Sunday Morning Comin’ Down

In which The Defender of the Villager Faith

Completed a “Full Bobo”.

(Hereafter, the “Full Bobo” refers to the appearance of a single pundit with no particular specialty or relevant expertise – usually David Fucking Brooks – who is nonetheless invited to appear in a single week on a major outlet of every major media genre – radio, teevee and print – to push some laughably-absurd bit of ideological twaddle …and is never once challenged by any of his peers in any of those venues.

Thus is “conventional Beltway Wisdom” manufactured right before our eyes. )

Also a very nice lesbian beats the crap out of a smirky, little 12-year old.


On another channel, an infamous American liar, traitor and war criminal named Dick Cheney

was invited onto a major Mouse Circus Outlet where his depraved opinions were sought on a variety of subjects.


I mostly skipped past it, as the only question I am interested in vis-à-vis Dick Cheney is whether he will be tried for his crimes before a military tribunal or in a civilian court, but Cheney’s presence on teevee is a gravity-well that sucks every other topic on every other channel into it.


On “Meet the Press” David Gregory began his day by asking Joe Biden the same question over and over again.

Gregory: Mr. Vice President, given that you are a Democrat, I will be asking you 15-70 very aggressive questions about a single topic -- terrorism trials and Dick Cheney.

Biden: I see.

Gregory: If you were a Republican, I would be braiding your hair and asking why Democrats are such assholes.

Biden: Of course.

Gregory: It is my sincerest hope that you will made some huge gaffe around which we can build our entire pundit lineup next week.

Biden: Ahhh.

Gregory: If you have somehow managed to keep your comments on a leash, we have a panel on after you who will invent a controversy, which we hope will dominate the ratings.

Biden: My grandpa had a saying. If you see a pig fall past your window, don’t assume that pigs fly. Or maybe it was dogs. Or sheep. Ok, look, I did a lot of acid and listened to a lot of Floyd back the day

so let's just stipulate that I said something folksy and move on.

Later, after David Gregory lets Illinois Republican Congressman Aaron Schock run off at the mouth unchallenged, Maddow elected to step in, do Gregory’s fucking job for him, and play Congressman Schock’s ‘nads like maracas.

(Despite the fact that she’s a head smarter that everyone else at the table -- and has so completely lapped the hapless, establishmentarian fop of a host that it is almost painful to watch – it is initially jarring to see Rachel Maddow show up on “Meet the Press”: sorta like seeing Cindy Lou Who show up in a “Saw” movie.)

And to keep from letting Maddow just stomping his guests to death, David Gregory had to repeatedly and valiantly interpose himself between her ugly, relentless facts and everyone else’s sweet-sweet Beltway Insider Bullshit.

A typical exchange:

MS. MADDOW: How about the...(unintelligible)?

Klaxon sounds.

Danger! Danger! Liberals have breached our bullshit perimeter!

David Gregory: Where are they?!
David Brooks: 9 meters, 7, 6.
David Gregory: That can't be, that's inside the room.
David Brooks: It's reading right man, look.
Harold "Slicky" Ford: Then, "you're" not reading it right.

MR. GREGORY: But, but answer--all right, let me, let me...(unintelligible)...Rachel, which is that the, the question about you--you've…

And like that…

David Brooks again conveniently misplaces three and a half decades of Republican political history and completes his “Full Bobo” by trying to run his “Both parties are responsible”, “Vietnam and Watergate…caused the teabaggers” scam one last time.

Rachel got Bobo sweating right though his makeup when she wheeled around and said “We’re not talking about 'bipartisanship'; we’re talking about hypocrisy.” This is what makes Maddow so very dangerous: she does her homework. She comes loaded for bear and is able to take full advantage of any opening to point out things that are “factually wrong even though they are beltway common wisdom.”

Bobo needn’t have worried; game show host David Gregory did what NBC pays him eight-figures a year to do; aggressively abort any serious discussion of what is really wrong with Washington that might challenge established Villager norms and protocols.

Gregory: Bobo, you wrote a column this week about how awful everything is, and how hard it is to fix shit now. But would it have been possible to fix this stuff before?

Bobo: Thank you for awkwardly handing me that completely scripted question David Gregory. The answer is “No”. There was this period between 1932 and 19?? When we trusted gummint. Then there was Watergate and Vietnam and a bunch of other shit…after which we magically end up in 2010 with everybody hating Washington.

Later, Harold Ford proved his bipartisanshiup by affably humping everyone’s leg equally, for which he was rewarded by being given five minutes near the end of the show to campaign for office by long-answering softball “questions” with no follow-up which were lobbed to him underhanded by Gregory.

Gregory: Harold, tell us more about your “special purpose”.

Harold: Ok...