Sunday Morning Comin' Down

"Day of Absence" Edition

In which the media embargo on Liberals jumps from depressingly predictable to startlingly ridiculous.

Face the Nation:

"Bob sits down with a panel of Republican heavy hitters. Joining him on Sunday morning: GOP consultants Liz Cheney, Ed Gillespie and Ed Rollins, CBS News Political Analyst John Dickerson, and Rick Perry supporter Ken Blackwell."

What do you want to bet that Bob Schieffer doesn't ask Dick Cheney's loathsome spawn one question about how her war stocks are doing?

"Meet the Press":

Republican Jon Huntsman, followed by former Governor Bill Richardson (D-NM), and former RNC Chairman, Governor Haley Barbour (R-MS), followed by a roundtable featuring Republican strategist Alex Castellanos, Conservative Wall Street Journal columnist, Kim Strassel (possibly best-known for her wildly dishonest 2001 hit piece on Hillary Clinton, “Half-cocked: Hillary aims to strangle America’s game fowl industry” about which more here), Republico Politico reporter Maggie Haberman and Chris Matthews takes a break from the MSNBC infomercial for "Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero," he hosts to step across the hall to pimp his new book, "Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero".

"This Week...":

Republican Speaker John Boehner and Republican Condoleezza Rice, followed by a "powerhouse roundtable" with Republican George Will, Republican political strategist Matthew Dowd, and Arianna Huffington, who is "Liberal" in the same sense that Velveeta is "food".

So even though there was no Tom Brokaw in a giant fuzzy yellow hat

blathering on about a nonexistent Center that would save us all if only Both Sides would stop acting so identically unreasonable, today's Mouse Circus was obviously just one more example of the Insidious Liberal Control over our media which ACORN, George Soros and Dirty Hippie High Command secretly exercise every minute of every day.

All of which is clearly visible to any and all Patriotic Murricans

as long as they are wearing their Special Glasses.


Across the dial...

...Jon Huntsman wanted you to know that he is ProLife (tm) and that he (direct quote) "has two little adopted daughters to prove the point." (Helpful hint for the Huntsman family: do not let Daddy ["And the two little adopted daughters -- Wingnut Cred and Talking Point -- are both doing great in school!"] compose the Christmas cards this year.)

...Ron Paul expanded on his exciting program of getting government out of the business of governing anything and letting the course of Plague, War, Famine and Death be decided by the marketplace.

...Republican Condoleezza Rice practically begged Christiane Amanpour to stop asking her about Herman Cain:

Rice: Please stop asking me about "Black Walnut"

Amanpour: But isn't his "cavalier" ignorance about every place else on Earth except for whatever happens to be ten feet in front of him at any given moment is a bad thing?

Rice: I don't know anything about the context of what he said.

Amanpour: The "context"? The "context" is the leading candidate for President of your party didn't know China had nukes! The "context" is Ooze-Becky-Beck-Becky-Stan-Stan. The "context" is you were the 66th god damn United States Secretary of State. Granted it was under President Drinky O'Clusterfuck, but still.

Rice: Please, for fuck's sake, please stop it! and just let flog my stupid book and get off the stage with my resume intact.

For the record, in addition to the obvious political wolf-trap into which she stumbled, I believe the vampire-in-a-holy-water-hot-tub discomfort which the obedient and orderly Secretary Rice displayed also has this strong racial component: almost any career-driven African America woman of Secretary Rice's background and generation has been taught since childhood that you never, ever call out the respected elders of the community, especially when they are successful men, and double-especially in public.

...Republican political strategist Matthew Dowd haz a big sad over how "tribal" our politics have become. First, another story -- or five stories, or fifty stories -- predictably drops about the unhingedness, blithering stupidity, towering hypocrisy or otherwise massive unfitness of leading Conservative. Then, the Right goes predictably apeshit that the Liberal Media for trying to take away their opium pipe and making them deal with "facts". Then some Liberal somewhere says "fuck", which any of a dozen assfoam dispensers in our Imperial Media then insists (more in sorrow than in anger) is irrefutable proof that Both Sides are Equally Bad.

...David Gregory is shocked -- shocked! -- that in re Citizen Cain, Conservatives seem to live in some kind of "alternate reality" where facts and history not only don't matter, but are taken as signifiers of Depraved Media Elitehood and High-Tech Lyncherism.

Shocked!

Which is why I rose in the chill, autumnal dawn to watch "Up With Chris Hayes" (Motto: The "700 Club" for insomniac atheist policy wonks.) Because while Mr. Hayes can be, at times, over-caffeinated and discursive (Hell, so can I) his show has been consistently lively, substantive and engaging.

And I have seen all the (other) works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.