Steve Schmidt Launches New "Bullshit Walks" Podcast

Steve Schmidt:  Professional Indignantista

First, we should get the laughter out of the way.

Soooo much laughter.

Gales of laughter.

From The Daily Beast:

Steve Schmidt Storms Off Own Podcast When Asked About Advising Howard Schultz 

“This is bullsh*t,” Schmidt exclaims. “I’m not doing this.”

First the yadda yadda.

Schmidt railed at having to defend himself on his podcast with a stream of curses a source present in the studio said consumed six minutes. Told that listeners were castigating him for joining an effort that could help re-elect President Trump and that he owed them answers, Schmidt finally settled down enough to take about 30 minutes to questions from Jordan, normally his co-host, and Levine, the executive producer. 
...

Listening to the episode, which will be available on iTunes and elsewhere Monday morning, they give Schmidt a forum to discuss “the sickness in the system” that gave rise to Trump, and his puzzlement at the “hysteria” of the reaction to Schultz testing the waters.

“This is not Trumpistan,” Schmidt says, since everyone has the right to run for president and this isn’t even a campaign, but so far a “speculative effort.”...

Then the money shot:

“This is bullshit,” Schmidt exclaims. “I’m not doing this.”

“Steve, you’ve got to answer the questions,” Levine says.

“I’m not,” and with that Schmidt slams down his headset and abruptly ends the interview. He threatened legal action against the studio if the interview airs, according to a source involved in the discussion. When his legal threat failed, he offered to buy the recording, according to the source. The studio refused.
...

Levine told The Daily Beast that the podcast will continue but that Schmidt will no longer be involved with the podcast or the company...

Then the twist:

Hours later, Jordan Tweeted Friday evening that she was also leaving Words Matter...

So big-big laughs all around.

Second, let's get the "I told you so" out of the way.*  From me, last summer:

Never Turn Your Back on a Never Trumper 

...
But until they join Ronald Reagan in Republican Heaven, they will always be junkies who, given the slightest opportunity to rationalize themselves into just one more little taste, will backslide right back into their bad habits every fucking time.
Like, for example, Steve Schmidt, darling of the Acela corridor rebels because 9/10ths of the way through his career as a stone-cold Republican button man he freaked out that his Republican party was full of -- gasp! -- Republicans and, without missing a beat, started talking like, well, me..

For 40 years, Mr. Schmidt's party has seized every opportunity to run up deficits as part of a calculated, long-term, poison-pill strategy to create a "But we haz no munnies!" alibi for gutting the social programs they have always hated.  So when you hear Mr. Schmidt whining about how radical it is for a candidate to talk like FDR and why we cannot possibly meet the basic needs of our citizens because something something free market capitalism, and then rolling it all up into a big, Beltway-pleasing "The Extremes on Both Side" fatty that he passes around the table to his fellow junkies, you can be pretty damn sure that ol' Stever is no longer in recovery...

Since predicting the behavior of Never Trumpers has always seemed to simple and obvious to me as standing in the middle of a blizzard and predicting snow --

Never Trumpers find a plutocrat they can love. https://t.co/losG14s9jI

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) February 11, 2019

Three years ago this week, I declared myself #NeverTrump in 2016. Today, I'm endorsing President Trump and Vice President Pence for re-election in 2020 and am glad to help them on the trail as needed during Campaign 2020. https://t.co/7Tan0AUqhO

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) February 11, 2019

-- the real mystery to me is why so many Liberal media persons became to quickly and deeply invested is buying into their bullshit.

From my vantage point in the Middle of Middle American and far outside the mainstream media, the answer was both depressingly predictable and deeply disappointing. 

After all, if you look closely you'll notice that none of these Never Trumpers showed up at our door with the plans to the Republican Death Star -- with actual, actionable intel that might help us pry power out of the hands of the racist lunatic party they helped to create.  Hell, there is virtually no acknowledgment among them that the Republican Party even existed prior to 2016, much less that each of them in their own way helped to make the GOP into a monster factory capable of producing a beast like Trump.  And this is because Never Trumpers were never much more than a small cohort of committed, life-long, Republican operatives and mercenaries who lost a bet and were looking for a sofa on which to crash until the storm passed.

They bet the mortgage on Trump losing, Hillary winning, and them taking over the leadership of the GOP as the "We Told You So" faction, because in the summer of 2016 that seemed like the safest bet in the world.

But they lost.  Lost big.  Ended up on the wrong side of the worst ghouls and thugs in American political history.  Ghouls and thugs who now controlled Congress, the courts and the White House.  Ghouls and thugs with the nuclear codes.  Ghouls and thugs with their own teevee network, radio stations, newspapers and churches.  Ghouls and thugs with their own department of blackmail and extortion.

Fortunately, Never Trumpers still had a couple of things going for them: the credulousness of far too many Liberals, and the Two Most Important Rules of media and politics:

1. There's a Club.
2. You are not in it.

Thanks to their membership in the Media Insider Club,  Never Trumpers who pivoted from a lifetime of calling Liberals poopy poop-heads to a couple of months calling Donald Trump a poopy poop-head were immediately bumped to the front of the line at MSNBC and CNN.   Room was suddenly found for them on the op-ed pages of The New York Times and the Washington Post.  Lucrative books deals and speaking engagements were arranged, because bold new voices were abroad in the land!

And everyone in the media agreed not to notice that these bold new Republican voices preaching edgy epiphany to a Liberal audience starved for validation were saying nothing more than what the Left has been saying all along, right down to the cadence and vocabulary.

Because there is a Club.

And we are not in it.

However, that is not what I'm here to write about today.

I am here to take Steve Schmidt's side in this fleeting, amusing donnybrook.

Not politically and not ideologically, but as his self-appointed attorney in the High Court of the Unwritten Rules of the Media.

And so, persons having business before the High Court of the Unwritten Rules of the Media, are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the Court is now in session.

Your honors and ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I will make this brief.

According to the Unwritten Rules of the Media, as a member of the Insider's Club, Mr. Schmidt had every reason to expect that all rights and privileges appertaining thereto would be extended to him under all conditions and circumstances.  Specifically, as a member of the Insider's Club, Mr. Schmidt had every reasonable expectation that he would never to be asked hard questions, nor questions of a general nature which had been reviewed and approved by Mr. Schmidt.

To question him outside of those parameters -- to interrogate him as you would some fucking blogger -- violates the whole spirit of the Insider's Club and puts at risk the carefully negotiated mutual non-aggression pact under which all member of the Insider Club maintain their professional viability. 

Furthermore, under the utterly intolerable circumstances of being asked an impertinent question for which he was unprepared,  the Unwritten Rules of the Media clearly deem it acceptable for Republican members of the Insider's Club to yell "bullshit", take off their microphones and storm off the set.  At this time we would would ask the following to be entered into the record as...

Very Serious People's Exhibit A:  James Carville versus Bob Novak (1:54 time code):

And Very Serious People's Exhibit B:  Markos Moulitsas vs Tom Tancredo (2:04 time code):

And Very Serious People's Exhibit C:  Steve Schmidt vs Steve Schmidt's Podcast:

Thank you your Honor, and ladies and gentlemen of the jury.  I would say that I await your swift and just verdict, but I think we all know exactly what that verdict will be.  After taking Howard Schultz for every nickel he can, sooner rather than later Mr, Schmidt will be welcomed back into the loving and lucrative bosom of the Insider's Club.

Because, as I may have mentioned once or twice, the Insider's Club has only two rules:

1. There's a Club.
2. You are not in it.

Behold, a Tip Jar!