Shields and Brooks on the Veepstakes, Their Favorite Olympic Sports

DOUBLEHEADER politics -- July 27, 2012 at 6:57 PM EDT

Shields and Brooks on the Veepstakes, Their Favorite Olympic Sports

It's been way too long since we last sat in the NewsHour newsroom for the Doubleheader. But the good news is, syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks were reunited this week. I'm still filling in for Hari Sreenivasan, who will return to hosting the Doubleheader on Friday.

With lots to catch up on and one month until the Republican National Convention begins, we started by talking about former President George W. Bush's absence from the stage in Tampa. Next up, we got Mark and David's on the record predictions for the person presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney will select as his running mate.

David advised Romney to go "gray" and pick someone with seasoning: Sen. Rob Portman.

Mark said the first rule is "do no harm." He also went with Portman because he thinks that selection would be more likely to deliver Ohio than choosing former Gov. Tim Pawlenty would bring home Minnesota for the Republicans.

For our "politics of sport" section, we checked in on our long-ago bets on the Belmont Stakes. My correct pick of Union Rags as the winner was balanced out by a foolish show bet on My Adonis, who came in eighth. Mark and David's choice Unstoppable U came in sixth.

And how 'bout them Nats?

Cassie M. Chew shot and edited this video.

Please subscribe to the Morning Line and follow Christina on Twitter.

The PBS NewsHour welcomes your original comments. We reserve the right to remove posts that do not follow these basic guidelines: comments must be relevant to the topic of the post; may not include profanity, personal attacks or hate speech; may not promote a business or raise money; may not be spam. Anything you post should be your own work. The PBS NewsHour reserves the right to read on the air and/or publish on its website or in any medium now known or unknown the comments or emails that we receive. By submitting comments, you agree to the PBS Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, which include more details.