Professional Left Podcast Episode #751

"Clothes make the man."  --  Erasmus

 

 

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David Gregory is a Universal Constant

 

It was brought to my attention (repeatedly :-) today that David Gregory had once again bobbed to the surface of mainstream media attention with the same "But the Democrats..." energy he has brought to every Republican scandal and catastrophe since the boys & girls at the NBC Pundit Lab assembled him out of spare parts left over from David Brooks Weekly Standard columns and turned him loose on an unsuspecting world.  

Thanks to Media Matters for the video

And the transcript (with emphasis added):

POPPY HARLOW (CO-HOST): How can they not coalesce in a moment like this? How do you explain it? 

DAVID GREGORY (CNN POLITICAL ANALYST): I don't have an explanation. I think it's another embarrassment for the Republican Party. Mike McFaul, who is a very serious lawmaker from Texas from the Homeland Security Committee said the world is burning. The world is on fire. And we can't seem to come to an agreement on a leader. It's a real problem. I mean at the end of the week here with all this chaos among Republicans but much graver circumstances around the world. I actually have my eye on Democrats. How long are Democrats going to stand by in the world of identity politics, and zero-sum politics, and not be part of any solution? We'll see. I think there's more cards to be played before Democrats jump in. But I think people who don't follow this day in and day out like we do, they're looking up and they're wondering whether Washington has the ability to do their job, to pass bills, pass legislation, make sure the government is funded, let alone play a role on the world stage which is what America is still expected to do.

In case you are unfamiliar, before David Gregory (aka. Dancin' Dave, aka Greggers, aka Fluffy) was a CNN political analyst, he had the most prestigious job on network political teevee.  The host of 

 Meet the Press, which was, at the time, the most-watched Sunday morning talk show in America and the flagship of the Villager Centrist bullshit Sunday Show armada. 

And he was consistently fucking awful, in exactly same way every week.  Mr. Both Sides Do In right down to his Buster Browns.  NBC even brought in a shrink, which they referred to euphemistically as a "brand consultant" to see if putting Greggers on the couch could fix what was broken at Meet the Press.  That failed, because what was broken at Meet the Press then is exactly what is still broken: their total commitment to the Both Sides Do It Big Lie.     

When the shrink couldn't fix what was wrong. Greggers he was fired by NBC executives over the phone as he was out tooling around the countryside, presumably looking for new fences to straddle.  

He was then replaced by Chuck Todd, who was exactly as awful as Gregory in exactly the same way.

And just to bring you up all the way up-to-date, after +8 godawful years, Todd was allowed to "resign" and has been replaced by Kristen Welker, who is shaping up to be...exactly as awful as Gregory and Todd in exactly the same way.

As if maybe the problem isn't the hirees.  Maybe its the hirers. 

Also, if you're a media/politics nerd like me, you may have also found it deeply weird that Gregory's entire tenure at the helm of MTP was just ... sorta ... forgotten.  That people who are prone to nostalgic misremembrance on social media used to moan and cry that Chuck Todd's blatant incompetence would make Tim Russert spin in his grave.  Except Todd didn't replace Russert, and Russert was no great shakes anyway.  Greggers replaced Russert, and Todd replaced Greggers.   

Also too, by NBC standards, Greggers clearly wasn't incompetent and neither was Todd.  In fact, they were both very good at doing exactly what NBC executives hired them to do: sucking up to Conservatives, deflecting any criticism of Republican atrocities with "Both Sides Do It" , abjuring any potentially embarrassing follow up questions of Republicans when they were clearly lying, and so forth.

But hey, don't just take my word for it:

For you younger folks, before @NBCNews turned to @chucktodd and then @kwelkernbc they used to rely on @davidgregory as Director of Both Sidesist Bullshit on @MeetThePress https://t.co/MCS2Zd44r7

— Keith Olbermann⌚️ (@KeithOlbermann) October 13, 2023

So when reports of Greggers' latest inane return to the Both Sides Do It precincts reached me, I got to wondering exactly how long I'd been writing about Gregory and Todd and the indestructible bullshit salad shooter that is Meet the Press.  Fortunately for me I don't have to guess.  I have archives.  And so down and down the winding steps I went, deeper into the darkness, past the Trump years and even past the Obama administration.  All the way to the depths of the fiery wreck of the Bush regime.  August of 2005, where we find Gregory guest hosting Meet the Press.

Meet The Press II:

Iraq. Constitution. Sunni. Monday deadline. Where does it end?
A rather intriguing if surreal discussion on the Coming Iraqi Democracy from two guys which whom I had been unfamiliar until today.

Larry Diamond and Reuel Marc Gerecht.

Our host, David Gregory, introduced them as follows: “Middle East specialist for the CIA, Reuel Marc Gerecht, and former adviser for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, Larry Diamond.”

One line did jump right out me, though. I the face of rather stark evidence that women are about to get screwed back into the 13th Century in Iraq, Reuel Marc Gerecht opined that:

“In 1900, women did not have the right to vote. If Iraqis could develop a democracy that resembled America in the 1900s, I think we'd all be thrilled. I mean, women's social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy.”

So take that Soccer Mom!

So what else is Reuel Marc Gerecht, other than a man who obviously never, ever wants to get laid ever again.

Why he is, among other things, a Senior Fellow at the Project for a New American Century.

You know, the people that run Bush Foreign Policy like a Predator Drone.

And the other guy -- Larry Diamond – in addition to “advising” the CPA also happened to be Fellow at the Very Right Wing Hoover Institute. The internets reveal that there are currently eight Hoover fellows on the Defense Policy Board that advises Don Rumsfeld.

Funny how David Gregory forgot to mention that.

So, long damn time.

Gregory's tenure at Meet the Press would have been worth a laugh or two as buffoonish comic opera were it not for the fact that Gregory wielded real power: a guest shot on MTP was worth hard currency and fungible credibility; repeated appearances increased your Very Serious Person line of credit exponentially.

And who was Greggers' most-invited guest in 2009?

This guy:

Newt Gingrich, who (as I have mentioned once or twice or 100 times before) has been a real curve-breaking innovator in Republican lying, adultery, hypocrisy, racism and demagogy practically since the beginning of recorded time.

Also he hadn't held a single elected office since "Ally McBeal" was on teevee.

Beyond rehabilitating the public career of a degenerate like Gingrich over and over and over again, Gregory's other fetish was making sure that nary a Sunday went by without a homily from David Fucking Brooks.  

I seemed like every week, Brooks would show up on the panel and Gregory would read Brooks' latest Both Siderist obscenity back to Brooks and ask then Brooks what he thought of it.

Riveting!

When Brooks wasn't available for whatever reason -- shopping for a new wife, or teaching a class in Humility at Yale --  Gregory would read Brook's latest column aloud anyway and ask everyone else what they thought of it.

One more from the Twitterverse, from friend of the pod, Jay Rosen:

For me to run a clip of bad punditry only so you can appreciate its wretched state means that this is content approaching museum quality.

David Gregory: pic.twitter.com/GsczeJ83qz

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) October 13, 2023

What else can one say about David Gregory other than -- 

Age cannot wither him/

Nor custom stale his interminable monotony.

There Is A Club...

The Voice of Empire, Ctd.

The Cargo Cults of Sunday Morning (from the immortal Richard Feynman.)

... So we really ought to look into theories that don't work, and science that isn't science. I think the educational and psychological studies I mentioned are examples of what I would like to call cargo cult science. In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they've arranged to imitate things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas--he's the controller--and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. ...

Maybe it's just because I'm clearing out my bookshelves and have excavated a lot of old friends from the back bunk of double-shelved paperback purgatory, but the Mouse Circus today felt uncannily like something from some half-remembers Bradbury story; something with a long-dead world full of machines that had been so cunningly constructed that they outlasted their makers and their purposes by millennia. Maybe a future Earth or Bradburian Mars or some abandoned blog of a planet a 1000 light-years away where the faintest flicker of movement -- an insect landing on a pressure plate, or a shadow thrown by something flitting across the face of the sun -- cause great machinery buried far below the surface to cease their endless, fastidious loop of silent self-maintenance and leap to life. Or an imitation of life. Moving sidewalk designed for distinctly non-human bodies begin to roll. Distant music played by long-dead, alien orchestras and committed to the planet's digital memory by long-dead, alien record industry scum waft into the dessicated air once again. Telescreens begin to glow pale yellow in every empty home and in every empty plaza. And the animatronic creatures which once mouthed reassuring scripted homilies to the long-dead-and-gone citizens of the tomb city begin to move their creaking jaws and click their marble eyes in rhythms that had been choreographed to the last sigh and smile a thousand thousand lonely years ago. So it was watching David Gregory: purposeless, precise, and robotically obedient to a set of moldering instructions that have nothing whatsoever to do with the country we actually live in now or the problems we actually face today. This week, "Meet the Gregory featured a Republican, another Republican, a former Republican, David Axlerod and an SNL comedian. Multibillionaire Michael Bloomberg: I haz a sad about deficits, Fluffy. David Gregory: What is it, multibillionaire Michael Bloomberg? Multibillionaire Michael Bloomberg: I think that to be Serious, both sides need to make Sacrifices. David Gregory: Why don't I let you just ramble uninterrupted about that for awhile? Multibillionaire Michael Bloomberg: Gee, Fluffy, that'd be swell! A long ramble ensues. Apparently we're going to let Brazilians and Russians homestead Detroit if they promise to stick around five years and poop gold. David Gregory: Are you done yet? Multibillionaire Michael Bloomberg: No. And another thing; Obama needs to be nicer to businesses! Because (and this is pretty much a direct quote), "whether banks should or should not be 'attacked' is NOT the issue." David Gregory: Now? Multibillionaire Michael Bloomberg: Not yet. You know banks are in the business of taking insanely reckless risks with other people's money. It's what we ask them to do. Then they nearly destroy the global economy, because it's what we ask them to do. Then, win or lose, they dole themselves out billions of dollars in bonuses , because it's what we ask them to do. Virginia's Republican Governor Bob McDonnell: That Obama fella should leave Wall Street alone! Multibillionaire Michael Bloomberg: Testify brother! I will give it up for Axlerod on two point where, if what happens to meat puppets on teevee every really mattered, at least two of the people he shared a stage with today would be going home with broken bones. First, in answer to Fluffy's bullshit intro Birther question -- "Why did Obama wait so long...?" -- Axlerod punched Gregory's amirk right off this face. Axlerod: You know, Greggers, Trump didn't get wall-to-wall coverage by magic. He didn't end up in a fucking split-screen with the President of the United States thanks to enchanted gnomes. It was you assholes in the press who decided to make him the fucking story that made all of this come to pass, right Greggers? David Gregory: La-La-La-La! I-cannot-hear-you!. As a certain podcast has been harping for months, the Gingrich/Wolfowitz-grade slime you see oozing from your teevee didn't just happen -- teevee executives with names and phone numbers and email addresses chose to put it there. Who are they? Where do they work? How can they be reached? This is the nerve Axlerod touched and that Gregory clearly did not want to talk about. The second haymaker Axlerod landed was on the mighty, jut-jawed budget balancing happytalk of the aforementioned Republican governor of the state of Virginia who, after expressing his confidence that "Americans" come together in the face of natural disaster to rebuild and restore that which has been devastated (which is going to come as a huge relief to the citizens of New Orleans, who apparently just have to wait a liiiittle but longer)...noted that.... Virginia's Republican Governor Bob McDonnell: As a governor, I can't just fuck around and run up debt forever. No siree. We governors have to balance our budgets every year. Axlerod: You know, Governor, that I love you like a milkshake, but before you break an arm patting yourself on the back for being King of the Deficit Hawk Badasses let me remind you that you "balanced" your budget this year by using an assload of federal Recovery Act money, and by borrowing another assload of cash that some future governor is going to have to pay back. Virginia's Republican Governor Bob McDonnell: But...see...I'm a governor...and...um, y'know, I balance budgets. And stuff. Axlerod: Tell it to the fucking Marines, Governor. Gregory further distinguished himself by asking and answering his own "racism" question (because self-administering crotch tangos is what Fluffy does best) and by obligingly refusing to ask Republican Marco Rubio any substantive follow-up questions . Upon seeing Gregory gamely humping Republican legs and defending the Villager Party Line, the Right went berserk in the same, predictable way it always does:

Watch Gregory solicitously serve as a weekend fill-in for White House press sec Jay Carney. ... ...Turning to the tornadoes, Gregory heaped more praise...

Next week, Fluffy promised to reveal How the Tea Party will influence stuff! (For the umpteenth time, repeat after me: There. Is. No. Fucking. Tea. Party. There is just the same, old, rage-drunk, bigoted GOP base in funny hats.) Further on down the dial, Michelle Bachmann professed her great love of Freedom and America. Sigh. To clear my head I switched over to a part three of a seven part PBS special, "Outcroppings: Our Nation's Greatest Rocky Protrusions." only to learn that it had been canceled due to protests from the Americans Who Love Freedom Very Much Foundation over the series' obvious endorsement of something something "homosexual agenda" something something ACORN something something Sharia Law! I didn't quite understand what the attractive young patriots at an organization I had never heard of before that very moment were so mad about, but I have since received very many LARGE, SPARKLY-FONTED emails in various persuasive colors rampant on giant American Flag and/or bald eagle backgrounds which, by using the word "folks" a lot and including literally tens of links to World Net Daily and "Big Government" posts, has completely convinced me that, whatever the details of this particular controversy might be, as a Real American, I should be outraged by whatever it is that Rupert Murdoch wants me to be outraged by this week. And with that the Great Meaningless Mouse Circus Machine clanked and callioped to a stop and slid back into its cubby where it waits patiently for its next cue from the dying American empire that constructed the damnable thing for reasons now lost to history.

Hiring? How Does It Work?

Did I hear that correctly? Did Chuck fucking Todd, in his opening blurb, really just ask ” is @JoeBiden ready to be a wartime president?”

I am so sick of this useless turd and pundits like him making news instead of reporting it. They are terrible at both anyway.

— 𝑺𝒉𝒐𝒒 (@Shoq) March 2, 2022

Chuck Todd said Biden doesn't have a "loyal fan base." Biden received the most votes of any president in US history. World leaders cheered when he won & NATO praised Biden as a "great leader." Chuck Todd, as usual, is wrong. Please, @MSNBC, keep Rachel Maddow and fire Chuck Todd.

— Uncovering The Truth (@UncvrngTheTruth) March 2, 2022

According to this internet thing,  the National Broadcasting Company  (NBC) currently employs around 35,000 people.  

Of that 35,000, only a tiny fraction are faces you will see on your teevee machine.  The thousands and thousands of other people behind the camera are busy doing jobs like production assistant (which includes clerical work like making copies of scripts, driving people and equipment around, etc.), camera operator (moving large cameras around, testing the cameras prior to filming, etc.), sound engineer (handling the audio components of filming a show), video editor, lighting technician, writer, researcher, meteorologist, producer, director, executive producer, television captioner,  storyboarder and storyboard revisionist, continuity, catering/craft services, office assistant, building engineer, security, maintenance/janitorial, auditor, accountant, lawyer stuff, business affairs, human resources, I.T.,  walkie and wifi tech, advertising/media sales, OSHA compliance, etc.   

I would venture a guess that 99% of the people on the NBC payroll were interviewed and/or tested to make sure they were capable of performing the job for which they were being considered.   And I guarantee you that if any of these employees were chronic fuck-ups who did stuff -- especially very public stuff -- that embarrassed the corporation or otherwise ran contrary to corporate policy, whether or not they belonged to a union, sooner rather than later they would be out on their ass.  

So please, please, please stop pretending that wingnut-coddling, Both Siderist clowns like Chuck Todd got their jobs because they wandered onto the set one day and picked up the mic, or that they keep their jobs because the corporations that employ them are helpless.  

NBC hires camera operators on the basis of their ability to skillfully operate very expense cameras.  

They hire lighting technicians on the basis of their ability to make sure those very expensive studio lights illuminate the sets exactly right.

And they hire wingnut-coddling, Both Siderist clowns like Chuck Todd and David Gregory to be the face of their news division and host flagship programs like Meet the Press because they want wingnut-coddling, Both Siderist clowns like Chuck Todd and David Gregory to be the face of their news division and host flagship programs like Meet the Press.

Here endeth the lesson.

Burn The Lifeboats

Sunday Morning Comin' Down: The Return of David Gregory

This Sunday, rather than sullying myself spelunking through the dung-caverns of The Sunday Shows for (literally) the 1,000th time, I taught an adult Sunday school class on the subject of faith during dark times and the space program.

And you know what?   Turns out, talking about the perils and promise of daring to have a grand and humane vision of our place in the cosmos was so much better for my peace of mind than following the reverberations of Stephen Miller's weekend fascist duckspeak on Fox News:

And so imagine my disappointment (but not my surprise) when I opened my dying local, right-leaning newspaper this morning to see this --

-- above the fold on the front page.

Which, sadly, paired perfectly with a cartoon on the paper's op-ed page showing a Bernie Sanders "Free Stuff" campaign headquarters on the desolate lunar surface with the caption "Why do critics think my ideas are too far out?" and this depressingly typical letter to the editor:

Letter: Boycott Du Quoin Fair

Maybe if the band Confederate Railroad would change their logo from the Confederate Battle flag to the Gay Pride flag, Gov. J.B. Pritzker might let them play the Du Quoin State Fair.

He flies it high on the Capitol and proclaims he wants all welcomed and included here — except those not, in his view, “politically correct.”

He is in my view politically prejudiced and ignorant to downstate conservancy and love of their traditions.

Boycott the fair. I will!

 Welcome to Trump Country!

And I would've let it go.  I would've let it become just another of the hundreds of daily Conservative insults to intelligence, decency and civilization that I don't write about because I'm just one guy and having whammed my fists against that wall for decades now, my hands are getting kinda tender.

And then David Gregory decided he just had to go and lecture me about what Trump voters are really like.

Damn. 

In case you are unfamiliar with Mr. Gregory's body of work, until he was fired and replaced with the equally odious Chuck Todd, he spent most of the Obama Administration failing spectacularly every week to even pretend to care about journalism as the Meet the Press pitchman.

During his tenure at Meet the Press,  Mr. Gregory had basically three signature moves that kept him on good paper with NBC/Comcast management --

-- by making Meet the Press an impregnable fortress of Beltway Conventional Wisdom:

1. Never ask any Republican any inconvenient followup questions about the seditious bullshit they're slinging.  For example, Gregory personally oversaw the rehabilitation of Newt Gingrich's reputation over and over again by putting him back on the air and treating him with cloying deference every time Gingrich publicly shit the bed.


2. Reverently reading aloud from the latest column by David Brooks and then asking David Brooks what he thought of it.  


3. When in doubt, Both Sides Did It.

After finally getting the ax from NBC, Mr. Gregory followed the familiar path trod by so many other pundit hacks who had found themselves temporarily on their uppers and needing to make up some Important Journalism-Looking shit to look busy while they were weaseling their way back into the spotlight.

And thus Mr. Gregory decided to Have a Placeholder Podcast, which lasted 36 episodes.  FYI, Gregory's podcast has now been "archived" and should you try to listen to any episode the app will rapidly cycle you through the titles of all the episodes, showing them as having zero minutes and zero content, which has to be the most accidentally awesome metaphor for Gregory's career I have ever heard. Guests included most of the Usual Horribles (Ron Fournier, Tom Friedman, Charlie Sykes, etc.)

Mr. Gregory then went on to Write a Shitty Book About His Spiritual Journey and use the IOU's he had collected as the Meet the Press pitchman to persuade his fellow members of the Beltway Pundit Guild to treat his book as a work of profound insight, and give him the opportunity to dish on office politics at NBC.

Then, inevitably, CNN bought his contract and put him back to work in front of the camera doing exactly what had had been doing at NBC:  obediently toeing the company's party line.  And so, today, in his new job as a CNN political analyst and substitute co-host of New Day:

GREGORY: But I think -- I think, you know, one of the problems -- and this was the problem with Hillary Clinton's "deplorable" line. And this is the problem with -- what a lot of Democrats have now, which is to say the president is racist. And, as some commentators have said on -- on this network, if you support him, then you're supporting a -- a white nationalist, is that there's lots of people who compartmentalize and say, gosh, I really don't like that stuff he's doing on Twitter and all the rest, but I like my -- you know, I like my tax cuts or I like how the economy's going or -- and people are going to feel like, oh, so then I'm a racist, so I'm supporting him?  

There's a chance -- this is what you're saying -- that -- that -- that this kind of approach can divide people who might not approve of it but feel all of a sudden besieged by that attack. 

Yeah.

Sure.

Democrats are the problem because "a lot of Democrats now" are making  "lots of people who compartmentalize" feel bad about their unstinting support for the pathologically-lying, openly racist, sexual predator in the White House who -- since Day One -- as been torching our alliances, sucking up to dictators and madmen, stoking white supremacist rage, propagating deranged conspiracies,  wrecking every democratic institution and stooging for Russia's imperial ambitions.

And you know what? I'm absolutely sure David Gregory does know literally dozens of people who don't like the Tweeting, but fucking love their tax cuts and feel "all of a sudden besieged" by us awful, dirty hippies for lumping them in with Donald Trump.

In fact, I'd bet the rent money that most of them are very same Beltway Insider Club Members and Very Serious Republicans to whom Mr. Gregory used to administer soothing handjobs when he was the pitchman for Meet the Press.

Because David Gregory isn't in journalism business.  He never had been.

David Gregory is in the Beltway Conventional Wisdom business.  Which is why a place will always be found for him at the Beltway media table.

And right now, the Beltway media is frantically building an armada of lifeboats for themselves, their collaborators and fellow travelers, and that sizable percentage of the Republican Party who are thoroughly enjoying Donald Trump's braying racism and fascist cos-play, but plan to pretend they never heard of Donald Trump or the Republican Party once the party is over and the bill for the breakage comes due.  And in exchange for a place in the spotlight,  hollow, unprincipled sock-puppets like Gregory are only too happy to put their shoulders to that disgraceful project.

Behold, a Tip Jar!

Inconsequential Podcaster Vows To "Stand With" Some Guy You've Never Heard Of

Right after he figures out how to stand upright.

In another life, CNN part-time employee and freelance podcasting unperson, David "You Know Me From Linked-In" Gregory used to pilot the mightiest ship in the Sunday Morning Gasbag armada. 

And as your humble scrivener spent way too many years documenting, he really, really sucked at that job.

Mr. Gregory was most famous for bringing a seemingly endless procession of awful, lying Conservative shitbags onto his show and then deferred to them. His "go to" Conservative astrologer was the always-wrong David Brooks, who would be wheeled out nearly every week to a flurry to trumpets after which Mr. Gregory would read Mr. Brooks latest New York Times dreck aloud and then sigh adoringly and then ask Mr. Brooks what he thought of his own words. Mr. Gregory unfailingly went to the "Both Sides Do It" well every single time it looked like some Republican somewhere might actually be in danger of being held responsible for the latest Republican atrocity. His unwillingness to ask even the most obvious and rudimentary follow-up questions of guests who were obviously lying became a punch-line for us on the Left. And no one in the business was more responsible for repeatedly rescuing depraved grifter and Father of Modern Wingnut Industrial-Scale Hatespeech, Newt Gingrich, from a well-deserved political grave.

And now, at the tender age of 46 and having authored two undistinguished books on two subjects which the reading public were absolutely not clamoring for (David Gregory's personal spiritual journey, and the political life and times of the tepid human speedbump who was supposed to be the unstoppable force that would end the campaign of Donald J. Trump) Mr. Gregory has suddenly taken an interest in profession of "journalism": a profession upon which he, personally, inflicted immeasurable harm by sucking at it so badly when he was at it's pinnacle and caring so little about how badly he was sucking at it while he was on top.

I stand w @Acosta - media stands its ground in the face of WH efforts to intimidate. Period. https://t.co/iHPOL0DRmg

— David Gregory (@davidgregory) January 12, 2017

Well good for you, Mr. Gregory. Glad you have finally, timidly risen to the defense of your own profession. Sure could have used your help before the barn burned down and all the horse died, but as I recall you were too busy stoking the barn-fire and shooting the horses to concern yourself with such things. 

But now that you and I are on the same page, great! And if you're serious -- really serious -- the single most important thing you could do would be to write a third book. An actual, St, Augustine-style confessional about how you and you're colleagues systematically weakened the institution of American political journalism by infusing it with so many Conservative moles and Both Siderist hacks and careerist cowards that when the fascists finally arrived they found our vaunted Fourth Estate so weak and compromised and left to rot that they had no trouble at all rolling right over it, laughing all the way.

If you had the guts to write and promote that book, Mr. Gregory, I promise you I would read and recommend it.

The Hidden Hand Of Dancin' David Gregory

As you might remember, former "Meet the Press" ruiner, Mr. David Gregory, was unceremonious exiled to the Land of Misfit Pundits back in 2014,   Today, Mr. David Gregory survived by a much smaller version of the original model -- mr. david gregory -- who appears to spend a lot of  time seated precariously on a bar stool between idiots on CNN's "We Are The World"-sized political panels, speaking in various backwoods locales which have not yet gotten the word that he is no longer Mr. David Gregory and flogging his book on his personal spiritual journey which may or may not be entitled."Zen and the Art of Selling Out Journalism For Money".

However it would be cruel and wrong to think that mr. david gregory left no lasting influence on his profession.

For example, one of his innovations back when he was Mr. David Gregory of "Meet the Press" was to make sure that at no point were the fleeting and ridiculous opinions of Mr. David Brooks of the New York Times underrepresented.  When Mr. David Brooks was available, Mr. Gregory would read reverently from his latest New York Times blatherings and then ask Mr. Brooks what he thought of his own writings, after which the panel of Beltway inbreds and shut-ins would ooh and coo over Mr. Brooks' inerrant wisdom.

It was such an obvious bit of Beltway parasitic symbiosis that even I noticed it and touched upon the subject of it once or twice.

When Mr. Brooks was not available. Mr. Gregory would read aloud from his latest New York Times blatherings anyway, skip the part where he asks what Mr. Brooks thinks of his own writings, and go straight to the oohing and ahhing by the panel of Beltway inbreds and shut-ins.

Journalism, people!

And while mr. david gregory is no longer is favor at court, fragments of his legacy live on.  Like, for example, this morning on Morning Joe, in a segment during which Mika the Meat Puppet reads reverently from Mr. David Brooks latest New York Times blatherings and then asks Mr. Brooks what he thinks of his own writing (from Crooks & Liars):

The point Mr. Brooks' makes about Republican tribalism is both perfectly correct -- 

Brooks: ... Being part of the partisan tribe is like people's ethnicity now. They'll support anybody who's in favor of the ethnic tribe. One of the most amazing polling statistics this year was asked of evangelical voters. They asked, would you tolerate somebody with bad morality if they were a good public leader and about ten years ago, like 31% said yes so they would not tolerate somebody with bad personal morality. Now it's like 70% say yes. They totally will tolerate somebody with bad personality and bad personal morality. That's not because they've had some change in philosophy. They've got Donald Trump at the top of the ticket...

-- and completely ludicrous.

Brooks: ... When I was 25 we made this huge distinction, Jeff, you knew Bill Buckley, he was my mentor. We made a huge distinction between conservatives who had some beliefs and Republicans who were chamber of commerce types who would sell you out ... It's not conservatism, it's Republican tribal identity. 

In 1986, when David Brook was 25, Nixon's Southern Strategy had already been up and running as the Republican Party's operating system for 20 years.  Conservative hero Ronald Reagan had already declared war on government and factual reality, had made it abundantly clear that he was on the side of America's angry, Southern white bigots, and had open the front door of the White House to Conservative evangelical scum like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Paul Weyrich. 

So where the hell was Young David Brooks back when all this was happening?

Where the hell was he when, one year later, in 1987,  Conservative hero Ronald Reagan garroted the Fairness Doctrine and turned Mr. Conservative, Rush Limbaugh, and his hundred wingnut copycats loose on America.

Where was Mr. Brooks in 1994 -- which was 22 god damn years ago -- when the Republican Party finally and officially delivered its soul into the hands of Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich?  

Was Mr. Brooks marching in the streets? Was he  on the barricades, screaming bloody murder that the Party of Reagan was being eaten alive from within by fascists?   Was he at least writing fierce op-eds on the perilous perils that were bearing down on us all?

Oh hell no.

While all of this was going on, Mr. Brooks, Mr. Fred Barnes and Bloody Bill Kristol were very busy using a big 'ol wad of that sweet, sweet Rupert Murdoch money to found The Weekly Standard -- America's premier journal of Neocon Fuckery.  And it was while he was slandering Liberals and buttering up Republicans for Bloody Bill Kristol that Mr. David Brooks began his own little cottage industry of biannually predicting (as I wrote earlier this week on my little, non-Rupert Murdoch-funded blog):

... the imminent arrival of an American Conservative Renaissance: that great, Comin' Home to Reagan day of glory when every Conservative tear will be wiped away.  When there will be no more Rush or Coulter or crying or pain, for the old order of things will have passed away. 

A cottage industry of patent medicine, whitewashed history and false prophecy that has been in continuous operation right up to this very day.

Or course, every one of the human husks and finger-puppets on the Morning Joe panel knows this, just as they surely must know Dr, Paul Krugman of The New York Times has already thoroughly gutted the core Brooksian fairy tale of a pure and noble Golden Age of Conservationism that never was:

Conservative Intellectuals: Follow the Money

Both Ross Douthat and David Brooks have now weighed in on the state of conservative intellectuals; both deserve credit for taking a critical look at their team.

But — of course there’s a but — I’d argue that they and others on the right still have huge blind spots. In fact, these blind spots are so huge as to make the critiques all but useless as a basis for reform. For if you ignore the true, deep roots of the conservative intellectual implosion, you’re never going to make a real start on reconstruction.

What are these blind spots? First, belief in a golden age that never existed. Second, a simply weird refusal to acknowledge the huge role played by money and monetary incentives promoting bad ideas...

And of course, it wouldn't be a proper Morning Joe/David Brooks crossover episode without a designated stooge to go way out into left field and fetch back a big bucket of Both Siderist horseshit to slather all over the proceedings.  This morning the mortal remains of Mike Barnicle got the duty:

Barnicle:  Let me ask the both of you, start with you, David, you made the conscious decision several months ago, you wrote about it, to leave the offices, go out in the country, see what people are thinking, write about what people are thinking about in this country.

You know the word "hero" is often overused.  But to actually go out among the people?  After 20 years of sitting behind a desk in the Beltway bubble, being paid a king's ransom to speak with sweeping authority on the state of a country about which you clearly did not know the first fucking thing about?  And spend, what, 15 or 20 minutes on drive-by's in the hinterlands talking to people who will confirm your biases?

The word "hero" hardly seems big enough

Barnicle continues:

Barnicle:  Yeah.  So do you think that this campaign on both sides, on both the Democratic side and the Republican side, the candidacies, the verbiage of the campaign has injected a virus into the body politics that is going to be with us for several years after this election is concluded?

And there it is.  That shot of Beltway Both Siderist dopamine that makes all the clowns up in the network's executive suites happy.  

Everything running smoothly now.  Everything going to plan.

Meanwhile, somewhere far from the lights and cameras, mr. david gregory sits on his sofa, yelling at the teevee.  

"That's my bit!  They stole my bit!"

Yes they did, david.  Yes they did.

Behold, a Tip Jar!

The Ukraine Girls Really Knock Him Out

Fluffy Gregory finally alights exactly where you knew he would (h/t Heather at Crooks & Liars.)

You don't know how lucky you are boy.

Back in the U.S.

Back in the U.S.

Back in the U.S.S.R...

You and I Remember "Meet The Press" Very Differently

The former host of NBC's "Meet the Republicans", is once again in the news.

And I honestly can't imagine that anyone here will be surprised to discover that Mr. Gregory...

...remembers his awful tenure as the muppet in charge of NBC's flagship Sunday morning defense-contractor-and-boner-pill-ad-delivery-system very, very differently than any sentient being who ever watched the wretched thing, and...

...has taken a page from his Torah-study-buddy David Brooks' dodge of deflecting attention away from the demonstrable awfulness of his professional work-product by writing a book about his spir'chuuulll juuuurneeee.

But more about that first thingie.

From Mr. Gregory's interview in New York Magazine:

Do you think about what you could have done differently to reverse the ratings decline?

First of all, NBC at that time, if you remember, was having a lot of different difficulties. Nightly News was starting to suffer. The Today show fell out of first place. There was no question we were struggling in the ratings. But remember I was No. 1 for three years of my tenure. The show was still profitable and I was trying to do things and make changes to help the show evolve.

Like what?

We were getting away from the predictable guests on the show. We introduced a lot of new voices, from Baltimore’s mayor to Atlanta’s mayor. People who are on all the time now, we were the first to put them on...

Having documented the Sunday Morning Gasbag Cavalcade for over 10 years, I can only rock on my heels and laugh like a child at the idea that Greggers somehow really thinks his ossified, Beltway Conventional Wisdom Reliquary and Turd Detailing Shoppe was somehow in the vanguard of putting edgy, new voices into American homes every Sunday.  

Here, drawn at random from my vast archives, is a random sample of what you were likely to see on "Meet the Republicans" on any given Sunday (trigger warning for anyone who has severe bullshit allergies):

...
For example, John McCain was put in front of a camera because, being Memorial Day, the law required that John McCain be prominently displayed in front of all public buildings, national parks and Imperial Propaganda Outlet Malls.

On two different channels, Joe "Wanktastic Failure" Klein and Tom "Even Bigger Wanktastic Failure" Friedman were seated in front of teevee cameras to make bold, predictions about conflicts in a part of the world where the have been spectacularly and infamously wrong about almost everything.

Conservative Drone David Brooks was put in front of a teevee camera on America's top-rated Mouse Circus Show to re-read his New York Times column.

Conservative Drone Alex Castellano was put in front of a teevee camera on the same top-rated Mouse Circus Show to re-read his "Daily Caller" column that no one reads.

Fake Democrat and Useful Conservative Idiot Harold Ford, Junior was put in front of a teevee camera on the same top-rated Mouse Circus Show to advocate tossing grandma off a slightly lower cliff than Republicans are proposing. I believe the word "Serious" might have been used seven or a hundred times to underscore the seriousness

And David Gregory -- the establishmentarian-testicle-cozy who hosts America's top-rated Mouse Circus Show -- said this (referring to what Barack Obama must do to be taken Seriously and win re-election):

"And you got to be able to say, 'Look, I'm for the thing that those Republicans are for, but they're just way too extreme.'"

and this;

And then here's Bill Clinton giving some ammunition to the Republicans by saying to the Democrats, don't be timid here. Don't go to the old, you know, mediscare tactics. Do something courageous.

So there's that.

And then there's this (the NY Mag interview continues):

The other segment that got a lot of attention was your interview with Glenn Greenwald. What do you think about that now?

I’m in the business, as a journalist, of asking tough questions. I would do it again. And so is he. And I found his response surprising and his fans' [response] surprising.

In what way?

He has no problem taking people on and asking people questions and probing and pushing. And yet, he seemed to not like when it’s done to him.

Leaving aside the fact that the Greenwald Horde does, in fact, go immediately from zero to apeshit whenever anyone dares to suggest that Mr. Greenwald be held to exactly the same standards which Mr. Greenwald loudly insists that everyone else be held to, what was striking about Mr. Gregory's interview was not that he asked Glenn Greenwald "tough questions", but how completely out of character it was for Greggers to ask anyone anything remotely resembling a tough question at all.

For his entire tenure at "Meet the Republicans", Mr. Gregory was infamous for being one of the Beltway's most utterly reliable and compliant Conservative fuck-toys.  Week after interminable week as wingnut dementia was on full, kick-line display right in front of NBC's front man he let it all slide with a wink and a smirk and nary an impertinent follow-up question, regardless of how much shoutycracker bullshit was erupting just five feet away.

And now he is making the rounds of the teevee shows to pimp a book about how George W. Bush led him to find Jebus in the back pew of his wife's Methodist church.

Well, other than their coffee being weaker than Donald Trump's grasp of foreign policy, the Methodists I know are pretty good eggs, so I wish them the very best of luck trying to excavate this particular Pharisee's head from his own ass.

As for the pastor of Greggers' church, may I suggest you put the pedal to the Matthew and not let up until he is willing to atone for debasing the already-polluted profession of political journalism:

...

23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

24 Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.

25 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.

26 Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.

27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness...

Why Your Political Teevee SuXor: Outside Things May Be Tragic, But In Here We Feel It's Magic

Last year, the new boss at NBC News President Deborah Turness, wanted celebrities, bands, jugglers and there are unconfirmed rumors of dwarf tossing and water-skiing squirrels (from The Daily Beast):

“It all seems so frantic and crisis-ridden,” said a television news insider about Turness’s management style after reading the Washingtonian article. “To have a band? And a studio audience? What is she thinking?”

At the same time. the new host at NBC, a giant, simian slab of courtier journalism named David Gregory, wanted to continue loafing his Sundays away in a creaky Conventional Beltway Wisdom hammock slung between David Brooks' turgid Both Siderism and John McCain's ego.

While this kerfuffle over which whether the Peacock should shit rainbows or Halperins on Sunday morning played itself out --

The rapper will.i.am was one such panelist, forced upon Gregory for an excruciatingly awkward roundtable segment. Mullins continued: “Gregory chafed at these changes, people close to him say, fearing they were too radical and would cheapen the brand. But he complied…. At one point, Turness suggested that Gregory have a live band close out the show to commemorate the death of Nelson Mandela. Gregory was appalled, people close to him say…he worried that Turness’s approach was about to turn Meet the Press into a political gong show.”

-- the audience continued stampeding for the exit, and so the the new boss started played Musical Hacks, which set off an interoffice, internecine power struggle, with leaks falling every whichaway like mortar fire during the Fall of Saigon, as a few, very rich, white men had a very pissy pissing contest for pride of place at the very ippy tippy top of the corporate career ladder (from The Washingtonian):

...

Scarborough, the Republican congressman turned MSNBC talking head and host of Morning Joe, had been after Gregory’s job for years, according to former NBC employees. And inside MSNBC’s New York offices, Scarborough is known as a prima donna who doesn’t respond well to “no.”

“He constantly clashes with [MSNBC president] Phil Griffin,” says a former NBC employee. “There are times when he would just not even talk to [Griffin].”

When Gregory was in the hot seat, some thought Scarborough reached for the knives. And the staff wouldn’t have welcomed him in the moderator’s chair. In 2012, NBC executives had given Scarborough a shot at guest-hosting Meet the Press in Gregory’s absence, according to sources. But the network’s news division protested. Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum was booked for that week’s show, and letting Scarborough interview a fellow conservative would undercut the franchise’s nonpartisan bona fides. As a compromise, Savannah Guthrie moderated and Scarborough led the roundtable.

In 2013, the New York Post had reported that Scarborough was in discussions with NBC about taking over the Sunday edition of Today, which airs before Meet the Press in some markets. The move would have put Scarborough and Gregory in direct competition for guests and provided the MSNBC host with a springboard to take over Gregory’s show. NBC declined to have Scarborough comment; in a July tweet, he denied having angled for the job.

Todd’s Meet the Press ambitions made for tension. “It was obvious that Chuck knew a lot more about politics than David did, and so that was uncomfortable,” says a person familiar with their relationship. “And then on Chuck’s end, David had the job he wanted, so that’s uncomfortable.”

Earlier this year, Sures, Todd’s agent, approached the NBC brass in New York, according to a former senior NBC executive, and demanded that Todd be handed Gregory’s job.

“They were very aggressive with the new NBC News leadership,” the former executive says, “and told them that if Chuck didn’t get Meet the Press soon, he was going to leave.” Sures denies this, and NBC declined to make Todd available.

...

And when the music stopped, Chuck Todd was tapped to keep the Iron Throne warm until heir presumptive and future King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm -- Young Luke Russert -- begins shaving on a regular basis.

Which set off another round of leaks and stories by knowledgeable  *cough*FluffyGregory*cough* insiders, seeking to settle scores and have the last word on who really dumped who after that big fight at the after-prom party!

...

Four months after being unceremoniously dumped by NBC News President Deborah Turness, fired Meet the Press moderator David Gregory apparently is taking his revenge in a local D.C. magazine.

The portrait that emerges from Washingtonian’s depiction of Turness, who was recruited to run NBC News last year from British television, is not pretty.

The damaging piece by Luke Mullins, “How David Gregory Lost His Job”—for which the title subject is widely believed by television insiders to have cooperated copiously, though Gregory is never quoted directly except to state that he’s “proud” of his six-year tenure and “loved” hosting the iconic Sunday public affairs show—portrays Turness, 47, as capricious, unreliable, meddlesome and arguably a tad daffy.

...

Your political teevee sucks because none of the people involved here were (or are) remotely interested in the most important story in American politics: the fact that the GOP has gone stark, raving mad.  They are not interested in inviting the public to watch interesting, informed people discuss  genuinely important issues of culture and policy.

Your political teevee sucks because they are only interested in reading poll numbers at you, running the same Both Sides mix tape over and over again, and playing with various configurations of imaginary 2016 candidates.

Your political teevee sucks because this is just another petty knife up in the executive suites of another giant American corporation that does not give a shit that the actual thing it makes and presents to the public is shoddy and rancid and makes people sick.

Midterms At The Gregory's

Gregger's Mom:  So, your aunt Mitzi wants to know where she and her club can I watch you tonight?

David Gregory:  I don't want to talk about it.

Gregger's Mom: I think you said it was a thing called "Ouija"?  "OJ"?  Something like that?

David Gregory: Yahoo, ma.  For the last time, I'm gonna be on Yahoo.  

Gregger's Mom:  So what channel is this "Yeahwho" show on?  

David Gregory: I told you I don't wanna talk about it!

Birthday Fundraiser Day Four: Against Vapidity The Blogs Themselves

Contend in vain.

You cannot budge the needle on anything until you find a means of influencing the influencers.

From The Twitter, here is a partial list:

.@nytdavidbrooks writes about why partyism is wrong: http://t.co/YQgJIHF7Le
— No Labels (@NoLabelsOrg) October 28, 2014

David Brooks is excellent on the personal morality of those who make different political choices. http://t.co/LBWFaC07uq
— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) October 28, 2014

David Brooks on the danger and immorality of political partyism http://t.co/P2Fic5jcWB
— Weremichael (@MichaelRWear) October 28, 2014

Interesting. (Actually, I could tell you some stories!) -> Why Partyism Is Wrong http://t.co/RVzDxNgTxN @nytdavidbrooks
— Jimmy LaSalvia (@JimmyLaSalvia) October 28, 2014

Why partyism is not good. http://t.co/pJwS54g6so
— Cass Sunstein (@CassSunstein) October 28, 2014

NYT David Brooks' column about “partyism" helps explain the roots of hyper-partisanship we see in Washington today. http://t.co/6afYJHay37
— Olympia Snowe (@OlympiasList) October 28, 2014

David Brooks is in his prime these days. Why Partyism Is Wrong. http://t.co/wMhkW5BBTf
— Jay Kirsch (@jaykirsch) October 28, 2014

Why Partyism is Wrong http://t.co/sGpUQQeuDz @nytdavidbrooks http://t.co/sGpUQQeuDz
— Ron Fournier (@ron_fournier) October 28, 2014

Politics is not a Manichaean struggle between Light & Dark. And other important points. Recommended. http://t.co/fa4VyGUdNb
— Ritu Chaudhry (@TheRituChaudhry) October 28, 2014

Partyism as Prejudice http://t.co/85NviXimjO
— W Bradford Wilcox (@WilcoxNMP) October 28, 2014

I think a lot of people who have mentioned me today should read this. "Why Party-ism is Wrong" - http://t.co/tPWK2kWh1n
— Audrey McCann (@auddiemac21) October 28, 2014

The always wise David Brooks against 'partyism' http://t.co/rS3dPXha6S #nytimes
— Andrew Phillips (@andrewphil) October 28, 2014

Sigh.

Told ya: the Both Siderist zombie lie never dies.

And speaking of unholy things which refuse to stay in the ground no matter how hard you wallop 'em with the shovel...



...from The Wrap (h/t alert Tweeter @brendanl79)

David Gregory Joins Yahoo's Growing Editorial Bench Alongside Katie Couric

David Gregory is getting back in the news game, this time digitally.

The recently ousted “Meet the Press” moderator will join Yahoo's coverage of the midterm elections, the company announced Tuesday.

Gregory will join host Katie Couric and contributors Matt Bai, Mike Allen, and political commentator Grover Norquist for network's coverage on November 4th.

...

Since his departure, he's been at work on a book about his Jewish faith and been on the speaking circuit. He also moderated a panel discussion at an event held by non-partisan political group “No Labels.”

So...he's a blogger now?

Well great; there goes the fucking neighborhood.

Professional Left Podcast #250 -- UPDATE

"Meanwhile, 250 episodes later, Freedom Cows!"

-- driftglass

Links:

• Jeffrey Sachs Bashes Krauthammer and David Brooks: ‘Every Single Column, Wrong’

• Republican Congressman Rodney Davis (R-IL) on Healthcare:  "By repealing this law, we can begin to build on some of the good provisions in the law...

Da' money goes here:

UPDATE:

"Anonymous" suggests this timeless classic to honor Kay Bailey Hutchison's inability to recognize various "Christie"'s from quite a long way away...