So what if you get sick and die -- Rachel Maddow's got bigger fish to fry: sex scandals and teabagger jokes!
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As Maddow continues to titter (I'm sure she could devote a week to riffing on that word!) about Beltway (hey-O!) sex trivia, a vital health-care debate is supposedly going on in this country. Who knew... besides Somerby?
Might we explain how our politics works? The public tends to favor progressive positions, to the extent that they understand the real shape of our debates. For that reason, the corporate interest will almost always be served by a thrilling distraction. In this case, the public would be angry and deeply unimpressed—if they understood the nature of our bloated health spending. If they understood what that disparity in spending means—that massive amounts of “health care” dollars are being drained into corporate pockets.
The public would be upset about that. Maddow refuses to tell them.
Why should Our Sainted Progressive Superstar Scholar have to sully herself with such wonky matters, since the rest of the media are doing such a great job, after all. Especially if we're not doing our part to frame the issues in an msnbc-compatible way.
If we want her to use her bully pulpit to save lives — and our economy — we need to recast "single payer" in an appropriate light for the new progressive-cable medium:
Suggestions:
* Change the name to "swinging payer," "sinning payer," "singles-night player," "single splayer," "tinkle sprayer," or "Single? Play with yourself!"
* Note that a prostitute's john is a "single payer," and provide prefab jokes about Vitter and Spitzer being "married payers" (Try your best to get them lame enough for Maddow's use. Good luck with that!)
Rachel's done her part by claiming the mantle of Progressive Media Darling. Throw her a bone, willya?
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Comments
I wonder if Maddow knows or cares that she's being played
Assuming she actually gave a damn about policies and their real-world impact in the first place (I know, big assumption).
The corporate right-wing knows it doesn't need to win the argument, to win. It just needs to muddy the waters. One way to do that is to create a false impression of what actually matters by distracting us with bullshit (Ooh, Ensign's parents paid off his mistress!). Hence, our current "media" (They stopped being "the press" ages ago).
Actually
I found Rachel's reporting on dangerously Christianist "The Family" and Tom Coburn the other night quite interesting and worthwhile as it related to the Ensign affair, which is only a distraction, but one that led to the digging up of this nasty little DC cancer. Unlike the other sensationalist, she actually dug and found something worth noting in the scandal.
"The Family" is very old news
And fodder for Hillary haters, FWIW. Obama's friend Coburn is also a rather stale story.
That's not to say that Maddow is incapable of running a legitimate segment now and again (usually on the handful of approved topics, such as torture). But if she's the high water-mark of progressive commentary, we are so fucked. And we are!
Which doesn't make the story...
... well, untrue. Right? "Fodder" that is "old" and "stale" isn't necessarily false, right?
That said, what I recall was reading about Hillary's prayer group, which had a lot of Republicans in it. That's not the same as "The Family" at all. That reinforced for me what a creature of the Village Hillary was -- though, I would say, one of the best of 'em!
And if Maddow is a progressive voice, we are totally fucked. Fortunately, she isn't. I think the term "fauxgressive" had to have been invented with Maddow in mind.
I'm not suggesting the story is untrue
Fodder is "inferior or readily available material used to supply a heavy demand."
I referenced the Hillary/Family backstory to contextualize it for folks like Damon who, IIRC, supported Hillary Clinton -- hence "FWIW." To find such a well-worn topic, and one he may have had little appetite for back in the day, a revelation so cool it earns Maddow back some legitimacy credits seemed like a stretch to me. YMMV.
As to "not the same as 'The Family,'" sez Mother Jones:
It is we who are being played.
And she who is being paid.
Single "Playa" would have a "Wide Stance"
Does that help?