Sunday Morning Comin' Down

Quotable Liars Edition.

This Sunday was a day of actual, bloody mayhem,  It was also a day with trivial pre-convention nonsense and meaningless, mid-summer poll numbers being read at you with all the gravity of Uncle Walter walking us through the Apollo 13 disaster.

Blue Gal and I were traveling back from Netroots Nation (about which more later...maybe) Sunday morning and missed most of the empty verbal teevee calories.  But even sailing down I55 still groggy and listening with half an ear over the radio machine, this nugget from "Meet the Press" caught my attention:

JOY-ANN REID:   I think it actually does better. I mean, the thing that struck me about Glenn Beck was that he just point blank said that Reince Priebus didn't believe anything that he was saying when he was in interview with you. And it was kind of shocking and jaw-dropping to say that because you felt Reince Priebus' sort of pain and suffering as he's doing that interview. He has to say what he's saying. But everything about the roll out also felt like somebody who didn't believe what they were saying.

There is a lot to unpack there, but the upshot is this.

Mr. Chuck Todd -- madame of America's classiest Sunday morning political knocking shop -- invited this guy onto national teevee --

-- to comment on this guy's fundamental dishonesty:

-- which he did, after slathering it delicious Both Siderist gravy (and emphasis added at random by me):

GLENN BECK:  Thank you. Can't vote for Hillary, either. I am one of these people that honestly, I was listening to that interview and I feel like the world of Blade Runner makes more sense than this one. I don't even know where to begin, we're living in such a fantasy world where nothing makes sense anymore.

Truer words never came out of a crazier pie-hole.

GLENN BECK:  ... It is remarkable to me that both parties are so out of touch with the American people, both Democrats, Republicans and Independents, we all feel the same way...

GLENN BECK:  So what you decide to do is your own business, but I have to tell you, there are choices. You can vote for the Green Party, you can vote for the Libertarian Party. And I know people will say, "That's a vote for the other guy," but you know what? I can't sell my soul anymore to these parties, because they're both horrible.

CHUCK TODD:  It's funny you say that. Mr. Beck, I had this exact conversation with a reporter last night, he said, "We're finding out who tells you the truth on the record and off the record and who doesn't." And that you have a lot of Republicans who will say one thing about Trump off the record and another on the record. Do you think that's got to stop?

GLENN BECK:  ... Nobody is saying what they mean and meaning what they say. I am literally almost alone. I was standing against Trump because of a set of principles.

It's funny you should say that. Mr. Todd.

See, over the weekend, I too, had what I thought was an off the record conversation with a reporter. 

Mr. Dave Weigel -- who was stringing for the Washington Post and who stopped by the birthday party we had for Blue Gal at Netroots Nation (h/t Heather of Crooks & Liars for the cake, plates, serving implements, excellent company and warm hospitality!) to have some cake -- chatted me up about some stuff, and I chatted him back. 

(Your humble scrivener explaining to Mr. Weigel that unless she chooses Curtis LeMay, I don't really give a shit about who Hillary Clinton picks for VP.  This race will be won at the top of the ticket, and anyone who stomps out of the party because Clinton doesn't select their personal dream veep is a child who needs a juice box and time-out.)

Specifically, I wanted to know why America's political teevee shows continue booking the same rouges gallery of liars, frauds and hacks with truly epic public records of being notoriously wrong about everything over and over again?  Also (asks I) since so many of America's most televised pundits have such vast and fragrant records of prevarication and mountebankery, why in the wide world of sport doesn't anyone on the showz ever ask any of them about all the bold, sweeping predictions they got wrong just the day before (see "The Beltway Iron Rule of David Brooks")

Mr. Weigel allowed as how teevee producers really don't give much of a shit about truth or facts or any of the fussy nonsense we Liberals care about.  Teevee producers are concerned about quotability, period.

Well sure.  Obviously.  Which is why we here on the Left no longer even pretend that what we see on teevee has anything remotely to do with journalism.  It's propaganda coming from the seat of capitalism.  It's a tool for selling dick pills and diets and a beer called "America".

Nonetheless, (he persisted uselessly) who exactly are the people that create the environment in which the producers operate?  Who are the people who enforce a professional and financial reward structure where spineless Both Siderists like Matthew Dowd always have a place at the table, Bill "Spectacularly Wrong About Everything Since Forever" Kristol is welcomed everywhere like a long-lost lodge brother and the truth is told to go pound sand?  

STEPHANOPOULOS: Took just a few days to get there but Mike Pence is Donald Trump's running mate. Let's talk about that and a whole lot more now on our roundtable, joined by our political analyst, Matthew Dowd; Democratic strategist Donna Brazile; Bill Kristol of "The Weekly Standard;" Alex Castellanos, Republican strategist, also running a pro-Trump super PAC.

How the hell is Ben Domenech a respected guest on "Face the Nation"?

Also, given that there are no teevee producers in the print medium, how does it happen that the same fucking affirmative-action-for-charlatans-rules also apply at the New York Times and the Washington Post and so on?  

But Mr. Weigel had finished his cake and moved on.  

And there I stood.  

All alone.

And quotable as hell :-)