THREE DAYS IN THE LIFE: Dog pee can’t stop Santorum.com!

TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2015

Part 2—The latest regarding herself: As it turns out, it looks like CNN’s Drew Griffin may have had it right!

Late Friday, in the 8 PM hour, he told Anderson Cooper this—the Louisiana shooter was able to legally purchase his gun because, as a legal matter, he’d never been committed to a mental institution on an “involuntary” basis.

This morning, a front-page report in the New York Times seems to support that analysis. Assuming that analysis holds, CNN’s viewers saw Griffin getting it right during the 8 PM hour!

One hour later, we the liberals were perhaps underserved. In a hurried, four-minute news segment, Rachel Maddow said she didn’t understand how the purchase of the gun could have been legal.

It was one of the few segments Maddow devoted to news that night. There was no sign that she or her staff had actually tried to get the answer to that question, which she said was “important,” during their arduous work day.

Maddow hurried through the segment about the Thursday night shootings. In her program’s next segment, we got to see one of the ways the cable “news” star had spent her time that day.

In that next segment, Maddow wasted viewers’ time with the latest monument to her own wonderfulness and perfectly obvious greatness. Through the wonders of videotape, we got to watch Maddow and a staff member as they selected the “swag gifts” for that evening’s closing segment, the weekly “Friday Night News Dump,” a silly, utterly pointless quiz show which is designed to let us enjoy Maddow’s wonderfulness and perfectly obvious greatness.

Increasingly, this rearranged corporate news show is being transformed into “The Mickey Maddow Show”—a silly, insulting exhibition in which we, the dull-witted liberal viewers, are transformed into Maddowsketeers, dull-witted admirers of Maddow’s wonderful personal greatness.

No waste of time is too inane if it serves that purpose.

Last Friday, we got to enjoy the swag gift selection and the Friday Night News Dump. In between those dumb-making tributes to the wonderfulness of the host, we got to enjoy a third example of her manifest personal wonderfulness.

How big a gong-show is corporate now presenting in its 9 PM slot? Consider another segment from Friday’s show, a segment Maddow teased like this:

MADDOW (7/24/15): We’ve got a bit of unfinished business coming up with my interview this week with Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum. Rick Santorum made quite a bit of news in that interview he did with me here. We’re very happy to have him here.

But there is one important matter that was unresolved in that interview that we will hopefully be finishing up tonight. That’s still ahead.

Maddow had interviewed Candidate Santorum on Wednesday night’s program. During the Friday night show, she teased the fact that there was “one important matter” from that interview which she would “be finishing up.”

We wondered what that matter might be. During the Wednesday interview, Santorum had made some claims concerning his famous “man on dog” statement which seemed less than obsessively accurate. Would that be the “important [if ancient] matter” Maddow would “finish up?”

Or might it be something else? During that Wednesday interview, Santorum said he wasn’t hugely concerned about the possibility of being excluded from the August 6 GOP debate—the debate on which Maddow has madly obsessed, night after night, for the past several months.

He wanted to be included, he said—but he also told Maddow that Iowa voters don’t start making up their minds until the last few weeks before the Iowa caucuses. Since this grossly contradicted the dystopian picture Maddow’s been selling for several months, we even imagined that she might address what Santorum had said.

Maddow viewers, please! Along with the videotaped selection of swag; along with the campy “quiz show” which now ends every Friday show; along with those silly wastes of time, we the viewers were also condemned to watch Maddow pimp her manifest wonderfulness by telling us Maddowsketeers about something that slipped her mind.

As it turned out, the “important matter” which got “finished up” concerned Maddow’s ownership of the “Dog pee can’t stop Santorum” URL. In yet another brainless segment, Maddow explained how she came to own the “dog pee” URL and what she hoped to do with it.

Warning! Brain cells may be destroyed if you read what follows:

MADDOW (7/24/15): So, very interesting to have Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum here. I hope to have all the presidential candidates on this show.

None of the rest of you ever said “man on dog!” Think how much easier your interview will be here!

I hope Senator Santorum will give me a good reference. I thought it was really nice to have him here. But there is one thing I forgot to do in that interview, which I really wish I had done.

We purchased a domain name a while back, inspired by a Rick Santorum campaign story about him meeting a nice lady with a dog while he was door knocking on the campaign trail one day. And, long story short, the dog ended up peeing on him.

That anecdote inspired this headline in a Florida newspaper. Quote: “Dog pee can’t stop Santorum.”

When that headline came out, we bought “dogpeecantstopsantorum.com.” And we set it up so when you go to “dogpeecantstopsantorum.com,” it redirects you to our Web site. To MaddowBlog.

Well, while the senator was here, I meant to formally offer that Web site to him as a parting gift. Senator, it’s yours to do whatever you want to with it!

In the end, things got a little exciting at the end of the interview. You know, taking back the “man on dog” thing and all the rest of it, I totally forgot.

So now, I am making it right. I am officially offering that Web site to Senator Santorum. Sir, if you would like “dogpeecantstopsantorum.com,” it is all yours.

In the meantime, while you make up your mind, we have changed the landing page of that Web address so it no longer goes to Maddow Blog. It now goes straight to—

Look! Watch where it goes! It goes to— Watch! Go! Yep! Where does it go?

It goes to a lot of very handsome pictures of Rick Santorum. There he is, reflected in glasses. Here he is, looking good with the American flag.

“Dogpeecantstopsantorum.com” now takes you to handsome pictures of Rick Santorum. And Senator, if you want to direct people somewhere else with that, all you have to do is ask. It’s all yours.

To watch that entire segment, click here. Warning! Possible damage!

At that point, Maddow went to commercial break, then launched the Friday Night News Dump. Just to give you a rough idea, that segment started like this:

MADDOW (7/24/15): Are you ready? I’m ready!

Yay! Friday Night News Dump time!

Producer Nick Tuths, who’s tonight’s lucky player?

TUTHS: Tonight, we have Benny Zelkowicz from Los Angeles, California. He’s an animator. He once published a neuroscience paper in a major journal, and he’s co-author of a novel for young readers called “The Foundry’s Edge.”

Rachel, meet Benny!

MADDOW: Benny, it’s very nice to meet you! You are a fascinating person from all I hear!

We didn’t get much news that night. But we got to enjoy that first burst of fun, along with the bullshit which followed.

(Note: Tuths may be the person who walks behind Maddow with the phony graphic when she bangs on her toy xylophone.)

At this point, let’s return to “Dog pee can’t stop Santorum.” In fairness, Rachel was returning to this topic herself when she discussed it last Friday night.

We’re going to guess that Rick Santorum doesn’t want the URL to “Dog pee can’t stop Santorum.” In fact, Maddow staged this dog pee-and-pony show for a very familiar reason—so we could marvel even further at her fey, wonderful differentness.

On Friday night, this wonderfulness found expression in the “swag gift selection” segment. Also, in the “dog pee” segment, and in the News Dump itself.

Please note: During the “dog pee” segment, Rachel said she was telling her story “long story short.” She was willing to tell it that way because she had told the same story in a more interminable fashion on the Wednesday evening show.

Under the current corporate arrangement, there’s no excuse to waste your time this program’s host won’t seize. And so it came to pass:

On Wednesday night, before speaking with Santorum, she told the story of her “dog pee” wonderfulness in a much longer fashion.

On Wednesday, she told the full story of how Santorum got peed on and how the event inspired her to purchase that URL. In the process, she also told the story of her purchase of two other URLs. This helped us Maddowsketeers appreciate how wonderfully fey she is.

On Wednesday night, Maddow told the longer story of her purchase of the “Dog pee can’t stop Santorum” URL. She also described her purchase of the “Empathize right on your behind” URL and the “Fred Thompson is inherently funny” web address.

Warning! Tomorrow, we’ll start with Wednesday’s lengthier version of the “dog pee” story. We’ll also start to ask a key question:

Does Maddow ever do anything but waste time in her current format? Does she ever present any real news or analysis in endless, repetitive “coverage” of the Republican presidential race?

Night after night, for the past several months, she has burned enormous chunks of time on this alleged topic. Quite routinely, she burns time with the silliest, most pointless thing which happened that day to any one of the sixteen candidates on whose number she has obsessed for the past several months.

Presumably, this is a corporate-designed, corporate-approved pursuit of higher ratings. Question: Does this ever produce anything but the manifest wasting of time?

Maddow did only three programs last week. All this week, we’ll be reviewing those three nights in the life.

Last Friday night’s program was drenched in piddle concerning swag gifts, dumps and dog pee. Did anything of any value emerge from those three nights in the life?

Tomorrow, we’ll continue our search. Warning! We’ll start with that longer story.

Tomorrow: “Empathizseonyourbehind.com?” The story behind the purchase!