IF IT’S SUNDAY…. Mark Halperin called the guest list for Sunday’s “Meet the Press” an “all-star lineup.” That’s not quite the description I’d use.

We’ll first see an interview with Senior White House Adviser David Axelrod. That makes sense.

Then viewers will see an “exclusive!” interview with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). This makes a lot less sense — it’ll be his third appearance on “Meet the Press” this year, his sixth in the last 21 months, and his 26th Sunday show appearance since President Obama’s inauguration. That’s obviously an average of more than an appearance per month, every month, for nearly two years.

And then there’s the roundtable, which will apparently cover the debt commission’s report, featuring Alan Greenspan (conservative), disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (conservative), former Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (conservative Democrat), and journalist Bethany McLean.

Gingrich, by the way, made more appearances on “Meet the Press” last year than anyone else in the country, and Ford has made more appearances on “Meet the Press” this year than anyone else in the country. Indeed, in the case of the latter, Ford will be making his seventh appearance in the last nine months.

Why Harold Ford? Jon Chait recently guessed:

What explains the ubiquity of the bland and notably un-incisive Ford? Part of it may be his preternatural ability to meld himself into the prevailing sentiment of whatever milieu in which he finds himself. But primarily I believe Meet The Press always invites Ford for the same reason there are so many Olive Gardens — you always know exactly what you’re going to get.

That sounds about right, but I’d add one thing: Harold Ford, Jr., is the chair of the Democratic Leadership Council. The Sunday shows tend to go out of their way to avoid Democrats, but when they find a conservative Democrat who’ll argue that the party should move to the right, the bookers are bound to keep bringing him back.