The Opposition Rebuttal to Morning Joe for June 16th, 2010
Observations:
1) Mika has become unable to define her take on issues, and has started to find a stubborn note. I know, started? I think she is trying to adapt for year 3 and have a more aggressive take. Where Joe Scarborough is comfortable being the only person at a table holding ground for a position while 4-5 others ask him to defend from every angle, Mika is not. There comes a point where it’s not believable, and the viewer wonders about whether or not she has a take or is adrift, uncomfortable, and inconsolable.
Rather than heaping on today’s debate, lets go back to the too big to fail question she was not able to even get out in the Elizabeth Warren interview a few days back. If you recall, we anticipated that was her question, but it was shoved aside for Maria Bartiromo’s 400 regulatory agencies governing AIG question. Mika at that time appeared helpless to confront what she felt was her biggest concern regarding financial regulatory reform. And this was three women talking, so her ‘women should run this’ shot from yesterday’s show is equally adrift.
But whether it’s nonsense topics like protocol for dealing with aggressive reporters, or too big to fail, or even defending the President, the viewer more and more needs a ouija board to divine “what’s the message?” and isn’t that your tagline?
Look, it’s solvable, don’t try and create your message on the fly. You know what the topic is going to be hours before the show starts. Write down, or otherwise note 3 angles of defense prior to the show so that you don’t seem like that guy who’s mad but can’t talk. Joe Scarborough may be able to do it on the fly, but you can’t, and rather than trying to adopt a skill set on the fly, don’t take chances knowing your message for an entire show is at stake.
2) Chris Matthews is crazy, shrill and I love him. He loves to blow stuff up. It’s his thing, in fact it’s his tagline. He is infuriated with the lack of accomplishment in the oval office speech. He is ringing the Jimmy Carter alarm. He even planted a seed in Joe Scarborough’s mind about it to the extent that Scarborough did a nightmare skit comparing the spill to the Iran hostage situation.
Unfortunately, it’s sort’ve a forgone conclusion that Chris and Joe are now ideological rivals and there is not a consensus for them to call middle ground. It was a derisive Scarborough tossing in the “how was his tie?” jab while Matthews very seriously picked apart the speech as lacking control, substance, but including what amounts to two dangerous over promises. The jury is out as to whether 90% containment by the end of June is achievable, but it will be a WMD level misrepresentation if it is not. The jury is out as to whether there is merit to the President’s assurance that he can force a solvent BP to fund a claims account stewarded by a third party. Matthews pointed to these being either evidenced contrarily by prior failures or refuted directly by BP. “BP is preparing to litigate this” is Chris Matthews’ quoted analysis.
If it seems too good to be true…
3) The voice of the other side in this case was Doris Kearns Goodwin. She correctly planted the take that Obama looked at his options, at his 3 messages he had to deliver, and at his limitations and expressed them. Those looking for more would only send the President further down the unrealistic commitment road.
She made a lot of sense, but did not reconcile with the Matthews take at all. If we are to understand all sides of an issue, likely we should see those two reality-check each other’s arguments. I think we know that this would not be a cross fire type pundit debate, but the integral between these two arguments is to me the most important part of today’s analysis.
I don’t think that can occur on Morning Joe, and I think it was evidenced by not taking the core 25 seconds of Goodwin’s take and playing if for Matthews, nor does there appear to be a cast member who can nuance the argument without “tie” jokes.
A valuable path to consensus was lost as a result, and funny enough, it was Mika’s take that Goodwin paraphrased, but she was still unable to carry water in the clutch.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Showing posts with label Chris Matthews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chris Matthews. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Monday, February 1, 2010
Birdie Golf And Short Circuits
The Morning Joe Rebuttal for February 1st, 2010
Observations:
1) The budget sucks. There is no good angle to it. The OMB director came on the show, seemed competent, but just like Volker last week and Sommers at Davos, did not inspire confidence. Why? Birdie golf. When Orszag bases his whole premise on the fact that we are going to come within 33% of sustainability (4% deficit vs 3% deficit), and then need to do further soul searching to find that last percentage point, it seems failure is the doctrine. Birdie golf, karate, overwhelming force, these are all doctrines of success. You use your golf game to play one better than par, in karate the force of the punch doesn’t stop at the target, but 2 feet behind it, you get the point.
Orszag needed to say he won’t rest until the budget is at surplus. No one on the show even attempted to define why 3% of GDP as a budget deficit was sustainable. It sounds like if they had they would have said that, it was because we could afford the minimum payment.
The one foundation-building point made in the entire discussion was the aside that market conditions after World War II let the United States economy churn it’s way out of it’s postwar economic hole, and those conditions are not going to recur for the US economy at any point on the current time horizon. Kudos to Joe Scarborough for putting the WWII context into the conversation, but it’s not a pretty picture when your Budget Director can’t point to the surface of the water, only to a more modest drowning.
Further to this same point, what an awful appearance by Texas Congressman Jeb Hensarling. The math contained in his chief point had the sole purpose to mislead grandmothers in Texas, and he needs to be called out. This atrocious month versus year deficit spending analysis uses another era’s budget surplus to claim Republican budget superiority. It also is undermined by using nominal dollar figures versus constant dollar figures. The picture is bad, but if you use 3rd grade algebra poorly on national TV twice in a week, we get to change your name to Jim, just to protect you from embarrassing yourself.
2) No one was defending the KSM trial today when Joe Scarborough temporarily lost his inner compass and went off the deep end. Look, when you repeat your point without furthering your point, that’s just agitation on display, think when that Senator on “The Seduction of Joe Tynan” slips into French on camera.
Lost in the shout downs was the ultimate point. Do we get any return on our investment if we use a public court? Is that return only some added credibility on the streets of Luxembourg? Or is that gone because of the taint put upon any public proceedings by the leading statements of the administration over the weekend?
If effectively managing your conversation, it should have gone one more step. The return on investment on any of this is whether on the margin we are creating or disenchanting the next round of potential terrorists. Take KSM’s face off the screen and stop showing it. Put the face of the suicide bomber that’s being recruited next week and have that supplant all others in this discussion. That is the calculus.
Your job as always is to aid and abet the multi-front conversation that is so complex that the leader of the free world and his administration are struggling with it. We need less Giuliani, less Robert Gibbs bizarre false bravado, less bellicose histrionics, and more sober analysis where it counts.
3) Mike Barnicle hit a ball out of the park today. At 8:15 EST, Mike connected the dots and is the first person to go on record saying that the Obama / Republican discussion Friday was great, but the similarly formatted Obama / Democrat discussion is the missing link to last year's failures and it should also be televised. The whole reason I got into this was that most days this critical connection goes unmade, that the format has to fight the tendency to repeat rather than evolve. I had already written, in my head, the scorched earth piece about you guys missing the boat again, then Barnicle went yard.
There had been little advances, like suggestions that the meetings be regular, but no one had made the ultimate connection. History will show the waste of 60 votes as a rare opportunity in 2009 was done with Democratic obstructionists like Stupak, Lieberman and Nelson able to hide in their office and deny their role in the damage done to the Obama administration. No part of the Legislature should be allowed to distort or obstruct in privacy or without an explanation to the President of the United States for their actions. The formula is so right and so timely, it might be the one part of the way forward that lights an optimistic path.
Of course, Joe Scarborough did the subscriber a great service by saying what no other Republican would say out loud: “having the Friday meeting was a {rare} mistake" in the Republican lockstep obstruction game. A mistake on par with Russia missing it's veto vote on the Korean War. Mike Pence must have an interesting list of voice mails today. If Chris Matthews calls your idea heroic, what does Roger Ailes say?
Speaking of Roger Ailes, the face off that Morning Joe repeated was only part of the story with Arianna Huffington and Ailes on ABC over the weekend. Huffington had him avoiding the subject of Fox dropping it’s coverage of the Friday Obama / Republican meeting early because it showed the Republicans in a bad light. Ailes directly avoided the question and slipped out the back door to avoid the green room part of the show. Ailes without words, agrees with Joe Scarborough that Mike Pence gave away part of the store with this invitation.
Because the store is power not progress.
That’s all today, see you tomorrow
Observations:
1) The budget sucks. There is no good angle to it. The OMB director came on the show, seemed competent, but just like Volker last week and Sommers at Davos, did not inspire confidence. Why? Birdie golf. When Orszag bases his whole premise on the fact that we are going to come within 33% of sustainability (4% deficit vs 3% deficit), and then need to do further soul searching to find that last percentage point, it seems failure is the doctrine. Birdie golf, karate, overwhelming force, these are all doctrines of success. You use your golf game to play one better than par, in karate the force of the punch doesn’t stop at the target, but 2 feet behind it, you get the point.
Orszag needed to say he won’t rest until the budget is at surplus. No one on the show even attempted to define why 3% of GDP as a budget deficit was sustainable. It sounds like if they had they would have said that, it was because we could afford the minimum payment.
The one foundation-building point made in the entire discussion was the aside that market conditions after World War II let the United States economy churn it’s way out of it’s postwar economic hole, and those conditions are not going to recur for the US economy at any point on the current time horizon. Kudos to Joe Scarborough for putting the WWII context into the conversation, but it’s not a pretty picture when your Budget Director can’t point to the surface of the water, only to a more modest drowning.
Further to this same point, what an awful appearance by Texas Congressman Jeb Hensarling. The math contained in his chief point had the sole purpose to mislead grandmothers in Texas, and he needs to be called out. This atrocious month versus year deficit spending analysis uses another era’s budget surplus to claim Republican budget superiority. It also is undermined by using nominal dollar figures versus constant dollar figures. The picture is bad, but if you use 3rd grade algebra poorly on national TV twice in a week, we get to change your name to Jim, just to protect you from embarrassing yourself.
2) No one was defending the KSM trial today when Joe Scarborough temporarily lost his inner compass and went off the deep end. Look, when you repeat your point without furthering your point, that’s just agitation on display, think when that Senator on “The Seduction of Joe Tynan” slips into French on camera.
Lost in the shout downs was the ultimate point. Do we get any return on our investment if we use a public court? Is that return only some added credibility on the streets of Luxembourg? Or is that gone because of the taint put upon any public proceedings by the leading statements of the administration over the weekend?
If effectively managing your conversation, it should have gone one more step. The return on investment on any of this is whether on the margin we are creating or disenchanting the next round of potential terrorists. Take KSM’s face off the screen and stop showing it. Put the face of the suicide bomber that’s being recruited next week and have that supplant all others in this discussion. That is the calculus.
Your job as always is to aid and abet the multi-front conversation that is so complex that the leader of the free world and his administration are struggling with it. We need less Giuliani, less Robert Gibbs bizarre false bravado, less bellicose histrionics, and more sober analysis where it counts.
3) Mike Barnicle hit a ball out of the park today. At 8:15 EST, Mike connected the dots and is the first person to go on record saying that the Obama / Republican discussion Friday was great, but the similarly formatted Obama / Democrat discussion is the missing link to last year's failures and it should also be televised. The whole reason I got into this was that most days this critical connection goes unmade, that the format has to fight the tendency to repeat rather than evolve. I had already written, in my head, the scorched earth piece about you guys missing the boat again, then Barnicle went yard.
There had been little advances, like suggestions that the meetings be regular, but no one had made the ultimate connection. History will show the waste of 60 votes as a rare opportunity in 2009 was done with Democratic obstructionists like Stupak, Lieberman and Nelson able to hide in their office and deny their role in the damage done to the Obama administration. No part of the Legislature should be allowed to distort or obstruct in privacy or without an explanation to the President of the United States for their actions. The formula is so right and so timely, it might be the one part of the way forward that lights an optimistic path.
Of course, Joe Scarborough did the subscriber a great service by saying what no other Republican would say out loud: “having the Friday meeting was a {rare} mistake" in the Republican lockstep obstruction game. A mistake on par with Russia missing it's veto vote on the Korean War. Mike Pence must have an interesting list of voice mails today. If Chris Matthews calls your idea heroic, what does Roger Ailes say?
Speaking of Roger Ailes, the face off that Morning Joe repeated was only part of the story with Arianna Huffington and Ailes on ABC over the weekend. Huffington had him avoiding the subject of Fox dropping it’s coverage of the Friday Obama / Republican meeting early because it showed the Republicans in a bad light. Ailes directly avoided the question and slipped out the back door to avoid the green room part of the show. Ailes without words, agrees with Joe Scarborough that Mike Pence gave away part of the store with this invitation.
Because the store is power not progress.
That’s all today, see you tomorrow
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Morning A' La Carte
The Morning Joe Rebuttal for December 5th, 2010
Observations
1) As much as I’m critical about the Morning Joe show missing key elements of a story, I have to admit that I caught the Cuba flight list item yesterday, but either ran out of room to talk about it or just didn’t. I’m happy that the show and it’s longtime reality measuring guest Eugene Robinson tackled the prima facie of the matter today.
But the missing dimension is that if anything, it’s a good sign for Cuba that the administration is considering them among these 14 nations. It must be read that the administration is preparing for the eventuality of a normal relationship with Cuba and the good and bad that come with it. We have a prison there. We have listened to cautionary takes for a long time that if that base were domestic it would be a terrorism target. We must adjust that if we were to allow domestic bound flights from Cuba, it must carry with it the possibility of pass through terrorism from persons relating themselves to Guantanamo inmates. So as a potential conduit, it’s smartly on the list.
Eugene’s take has another problem in that it reads as a tit for tat from the side of the far left. Ever talk to Chris Matthews about Cuba? He still wants to nuke them for assassinating JFK. We have established the MJR lucidity test, and of these two far left takes, Eugene Robinson’s fails, and Chris Matthews’ irrational outburst passes. Crazy.
2) But any day that David Ignatius is on the show is a great day for lucidity. He in fact has come off of the Harrison Ford perch for a second to tackle the very subject. As Joe Scarborough butcher para-titled: the “Californication of American Government”. JS has for a long time considered California ungovernable. But in typical fashion it’s a talking point that mysteriously has lacked any detail or substance ever in the history of the show, allocating it to the mile high pile of negative broadstrokes that define his and the shows greatest challenge.
Ignatius eloquently put his finding in a paragraph. The state started with a 60 billion dollar budget imbalance, wound up with a 21 billion dollar one, and is running around telling itself it did its job governing. It bodes grimly for the whole union in that it is a microcosm for the fundamental inability of the legislative and executive branches, as designed by our forefathers, to make a difficult people first decision, instead deciding based on lobby, campaign, earmark, and commerce.
Mort Zuckerman quickly paralleled the health care process where a three word ideal took 2600 pages in congress just to pay everyone off but the American citizen.
What I found striking is that Joe Scarborough conveniently missed an opportunity to defend his take that the cloture rule “softens” legislation as a necessary stabilizing force in good governments. We have invented another test here at MJR called the scoreboard test, and you fail that test friend, there are no results of good government anywhere in sight, just deliberative bodies instead deciding based on lobby, campaign, earmark, and commerce.
3) Another great missed opportunity was the fantastic dichotomy of Ignatius’ point and the earlier Erick Erickson interview. Believe it or not, there is some merit in Erickson’ take if you could pick and choose. But you know the problem, we all know the problem, it’s the purity test.
If the next great political party is purple, guys like Erickson unfairly bind the voter into platforms unassociated with each other. You can’t be purple if you can’t take each item a' la carte.
Being an independent to me is fiscal responsibility, mixed with privacy protections that keep the government out of my social life. What it means to another demographic can be polar opposite, and they are equally invited. It’s the lack of a connectivity to the unrelated agenda items that is key to being in the middle.
Erickson has a great take about commerce (mentioned above) being a disaster to government as displayed in supernova fashion in the health care debate. But because I think that health care is a public good, we apparently can never be friends.
Until the show can create a lucid dialogue between the Erickson take and the Ignatius take on its same show, it fails the third test we are unveiling here on Morning Joe Rebuttal: the connect the dots in real time test. You can’t idolize ideology at 6 and damn ideology at 8
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Observations
1) As much as I’m critical about the Morning Joe show missing key elements of a story, I have to admit that I caught the Cuba flight list item yesterday, but either ran out of room to talk about it or just didn’t. I’m happy that the show and it’s longtime reality measuring guest Eugene Robinson tackled the prima facie of the matter today.
But the missing dimension is that if anything, it’s a good sign for Cuba that the administration is considering them among these 14 nations. It must be read that the administration is preparing for the eventuality of a normal relationship with Cuba and the good and bad that come with it. We have a prison there. We have listened to cautionary takes for a long time that if that base were domestic it would be a terrorism target. We must adjust that if we were to allow domestic bound flights from Cuba, it must carry with it the possibility of pass through terrorism from persons relating themselves to Guantanamo inmates. So as a potential conduit, it’s smartly on the list.
Eugene’s take has another problem in that it reads as a tit for tat from the side of the far left. Ever talk to Chris Matthews about Cuba? He still wants to nuke them for assassinating JFK. We have established the MJR lucidity test, and of these two far left takes, Eugene Robinson’s fails, and Chris Matthews’ irrational outburst passes. Crazy.
2) But any day that David Ignatius is on the show is a great day for lucidity. He in fact has come off of the Harrison Ford perch for a second to tackle the very subject. As Joe Scarborough butcher para-titled: the “Californication of American Government”. JS has for a long time considered California ungovernable. But in typical fashion it’s a talking point that mysteriously has lacked any detail or substance ever in the history of the show, allocating it to the mile high pile of negative broadstrokes that define his and the shows greatest challenge.
Ignatius eloquently put his finding in a paragraph. The state started with a 60 billion dollar budget imbalance, wound up with a 21 billion dollar one, and is running around telling itself it did its job governing. It bodes grimly for the whole union in that it is a microcosm for the fundamental inability of the legislative and executive branches, as designed by our forefathers, to make a difficult people first decision, instead deciding based on lobby, campaign, earmark, and commerce.
Mort Zuckerman quickly paralleled the health care process where a three word ideal took 2600 pages in congress just to pay everyone off but the American citizen.
What I found striking is that Joe Scarborough conveniently missed an opportunity to defend his take that the cloture rule “softens” legislation as a necessary stabilizing force in good governments. We have invented another test here at MJR called the scoreboard test, and you fail that test friend, there are no results of good government anywhere in sight, just deliberative bodies instead deciding based on lobby, campaign, earmark, and commerce.
3) Another great missed opportunity was the fantastic dichotomy of Ignatius’ point and the earlier Erick Erickson interview. Believe it or not, there is some merit in Erickson’ take if you could pick and choose. But you know the problem, we all know the problem, it’s the purity test.
If the next great political party is purple, guys like Erickson unfairly bind the voter into platforms unassociated with each other. You can’t be purple if you can’t take each item a' la carte.
Being an independent to me is fiscal responsibility, mixed with privacy protections that keep the government out of my social life. What it means to another demographic can be polar opposite, and they are equally invited. It’s the lack of a connectivity to the unrelated agenda items that is key to being in the middle.
Erickson has a great take about commerce (mentioned above) being a disaster to government as displayed in supernova fashion in the health care debate. But because I think that health care is a public good, we apparently can never be friends.
Until the show can create a lucid dialogue between the Erickson take and the Ignatius take on its same show, it fails the third test we are unveiling here on Morning Joe Rebuttal: the connect the dots in real time test. You can’t idolize ideology at 6 and damn ideology at 8
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
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