Walsh Me Around Again Willie

 

“Waltz me around again, Willie,

    Around, around, around!

The music is dreamy,

It’s peaches and creamy,

    O don’t let my feet touch the ground!"  

-- Waltz Me Around Again, Willie, 1906

I was recently asked my opinion about the career of former Republican congressman from Illinois and former Conservative radio host  Joe "Joey Muskets" Walsh.

Ok, here goes.

My opinion is that it doesn't really matter what my opinion is.   Like so many others operating in the politics/media space, Walsh is first and foremost, a careerist/opportunist.  And after +17 years at this, it's perfectly clear that the moves people like Walsh make are far out of my reach and immune to my judgement. 

Most of American political media now exists in a state of pure branding.  Pure packaging, where interactions and alliances are almost entirely transactional: if  linking up with you, or picking a fight or sucking up advances their interests, increases their reach/followership, players will do so.  Which is why almost none of them -- including a lot of my Liberal allies -- have anything to do with blogs or pods at my level.  We can't help people like Walsh sell his brand or advance his career.   We can't help them burn a little brighter -- maybe bright enough to attract the attention of influencers at the level above them and get them invited up the ladder.  

Worse still, hanging out in Liberal blogosphere steerage with the dirty hippies who remember the very inconvenient things that media people are trying hard to forget, and who speak of those verboten things openly and with plenty of salt, may alienate whatever relationships one is otherwise cultivating to get invited further up the ladder.

And that's all Walsh wants, which he's said explicitly on his podcast.  That his "calling" is to have an audience.  Period.  No mention of "why" he should have audience, or what he'd do with one if he had it since all he does is mouth platitudes.  He used to be syndicated on hundreds of radio stations, and was a regular Fox News contributor.  All that is gone now, and rather than moving on with something else, he wants the spotlight back.   He still sees his destiny as a man commanding the attention of the crowd, and he will say/do whatever it takes and glad-hand whoever it takes to make that happen, which is why he does not interact with people at my level.

Everyone who goes on his show is "my dear good close personal friend" which he repeats a dozen cloying times during the interview, regardless of whether it's Noah Rothman explaining why Dems are just as awful as Trump and that he will never, ever, ever vote for one...or Bill Kristol or some d-bag MAGA "good friend" on the phone (a regular feature) or Dana Milbank promoting his book.  

There's a bit in the movie The Southern Yankee where Red Skelton stitches together half of a Confederate uniform and half a Union uniform, then sews the two flags back-to-back, so he can march safely across an active battlefield, with each side thinking he's on their side.

That's Walsh (and why/how I remember this stuff I do not know.)

Walsh is a self-described unrepentant "small government, Tea Party guy" whose "brand" is shouting/attacking.  And heir to the legacy of goofs like Morton Downey, Jr. and Joe Pyne.  And at the moment he is on the outs with his former party, and so shouting at/attacking them is what he can do now to build an audience.  And there is a definitely a market for recently-former Republicans who purport to speak for "the people" (which Walsh does constantly) and who yell about how awful the GOP is and lecture Dems that they need to be more Centrist-y.

That market is currently overstocked, and Walsh's "analysis" lack any depth or originality whatsoever.  He states the most obvious things, loudly and slowly, but Joe is aggressive and persistent and still has contacts who can get him booked on CNN.   And since much of the audience for political media has no memory of or interest in That Which Went Before, (See, "Dowd, Matthew"), shapeshifters with friends and contacts in the media will almost always find a home somewhere.

Walsh strikes me as a shallow man who, other than a handful of GOP bumper sticker slogans from 2010, doesn't have any fixed beliefs beyond believing that he should have his own syndicated radio show and/or regular gig on cable teevee.  

But as I said, my opinion doesn't really matter.  

Media/political careerists make relationships tactically, and since no tiny voice out here in the cornfield is going to help them advance their careers, my opinions and analysis, right or wrong, prescient or fatuous, are of no use to them.  

Except maybe 10 or 15 years from now when they come back to whatever is left of the Liberal blogosphere to strip mine us of our words, file the serial numbers off, and re-sell them to a mass audience as edgy, brilliant, insightful revelations :-)

I Am The Liberal Media.