Chuck Todd, for one.
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Thinking back on last night’s debate all I remember are Biden comments aimed directly at the audience. Trump’s word salad is lost in a fog of right wing gobbledygook.
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I mean anyone who isn’t paid to fluff the race.
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Todd is certainly paid – but I’m not sure he wouldn’t do it for free.
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Tilting at windmills
He needs to lean on that podium to free up his hands. He’s never needed them more, and if he can’t clutch the podium for support, he is forced to use it as a prop in this manner.
Imagine how many times Chump has made his hand gestures. You have to know, after DECADES of him standing in front of cameras and bloviating, and trying to blow one past his marks/suckers, that Chump thinks there is magic in those hands.
The real magic is most people will not call someone on being a big liar. And when you are being wined and dined, or at a ribbon cutting ceremony, or just playing tabloid media ball, you aren’t going to wreck the party and call the ‘guest of honor’ a big fat liar. Now does that mean you are going to buy the condo? Well, the weak-willed might. And Chump has never cared how many people got turned off or didn’t pony up, he just needs 2-3 out of 10 to buy in. But you know, he always thought it was his amazing powers and hypnotic hands that were making all the magic happen. He learned quite early on, that brazen lying and never admitting a fault, and constantly yelling it’s The Very Best, The Greatest Ever just works on some people. He was probably just plain amazed he ever got away with his first big public lies and con-jobs. But soon, he convinced himself that it was him, his amazing brain and magic hands that can just mystify and bamboozle the sheep into doing what he wants.
Watch his hands. He thinks they have special powers to interrupt or silence a debate mediator. To hoodwink an entire nation thru a camera lens. To make horrible things palatable, and pitiful things into Golden Prosperity. Too bad about 40% of our country ARE the weak-willed Rubes, who can’t pay attention to what is being done…but instead somehow listen to the lizard-speak and are enchanted by vulgarian prestidigitation.
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The GOP is thrilled. Every word out of his mouth a lie but he didn’t seem like a rabid dog. Thank you, Republicans, for completely destroying the office of the presidency. And patting yourselves on the back for your ingenious manipulation all the while. You sure got us, didn’t you?
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Ah! That takes me back to the Late Great “mediawhoresonline” website!
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And you thought no one could make you miss David Gregory.
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The fundamental problem is that TV news is full of careerist mediocrities. Most of their energy and skill is directed toward currying favor with the higherups and climbing the ladder. Very few have any smarts for heavy lifting; they can’t see what’s in front of their noses, and they have nothing you’d call insight. That’s why all the conventional wisdom, all the obvious observations presented with great confidence as if they were insider knowledge you’re privileged to have shared with you. (Cokie Roberts is a master at this. She’s a polished, sophisticated sayer of nothing much.) So if Trump doesn’t fucking yell the whole time, that’s the news of the day. Not that literally everything he said was an absurd lie, that he has no policy knowledge after four years, no plans going forward, in the middle of a national and global emergency, he has nothing but whining, score-settling, and excuses. We all know who the relatively worthwhile TV talkers are. None of them, as far as I know, said anything nearly this vapid or superficial. The fact is, this debate meant little. If low-information voters saw a bit more of Joe and liked what they saw, that’s about all you need to say.
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David Gregory was a dim-wit, as is Chuck Todd, but the latter takes things further in other dimensions, I agree.
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Oh if only that podium had an unsettling wobble …like a restaurant table that constantly jiggles everything!
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The MSM is just aching to write the Trump comeback story. I suspect most major outlets already have like, 75% of that story in the can ready for some details to shoddily prove or support their narrative. Media should report on the debate, not their take on the debate and the pageantry but what was actually said.
If they did that then they would see that Trump is still the monster. He admitted he wanted to end the ACA, that his administration lost kid’s parents, that he wants to bankrupt social security, that he supports racial strife, and he has no real plan for the pandemic. How he delivered that message, his tone, is irrelevant.
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You have to remember, MOST of the DC Litterati/Pundits are Ivy-League Educated, and from Wealthy, Conservative Families.
They spend their days fawning over OTHER Ivy-League-Educated, Wealthy, Conservative Politicians, whom they desperately NEED to invite them to their dinner parties so they can do their Social Signalling to their “friends” and family about how great they are doing in D.C.
They see the Conservative Pundits as their PEERS and want to be just like them, so they fall in line with the “both-sidesims” to ensure they don’t get “expelled from the tribe” in DC.
It really is that simple. It’s Tribalism.
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This bothsiderism is brought to you by the CORPORATE-OWNED MEDIA BULLHORN. They need the horserace to keep eyeballs on their broadcasts, news pages, and websites. It’s pathetic and a disservice to our country. They try to monetize everything.
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Or as John Heilemann put it this morning —
“I think quaalude Trump is better than crystal meth Trump, you know, from the last debate,” Heilemann said. “That was, like, an improvement, I think.”
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Was a master, She died a year ago September. Her sister, Barbara Boggs Sigmund, was quite alright. Dem Mayor of Princeton, back when that was hard to do, and a good poet.
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As in life, most will fine-tune their “analysis” to what they believe is the current conventional wisdom interpretation of any given situation, so as to curry favor with and not incur the wrath of their fellow ass-sucking pundits. For every tell it like it is Mike Schmitt or James Carville, there’s ten or twenty Susan Pages and Tony Scaramuccis. Unfortunately, quite a few Dems are like this too, parroting RWTPs without realizing it. Biden does this, like when he said that Social Security is going broke, which it’s NOT. Broke is when you’ve got no savings, assets or income. SS will ALWAYS have income.
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Moves a little slower. Easier to sidestep when he tries to hump your leg.
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Perhaps, but your explanation raises some questions of its own.
For example:
So are the Obamas and countless other people you might admire.
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