Cable Book Pundits and the New Low

We have all become used to the punditry of cable television hawking books. It has become standard operating procedure for guests to appear on Fox or MSNBC and hawk their books. Usually the host will do this for them so it is not so awkward. And we have become used to Bill OReilly hawking his books every show and Glenn Beck hawking his books and novels. They do have the platform and it is just another way for them to cash in. But Chris Matthews unfortunately seemed to bring it to a new low.

I like Hardball. Chris is a little over the top but he generally uncovers something worth knowing. He has written a book on John Kennedy. This we know. He had talked about his book a few times on his show and left it at that. But last night Cable book punditry hit a new low. I was watching him on my phone when he started talking about his book tour. He began to mention numbers. He said he was giving speeches where over a thousand people showed up. He said he was speaking in the prestious blah blah hall and there had been eighteen hundred people. He said people were lined up outside to see him and hear his talk on Kennedy.
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I was watching all this on my phone in the car. Not something I recommend but I looked at the small screen because this was odd. Then Chris set the new low for humility and crassness when it comes to using your own show to promote yourself. "I recommend you buy this book because it will make a great gift for loved ones at Christmas."  He said this looking at the camera and the self serving nature of his announcement, said almost like he was talking about someone else, made me pull over.

In that moment he had destroyed the credibility of his show. All that followed bounced away. I am sure the publisher suggested this to him or maybe Chris just figured he'd go for the gold. But he was hard to listen to after that one. He is a rich man and it is amazing he would throw his own show under the bus and turn it into a one man commercial for himself. But these are the times we live in right?

Maybe, I'll go back to network, you know, where they give you the news, and don't sell books.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/
Rocket Man...the Suburban nightmare

MSNBC Taking Water Fast Post-Olbermann

I admit it. Keith Olbermann was my man for a long time and even when I moved away from combat punditry I would always flip on Keith to see what he was up too. But now he has left MSNBC or more specifically Count Down and turned it over to Lawrence O'Donnell. The scuttle is that after two years of Keith negotiating with the network they parted ways over differences we can only guess at. Pushing the bar must have finally got to the brass, but all you have to do is watch the network post-Olbermann to see it is a ship taking water. Fast.

I like Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell, but they are no Olbermann. Bringing in the Ed Schultz show is just piling on left wing on liberal on left wing. He brings little but bombast and regurgitation to the lineup and I am a liberals liberal but Ed is too much for even me. But Lawrence O'Donnell while sincere and heartfelt is a man with a cross hair on his back. You can already see the brass's next move when the plummeting ratings come in. And they will plummet.

The problem is Keith wasn't just Count Down, he was the anchor of MSNBC at night. Hardball, Maddow and O'Donnell were the warm up bands for Keith, though they often followed each other with reciprocal stories. But Keith just took it up a notch and blasted a hole right through the rights latest buffoonery with scathing indictments, dripping sarcasm, and boyish glee. Many times he went right over the top and blasted out of the roof, but it was always an interesting rocket to watch. Now we are left with the smoke and blow back of his departure and there seems to be little propellant left in the MSNBC tank.There is just a gaping hole.

Lawrence will do his best to fill the big man's shoes but he is doomed. The left suffers from lack of firepower in general and they just lost one of their biggest guns. Keith had the guts and and the position to take on anyone including the President and say exactly what he thought which is probably why the higher ups at CBS and MSNBC squirmed and pulled on their collars. But of course it was that type of red hot editorializing that cranked up the ratings and made MSNBC a player.

It almost makes you wonder if the golden age of combat punditry is coming to an end. If the age of civility does indeed occur then certainly the other combat pundits will be out of a job. Maybe Keith Olbermann saw the writing on the wall and got while the going was good. But before it is over a Jay Leno type of scenario would not be that surprising with Olbermann returning to bring ratings back in line. I think a flame thrower would be the proper metaphor for the regard he would show the short sited higher ups of MSNBC and company.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/
Rocket Man will blast off in February

Good Night and Good Luck-Olbermann Leaves MSNBC

Edward R. Murrow who Keith Olbermann obviously modeled himself after said these words every time he signed off from his broadcast. Good Night and Good Luck. It is irony at it's best, but Murrow meant it. He wanted people to have the luck it would take to fight the corporate powers, government, the natural tyranny of men. His job was to poke holes in these forces and shine light into the dark corners of human chicanery. He eventually took on McCarthy in the darkest days of the House on Un-American Activities and did what no man in the news had done up to that point--he took on the underside of American democracy that destroys people while hiding under the flag.

Now Mr. Olbermann has left MSNBC for reasons unknown, but we can guess. If you watched Keith at all he was the one of the few who took on the dark side of American politics and American business. He was the underdogs dog and barked at anyone who came near. Many times he slipped into bombast and of course his show was hopelessly one sided with his triumvirate of Chris Hayes, Howard Fineman, and Eugene Reynolds to comment and mostly back up Keith's latest thesis. As time wore on Keith did become predictable, but he was always heartfelt and always unafraid.

Sometimes we cringed when he really got on a roll, but like a good novel you had to listen closely to the prose. Keith was a thinking man's  liberal cable show. He was no slouch when it came to mixing history, liberal theology, and politics, throw in the Olbermann anger and indignation and you had a cocktail of  talk show bravado that could knock your socks off and many times did. Sometimes, you just wanted to stand up and cheer when he finished his Final Comment.

But he has left the network and we don't know where he will land. Keith did what Maddow and now Lawrence O'Donnel can't. He did have an Edward R. Murrow touch that had a moral indignance and gravitas that lent credibility to his charges against the nightly villains. Keith Olbermann does care about people and he does want to be the voice of those who cannot defend themselves. And so when he signed off with his customary Good Night and Good Luck at the end of his show, he said, look I know the cards are stacked, but le'ts keep trying anyway. We can only hope he lands somewhere and continues the fight. So back at you Keith.

Good Night, and Good Luck.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/
Rocket Man will Blast off in April.

Political Theatre on the Left and Right

The first thing we have to do is admit we are no longer watching news. We are watching political theatre. Theatre is fine. Drama is a good thing and it has a  long tradition. A good story pulls us away from our worries and cares for a little while and hopefully we learn a thing or two. But theatre is not news. The reason we watch FOX or MSNBC has little to with news and more to do with our convictions. We want to watch someone with our views get into it with someone else on the other side. If we wanted to watch news we can always tune in Wolf and Anderson and David Gergen. Snore.

Political theatre is a hell of a lot more fun. We are invested in it. It's those damn liberals. It's those damn conservatives. Get a good guest on the show and grab the popcorn and they are off. Will Rachel Maddow tear another Family First conservative to shreds? What the the hell is Keith Olbermann talking about in his special comment anyway? Will Sean Hannity get the whole Great American Panel to tackle the spineless Democratic consultant sandwiched between the wrestler and the NASCAR  driver? Will Bill O'Reilly lose it? Will Glenn Beck break down and cry and explain how in the hell the founding fathers wanted us to live one more time? Now that is entertainment, but it is not news.

It is fine to watch these shows as long as we know we are watching entertainment. Rachel Maddow does research the hell out of the issues and Keith Olbermann passionately believes in what he is saying and Sean Hannity really does believe he is doing the country a favor by exposing the socialists on the left--but the motif of taking a  position and piling on to support it quickly becomes political theatre with a supporting cast of players like Dick Morris on The Factor or the now famous Juan Williams or Howard Fineman and Ezra Klein for Olbermann and Maddow. Any good play must have it's supporting cast and everyone does a hell of a job at putting on the show.

Not that we are not more informed by the end. Not that we don't learn something. But all theatre has a moral imperative or the irony of truth and if David Gergen suddenly came out on the stage and started reading the news we would object to his dry recitation of the days events. But here is the litmus test; a war breaks out with China. Who do you tune in? Fox? MSNBC? No, you turn on the news.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

William Hazelgrove's latest novel is Rocket Man due out in January. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0982139241/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0615213073&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0B1G6JP18H927X52KV3A