Maddow watch: John Kasich and the elderly neighbor!

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2016

Another disgusting offense: Rachel Maddow's cable show has descended into the mire.

The corporate star who fronts the program now typically spins her viewers throughout the bulk of the week.

She avoids almost all matters of substance. Instead, she has descended to the world's oldest, ugliest play. Persistently, she teaches us liberals that we should learn to loathe Those People, The Others, the ones Over There.

Routinely, she offers highly selective presentations to help us learn to loathe more fully. Not uncommonly, she simply misstates basic facts to give us this ugly old pleasure.

As we noted in last week's reports, her programs from April 11-15 were about as bad as corporate "cable news" gets. She capped her week with an opening segment that Friday night in which we liberals were taught to loathe Candidate Kasich, especially for the horrible things he routinely says to and about women.

Is it true? Does Kasich routinely say horrible things to and about women? Judging from Maddow's examples, we'd have to say he apparently doesn't. But Maddow was pushing her ugly old theme very hard. The effort began with her opening claim, a claim which was fueled by some unfortunate language and by a helpful misstatement.

According to Maddow, Kasich had been surrounded by "a bunch of grown-ass white men" when he signed an anti-abortion bill in 2011. Even worse, he had let a four-year-old boy sit on his lap and help him sign the bill. Kasich and the grown-ass men "also brought in a little boy who the governor invited to sit on his lap and dot the 'I' in the word Kasich as the menfolk of Ohio got together to show the boy folk of Ohio how women's pregnancy can be controlled by the law," the big giant cable star raged.

In fact, the bill in question was the state of Ohio's giant 2013 budget bill. But so what? The urge to loathin' became much stronger when helped by Maddow's fake fact.

That bungled claim about the "grown-ass white men" was the start of Maddow's rant. She went on to describe Kasich's alleged misconduct toward women.

How does Kasich behave when speaking to and about women? In this passage, Maddow's portrait got its start:

MADDOW (4/15/16): When Governor John Kasich of Ohio did this in 2011, it was, at one level, it was sort of just the same thing that other Republican governors do with anti-abortion bills in other states. But in another way it was an Ohio-specific expression of—sort of an extension of John Kasich's general tone-deafness when it comes to issues related to women of all kinds.

So John Kasich has introduced himself basically to the people of Ohio as a statewide elected official in Ohio who says stuff that you can't believe he's actually saying. Sometimes he's offending women. Sometimes he's just being radically offensive.

According to Maddow, Kasich "says stuff that you can't believe he's actually saying. Sometimes he's offending women. Sometimes he's just being radically offensive."

John Kasich actually has made some awkward remarks on occasion down through the years. He's a bit like the GOP version of Joe Biden, as we noted on Monday.

Over here in our liberal tribe, we tend to treat Biden's awkward moments as signs of his lovable authenticity. In this segment, Maddow was being a great deal less kind.

"Compared to Candidates Trump and Cruz, Kasich is viewed broadly as sort of the normal one, the calm one, the one who says only predictable things," Maddow said at one point.

"That may be true in relation to Ted Cruz and Donald Trump," she said as she continued. "It's not at all the reputation that he has earned in Ohio."

What sort of reputation does Kasich have in Ohio? In 2014, he won re-election by a 31-point margin. In a poll last fall, his job approval was very high in the state. His performance was more approved than disapproved by 62-29 percent.

As she continued, Maddow forgot to mention these facts. Instead, she kept conveying a rather different impression. Soon, she was describing the reputation Kasich has allegedly earned on the presidential trail:

MADDOW: Even if you don't care about his time as governor of Ohio, on the campaign trail, while he has been running for president, he has slowly been accumulating quite a record, now almost a reputation, for saying just incredibly awkward things.

And he says awkward things sometimes when he's fired up and angry. But he even says incredibly awkward things sometimes when he was trying to be nice.

Has Kasich been developing a reputation for saying just incredibly awkward things? As she continued, Maddow said this reputation especially involves the things he says when he talks to or about women.

This led to a special Friday night gift. Maddow said we'd get to enjoy her "child's treasury of John Kasich engaging with women voters:"

MADDOW: John Kasich ran for state legislature in Ohio starting in the '70s. He won nine straight congressional races in Ohio. He won two races for governor in Ohio. This is the second time he's running for president. And that is an impressive amount of electoral experience.

It also marks him out though as somebody who has gone astonishingly far in politics, given what tends to happen when he talks to people, or about them, particularly when those people are women. It doesn't have to be women, but it's usually women.

Behold, happy Friday night! This is our child's treasury of John Kasich engaging with women voters.

According to Maddow, Kasich has gone astonishingly far in politics "given what tends to happen when he talks to people, or about them, particularly when those people are women."

We almost agree with that statement! Maddow's basic claim in that passage does seem almost astonishing.

It would be quite surprising if a politician was that popular in his home state if he was constantly saying things to women which were "tone deaf," "incredibly awkward" and even "radically offensive." We leaned forward in our seats, eager to hear Maddow's examples.

Kasich has had a long career. Maddow's staff had gone back to 2011 and 2012 for two of the seven examples their boss then presented.

As such, Maddow gave seven examples from the past five years of Kasich's long career. In the first of these offensive statements, Kasich mistakenly took a young man's girl friend for the young man's mom.

We showed you that, her first example, in our Monday post. As Maddow continued, we marveled at the extent to which this sick millionaire now loves the task of teaching us liberals how to loathe The Others.

We'll review more of Maddow's examples in the next day or two. Maddow was even upset because Kasich once said that we should care for our elderly neighbors.

Rachel Maddow is running a school for soul-sick tribal loathing. Personally, we wouldn't vote for Kasich. But if we were running a cable news channel, we wouldn't let this devolving, soul-sick star go back on the air.

It isn't good to teach people to loathe. It isn't good when a corporate star keeps conning her liberal viewers.