THURSDAY: O'Donnell takes a walk on the dangerous side!

THURSDAY, MARCH 13, 2025

Plus, Suzanne Scott opens the can: Last evening, we didn't watch The Last Word. Through the miracle of On Demand, we watched it late this morning.

Given our own ongoing ruminations, we thought we ought to comment.

We've complimented Lawrence O'Donnell for his angry pushback in the past few weeks—for his angry pushback against the destruction of USAID, to cite one prime example.

Children are dying around the world as a consequence of that action. To his vast credit, Lawrence O'Donnell has shown the capacity to care.

In our view, O'Donnell has been appropriately angry. That said, he isn't a medical specialist. 

O'Donnell isn't a medical specialist. Last night, he seemed to play one on TV in a 19-minute opening monologue. 

In our view, he was now showing his anger in a somewhat dangerous way. Over his left shoulder, there it sat—in large letters, the stated theme for this opening segment:

Trump "insane"

That's what the headline said.

As he delivered his monologue, Lawrence referred to Steve Liesman's recent language about President Trump, as we ourselves did this morning. That said, we thought he came close to getting way out over his skis.

We'd be happy to see someone like O'Donnell bring a medical specialist onto his show to discuss President Trump's apparent or possible mental state.  But Lawrence himself, on his own, isn't the right person for that task—and he'd have to be extremely careful about his selection of an actual medical expert to stage some such discussion.

(He'd have to choose a medical specialist who didn't betray any politics. He'd have to choose a medical specialist who was able to demonstrate empathy for people who may be afflicted in some way or other.)

Lawrence was visibly angry last night. Overall, we thought his judgment was poor. You can watch the entire 19-minute segment simply by clicking here. 

(That takes you to videotape at the Last Word site. It doesn't take you to the Internet Archive, which no longer seems to be functioning in a usable way.)

During this segment, we thought Lawrence began to succumb to the type of judgment which is enabled by anger, as he's occasionally done in the past. Two hours earlier, on the Fox News Channel, an appalling segment had aired. 

We refer to a segment on Jesse Watters Primetime—a sad but instructive seven minutes you can watch by clicking this. Watters was joined by Rachel Campos-Duffy, co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend.

The segment was "Gossip Child" pseudo-journalism at its smallest, dumbest and worst. It's amazing to see the triumphalist way in which some people respond to temporary political wins by their political tribe.

The pair of cablers used this "cable news" segment to slime Barack and Michelle Obama. All in all, we humans can be amazingly petty and small. 

"She's always been negative and nasty," Campos-Duffy eventually said, speaking of the former first lady. Soon, Campo-Duffy was fluffing "the divorce rumors," already having thrown chum into the water which was even dumber and more sleazy than that.

(Also, "something seems off" with Michelle Obama's brother, Watters dumbly opined at one point.)

At the age of 46, Watters is the dumbest child ever placed on the air as part of a TV "news" program. With respect to Campos-Duffy, we wished we could return to the good old days before the win by President Trump—to the days when she restricted herself to naming the Communists, Marxists, socialists and pagans she is somehow able to find under every bed.

It's amazing that CEO Suzanne Scott is willing to open the garbage can each night and put this swill on the air. This sort of thing is sold as prime time "cable news" to millions of Fox News viewers. 

(Incredibly, it gets even dumber and worse at 10 p.m. every night. Blue America's major journalists are unwilling to say a word about the ugly and deeply stupid mayhem which airs each night at that time.)

Last night, as we watched this pair in action, we thought of the scene from Ryan's Daughter in which the marauding villagers attack the Sarah Miles character in the ways they suddenly can. 

That scene comes late in that very long 1970 film. We recall it, even today, as perhaps the ugliest and most instructive scene we've ever seen in a film. Whether you're Red or whether you're Blue, we would offer this advice:

Try not to be like that.

The gossip gang ran wild on the Fox News Channel last night. That said, if we might borrow from Don Corleone:

This is the species we've chosen!

"Ain't that America," John Mellencamp said. On Fox, each night, yes it is!