AT MADDOW SHOW, IT'S TIME FOR A CHANGE: Elation and the shape of the news!

FRIDAY, MARCH 25, 2016

Part 4—Many times, people need help: Over here in our own hapless tribe, what has The Rachel Maddow Cable News Era been like?

To our ear, the first warning sign was delivered in January 2008. That said, there was no Maddow Show at that time. Let's jump ahead to that fall.

The Maddow Show went on the air in September 2008. Candidates Obama and McCain were fighting it out for the White House.

The financial world collapsed that month. Sarah Palin was now campaigning as McCain's vice presidential pick.

Concerns were being expressed about some of the campaign rhetoric. David Frum, the former Bush speech writer, was openly challenging the rhetoric of his own Republican party.

Briefly, this made Frum a hero Over Here on our side. On October 13, 2008, he was invited to appear on the Maddow Show, presumably to repeat his pleasing remarks about the bad behavior of The Other Tribe.

It may not have occurred to Us that Frum could criticize Our conduct too. But uh-oh! That's what happened that night.

Having sat through a snark-ridden program, Frum appeared on the air. The first Q-and-A went something like this. We're working from the Nexis transcript:

MADDOW (10/13/08): You have publicly stated some reservations about John McCain and some criticisms of the way his campaign has run, and even though you've also said you will vote for him.

One quote I wanted to ask about. You said that those who press this Ayers, William Ayers line of attack are ripping Republicans and conservatives into a fury that's going to be very hard to calm after November. What do you mean by that and that word "fury?"

FRUM: Well, I think you were talking, through much of the show, about the matter of tone in our politics. And yet, I think, we are seeing an intensification of some of the ugliness of tone that has been a feature in American politics in the last eight years. And this show, unfortunately, is itself an example of that problem, its heavy sarcasm and smearing and its disregard for a lot of the substantive issues that really are important.

And I would hate to see Republicans go probably into opposition, sustaining this terrible cycle of un-seriousness about politics, turning it into a spectator sport. The party is going to have some important rebuilding to do. It's going to do that in an intelligent way and we're all going to have to do better than we've been doing, including in the past 40 minutes.

Oof. Essentially, Frum said that Maddow's previous forty minutes had featured the same "ugly tone" and "un-seriousness" which he had been criticizing in his own party.

If memory serves, we thought Frum had a bit of a point that night. Maddow pushed back against his criticism, skillfully playing our tribe's ever-useful "false equivalence" card.

Eventually, she made a slightly odd statement. It comes near the end of this chunk:

MADDOW: The thoughtfulness issue, though. I wonder if part of the problem, in the way that we haven't moved through these things—

We decry them on all sides, people, left, right and center, complaining about the tone in politics. But I sense also that there's a devotion to coming up with a sort of false equivalence, the idea that bringing up John McCain's experience in the Keating Five, for example, is somehow equivalent to calling Barack Obama somebody who "pals around with terrorists."

You're saying that my tone on the show, sarcasm, being playful, the way that I approach issues, would be somehow equivalent to McCain, I'm guessing, saying that I want to talk about the economy. I don't see those two as equivalent.

FRUM: I'm suggesting—

The line is often attributed to Mahatma Gandhi—I don't know if it's really his—that we should be the change we want to see, or that we say we want to see. And so if we want to have a more intelligent, more grown-up politics, and I think we all say that, then we ought to do it...

I absolutely am concerned and unhappy with the kind of campaign my party has been running. And I'm doing my best to try to raise the tone, my little best, and urge that we do better. We're talking more substantively. I think we should all do that. It would be better for everyone.

MADDOW: I didn't intend for my interview with you to be about this. But because you raised it, I feel like I've got to talk to you about it. And I guess when you say that you want the discourse to be more grown-up and more intelligent, I agree with you on intelligent. I don't necessarily agree with you on grown-up.

I think there's room for all sorts of different kinds of discourse including satire, including teasing, including humor. There's a lot of different ways to talk about stuff and Americans absorb things in a lot of different ways.

That struck us as a slightly peculiar statement. Maddow said she wanted the discourse to be more intelligent. She said that didn't mean that she wanted the discourse to be more "grown-up."

(Frum seemed to think we all say that. Maddow said she doesn't!)

We don't want to join The Cult of the Offhand Comment here. It's certainly true, as Maddow said, that "there's room for different kinds of discourse," including satire and humor. It's true that "there's a lot of different ways to talk about stuff."

Having said that, it caught our ear when Maddow rejected the plea for a more grown-up discourse. We've recalled that statement many times in the years which have passed since that night. That's been especially true in the last year, when Maddow's journalism has turned into a clown car.

In 2008, Maddow reserved the right to talk about stuff through satire, teasing and humor. The following April, she produced a grotesque example of where that license can take us.

She did this over the course of two weeks with the help of Ana Marie Cox, who came on the show, night after night, to drop dick jokes on the heads of the teabaggers. This behavior was ugly, disgraceful and stupid. On Maddow's part, the behavior was also less than obsessively honest.

Night after night, Maddow pretended that she was embarrassed— mortified, even—by the embarrassing dick jokes Cox just wouldn't stop dropping. But how odd! Night after night, there was Cox, back on the air, repeating her wonderful dick jokes.

In our view, this was one of the most appalling episodes we've ever seen on cable. Sometimes, the dick jokes were dropped on public officials. But Maddow was willing to let the dick jokes be dropped on the heads of regular people too, including a twenty-something single mother who was scared out of their wits about the broken economy.

She was a teabagger too!

The episode was a disgrace. Our Own Rhodes Scholar from Stanford and Oxford displayed her contempt for the little Joes and Josephinas, the ones who aren't in her tribe. She also displayed an important fact:

She doesn't seem to have super-great judgment. In fairness, maybe nobody does.

A few years later, Jon Stewart directly scolded Maddow for this particular episode. He also told her that she should stop the endless mugging and clowning which had come to characterize her cable performance.

He told her that her job, journalism, is more important than his.

In a manner which was less than obsessively honest, Maddow disputed Stewart's account of all the dick jokes she had dropped on the heads of all those people. She also said that she planned to continue discussing the news through satire, teasing and humor.

Through most of the years which followed, Maddow reported on a range of serious topics. For our money, her playlist was a bit selective, but that problem is hard to avoid for any individual person, even one with a staff.

Among a range of topics, Maddow reported on abortion rights, on same-sex marriage, and on voting rights. A savvy viewer certainly had to fact-check everything Maddow said. But in those days, a viewer had a shot at learning things from watching Maddow's program.

In calendar year 2015, her program fell apart. At least by early May, Maddow's program had become a silly and ludicrous clown car.

In retrospect, it's reasonable to assume that MSNBC's decision to brand itself "The Place for Politics" played a role in the shift in Maddow's subject matter. As for the horrific increase in mugging and clowning and the turn to propaganda, we'll offer a total speculation. It will go something like this:

In August 2014, Bill Wolff left MSNBC to take control at (sigh) The View.

Wolff had no background in news when he came to MSNBC, where he we named executive producer of the Maddow Show; his background was in sports shout programs and in comedy. That said, Wolff seemed to provide an adult presence at the Maddow Show, where he was highly visible, both on line and on the air.

Here's our speculation:

Wolff may have provided the last bit of adult supervision for the Maddow Show's rather juvenile host. At this point, there is no visible journalistic supervision of Maddow's increasingly horrible work. There is no brake on her endless mugging, clowning and self-involvement.

At least by early May of last year, Maddow's coverage of the White House campaign was ubiquitous and remarkably inane. It was also highly propagandistic.

Other topics went under the bus as Maddow followed her bosses' direction, making her show the place for a type of brain-damaged, low-IQ "politics." We've discussed the inanity of her past year in endless detail at this site. We've also discussed an increasingly obvious fact:

Given Our Own Team's tribal vision, most of us liberals are unable to see how horrible Maddow's work is.

Maddow has become a cable news clown; her program is a clown car. When she does pretend to cover real topics, her coverage tends to be a silly, clownish disgrace.

We'd cite her pseudo-coverage of what happened in Flint as a shameless, disgraceful example. Her pseudo-coverage of Flint has been the latest silly game she has played at her viewers' expense.

That said, her shameless conduct is endlessly designed to please the tastes of us liberals. Apparently, we think her mugging and clowning are funny. Apparently, we're unable to see how much she distorts the "news."

It seems fairly clear that MSNBC, a corporate enterprise, performs no journalistic supervision of Maddow's gruesome program. That state of affairs is unlikely to change.

That said, as we close this week's report, we'll ask a slightly different question. We'll ask if the suits in question should be concerned about Maddow's increasingly peculiar conduct.

Back in March 2012, Maddow spoke at length to NPR's Terry Gross about a condition she described as "cyclical depression." This led to a profile in Rolling Stone which appeared beneath these headlines:

Rachel Maddow's Quiet War
America's leading lefty wonk has seen the enemy, and it's not just the GOP—it's the battles she fights every day with herself

The battle to which the headline referred was her battle with depression.

In the Rolling Stone profile, Ben Wallace-Wells severely distorted a recent episode in which Maddow had been much less than obsessively honest. With his requisite dissembling done, he then offered this capsule account of Maddow's battle, which she says she's been conducting since she was 12 or 13:

WALLACE-WELLS (6/27/12): Maddow suffers, she says, from "cyclical" depression. "One of the manifestations of depression for me is that I lose my will. And I thereby lose my ability to focus. I don't think I'll ever have the day-to-day consistency in my performance that something like This American Life has. If I'm not depressed and I'm on and I can focus and I can think through something hard and without interruption and without existential emptiness that comes from depression, that gives me–not mania. But I exalt. I exalt in not being depressed."

Over dinner, Maddow keeps talking about her career as if its end might be imminent. She says she sometimes thinks, "This show could be the last one I ever do." I ask her why that anxiety seems so present for her. What would she be losing if she lost her show? Her response is immediate. "My freedom," she says.

Maddow is tremendously skilled at getting liberals to praise her for her greatness. In this case, she was praised for her courage and, of course, for her candor.

No one explained how they knew that Maddow was being candid. This is the way the game is played, even Over Here in our own admittedly brilliant tribe.

That said:

As everyone knows, depression is a horrible condition. No one should have to suffer its effects.

Maddow seemed to describe a type of depression which trades off with bouts of mania or perhaps what she called exaltation. In an ideal world, no one would have to endure that.

"Cyclical depression" doesn't seem to be a widely-used technical term. Whatever you want to call the syndrome she has described, no one should have to suffer such effects.

That said, we keep getting the impression we've seen a lot of mania/elation/exaltation on Maddow's face over the course of the past year. We keep wondering if there's anyone at her sleazy corporate channel who has noticed her somewhat peculiar elated appearance, or if any such people would care if they ever did think they saw some such thing.

Maddow is a money-making major TV star. The history here is very clear. The suits will ride such profit centers until the horses break down.

They did it with Judy Garland, then they did it with Elvis. It has happened a million times since then.

Journalistically, Maddow's program has become a clown car, a joke—a journalistic disgrace. Journalistically, Rachel Maddow needs a ton of help.

That said, is Maddow completely healthy and well? Watching her program, we don't feel real sure.

Given the business she's chosen, we're not sure her owners will care.

Moral self-assurance watch: The public says it isn't Trump's fault!

THURSDAY, MARCH 24, 2016

We think of Sierra Thomas: At Vox, someone commissioned a survey about the violence at Trump events.

Vox's report about its survey was done by a scribe in her first year out of college. Presumably, that's good for Ezra's bottom line. But her report about Vox's survey is very poorly reasoned.

For that reason, we'll start with Kevin Drum's account, which brings the eternal note of sadness in. Who does the public blame for the violence at Trump's events?

According to the survey by Vox, the public doesn't blame Trump:

DRUM (3/24/16): A few days ago I suggested that a key question about the protests at Trump rallies was who the public blamed for the violence. Well, Vox conducted a survey recently asking exactly that, and it turns out that Trump is winning that contest too. Overall, respondents thought that protesters were responsible for the violence in Chicago by a margin of 54-28 percent.

That's a pretty big margin.

[...]

Bottom line: Only committed partisans and (barely) young voters are taking the protesters' side on this. Seems like maybe they need a new strategy.

So you'll know, here's the question to which respondents responded, along with the possible answers from which respondents chose:

The survey question from Vox:
As you may know, Donald Trump recently cancelled a campaign event in Chicago, Illinois, after hundreds of protesters showed up at the event. After the event was cancelled, several fights broke out between protesters and Trump supporters. Which of the following comes closest to your opinion, even if neither is exactly right?

Protestors were responsible for the violence. If they wanted to protest peacefully, they should have done so outside rather than provoking Trump supporters.

Protestors were NOT responsible for the violence. They should not be punished for exercising their right to protest.

Don’t Know / No Opinion

Respondents favored "protesters were responsible," 54-28. Drum offers a chart which breaks it down demographically. For what it's worth, 37 percent of Democrats favored that naughty response.

Why did people respond that way? We can't answer that.

The question asserts that protesters "provoked Trump supporters" in some way. As with the hapless report by the youthful Vox scribe, it doesn't seem like the world's most skillfully crafted question.

Still and all, this brings us back to a basic political problem. Increasingly, we the liberals are turning our political movements over to very young, highly inexperienced people.

Such people will often have poor political judgment. This doesn't mean that they're bad people. It means that they're young and inexperienced. It also means this:

Most people have no particular skill as political strategists!

The civil rights movement lay in the hands of people who were morally and intellectually brilliant. Some of these people became world famous. Most of these people remain unknown.

There is zero reason to think that leaders of today's youth movements will show comparable brilliance in their political judgments. This brings us back to Sierra Thomas, the 21-year-old college student who wrote this piece in the Washington Post's Outlook section last Sunday.

This country is full of terrific young people. It sounds to us like Thomas is one of those people.

That doesn't mean she has good political judgment, or access to wise leadership. This is what she says she did after she decided she had to respond to Trump:

THOMAS (3/20/16): I knew I had to do something. I couldn’t just sit and watch someone who is trying to be our president incite violence. I could not let the progress people have made in learning to love and accept one another go to waste. Trump is playing on the emotions and fears of this country to serve himself. His defenders say his campaign has nothing to do with racism, but what I saw and heard in Fayetteville—and what’s happened at other events—prove they’re wrong.

[...]

I grew increasingly upset, frustrated and appalled. I decided at that very moment that I would protest at the nearest and soonest rally. I went to Trump’s website and saw that there would be one in Fayetteville the following week. I ordered a ticket.

I looked all over Facebook for protest groups that would be attending the rally and came across a post by a man named Jonathan Talley, who wrote about needing more protesters. He already had more than 100, though, and since this was my first time protesting, I felt safer knowing I’d have people there backing me up. I was a little nervous, because my parents didn’t want me to go. They made sure I was well aware of the danger and the consequences I might face. But I was determined not to let fear stop change, and knowing that I’d have people supporting me throughout the whole thing gave me courage.

Sierra Thomas turned to a leader you've never heard of. There may be a very good reason for that. He seems to have zero track record, at least as far as can be learned from a search of the web.

Talley may be a great person too. Once again, that doesn't mean he has sound political judgment.

The "protesters" at Trump's events have been getting a major break from the press. The fact that they keep interrupting/disrupting his speeches has been widely obscured and disappeared by many major orgs.

Still, the word does get around–and on the whole, people don't like the idea of people disrupting speeches. People who are 21 may or may not know this.

Sierra Thomas went to the rally. Here's part of what she described:

THOMAS: The organizers’ plan was for demonstrators to go into the event separately and sit by ourselves, so we wouldn’t attract attention and could pop up at different times to interrupt Trump. I walked inside and made small talk with the people sitting next to me, even though almost every second sitting there waiting was a challenge. They were very friendly, up until the moment I started protesting. Throughout the afternoon, I was texting with Talley, and he helped me calm down and stay strong, saying, “Don’t let them shake you, and don’t be scared.”

Everyone was very friendly! Then she stood up, interrupted their event, and began to yell at them.

In her own words, she did this because "I could not let the progress people have made in learning to love and accept one another go to waste." People, we're just saying!

We're so old that we can recall when another generation of self-assured youth helped put Nixon and Reagan in place. Dr. King and Mrs. Parks and them were morally and intellectually brilliant. They routinely displayed brilliant judgment.

Most of us lack their astonishing brilliance. It's helpful when we lesser beings understand such facts.

Clarity watch: A pair of basic questions from Flint!

THURSDAY, MARCH 24, 2016

The New York Times runs them together: Many, many questions remain about what happened at Flint.

Beyond that, a wide range of questions have gone unexplored about lead exposure in other locations.

The truth is, no one at our big news orgs actually cares about any of this. They've gone through the motions concerning Flint and concerning lead exposure.

As with almost everything else, the basic reporting is very poor. Consider an apparent conflation performed today by the New York Times' Julie Bosman.

In a front-page news report, Bosman described the final report by Michigan's task force on Flint. In the highlighted passage, she seems to run two separate questions together:

BOSMAN (3/24/16): The 116-page report faulted local Flint officials and an overly deferential federal Environmental Protection Agency, and concluded that the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, the state agency responsible for monitoring the water supply, had “primary responsibility for the water contamination in Flint.” That agency, it said, “caused this crisis to happen.”

[...]

The report said that ineptitude and inadequate systems in the state’s health department had “prolonged the Flint water crisis.” And it concluded that the emergency managers whose decisions led to the contamination also bore responsibility for the tainted water supply.

“Emergency managers, not locally elected officials, made the decision to switch to the Flint River as Flint’s primary water supply source,” the report said.

The decision to switch the water source—and the failure to add crucial chemicals to the city water supply to block pipe corrosion, the source of the water’s lead contamination—was made in an attempt to save money, the report says. And it warned that emergency managers, who are usually appointed to deal with governments that are in dire financial crisis, as was the case in Flint, were not equipped to handle health and environmental issues, which demand a special expertise.

In the highlighted passage, Bosman seems to run two separate questions together. She seems to criticize "the decision to switch [on a temporary basis] to the Flint River as Flint’s primary water supply source," along with "the failure to add crucial chemicals to the city water supply to block pipe corrosion."

As far as we know, those are entirely separate questions. Let's start with a basic question we've never seen anyone answer:

Was anything intrinsically wrong with the decision to use the Flint River as Flint's primary water source on a temporary basis?

As far as we know, the answer to that question is no. As far as we know, if the water had been treated correctly, major problems would not have arisen.

That said, we've never seen anyone address that question directly. Our big news orgs simply don't care about such basic matters. Concerning Flint, our big orgs have gone through the motions.

As far as we know, the decision to use the Flint River wasn't wrong on its face. On the other hand, consider that second question:

Was something intrinsically wrong with the failure to apply corrosion controls?

As far as we know, the answer to that question is flatly and plainly yes. As far as we know, it was the failure to treat the water which caused this mess, not the initial decision to use the river.

Are we right in that understanding? We aren't completely sure. At the New York Times, they assign people like Bosman to handle the case. She seems to run these questions together.

From this morning's headline on down, the New York Times mainly seems interested in discussing "environmental justice." At the Times, the basic facts can go hang.

At an org like the Maddow Show, questions like these are ignored altogether. From the start, Maddow has used these events as a way to fashion a childish demonological tale about one of her favorite villains. She has made zero attempt to clarify any basic questions at all, whether about what happened in Flint or about wider lead issues.

Rachel Maddow shows no sign of caring about any of that.

As our culture awaits the sea, our journalists simply aren't very sharp, and they don't especially care. Whenever we read that everyone was exposed to lead back in the day, we think about the miserable work performed by these strangely flawed people.

AT MADDOW SHOW, IT'S TIME FOR A CHANGE: Troubled star airs salacious tape!

THURSDAY, MARCH 24, 2016

Interlude–Maddow's "huge national news:" Unfortunately, there has been no lack of major news this week.

We refer to events in Brussels, which bring major questions about security and international relations back center stage.

The week has also featured President Obama's historic visit to Cuba, then to Argentina. Also, three states held primaries or caucuses Tuesday night.

Because Rachel Maddow's self-ballyhooed heart aches for the children and adults of Flint, yesterday produced one more piece of big news.

As Kevin Drum somehow managed to learn, "a task force appointed by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has issued its final report on the Flint water crisis." They did so yesterday.

For Drum's quick summary of the detailed report and its 36 findings, you can just click here. For a full news report from the front page of today's New York Times, you can click this.

Because of Maddow's self-ballyhooed heart, we assumed that she would discuss the report on last night's Maddow Show.

Many questions remain to be answered and clarified concerning the events which transpired in Flint, and about concomitant issues concerning lead exposure.

Maddow has never mentioned those concomitant issues, preferring to let children in other cities twist in the wind as she dumbs liberal viewers down. That said, we did assume that she would discuss the thirty-six findings in the report about Flint.

As it turned out, Maddow had bigger catfish to fry–catfish which were bigger than Brussels and Flint. Maddow had a salacious sex tape which she forced herself to air.

It was "huge national news," she said. She used it to burn about two-thirds of her broadcast minutes last night–a night in which, once again, she never mentioned Flint.

Out here in the actual world, where everyone isn't a nine-year-old child, how huge was Maddow's "huge national news?" To appearances, not all that huge:

According to Nexis, the Washington Post doesn't mention the huge national news in today's hard-copy editions.

As of 9 AM Eastern, we couldn't find a mention of the huge national news as we scrolled back through the posts at Slate. We couldn't even find a mention at the new Salon.

The New York Times did report the huge national news in this morning's editions. The news report by Alan Blinder appears across the bottom of page A15, the first page of the paper's National section.

By way of contrast, Flint and two other national topics are reported on the Times' front page. In the judgment of the Times, the huge national news to which Maddow devoted the bulk of her program was, at best, the sixth biggest national story of the day.

To what "huge national news" did Maddow devote her program last night? The topic burned her first three segments and roughly two-thirds of her total minutes.

To what huge news did this peculiar anchor turn? This is the news to which she turned:

Alabama's governor, Robert Bentley, may have had an affair! To use the vaguely prurient term of the multimillionaire known as "The Nun," he may have "shtupped" someone!

Please understand! Bentley is one of The Nun's favorite targets, like Governor Snyder before him. Also note this:

Because the report of the Flint task force apportions blame for this mess rather widely, it doesn't help someone who has told the story of this mess with all the nuance one expects from a rather slow 9-year-old child.

Maddow's mental age is roughly 9 when it comes to matters like these. She has played the mess in Flint that way from its very inception. Yesterday, her 9-year-old mind told her to focus attention on the latest troubling fact–the fact that Governor Bentley, who she also despises, actually may have been "shtupping" someone.

Someone who isn't his wife! "His wife of fifty years!"

For the record, Bentley says he has never "shtupped" the person in question. Maddow, though, was especially drawn to the existence of "SALACIOUS AUDIO"–a salacious audiotape.

We know the AUDIO is SALACIOUS because Maddow, or her ridiculous staff, explicitly told us it is. To set the scene for that revelation, consider the way Maddow opened last night's third segment.

Maddow had already devoted two segments to the huge national news. As she neared the point where she would have to air the tape, she warned her viewers to cover the ears of their children. You might even say she gave a salacious warning:

MADDOW (3/23/16): Attention to anyone watching with your kids right now, or watching with anyone who is easily embarrassed by things of a sexual nature. I'm hereby letting you know, you've got a few seconds to be really distracting before something of a more sexual nature than we would usually play on this show is about to be played on this show.

And the reason–

We don't take a decision like this lightly. We don't do this just for prurient entertainment. The reason we are going to play this in just a second is because it is legitimately newsworthy.

[...]

It quickly became clear at today's press conference that at least some Alabama reporters who had been covering this scandal didn't seem to buy the governor's denial that he never had a physical affair, or at least it seems like they thought they might have evidence to the contrary.

And that has now led to a remarkable decision by the Birmingham News and Alabamalive.com to publish, post online tonight, what they say is a portion of an audiotape in question in this case. It's an audiotape which reportedly captures Governor Bentley speaking in explicit terms with the staffer in question.

So, now it's time to cover the kids' ears. OK? OK.

As Maddow waited for the audiotape to play, she ostentatiously shut her own eyes tight, pretending that she is one of the children who need this sort of protection. That said, she has been playing this silly faux game all the way back to 2009, when she complained, night after night, as guest star Ana Marie Cox dropped dick jokes on the teabaggers' heads, night after night for two weeks.

The Nun has always pretended that she hates all the talk about shtupping. In this instance, she scrunched her eyes shut tight, bracing herself for what was to come.

Several minutes of audiotape followed. And good lord! In a deeply, profoundly, pathetic act, Maddow's staff posted a chyron which pathetically said this:

SALACIOUS AUDIO OF ALABAMA GOV & FMR. ADVISER

It was salacious audio! We knew that because The Nun said!

(We're not sure why the chyron referred to a "fmr." adviser. As far as we know, the person in question is still a Bentley aide. The apparent error has been fixed online.)

Citizens, do you want the truth? If you want the truth, that audiotape just isn't all that salacious.

It does seem possible that Governor Bentley has had an affair with the person in question. At a press conference yesterday, he said he hasn't had an affair ("a physical relationship").

It's possible that his statement was false. It's possible that it was true.

Today, we're asking you to consider the shape of our floundering world. We're asking you to consider a world in which a "corporate liberal" cable star devoted two-thirds of her program to the deeply troubling events which surround that SALACIOUS AUDIO.

We're asking you to consider a world in which that person's news judgment plays a key role within our liberal world.

To Maddow, it was "huge national news" that Governor Bentley may have "shtupped" someone. The news was so huge that she totally skipped that detailed report from Flint.

Remember when Flint was huge national news? We're so old that we can remember when The Nun was saying that!

Tomorrow, we'll return to our original intended question:

Is it possible that something is "wrong" at the Maddow program? Could it be that the program's host needs and deserves some help?

Increasingly, her performance on her eponymous show resembles that of a clown. Unfortunately, we live in a world where we liberals are too clueless to notice such things and our big major news orgs don't care.

For years, we the liberals have happily said that The Others are hopelessly dumb. Occasionally, it almost seems to us that the dumbness has spread Over Here.

Tomorrow: Everyone on the face of the earth needs and deserves some help

Your route to salacious viewing: To watch the first segment from last night's show, you can just click this. That segment runs 19:09.

For Maddow's third segment, just click here. That's the segment with the SALACIOUS AUDIO. The segment runs 9:08.

Between those segments, Maddow aired a shorter segment in praise of local news orgs which break huge national stories like this. (The Maddow Show hasn't posted that tape.)

Maddow is extremely good at building lofty, high-minded frameworks in support of her weird instincts and judgments. Routinely, we the liberals have perhaps been too trusting to wonder about these frames.

Campaign watch: Rutenberg hammers CNN!

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23, 2016

Whitewashes his own New York Times: A new era began in Monday's New York Times.

Jim Rutenberg began his reign as the paper's new "media columnist," filling the chair which was once held by the late David Carr.

Rutenberg started his reign exactly where he should have. His inaugural column carried this headline:

"The Mutual Dependence of Donald Trump and the News Media"

Rutenberg devoted almost 1700 words to that important topic. In the process, he presented some valuable information. He also showed the ridiculous way players like him play the game.

Rutenberg presented punishing information about broadcast and cable TV. Why does a fellow like Anderson Cooper keep rolling over for Candidate Trump? After noting the way Fox News has improved its prime time ratings this year, Rutenberg eviscerates the pool boy's competing channel, which has scored much larger gains.

What's going on at CNN? Cover the children's eyes:

RUTENBERG (3/21/16): CNN entered the campaign season in a very different position. Some 18 months ago Wall Street analysts were questioning whether the network, then sinking near 20-year ratings lows, had a place in the new ecosystem of ''unlimited real-time information,'' as my colleague Emily Steel wrote at the time. With CNN's debates and heavy coverage of Mr. Trump, the network's ratings have increased about 170 percent in prime time this year.

That's more than a reason to boast; it's an adrenaline shot to the heart.

Understandably, Jeff Zucker, the president of CNN Worldwide, was beaming when I saw him at a lunch with other reporters last week. ''These numbers are crazy–crazy,'' he said, referring to the ratings. How crazy? Two-hundred-thousand-dollars-per-30-second-spot crazy on debate nights, 40 times what CNN makes on an average night, according to Advertising Age. That's found money.

It certainly has to take the sting out of the criticism that CNN has handed its schedule over to Mr. Trump, which is a little unfair in that it is hardly alone...

Why has the horrible Anderson Cooper been serving as number-one pool boy for Trump? Those numbers about CNN's ratings and giant ad prices tell a remarkable story. In all likelihood, President Zucker's excited remarks explain a great many things.

Rutenberg pounds away at TV news orgs. That said, he only critiques the amount of time they devote to Trump. Even Rutenberg won't discuss the way players like Cooper roll over for Trump during those hour-long "interviews" which mainly serve as a chance for Trump to recite all his favorite ramblings.

Dearest darlings, it just isn't done! Within the guild, naming the names of the big major stars is considered a very rude play.

Meanwhile, Rutenberg almost completely forgets to discuss the role of our major newspapers like, for example, a certain newspaper called the New York Times.

Rutenberg's lengthy column includes some 34 paragraphs. He doesn't focus on the role of newspapers until he hits paragraph 32.

People, that's very close to the end! This piddle was all he could manage:

RUTENBERG: None of this is meant to let newspapers off the hook. In our rush to find new digital readers via iPhones and tablets, we are adding to the Trumpian churn. When Mr. Trump called Ms. Kelly ''Crazy Megyn'' on Twitter last week, for instance, it was just another in a long stream of derogatory posts about her. Not really news. Yet The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico and others did separate news reports on it–giving Mr. Trump an audience well beyond his own seven million Twitter followers and contributing to what ultimately became Friday night's big fight. (Even Mr. Trump believes it is ''the craziest thing'' how ''I do a tweet on something, something not even significant, and they break into their news within seconds,'' he told my colleague Maureen Dowd last week.)

"None of this is meant to let newspapers off the hook," the media columnist writes. He writes this after 31 paragraphs devoted to doing just that!

Rutenberg deploys a powderpuff with which to challenge his own branch of the press. As we've been telling you since the last century, this is the way these less-than-obsessively-honest people always play this game.

Rutenberg, the new media columnist, couldn't seem to find much wrong with the work of our major newspapers. The next day, in a Q-and-A with Slate, Daniel Okrent followed Anderson Cooper down, playing pool boy for the Times.

For background, see yesterday's report.

Inside the mahoganied walls which produces these journalistic scams, no one seems to be able to say how the Times should be covering Trump. When Okrent was asked a similar question, he couldn't seem to think of a single thing to say.

Incomparably, we can! In deference to Rutenberg's slippery first piece, we'll postpone those thoughts till tomorrow.

AT MADDOW SHOW, IT'S TIME FOR A CHANGE: Stop Rachel Maddow before she poofs more!

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23, 2016

Part 3–A low-IQ night in the life: Last Tuesday evening, Rachel Maddow joined Brian Williams for many long hours of babble.

In the current election season, the peculiar pair serve as co-hosts for MSNBC's "campaign coverage." Last Tuesday, they anchored the channel's endless, time-killing treatment of that day's primaries and caucuses.

There was no Maddow Show that night. The next evening, the increasingly peculiar show returned to the air with a wide array of peculiar reports by its host.

When the Maddow Show resumed last Wednesday night, it had an array of news events on which it could have reported. That Tuesday, to cite one example, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee had held its second hearing on the lead-in-water mess in Flint. The committee heard testimony that day from four major players:

Susan Hedman, the EPA official who resigned in the wake of the rolling mess in Flint;

Darnell Earley, the former emergency manager of Flint, an appointee of Governor Snyder;

Dayne Walling, the former mayor of Flint, who served in that post until late last year;

Professor Marc Edwards, the Virginia Tech water expert who played a key role in bringing the mess in Flint to light. As we noted yesterday, he savaged the EPA for its alleged role in Flint.

Last Wednesday, another important event occurred. President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to serve on the Supreme Court. Especially given Maddow's focus on Flint, her show had a lot of reportin' to do when it returned to the air Wednesday night.

What viewers actually saw that night was the program's standard array of silly, ridiculous segments.

How silly, how self-indulgent, does Maddow's "reporting" now get? Last Wednesday, Maddow never mentioned the congressional hearing on Flint which had occurred the previous day. Midway through her peculiar broadcast, she did find time for this complete, short segment which, like so many of her segments, was All About Herself:

MADDOW (3/16/16): I'm a crier. Movies. Music. Particularly live music.

Good commercials. Bad commercials. Well-crafted tweet. Doesn't really matter.

If it works, it works. I have leaky waterworks. I cry all the time.

And so, as a crier, I'm more than sympathetic, I am empathetic about crying in public. Even by elected officials, even by sports hero–by anyone, particularly when it is tears of joy, right?

You know, years of hard work, hoping and planning, it all pays off. There's that release. There's that rush of emotion.

Today, we got one of those moments in an unexpected context. And for criers everywhere, I think I can say that that is a good thing in and of itself.

But that story is next. Stay with us.

"I cry all the time," Maddow said, sharing another secret concerning her special existence.

There's always time on this ridiculous show for Maddow to tell us about herself, thus helping us learn to adore her more completely. This Monday, she built a whole segment around another self-indulgent theme, in which she let the "Maddowsketeers" contemplate the specialness of their club's Dear Leader.

Rachel Maddow is a crier. Also, she loves coffee:

MADDOW (3/21/16): I love coffee. I drink way too much coffeecanyoutell?

[Cleverly talks too fast]

Every sip of even bad coffee, like truck stop coffee, makes me marginally more happy than before I took that sip. I love coffee.

That said, coffee feels terrible when it comes up the other way, like when it comes flying out of your nose and splatters over the new iPad of which you're reading the Sunday edition of the New York Times.

Like, for example, when you're reading this story. Headline, "Republican leaders map strategy to derail Donald Trump."

Oh! Really! Sip!

At last! Sip!

What is this strategy? Sip!

What will they do?

They are, quote, "preparing a 100-day campaign to deny him the presidential nomination starting with an aggressive battle in Wisconsin's April 5th primary." Starting April 5th?

Aaaaarrrh! Ha ha ha ha!

[Pantomimes spitting coffee all over new iPad]

Maddow went on to misinterpret a major part of the Times report which had produced this wonderfully entertaining reaction. Entertainingly, she extended the sipping-my-coffee theme all through the segment's clowncar performance.

Maddow entertained us rubes all through this Monday's "news show." Earlier in the show, Maddow pretended that she was doing the drumming when NBC's election night theme music played.

"If I don't do that, the symphony doesn't sound quite right," the childish multimillionaire childishly said.

("I I I I I I I," the analysts shouted in protest.)

At the start and end of another short segment on Monday night, Maddow performed a series of giant, Sarah Palin-style winks as she referred to the size of Donald Trump's hands. The mugging and clowning never end when this giant corporate clown gets behind the wheel of her car, calling attention to her wonderful skills and sharing the pointless details of her pointless, peculiar life.

Let's return to last Wednesday night, the evening after the hearing on Flint:

On Wednesday evening, March 16, we got to hear that Maddow's a crier. We didn't hear a single word about that hearing on Flint.

That said, Maddow's soliloquy about her tears wasn't her only time-wasting drivel. Released from the need to play the grown-up when perched beside the rehabbed Williams, she returned to the role of Peter Pan, clowning and offering silly analyses all through her sillybill program.

She opened one ridiculous segment that night by saying this:

MADDOW: OK, this is a little bit of a doozy and you will not see this elsewhere.

You won't see this anywhere else? "There may be a very good reason for that," the analysts pitifully cried.

Believe it or not, the segment Maddow started that way concerned the selection of delegates to the Republican convention from the U.S. Virgin Islands. Why did Maddow devote a full segment to this particular doozy?

Rather plainly, because the potential delegate in question, an insignificant player named John Yob, got punched or shoved or whacked on or near the jaw last fall, when he was working for Candidate Rubio.

It was utterly pointless then; it's massively more pointless today. That said, let's let our caffeinated town crier explain it:

MADDOW (3/16/16): OK, this is a little bit of a doozy and you will not see this elsewhere.

But before we have to start covering fistfights and soccer punches and kick-the-protester scrums at Donald Trump political events, back before Donald Trump made national presidential politics look like this in our country, it used to be a rare thing to see a punch thrown in major party national politics. It used to be really rare. It used to be newsworthy when there was a small punch, a shove even within the context of presidential campaigning.

But that is what happened last year when Marco Rubio's deputy campaign manager got into a little physical skirmish at a Republican conference in Michigan. This happened in September. A bunch of the Republican candidates and their campaign staffs were all hanging out on Mackinaw Island in my favorite state of Michigan and something went wrong in a bar.

And you can see here on this tape that we've looped here that one of these staffers landed a punch or shove or some kind a whack on or near the jaw line of another guy who was attending that conference, so, you know, it's exciting. Bar fight or bar punch or bar shove, or not that much of anything. But this happened.

"We've looped here that one of these staffers landed a punch or shove or some kind a whack on or near the jaw line of another guy who was attending that conference?"

Truer words were never spoken! Maddow kept playing the tape of that punch, shove or whack; we stopped counting after nineteen replays. "So, you know, it's exciting!"

This absolute nonsense triggered an entire segment about the possible selection of one delegate from the Virgin Islands. The hearing on Flint was never mentioned. We were drip-fed that doozy instead.

Maddow's conduct was ridiculous all through the evening. In fairness, she did two segments about Obama's selection of Garland, though the segments produced little of value.

One segment ended with Maddow weirdly predicting "such an unbelievable moment in Democratic politics" if Obama refuses to withdraw the nomination after a Clinton win this fall. The other segment ended no better, with Maddow offering a long set of speculations about Obama's motives in picking Garland.

"That said, I'm completely making that up," she laughingly said as she ended her silly rumination.

"We noticed," the analysts said.

Maddow never mentioned the previous day's hearing on Flint, at which major players had testified. Instead, she performed a snarky segment about the way to spell the name of Michigan's lieutenant governor, who will replace Governor Snyder if Snyder is recalled or decides to resigns.

"By the way, the lieutenant governor's name is Brian Calley, C-A-L-L-E-Y," she snarkily said at the end of the segment. "Everybody's learning to spell it now. C-A-L-L-E-Y."

Maddow invited viewers to watch Thursday's hearing on Flint. She never mentioned the hearing which had occurred that Tuesday.

Rachel Maddow tends to mug and clown all through her nightly program. We learn about her crying and her love for coffee. We learn about the fish she catches. We learn that she has a new iPad.

Increasingly, though, Maddow's highly peculiar show has become an entertainment/propaganda blend. In our view, her conduct is an open insult to her viewers. Consider the way the she opened last Wednesday night's program.

We tuned in hoping to see a segment about the hearing on Flint. Instead, she opened with her favorite vaudeville routine. The very peculiar star of the show "poofed" all the Republican hopefuls again!

If you want to see the way "poofing" is done, you can just click here.

[Warning: Probable IQ loss.]

Maddow never mentioned the previous day's hearing about what happened in Flint. As part of the deal you get when you join The Maddow Club, she was never going to tell you about the scathing critique Professor Edwards had aimed at the EPA. As liberals, you just shouldn't hear that!

If you become a Maddowsketeer, the EPA is part of your club. GOP candidates are not. As part of the package, the very peculiar host of your club pleasures you and your low IQ with insulting nonsense like that shown below.

This is how last Wednesday's program began. To enjoy the fun which comes with each poof, you can watch this insulting segment:

MADDOW (3/16/16): Good evening, Chris. And thanks, my friend. And thanks to you at home for joining us this hour.

We knew this day would come. We did not know exactly when. As recently as yesterday there are people paid to talk for a living who were assuring us that this day would definitely not come today.

But it's come today. The time has, in fact, arrived. And my friends, we must now gather together to poof Marco Rubio.

We started with 17. Seventeen! Seventeen people all got in over the course of last spring and summer. Nobody got out until September 11th, when the first one we got to poof was–

Rick Perry.

[Perry again gets poofed]

Ten days later, we got to poof–

Scott Walker.

[Walker again gets poofed]

Then we went almost another two months without being able to poof anyone until finally:

Buh-bye, Bobby Jindal.

[Jindal again gets poofed]

A month after that, right before Christmas, we got to poof Lindsey Graham.

Poof.

[Graham again gets poofed]

And then between Christmas and New Year's, we were supposed to poof George Pataki. But it was between Christmas and New Year's, there was a lot of other stuff going on, and it was George Pataki. And honestly, we kind of forgot to poof him.

But Governor Pataki, we owe it to you.

[Snaps fingers]

Poof. December 29th.

[Pataki gets poofed again]

Then after Iowa, at the start of February, in quick succession we got to poof Mike Huckabee.

Rand Paul.

Rick Santorum.

[The three get poofed again]

A week and a half after New Hampshire, it was a conflagration of poofing as we lost, in quick succession:

Chris Christie, poof. [snaps fingers]

{Christie gets poofed again]

Carly Fiorina, poof.

[Fiorina gets poofed again]

And Jim Gilmore, poof.

[Gilmore gets poofed again]

Then a week later, after South Carolina, the Bush family's long multigenerational winning streak ended in that state and we got to poof– [snaps fingers]

Jeb Bush.

[Bush gets poofed again]

And now, we've arrived in the month of March and the first week of March, we pulled a little bit of a Pataki on this show when I forgot to poof Ben Carson.

There was no real reason I forgot to poof Ben Carson. Every time I started thinking about it and working on that segment, I just got distracted, my mind wandered. It was totally on me.

Earlier this month, I forgot to poof Ben Carson when he quit on March 4th.

But he did quit. Poof.

[Carson gets poofed again]

And then we were down to four.

And so the field of candidates that was so giant to begin with, we've had to poof so many of these people over the past few months to get down to this little group we've got left.

You would think we'd be used to it and it wouldn't be a big deal anymore. But it always feels like a big deal when somebody drops out of the race. And now in particular, when you're down to this tiny number of people still left in the race, it is kind of dramatic to lose one.

It's also dramatic to lose people from the Republican race right now, to keep poofing people off what started as such a giant roster of candidates, because now we're starting to think seriously about the prospect that maybe the Republican Party will poof everybody off this list. That they will not just get down to one, they will get down to none.

I mean, it is a fairly open discussion in some Republican Party circles right now about whether the Republican Party will add a new potential nominee to the mix at their convention in Cleveland, somebody who's not been running in the race already for the past year.

[...]

I mean, maybe the Republican Party really well have ended up considering all 17 of their potential declared candidates this year and maybe they will reject all of them. But we're not there yet. And today, it really is a big deal for this epic race on the Republican side that it has now gone from four people to three people.

So, let's do it. Are you ready? Say it with me now.

Senator Rubio, three, two, one:

Poof.

[Rubio gets poofed for the first time]

For what it's worth, all these people, except Rubio, had been poofed at least one time before. Maddow had already re-poofed the whole list on her clownish February 12 show.

That said, it's one of her favorite vaudeville tricks. So instead of discussing what happened in Flint, she burned away the start of her show by poofing everybody again.

Is it true? Does it "always feels like a big deal when somebody drops out of the race?" Our corporate clown didn't poof Candidates O'Malley, Chaffee and Webb when they left the Democratic race. The Maddow Mouse Club is thoroughly tribal. When it comes to poofing, no Democrats need apply!

(So far, Maddow hasn't poofed Scalia. We won't be surprised if she does.)

Maddow mugs and clowns and discusses herself night after night, week after week. She pimps overt propaganda as she cavorts and plays.

Judged on a journalistic basis, Maddow is a corporate clown running a corporate gong-show. That said, her endless clowning and propaganda raise some basic questions.

Is there any journalistic supervision at her alleged "news channel?" What does it say about us the liberals that we put up with this Hannityesque, embarrassing low-IQ mess?

One more question comes to mind when we watch this peculiar clown perform. Is something "wrong" with Rachel Maddow, the clown at the wheel of this embarrassing car?

More and more, we wonder if the answer is yes. Her behavior is strange and she doesn't look right.

More on this question tomorrow.

Tomorrow: Journalistic disgrace to the side, should people be concerned?

Campaign watch: Concerning today's events in Brussels!

TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 2016

The souls of the dead and of Us: The gruesome events in Brussels today brought a question to our minds.

We'll wait a day or three to explore it. The question involves the way we liberals are inclined to deploy our bombs when we discuss Those People, the nation's appalling Trump voters.

Eventually, our question will go something like this:

We won't be asking you a question about Candidate Trump. We won't be asking you to agree with one of his widely-discussed proposals, to the extent that the proposal in question is a proposal at all.

We'll be asking a different question. We'll be asking if you can imagine someone agreeing with that proposal without assuming that the person in question is a racist, bigot, xenophobe, nativist and of course an Islamophobe.

In short, can you imagine someone disagreeing with you about that proposal without assuming that the person is therefore evil, The Other?

Dating back into prehistory, we the humans are strongly inclined to loathe The Others. This ancient loathing started out as a survival skill.

Today, the impulse is much less helpful. That said, it seems to us that we modern "liberals" are equipped with a healthy dose of this ancient instinct.

That said:

In accord with pre-human laws of loathing, we liberals are often unable to see the fact that we do in fact loathe. According to those pre-human laws, it's always The Others who loathe.

By ancient, pre-human rule of law, there can be no loathing by Us. It seems to us that we modern liberals are possibly maybe caught in this trap and perhaps sometimes like it there.

Campaign watch: Okrent can't say how he'd cover Trump!

TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 2016

We're happy to say that we can: We're going to admit it. Of all the journalists in the past twenty years, Daniel Okrent, for some unknown reason, just may annoy us the most.

We have no idea why that is. We don't intend to defend that reaction. We offer it as an act of irrational full disclosure.

More than a decade ago, Okrent was the New York Times' very first public editor. For unknown reasons, Slate's Isaac Chotiner has interviewed him on the subject of the press corps' coverage of Candidate Trump.

Inevitably, Okrent is quite defensive concerning the high-end elite press. To our ear, he also doesn't exactly make sense. Below, you see the first Q-and-A, deathlessly posted in full:

CHOTINER (3/22/16): What has been your main takeaway from the media’s coverage of Trump thus far?

OKRENT: To the degree that I’ve been thinking about how the media covers Trump, it’s really thinking about the criticism of the media for giving Trump so much space and time. There was a piece in the New York Times that came up with kind of a bullshit figure of the value of the free time that he’s gotten as being over $1 billion dollars. It’s an interesting phenomenon to point out, but I wouldn’t criticize the media for it, as a lot of people are. They are saying, you know, “Why are you spending so much time on this guy when there are substantive issues to talk about?” Tell me when he has a rally and somebody gets punched in the face for protesting that we shouldn’t cover that. Every time there’s another explosion, I’m wondering, how could you not cover it? He’s making news. The news media are not making the news; he’s making the news.

Speaking of "bullshit," has the press been criticized for covering an incident where someone has been punched in the face?

TV news orgs have been widely criticized for broadcasting Trump events, from beginning to end, when absolutely nothing of interest is happening. To what extent have orgs been criticized for covering a Trump rally after some violent act has occurred?

Not a whole lot, we'll guess. Even that can be overdone, of course, as the press corps is happy to show us.

In reaction to that first question, Okrent leaped to defend the press. Four questions later, he was finally able to make himself say this:

CHOTINER: So has there been anything that’s worried you as a media watcher and critic?

OKRENT: Yeah. I think they have been giving him interviews where they are letting him off the hook way too easily and not pinning him down.

Interviewers are letting Trump off the hook "way too easily?" We agree with that completely! Still and all, would you mind riddling this? Why wouldn't that have been the obvious answer to the first question Chotiner asked?

In fairness, Okrent made some decent points along the way. He played Nestor to Chotiner's Diomedes as the youthful, impetuous scribe seemed to suggest that straight reporters should drop an array of name-calling bombs on the candidate's head.

Okrent talked the young scribe down on this point. But after that, he proceeded to fan on this ultimate softball question:

CHOTINER: If you were running a major news organization right now—

OKRENT: And thank God I’m not.

CHOTINER: Would you try to cover Trump differently?

OKRENT: I pretty much rely on the New York Times and online stuff from a variety of places. I have not been disappointed by the Times’ coverage, but I think at times it has been a little specious in terms of digging up things from Trump’s past. But the Times is specious like that about all political candidates, in terms of digging up stuff someone did as a teenager. Do you really need to tell me what he did in some negotiation in 1987? Or is that a waste of newsprint? I don’t know.

People, there he went again! Basically, Okrent wasn't able to say how he would improve the coverage of Candidate Trump.

(His one complaint about the way the Times has covered Trump? Good God! He says the Times has sometimes dug up "specious" stuff from the candidate's past! That's his one complaint!)

We're sure that Okrent is the world's nicest person. In our view, most people are.

That said, we're also inclined to say this: no one exudes the elite, Manhattan insider-y view quite the way Okrent does.

Chotiner asked Okrent to explain how he would improve the coverage of Trump. Essentially, "as a media watcher," Okrent had nothing to offer.

We knew what our reply would have been! Incomparably, in deathless prose, we'll name that tune tomorrow.

AT MADDOW SHOW, IT'S TIME FOR A CHANGE: Our Own Sean Hannity shields us again!

TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 2016

Part 2–What those Flint heroes have said: Last Thursday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held its third hearing on Flint.

That evening, Rachel Maddow presented a highly selective account of what occurred at that hearing Like one of Stalin's favorite photographers, she disappeared those parts of the hearing to which we, her liberal viewers, shouldn't be exposed.

Maddow's segment about the hearing consumed seven minutes and 45 seconds. It included almost three minutes of videotape in which Governor Snyder, Maddow's latest favorite demon, was pounded by Democrats Grisham and Cummings.

In this way, we liberals received good solid tribal pleasure. That said, the overall story gets worse:

The head of the EPA, Gina McCarthy, had testified alongside Snyder that day. Maddow never so much as mentioned her name during her segment about thehearing. In her brief acknowledgement that the EPA had been criticized that day, Maddow explained those criticisms as the latest Republican plot.

For details, see yesterday's report.

Uh-oh! In the course of the headlong decline of her enormously broken show, Rachel Maddow has become an overt propagandist. She sifts information for loyal viewers in the same way Hannity has always done over on Fox.

As she mugs and clowns and drums her desk and discussed trivia from her own life, she devotes herself to the task of dumbing her liberal viewers down. Rather plainly, it's time for a change at the TV show through which Maddow has become rich and famous.

What were we liberals protected from hearing on last Thursday night's show? In today's report, let's discuss the things you weren't told if you watched Maddow's program that night. While we're at it, let's mention the things you've never been told in the course of Maddow's ongoing "coverage" of the events in Flint.

Let's start with Rep. Cummings, the ranking Democrat on that House committee.

Last Thursday's hearing started with remarks by Rep. Chaffetz, the committee's Republican chairman. At that point, Cummings took his turn. Here's the first thing he said:

CUMMINGS (3/17/16): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I, too, agree that this is a tragic situation.

But let's be clear. This is not just on the EPA. It's much bigger than that. So I take a moment, first of all, to thank LeeAnne Walters, Professor Edwards and to the people of Flint, many of whom have come here today. They're lined all outside these walls, unable to get in, and probably feeling left out.

Troubled victims of Maddow's program will note, perhaps with alarm, that Cummings has already seemed to suggest that the EPA bears some culpability for what happened in Flint. It's a possibility they've never heard expressed on Maddow's ridiculous show, where Governor Snyder is a demon and the EPA, to the extent that it's mentioned at all, is largely fashioned as the good guy in her childish tale.

We've highlighted something else in Cummings' opening passage. In his very first remarks that day, Cummings thanked a pair of widely-hailed "heroes" who emerged from the mess in Flint.

LeeAnne Walters is the Flint resident/parent of four who first alerted the EPA to the apparent problem of lead in the city's water. To read an overview of her role, you can just click here.

Walters contacted the EPA. An EPA analyst who later claimed he was reprimanded by his superiors referred her to Professor Marc Edwards of Virginia Tech.

Operating on his own, Edwards brought a team of researchers to Flint to test the city's water. His testing revealed elevated levels of lead in the water entering Flint homes.

Walters and Edwards are universally hailed as "heroes" of the events in Flint. Last Thursday, Cummings thanked them for their presence at the committee's third hearing.

It was the first thing he said.

That said, how strange! LeeAnne Walters has never appeared on the Maddow Show. According to a Nexis search, her name has been uttered by Maddow just once. That occurred on February 3, in a brief account of Walters' testimony to that House committee that day.

LeeAnne Walters has never appeared on the Maddow Show. Last Thursday night, a voracious cable news viewer got a chance to see why.

Uh-oh! Last Thursday night, Walters appeared with the horrible Anderson Cooper on a competing "news channel." Asked about the EPA, Walters said the sorts of things you simply aren't allowed to hear on Maddow's corporate program.

So you'll know, the MDEQ is the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. That's the state agency which, by all accounts, bungled massively in the confusing chain of events which fouled the tap water of Flint:

COOPER (3/17/16): You confronted the EPA Chief Gina McCarthy today after the hearing. What did you want to hear from her, or hope to hear from her?

WALTERS: Well, I don't agree with the fact she would not take any responsibility on the EPA's shoulders today for what has transpired. I mean the MDEQ is primarily at fault for this, but EPA plays a part in it too and does share blame. And I actually confronted her face-to-face about some of her testimony, because what she was saying was a lie.

According to Walters, the MDEQ is primarily at fault for what happened at Flint. But she says the EPA bears blame too.

If you want to see what McCarthy's alleged "lie" was, you can peruse the CNN transcript. That said, comments like these are not allowed on Maddow's clownish program. Homey don't play it that way!

Walters committed a second heresy that night; we'll discuss that second disallowed view before the week is through. It should also be said that Walters is white, and Maddow has largely played the mess in Flint as a tribally pleasing racial story, thus adding to Snyder's villainy.

(In the 2010 census, Flint was 57% black, 37% white. In any way, does "race" explain Walters' absence from Maddow's program? We have no way of knowing that. If you think that couldn't be part of the story, we think you're being naive.)

Uh-oh! Walters criticized the EPA. She even said McCarthy's name, and that McCarthy had lied!

We can't tell you if that's a fair charge; very few facts about this mess have emerged from the nation's news orgs, including the indolent Maddow Show. But uh-oh! Professor Edwards, the second hero, had already appeared last Thursday night on the PBS NewsHour.

Edwards' remarks made LeeAnne Walters sound like an EPA spokesman.

Warning! You might want to send the kids from the room at this point. Professor Edwards has been in conflict with the EPA for years, in a variety of locales. As you're about to see, he is a virulent critic of the EPA's conduct.

There is no "medium cool" to Professor Edwards. Rightly or wrongly, he's one of the "hottest" experts you'll ever see on TV. We can't tell you if his various judgments are right, but we can assure you of this:

If Professor Edwards said things like this about Governor Snyder, he'd be Maddow's co-host by now. This is part of what he said on last Thursday's NewsHour:

WOODRUFF (3/17/16): Professor Marc Edwards, you were asked to go in and look at the Flint water situation, what, almost a year ago, by a family that lived there. What would you add to where the responsibility lies here?

EDWARDS: It's very clear that Governor Snyder was guilty of not listening to the complaints of residents of Flint and he was guilty of being overly trusting of both the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and the EPA, and he’s accepted that blame. I mean, he called it his Katrina. And he also now wants to be part of the solution.

But I think the thing that concerns me most is EPA's testimony, which I find to be outrageous and Orwellian.

WOODRUFF: In what way?

EDWARDS: Well, I mean for example, they said the EPA whistleblower’s memo that blew the lid off this back in July was inconclusive, when in fact it proved that the entire city was in danger.

[...]

And even more outrageous is, they have claimed that they warned Flint residents in July that the water was not safe to drink when in fact, when Virginia Tech, our team, tried to warn people in July, August, and September that the water was unsafe, we had to fight the EPA.

EPA said nothing to back us up. So they are a major part of what went wrong in Flint, and for them to sit there and act like they’ve done nothing went wrong is, again, outrageous and Orwellian.

WOODRUFF: Well, we should point out that we did invite the EPA to participate in the discussion tonight, to come on for an interview, and they declined our request.

Oof. Simply put, you aren't allowed to hear such things on the Maddow Show.

Is Edwards right about the EPA? We can't tell you that. That said, you might want to see what he told the House committee last Tuesday, when he testified during its second formal hearing.

Maddow never reported on last Tuesday's hearing at all. Imaginably, that may be because of Edwards' unacceptable comments.

Four people testified last Tuesday. That included Susan Hedman, the EPA official who resigned in January as a result of Flint.

Hedman read her opening statement. In his subsequent opening statement, Edwards referred to what Hedman had said.

Edwards is not an EPA fan. Here's part of what he said:

EDWARDS (3/15/16): After hearing the testimony of Susan Hedman this morning, I can't help but comment on the qualities that seem to be valued in administrators at the EPA.

Willful blindness, in this case to the pain and suffering of Flint residents. Unremorseful for their role in creating this man-made disaster. And completely unrepentant and unable to learn from their mistakes.

Ms. Hedman said EPA had nothing to do with creating Flint. EPA had everything to do with creating Flint. Malfeasance at the U.S. EPA from 2001 to the present has harmed cities all over the United States.

[...]

EPA, and other agencies, caused a similar lead in water crisis in Washington, D.C., from 2001 to 2004 that actually was twenty to thirty times worse in terms of the health harm to children in Washingon, D.C. And they completely covered that up for six years and wrote falsified scientific reports, and it created a climate in which "anything goes" across the United States, anything at all, to cover up health harm from lead in drinking water.

[...]

I was not surprised when Flint occurred. I was expecting a Flint to occur.

If a landlord were to engage in similar practices, and through their negligence to allow even a single child to be exposed to lead paint risk, the EPA would argue for prosecution and incarceration.

Yet EPA has allowed entire cities to be unnecessarily exposed to elevated lead in their drinking water, and they've covered up evidence of their unethical actions by authoring these falsified scientific reports...

Is Edwards right in what he says? We don't know how to answer that. But watching the Maddow Show means never having to worry or wonder about what these heroes have said.

Maddow completely ignored last Tuesday's hearing. That evening, her owners had her perched beside Brian Williams (what a pair!), offering hours of useless blather in the course of releasing ten minutes worth of election results.

Maddow adopts a grown-up pose when perched alongside Williams. On Wednesday night, she returned to her eponymous show and resumed her patented clowning.

Despite her vast concern about Flint, Maddow didn't mention Tuesday's hearing. Tomorrow, we'll show you the kinds of mugging and clowning with which she pleasured us liberals instead.

Except when it comes to hiding such news as might offend the true belief of a 9-year-old, Maddow's behavior on the air has become more and more erratic.

We think it's very much time for a change on her ridiculous TV show. On Thursday, we'll ask one final question:

Is it also possibly time to get her a bit of help?

Tomorrow: Last Wednesday's mugging and clowning

The statements you aren't allowed to see: When you're in Maddow's capable hands, you're never allowed to see or hear criticism of the EPA.

Walters has never appeared on the show. Edwards has never appeared for an interview. If you want to see what you're missing, just click here, then move ahead to the 49-minute mark.

You can see Edwards' five-minute opening statement from last Tuesday's hearing. Rightly or wrongly, he delivered a blistering, angry indictment of the EPA.

On the Maddow program, you're in the hands of Our Own Sean Hannity. She keeps you from seeing, or thinking about, such heretical incorrect work.

Epilogue: Einstein makes Einstein easy!

MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2016

Presenting next week's key text: Next Monday, we'll continue our examination of what we've called the "culture of incoherence." This award-winning course of study will be unfolding months.

Next week, we plan to move to Nova's recent hour-long broadcast, Inside Einstein's Mind. You can watch the program here.

The Nova program aired last November. It was timed to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of the general theory of relativity.

Whatever that is!

Nova is reputed to be one of our brightest news orgs. Was Nova able to make Einstein easy? How about slightly intelligible?

Why not take the Nova challenge? Starting next Monday, we'll be reviewing a standard part of Einstein-made-easy material. As presented by Nova, it involves the man who's standing on the railroad platform and the lady who's passing by on the fast-moving train.

Complete with two lightning strikes!

Nova's imaginary situation is taken from Chapter 9 of Einstein's 1916 book for general readers, Relativity: The Special and the General Theory.

To read Einstein's book, you can just click here. Nova's treatment of the topic can be found roughly eleven minutes into its recent program.

Do you understand what Nova said about the man on the platform and the lady on the fast-moving train? Next week, we expect to suggest that no, you do not.

For your perusal, here's the relevant text. We're starting at 8:55 of the Nova broadcast:

PROFESSOR SCHAFFER: Einstein's world in 1905 was dominated by two kinds of physics. One was about 200 years old, founded by Isaac Newton, British natural philosopher.

For Newton, all there is in the world is matter, moving.

NARRATOR: Newton showed that the motion of falling apples and orbiting planets are governed by the same force—gravity.

His equations are so effective, we still use them today to send probes to the farthest reaches of the solar system.

The other important theory of Einstein's day covered electricity and magnetism. That branch of physics had been revolutionized in 1865 by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell.

Maxwell's theory described light as an electromagnetic wave that travels at a fixed speed.

In Newton's world, the speed of light is not fixed.

PROFESSOR SCHAFFER: Einstein could see that there's a contradiction between Newton and Maxwell. They just don't fit together. And one of the things Einstein, hated—hated!— was contradiction. If there's one kind of physics that says this, and another kind of physics that says that, and they're different, that's a sign that something's gone wrong, and it needs fixing.

NARRATOR: For months, Einstein wrestles with the problem. Eventually, to resolve this contradiction, he focuses on a key element of speed—time.

WALTER ISAACSON: He realized that any statement about time is simply a question about what is simultaneous. For example, if you say the train arrives at 7, that simply means that it gets to the platform simultaneous with the clock going to 7.

NARRATOR: In a brilliant thought experiment, he questions what "simultaneous" actually means, and sees that the flow of time is different for an observer that is moving versus one that is standing still.

He imagines a man standing on a railway platform. Two bolts of lightning strike on either side of him.

The man is standing exactly halfway between them, and the light from each strike reaches his eyes at exactly the same moment. For him, the two strikes are simultaneous.

Then, Einstein imagines a woman on a fast-moving train traveling at close to the speed of light. What would she see?

As the light travels out from the strikes, the train is moving towards one and away from the other. Light from the front strike reaches her eyes first.

For the woman on the train, time elapses between the two strikes. For the man on the platform, there is no time between the strikes.

This simple thought has mind-blowing significance. Simultaneity, and the flow of time itself, depends on how you're moving.

PROFESSOR CARROLL: If there's no such thing as simultaneity, then there's no such as absolute time everywhere throughout the universe, and Isaac Newton was wrong.

NARRATOR: This concept, that time and space as well are relative, became known as special relativity. It led to remarkable results, such as the famous equation relating energy to mass.

The highlighted statement, along with its earlier highlighted kissin' cousin, is said to have "mind-blowing significance."

Questions:

Do you understand why that would be true? Do you even understand what the highlighted statement means? Do you understand how the statement can be derived from the example involving the man and the lady?

Next week, we expect to say you don't. We'll even explain our work!

After that, it's on to Chapter 9 of Einstein's book. Remember:

According to Isaacson, Einstein's teen-aged niece said it was clear as a bell!

Key disclosure: In his historic book, Einstein didn't mention a man and a lady. He merely described a railway platform and a fast-moving train.

Presumably, Nova added the man and the lady to introduce a hint of romance. Presumably, the PBS program was looking for ways to keep us the lunkheads involved.

Campaign watch: The state of play at Trump events!

MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2016

Perusing a pair of assessments–actually, three: What's the actual state of play at Trump campaign events?

A pair of assessments–actually, three–are well worth your consideration.

For starters, we recommend Seth Stevenson's report at Slate: "What's It Like Covering Trump?"

Stevenson discusses the profoundly irresponsible way Candidate Trump behaves toward the press at his large events.

He behaves himself very badly.

Eventually, someone could be hurt, or worse, due to Trump's behavior. It only takes one unbalanced soul to create a tragedy in response to irresponsible conduct like this:

STEVENSON (3/21/16): I also could not abide large, repeated doses of in-person Trump. It infuriated me when he’d pause between telling blatant whoppers to point at the media pen and say, “Those are very dishonest people, I have to tell you.” On cue, his minions would spin around and boo us.

Sometimes, he gets personal with the press. At one rally, Trump referred to NBC News reporter Katy Tur as “little Katy, third-rate journalist” while she was in the pen, surrounded by his riled-up groupies. In February, Tur tweeted about another special moment on the trail:

Trump trashes press. Crowd jeers. Guy by press 'pen' looks at us & screams "you're a bitch!" Other gentleman gives cameras the double bird.

“Sometimes we get tense,” another journalist told me. “I’m surprised there hasn’t been an incident of someone throwing a blunt object and hitting a reporter in the head. I wouldn’t be shocked if it happened.”

Trump has been doing this for months. It's deeply irresponsible conduct. We're glad Stevenson wrote about it.

It's our impression that the press corps has largely avoided discussing this conduct for one or two fairly obvious reasons, partly involving the desire to maintain their own safety. That said, we think Trump's irresponsible conduct should be described and discussed.

By light years, Trump is the most unbalanced person ever to attain the political status he currently holds. Clearly, that's one major part of the story from his events.

On the other hand, a Tucson police officer named Brandon Tatum has now offered a second perspective on the Trump events.

Tatum says he attended Trump's recent Tucson event as a curious private citizen. On-line at the Washington Post, Lindsey Bever discusses a ten-minute videotape Tatum has posted:

BEVER (3/21/16): Brandon Tatum, an officer in the Tucson Police Department, went to a Trump rally on Saturday as a civilian to see what was going on. In a subsequent video, he said he thought there was going to be “a full-fledged riot” at the event—but not because of Trump’s supporters.

The protesters were the problem, Tatum said.

“These people were acting so outrageous,” he said in the video, which went viral after it was uploaded to Facebook. “You were just thinking that somebody was going to lose their temper and there was going to be a full brawl.”

In some detail, Tatum paints a very unflattering portrait of some of the protesters and disrupters at the Tucson event. How accurate is his portrait? We can't answer that.

You can watch Tatum's videotape at the link offered above. We'll cite one specific remark he made, then link to a third report.

Tatum, who seems to be maybe 30, is black. He says he attended the Tucson event out of curiosity, not as a Trump supporter.

Near the start of his tape, he describes chaos and F-bombs from Trump opponents as he entered the arena.

"Very, very uncomfortable feeling," he says. "I mean, people were directly yelling at me as if I'm a criminal, and all I'm trying to do is just hear what the man has to say."

He then describes the atmosphere he found inside the hall:

TATUM: When I got inside, you know, it was peaceful. Initially– The shocking thing is, is that everybody inside seemed to be peaceful. There wasn't a lot of hatred and maliciousness going on and lashing out at the protesters. Initially, there was nothing like that, and I didn't get that impression at all. When– But the thing that stood out to me was these protesters. I mean, from the door, and then some of them snuck inside...

Tatum, a black Tucson policeman, thought the protesters were outrageous. His statement about the attitude of the Trump supporters reminded us of this piece from the Outlook section of Sunday's Washington Post.

That piece was written by Sierra Thomas, a 21-year-old black college student from Virginia. Recently, Thomas interrupted a Trump event in Fayetteville, North Carolina, thereby getting herself thrown out of the arena.

We were struck by the highlighted part of Thomas' report. It was echoed by Tatum's report from Tucson:

THOMAS (3/20/16): The organizers’ plan was for demonstrators to go into the event separately and sit by ourselves, so we wouldn’t attract attention and could pop up at different times to interrupt Trump. I walked inside and made small talk with the people sitting next to me, even though almost every second sitting there waiting was a challenge. They were very friendly, up until the moment I started protesting. Throughout the afternoon, I was texting with [the person who organized the disruption], and he helped me calm down and stay strong, saying, “Don’t let them shake you, and don’t be scared.”

By her own account, Sierra Thomas was there to interrupt Trump's event. According to our own tribal wisdom, she was sitting in the midst of a group of racists and bigots, not to mention the xenophobes, nativists, authoritarians and misogynists who were crowding the hall.

But how strange! Despite this perilous situation, Thomas–a well-intentioned young black woman–said everyone was very friendly until she interrupted the speech they had come to hear. Tatum, a youngish black police officer at a Tucson event, seemed to describe the same tone inside that hall.

Thomas' memoir is fascinating in various ways; we expect to discuss it further. From her and Tatum, we draw a key cultural lesson:

Increasingly, the racists and bigots seem devilishly skilled at hiding their ugly and evil intentions. What other conclusion could a tribal true believer reach?

ON MADDOW SHOW, IT'S TIME FOR A CHANGE: Rachel's remarks on the EPA!

MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2016

Part 1–Propaganda and Flint: Last Thursday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee conducted its third formal hearing on Flint.

Thursday's hearing featured only two witnesses. Appearing together that day were Rick Snyder, the governor of Michigan, and Gina McCarthy, the head of the EPA.

As is often the case with such pony shows, this congressional hearing was largely a waste of time. In a major understatement, the New York Times' Abby Goodnough reported, on the paper's front page, that the hearing produced "few new facts."

By "few," Goodnough may have meant "none." Put then, it isn't just the House committee. Few news orgs have worked very hard to assemble a full set of facts about what happened in Flint.

What happened at last Thursday's fact-averse hearing? In large part, Republicans and Democrats took turns insisting that Snyder or McCarthy should resign.

To appearances, the standard soundbites had been crafted for maximum utility in members' home districts. As a general matter, Democrats instructed Snyder to resign. Republicans insisted that McCarthy needs to go.

We thought one member's performance stood out; by the end of the week, we'll post the bulk of what she said. That said, did we mention what the New York Times reported?

"Few new facts emerged from the four-hour hearing," Goodnough understatedly wrote. Then again, very few clear facts have yet emerged from Flint at all.

Snyder's presence made this the highest-profile hearing the committee has conducted so far, if not the most informative. Just how big was Thursday's hearing? So big that Rachel Maddow actually got off her aspic and pretended to discuss it.

Maddow's segment about the hearing came late in Thursday night's show. To watch that segment, click here.

The segment in question consumed seven minutes and 45 seconds, though that count is a bit misleading. Almost three minutes of Maddow's segment consisted in videotape of Snyder being scolded by Democrats Grisham and Cummings. But then, alas! Despite Maddow's posturing about this topic, viewers get very "few facts" about Flint from her increasingly broken program.

On Maddow's increasingly broken program, coverage of Flint has basically turned out to be propaganda. Viewers learn few facts from the show. Instead, they get pleasured with selective chunks of tribal propaganda.

Last Thursday night, Maddow pleasured us the liberal viewers by letting us see Snyder getting scolded. As she has done from the start, she shielded viewers from any criticism, complaint, point of concern or critique concerning the role of the EPA in what happened at Flint.

For Maddow, the children of Flint seem to be toys to be used for the purpose of tribal propaganda. Although she pleasurably pounded away at Snyder last Thursday, this passage represents her full account of the challenges aimed at McCarthy that day:

MADDOW (3/17/16): So, lots of this hearing today broke along expected partisan lines.

On Planet Democrat, they blame Governor Snyder and his emergency manager takeover of the city of Flint and his state agencies and his frankly obtuse leadership, where he supposedly had no idea of what all his senior staff and chief of staff were talking about and working on for months.

On Planet Republican, they blame the EPA. Which makes political sense for them. You don't need a diagram to see why bashing the EPA fits with the Republican worldview for a crisis like this.

But Governor Snyder said everybody should stop blaming anyone. Everyone should work with him to fix Flint. And then he spent two hours at that hearing blaming the EPA for what happened!

At the close of the hearing today, the ranking Democrat on the committee asked a final round of questions. Congressman Elijah Cummings kept the mike for more than ten minutes, question after question. Governor Snyder answered almost in a whisper at one point. And at the end, you could hear those Flint families in the room again.

At that point, viewers enjoyed two minutes of videotape of Cummings scolding Snyder. Viewers saw no footage of the criticism of McCarthy, which came from some Democrats as well as from many Republicans.

McCarthy's name was never mentioned during Maddow's segment. According to Maddow, the EPA had been scolded that day, but only for two reasons:

Because it "makes political sense" for Republicans to do so. Because the scolding of the EPA "fits with the Republican worldview."

("Look's who's talking," the analysts cried, as they saw Maddow voice that second framework.)

Our view? When she isn't mugging and clowning and drumming her desk and endlessly talking about herself, Rachel Maddow has become a full-blown propagandist. If we liberals have a soul or a brain, we should insist that her corporate owners get her off the air and into the shop for a bit of long-overdue work.

Our view? Maddow has used the children of Flint as a way to pleasure us with tribal gruel; as a way to satisfy her own rather juvenile cultural instincts; and, of course, as a way to fashion herself as a hero in the eyes of the world.

She has done extremely little to inform her viewers about the complex, puzzling set of events which have emerged, and failed to emerge, from the mess in Flint. At this point, very "few facts" emerge on Maddow's program concerning any serious topic. Her discussion of the EPA's role in the mess is a long-running case in point.

How odd! While Maddow was toying with viewers again, a major figure in the Flint story was appearing on a competing "news channel." The person in question is LeeAnne Walters, the Flint resident and parent who alerted an array of outside players (including the EPA) to the problem in Flint.

That same Thursday night, Walters appeared for an interview with CNN's gruesome Anderson Cooper. By everyone's account, Walters is one of the major heroes of the Flint story. By all accounts, she knows a great deal about what happened there.

But how odd! LeeAnne Walters has never appeared on the Maddow Show! According to a Nexis search, Maddow has mentioned her name just once, as part of a brief, selective account of what Walters told the House committee.

LeeAnne Walters has never appeared on the Maddow Show. And how odd! Barring a truncated appearance as part of a group on Maddow's hour-long town hall program from Flint, neither has Professor Marc Edwards, the aggressive expert from Virginia Tech who Walters called into the fight.

Neither Edwards nor Walters has ever appeared for a one-on-one interview with Maddow. Walters didn't even appear among the crush of guests, some of whom were rather tangential, on Maddow's town hall program from Flint.

Before last Thursday night, we could have imagined one possible reason for Walters' exclusion from Maddow's program. As we listened to what Walters told Cooper last Thursday, we came up with two more possible reasons–two more possible reasons why we liberals haven't seen Walters or Edwards interviewed on the Maddow Show.

If we the liberals have a brain, it's time for us to spot a fairly obvious point–it's very much time for a change of oil on the Maddow program. Before the week is done, we plan to discuss the emotional problems Maddow discussed on the air, at substantial length, with Terry Gross in 2012, then with Ben Wallace-Wells for this profile in Rolling Stone. In our view, Maddow's "journalism" has become so bad–her on-air behavior so erratic–that this topic should no longer be avoided.

We'll review those interviews by the end of the week. Tomorrow, though, let's look at what LeeAnne Walters told Anderson Cooper last week. While we're at it, let's revisit the testimony Edwards gave to that House committee in its two earlier hearings.

One of those hearings occurred last week. Despite her lugubrious interest in Flint, Maddow didn't mention it. Indeed, Our Own Cable Star has never reported what Edwards has said to the House committee at all! In our view, you can feel fairly confident that she never will.

More and more, we liberals learn "few facts" about any serious topic from Maddow's peculiar program. Her slender, selective work on Flint is a case in point.

Journalistically, we'd call her work a rapidly growing clown show. We'd say her downward slide points to an important larger question:

Despite the greed of her corporate owners, is it possible that a certain multimillionaire needs and deserves some help?

Tomorrow: The things we liberals don't have to hear as we watch Maddow's program