Gasbag Patrol: Meet the Press/ 02-19-06

Meet the Press isn't my usual gig but somebody else had George Steffie this week so I got stuck watching Russert. And it came on both East and West Coast feeds at the same time because of the Olympics, so I was obliged to be watching, taking notes and absorbing the meta of it all without either sufficient caffeine or an opportunity to review. So if you like a mix of Cranky, Incoherent, Illegible and Japanese Theater Forms, you've come to the right place. Read on....[update: rude Wolcott item added!]

Opening "interview" was Tweety vs. Chertoff, Master of the Homeland Security Universe.

[Note: After this babbleburble to NBC he used his superpowers to race over to the DC ABC studio to pretty much repeat the performance word for word on GeorgeSteffie, and I think i saw he was going to perform for Wolfie on CNN later. I think we can safely assume he's on Major Calm Down, Pay No Attention To Those Drowned People Behind The Curtain, All Is Calm, All Is Bright, Now Shut The Fuck Up patrol this Sabbath.]

As to the interview itself, it was unmitigated horseshit in the traditional Kabuki stylized form.

--Mistakes Were Made.

--Lessons Were Learned.

--Language Is Spoken Entirely In The Passive Voice.

--[Xan pauses to smack self in face as the spell was starting to gain power over her.]

Summation: Brownie is a Disgruntled Ex-Employee is why he is saying those rude things; I was right to order him to stay in Baton Rouge because he was out riding around in helicopters and I couldn't get hold of him when *I* wanted to; those umpty-zillion trailers sitting in a bog in Hope, Arkansas [gee, wonder who decided to stage this debacle in Bill Clinton's birthplace?] are NOT going to waste but if they are it's the fault of those rotten State'N'Local Officials, and besides if we don't use them on the Gulf Coast we will haul them again halfway across the country to help victims of wildfires. Or something. Really. Trust us. Oh, and our new motto? "We'll Do Better Next Time!" (yeah, direct quote.)

And oh, there's no problem with letting the United Fucking Arab Emirates run security in our nations largest East Coast port cities, because Our Procedures Were Carefully Reviewed. I swear to God that's exactly what he said, twice no less.

Tweetie can do a half-decent interview sometimes, but this was not one of those occasions. In fact it was beyond worthless. I got the distinct feeling that both "questions" and responses (they were not anything you could call "answers" that's for sure) were written out by both of them in advance and simply read off the papers in front of them. Japanese Noh theater has more spontenaeity and Kabuki has vastly better makeup and costuming, so I recommend you watch those next time instead.

The roundtable was a little more interesting. Mary Matalin [whose overall role in Dick Dangerous' Doddering Debacle is discussed over at E&P] was cranking the wheel of the Titanic as hard as she could to make the story about How Mean The Washington Press Corps Is. And how Out Of Touch they are, because they are effete coastal snobs who just Don't Understand how Things Are Done on rural Texas fiefdoms like the Armstrong Ranch.

Even the state Democratic chairman, she tried real hard to say at least six times, said that Everything Was Done Just Right. (The attempt to make this a Bipartisan Cover-Up was quite ignored by all, but perhaps the Texas Dems need a new chairman who can avoid giving aid 'n' comfort 'n' all. Just sayin'.)

David Gregory, who was seated next to her, gave some smiles while she was talking that indicated he has a new sharpening job on the ol' professional fangs, and Maureen Dowd was actually on her game today.

Matalin's backup on the Forces of Darkness side was some schmuck I had to google as I had never heard of him: Paul Gigot, who runs the Wall Street Journal's notoriously pro-fascist editorial page, and also runs TV shows into the ground repeatedly (his current one failed on CNBC, and just recently failed on PBS, so of course has been picked up by Fox, that bastion of welfare for the wealthy. Cruel details here).

Anyway, Gigot's take was that this story was only a story because of the extreme hatred of Dear Vice Leader by the DC Press Corps, which should have been talking about something of greater importance all week like the need to invade Iran, or how Al Gore is clearly the Antichrist for making a truthful speech in Saudi Arabia. He was thereafter pretty well ignored too for being a bozo.

David Gregory at this point made his ritual apology for hurting Wee Scotty's wee feelings by actually asking for, like, answers to questions. Then he pulled the fang covers back off and the real rumble began.

Russert read off some polls, concluding with the one that has 58% of the public thinking Vice Dear Leader is too secretive about things. Maureen Dowd picked up the ball and drove for the basket:

Cheney acts like The Phantom (I am assuming she meant the comic-strip guy with the purple body suit, not the Of The Opera guy since we have no indication Cheney can sing and don't really want to find out.) He moves in secrecy, he works in hiding. The shooting incident allowed the public to see how he operates in real time.

[She sets up...she shoots:]

Dick Cheney and the Administration work in secrecy, blowing off the rules of democracy, they filter the news to their liking. This [shooting] incident shows bad political judgement by a control freak.

[She scores!]

Oh my, Matalin is so very not amused. This is not going as she had planned it. Russert follows with another poll, the same one we've seen for months, noting that the overall approval rating for Vice Dear Leader is stuck in the ditch at 29%. Is DVL, he asks, going to be much help for Thug candidates this fall?

Her response...how to describe this? Ever seen a cat do something really stupid, like jump onto a desk not realizing there's a piece of paper there, so the cat slips and falls ass-over-teakettle onto the floor, and immediately starts to [bathe] [bathe] [bathe] furiously so as to not let on that anything untoward happened?

That's what Mary did, except she went [sneer] [sneer] [sneer], rattling off examples of How Powerful Vice Dear Leader Continues To Be that I couldn't write them down fast enough to recount here. But nothing untoward happened, really!

And she finally calmed down enough to be coherent to hiss at Maureen that it was just outrageous to blow the wounded feelings of the DC press corps into the statement that Vice Dear Leader, or Dear Leader himself, was contemptuous of the hallmarks of democracy! David Gregory was just being pissy because he wasn't the first one called. This is much ado about nothing. Talk about something else.

Russert showed a clip of Hillary Clinton, who he said [tiresomely and inaccurately] was the "presumed candidate' in '08. Hill noted, quite consisely, that this was the way this Administration works, to withhold information "on matters large and small."

Matalin: Hillary blew a chance to be sympathetic! Let's talk about how bad Hillary is, why don't we?

Miss Matalin, it seems, is new to the English language because she is not acquainted with the term "metaphor." Both Dowd and Gregory attempted an impromptu ESL class to point out that this is the way the Dear Leaders, one and all, deal with everything they do, they evade the press and when they do talk they evade the truth.

[I paraphrase here as it got a bit McLaughlinesque for a minute and no transcript is yet available. I think it was at this point that Matalin used the "press is on a jihad against Cheney" line, which drew unexpected hooting that she didn't seem to expect. That's about as close to a blood-libel line as you can get, accusing the press, or anyone for that matter, of being in the pocket of Osama et al. Dowd, from off-camera, could be heard to say "Have you been saving up for that line?" Betcha money that when a transcript is available, that won't be in there. That's why you gotta watch these shows....]

A question, possibly from Russert: If the Armstrongs had said, we can cover this up, keep any information at all from getting out, would they have tried it?

Matalin: Nononononono! We were just waiting to get the Good Facts so people wouldn't be confused by Bad Partial Facts.

Russert at this point noted that "there was a push" (apparently from Administration sources) to "encourage" people to talk about the Gore speech in Saudi Arabia. No followup.

The wrapup saw Gregory noting that the whole incident revealed some clear signs of "tension" between the Dear Leader(s) offices as well as the White House press corps. This is "healthy." Grigot managed to advocated "fighting secrecy" but this should be done only on important stories, not unimportant ones. Matalin basically said the same thing and again advised us that the Vice President of the United States Shooting a Man in the Face was an unimportant story of no consequence.

Glad we could clear this up for you. Join us next week when our guest will be Der Gobernator off Kahleefonia, Ahhhnold! (True guest tease, but rude accents added. Try the veal, and don't forget to tip your server!)

***

I must append this goody from James Wolcott on the same show discussed here, which goody I didn't see until this had been posted already. I am glad I stayed away from such, um, unkind matters as Miss Matalin's dress, demeanor and general appearance, because Wolcott does it so much better than I could ever hope to do:

Mary Quite Contrary

I only caught the bitter end of Meet the Press so I'm not sure what provoked Mary Matalin's pout-fest (I'm sure Arianna will issue a full forensics report later), but she made quite a petulant spectacle of herself, shaking her head from side to side in silent, lemon-puss disagreement whenever Maureen Dowd and David Gregory made mildly critical comments about Shotgun Cheney. (Another prominent deployer of The Disapproving Headshake is sister conservative Kate O'Beirne, who wields it to upstage other panelists and ensure herself additional face-time: after her reaction shot, the host invariably calls on her next to vocalize her mute dissent. "Kate, I noticed you nodding your head..."--as if anyone could not notice!) Even without the immature pouting and pissy expression, Matalin would have been a car wreck in repose: With a bad haircut topping a mistaken facelift and a ghastly floral pin that looked like spray-painted aluminum, she looked like the Beltway's Madwoman of Chaillot. Maybe defending the defensible is getting to her, and the acid reflux has gone to her brain.

Hee hee hee..