Sunday Morning Comin' Down

"Getting the Banned Back Together" Edition.

You know our politics has fallen into banana-republic territory when Mike Huckabee using the Breitbart Collective Farm for the Hilariously Insane to try and spin jaw-droppingly vile Nazi gold into a bump in the polls (h/t Heather at Crooks and Liars) --

Huckabee On Iran Nuclear Deal: Obama Marching Israelis 'To The Door Of The Oven'

-- is not the most egregious offense against Godwin's Law making the rounds today.

No that signal honor goes to Mr. Shuck Todd --

-- host of NBC's Meet the Press, who decided that what Murrica really needed this week more than anything was a few words of wisdom from Murrica's most famous Hitler-apologist/racist/Nixon flunkie, Pat Buchanan:

@owillis fwiw, I'm having him on as part of a Trump segment. Trump 2015 and Buchanan 1992 share a lot of similarities on issues

— Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) July 25, 2015

Sorry, Chuckles; you lost me at "I'm having him on...".

Honestly, I cannot think of a single human outside of Pat Buchanan and his even-more-Pat-Buchanan sister, Bay --

-- who thinks that paroling Buchanan from the Phantom Zone (from Media Matters, 2012) --

(Chris) WALLACE: No, well I, look, I mean, I wasn't prepared to get into a discussion about Pat Buchanan's views --

GALLAGHER: I understand, I understand.

WALLACE: -- and I don't have them, but I do know over the years, because I remember when I was at ABC, we had him on Nightline. He has said some very incendiary things about Israel, about Jews, about blacks, about other minorities, and I -- you know, look, he's entitled to say those things. It's a free country, but on the other hand, groups that are offended by those remarks are entitled to say it too.

GALLAGHER: I guess I am just so fascinated --

WALLACE: And let me just finish my thought. And an employer, be it Fox News or MSNBC or anybody else, is entitled to say, "you know what? We don't want this guy."

-- and putting him back on your teevee machine -- especially on what is supposed to be NBC's flagship public interest program -- is anything other than one more example of tin-ear Todd's just amazingly awful stewardship of the pile of rubble where "Meet the Press" once stood.

But of course, as an discerning viewer of the Gasbag Cavalcade knows, acting in the public interest is the least of their concerns.  As Shuck Todd himself confessed in this remarkable interview, he is a creature of The Business of Show in the employ of corporate executives whose faces we will never see and whose names will never be mentioned, but who make it clear to Mr. Todd that his show is all about gettin' them ratings, and fuck the substance. And what's better for ratings than putting red ants and black ants in a jar and watchin' 'em fight!

However, while public interest is almost never on the Sunday program menu, the public redemption of Beltway insiders is always on offer. In fact, rehabbing the careers of their Conservative colleagues who have shit the bed is such a feature-not-a-bug of the Gasbag Cavalcade that I finally gave up documenting each individual case and just started tagging the process as The Gingrich Rules:

In the game of professional punditry there also clearly exists a special set of rules designed with one person on 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 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.

And in the key to that bargain we find "The Gingrich Rules"...

One bright spot in the otherwise dark firmament was Bernie Sanders, who took a hammer to Shuck Todd's "Some people say..." tricycle.  Honestly, I thought the kid was gonna cry (transcript not yet available -- see video below.)

After Bernie was safely gone, the darkness returned like someone flipping a switch.  Shuck Todd continued right on with the freak show, trotting out, among others, America's Third Most Dependable Both Siderist, Ron Fournier, to explain that while Bernie Sanders is not like Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders is also just like Donald Trump.  And (at no additional charge to you the customer!) also explain that  Hillary Clinton is sneaky, aloof and possibly a criminal.

Ed Shultz out, Pat Buchanan in, and Ron Fournier right there ringside to tell themurricanpeople what "populism" really means.

How do these people sleep at night?

On a bed made of money: