If Mika and Joe actually replace Fluffyhead as the hosts of Meet the Press this country will be getting roughly what it deserves. Don’t get me wrong. The show would improve. How could it not? But it would also be giving up the pretense of being a serious show. And that will be appropriate, because we are no longer a serious country.
A country cannot remain anything other than a joke when it is run by people like John Boehner. It’s just not possible. And he’s actually a relatively sane individual. Any likely replacement for Boehner might as well have been hauled at random out of a psychiatric ward. The GOP has been absolutely wrecked, and with it, the country.
Things are not beyond repair, by any means, but the current iteration of the Republican Party must go away now. Our Sunday morning political shows can go away now, too, because this country doesn’t do policy anymore and we don’t have civil debates based on sane differences of opinion and priority. We used to have public intellectuals but that’s gone now as well. If you can imagine Charlie Rose having a conversation between Sheldon Whitehouse and Louie Gohmert then you have some idea of how precisely pointless it has become to try to talk about anything. On one side you have someone knowledgable and thoughtful and on the other side you have someone with pinwheels in his eyes who really ought to be hauled out of the studio in a straightjacket.
The Democrats, even the whole left, have been stripped of the opportunity to practice the art of politics and left handling a burlap sack of ravenous rabid weasels. We can occasionally whack them with a stick to try to keep them under control, but we can’t sit down at a table on Sunday morning and reason with them.
So, by all means, turn Meet the Press into Morning Joe. No one will notice the difference, and those who would mourn have already begun mourning.
Since the Tea Party has taken over our local Republican Party this year, most all of the old-time Republicans, who have dominated local politics around here for generations, have simply faded into the shadows of the local political landscape. They are still about town, doing their thing, but almost no one will talk about the state of their party. They simply shake their heads dejectedly and shrug their shoulders. Last week, the GOP booth at the county fair was manned by a completely new platoon of fresh-faced Patriots and liberty loving Freedom Fighters. Every single person was a new face. And several of the long-time local GOP people stopped by our Democratic booth to chat, and when asked why they weren’t working the booth this year said, “We weren’t asked to help”.
And so it goes.
“On one side you have someone knowledgable and thoughtful and on the other side you have someone with pinwheels in his eyes who really ought to be hauled out of the studio in a straightjacket.”
Perfect description of Charlie Rose, but you forgot to mention Gohmert.
That’s a strong analogy, because it shows the extent to which politicians like Gohmert are NOT the problem. If Gohmert and Whitehouse talked, about half of the most politically engaged voters in America would think that Gohmert got the better of the conversation.
And I’m sure that Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes aren’t even under consideration by NBC.
So sure, bring on Cup O’ Schmoe and his battered Stockholm Syndrome fictional wife – and the rest of his ‘morning zoo review crew.’
I won’t watch that either.
Btw – GREAT POST!!!!!!!!!
Well there is Prince Russ III.
About the only journalist they have left in the non-MS side is Ayman and he’s been a bit busy of late.
Of course, you are never going to get the amiable, no BS, let’s talk about what’s really going on that the public needs. But then, when you schedule opposite Sunday school and church services, where’s your audience? But then in the old days it came on at, what, 2 PM on Sunday afternoon.
So how much does it matter? That is, outside the Beltway weenie-eating gaggles.
Well there is Prince Russ III.
That’s your name for Lil’ Luke, right?
Side note: This is my handle on Twitter, and I used to comment as Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle. Boo was kind enough to change it for me.
Pleased to remeet you.
The new host should be someone that John McCain hates enough…he refuses to go on MTP.
Can we take a moment to mourn for the Meet the Press of old and what it’s passing means for our country?
I’m talking about before Tim Russert, with his fake “interrogation,” which really amounted to demanding to know why Democrats had changed their position. But decades ago, Meet the Press featured four journalists who each had a desk, and spent a half -hour grilling a newsmaker.
Because Americans were educated, they did not mistake a journalist’s grilling with “bias.” Because America was serious, the conversations were serious, about topics that mattered. Because the people leading the country were serious, the journalists would be well-informed, and the newsmaker rarely played games.
You have seen the panels when they questioned MLK back in the 50’s/60’s, right?
I just you tubed it. Dang that was good. Just what I was talking about.
Meet The Press producers should just come on stage. Announce that do to the inability of the GOP to verbalize in a coherent manner about issues and needed legislation. They have decided to stop production of the show until further notice.
Try to leave the air with the very little respect that it currently has.
The comparison was made of today’s political spectacle with negotiating for where to go for dinner: You’re thinking Italian; your date says she’d rather have hub caps and barbed wire. Where is “compromise” going to found? Imaginaryland?
Yes, the Republicans need to be reined in, but who’s going to do it? Realistic Republicans are so shit-scared of the monster base they’ve created they don’t dare cross it anymore or they’ll find themselves wished into the cornfield with Eric Cantor (who wasn’t even all that realistic himself). Democrats have no credibility with this demented crowd, so scratch that idea.
The free press? One whole segment spends its time 24-7 egging on the worst impulses of the Republican id, which is plenty enough to overcome any efforts made by the rest of the popular media. Also, the popular media don’t seem very interested at all in actually waging a battle to bring politics back from Imaginaryland. The work is so easy when all you have to do to pick up a fat paycheck is to bring on the loons to rant and rave, nod sagely, and say, “Well, we’ll have to leave it there for now” when time is up. Time for cocktails!
Meanwhile, the country gets a little poorer, a little more ragged, and a little meaner. Every now and then, one of our political pundits looks up from the Applebee’s salad bar to see the pitiable state of the nation. A look of puzzled concern flashes by, to be replaced by their standard look, that of a dog watching a card trick.
The course is laid in, and it’s going to take a Kennedyesque tragedy for the country to rouse itself and say, “We’ve gone too far.”