel was ideologically mixed, you might not have known that given their response to this question: “Don’t you think it’s a little cowardly for the legislators — Democratic legislators in Indiana and Wisconsin just to have fled?”