"But where we start tonight is in the state of Georgia!"

TUESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2022

It was already 9:15: We'll admit that we're somewhat puzzled by the ads for the forthcoming streaming service, CNN+.

At CNN, the thinking seems to be this:

We're already producing 24 hours of programs each day. The bulk of it is lazy work which is almost completely worthless.

Still, having filled the 24 hours of the regular "cable news" day, we'll now be producing additional programs—programs in which our journalistic standards will apparently be even looser!

According to the ads, the big male stars won't even have to wear ties on CNN+! You'll soon be able to watch plain old vanilla CNN or switch over to something that's worse!

Last evening, watching MSNBC, we may have seen the outline of a program called Maddow+. At one point, the star in question told us acolytes this:

"But where we start tonight is in the state of Georgia..."

We were starting tonight in the state of Georgia. the giant cable star said. The problem was, the clock on the cable channel's screen said it was already 9:15! The star had already been yakking, without interruption, for a bit over fifteen minutes!

How had the cable star used that time? In the main, she had wasted the time on pure trivia. 

She had spent the first eleven (11) minutes discussing President Truman's love for ceremonial swords and daggers, not excluding the occasional scabbard.  She had, for example, wasted everyone's time with the monologue shown below. 

We've corrected the many errors in The Slacker Channel's transcript:

MADDOW (1/24/22): Look at all these big old swords and daggers! A little-known fact about the Harry Truman presidency [chuckling] is that he apparently loved this stuff. When he was president, he was given, as gifts, a bunch of these things. It was nothing inappropriate about it. He didn't keep them for himself, he handed them over to the National Archives. They were put on display at his presidential library and museum.

But they were kind of ornate things. This is a 38-inch long presentation sword. The grips of it are gold, it's got four different diamonds inlaid into it. The scabbard, which is like the holder thing that it goes into, is more gold and black leather. It is studded with even more diamonds. It's got 15 diamonds.

Apparently, the gold tassel thing that also came with it, that was not stolen, that was left behind, but the sword and the scabbard were taken. Also, there was this dagger in a scabbard and this dagger in the scabbard fit onto this very pirate-y little belt. This was given to President Harry S Truman by a member of the Saudi royal family.

The belt, which is the thing that you see running horizontally there, it's woven with gold threads, real gold. This scabbard is gold studded with diamonds. The hilt of the dagger itself is also gold. It's got nine more diamond studded into its grip.

Here's a sword that the Shah of Iran gave Truman. This one's silver, a big silver sword and another fancy scabbard thing. And another one that looks like that that's made from different stop from the Saudi crown prince.

And this one is crazy! Look at this one. This is a dagger that seems like it's almost too small to have this entire jewelry stored embedded in it. But look! On this thing, the hilt of it is gold. It's got four fat diamonds in the hilt, and a two and a half carat emerald. Then in the lower grip, it's got a three-carat ruby and another 15 diamonds. 

Then there's the holder thing-y [sic], the scabbard--this is ridiculous. First of all, the scabbard is also gold, naturally. At the tip of it, it's got a three-carat ruby and 12 diamonds. At the base of it, it's an eight and a half-carat emerald, another three-carat ruby, four other rubies, and another 12 diamonds.

[Entertaining beautifully] What, you guys ran out of money and couldn't fit anything else in? You ran out of space, you ran out of money? Why so cheap? 

This is an entire block, like this is an entire block's worth of jewelry stores in one dagger that looks like, you know, a bedazzled garden hose nozzle.

In a world where children die every day, the pointlessness continued along from there. The first fifteen minutes flew or dragged by in roughly this manner, depending on your degree of partisan tribal hypnosis.

MSNBC has been unusually fast with its transcripts today. You can peruse this manifest nonsense yourselves simply by clicking here. In our view, it fits into a framework we've articulated before:

When will NBC News make good on its pledge to take this spent star off the air?

As best we can compute, last evening's Maddow Show featured roughly 45 minutes of actual program, roughly 15 minutes of ads. When Rachel said, "But where we start tonight is in the state of Georgia," roughly one-third of her broadcast minutes had already been pissed away.

From there, we were served our usual porridge. Once the giant star got started, our porridge was ladled to us from these bowls last night:

Last evening's bowls of porridge:
1) Please please please please please please please let Trump get indicted in Georgia! Oh please please please please please!
2) We're going to mess with Sinema good! Sinema's days are numbered!
3) Forgeries forgeries forgeries forgeries forgeries "fake forged documents" forged
4) Two minutes about Ukraine.

With that pleasing porridge in our bellies, we were able to get off to bed. The first 15 minutes had been frittered away with bullshit regarding scabbards and daggers. This is what happens when massively overpaid "cable news" stars signal to the wider world that it's time for them to go.  

In our view, this particular cable news star has made enough money and has gained enough fame. It isn't her fault that she has extremely bad judgment and is preternaturally self-involved, but it's time to get Our Own Rhodes Scholar off this channel's air.

That first fifteen minutes was pure Maddow+. According to many recent ads, CNN's various wonderful stars will soon be following suit!