(To see Part I go here.

After foiling the Great Limo Robbery and getting safely to 1 MSNBC Plaza, I was buzzed through to the studio-control room-news room-production center area. If you've ever seen the Terry Gilliam movie "Brazil" you have some idea of what it looks like.

If you haven't seen "Brazil" let me try. Picture a theater in the round � in 2045. It is designed in the style of a high tech loft in the Meat Packing District of Manhattan - combining the structural steel members of the original ceiling, with an ultra-modern entertainment center.

The work areas surround - an in some cases are a part of - the studio area. The local CBS affiliate in New York did this several years ago where the anchor strolled through the newsroom calling on reporters to deliver their pieces which they did from their desks.

On this occasion there were four anchors on duty during the day - Gregg Jarrett, John Seigenthaler, Lester Holt, and Forrest Sawyer. Some of the regular anchors - the women - were on the road with the various campaigns.

Because I am such a road hog, I already knew both Gregg Jarrett and John Seigenthaler. I met Lester Holt during the day. Forrest Sawyer and I never made eye contact.

The plan was this: A Republican and a Democrat would sit at two desks and discuss some aspect of the campaign: a commercial, a speech, a new tactic, a poll, whatever throughout the day. Dave Dougherty (my Democratic counterpart) and I were to be on the set and ready from 10:30 in the morning until five in the afternoon.

The first thing they told us was we were going to have to use a Telestrator to illustrate our points.

A Telestrator is the thing which John Madden uses to show where the linebacker SHOULD have been if he had wanted to stop the runner who had just blown by him on his way to a 67 yard touchdown.

It is easier to watch Madden do it than it is to actually do it yourself. Exactly as it is with Madden and the linebacker, now that I think about it.

Anyway, you put a stylus on a plastic tablet, move it around and a white line appears on a television screen. The problem is, you can't see what you are doing on the tablet you can only see what you're doing by watching the TV.

Eye to hand coordination is not one of my strong points. I can type pretty well without looking at the keys. I can play the piano - slowly and badly without looking at my right hand everyone has to look at their left hand, don't they? Why couldn't they make the bass clef the same notation as the treble clef? I could have figured out that notes on the lower staff were to be played by my left hand on the notes with lower sounds. But I don't understand why an "E" above middle "C" in the treble clef is the same place on the staff as a "G" an octave and a half below middle "C" in the bass clef.

All of which is to say that the first time I tried to circle Pennsylvania on the map without looking at the tablet I suffered a painful, self-inflicted jab in my right thigh. Thank God I wasn't trying for Kansas.

Another problem with the Telestrator for me is that I am left-handed. Sitting on the left side of the table meant I had to lean across the tablet, curl my hand, and attempt to draw a circle around Minneapolis. Not, as we like to say in the television biz, bloody likely.

I decided to take the seat to the RIGHT of the table with the Telestrator which meant I could write from the right with my left. Are you getting this?

I asked if someone could log me onto the computer at the desk at which I would be sitting. A producer came over and told me he never turns his computer off because it takes so long to boot up.

He was right. It finally took an angry call to the computer technicians by a SENIOR producer to have someone, sighing heavily, lumber by to log us in.

I had my laptop with me, but there was no phone line nearby. I was afraid to plug it into an electrical outlet without getting someone's permission lest my day stop before it started for violation of a union rule or, worse yet, being mistaken for someone's best boy.

During the day I would walk it over to a fax machine and dial out to get my e-mail. Someone suggested I was interrupting the fax process. I suggested the MS in MSNBC did not stand for Missing Sign-on. That conversation ended quickly and was not repeated.

Tuesday was Halloween which occasioned a number of the staff - women, mostly, to come bedecked in costumes. Not Mimi on Drew Carey costumes, but modest things which could be removed if they got into camera range.

In the makeup room I said I had dressed up as a short, fat, bald, middle aged, Jewish man. The others in makeup enthused that I had done a masterful job. "Pumping up the talent," I knew.

We got briefed by the producers as to what was going to happen half-hour by half-hour. First we were going to deal with the Zogby poll which had shown Bush trailing in Florida by 11 points. I said I had read an LA Times poll which said Bush was LEADING in Florida by four.

"We don't want to talk about that," I was told. "You talk about your poll. I'll talk about mine," I suggested.

The show started after Imus and shortly after 10:30 Jarrett came to us to describe what we thought should happen in Florida. It turns out that Dougherty is left-handed, too. But I had the favored right side. He went first. Barely got Florida at all.

My turn. Pressure on. I took the stylus: "Gore's strength is here in Southern Florida," I said as I NAILED Dade and Broward counties. "Bush will do well here" I circled the space coast and Orlando "and here" I got the panhandle. "The true battleground in Florida might well be the Gulf coast here," I circled Tampa down to Naples. "And according to the LA Times poll�" I said

"We'll be back," Jarret said, "with more, after these messages."

Whoo Hoo! I am a Telestrator GOD! Hey! Dennis Miller! Cross-reference THIS, pal!

We never used the Telestrator again.

Shortly after we got back, the news came across the wire of the plane crash in Taiwan.

I told Dave we were probably not going to get very much more air time. "I have been in these chairs for an hour watching footage of helicopters hovering over empty oceans. If they get footage of a fire, we're done."

Everything stopped as news began to trickle in about the crash of the Singapore Airlines plane. After about an hour the airline had someone call in from their Los Angeles office to say there were injuries but not deaths.

At that point the conversation shifted back to politics and Dave and I got one more brief opportunity to talk.

Closer to midday, the airline updated its information to suggest there were seventy or so people "missing."

At about that same time, they began to receive footage of the fire. We were done.

The reports of Steve Allen dying came across in mid-afternoon. MSNBC went to a phone call with Milton Berle and I had nothing to add to that, other than quietly humming the Texaco song to myself.

At five pm someone came by and unplugged our microphones and earpieces (called an IFB for, as I understand it, Internal Feed Back) and we were dismissed.

As promised a car was waiting out front to take me to the Newark train station. I got in and The Lad called from his post on the Cheney tour and I told him I was on my way back to Newark.

After I hung up the driver asked if I was going to the train station in Newark.

"Yes."

"Oh, I was going to take you to Penn Station in New York."

"Good thing you heard me on the phone," I said settling back in the seat.

"Do you know how to get there?" the driver asked.

I wanted nothing more, at that moment, than a Telestrator to draw him a map.

The End