ARMIES: When Gutfeld threw to the clueless Kat Timpf...

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2024

...democracy died in the dust: What would a reasonably intelligent public discourse actually look like?

Almost surely, it wouldn't start with a 59-year-old termagant-adjacent, "cable news" shouter referring to a sitting president as "President Poopy Pants." 

It wouldn't start like that! But so it now goes in the adult-free erogenous zone now being developed in the vineyards at Fox. 

That said, what might a less ridiculous discourse possibly look like?

In yesterday's report, we started to sketch that out. At issue was a specific claim by President Biden—the claim that food prices in our grocery stores are now being driven, at least in part, by some degree of corporate price-gouging.

The president advanced that claim in a speech on South Carolina on Saturday, January 27. Below, you see the full, though rather limited text of what he said on that topic that day.

For the White House transcript, just click here. The full excerpt goes like this:

From Biden's speech: Saturday, January 27

But look, folks, things this country has—have been through have been pretty tough for a lot of people.  But we’re making progress.  There’s a lot more on the way.

Inflation is coming down.  It’s now lower in America than any other major economy in the world.  

(Applause.)  

The cost of eggs, milk, chicken, gas, and so many other essential items have come down.

But for all we’ve done to bring prices down, there are still too many corporations in America ripping people off:  price gouging, junk fees, greedflation, shrinkflation. 

You see that article about the Snickers bar?  

(Laughter.)  

Well, it’s going to stop. Americans, we’re tired of being played for suckers.  

(Applause.)  

And that’s why we’re going to keep these guys—keep on them and get the prices down.

For the record, those insertions about the laughter and the applause strike us as perhaps overstated. But there you see the full extent of what Biden said on this topic that night.

The president did say that some corporations have been involved in price gouging. And as Jim Tankersley noted in last Saturday's New York Times, Biden "made a similar point last fall in a post on the social media platform X."

To our eye and ear, Biden's claim sounds underwhelming—heavily meh—when we watch the tape of that speech. Still, he had made a fairly specific claim about a matter of great current concern.

To his credit, Tankersley advanced the discussion with his news report about the claim—with the news report from which we quoted in yesterday's report. 

For the record, Tankersley's report appeared online on Thursday, February 1. The following evening, the resident red tribe pundit army on the primetime "cable news" program Gutfeld! pretended to conduct a discussion of what Biden had said.

As we noted yesterday, Tankersley had included some basic information in his report—information which might bear on the accuracy of President Biden's claim:

He reported that grocery stores "had increased their [profit] margins by about two percentage points since the eve of the pandemic, reaching their highest level in two decades." According to a government study, those profit margins "have stayed elevated" post-pandemic, "even as other retailers’ margins have fallen back."

Also, "food producers...have continued to raise prices even as their costs have declined, leading to heady profit margins," Tankersley reported. 

Does this mean that price-gouging is going on in the casino? Not necessarily, no. But it might be the start of a serious effort to analyze Biden' claim.

Tankersley's report appeared online late in the evening of Thursday, February 1. Roughly 24 hours later, the resident army on the Gutfeld! show pretended to stage a discussion.

It started, as all such Gutfeld! discussions must, with adolescent name-calling from the program's 59-year-old host. After he played tape of one part of what Biden had said, the first expert he consulted on this question was Kat Timpf, a low-grade comedian and the author of a (very briefly) New York Times best-selling book.

Timpf seems like a perfectly decent person. On the other hand, her analysis of this news event went exactly like this:

GUTFELD (2/2/24): Kat, is it me or does this guy have no concept of how the economy works? He always blames the outcomes for the cause of the outcomes.

TIMPF: Yeah. And also, just kind of the whole thing felt very like "old man yells at cloud." You know, it's like:

[PERFORMS LOUD SCREECHING IMPRESSION OF BIDEN]

And the grocery stores and the Snickers and the thing, and the Snickers. It's like, And I I told them, you better [unintelligible]—

It's like, "OK, Grandpa! [chuckles] You got them! You're right."

I don't think anybody, regardless of any of their political views, watches that and is like, "You know, I think he's on it. I think he's got it." 

[AUDIENCE LAUGHTER]

I think, when I go to the store, like it's going to take—

People are like, "Okay." I don't think anyone's even thinking about it that much any more. It's just like, what?

Like, he doesn't know how much anything costs. He doesn't know what he's saying. I think that even saying he doesn't know how the economy works, that's like very charitable. He doesn't say anything close to that.

GUTFELD: Yeah. Tyrus, does this piss you off? Or is this just funny?

Such was the full analysis of Kat Timpf, purveyor of narrative.  Moving right along, Tyrus is the former professional wrestling heavyweight champion who is now making the stand-up scene and appears most nights on the Gutfeld! show. 

In fact, Tyrus is a highly capable raconteur. He's plainly a very bright person. But on this occasion, he wandered the countryside at considerable length, apparently in search a humorous double entendre built around Biden's use of the word, "suckers."

Either that, or he didn't understand what the president had said. At long last, he settled for this:

TYRUS: To Kat's point, he has no idea what he's talking about, and the American people can see it. You have to kiss us now before you bang us. We know now. 

[SHRIEKS OF LAUGHTER FROM AUDIENCE]

At least he didn't use the f-bomb this time; he'd been BLEEPED only moments before. But here, he saved his floundering attempt at commentary with an old fashioned, if incoherent, trip to the d*ck joke pile, the place to which this undergrown program almost always returns.

Having said that, let's return to Timpf's oration. As we do, let us say this:

We're now repeatedly told by the Washington Post: Democracy Dies in Darkness. One of the building blocks of a working democracy lay dead and dying in the dust as Timpf staged that imitation of human life on last Friday evening's show.

To all appearances, the stunningly privileged "cable news" star didn't have the first [BLEEPING] idea what she was talking about. She had exactly nothing to say about the actual topic at hand. All she had was a stream of generic insults aimed at the man she derided as "Grandpa"—at President Poopy Pants.

Can democracy die in darkness? Just as a matter of fact, democracy was dying right there, as the battalion of overaged children on the Gutfeld! show conduct their latest clueless imitation of actual human life.

Timpf knew as much about the topic at hand as we would know if we were asked to discuss the Bolshoi Ballet. For the record, there was no sign that any of the program's gang of five had ever perused Tankersley's day-old report at the Times—the news report which almost surely led producers to build a segment around that particular topic.

None of them knew what they were talking about, but they all knew their brief. Gutfeld said it, then everyone did. This is the way they played:

Gutfeld: Kat, is it me or does this guy have no concept of how the economy works? 

Timpf: Like, he doesn't know how much anything costs. He doesn't know what he's saying.

Tyrus: To Kat's point, he has no idea what he's talking about.

Walter Kirn: Kat [is] right, because he sounds like he's ranting in a dog park or something.

Todd Piro: It's from a position of ignorance. He completely has no idea how a supermarket works.

Everyone agreed with Kat, and Kat agrees with Gutfeld. 

On the down side, Timpf had nothing whatsoever to say about the topic at hand. Neither she, nor anyone else showed any sign of having read the New York Times report which almost surely trigged the selection of the price-gouging claim as a topic the next night.

To appearances, no one had the slightest idea what they were taking about. They did understand their charge from the corporate behemoth by whom they're all employed:

Their assignment was to bring in the insults. Timpf played the insult card well.

Ten thousand years ago, Hector's body was dragged through the dust outside the towering walls of Troy after that shining citadel fell. 

Today, our way of life is dragged through the dust when strivers like this mediocre "comic" take the money from corporate owners and pretend to conduct a human discussion, in prime time, on this major "cable news" channel.

Democracy is already dying in the dust as Gutfeld sprays his insults around, then calls on his vacuous guests. For the record, we've barely scratched the cat-scratch surface of how stupid, but also possibly ugly, last Friday night's program got.

Tomorrow: Almost beyond the reach of belief. Gutfeld limns Morning Joe!