DAVID GREGORY: You said that Republicans have a hard time saying yes. Particularly to you.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Yeah.
DAVID GREGORY: What is it about you, Mr. President, that you think is so hard to say yes to?
You fill in the blanks on that one.
Also, too:
DAVID GREGORY: Is this your Lincoln moment?
amk
What an useless tool.
c u n d gulag
“Because I’m ‘Blah,’ Sherlock, and a Democrat. I’d think you might have been able to figure that out by now, you feckin’ idjit!”
dr. bloor
So many things to prosecute Dancin’ Dave for besides the stupid ammo clip.
Mark S.
DAVID GREGORY: Are blacks prejudiced against Republicans?
aimai
It makes me think that David Gregory’s model for “news” is the old model for an anlayst computer–whatever you say to it it simply reflects it back to you. “My father raped me” “Why do you think you father raped you?” “I feel angry.” “Why do you think you feel angry?”
Here the interview goes “I am America’s first African American President and the Republican Party is intransigent.” and Gregory goes “Hm…interesting that you feel that way, can you expand on your ideas?”
aimai
Raven
Wait till you hear Brooks if you think Dave is bad.
JPL
David Brooks is now giving his analysis. Is the President to bright? duh…
azlib
Our pundit class is just not very bright.
woozywinks
How about saying yes to dancing with Rove?
muddy
Ugh, I’m watching it on dvr right now, and have several times (on most of his questions, actually) shouted such streams of invective at Davy that the dog went back upstairs to bed.
And Davy is wearing excessive mascara, that’s not appropriate this early in the day.
Raven
These fucking assholes are all whining about Obama isn’t nice enough to republicans.
General Stuck
Only surprised that duplicitous Dave didn’t wave a crack pipe to make his point.
JPL
Help, Did I just hear Doris say that the President’s mention of growth occurring from the middle class out, appears to be a new phrase? It’s a new phrase if you have been sleeping under a rock.
Raven
“It’s not enough to be right.”
Raven
“It’s very important that they get this done before kickoff”!
Anya
Gregory is a GOP shill, pure and simple. He’s also a simpleton, so that question is very deep for him.
Also, I am really beginning to hate Doris Kearns Goodwin and her Team of Rivals. It started this unending obsession with the concept of a president winning over his opponents. Fuck that shit.
demkat620
Oh I don’t know what it could be. I think its right in front of me but I can’t quite figure it out.
Good god Fluffy
dmsilev
Obama: “Dave, you ignorant slut.”
merrinc
This is the first time I’ve watched Meet the Press in years and I’m ready to lob a piece of furniture at the tv. There are no words to express how much I hate our media.
Davis X. Machina
@Raven: These fucking assholes are all whining about Obama isn’t nice enough to
republicansthem.FTFY. Josh Marshall pegged it four years ago — Washington is wired for Republicans. It doesn’t matter who the government of the day is, the permanent government is GOP through and through.
Another Halocene Human
Whoa, Obama went on the teevee box with Dancin’ Dave?
Did they dip him for fleas afterward?
Chris
Did Bobo just stone cold start this shit off with saying “That niggah is too uppity?” Did he??? Dammit..stopped the DVR and deleted right then. Damn he is a tool…
redshirt
They go so far out of their way to “prove” they’re not the evil “LIBERAL MEDIA” that they simply take the Fox narrative as their own. Pathetic.
Punchy
Cliff fiscalling in 36 ers and counting…..
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
I wonder if he will show Obama his ammo cartridge.
Another Halocene Human
@JPL: David Brooks is now giving his analysis. Is the President to bright? duh…
He’s making the other kids in kindergarten feel bad, wet their pants and cry for their mommies.
Mommy, mommy, Barack used a
badbig word!JPL
Something is wrong when Chick Todd sounds like the reasonable one.
whoops.. chuck not chick..
dmsilev
@aimai: NBC really should explore this idea. An old Apple II running ELIZA would have to be cheaper than Gregory’s salary, and you point out is every bit as insightful an interviewer.
rollSound
@muddy:
Didn’t have time to clean up after last night.
General Stuck
Must be what is was like as ancient Rome burned, as the pundits sat around whinging about selfish peasants.
Another Halocene Human
@JPL: You had to go to a rally or look up a rally on YouTube to actually hear the campaign rhetoric of the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party.
So perhaps it’s not surprising that Obama’s crushing victory over the GOP came as a surprise in certain circles.
General Stuck
Watched maybe a minute of that steamy bullshit, and no more.
dmsilev
@Punchy:
It’s quite possibly closer than that. There’s another deadline this evening. Cloture motions take 30 hours to ‘ripen’, so if there’s no bill on the Senate floor by 6 PM tonight, we enter a point where any single Senator can deny unanimous consent for moving things forward and overcoming that obstacle would be enough to push past Monday (assuming leadership can’t lean on said Senator to withdraw objections). Which means that if say Rand Paul decides to throw a hissy fit any time tomorrow, it’s over the edge we go at least temporarily.
General Stuck
Brooks just recommended a George Bush type package to break the logjam. He has officially lost his shit.
Violet
Just watched this exact bit. I want to punch David Gregory in the neck. He’s useless as an interviewer and yet somehow he gets treated with respect and presented as someone of importance, which makes him dangerous.
amk
The other day, saw a WH piece about how their vids have hit 100 million mark. So there is that. These third rate pos pundtwits can’t even reach 1/100 millionth of that audience.
dr. bloor
DAVID GREGORY: Do you like tapioca, too?
Raven
@dmsilev: Kickoff of the Cowboys and the Redskins is 8:30 est. If you don’t think that’s a real deadline you don’t understand DC.
MomSense
@merrinc
Wine corks. My family is grateful that a wise friend suggested this alternative to heavy objects lobbed at my teevee.
I only turned on this awful show to see the President and I wish I could have turned it off before I saw the ignoranuses discuss it.
Man, I think Chuck Todd turned out to be the one who reminded folks that this is the worst do-nothing Congress ever and measurably so.
Violet
@Another Halocene Human: You didn’t even have to do that much work. During most of 2012, the nightly news shows, the morning news shows, the cable news shows, the Sunday shows…they all showed clips of the President and his surrogates saying that exact thing. Doris must have been too busy taking care of her Lincoln action figure collection to have paid any attention to any election coverage.
satby
They want Obama to say “because I’m black” so they can start the hysterics about “reverse racism”. They’ve been waiting for over 4 years and he won’t give them the chance.
JenJen
@Raven: Wait till you hear Tom Brokejaw if you think Brooks was bad.
The most touching part of the roundtable is when Gregory insists, despite no one asking, that it isn’t lazy punditry to point out that both sides do it. No, really, he says that.
Raven
And NBC runs a Boeing commercial featuring DRONZE!!!! Why would we think this is a republican show?
Raven
@JenJen: Brokaw made a pretty good case for means testing. Oh, we don’t like that do we?
JenJen
Shorter MTP Roundtable: If only the President would invite House Republicans to dinner, and afterwards, the President should play piano and sing My Wild Irish Rose while the Speaker hoists a pint, because Ronald Reagan.
Gretchen
I think Dave was stung by the criticism that the press sticks to the “both sides do it” narrative even when one side is responsible. He said he judges by results, and there are no resultts, so both sides must be responsible.
And Brooks is on and on about the urgen need for deficit reduction – can’t he see Krugman’s column opposite his own?
Brokaw thinks it’s self-evident that the Social Security retirement age has to go up, because we’re all living longer and working longer. After all, everybody they know can stay at their desk until they’re 70. I wish they were forced to talk to some construction workers and waitresses about that. I’m sure employers are eager to hire a 66-year-old roofer, who will have no trouble climbing up on that roof. Aaarrggh!
MomSense
@muddy
My dog just hears the MTP music and preemptively goes back to bed.
dmsilev
@satby: The amount of self-control that Obama needs to have is amazing. At this point, I’m convinced that somewhere deep in the White House there’s a small room with padded walls and a bunch of punching bags with various faces on them that Obama uses from time to time to express his real feelings.
Raven
@Gretchen: There are no white construction workers.
The Dangerman
So, what happens when we go over the Cliff…
…and absolutely nothing happens. Sure, the sequester will suck for a short time, but it’ll get fixed. Same with the tax rates.
Right now, I’m more concerned about the Farm Bill; $8/gal milk would fuck things up royally.
Donut
I had to flip the channel over to MSNBC when the president’s segment ended. I could not imagine what those white dudes and one old white lady historian would have to say about Obama that would make any fucking sense. Over on Teh Libtard Propaganda channel, Melissa Harris-Perry is chatting with a diverse group of human beings, who at least have some variety of perspective about what the country is actuall living through. They are actual feeling, thinking people who aren’t sociopathic. It’s something, at least.
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
@Gretchen:
The SS retirement age is already pretty close to the life expectancy of an African American male. Pay in your whole working life and gamble on whether you’ll live long enough to collect.
Brachiator
What does this even mean? Talk about a babbling Brooks.
Does Krugman still appear on the ABC Sunday show? It might have been more informative to have Obama appear on a show with real economists instead of Gregory’s dumbshit pundit wallow.
Not that the ABC show is great, but still …
MomSense
Did Doris Kearns Goodwin really suggest that the President should sleep with the Republicans??
Amir Khalid
@MomSense:
Is brilliant coinage. I salute you.
Raven
@MomSense: yup, I’d like to see him fuck em too!
muddy
@rollSound:
Oh thanks for that! SO glad I have not yet eaten.
muddy
@MomSense: Oh dear, you watch it every week? I don’t have the strength. Decades ago my dad watched all the Sunday shows, and no one was allowed to call the house before 1pm lest it interrupt. He’s long gone, and much missed, but then I realize that he would just have a stroke and die all over again if he watched this stuff.
dmsilev
@MomSense: Comparing Michelle Obama to John Boehner or Mitch McConnell, I’m pretty sure the response would be ‘thanks but no thanks’. Either that or ‘dear Lord, what have I ever done to deserve that?’.
Mike in NC
@MomSense:
Hey, how long before the GOP proposes replacing birth control pills with wine corks?
Raven
Ha, Kyl talking about “context”!
Gravenstone
@JenJen:
That’s an idea I could get behind, provided the pint in question is hemlock.
MomSense
@Amir Khalid
I totally stole that from a chain email of some years ago about words you wish were invented.
This was the solution to describe someone who is both stupid and an a$$hole!
John Carter
“I only turned on this awful show to see the President and I wish I could have turned it off before I saw the ignoranuses discuss it.”
What do you expect…from D.C. ANAL-ists?
muddy
Hardy har har, they have to “get it done” “before kickoff time”, WTF. Everyone laughs along, so true, hee hee hee. They need that sleeveless fake redneck to go give them a pep talk I guess.
ETA: Brooks is wearing a frosted lipstick.
JPL
@Raven: Call the Midwife is having a holiday special at 8.
Well I managed to sit through half of the round table’s discussion on the president. I feel like a deserve a medal..
Raven
@JPL: Whoa! Thanks! Looks like it’s 7:30.
danielx
I am beginning to suspect that this really is an accurate portrait of Dancin’ Dave.
Emma
@dmsilev: Then he goes into the climate-controlled meditation room and sits zazen until he floats up to the ceiling.
The Ancient Randonneur
I can just imagine Obama thinking to himself: Why is it that we’ve never seen YOU and Howdy Doody in the same room, Dave?
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
Bonehead fiscal cliff 101…..blah, blah,,,,,,,,,blah.
El Caganer
Just saw Lindsey Graham’s pic on my computer screen with a statement from him that he expects a deal w/i 48 hrs. and that the President ‘has won.’ Not sure what that means.
muddy
@danielx: He has a face for radio. I wish he were there, I never listen to the radio.
Raven
@El Caganer: It means you’ve been fucking around on the Huff Post, home of the misleading headline.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@El Caganer:
’ Not sure what that means.
Me, either. Chained CPI?
schrodinger's cat
Does anyone under 50 watch the Sunday gab fests? Punditubbie blatherings are so mind numbingly stupid and boring to boot
handsmile
Do I pity or admire those of sterner stuff than I who deliberately chose to watch the despicable Dancin’ Dave? Was there ever any doubt that he would give a virtuosic performance of Village choreography? How soon did he ask about Benghazi?
Just consider how utterly debased the American corporate media is that President Obama chose this hack’s program as the most reputable in rewarding it with a year-end exclusive Sunday morning interview (following the example last week of NRA chief ghoul Wayne LaPierre).
Of course, on my choice of weekend news analysis, “Up with Chris Hayes,” this morning I was greeted by a rogues gallery that included the deputy managing editor of the National Review, the chairman of the Tea Party Express, the former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican party, and one of the reporter impersonators from Kaplan Test Prep Daily. (Steve Kornacki was filling in as host, as I’d like to think Hayes himself could not countenance such bilge spewing from his final show of 2012.)
I imagine those guests were booked to laud the upcoming inauguration of President Romney, but I had to change the channel.
MomSense
@muddy
Your poor Dad would be shocked to see how low these shows have gotten. Or maybe they were always this bad but the poor quality lighting made them seem more serious? I don’t remember Russert ever wearing false eyelashes!
@Mike in NC
I would love to hear one of the Republicans go there! Wine corks–the new barrier method!
@dmsilev
Maybe they are just pining for the good ole days of the Lincoln bedroom, blue dresses, cigars and impeachment!
jeffreyw
Brooksie still pleasures himself while watching replays of the carrier landing video.
Raven
@jeffreyw: A rare political statement from the frozen Land of Lincoln.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@schrodinger’s cat:
Keep your friends close; enemies closer
RaflW
As commented several times in the Anne L thread below, it was insufferable. Esp the roundtable 2nd half. I could only tolerate about 6 minutes of smug ignoramus butthurt.
At one point Bobo made some sort of tactical point and his shit-eating, I’m smarter than you other wankers grin that briefly showed, well it made me flash with anger and hatred.
And then I switched to #Nerdland.
El Caganer
@Raven: Naw, this was MSN. Doesn’t mean they couldn’t have cribbed it from HuffPost.
schrodinger's cat
@jeffreyw: Eewww brain bleach please. We need kitteh photos ASAP as an antidote.
Raven
Van Holland “Look it up, it’s on the internet”.
MomSense
@John Carter
ANAL-ists!!! perfect!
Raven
@El Caganer: whew!
Brachiator
@RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist:
On the other hand, you could make a case for raising the retirement age because of the increasing number of Latinos in the working population. From the last big AMA study on life expectancy:
Latinos and Asians work harder, live longer, raising the curve for everyone.
Villago Delenda Est
We need tumbrels for Gregory, Brooks, and Brokaw, STAT!
Raven
A fucking Puerto Rican Mormom from Idaho??????
jeffreyw
@Raven: We got another six inches atop the last six inches. Damn, I just reread that in the voice of those noted animated pundits, Mr Beavis and Mr Butthead and am still giggling.
jeffreyw
@schrodinger’s cat: Here’s Bitsy from a photo dated 19 September.
Ira-NY
The round table was awful.
Each member is to the right of Obama. Not one damn liberal voice.
Worse, than the ideological discrepancy, was the intelligence gap. Brokaw seems like a fine fellow, but he is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Yet, he looks like a Menza candidate next to Brooks and Gregory.
RaflW
@Davis X. Machina:
re: “Washington is wired for Republicans”
Indeed. But this is why the next couple of decades will be better – if we survive this one. The re-wiring is happening now.
#Uppers is gaining a lot of ground. We need to replicate the Think Progress model, and that is happening now, though a bit slowly.
More importantly, the left is cultivating a large crop of younger bloggers, journos and policy wonks who are much more in tune with liberal frames. The barrenness of the GOP youth is clear – if Breitbartism is it, they’ve got no long game, no depth or caliber.
And younger voters have seen 15 years or more of horrible GOPers and will look at the Republicans as a shit brand for the rest of their lives.
To the extent we can, we need to support the new left, donating to think tanks, keeping up on Twitter with progressives that need reinforcing, etc.
MTP is a dinosaur that hasn’t quite yet noticed all it’s dying kin. Give it a little time. (and a push)
dexwood
Dumb Dave was a local news “reporter” in my town at one time. He has always been a stupid, shallow suck-up to the powerful. He had a reputation for being a selfish ass-kisser. I never watch him now, couldn’t stand him then.
Ira-NY
Ha, I misspelled Mensa.
schrodinger's cat
@jeffreyw: This is SPARTA…
sidhra
@Anya: Misses the quite obvious point that people like Jefferson Davis were never “won over”. There are people who are more than rivals.
Mandalay
@RaflW:
FAIR nails the core problem: “It’s likely that the politically connected corporations who sponsor these shows prefer a center/right spectrum of debate that mostly leaves out strong progressive voices who might raise a critique of corporate power”.
http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/right-and-early/
Hence the smug ignoramus butthurt.
danielx
@jeffreyw:
Thank you ever so much; would that I could plunge an icepick into my mind’s eye.
Particularly apropos since it was 12 degrees outside when I got up at 9:45….
Anya
Just watched the whole thing. My take:
– The president was excellent. He came off calm, intelligent and self-assured. I think he convinced a lot of people. But I can see an outage at GOS outrage machines from over use.
– Tom Brokaw is an entitled asshole. Someone should introduce him to the concept of self-awareness. He’s suggesting cuts to entitlements and increasing SS eligibility age. What’s next? Also, did he say the president doesn’t work hard or did I mishear that?
– It’s incredible how white, old, entitled and out of touch that MTP roundtable is. And it’s amazing how unaware they are that they belong to a dying disappearing demographic that does not represent America anymore. I think they’re as much in denial as the Grand Old (White) Party, and hence, their hostility to President Obama.
Raven
@jeffreyw: Good thing you have a tractor!
Paul
@General Stuck:
I don’t know how many fricking times Obama has tried to get a “grand bargain” only to have the Tea Party reject it because they refuse any type of tax increase.
Where the hell has Brooks been?
BTW – I used to watch Meet the Press all the time. Then about 15 years ago, it started to get more and more right-wing oriented. I haven’t watched it since. Didn’t watch it this morning either. I assume they believe their current format ensures the maximum number of viewers they can get. It is hard to believe, though…
Peregrinus
@Ira-NY:
It’s cool, from what I hear the Mensa newsletter used to be known for misspelling things.
jeffreyw
@schrodinger’s cat: Close! I believe is was: “This be Sparta! Yaargh!”
Brachiator
@Anya:
Of course, the book is about Lincoln’s cabinet, which included fellow Republicans who had run against him for the presidency.
It doesn’t make much sense for anyone to extend this idea when talking about Obama and his dealings with the Congress.
R-Jud
@Anya:
I’m reading that right now. I think they’re missing the point that all of the “Rivals” were men from within Lincoln’s own party who had been his competitors for the nomination. So I’d say that by, for instance, pulling Hillary Clinton into his cabinet and tapping Joe Biden for Veep, Obama’s approach is largely of a piece with Lincoln’s.
Unfortunately, also like Lincoln, Obama is dealing with opponents who are crazygonuts and think he’s the Devil incarnate.
Edit: @Brachiator: Damn. Are you watching me?
Paul
@Anya:
I respected Brokaw as a news anchor. He should have retired when he left that position. He is now no different than Brett Favre who should have quit one year earlier.
It is hard to take Brokaw, a multi-millionaire, seriously when he suggest the middle class should suck it up and agree to entitlement cuts. Has anybody EVER heard Brokaw suggest cuts to defense spending? He has admitted to admiringly listening to Rush Limbaugh. He is a Republican and NBC should note that when he is on as a pundit.
Peregrinus
@Raven:
Oh, Raúl.
True story: my grandmother, in the last few months, was cared for by a Mormon and a Seventh-Day Adventist. Which wouldn’t be weird, except this is in San Juan. Really put into perspective how much Puerto Rico has changed.
Countme-In
“You fill in the blanks on that one.”
O.K.
“What are they looking at?”
“They ain’t never seen no nigger on a horse before,” Django responds.
“What is this bizarre obsession they have with you riding a horse?”
“Are you asking me why Republicans do what they do?”
Only slightly bowderlized, because like Jon Stewart’s satire, pulp fiction comes so close to reality that you only need to change a word here and there or maybe move a comma to describe life on the ground.
“Django Unchained” is a mess of a movie, but like “Inglourius Basterds”, it raises questions about big vengeance that only the Little Big Horn, one of the few instances wherein reality sufficed, seemed to answer.
Next up, I hope we see a revenge flick from Tarentino about the mortgage/financial meltdown (takes your pick, 2007-2008, or the savings and loan crisis from way back when deeply insufficient justice was also not meted out), wherein we’ll be greeted with the spectacle of Christian Walz and a name actor pulping the canyons of finance, with a grand finale involving the final cornering of any number of small-time bucket shop mortgage brokers/officers, Phil Gramm, Alan Greenspan (in his bath), Robert Rubin and, what the hell, how about a flashback scene of Andrew Mellon being pulped in slo-mo.
It’s a movie, people.
They shoot blanks.
danielx
One more voice in the chorus: Mark McKinnon.
Fucking “moderate” Republicans have had thirty years to notice that the inmates have taken over the asylum and they’re just figuring it out? They had no problem with the crazies as long as they were winning elections; now they’re all “let’s recognize reality and sing kumbaya”. And has David Brooks somehow not noticed that the teahadists in the House are not interested in breaking the logjam? He’s got a lot of damn gall talking about Bush-style compromise, which amounts to giving hostage takers what they want.
jeffreyw
@Raven: Yeah, I had it out early after the first snow, but was a tad slow the second morning. Got a call from the FedEx driver saying he couldn’t get down the drive. I went and fetched the package on my ATV then scraped the drive a second time.
Mandalay
@Paul:
That’s all it is. They are putting out whatever swill will maximize advertising revenue. If market research revealed that the show would bring in more $$$ if Gregory wore a pink Easter Bunny outfit he’d do it.
Countme-In
The Founding Father of the present-day Republican Party was not Abraham Lincoln, as some mislead, but rather John Wilkes Booth, who foreshadowed Strom Thurmond’s migration from the Democratic Party and Nixon’s Southern Strategy.
Anya
@Brachiator: @Paul: It wouldn’t have bothered me if they did not apply it to the president’s dealings with RWNJ in Congress. Every hack on teevee is always yapping about “Obama’s Lincoln momement.”
Paul
@danielx:
Well, Mr McKinnon, you are invited to join the Democratic party. Today’s Dems are not all that different than the GOP of 20 years ago.
By remaining a Republican, McKinnon owns their extreme policies. Other Republicans have left the GOP.
Frankensteinbeck
@Davis X. Machina:
So true. I watched television on election night. Right when it became clear Obama had won, the anchors were stunned. They were absolutely blown away. They knew in their hearts that they were watching a repeat of the 1980 election and Romney was going to have a come-from-behind victory because Reagan. On CNN I was actually lectured by the anchor who read the results that this couldn’t be true because America is a center-right nation.
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
Days like this just confirm my decision decades ago to stop watching TV.
The Press is the problem.
Paul
@Mandalay:
I’m sure you are right. I just don’t quite get it. Aren’t right-wing viewers going to watch FoxNews no matter what? So, why would NBC try to appeal to right-wingers to increase their viewership? Haven’t they learned anything from MSNBC’s success?
Raven
@jeffreyw: Once a boonie rat always a boonie rat.
Anya
@Paul: My only familiarity with Brokaw comes from his participation in those roundtable idiocy. He’s a shill and regurgitates GOP talking points. Besides, he’s a leading apostle of both sides do it doctrine. I really cannot stand him. I always wonder how he managed to be a leading broadcaster with his speech impediment?
CaseyL
Mid-December ratings for the Sunday talk shows:
CBS “Face the Nation” 3.77M Age 24-54: 1.13M
NBC “Meet the Press” 3.49M Age 24-54: 1.14M
ABC “This Week” 2.82M Age 24-54: 947K
FOX “Fox News Sunday” 1.51M Age 24-54: 582K
Univision “Al Punto” 884K Age 24-54: 391K
The site I took these numbers from noted that week’s ratings were a 22% increase, due mostly to the Sandy Hook shootings.
Those are damning numbers. Hardly anyone’s paying attention to the Sunday Clown Shows, and even fewer will over the next decade unless Management comes up with a way to become relevant.
Brachiator
@Countme-In:
Actually, I was surprised that “Django Unchained” was not as messy as I feared it might be. And it is more about justice than vengeance. All in all, one of the best movies of 2012 for me.
But your reference to Django on a horse is spot on.
In fact, I think people should take their wingnut relatives to see it over the holiday weekend. Guaranteed fun post-movie discussions.
BGinCHI
I agree with the NRA that there need to be more guns on the MTP set.
Just loaded and lying around.
Anya
@Paul: For some reason, my reply to you is in moderation. But, it’s nothing earth shattering, just about how I despise Brokaw.
jp7505a
I have two suggestions for helping to solve the ‘fiscal cliff’ crisis.
1. The feds determine the voter registration of all soc. sec./medicare receiptents. Any GOP voters will see their benefits reduced by 50%. That should go along way to reforming the ‘out of control entitlement spending’.
2. The government should review all spending that goes back to the states. Any state that voted for Romeny and was a net user of federal funds (i.e. get more than they send in taxes) would also see a 50% reduction in federal spending. Surely these states can figure out how to eliminate the waste fraud and misuse of the federal money so that they can live with sums.
Both proposals seem fair to me since they both entail the voter to put their money were their mouth is. Since these are the true Amwericans who build it themselves, are responsible for their lives and most certainly are not part of the dead beat 47% who expect gifts from Obama, then they surely will be happy to do their patriotic duty in helping to solve this crisis.
pseudonymous in nc
@Paul:
A multi-millionaire who got especially rich as a parasite on a generation that actually made sacrifices.
schrodinger's cat
@Anya: I remember Brokaw was on TDS, going on about bipartisanship and blaming both sides for the mess in DC and Jon Stewart was heh indeeding him.
Brachiator
@Anya:
Then they haven’t read the book, or even seen the film “Lincoln.”
But then again, they are, as you note, hacks.
Anya
@schrodinger’s cat: He’s the king of “both sides do it”. Whenever republicans do something he cannot defend (which is always), he says: “both sides must compromise,” or “both sides are beholden to their base.” The rest of the time, he’s calling for the non millionaires to sacrifice. He makes me feel stabby. I don’t get why liberals like, Stewart and Chris Hayes get all giddy around him?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I used to like him too. Some time around when he and Tim Russert decided to work out their daddy issues by inventing World War II, The Greatest Generation and John McCain, he went over to the Dark Side, because McCain is his Daddy and his Daddy is perfect and his Daddy is a Republican, so Republicans are A-OK with him. Also, too, the money. I always think back that Peter Jennings, who never even wrote a best seller, to my knowledge, died with a net worth of $50 million. I can’t imagine that Brokaw and Luke Russert don’t have Romney kinds of money.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I used to like him too. Some time around when he and Tim Russert decided to work out their daddy issues by inventing World War II, The Greatest Generation and John McCain, he went over to the Dark Side, because McCain is his Daddy and his Daddy is perfect and his Daddy is a Republican, so Republicans are A-OK with him. Also, too, the money. I always think back that Peter Jennings, who never even wrote a best seller, to my knowledge, died with a net worth of $50 million. I can’t imagine that Brokaw and Luke Russert don’t have Romney kinds of money.
Villago Delenda Est
OT, but related in the sense that a blood purge of our corporate media is really needed, from the NYT editorial page:
You mean like slaughtering kids in a Connecticut school room or ambushing firefighters in an upstate NY suburb? With weapons that are perfectly legal to buy and sell to anyone who can produce the currency to obtain? That kind of unspeakable violence? You suppose?
Ohmmade
@The Dangerman: for people who actually drink milk. Which is really horrible for humans. Plus, the cliff would end the only income for 2million people and their families. That’s pretty bad. Actually, that is the very worst case scenario if you are one of them.
Frankensteinbeck
@Anya:
Because for a long time he was the only guy pointing out on national television that Republicans were assholes and the ‘journalists’ were less interested in the truth than comedians. In the land of the blind, this one eyed man seemed like a king. Then the GOP went batshit insane, and Stewart never stopped yelling ‘a pox on both your houses’. By the time he had a whole interview with Obama that he spent blaming Obama for partisanship in DC, he looked like an idiot.
Context. It’s all about context.
Anya
If I had a wingnut relative, this would be my b’day gift.
geg6
@schrodinger’s cat:
Which is exactly why I consider anyone who regularly watches that tool Jon Stewart to be just exactly as stupid as anyone who regularly watches the Sunday Punditubbie Follies. Jon Stewart is, at best, one of those people who think McKinnon and friends had a GREAT IDEA with their Americans Elect or whatever that stupid internet primary election thingy was about.
If you must watch fake news, the only one to watch is Colbert. He blows Stewart out of the water every day. He’s lightyears smarter and funnier.
Villago Delenda Est
@Countme-In:
You left out the vile little weasel Neil Bush.
Ohmmade
@Mandalay: I’ve worked in television for twenty years and one thing I’ve learned is the programming directors are some of the biggest idiots around. The woman who cancelled Ren and Stimpy still has her job at Viacom. She killed the most important and most celebrated cartoon series in my lifetime, and she is still a programming executive. In TV, one can only fail upward.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Anya: Hayes? Really? One of the media low points of the campaign, to me, was when Brokaw went on the O’Donnell show and assured LO’D, Joy Reid and Jonathan Capehart that the Romney campaign wasn’t racist, because Tom Brokaw didn’t detect any “pattern” of dog whistles. Capehart, to his credit, tried to push back, but Brokaw said, “Now, tut tut, young man”, and Capehart backed down. The rest of the segment, by far the largest portion of time, was devoted to O’D embarrassingly fawning over Brokaw, saying he was a living legend and national treasure, while Reid and Capehart murmured their honored-to-be-here assents. Brokaw accepted the praise with smug complacency, like a petty princeling receiving the ambassador of a pettier princeling.
Villago Delenda Est
@geg6:
The things worth watching on Stewart’s show are the correspondents, not Stewart, who is a borderline Villager. You’re absolutely right about Colbert, though…he makes Village vermin squirm.
jeffreyw
I am going, too! I have a cunning plan…
different-church-lady
@dmsilev:
No, he has Luther for that.
Mike in NC
@Brachiator: “Django Unchained” was a blast in every sense of the word, and I have to confess I’ve never actually seen “Blazing Saddles”! They’d probably make a great double feature.
Mandalay
@geg6:
Colbert is irreplaceable in his show, but Jon Stewart…not so much. It is the concept and format of the Daily Show that makes it a winner, not the host.
geg6
@Villago Delenda Est:
Well, you may be right about the correspondents. I wouldn’t know because I refuse to give the smug asshole and aspiring Villager my eyeballs. I gave up on him when he threw his stupid “rally” and went full both-sides-do-it as the climax to that debacle. I was embarrassed for Colbert that he was even there. I’ll never watch anything with Stewart ever again. He makes me want to puke even more than the puditubbies because I expected better of him. But he was now entered the last circle of hell, right along with Dancin’ Dave and the Clinton Guy Outraged by Blow Jobs. Fuck them all. I hope they all die, slowly and painfully, in a fire.
Maude
@Anya:
The pundits don’t read legislation. They don’t understand policy proposals. Yet, they yammer on and on about SS and all that. That has always offended me. They get away with their ignorance. And they are extremely lazy.
Legislation in online.
Brokaw is a hater. He looks down on everyone but him Wanker.
Brooks had a failed novel.
Gregory, what can I say.
Doris Kearns Goodwin is not a historian. She plays at being a historian. It took her 10 years to write Team of Rivals. She could have put the entire idea of the book on one page.
handsmile
@Anya:
While I agree that Jon Stewart has become a great disappointment over the past few years (now little more than a foul-mouthed Jay Leno), I do not recall Chris Hayes ever interviewing Tom Brokaw, much less “get[ting] all giddy around him.” I may well have missed it but would appreciate if you could provide general coordinates of the occasion.
I do seem to remember that Brokaw chastised Hayes for questioning the overuse of the term “hero” in media portrayals of US military service-members. He committed that Village cardinal sin during an “Up” program last Memorial Day.
ETA: I fully agree with every single word of geg6’s #137 comment and with VDE’s #141 remark about “The Daily Show”s correspondents.
Paul
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It has gotten to the point that whenever Brokaw is on, I immediately either turn the TV or change the channel. He has nothing of value to add. He is almost insulting. He speaks for a generation that is becoming less and less relevant in our society, ie old, white folks.
Culture of Truth
I don’t throw corks. I livevblog.
Mandalay
@different-church-lady:
Either I am having a bad day, or the clip you linked to went beyond being lame and unfunny. I found it crude and vile.
Anya
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I saw that and I almost vomited. The Hayes situation was in one of those Last Word’s web only segments. Hayes was giddy that he was in the same segment with Tom Brokaw. Made me feel ill. Fawning over Brokaw might be in their NBC contract.
Maude
@Paul:
Brokaw doesn’t speak for anyone but himself.
Jax6655
@Anya:
Because they’re not really liberals?
*ET remove 2nd blockquote
Elie
@Anya:
I think that your conclusion about team of rivals only reveals your lack of real knowledge about the book. It’s a great book with very nuanced discussion of power and decision making. Please do not accept the reductionistic summaries you may have seen.
geg6
@handsmile:
Thanks. ;-)
I have never missed an episode of Up with Chris Hayes (as far as I can remember). I have never once seen him kiss up to anyone who has come onto the show, let alone Tom Brokaw. The only time I ever remember him even having Brokaw on was the one time referenced in your comment. And Hayes was exactly right on that topic. Almost no one I have ever known who served in the military, especially the one I’ve known who served in WWII, consider themselves to be heroes. They will tell you that heroes are few and far between on any battlefield. Brokaw is an ass with that shit. Of course, he never served in the military in any capacity, so like most chickenhawks, he makes a fetish of those who have.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@Mandalay:
Gawd….lighten up.
MomSense
@Jim Foolish Literist
Brokaw hand picked Gregory for Meet the Press.
geg6
@Elie:
Yes, it’s an excellent book and Kearns Goodwin’s best work ever. I’ve read it a couple of times because it really is an excellent study of the use of political power and decision-making.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@MomSense:
Kinda redefines the term ‘low hanging fruit’
Mandalay
@Maude:
Maybe not, but at least she is a filthy liar and a plagiarist.
http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/dont_quote_me/multi-page/documents/02201537.htm
And as a Villager she is forgiven, just as Barnicle and Zakaria were.
Kane
Would it have hurt to have a person of color at the MTP roundtable? Or someone who lives outside of the Beltway? Or someone under the age of forty? Or someone who might have actually voted for Obama? Or someone who remotely knows about economics?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@geg6: Russert used to have an hour long weekend interview show on MS or C NBC. Once a month or so he and Brokaw would have a two-man circle jerk with whoever published his most recent book being interviewed by the other, with a cutesy introduction of Brokaw as “Guest host” of The Russert Show, with special guest Tim Russert! One time Brokaw was interviewing “Big Russ” and Pumpkinhead, and after the latter went through his breathless, goggle-eyed schtick about how “guys like my dad won the war, saved the world, then came home and built this country!” Brokaw then turned to the old man and with a cloyingly obsequious “Mr Russert, sir?”, the old man, who was never known as Big Russ till his son wrote a book about him, shrugged and said, basically, “Yeah, I got drafted, then I came back and got a job.”
James E Powell
I keep seeing remarks along the lines of “but then the Republicans went batshit insane” as if it were a recent development. The truth is that they have been batshit insane since Reagan. And Reagan was batshit insane. And the Confederate Dems who switched to Republicans post civil rights have always been batshit insane. And just plain evil. And the press/media has always covered for them with euphemisms like conservative or patriotic or heartland.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kane:
Anyone who has any of those qualities would never meet the first criterion of a MTP panelist: be Villager scum.
schrodinger's cat
@geg6: Agreed! Used to watch TDS pretty regularly before Obama was elected the first time, now it is once in a blue moon.
handsmile
@Jax6655:
Jon Stewart has been well and truly (and deservedly) kicked around by a number of commenters here, but as evidenced by his program’s guests, the content and quality of topic discussions, and his own commentary, there is NO ONE more liberal/progressive than Chris Hayes on any major cable channel, much less broadcast television. (That includes the estimable Rachel Maddow, whose program often suffers from dubious guest selections).
“Up with Chris Hayes” has absolutely wrecked my best intentions for weekend mornings, but is has become the most essential television watching I do. (I even miss Premier League football matches for it.)
(The absence of those reliable qualities are what made this morning’s “Up” so shocking, but as I noted above, Hayes himself was absent.)
Ohmmade
@Kane: or, I dunno, a Nobel prize winning economist? :)
Mike E
@Mike in NC: I’d be interested in hearing your take on Blazing Saddles. Huge QT fan here, sorta like the Coens where the misses are still entertaining.
I have 2 words for Tom Broke-L:
Achille Lauro
Ruckus
@Gretchen:
You don’t have to be over 65 to have an almost impossible time getting a job. Hell any time over 55 is. Someone in their late 50’s with no job and no SS and run through UE, they are truly fucked. At least over 62 you can collect SS, pittance that it may be.
cmorenc
@Anya:
Lincoln did NOT succeed in winning over his opponents, except for the different factions and personalities WITHIN the newly-formed Republican party of 1860-1861. What Lincoln succeeded in doing was out-maneuvering the opposing party obstructionists of his day by sheer cunning, trickery, legal bribery…whatever it took. In the end, Lincoln succeeded in each important step first by assembling enough votes, and only later winning people over by the success of his decisions and measures.
Suffern ACE
@Kane: yes. You put those people on, and the viewers, who by and large are watching at this point out of a habit picked up 30 years ago, shut the program off.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@cmorenc:
I’ve often wondered why, if the Team of Rivals strategy did not produce fruit for Lincoln, would Obama entertain and implement a similar strategy?
Maude
@cmorenc:
Thank you. Lincoln also said about someone and I am para phrasing, He’d steal anything but a hot stove.
Mandalay
@Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin):
By laughing at the lowest form of racial stereotyping posing as humor? By laughing at how the clip “cleverly” allows Obama to call people muthafu**as and dumbass crackers, and call his wife a bitch?
Er, no thanks.
Mandalay
@Kane:
Yes, it would hurt.
Yes, it would hurt.
Yes, it would hurt.
Yes, it would hurt.
Yes, it would hurt.
All of your worthwhile suggestions would reduce the number of viewers, and hence decrease advertising revenue. So none of them will happen.
Ruckus
@Anya:
I wonder if we are mistaken and they are talking about Lincoln’s last moment.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
SEeing these idiots sends my blood pressure through the roof, but I am tempted to look up the transcript of MTP to see how Brooks, so proud of his Great Books edumacation, so condescendingly impressed that Obama (BA Columbia, JD Harvard) had actually read Reinhold Neibuhr (sp?), how does our BoBo justify the notion that Obama is “too bright” for the likes of Boehner, Bachman, Goehmert and Peter King (which I don’t doubt is true), and that this is Obama’s fault and Obama’s problem.
Alex S.
@cmorenc:
Heh, yes. He basically lost half the country and had to conquer it back.
@Ruckus:
Evil! After all, Lincoln was also reelected before he died.
WaterGirl
@handsmile: Completely agree with what you said about Chris Hayes and UP with Chris Hayes.
I don’t even bother watching when there is a guest host. I see the guest host and the folks around the table, and I delete the show without watching. Based on guest hosts & guest choices, I am betting that Chris lets the guest host choose their guests.
Bad timing that Chris had today off. This would have been an important show.
Maude
@Mandalay:
I read the article by Dan Kennedy. He wimps out almost half way through. It’s like stating that someone had been proven to kill another person, but that didn’t make them a killer.
I think Goodwin will have some serious problems coming along. Historians are notorious for being vicious. They go after each other hammer and tongs.
I plan to enjoy it.
It seems and that is what we will find out, that Goodwin has a pattern. If so, she’s toast.
Gretchen
@Raven:
There are white construction workers, and roofers, and waitresses here in Kansas, and they all vote for Republicans. Thomas Frank wrote a whole book trying to explain this, and if anything it’s gotten worse under Brownback.
handsmile
@geg6:
I’ve been reading you since I first started commenting here little more than two years ago, yet I believe this is the first time we’ve exchanged replies. Just wanted to say that though I think some of the style (and perhaps the substance) of our politics/political activism may differ, how much I admire the passion, conviction (and frequent exasperation) of your commentary. Yours is one of the distinctive voices here.
(sorry if this is a little sappy, but year-ends always prompt such sentiments.)
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@azlib:
FTFY.
Inheritance tax, 75%. Problem solves itself in two generations.
Mandalay
@Maude:
You may be right if this interview is nothing unusual…
http://cwcrossroads.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/debating-dilorenzo-doris-kearns-goodwin/
The article by Kennedy was ten years old, and Goodwin seems to have weathered the storm, and I am not qualified to judge her worth as a historian. But she was certainly guilty of plagiarism, and handled the issue very badly.
But as I said, the Village always forgive their own.
xian
@danielx: isn’t mckinnon an ex-dem who sold out to ride the W train, and more recently one of the No Labels doofuses?
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@Raven:
I never understood why defense corps advertise. DRONZE aren’t a consumer product, that one of us could go out and buy. So the ad can’t be for the viewers.
But it’s also not like anyone but Boeing’s going to get that contract anyway, given current procurement practices. So the ad’s not for any Joint Chiefs or Pentagon execs who might happen be watching (Hmmm,.. must try Boeing’s drones next time I shop!). You’d have an easier time getting a smoker to switch cigarette brands.
So, who (or what) is the target market for the ad?
CW in LA
The Lincoln moment I would like to see from the prez would involve siccing General Sherman on our modern-day Jeff Davises.
handsmile
@WaterGirl:
Thanks, comrade!
Steve Kornacki has guest-hosted “Up” before and has done a reasonable job. Subbing for someone as bracingly intelligent and quick-witted as Chris Hayes must be an unenviable task. (His own liberal bona fides are ably demonstrated by frequent appearances on Lawrence O’Donnell’s “The Last Word”; I’ve never seen Kornacki’s MSNBC afternoon program.)
But today’s program was really a stinker. I’m utterly baffled why the producers chose to assemble such a chorus of far-right and Villager voices. As you say, one would have thought that “Up”s final program of this year would be more representative of its singular strengths. Somehow it made Dancin’ Dave’s charade of an interview with Obama all the more galling.
Yutsano
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor: Northern Virginia. Specifically, the defence contractor CEOs. I know it sounds crazy, but it would explain why Boeing has ads in the DC subways too.
Ruckus
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor:
So, who (or what) is the target market for the ad?
Any congress critter who might vote to cut military entitlements and therefore valuable
votescampaign contributions.notoriousJRT
@dmsilev:
He should have sent his anger translator, Luther. THAT would be entertaining.
Brachiator
@Maude:
Only the bad ones.
Goodwin’s book is very good. Besides, Lincoln studies are such an industry that you could fill libraries just with books about Abe.
And there’s that old joke that publishers love books about Lincoln, medical issues and bets that a guaranteed hit would be “Lincoln’s Doctor’s Dog.”
jp7505a
Oh joy McConnell and Biden arfe talkingt in an attempt to avoid the fiscal cliff. As the minority leader reminded us, he and Biden worked together to avoid the debt limit default and to reach a solution. Oh wait that’s the fiscal cliff solution. This is not going to end well.
JasonF
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor:
You are. You’re supposed to see it and think “Oh my God, drones are awesome!!!!! Please, Congress, never ever ever cut the defense budget!” Then, when Congress doesn’t cut the defense budget, you’re happy — or at least, not unhappy enough to rock the boat and cause trouble for your Congressman, and your Congressman therefore knows he’s got enough political cover to keep spending your tax dollars on drones.
FlipYrWhig
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor: I think the audience for those ads is… politicians, policymakers, and their staffs. That’s who watches the Sunday news programs.
FlipYrWhig
Also, Tom Brokaw has always been vapid, and it’s mostly a sign of how steeply The News has declined that he’s gone from being considered a dull, funny-sounding time-server not fit for the mantle of Cronkite/Huntley/Brinkley to some sort of eminent elder statesman in his own right. Tom Brokaw, same story.
Jax6655
@handsmile:
@WaterGirl:
I never meant that Hayes is a conservative. Rather that he can be more far-left, almost f*rebagger-ish than I care for.
Overall though he’s smart and passionate for the right reasons.
Stewart on the other hand can pound sand.
Elizabelle
This sentence leapt out at me from latest NYTimes article:
For fuck’s sake.
Authors are Jonathan Weisman (Villager) and John M. Broder.
Good god, could it be in the blood?
I guess I’m not on either side because I haven’t even seen the MTP appearance and hope PBO ripped the opposition a new one. I am personally worried that he did not.
PS: See picture. David Gregory looks even whiter than usual. (Realize it’s probably TV lights.)
Hurling Dervish
I loved it when Tom Brokaw said he had a gun magazine. Thought for sure he was going to whip out another 30-round banana clip.
Mike in NC
@FlipYrWhig:
Likewise, I don’t get Rachel Maddow gushing whenever Dan Rather shows up on set. Another over-the-hill hack, like Tom.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
Apparently not. Although It could be in the air they breathe, or the cocktail parties they attend, or the tires they swing.
Kip the Wonder Rat
@CaseyL: I don’t think that nationwide numbers have anything to do with the goals of the network Sunday shows. These shows are ENTIRELY targeted to inside-the-DC-beltway and Manhattan upperclass twits. Yon know – the Masters of the Universe.
The DC bubble is real. I have felt it twice after being on the hill for just a few days running. These people really think that what they see on the Sunday morning programs is what the country gives a toss about. The last time I really felt The Bubble Effect was over earmarks. Every freakin’ Republican Congressional staffer went on and on about them. Guess what was all over the Sunday shows for a month prior? Earmarks.
I seriously doubt the Average American gave a shit about earmarks then or gives a shit about them now. But OMG!! Earmarks is evil!!
It was absolutely striking how staffers from as disparate states as NYC, OK, GA, and CA all went on about earmarks. I wonder what the flavor of the day was the following week…
J R in WVa
When Social Security was designed by FDR’s Brain Trust, who built the New Deal that saved America from fascism the first time, They were fully aware that people were going to be living much longer, and that trend was built in from the beginning.
After all, the germ theory of disease and actual drugs that cured things were well underway by the time the New Deal was founded.
So all this blather about how long people will be living is just bull dung!
Also, as has been pointed out above, some ethnic groups are just now about to hit an average survival age that allows them to draw SS benefits.
Also, too, again, I agree that the national media is in large part a tool of the (would-be) overlord class, and their use of the publicly-owned airwaves should be ended immediately.
My Dad loved the Sunday Morning analysis shows, but of course back then he (Rockefeller Republican that he was) ranted about their clear liberal bias. Now they are a pit of morass, indeed.
Ruckus
@danielx:
Regan was not the start of the crazy. Conservatives have always been crazy. The current crop started after WWII, remember crazy Joe McCarthy, the senator from WI? Nixon? The Bush’s? They all got their start after the end of the war. They were crazy assholes(OK some were batshit) then and the party has only gotten worse.
I believe we have to get off the storyline that Regan was the start of the downfall of conservative thought and practice. He was a better salesman, that’s the extent of it.
BethanyAnne
I haven’t read the thread yet, but I think Obama’s calm is one of the main things that drives them nuts. They are used to playing politics as the aggressor, and someone who is unfazed by their antics breaks all sense of how the world works for them.
Kathy in St. Louis
@rollSound: At least he left his feather boa at home after his date with Lindsey.
J R in WVa
@BethanyAnne:
THIS!!
President Obama is more than calm. He presents as someone who has absolute certainty that he will overcome his opponents, partly because of his own effort, but mostly because he stands with truth on his side, and that makes it easy to overcome falsehood.
Gos knows the Republicans depend on falsehood for everything, so that seems like their weakness. Truth and justice!
Also:
What about those Mountaineers? So good in the first half of their season, and then… nothing… so sad!
John, what do you think was the cause of that unfolding?
Lojasmo
@The Dangerman:
People should drink less milk.
Big Daddy
You know, I thought David Gregory was OK. Just OK. He did not (really) interrupt the president. He was not a rude ass. He was just OK. I thought President Obama was magnificent.
The Sailor
@MomSense: “ignoranuses”
Stolen. Thank you.
Lojasmo
@Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin):
Because it was a successful strategy for Lincoln, and has been for Obama as well.
Stuff it.
Grumpy Code Monkey
Haven’t watched the Sunday shows since Brinkley retired, and had never seen Gregory in action before that interview with the president.
Jesus.
You have an opportunity to ask anything, and you focus on the petty, inside baseball bullshit. Hint: “annoying” != “tough”.
But, while watching it, I realized just how badly the House GOP have fucked themselves. They can either vote against a tax cut for their voters, or vote for a tax hike on their major donors. Either way they lose.