Red Meat for the NPR Set at the Rather, Carville Show

TIME TO SHINE Carville(Photo: Getty Images)

Sunday night at Manhattan's 92nd Street Y, firecracker Democratic strategist James Carville declared: "I'm not over the 2000 elections and I'm never going to get over it," Carville exclaimed. "They ought to just apologize to the country as a whole."

It's never a good sign when Dan Rather has to tell you to get over the events of a recent election, but the litigious former CBS newsman played classy and let Carville's shiny bald head hog the spotlight. In the final 10 minutes of the program, Rather did allude to recent CBS unpleasantness—he's suing CBS for $70 million—telling the audience to "hold the press accountable, particularly the people who own and operate the major outlets, but that's a topic for another day...." The audience, composed mostly of democrats over 60, adjusted their hearing aids and applauded with a thunder that's funded a thousand NPR pledge drives.

But aside from Rather's one triumphant moment, the interview played more like a Raging Cajun stand-up routine than a democratic tête-á-tête. Some key words of Carville wisdom after the jump ...