Who Is This "Us"

Of which Doctor Maddow speaks? (h/t Heather at Crooks and Liars):

Maddow: 'Shame On Us' For Asking The Likes Of Bill Kristol For Opinions On Foreign Policy

By Heather

What Rachel Maddow should have said is shame on Joe Scarborough for having lying warmonger Bloody Bill Kristol on day after day to fearmonger and spread right wing propaganda on his show.

I hate to break it to you, Rachel, but Heather is dead right: An awful lot of these calls are coming from inside your house:

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Indeed, Kristol has become a coveted free agent since leaving Fox News. He has made multiple appearances on ABC's "This Week" (where he was a panelist in the 1990s) and NBC's "Meet The Press" (he will join the roundtable again this Sunday). He has also made multiple appearances on CNN's "Crossfire" and on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

"I enjoy the flexibility of being a free-agent and the variety of the shows, which have been stimulating," he said. "It's also fun getting a rise out of the MSNBC viewers."

Kristol hasn't severed ties with Fox News completely. He appeared on Fox News Sunday's roundtable on Sept. 15 -- but this time as a guest, not as a contributor.

Kristol said it was very possible that he could strike a deal with another network in the months ahead.

"I think I will talk to some of the other networks. I'll have those conversations over the next two or three to months," he said. "For now, it's fun to be able to discuss and argue with different people in different forums."

In fact, as you must no doubt be painfully aware, for years now your colleague David Gregory has been running a virtual Iraq Chickenhawk reputation laundering service out of "Meet the Press" studio where apparently any war criminal or Bush Administration war propagandist can come in soaked in American blood and career-stunted by their own words...and leave clean, minty-fresh and shiven of all past wrongdoing.  

In the past I have referred to this process The Gingrich Rules, since Mr. Gregory is so obviously Newt's personal bidet, but really, Greggers has built for himself an almost unrivaled record for putting out for any high-rolling Conservative grifter or lunatic of malefactor whose rep needs a quick teevee tuck-and-roll:

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In the game of professional punditry there also clearly exists a special set of rules designed with one person in mind. Or, rather, one sort of person: Conservatism's parade of bomb-throwing, hate-mongering, race-baiting bottom feeders. That breed which makes their daily bread from grifting the Pig People by generating an endless flood of books, magazine articles, broadcasts, speeches and videos all telling the GOP base over and over again that them their bigotries are noble and their paranoia is patriotic.

Of course, part of the downside of wallowing in the wingnut sewer and trafficking in slander and lies is that, sooner or later, you become a toxic mess. Your stink becomes unacceptable to the general public, which s where the Sunday morning talk shows -- the Mouse Circus -- comes in. Because despite having long ago devolved into a sinkhole of Beltway centrist twaddle, it is still viewed by altogether too many people as a bastion of Very Serious people -- it's the strip-mall of political opinion where casual shoppers go to feel smart and validated.

And so a bargain is struck; the bottom feeders deliver a temporary hike in the only thing these show's owners really care about -- audience share -- and, in exchange for being teevee friendly and keeping the worst of their batshit crazy on a leash for a few minutes, their Mouse Circus deburrs the bottom feeders' public image, replates and burnishes their credibility and temporarily transfuses them with Seriousness, which can then be redeemed at ten times its face value back among the Pig People.
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Of course, your network is not unique: everybody is in on the scam.  The most recent, horrifying example comes to us from one of the "other networks" that Bill Kristol permitted to throw rose petals at his feet, and which went on to made him a very generous offer:

Bill Kristol's Long Resume Of Misinformation Moves To ABC News

HANNAH GROCH-BEGLEY

Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol is now a contributor at ABC News, after a decade spent offering inaccurate predictions and baseless smears against Democrats on Fox News.

On the February 2 edition of ABC's This Week, host George Stephanopoulos noted that Kristol was one of the network's newest contributors. Kristol announced back in August 2013 that he no longer had an exclusive contract with his previous employer, Fox News, and was now "free to inflict my insights on viewers of the other networks as well."

Kristol's decade of "insights" at Fox included inaccurate predictions about the Iraq War, saber-rattling for war with Iran, dismissing legitimate military scandals, and smearing Democrats. He was one of the worst of the media's Iraq War boosters, insisting that there was "almost no evidence" that "the Shia can't get along with the Sunni," and that "American and alliance forces will be welcomed in Baghdad as liberators."

He also claimed that military sexual assaults were a "pseudo-crisis," helped lead a smear campaign against then-nominee for Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, dismissed the devastating effects of the recent government shutdown by claiming "no one no one is going to starve in Arkansas," and claimed that Hillary Clinton only won the 2008 New Hampshire primary because "she pretended to cry; the women liked it."
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Credit for locking up The Talented Mr. Kristol appears to go to the very-nearly-post-pubescent Mr. Jonathan Greenberger --

Jonathan Greenberger, executive producer of "This Week," said in a statement Kristol is "an original thinker" that will make their team stronger:

“Bill makes our outstanding team of contributors and analysts even stronger. He’s an original thinker with a unique perspective on the political and cultural landscape, and we look forward to hearing his voice on the 'This Week' roundtable on a regular basis."

-- who, in 10 short years, has somehow gone from being the editor of his college's Student Life newspaper -- 

-- to having enough firepower at ABC News to hire one of the most demonstrably awful human beings on Earth for yet another turn in front of the cameras.

So, Rachel, yell about Paul Wolfowitz all you want. Hell, I'll join you. But until you start taking your blowtorch of truth to people like David Gregory and Joe Scarborough and Arthur Sulzberger -- the people who, day in and day out, keep making affirmative decisions to never demand any accountability from the likes of Kristol and Tom Friedman and David Brooks but instead just hand over huge public media platforms to unreconstructed Iraq War demagogues -- you're just bouncing the rubble around.

Also it would be nice if, every once in a while, you remind your audience that there actually are a group of people who were right all along.

And those people are still not allowed within a hundred miles of the same kind of megaphones that our mainstream media continues to toss out to Bill Kristol and Tom Friedman and David Brooks like so many Mardi Gras beads.