FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 2024
...in our blue tribe's corporate pundits? How much confidence should you have in the judgment and / or in the performance of our blue tribe's corporate "cable news" stars?
We just watched the first segment of Deadline: White House. Our answer to your question would be this:
Not much!
Be careful where you place your confidence! Consider what John Heilemann said.
Midway through the opening segment, Heilemann said something to this effect:
President Biden's speech was so good last night, "he should be out there doing this all the time."
(That's close to a word-for-word quote.)
As we noted this morning, we think the speech itself was extremely good. But the State of the Union address is a scripted teleprompter speech, delivered to a (largely) rapt audience in an august, jam-packed hallowed hall.
A candidate can't "do that all the time!" And there were some instant problems when President Biden went off-prompter last night.
One example:
The whole progressive world came down on Biden's head for using the term "illegal" as a noun. He did that when he briefly went off-prompter in response to heckling from Marjorie Taylor Greene concerning the murder of Laken Riley.
On the one hand, we ourselves don't, and we ourselves wouldn't, use the word that way. When President Biden spoke that way, we instantly noticed.
On the other hand, this pushback is precisely the sort of thing for which our blue tribe gets widely ridiculed. That said, it was a type of mistake on Biden's part, and he was instantly criticized for it.
He made several other mistakes when he went off-prompter last night. We thought his speech was beautifully composed, but how well will he do if he attempts to conduct a normal presidential campaign?
For ourselves, we still aren't sure. On Deadline: White House, the cheerleaders were all twirling their pom-poms in all the mandated ways.
We think that was an excellent speech, but there's still a long way to go. As for the gaggle of blue tribe pundits (and their predecessors), they've routinely been failing you for at least three decades now.
Be careful who you listen to! You shouldn't feel certain about the things the "cable news" oracles say.
"The whole progressive world came down on Biden's head for using the term "illegal" as a noun."
ReplyDeleteThis didn't include any blue tribe, hear-no-evil pundits, did it? Our Host incomparably tells me that blue tribe pundits never notice anything wrong about Biden, so clearly, the "whole progressive world" must not include any of those pundits, right?
Meanwhile, the red tribe world is moaning that senile, China-loving Brandon gave a speech that was "too political." He was duty-bound, they insist, to be less confrontational with the jeering, hooting mob.
That’s pretty terrible of MSNBC saying a speech was great that, Bob admits was great. I haven’t seen anybody bitching about the use of “illegal” yet. Almost everyone understands the context of that term in that context.
ReplyDeleteTrump owes more money:
ReplyDeleteTrump ordered to pay $382,000 after losing UK lawsuit over Steele dossier
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/07/trump-loses-lawsuit-steele-dossier
"A candidate can't "do that all the time!" And there were some instant problems when President Biden went off-prompter last night."
ReplyDeleteThere were some very effective moments when Biden went off-prompter, because that is when he shows himself as a human being, connects with people and relates to them, even the hecklers (many of whom are former colleagues from the Senate). Those were golden moments.
Biden's strength is relating to people one on one, and that is where the unscripted moments of his campaign shine. Otherwise, he will be giving a standard campaign speech on the campaign trail, just as Trump does (aside from his own rambling and incoherent digressions). Thank God Biden doesn't do any of that!
Somerby is way off base searching for something to criticize and Biden's speech when there is very little to point to. But he keeps trying. This is the kind of behavior that leads some of us to conclude that he is not only not liberal but must be sworn to the enemy (Trump and his cult). Because no one in their right mind would single out the stupid things Somerby is trying to say today, to denigrate Biden's SOTU. It just doesn't work, but the effort is revealing of what Somerby is about these days.
This is what Trump is saying, but Biden is still the problem in Somerby's world (from Rawstory):
ReplyDelete"Former President Donald Trump's mental deterioration and disdain for America itself is becoming clear even to his die-hard fans, conservative commentator and former Naval War College professor Tom Nichols told MSNBC's Joy Reid on Friday — but they have a surprising mentality around it.
This comes as Trump delivered a recent speech in which he proclaimed, "Cities are choking to death, our states are dying. And frankly, our country is dying. Right now, our country is known as a joke. It's a joke."
"Tom, not only is none of that even close to true, it's ridiculous, honestly," said Reid. "I wonder what does one say about a country where adults listen to that and then listen to Biden and say no, I want that. That is what should be the president. That's how the president should sound."
"And those weren't the worst clips you could have played; there are much worse," said Nichols. "You know, it's been an unfair double standard against his opponents, where Joe Biden has to lay to rest the age issue, but Donald Trump never has to lay to rest the mental instability issue. That, you know, Joe Biden is old. Okay, we get it. He's 81. He doesn't spring up the stairs like a man of 35. Donald Trump is unhinged. You know, I'm not going to diagnose him, but there's clearly something wrong with the man."
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-unraveling-surprise/
Digby says the press is abdicating its responsibility when it does not inform the public about the way Trump has been celebrating the 1/6 insurrection at his rallies. I agree fully with that. I also do not understand why Somerby doesn't discuss the way the press has treated Biden compared to Trump. If Somerby wants an issue with the media, that is a glaring bit of press malfeasance. But crickets from Somerby about that.
ReplyDeletehttps://digbysblog.net/2024/03/08/celebrating-the-insurrection/
Somerby is mostly piling on along with the Republicans.
Deletethat is some disturbing, fascistic, cultish insanity in that video
DeleteFrom Digby's blog:
ReplyDelete"JV Last says we shouldn’t be surprised by Biden’s performance last night because he’s actually good at this stuff. And he is. But for some reason people always forget that until he does it again. Anyway, Last has an interesting observation about the campaign that I think is correct:
But I’m not here to sell t-shirts. I’m here to point out one of the fundamental asymmetries that was on display last night and how it’s going to drive this campaign.
Donald Trump is a dominance politician. His mode of operation is to bully and intimidate. He is bad at making deals. (Shocking, I know.) He is personally offended by people who do not prostrate themselves to him. He has no interest in legislating and no policy goals he seeks to achieve. His theory of the 2024 election is that he will drive the turnout of his base—primarily rural white men without college degrees who do not often vote—to such a degree that their numbers swamp an average Democratic turnout and the turnout of frequent-voting independents.
Trump is interested in capitulation, not persuasion.
What you saw from Biden last night was the polar opposite in both temperament and strategy.
Biden is a back-slapper. He works well with his political opponents. He likes people—even people who aren’t on his side. He’s good at compromise and has real-world bills he wants to pass.
Biden is a politician and a persuader. That is fundamentally who he is and this fact informs his strategy. Biden is not banking on turning out 110 percent of Democratic voting benchmarks. He is not looking to bring in low-propensity voters who normally have little interest in politics.
His goal is to let Trump take care of Democratic turnout while he peels off 10 percent of self-identifies Republican voters (up from 8 percent in 2020) and then wins the double-doubter independents decisively.
Which is what he took aim at last night. On policy, he did this by hitting Ukraine, Roe, and immigration—three areas in which he’s where the majority is on policy. But he also did it with his mien. Did you catch how feisty Biden was? He enjoyed it when Republicans booed him—and I mean that he enjoyed it in the way that a guy who thinks there’s supposed to be give-and-take likes to spar.
But maybe the most telling moment of the entire evening was Biden’s reaction to MTG’s wardrobe choice as he made his way through the chamber:"
You need to visit Digby's blog to see his face when he see's MTG. It is priceless and very funny, and it shows why Biden is such a good campaigner when interacting one-on-one with people in crowds.
https://digbysblog.net/2024/03/08/the-happy-warrior-2/
Digby is what Somerby might be like if he were (1) actually liberal, and (2) interested in describing what is going on in the world instead of propagandizing for Trump.
Who cares if Biden made a few irrelevant mistakes in his speech. Trump lies when his lips are moving. This is the double standard that the media holds for Biden and not for Trump.
ReplyDeleteSomerby is daily castigated by commenters for his so called red tribe allegiance. I don't always agree, but today's posting by him is a transparent example that only serves to bolster their criticisms.
ReplyDeleteBob is wrong.
ReplyDeleteI did a search on Biden saying "illegal" and I found a whole lot of news sources reporting that Democrats were upset about that, but no actual Democrats chiding him. I found this story coming from places like Fox News and Al Jazeera, a Texas paper, and over the AP. I found Nancy Pelosi defending Biden and several people saying it was no big deal. So, this sounds like a story that was planted to distract from the positive aspects of Biden's SOTU address.
ReplyDeleteRepublicans should have been thrilled that he said it, because they promote the idea that it is illegal to cross the border and name-calling is their thing.
These are some of the sources discussing the fact that Biden said "illegals":
DeleteFox News, DNyuz, The Gateway Pundit, RTÉ, Atlanta Black Star, Breitbart, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Washington Examiner, LGBTQ Nation, National Review, Raw Story, IJR and Townhall
The first thing I read yesterday on X was Ben Shapiro ridiculing Dems for being upset that Biden used the word "illegal". Fucking right wing twats are so good at generating this kind of bullshit.
Delete"The whole progressive world came down on Biden's head ...."
ReplyDeleteYou're a silly man, Bob.
Bob's putting in Clarence Thomas-level effort on this one.
Delete