We've been reading Rachel's transcript!

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2021

Please get this child off the air: MSNBC has posted its transcripts for last night's programs.

We've been scrolling through the Maddow Show transcript. We'd call it unfortunate all the way down, right from its opening topic.

This isn't because Rachel Maddow is some sort of "bad person." Unfortunately, we would say that her political / cultural judgment is very poor at this point in time, and has been all along.

Our assessment:

Maddow is extremely skilled at the practice known as "selling the car," but at heart she's a highly tribal true believer. To wit:

Last night, she opened with the suggestion that federal prosecutors are going too easy on the people who stormed the Capitol on January 6. She offered a highly selective account of one alleged example.

She moved on to snark about the latest crazy statements by Rep. Paul Gosar, who seems to be mentally ill. In so doing, she stressed the claim that she wasn't engaging in snark. 

She was too childish to use the grown-up language at which she was plainly hinting—the language of "mental illness," a set of unfortunate conditions which should be discussed in adult terms.  It's time for this eternal child to become a grown-up and say what she actually means.

(Maddow: "I should tell you—and I don't mean this with any snark—there has been some reporting in the Arizona press that it is possible that he is not well, there may be something health-wise going on with Congressman Gosar. We have no reason to believe that's true, and I should let you know that the congressman has said in response to that reporting that he's fine health-wise."  Full disclosure: We'd describe that presentation as childish, silly and sad.)

Before too long, she was quoting the latest transcripts involving past bullshit from Rudy Giuliani. 

Something's been wrong with Giuliani for years; every sane person knows this. There is no need to keep wasting everyone's time pretending to convince cable news viewers of what everyone already knows.  

The question is what we should do about the deeply disordered situation at hand. Concerning that seminal question, Our Silly Child lacks the first hint of the faintest clue.

From there, it was on to this pitiful nonsense:

MADDOW (9/28/21): This is the scene today in Chicago with former President Barack Obama when he picked the spot on which this would happen today. He was actually still president. It was July of 2016 when President Barack Obama chose this site, Jackson Park in Chicago, to be the official home for his post-presidential library.

Today, Chicago was the official groundbreaking, officially kicking off construction on the project—you see the former president the former first lady there. And a new presidential library is always a cool thing. You know, it's a research center, a museum, a monument to history for the public to engage with.

This one though is also a reminder that our immediate past president after President Obama who has been out of office the better part of a year now, he hasn't done anything to start planning his own presidential library. He hasn`t even announced where he would like it to be. Not in general terms, not in specific terms, in fact no terms at all have been announced for his library.

And you know, these things do take a long time to get off the ground. Barack Obama selected the location for his presidential center more than five years ago. They just started putting shovels into the dirt today.

Why is it that there's no Trump presidential library being cited as we speak? Well, for Donald Trump to start planning his post-presidential library, that would require him to acknowledge that he is post his presidency and apparently, we are not there yet. The animating life force in the Republican Party right now means that their last president thinks he is still the rightful president and three-quarters of the Republican Party`s voters agree with him.

Personally, we were disappointed to see the Obamas engaging in this upper-end showboating at such a perilous time. But that's right, Rachel, you silly child: 

Donald J. Trump may run again, and he may win if he does! There's no reason to beat around the bush about this painfully obvious fact, or to go around pretending that you've managed to sniff out some clues. 

For the record, if Trump does run again and wins, Rachel will be one of the multimillionaire corporate entertainers through whose hapless performance his success will have been accomplished.

After she got through with that, she turned to this manifest nonsense:

MADDOW: President Biden tonight cancelled his own planned trip to Chicago tomorrow so he can stay in Washington and keep working on negotiations to try to keep the government from shutting down, to try to avert the debt ceiling crisis, to try to pass his infrastructure bill and his budget. Again, all the Beltway press looking at this fight in Washington is thinking about two parties that have two different ideas about what the governing principles of the country ought to be and how much money we ought to be spending versus raising in terms of revenue.

Widen the aperture from the Beltway press stuff, look around. What`s going on in the Republican Party has nothing to do with governing the country. What's going on in the Republican Party more than ever has to do with overthrowing elections, overthrowing small D democracy and getting stuff done by force. Ignoring that when you`re looking at the rational negotiation—negotiating positions of the two parties in Washington is to put your head in the sand.

As usual, this failing child generalizes about what "the Beltway press" is doing without offering a single example of the alleged offense she attributes to them as a group. 

In fact, the Beltway press has widely presented the image of the GOP Maddow claims they are suppressing. Paranoia is overcoming Our Eternal Child as she makes this silly sweeping suggestion without offering a single example of the work she has in mind.

Maddow was never the right person for this job. That said, Our Own Blue Tribe has always loved her mugging and clowning, and we've long succumbed to her substantial skills at the task called "selling the car."

Starting with the early two weeks of "tea bagger" dick jokes, Maddow has been bad at this job every step of the way. In her apparent mounting frustration and paranoia, she now thinks that federal prosecutors aren't doing their job, and that the Beltway press is propping up the GOP as a group.

Meanwhile, she keeps trying to get the same old people—disordered people like Giuliani—shipped off to the same old jails. Singlehandedly, corporate-paid leaders of this type may very well end up getting Trump elected again.

Reportedly, Rachel will be leaving nightly "cable news" fairly soon, on a $30 million contract. If we hope to escape our current peril, it can't happen soon enough.

Later in the show: Later, she spent an entire segment letting us know that fewer Republicans are vaccinated, as compared to Democrats. (It stands at 58% to 90%, according to Kaiser.)

Everybody already knows that! Maddow just keeps trying to pound the loathing into her viewers' heads. Simply put, it isn't enough. We'd all be much, much better off if the ridiculous channel for which she works simply went off the air.


35 comments:

  1. But you solemnly swore to quit watching the Maddow dembot, dear Bob. A couple of times you did.

    How can we trust you, dear?

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  2. Somerby has been regularly suggesting that Donald Trump is mentally ill, as if that excused his actions in and out of office. Today, he excuses Paul Gosar on the same basis, blaming Rachel Maddow for taking him seriously, instead of calling him ill (despite having no training on which to base such a diagnosis). For that matter, Somerby has no basis for deciding who is mentally ill and who is not any more than Maddow does.

    It isn't "childish" to refrain from using mental illness as a derogatory label, instead of whatever Somerby means by "snark." Use of mental illness in name-calling contributes to stigma experienced by those who are actually mentally ill, who generally don't deserve the stereotyping arising from such names.

    Somerby either doesn't understand this, or he doesn't care. It is hard to believe he has reached his current age without encountering this idea -- that using mental diagnoses to label others you dislike is wrong.

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  3. "Personally, we were disappointed to see the Obamas engaging in this upper-end showboating at such a perilous time."

    Obama is doing what modern presidents do after leaving office. There is no "grandstanding" about holding a ground-breaking (5 years after leaving office).

    This smacks of blaming those uppity black people for getting dressed up to go out to a nice restaurant. It is a racial dogwhistle (what Somerby said, not what Obama did).

    These times are not fraught because of black people living their lives, including a former president. They are fraught because so many of the Republicans are so nuts that there is speculation about their mental health.

    Obama does not need to tiptoe around the sensibilities of white supremacists, not even ones like Somerby, who pretend that doing normal presidential stuff is grandstanding if you are black!

    When has our response to terrorism ever been to avoid hurting the terrorists' feelings? Black people and liberals are supposed to be very circumspect during these times, so that no one on the right gets upset -- at least according to Somerby. Phooey on that!

    Calling Maddow a child (something you do not want to equate women with), doesn't make Somerby any less of a racist and sexist bigot.

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    1. To make it clear, the groundbreaking was for the Obama Presidential Library, something all presidents since Herbert Hoover have had. These libraries are built using private funding, not taxpayer money. As Maddow describes, they are interesting, educational, and largely balanced in their presentation of each of the presidents. I have been to most of them, Republican and Democratic.

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    2. To make it clear… according the blog, Maddow is simultaneous using the headlines that former POTUS Obama is garnering over the library as a contrast to a sinisterly single-minded Trump, who is focused on regaining a presidency he believes he did not lose and is not concerned with the stuff of former presidents.

      Who does Maddow point out as being rightly single-minded in a dire time? President Biden, who cancelled his own planned trip to Chicago so that he can stay in Washington and try to keep the U.S. government from shutting down.

      Corby, you, me, and Maddow know that this screed of hers is just theatrics. She obviously thinks the times aren’t so dangerous that there’s not plenty of room in the media for Obama library stories and a few Biden as laser-focused leader stories.

      We know she’s not losing a wink of sleep about any of this or about anyone or any political party.

      Somerby- not so much. He is focused. He is the party pooper with no patience for games. He’s the agonizer sort.

      Rachel is the blithely say all things at once sort.

      It’s not about the Obamas. It’s about being real.

      Try it occasionally.

      “President Biden tonight cancelled his own planned trip to Chicago tomorrow so he can stay in Washington and keep working on negotiations to try to keep the government from shutting down, to try to avert the debt ceiling crisis, to try to pass his infrastructure bill and his budget. Again, all the Beltway press looking at this fight in Washington is thinking about two parties that have two different ideas about what the governing principles of the country ought to be and how much money we ought to be spending versus raising in terms of revenue.

      Widen the aperture from the Beltway press stuff, look around. What`s going on in the Republican Party has nothing to do with governing the country. What's going on in the Republican Party more than ever has to do with overthrowing elections, overthrowing small D democracy and getting stuff done by force. Ignoring that when you`re looking at the rational negotiation—negotiating positions of the two parties in Washington is to put your head in the sand.”

      Delete
    3. "Somerby- not so much. He is focused."

      You've got to be joking. Somerby wastes everyone's time here trying to convince us that Einstein didn't understand his own theory, that Godel's theorem has had no impact on anything real, that Plato shouldn't be read by philosophers.

      The debt limit has nothing to do with our budget. It is Trump/Republican debt incurred during the previous administration. It must be paid for the financial security of our nation. Playing brinksmanship with the debt only makes sense to Republicans because they have no values or principles other than winning -- which in this case means preventing Biden from having a successful presidency. If Republicans win at that game, the American people are the big losers.

      You pretend that Somerby has been talking about anything the Republicans have been doing -- he hasn't. He never does.

      Maddow is not the problem. Republican malfeasance is the problem. Yet Somerby was here yesterday defending McConnell, as if he had any willingness to meet Dems halfway -- he hasn't. He is a spoiler with no concern for the American people. And Somerby defended him!

      I have no interest in Maddow. She doesn't create the news -- she reports it. Somerby never attacks those who are harming our nation. He defends scumballs and dreams about Wittgenstein, pretending he has read Thoreau or that Thoreau has any meaning in today's world, where the Walden ponds are being destroyed by climate change. Without a peep from Somerby.

      And you, Cecelia, come here and take potshots at people and defend Somerby. You seem to understand Republican mendacity. Why have you chosen the wrong side?

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    4. I’m very sorry, but I’ve got to disabuse of your notion that I agree with you about “Republican mendacity”. I don’t.

      What I am able to do is to read what you, Somerby, and the anonymices write, and try to personally identify as much as possible, and understand you from the standpoint of what you believe and how consistent you are in that.

      You don’t have to had made a single comment on any topic that I broach in order to have standing in pointing out when I’ve contradicted myself. It’s not a potshot to point that out or to make fun of it. That holds true for you and the blogger.

      Just get off that sort of nonsense and try reading what is actually written (not to mention expressed over a period of years) rather than being here solely to sink your teeth into Somerby’s ankles.

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    5. You quoted this without attribution:

      "What`s going on in the Republican Party has nothing to do with governing the country. What's going on in the Republican Party more than ever has to do with overthrowing elections, overthrowing small D democracy and getting stuff done by force. Ignoring that when you`re looking at the rational negotiation—negotiating positions of the two parties in Washington is to put your head in the sand.”

      This is what I was calling Republican mendacity. Since you included in your comment, without saying anything about it, seeming to suggest that this was a more important problem to address, I got the impression that you considered this bad stuff on the part of the Republicans, as every other thinking human being does.

      My mistake, I guess.

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    6. Bob quoted it from Maddow in the blogpost above. I assumed you’d know that.

      I copied it as an illustration of Maddow’s expressed concern over the danger of the times and of Biden canceling his plans.

      But hey! Here’s the Obama library effort as contrasted with Trump!

      Huh? Hey, now! It’s racist to say that it’s clueless not to have noticed that the timing could have been better!

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    7. That's total nonsense. Obama has been out of office for five years. He didn't have control over the timing, which was dictated by resolution of pending lawsuits over the property. If you, or Somerby, think Obama just did this to embarrass Trump, that is making Trump the center of the universe, and he just isn't that important any more. Obama is living his life without reference to Trump, as he should do. People who insist he must kowtow to Trump's hurt feelings are being ridiculous and also demeaning a much better president than Trump was. Obama earned this groundbreaking. Trump will probably never see one, even though Nixon, disgraced as he was, still has a library.

      I think Maddow is correct that Trump seems to have no interest in creating a presidential library, just as he had no interest in so many aspects of his job while president. If there's no grift in it, it is little surprise he will have no interest in pursuing it.

      If you read Obama's speech at the ground breaking, it is about contributing to the neighborhood where he first lived in Chicago, giving back to the community there and providing help and encouragement to kids. I've never heard Trump give any speech that expressed those kinds of sentiments. Maddow was right that the comparison between these two illustrates everything that is wrong with Trump.

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    8. Anonymouse 11:34pm, you’ve misunderstood Maddow!s point about Trump’s lack of interest in a library and there is some leeway in scheduling a ground breaking ceremony.

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    9. How dare someone be politically theatrical.
      You practically never see Republicans pretending the richest country in the history of mankind is broke, every single time Democrats try to help the citizens.
      Cecelia,
      Stick with the bigotry.Everything else is theatrics

      Delete
  4. "For the record, if Trump does run again and wins, Rachel will be one of the multimillionaire corporate entertainers through whose hapless performance his success will have been accomplished."

    Why would this be true? (1) Maddow has never told the Big Lie that the election was stolen from Trump, (2) Maddow has never urged anyone to vote for Trump, (3) Maddow, unlike Somerby, has pointed out Trump's flaws and misbehavior with evidence, (4) Maddow has never shilled for Trump, never misrepresented his lack of accomplishments or lack of performance on covid, (5) Maddow continues to point out Trump's deficiencies. These are actions that typically do not result in a candidate gaining votes.

    Somerby keeps pretending that Trump voters support Trump because liberals are not nice to them (or Trump). Politics doesn't work that way. If liberals were nicer to Trump and his supporters, he would interpret that as weakness and be emboldened to misbehave more egregiously. Not one single vote would be deterred from support Trump by liberal niceness.

    It is a right-wing meme that being nicer to Red State voters would result in swing votes. There is no evidence supporting that idea. Conservatives repeat it in order to accuse and blame liberals, to build animosity on the right against liberal voters. It is a wedge they use to widen the partisan divide. Like other conservative lies, there is no substance to it. Following Somerby's advice would be a capitulation to the right that would do nothing whatsoever to further liberal interests.

    But ask yourself why Somerby, a self-proclaimed liberal, continues to spout right-wing memes and garbage about Obama. What liberal does that? No one. And that is your answer. Somerby is not a liberal, but he is a liar.

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    1. It is literally impossible for any liberal to have more contempt for Republican voters than a Republican politician does.

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  5. "Reportedly, Rachel will be leaving nightly "cable news" fairly soon..."

    She just signed a multi-year renewal contract with the goal of transitioning over a period of years to a weekly instead of nightly show. That isn't "leaving soon," so Somerby's joy is premature.

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  6. "Meanwhile, she keeps trying to get the same old people—disordered people like Giuliani—shipped off to the same old jails."

    Many of the people already in jail are "disordered" and some are mentally ill and receiving treatment. They are still in jail because they committed crimes and were legally sane at the time (which is different than their mental health).

    Trump, Giuliani, Gosar, and so many others, may be nuts, but they show consciousness of guilty by hiding their tracks, they show premeditation, and they meet other criteria for legal sanity. They deserve to go to jail because it would be unjust to allow them to escape punishment after doing so much harm to our nation.

    Somerby only seems to care about mental illness in the context of Republican wrongdoing. He is not being empathetic. He is defending these miscreants, along with the many others he has defended over the past few years.

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    1. Federal prison isn't exactly "the same old jail".

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  7. Here is another persistent gap between black and white people that Somerby never talks about:

    https://www.theroot.com/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-the-democratic-party-and-1847757771?utm_source=theroot_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2021-09-29

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  8. Calling an adult woman a child is a bad idea, Somerby. Kind of like calling an adult black man a boy.

    These days, you are being judged by the language you use.

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    1. If the judges are willfully deaf to context then their verdicts are trash

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    2. In what possible context do you think it is OK to talk about women or black people that way?

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    3. In the same context as anyone else. When adults of either sex act like children or when you’re calling males of any race “boy” in portrayal of an actual or pretend sense of familiarity.

      Where do you live? Iceland?

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    4. Your assumption that it is OK to do this, justified by some behavior of another person, is what constitutes white privilege (in the case of race) and sexism (in the case of gender). Adults, no matter what their behavior, are NOT children and shouldn't be called children or treated like children.

      Iceland actually treats women better than here. They require half of their legislature to be female as a matter of law. And they have no lingering brutal history of racism (because they were the colonial subjects themselves, and not enslavers of anyone else).

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    5. I take no issue with your declaration that you will never label adults of any race or gender as being children because they are biological adults.

      That’s different from your original formulation.

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    6. Thanks Cecelia.
      You just made it impossible to call a Right-winger an adult.
      I look forward to your snowflake feinting couch act when I rightfully do so.

      Delete
    7. Anonymouse 12:41pm, better not hold your breath, honey child.

      Delete
  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  10. This is what a police state looks like:

    "The co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles was targeted in second "swatting" incident in a week on Wednesday after filing a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) for a similar incident last year.

    Melina Abdullah was not home during the latest incident and was alerted by her neighbors to a large police presence outside her home around 5:45 p.m., according to The Los Angeles Times.

    Police are investigating the incident as swatting, or reports of a false emergency in an effort to attract a large police presence to a location, The Times said."

    This is a clear cut matter of police abuse of power.

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    1. We could use a 2nd Amendment in this country to straighten this out.
      Alas...

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    2. Is that the BLM High Priest woman who's buying ultra-exclusive mansions all over the country and in Bahamas?

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    3. So, then, dear dembot, it is the BLM High Priest woman who's buying multi-million dollar mansions in super-affluent neighborhoods?

      Oh, dear. Tsk. There goes the neighborhood, as they say.

      Delete
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