Too fake and phony to be self-governing!

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2013

Maddow debuts in the Post: In our view, a whole lotta piddle’s been going on in the major op-ed columns.

But good lord! This morning, the Washington Post debuted its new monthly columnist—and it’s Rachel Maddow!

In our view, Maddow’s cable work has been tumbling down hill fast. This morning’s perfectly worthless column hastens our sense of descent.

Wow! You get a spot in the Washington Post and that’s what you burn it on? Except as tribal snark, the piece is pointless in every way. It isn’t even written well, unless you like your cicadas in groves near the hearty saplings, next to the poisoned ground.

Danger ahead! Grass roots!

Tomorrow, we’ll show you how Maddow has been wasting everyone’s time on the TV machine thingy this week. In our view, the frittering away has been general.

(Please don't come to Newtown! Did she really discuss that again?)

Late last night, Cassandra appeared to us in a dream. She said things are breaking down fast.

11 comments:

  1. What exactly has Obama done to "groom" any of the following: Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, Claire McCaskill, Cory Booker, Wendy Davis, Martin O’Malley, Deval Patrick, Andrew Cuomo and Amy Klobuchar. Some helped groom him. Others have succeeded in spite of him. Certainly Hillary Clinton fits that category.

    Maddow doesn't say what Bush did or didn't do, but I also do not see what Obama has done differently.

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    1. Yes, that point was apparent to me as well. None of the names she lists as growing Democratic stars (and I'm not convinced that they are actually the next generation Dem leadership) are in any tangible way connected to Obama, and Dems in general are running away from Obama like deer from a forest fire.

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  2. maybe she will eventually write more often at the post or elsewhere and more frequently or longer form. could be a good career addition, and at the least, an insurance policy should there be a shake up at msnbc involving her or the whole channel, although i think ratings should improve as the 2014 races heat up, and thereafter speculation on 2016 will be more interesting to the viewer.

    it could also act as a release valve for thoughts which may be too long for a tv show.

    btw, I thought the article was pretty good.

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    1. A Maddow intern earns his "pay."

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  3. I thought it was an interesting take on the state of the political landscape that I haven't seen discussed that way before. But to TDH, whatever Maddow says is "tribal." His inability to escape his own venomous narratives about virtually every other commentator to the left of David Brooks is what keeps this often-valuable site -- including in particular yesterday's entirely substantive and well-justified criticism of Maddow and MSNBC generally for never reporting on healthcare system rip-offs -- from affecting the broader discourse as much as it should. There is simply nothing worthwhile about constantly calling everyone "clowns." TDH's reliance on ad hominem attacks is more troll-like than constructive.

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    1. Her article was totally vapid and pointless (hardly unique as pundits go, they go on and on about who is going to run or win without ever discussing what difference it makes, what might happen if one or the other prevails) and I'm glad there is someone out there who calls her out on it, though shouting into the wind

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  4. Had Rachel's column come from an eager nobody, it would have been spiked immediately, I'm sure. But I wanted to read it if only to see another example of writing Howler had a problem with, as writing.

    Mr. Somerby is a diciplined writer of the "simple and direct" school. Usually such Strunk-White stylizing suggests a cant-free mind producing clear thought. But sometimes he comes a little too close to sounding like a runner-up in the local Bad Hemingway Contest. ("Oh, put a little life into it!" I want to say.) The other day he paid the author of some useless piece the back-handed compliment of saying her stuff was "writerly." As pointless as the piece was, I couldn't really fault the composition of it, unless he was talking about her stubborn use of the occasional modifier and numerous failures to stick by the subject-verb-period rule.

    But admittedly Rachel's premiere column proved as tin-eared as Howler suggests. And I'm not even talking about the holes in her Swiss-cheese of a thesis. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it just sounds too much like -- her. Expert blabbermouths rarely make the most graceful writers. Is she hoping to branch out and become the queen of all media? Who does she think she is, Will Rogers? When do the rope tricks and cornball movies (like the one about the lesbian judge who marries gay soldiers against the will of Edward Arnold and Claude Rains) appear? Why doen't she just stick to TV? (Why didn't she just stick to radio?)

    That being said, I'm reminded of the opening line of a column, same day, same paper, penned by Michael Gershon, a real -- and writerly -- writer:

    <<>

    Yeah, exactly the feeling I get these days whenever I hear Rachel's voice.

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    1. Had the Post published such a column by an "eager nobody" would Somerby proclaim it as proof that we (meaning those "other people, since we are all so much smarter) are too dumb to govern ourselves?

      urban legend is correct. Somerby should use a rapier instead of a blunderbuss. If Maddow is so worthless, why devote so much of his blog to her?

      But his tribe certainly has got the message and will eagerly regurgitate it.

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    2. The whole point of media criticism is to point out when these self appointed experts are worthless. Instead of using the attention of millions of viewers who watch her show to promote real progressive issues or to educate and inform or at least to provide some real journalism in this wasteland, she uses her forum to clown and misinform and waste our time. She deserves the criticism and TDH should be thanked for it.

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  5. The WaPo column was empty and foolish, but that is Maddow now.

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    1. "Now?" That has been Maddow from the day she started.

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