Sunday Morning Comin’ Down

The state of the Sunday Marketplace

Once upon a time I was asked in a very nice way why anyone would waste their time parsing what the Mouse Circus puppeteers were nattering about.

I answered that the Mouse Circus is where trial balloons are launched, weekly messaging is set, where the only-lightly-engaged citizenry goes to get ideas and feel informed and smart, and the wrecked machinery of the American political dialog at the intersection of Bad Politics and Bad Journalism is on its fullest display.

Or, in the immortal words of Peter Griffith, the Mouse Circus “insists upon itself.”

And nowadays?

The Huffington Post almost never fails to host a cultural kitsch-and-bitch.

Crooks and Liars reliably slings vid as hot and fresh as IHOP dealing out silver dollar flapjacks.

There is Fire Dog Lake

There is Atrios

And Talking Points Memo

There is Media Matters

And the inimitable Shakesville

And on and on.

Taken altogether this is a good thing -- no three hours of our national teevee discourse is more desperately in need of a pyroclastic enema than the Sunday Talks -- but with so many big guns tracking every tic and toe-stub, the Sunday marketplace is now positively saturated with good observations, video and dialogue at every major site, and so it is probably time for my little Sunday Morning Comin’ Down pushcart to start fading into the sunset.

Until then, however...

On “This Week”

Sunday Morning found the Evil and Irrelevant Newt Gingrich smirking in front of a camera and cleaning his pelt for the umpteenth time, this time hosted by George Stephanopoulos and raising – for the umpteenth time -- the only question worth asking vis-a-vis Newt:

WTF does anyone care what Newt thinks?

About anything?

Newt’s face belongs on the back of America’s Political Milk Carton. His movement, in the compost heap. It’s leaders, driven from office with pointy sticks, or running through Federal Prison Habitrails for the amusement of paying customers.

And his schtick never changes.

1. Ridiculous, incendiary drivel stated as Categorical Truth:

“Michigan was hit with a Democratic governor in the same way New Orleans was hit by Katrina.”

“McCain/Feingold discriminates against the Middle Class. This is an Objective Fact!”

2. Fringe goofball “solutions” designed to solve nothing but to re-ignite the Glory Days of the “Settin’ The Woods On Fire” Wingnut 90s:

Make English the Official Language!
Build more refineries!

3. Lard everything liberally over with Newt-Brand Adjectives, making sure that “fundamental” is used as often as 9udy uses “9/11”

• No one is radical enough.
• Everything need to be dramatically deeper.
• And more fundamentaller.
• There are dramatic things we can do with Conservatism!
• We are at the end of the Bush Era. The Reagan Era.
• We need to Redefine.
• Dramatically.
• And…wait for it…fundamentally
• It is a fundamental misunderstanding that the GOP needs…

Looking into the absolutely bare cupboard of Conservatism, Newt’s sole gift is to take out the lone, sulfurous, suspect egg and announce, dramatically, “We need to try something even more radical with this smelly egg!”

And because he uses the Bigwords, Conservative ears perk right up. Because nothing is as impressive to Teh Stoopids as them Bigwords.

Newt sayeth: “This last ossified lump of 30-year-old Conservative Sanka needs a fundamental transformation” and the Great Conservative Wad swoons.

And the Conservative chicken nugget preserved in the icebox hoarfrost like a mammoth in frozen tundra? It needs to be dramatically redefined!

Newt knows that the Conservative Base – morally narcoleptic and feverishly tangled in the reeking sheets of his movement’s massive and public failures – still dreams of the magic redemption of a Clean Slate.

For the last seven years they have risen in aching joy each time Bush or one of his surrogates announced – after each and every epic clusterfuck -- that it was a mistake to “look backwards”. Because behind them is that scary place full of nation-fires they started, wreckage they created, towering debt they charged on their 9/11 Credit Card, and the untold hundreds of thousands their policies have killed or crippled.

No, never look back.

Never ever look back.

Unless there is a Democrat involved. And a failed land deal in Arkansas.

But other than that, never, never ever look back.

And yet however fast this Party of Personal Responsibility sprints from taking any personal responsibility for anything – however many Bright New Corners they insist we have turn in their Forever War – the shadow of their failures overtakes them.

Running is not enough. Lying is not enough. Sweating in their sleepy, dogma-stained Underoos, the 27% are reduced to fantasizing about another miraculous Political Snow Day.

It worked once -- when the Radical Right was allowed to hijack 9/11 and turn the blood of innocent Americans into a blank check for six years of Republican lying and treason – but covering up high crimes, criminal incompetence and incipient fascism by screaming “Boo!” seems the be finally petering out into the self-parodying Grand Guignol of Rudy Giuliani’s Madcap Terrorism Tourette's Road Show.

The wingnuts have about chewed all the flavor out of their September 11th Bubble Gum, and now the Failed Conservative Movement is desperately in search of another Great Reboot where they can claim that all debts are canceled, all of their astounding hypocrisies nullified, and the long, grievous and bloody record of their treachery expunged.

Where they can run screaming “Doooooo Ooooover!” into the streets and get back to blaming Liberals and Bill Clinton’s Penis for all the evils in the world.

The Party of Personal Responsibility pines for a Fascist Prometheus who can deliver them salvation through the Holy Fire of Miraculous Bigwords. Salvation that'll napalm away the brutal judgments of history and justice that they so richly deserve and which their million bloody sins cry out for.

And it is Newt who holds himself up as that redeemer.


Meanwhile, on ”The Chris Matthews Show”

I think.

I feel.

What do you feel?

I feel that voters think.

I think that voters think.

I think that voters feel.

Ya think?

I talk to lotta wimmin who think….

Commercial Break: Way-off-brand insurance. Dating sites. Heartburn remedies.

(Man to they ever have their demographic dialed in to ten significant digits.)

I talk to lotta consultants who feel…

I bin talkin’ to a lot of Democratic consultants…

Commercial Break: Men! Don’t exercise. Don’t eat right! Get some fake hair! 80% of feelin’ gud is lookin’ gud! Put some zip back in your luv life. Do it or no pussy for you!

I think that Americans feel…

I feel that Americans think…

Bobo Brooks: People are idiots!


And lastly, on "Meet the Press"


Clinton versus Russert