Would there by any statements at all: We'll admit to a grim fascination with a certain cable news star.
We regard Donald J. Trump as our most disordered public figure. After him, we'll have to admit that the cable star just may rank number two.
In part, it's the astonishing degree of self-involvement. Last night, the star was talking about herself right out of the gate.
In her second minute, she was offering this. "I I I I I I I," the analysts all started yelling:
UNNAMED CABLE STAR (7/18/17): I know you`ve heard a little bit today about there being an eighth man who is in that meeting and the identity of the eighth man. You've probably heard a little bit of that today...Awww! "Across the cubicle farm."
But we're going to start tonight with this late-breaking news.
So this is a little window into my work day. Whole staff is working away today. You know, the cubicle farm is really humming. People are in and out of everybody'S offices, like we know what we're doing. We`re working on the show.
I'm in my office, threatened to be buried under teetering piles of paper, as usual. We're all working away like we usually do.
By this point, almost six months into the Trump administration, we as a staff are now used to big stories about the Trump administration breaking late in the day and then we have to throw our plans out the window and start to cover instead what the other new bombshell is. We're used to that.
But even with the fact that we are used to that timing now and to stuff breaking late in the day, when these headlines popped tonight, when this story first crossed, "Trump/Putin held a second undisclosed meeting at the G20," when this started to cross tonight our newsroom, it caused an audible "Oh my God" to ripple across our cubicle farm.
"Oh, my God! Seriously?"
All the familiar hooks were there, mainly the humble-bragging self-denigration in service to huge self-involvement.
The star conducted an interview with Ian Bremmer about that Trump-Putin conversation. And then, sure enough! Just like that, she returned to her favorite topic:
BREMMER: Yes, my pleasure.You just can't tell us that's normal.
UNNAMED CABLE STAR: All right. Thanks. Yes.
Like I said, the news came across, "Second undisclosed meeting between Trump and Putin."
[Pretends to draw on map]
My office is like here, and my executive producer's office is like here, and the other offices for everybody who works on the staff kind of splay around the corner like this. I heard it coming like a stadium wave made audible.
"Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, did you see this? Oh, my God."
Oh, my God. Today's news. We'll be right back. Stay with us.
The star made her standard overstatements and misstatements last night. She again displayed a new hook, the one in which she pretends that she can't pronounce some funny new name, in this case the name of one of the Russkies:
UNNAMED CABLE STAR: Also, we know as of today, the meeting [with the Russian lawyer] included the apparent poster child for Russian money laundering in U.S. banks, a dual national named Ike—forgive me—Kaveladze? Maybe? Maybe that's how you say it?She had all day to learn the name, she never learned how to say it?
But this has become a standard hook. Presumably, it's intended to make her seem more authentic, just a bit more like us.
In fact, it's one of the ten million ways she's constantly selling the car. It's designed to make us feel we want to help and protect her.
Something isn't quite right with this person. We liberals refuse to admit it.
Instant misstatement: Even before she went all "I-I-I," the cable star offered this:
UNNAMED CABLE STAR: This is a remarkable place we have ended up, right?Bullshit like that makes us liberals feel good. On Fox, they used to play this game with respect to Obama.
In this last election, Republicans got control of the Senate. They got control of the House. They got control of the White House, and even with that total control in Washington, they really are about to hit six months in power, which I think they hit on Thursday of this week.
By the end of this week, it will be six months in power with Republicans in control of all branches of government and they will have not passed a single substantial piece of legislation. I mean, they can pass anything they want to with zero Democratic votes. They only have to line up votes in their own party. And still they have passed nothing.
Surely, though, the cable star has heard about the general need for sixty votes in the Senate to get most measures passed. She does know about that, right?
Why does the cable star do these things? We don't know, but this big giant cable star does these weird things every night. You can hear the sycophants chuckling off-camera.
Yep, in Bob's world it's basically a toss up between Donald Trump being President and Rachel Maddow having a successful TV show. Very close, but he MIGHT allow that the Trump situation is worse.
ReplyDeleteIt's Bob's world. We only chuckle in mordent amusement at it.
"Surely, though, the cable star has heard about the general need for sixty votes in the Senate to get most measures passed."
ReplyDeleteBulls**t, Bob. The Health Care Fiasco barely missed being passed due to the defection of a tiny handful of GOP senators, and
0 Demo votes. And they have threatened to remove the 60-vote requirement for anything else.
And gee, aren't we cute today,Bobo? An "unnamed cable star"...Gee, I just can't imagine who that could be. Get help.
My own name is Koch, and nobody can pronounce it. Well, nobody does it our way (typically). Other families say it their own way. The most prominent one these days being the Coke billionaires.
ReplyDeleteBefore that, it was the Mayor of New York, who said it as if there was a T in it. Like its Kotch. That is what most of the people in my hometown called me, long before Ed was a famous mayor.
Another family that I know pronounces it Koe. Once I was watching a football game, and the hapless Ravens were playing. Their punters name was Sam Koch. Not only was he a good punter, but he was a guy who knew how to pronounce his name.
The announcer, however, was another story. For the first half he kept saying Kotch. At some point during half-time though, he apparently got corrected, because after that the punter became Sam Cook, and he made the other team sing the blues with his long punts.
Another correction that I (I-I-I) have made is for the capital of South Dakota. Unless you are from SD, you might think that metropolis is called Pee-air. Being from there, I know that it is instead a city with no Peer. I have sent emails to most of the local TV weather people, and I notice they now say it right.
I mention these not just because Bob might have seen a few Ravens games, but to note that - sometimes TV people do NOT know how to pronounce names.
I do get though, that Rachel will play that game as a way to sell herself. There are worse things she could do - like use hate to sell herself.
That seems to really be the point of the taunts. First, we claim that "Republican bills will wreck the country" and then we taunt them "ha, ha, ha, ha-ha, you can't get any bills passed."
Seems to be par for the course. My own team does not just want to defeat the other team to help the country or the world - we want to humiliate them, we want them to suffer - because we hate them.
Then after we have spent years taunting them and calling them names, we will claim, "you just cannot reason with those people."
Concern troll is concerned. How touching.
Delete'Seems to be par for the course. My own team does not just want to defeat the other team to help the country or the world - we want to humiliate them, we want them to suffer - because we hate them.
DeleteThen after we have spent years taunting them and calling them names, we will claim, "you just cannot reason with those people."'
Anyone more than 6 months old remembers the Rs actions on Obamacare -- trying to sabotage it in every way possible and then gloating about people who were uninsured (because Rs refused to expand Medicaid, and blocked outreach).
So maybe you are right about your team, and 'we' -- your team being Rs, of course.
"Why does the cable star do these things?"
ReplyDeleteWell, assuming she doesn't just do it for money, the phenomenon has been well analyzed. I'm sure you've read Orwell's 1984 and Koestler's Darkness at Noon.
Bob Somerby, in-depth psychoanalyst of others’ use of language, starts this blog-entry with (bold-faced): “Would there by any statements at all:...”.
ReplyDeleteWhat did he mean by that? The rest of us can only wonder.
Could “by” possibly have been meant as ”be” (the verb of existence, so famously difficult for Russian-speakers to use properly because so often skipped in Russian)?
Could Somerby, so very recently so very scathing about the editing/proofreading quality of Associated Press transcripts — but then again so very scathing about Masha Gessen’s attempt to read from one — have made no attempt to proofread even his own opening sentence?
Why, how scathing a review that should receive!
How ironic. An irritatingly cutesy piece on an unnamed cable news star who has an irritating cutesy affection. Brilliant!
ReplyDelete'We'll admit to a grim fascination with a certain cable news star.'
ReplyDeleteI would call it derangement. Even fervent right wingers rarely display this level of hostility towards Maddow. But Bob has his priorities clear -- defending Trump, attacking anyone who attacks him, nitpicking, trying to find bogus equivalencies. A true Trump enabler.
This really does appear to have become the theme.
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