Sunday Morning Party Line

The Eleventh Labor of Hercules Edition.

When you see our media's Sunday shows for what they are -- a ritualized political puppet theater that reshuffles the same dog-eared, marked deck of jokers over and over again -- they barely rate a mention.

For example, who in their right mind would ever put this disgraced dilettante --

-- back on the teevee machine?

Decked out in virtually the same Sans-a-Belt Ninja threads he always wears to opine gassily about what America should be doing or not doing in the Arab world?

Answer: ABC News (h/t Heather at Crooks & Liars):


It's a joke. All of it.

But when you contrast our media's Sunday shows with what they could and should be -- an actual national forum on the the real problems facing our country -- it's fucking heartbreaking.  Which brings us to Joy-Ann Reid and the Eleventh Labor of Hercules.  From Mythologian:

Hercules found Atlas and told him he could hold Atlas’ burden for some time if Atlas could get some apples from the Garden of Hesperides. Atlas, who was very upset about holding the world and the heavens on his shoulders for a long time, gladly accepted the offer and went to bring some apples to Hercules. However, when Atlas came back he told Hercules that he did not want to take the burden on his shoulders again and he would be the one to take the apples to Eurystheus instead of Hercules...

For various financial and political considerations that no one will talk about on-camera, the Sunday shows long ago gave up completely on their original mission, which once upon a time looked more like this...

...than this.

Which is why, on any given weekend, the only public-affairs program worth watching will be AM Joy with Joy-Ann Reid.  She stepped up in a big way to take up the responsibilities which the Sunday shows collectively abdicated long ago.

Here's a sample of Joy-Ann Reid and Lawrence O'Donnell doing what virtually no one outside of the Liberal blogosphere will do: calling out Fox News by name and using the occasion (starting at around the 7:15 mark) to riff on the subject of how the incentive structures of corporate teevee actually function (Spoiler: if you are already familiar with The Gingrich Rules, then you already know.)