The Ongoing Adventures of the Club to Which You Do Not Belong

If you pay any attention at all to the Beltway Media Club you will not fail to quickly notice that their highest priority is the mutual defense and protection of fellow Club members.  For example, no matter how many times Newton Leroy Gingrich publicly shit the bed back in the Before Trump Time, he could always rely on the host of Meet the Press, Dancin' David Gregory, to hose him down, fluff him up and sit him down in front of the camera for his umpteeth career rehabilitation session.  From me in May of 2012, "The Evil That Men Do":

I won a bet tonight with my wife

It was not a bet I wanted to win; would have, in fact, been delighted to lose.

The bet was "When Will Newt Gingrich Next Appear on Meet The Press?"

Not "if" but "when" because, "if" presumes that there was some question as to whether or not Dancin' Dave would once again roll out the red, career-rehabilitation carpet for Gingrich.

Sure, if you listened to all the Very Smart People in the Washington press corps over the last few months whinging about how this time Gingrich had crashed and burned once and for all -- that he was broke and beyond salvation and his career was over -- you might have believed something else, but Blue Gal and I just laughed and laughed because we know what you know: that no matter how deep into the sewer of lies, slander, and racist bomb-throwing offal Gingrich spelunks, the Beltway Fixers will always, always, always fish this bottom-feeding ghoul out of the gutter, hose him off and put him back in front of a camera.

Thereafter followed a partial list of the many, many, many occasions when Newt used the Beltway Media Club as his political bidet.  The special treatment that special friends of the Beltway Media Club was so blatant that a certain disreputable Liberal wag named it "The Gingrich Rules".

...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":  an agreement that the moderator will never, ever ask the bomb-throwing, hate-mongering, race-baiting goon sitting directly across from them a single question about their bomb-throwing, hate-mongering or race-baiting activities.  Instead they will be represented to the public merely as a Conservative commentator or talk radio host or pundit who, at worst, might be known for some "controversial" opinions, which the moderator will never bothers to explicate.

Which brings us to Never Trumper Charlie Sykes, whose career would have vanished beneath the Trump Turdslide had it not been for the incredibly generous life-boat of apparently unlimited air time and a no-hard-questions-asked rider which MSNBC fashioned for him and several other disreputable denizens of  Conservative media.

Aboard they swarmed, becoming just another part of media landscape.  And their long years of working energetically to create exactly the conditions which made Trump possible?  Those were magically "Gingrich Rules"-ed away.

All part of the Beltway Media Club benefits package.

And around the Sun the Earth did spin.  Once.  Twice.  Three times.   And it came to pass that one of the deacons of the Beltway Media Club, Chris Matthews, committed one of the offenses which gets your Club membership suspended.  At least for awhile.

From USA Today, March 2, 2020:

MSNBC's Chris Matthews resigns from 'Hardball,' apologizes for inappropriate comments

Well, it's been almost exactly 60 days now, which used to be twice the industry standard for a time-out in the naughty corner, so I suppose it's time for Matthews' career rehabilitation tour to begin.

Step One: invoking the Beltway Media Club's "One Hand Washes The Other" protocol.

From Charlie Sykes' Bulwark Podcast:

Chris Matthews: Regrets, He's Had a Few

On today's Bulwark Podcast, Chris Matthews joins host Charlie Sykes to discuss his career and the 2020 elections. Can Joe Biden cut through a political culture largely focused on resentment? Plus, what comes next.

So nice to have friends.

No Half Measures