Somehow, Schmidt Returned

I am struggling to remain in Jim Acosta's corner, but the man is making it difficult.  For example, this is what he pooped into my email inbox yesterday.

Steve Schmidt?  

Really?  

The guy who had torched his own career and stabbed his supporters in the back often enough that even I once thought he had finally, irrevocably used up the last of his Rolodex friends and cast himself out of The Club?    Burned enough bridges so that such as this could never happen again?  From Steve Schmidt: The Only Surprise Is That Anyone Is Surprised

...So how does Schmidt do it?  Continue to be trusted as a credible ally despite practically screaming that he isn't?

Because, to slightly misquote Ned Beatty in Network, "He's on television dummy."  

In case you hadn't noticed, MSNBC has built an entire industry out of rehabilitating the reputations of Republican scoundrels, and all it takes for Schmidt to win his way back into the hearts of credulous Liberals is for Chris Hayes to officially welcome him back, or Joe Scarborough to put him back in the lineup, or Nicole Wallace to put her arm around her old pal Steve and reintroduce him to the audience as one of the good guys. 

Which is exactly what I predicted would happen during Schmidt's first fuck-my-principles cash grab back in February of 2019.

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:

There's a Club.

You are not in it.

And, right on time, it is exactly what happened eight months later.  

WATCH: Steve Schmidt returns to MSNBC https://t.co/auvb7C6zKz #inners

— All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) October 19, 2019

...

But of course, I was wrong.  Because the Legacy Media Insider Club is a house of many doors.  Many windows.  Many chimneys down which one can shimmy.   And many adjacent bungalows where marginal Club member can live and work until the are fully rehabilitated.

You and I aren't in the Club and never shall be because... we're not in it.  Seems like a tautology, right?  But it's the straight dope:  to be in the Club you have to have been in the Club.  

And although his membership card is torn and tarnished, I shall never again doubt that Schmidt is in the fucking Club.  Like the song says:

When you’re a Schmidt

You’re the top cat in town

You’re the gold-medal kid

With the heavyweight crown!

When you’re a Schmidt

You’re the swingin’est thing

Little boy, you’re a man;

Little man, you’re a king!

So, when given the chance to absorb some of Jim Acosta's rapidly fading Good Guy Ally glow, no surprise Schmidt took it.  

But wait!  There's more!

I don't know if you're aware, but now that Chuck Todd is free of the need to pretend he's not a complete tool by means of the rote recitation of the Both Sides Do It mantra every Sunday on Meet the Press, he is now venting his spleen with abandon to anyone who will listen.  

How curdled and bitter has Todd become?  So curdled and bitter that he scored himself this Fox News headline.  From March 3, 2025

Chuck Todd says the 'mythology' of Joe Biden as a family man is 'all bulls---' 

 

'What he really was, was a craven political animal that was desperate,' Chuck Todd said of 46th president

Former NBC "Meet the Press" anchor Chuck Todd delivered a brutal opinion about former President Biden, calling him a "craven political animal" who was more concerned about his political career than his own family.

But wait!  There's more!

As you know, Todd quit his NBC gig earlier this year, ending his time there as America's most famous Guy Sticking His Head In The Sand and America's leading Both Sides Do It propagandist, and leaving behind this hilariously clueless headline at Entertainment Weekly:

Chuck Todd exits NBC News, shares dissatisfaction with industry: 'The media has a lot of work to do'

"It's a bottom line here: we can't stick our heads in the sand and we can't be propagandists."

Stop laughing.  It's not polite.

So, no longer encumbered by his NBC contract, what toilet did Todd choose at which to take his vicious little shit on Joe Biden?

If you guessed the Steve Schmidt podcast, award yourself 10 points!

Here now, a more complete snip from the Fox News story, with emphasis added:

Former NBC "Meet the Press" anchor Chuck Todd delivered a brutal opinion about former President Biden, calling him a "craven political animal" who was more concerned about his political career than his own family.

During an appearance Sunday on Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt's "The Warning" podcast, Todd delved into why the Democrats lost the 2024 election and what he perceives as the media's relationship with the second Trump administration.

Acosta lending Schmidt his own, rapidly evaporating credibility.

Todd using Schmidt to take cheap shots at Biden, and scoring them both a feature at Fox News.

No one should be surprised that rehabilitation of Steve Schmidt is, once again, well underway. 

Because like road work on the Dan Ryan expressway, it never really stops.  

I Am The Liberal Media

This Halloween Hugh Hewitt Went Trick-or-Treating as Robert Novak

If you have been around these precincts for a very long time, you may remember way, way back during the Before Time  (y'know, the Good Olde Days for which we are all supposed to be nostalgic and to which we are all supposed to aspire) there existed a dyspeptic, Conservative prick named Robert Novak.   

Novakula to his critics, which were legion.

If you remember him at all, it was probably for the effortless way Frank Zappa gutted him like a trout  (or a Trout Mask Replica) in 1986 on a now-mercifully-defunct teevee program called Crossfire.

Novak was a terrible, terrible person who, if he were alive today, would undoubtedly be stinking up the noosphere with his own program on NewsMax or Fox.  He would also be one of the obligatory right wing asshole quota hires at a major American newspaper. plus, of course, he'd have his own radio show and podcast.  

But he's dead, so we are spared all of that.

What is less well-remembered except by the last remaining member of the Liberal Blogosphere Tontine is the time that James Carville found Novak's "launch codes" as I put it at the time (way back in 2005), and induced him to say a swear on teevee and storm off the show.  

Well, did a loyal American cameraman perhaps land a priest-blessed silver flickdart in the oily flanks of Human Gallstone, Bobby Novak?

Did some someone opening a window on the other side of the building set in motion a never-to-be-reproduced, trick-pool-shot with a ray of sunlight reflecting off of a pair of spectacles, caroming from a watch-face, ricocheting from a hand-mirror and refracting from the newly squeegeed framed Hockney print in the hall...only to land on the undead flesh of he-who-was-cobble-together-from-Krauthammer-leftovers, searing the beast and sending him into a smoking, insane rage.

Did someone slip a little Holy Water into his vinegar and Victory Gin onscreen beverage?

No, but one thing is clear: the Number One Rightwing Golem “journalist” lost it on-camera. Something got all burr-ish under the saddle of CIA-outing, GOP ponyboy. The good people at Crooks and Liars had it up in seconds, and it seems to make no sense at all.

He and James Carville are chatting, and suddenly he shouts “Bullshit”, gets up and stomps away.

God have mercy on Bob Novak’s dog tonight.

The issue was that Novak acted as bagman for the Bush administration's plot to out an active, undercover CIA agent to punish her husband for proving that Bush was lying his ass off about the predicate for his Iraq war.  (Fun fact:  all the sleazy collusion and sometimes outright treasonous behavior by administration officials and the Conservative media the took place during what the Never Trumpers now consider to be the good old days.)

Anyhoo, as I recall, James Carville telescoped his punch just enough to let Novak know that he was about to be outed on live national television, and Novak proceeded to lose his shit:

They teach you that on day one at Conservative media sleepaway camp:  when you find yourself well and truly cornered, play the aggrieved martyr by pitching a big, performative tantrum and stomping out.  

Which brings us, perforce, to the case of Hugh Hewitt, the cyborg sent from the future to destroy America.  Since Hewitt does not experience human emotions, when it came time for him to reserve a high place for himself in any future Trumpian Republican party by playing the martyr, staging a hissy and stomping out, it was weird and awkward.  Like something a Roomba with rudimentary AI features might have practiced in front of a mirror several times the night before.  

But by ENIAC, he did it!

From Politico:

Hugh Hewitt resigns from Washington Post after storming out of live interview

Hewitt abruptly left a live broadcast of the Post’s show “First Look,” leaving the host and his fellow guest stunned.

Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt resigned Friday from his columnist position at The Washington Post, he confirmed to Fox News, after walking out on a live interview on the paper’s video platform — the latest blow to the Post after facing widespread blowback over halting presidential endorsements.

Hewitt stormed out during a live broadcast of the Post’s show “First Look” during a discussion Friday morning about how former President Donald Trump is laying the groundwork to potentially contest the election, leaving host Jonathan Capehart and fellow guest Ruth Marcus stunned.

“We are newspeople, even though we have opinions, and we have to report the whole story if we bring up part of the story,” Hewitt said during a heated exchange over a GOP Pennsylvania voting lawsuit he reminded viewers “was successful.”

“I don’t appreciate being lectured about reporting when, Hugh, many times you come here saying lots of things that aren’t based in fact,” Capehart replied.

“I won’t come back, Jonathan, I’m done,” Hewitt shot back, removing his ear piece and walking off screen. “This is the most unfair election ad I have ever been a part of.”...

The only part of this with which I disagree is the bit about this being "the latest blow to the Post after facing widespread blowback..." blah blah blah.  Au contraire!  To misquote the Scottish play, nothing in Hewitt's tenure at the Post became him like the leaving it.

The only part of this I regret is that conditions were such that Hewitt could not execute a Full Steve Schmidt:  doing the martyr/tantrum thing and then storming off his own podcast.

From me, February 11, 2019:

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.”...

The Schmidt case also provides us with an excellent example of how the Media Insider Club works.  Membership in the Club virtually guaranteed that no matter how hard a member of the Club schmidts the bed, sooner or later a place will be found for them back in the opinion-havers guild 

From me again, in January of this very year.

A Rising Grift Raises All Lifeboats

I tell ya kids, they learn this  artifice early on during Insider Club media orientation week/

And just for you...Bonus Tantrum!   Who can forget  Markos Moulitsas vs Tom Tancredo (2:04 time code):

Burn The Lifeboats

A Rising Grift Raises All Lifeboats

Now that the MSNBC Republican Reputation Rehab Machine has scraped and acid washed and polished Mikey Steele's rep up shiny enough to be given a Saturday show on the network, it now falls to him to extend the same service the next grifter in line: Steve Schmidt.  

As I noted just a couple of months ago...

So how does Schmidt do it?  Continue to be trusted as a credible ally despite practically screaming that he isn't?

Because, to slightly misquote Ned Beatty in Network, "He's on television dummy."  

In case you hadn't noticed, MSNBC has built an entire industry out of rehabilitating the reputations of Republican scoundrels, and all it takes for Schmidt to win his way back into the hearts of credulous Liberals is for Chris Hayes to officially welcome him back, or Joe Scarborough to put him back in the lineup, or Nicole Wallace to put her arm around her old pal Steve and reintroduce him to the audience as one of the good guys. 

Which is exactly what I predicted would happen during Schmidt's first fuck-my-principles cash grab back in February of 2019.

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:

There's a Club.

You are not in it.

And, right on time, it is exactly what happened eight months later.  

And right on time, he's doing it again.

Which is why we...

 

Burn The Lifeboats

Steve Schmidt: The Only Surprise Is That Anyone Is Surprised

Since my birthday is drawing near and I don't want to eliminate the possibility that some of the people who scolded me so hard about trusting Never Trumpers (because they're our allies now, and something something World War II and Stalin) may feel moved to hit my tip jar...I shall heroically refrain from dwelling on the absolute raft of shit I took from my Liberal supervisors about not trusting Never Trumpers.  Especially Never Trumpers that:

1. Scoff at the idea of contrition or penance or humility or any of that stuff, but instead feel it is their God-given right to slide directly from paid-media gigs trashing Liberals like us...to paid-media gigs calling Donald Trump a poopy-head. 


2. Continue to revise their pasts to either absolve themselves of responsibility for the mess we're in now, or just pretend their pasts never happened.


3. Continue to pat themselves on the back for being the only people savvy enough to see the warning signs of trouble in their Republican party...30 years too late.


4. Continue to burnish their non-tribal, independent, True Conservative bona fides by continuing to shit on the same Liberals who have been warning them for decades about the trajectory their party was on.

Nope.  You won't catch me doing any of that.

Instead, I'm going to save all of us a lot of time and effort with this one weird trick.

On the subject of Steve Schmidt setting himself up to extract every nickel from Dean Phillips' doomed run for president -- 

I've platformed Steve Schmidt on my podcast and my show & today I want to apologize for doing so. Had I known this would happen, I would've never given him a platform. His involvement in Dean Phillips' campaign is unforgivable & a betrayal of democracy.

— Victor Shi (@Victorshi2020) October 27, 2023

Because Steve Schmidt is the opposition. ALways has been. Always will be. Disliking Trump doesn't make him an ally or a decent person. https://t.co/BaWjEHzRdf

— William K. Wolfrum (@Wolfrum) October 27, 2023

-- instead of boring you with a buncha new stuff,  allow me to direct you to anything I wrote in 2019 about the Howard-Schultz-to-Steve-Schmidt Fund Transfer Project (see the list of examples below).  Then mentally cross out the name "Howard Schultz" and write in the name "Dean Phillips" and voila.  

Because it's exactly the same scam.

Because that's how Steve Schmidt makes his living.  

What I continue to find depressing is how many people simply cannot get this very basic fact through their fucking heads.  

So how does Schmidt do it?  Continue to be trusted as a credible ally despite practically screaming that he isn't?

Because, to slightly misquote Ned Beatty in Network, "He's on television dummy."  

In case you hadn't noticed, MSNBC has built an entire industry out of rehabilitating the reputations of Republican scoundrels, and all it takes for Schmidt to win his way back into the hearts of credulous Liberals is for Chris Hayes to officially welcome him back, or Joe Scarborough to put him back in the lineup, or Nicole Wallace to put her arm around her old pal Steve and reintroduce him to the audience as one of the good guys. 

Which is exactly what I predicted would happen during Schmidt's first fuck-my-principles cash grab back in February of 2019.

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:

There's a Club.

You are not in it.

And, right on time, it is exactly what happened eight months later.  

WATCH: Steve Schmidt returns to MSNBC https://t.co/auvb7C6zKz #inners

— All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) October 19, 2019

Which, if you're inclined, you can read about here, "When You’re a Schmidt, You’re a Schmidt All The Way"

Anyway, as I said, if you're interested, dip on down to my archives and read anything I wrote about Schmidt back in 2019 and just swap around the names of the suckers he's conned into buying his snake oil.  

Some choices include:

Steve Schmidt Launches New "Bullshit Walks" Podcast

Steve Schmidt, Tucker Carlson and Jill Stein Walk Into Howard Schultz's Bar...

How To Make $525K In Eight Weeks

Time For Steve Schmidt to Start Stealing Office Supplies...

The Riders of the Purple Wage*

And since Steve Schmidt's last triumphant return from infamy to the sheltering bower of MSNBC happened in late October (and since, unlike Steve Schmidt, I am currently sans wealthy idiots willing to give me hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for me encouraging their delusions) , let's also call this post part of the "trip down bad memory lane" birthday fundraiser I am in the middle of.  

Behold, a Tip Jar!

So, is there a lesson here?

You bet there is.

The lesson is, as long as he has the medium of television on his side, there will continue to be a Steve Schmidt fan born every minute.  

And two to take 'em.

Congratulation To Steve Schmidt...

...for once again making himself the story.

Because that Lincoln Project stank is never gonna wash off.  Even if Schmidt uses Bon Ami.

And because that stank is forever, every time Schmidt decides to wade into a campaign and bear hug a candidate, these are going to be the headlines that Republicans will use their huge megaphone to blast into the contest.  From Fox News:

Democrat Tim Ryan turns to co-founder of disgraced Lincoln Project for help on campaign trail

Steve Schmidt co-founded the Lincoln Project, an anti-Donald Trump PAC that saw its reputation collapse in a wave of humiliating scandals

This is the statement from the Vance campaign, which is delighted that Schmidt has given them something else to talk about besides their candidate's hypocrisy and cosplay fascism:

"We're not shocked a fraud like Tim Ryan has hitched himself to a Lincoln Project grifter like Steve Schmidt.  Schmidt lost every single Senate race he got involved in during the 2020 election cycle and we look forward to continuing that losing streak for him." 

"That Ryan is openly campaigning with this grifter tells you just how desperate his campaign has become."

Every Democrat is pulling for Tim Ryan to win this very tight race,

And distractions like Schmidt are the very last thing that campaign needs.

I Am The Liberal Media

When You’re a Schmidt, You’re a Schmidt All The Way Redux

Was it really just three years ago -- exactly three years ago -- when we all gathered here to share a hearty laugh at how predictably (and predicted) the cable teevee/political consultant merry-go-round had dropped off Mr. Steve Schmidt on the threshold of his brand new career as the golden boy who would would shape Howard Schultz into a Mighty, Third Party Powerhouse?

Then, after Mr. Schmidt blowed up his own podcast real good because the man does not like being asked impertinent questions and cannot control his temper --

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

-- and had fleeced poor, ol' Howard for every nickel he could, the cable teevee/political consultant merry-go-round picked him right back up again and began, once again, laundering his reputation such that he could be slotted right back into the MSNBC lineup without missing a beat.

Soooo much laughter.

Gales of laughter.

That post began with me, quoting myself from back in February of 2019.

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.

Then, in fulfillment of prophecy, on October 19, 2019...

WATCH: Steve Schmidt returns to MSNBC https://t.co/auvb7C6zKz #inners

— All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) October 19, 2019

And on October 21, 2019:

Steve Schmidt: Trump’s ‘corruption’ is dragging America into ‘banana republic territory’ https://t.co/djg9nKJYVI

— Raw Story (@RawStory) October 21, 2019

We even gathered 'round the campfire and all sang a little song about it.  Remember?

When you’re a Schmidt

You’re the top cat in town

You’re the gold-medal kid

With the heavyweight crown!

And now, looking backwards through the lens of time we can see a pattern emerging.

1. Steve Schmidt declares democracy is under immediate and critical threat from the party he spent his entire adult life building.
   


2. Steve Schmidt announces that everyone needs to get with the program by getting behind the Democratic Party and pushing like hell.
   


3. Steve Schmidt loses his temper in some big, public way and dynamites a project that he founded or created.
   


4. Steve Schmidt suddenly announces that the Democratic Party is too fucked up for him to be a part of and goes off to court a Heroic Third Party candidate with Very Deep Pockets who Schmidt swears is the last hope for democracy.  
   


5. When candidate runs out of money to pay Steve Schmidt or otherwise doesn't pan out, Steve Schmidt is welcomed back into the bosom of MSNBC where he once again declares democracy is under immediate and critical threat from the party he spent his entire adult life building. 

This entire cycle is liberally (pun intended) seasoned all the usual Never Trump tropes: incessant Both Siderism,  seething contempt for Liberals, and a broad-spectrum refusal to accept any responsibility for helping to build the GOP doomsday machine that is in the process of destroying the republic.   

I wrote all about that here if you're interested ("I Am The Book-Burning, Moron Left".)

So having identified the pattern,  where are we on cable teevee/political consultant merry-go-round now?

Well, Schmidt still believes that MAGA/Trump Republicans are an immediate and critical threat.  So check #1

And a couple of years ago:

Longtime GOP strategist Steve Schmidt announces he’s registering Democrat

So check #2.

And he has very publicly and definitively blowed up The Lincoln Project, which he co-founded.  So check #3.

Which brings up to phase #4, in which we ask the question, is there any evidence that Steve Schmidt has suddenly announced that the Democratic Party is too fucked up for him to be a part of, and is now court a Heroic Third Party candidate with Very Deep Pockets who Schmidt swears is the last hope for democracy?

Funny you should ask.  

From Steve Schmidt yesterday, the Democratic Party has failed.   Which is Sad!

Killing the MAGA movement is beyond the capacity and imagination of the national Democratic Party’s sclerotic and inept leadership. It has failed utterly...

Not only that, but the entire two-party system has failed! Which is Super Sad!

The American two-party system has failed. 

Therefor the only possible solution is...

This moment of national crisis demands the creation of a new political party that will serve as a coalition partner to the Democratic Party...

Oh, did I fail to mention the headline of Steve Schmidt's post"

How Liz Cheney can kill the MAGA threat

But my very favorite paragraph from Schmidt's manifesto is this textbook example of Never Trumper denial, deflection and weasel-worded evasion.  

There are millions of Republican voters who are appalled by both Donald Trump and the Democratic Party. It matters not whether I approve of their analysis or risk assessment. It is simply true that, for whatever reason, millions of Americans remain unconvinced that Donald Trump is a threat to them, while maintaining that the Democratic Party is.

It's the "for whatever reason" that makes it art.

You want to know the reason, Steve?  Try looking in the fucking mirror.  

 You and all of your wormy Republican mercenary cronies and media goons and billionaire funders spent your entire adult lives building a Republican doomsday machine with no "Off" switch.  

You and all of your wormy Republican mercenary cronies and media goons and billionaire funders trained generations of GOP base voters to actively flee anyone who tried to tell them anything they didn't want to hear.  To reflexively mock such people, slander them, attack them as Liberal scum regardless of whether they're a card carrying member of the Book Burning Moron Left like me. or an outspoken "Democrats are Pure Evil" hard right wingnut --

Here's a fair deal.

If Liz Cheney will explain one place where Democrats are killing babies AFTER they're born (City, hospital, names of doctors, etc..) I will NEVER tweet about this again.

All she has to do is tell us where these murders are happening.pic.twitter.com/qXy9iPZ8bF

— Don Winslow (@donwinslow) July 9, 2022

-- with a 99.9999% Conservative voting record, which is exactly why Liz Cheney got slaughtered in her own home state.   

And now you that you and your shabby Never Trump pals have successfully colonized America's political news media, what do you spend your time doing?  Bitching that Democrats' "Big Tent" isn't quite big enough to suit you, and that the Democrat Party has failed because it hasn't been swift and efficient enough in disarming the electoral doomsday machine that you Republican assholes explicitly designed to be impossible to disarm.

But hey, when you’re a Schmidt
You’re the swingin’est thing

Little boy, you’re a man;

Little man, you’re a king!

I Am The Liberal Media