![]() PLUMBING THE ISSUES! Were going to discuss that in depth, the host said. Thats where the humor began: // link // print // previous // next //
TUESDAY, MARCH 31, 2009 How does Izzo do it: In an age of celebrity culture, Tom Izzo raises a fascinating question: How can anyone be that successful and remain almost wholly unknown? Izzo is the Michigan State mens basketball coachand the anti-Paris Hilton. Hes on his way to the Final Four for the fifth time in eleven years. Thats a truly astounding achievement; only North Carolina has managed as many as four appearances during that period (click here). And yet no one has ever heard of Izzo, and there is no air of celebrity surrounding the Spartan program. When you think of other successful programs (Duke, UNC, UCLA, Kansas), you instantly imagine a culture. Michigan State? Nothing at all. In fairness, the success of most of those other programs dates back a fairly long way. UCLAs success dates to 1964, when a long string of triumphs began, most notably broken by Coach Woodens failure, the very next year, to recruit our entire staff. We werent going to college to play basketball, we told our high school coach when the phone call came. We were going to college to write depressing poems. Our junior high buddy, Bobby Marcucci, became student manager of the Alcindor-era teams. We could have been the answer to a (former) trivia question, he told us once during that era. That question: Who was the worthless fifth starter on UCLAs famous freshman team? Decades ago, every sports fan could instantly give you the answer. Despite that early disappointment, everyone knows about Coach Wooden. Thus our current trivia question: How does Izzo do it? Why is this guy still unknown? A question that has been on our mind: Lori Montgomerys report in this mornings Post points the way to a possible coming problem. Montgomery discusses the way the recession is lowering payroll tax revenues. Presumably, this could result in political and policy problems:
Heres the potential problem: With revenues shrinking due to recession, is it possible that the problem year for Social Security2041may draw a bit nearer in the next report from the SS trustees? Well defer to those who know more than we do. But liberals might want to start considering the political problems involved here. Then too, we could always trash the Post for this latest outrageous report. We think this is a bad play: Dems and libs are riding high, thanks to disasters of the Bush years. But Good God, our side can play the game dumb! We refer to just the first two grafs of this post at TPM:
We think this is a very poor play. Three points: First, a relatively minor factual matter: That anonymous bureaucrat isnt anonymous, and he or she doesnt seem to work at OMB. His or her name is Dave Riedel; Riedel works for the Defense Department (at the Office of Security Review). Riedel wasnt named in the Washington Posts news report on this topic, but he had been named in this earlier blog post by Al Kamen, co-author of the subsequent report. We know! Last Friday, Kamen misstated his own reporting as he semi-corrected his other blunders. But thats the way things tend to get done at the Post. More significantly: The OMB didnt begin walking the claim back; their spokesman, Kenneth Baer, flatly denied it. "There was no memo, no guidance," Baer said. "This is the opinion of a career civil servant. According to the OMB, Riedel had not been told to issue such a directive. The Post never got any reaction from Riedel; they never explained why they hadnt. Most significantly: Rachel Maddow, clowning around, invented the acronym OCO last week, first in her bungled Tuesday report, then again on Friday. Why did she keep using that funny term? I like saying OCO, she explained Friday night, finally saying something accurate. Unfortunately, this is precisely the sort of thing that has been used, for decades, to mock those weakling, feckless Dems. Its amazingly dumb when other libs begin to clown around with that term. Unless we dont care about outcomes. Some background: The term overseas contingency operation has been in use as a budget term for decades, as a Nexis search instantly shows. (We record 159 hits before 2009. Example: The FY2005 and FY2006 budget resolutions exempted up to $50 billion in overseas contingency operations funds from budget controls. Thats from the Congressional Research Service, 2/1/08.) All last week, Hannity and Beck were mocking Fey Obama for insisting on the use of such a fancified term; that said, its amazingly dumb to see Big Libs clowning around with the comical acronym, which Maddow herself invented. We plan to review Maddows reports on this topic at the end of this week. In the meantime, the humorous use of this funny acronym seems like a losers play. Overseas contingency operation is a budget term. As far as anyone has shown, Fey Obama hasnt directed that it should replace the term war on terrora term which Obama and other Dems had already stopped using, as has long been discussed. Why did Riedel send that memo? We dont have the slightest ideabut the OMB denied that he was stating administration policy. Meanwhile, Hannity and Beck are mocking Obamaand some fun-loving liberals are fecklessly playing along.
Its a lot of fun to say OCO. On the other hand, its a cable invention. Except for those kissing up to cable hosts, wed call it an unhelpful move. Unless were having so much fun that we dont care about outcomes. PART 2PLUMBING THE ISSUES: In The Truman Show, Truman Burbank begins to notice that aspects of daily life dont seem to be making much sense. Soon, he discovers his life is a fake. Those fellow citizens around him are actors. Even his wife is a fraud. We thought of Trumans famous show when we watched Rachel Maddows program last Thursday. Ana Marie Cox, a witty person and a hapless analyst, was appearing on the program for the second time that week, this time to discuss the troubling things Sarah Palin had said in a recent speech (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 3/30/09). The Alaska GOP had posted the tape of Palins speech on-line that day. But in the course of watching a foolish discussion, we felt a bit like Truman himself. At one point, an aspect of journalistic life didnt seem to be making much sense:
Maddow and Cox both knew when to laughas did members of Maddows staff, who increasingly serve as her programs laugh track. You also get that kind of help now on Maddows companion show, Countdown. But was it just our imagination? Or did Cox seem to say, in the course of this chat, that she hadnt yet watched the tape of Palins speechthe tape shed been booked to comment about? Its possible that she didnt mean that. But our memory flashed to Margaret Carlsons odd performance on Countdown, just the previous month. In that case, Carlson had been booked on the show to discuss a single topica videotape Eric Cantors press spokesman had released. The videotape, riddled with fourteen expletives, had been an issue on-line all day long. But as with Cox, so with Carlson! She hadnt quite seen the full tape!
The tape had been a big issue since 9 AM. Carlson, called on the show to discuss it, hadnt bothered to see it with full sound (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 2/12/09). Cantors staff really had done something unpleasant; by way of contrast, Palins speech was utterly inconsequential. But in each case, the pundits who appeared on these cable news shows didnt seem to have gone the extra milethey hadnt bothered to see and/or hear the tapes on which they would be commenting! Our view of Palins troubling speech was formed when we actually watched the tape. Cox didnt seem to have bothered. But then, all the people around Truman Burbank were pretty much faking it too. As we told you yesterday: Increasingly, Countdown and the Maddow Show exist to dish out comfort food to us weak-minded liberals. The programs discussions are pre-arrangedfixedto give liberal viewers the outcomes we crave. Maddow knew what Cox would say about Palinbut so did all the programs viewers! There was no reason for Cox to watch the tape. Billed as an analyst, she was really an actor, on a new type of Truman show. Lets be fair. We might not mind these prefab discussions so muchif these programs did a good job explaining serious issues. In fact, MSNBCs liberal programs tend to do a very poor job dealing with major issues. As with personalities like Palin, so with big issues like the budget: When such topics do get discussed, they tend to get discussed quite badly. Discussions tend to be pre-arranged, to give us the outcomes we like. That said, the Maddow Show is much more substantive than Countdown. How clownish is the latter program? Before we see the way these programs skimmed past a major current issue, consider the clownish selection of topics on last Wednesday nights program. Olbermanns program pretended to be about news. In reality, it dished a buffet of soft comfort food to more than a million Truman Burbanks: Olbermann opened with what he calls his fifth storyand the steaming nonsense began. Eric Cantor had appeared on C-Spans Washington Journal, and a caller had used the word facism in discussing Obamas plans. The C-Span host had instantly asked the caller to explain what she meant by the termbut Cantor didnt scold her for it when he gave his response to her comments. Incredibly, Olbermann spent the programs first sixteen minutes discussing this outrageous misconduct. This was the evenings top news story; he discussed it with two major guests. But then, other silly pseudo-topics drove this evenings show. Olbermann devoted his entire third story (out of five) to a slightly rude question CNNs Ed Henry had asked Obama in Tuesdays press conference. (Gene Robinson served as analyst/actor.) As always, the second story was worst persons, with an unusually pointless complaint about something Bill OReilly had said. (OReilly was still in full naked panicky fear about being eclipsed by Glen Beck`s success, Olbermann told us as he started.) His main rejoinder to OReilly that night? The New York Times just reported that the news operations over here, MSNBC, MSNBC.com, NBC News, CNBC, Weather Channel and Telemundo News, that combined we had a profit of 775 million dollars last year. How much you make, buddy? For reason which are completely unclear, we libs are supposed to care. The programs first story was, of course, a discussion of Rod Blagojevichs hair, conducted with Christian Finnegan, introduced as a comedian. The gentlemen also discussed the fact that Eric Cantor had attended a Britney Spears concert. Yes, we have now listed the actual topics of four of this programs five stories! In these ways, Olbermann handed more than a million rubes an insultingly brain-dead news show. But he did discuss one or two actual issues. In one case, he even promised an in-depth reportand thats where the real humor began. Olbermann slummed with an issue or two during his programs fourth story. He introduced Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT), telling us there would be a discussion about the presidents budget. (President Obama tries to win over moderate Democrats in the Senate to his way of budgetary thinking. Senator Bernie Sanders...was at the meeting today and will give us some sense of it next.) In fact, Olbermann only asked Sanders about the politics of the budgetnot about the actual issues which may be dividing Senate Dems. (Well discuss this matter more tomorrow.) But along the way, he made a promise about the budget procedure called reconciliationand our analysts all perked up their ears:
Would health care require 60 votes in the Senate? Or could Democrats pass measures on health care (and global warming) with a simple majority? As everyone knows, this procedural question will be very important this year, just exactly as Sanders said. And omigod! How the analysts cheered! Olbermann was going to go into that in depth later in the program! Because the analysts had no earthly idea how reconciliation actually works, they were thrilled to hear he would handle that topic. In depth, no less! The analysts should have known better. What are the rules for reconciliation? When canwhen shouldthe procedure be used? Like you, we had no earthly ideabecause we follow the work of the mainstream press corps. Everyone knows that this procedural matter may settle the fate of Obamas agenda. But how does this mystifying process work? Big news orgs are too lazy to tell you. Like you, we had no real idea how this crucial procedure worksand, of course, we had no earthly idea after this in-depth discussion. What follows is Olbermanns full discussion. Despite its overpowering depth, he crammed it into the second chunk of the evenings worst persons segment. Weve got your in depth discussion right here:
Olbermann then moved ahead to BillOs naked panicky fear. What you see here constituted his complete discussion of this key, complex budget question. Just so youll know how easy it is to stage a pseudo-liberal show, Olbermanns staff had likely cut-and-pasted their data from this earlier post at ThinkProgress. As far as we know, the information there is all accuratebut, at least as recounted by Olbermann, it shed almost no light on what should, or is going to, happen. Duh! Theres nothing automatically wrong about using the reconciliation procedure; it was created (by the Congressional Budget Act of 1974) specifically so it could be used, in certain types of situations. (Since then, the rules have been further refined.) The question is when it can properly be used, according to Senate procedures. A related question: Will various Senate Democrats favor its use? If not, what are their reasons? Sigh! As you can clearly see, the in-depth discussion was a hot steaming joke, like so much of this clownish program. Olbermann began with a bungled statement (reconciliation isnt about overriding a veto); he then recited a big long list of data his staff had cut-and-pasted. He shed little light on this topic at all. But he had slammed two Republicans as hypocrites. His in-depth presentation of comfort food was, in that regard, quite well done. Will reconciliation be used by Dems? This is largely a procedural question, but its extremely important. And yet, if you watched your liberal network last week, you have no f*cking idea about this matter at all. On this same evening, Maddow hopelessly bungled the topic, as we discussed last week (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 3/27/09). First, she issued fiery declamations about the conservaDems who may not favor reconciliation; she then rolled over and died completely, failing to ask any serious questions when one such Democrat, Jeanne Shaheen, appeared right there on her program. (She also snarled and snarked and name-called after Shaheen was gone.) The same night, the hopeless Chris Matthews floundered and flailed with major conservaDem Evan Bayh. Concerning the possible use of reconciliation, Bayh made some intriguing statements, but his statements were rather unclear. Matthews, on his eighteenth Diet Coke of the day, failed to realize till later. Go ahead! We dare you! We double-dog dare you, to quote Maddows mugging. Read the transcripts from those three programs. Do you have the slightest idea how reconciliation will, or should, work? The questions raised by reconciliation are very important indeed. But uh-oh! These pseudo-liberal cable news shows mainly exist to serve comfort food; they arent there to do basic issues. You hear that Cantor went to see Britney Spears; you hear about stupid comical Blago (two straight nights on Maddow last week). Maddow is vastly better than Olbermann. But last week, she played it toughwhen she sat there alone. When Shaheen arrived, courage disappeared. Truman Burbank was part of a show. So are you, watching these programs. TomorrowPart 3: Mugging and clowning
Part 4: Honesty |