Can the Sunday morning political shows get any better? How could they get worse?
The beginning of the problem isn’t even identified by Paul Waldman. The beginning of the problem is that the programs are basically an extension of Sally Quinn’s living room. For the most part, the regular and recurring commentators have been making the rounds of these shows for more than 20 years now. But they are all friends with each other and with the hosts and with whomever stocks the hors d’oeuvres trays in the green rooms. No one outside the Beltway gives a great goddamn what George Will or James Carville thinks about anything.
Add to that problem the fact that they just keep recycling the same politicians and party hacks through a nauseating and enervating loop. We get it, John McCain and Lindsey Graham want to bomb something. Can’t we move on?
It should be possible to do something more akin to what MSNBC is doing on weekend mornings, but without a partisan slant. But that would involve the close-knit community that peoples the Sunday shows giving up their face-time in deference to someone who actually knows what the hell they are talking about.
I will say one thing for certain, though. I understand that the name of the game is ratings. George Will ain’t getting you ratings.
Way back when Obama was first running for President, I watched the Sunday morning talk shows. I saw Bob Schieffer, Tim Russert, the McLaughlin Group, and whatever else I could find. It seemed like the most current and up-to-date-mainstream source, outside of the Internet.
I soon became tired of the same puppets saying the same lines over and over. Obama was second-guessed from Day One, and the talking heads hashed and rehashed every nuance. It was exhausting. When Obama was elected, they seemed stunned and shaken. But they immediately went into attack mode and haven’t let up.
I think McCain, George Will, Bill Kristol, and David Brooks should all be permanently barred from appearing on television. They’re saying the same stupid things they said eight years ago, and even before that. George Will hasn’t said anything of value in his entire life.
For a year or so in the late 1990s, I watched one or two of those shows most Sunday mornings. Until it hit me that not only were they boring, they never seemed to get anything right. Stopped watching them and spared myself the agony of having to listen to those dipshits as they salivated over destroying Iraq.
Does anyone outside the political class actually watch them? Ignore.
and don’t get me started on the gender balance. Ugh.
I haven’t had cable since watching the Iraq War farce unfold – so, 11 years. But I watch politics shows all the time online. Up is so much better than anything else – it was the best with Hayes and is even better with Kornacki – he’s the most meticulous of the non-cheerleader, smart lefties. He almost never expresses an opinion and he presents all his facts with journalistic integrity – it makes him many times more effective and deadly. His style is also endlessly listenable. I love Hayes and I really love his audiobook, Twilight of the Elites, but Kornacki is even better. Of course they both cribbed their basic idea from Maddow – also great, but a bit over the top. Give me Up 24/7.
And Up is Sunday AND Saturday – for 2 hours each no less.
I can’t stomach more than 15 seconds of Dick “Access Journalist” Gregory and I can only take the other MSNBC hosts when something big is happening like Jersey-gate.
by “I can only take the other MSNBC hosts” I meaning weekend hosts. On weekdays, Joy Reid and Lawrence O’Donnell are perfectly listenable as is Alex Wagner – not as good as Kornacki and Hayes, but quite good.
All of these shows are available online almost immediately after they air, and you can choose between segments. There are plug-ins to kill the ads, but I sit through them to keep MSNBC funded since Fox is still kicking their asses in the revenue dept.
Funny, the only weekend show I watch anymore is Melissa Harris-Perry’s, specifically because I know she’ll provide a perspective on a story or issue I literally can’t find anywhere else on TV.
Bloggingheads.tv is also fascinating, but for politics junkies it’s gone downhill. Bill Scher is great but the albatross of Matt Lewis around his neck is bringing the level of discourse down to the barely background-listenable level.
Booman – why don’t you figure out how to embed video and get some collaborators?
You misunderstand how those shows make money, and why every network does them. They could not care less about ratings outside the Washington ADI – it’s all about prestige, access, and (secondarily) selling ads to companies that care about reaching the people who like to watch themselves and their friends on teevee.
They could literally put the same shows on local cable access, hosted from Sally’s living room or one of David Brooks’ vast spaces for entertaining, and accomplish the same thing. But the foundational premise of these shows is that people outside DC don’t matter, so why not give over hours of network time to shows they don’t care about? To the extent they think of us at all it’s along the lines of “it’ll be good for them to see really, smart, wise, powerful people (but I repeat myself) up close and personal.” Sort of like cod liver oil, only less appealing.
Mostly, though, we’re irrelevant. That’s where they start. The assumption that none of the rest of us matter then permeates every other aspect of those shows. And it’s obvious.
I sometimes feel like an outmoded loser because I’m, for example, reading the blogs on a Friday evening instead of doing something enjoyable. But I could never imagine what kind of loser it takes to watch network television on Sunday morning unless as a kind of duty like the authors of the Bobblespeak Translations, which give me in about five minutes everything I care to know. And shouldn’t at least half of them be in church for Christ’s sake?
But if it’s just themselves–Senator McCain and James Carville watching on those rare occasions when they’re not on camera and so on–then it all starts to make sense. Only I still don’t see how it makes any money. I’d think it’s more of the kind of religious programming they used to have when I was a kid (“Davey and Goliath”), a loss leader for the networks to display their civic virtue, basically because they can’t make any money at that point in the week.
A lot of the ads, you’ll notice, are for companies or trade groups that just happen to have current business on Capitol Hill. (To be fair, rags like Politico and The Hill, not to mention BezosPost, tap the same market.)
Only people in Flyover Country go to church. As noted above, they don’t count.
But yes, a lot of it is prestige and virtue. “We’re a Serious Network! With Serious People! Be sure to stop by our VIP hospitality suite this year!” There’s a reason the broadcast industry lobby is traditionally one of the most powerful and effective in DC. And yet for some reason it gets almost no news coverage…
Honestly, I cannot think of one person I know who watches the Sunday Shows on the major networks. My left leaning friends interested in politics will watch MSNBC. But not one Republican I know watches anything political on Sunday. Of course, they are glued to Fox News all during the weeknights. But mostly they are able to get their political dosage by simply listening to conservative talk radio during the days. There are so many sources of conservative reinforcement around here that they can simply soak it up by osmosis while going about their daily lives. No extraordinary effort is required. I’m sure this is the case in width swaths of the red-state portions of the country.
Or even folks inside the beltway.
DOJ To Clear FBI Agent In Shooting Of Man Tied To Boston Marathon Bombing Suspects.
After several hours interrogating Todashev in his FL apartment, FBI agent felt threatened and pumped a few bullets into him. The FBI has long had “stand your ground immunity.”
The autopsy report not likely to be released.
In case you missed it,
Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s “accidental drug overdose” autopsy report was released in less than a month after his death.
The beginning of the problem is that the programs are basically an extension of Sally Quinn’s living room.
You’re right. You know when the only interesting MTP was ever on? When Markos sat across the table from Harold Ford, Jr. Remember who hosted that one? Fluffyhead!!! Because The Big Potatohead was vacationing that week in Martha’s Vineyard or something! Anyway, the show should be nuked. But then we’re not the target audience. Anyway, thank goodness for EPL(English Premier League .. aka football or soccer as us Yankees call it) matches on Sunday!!!!
Is there any reason that makes watching those shows worthwhile? Is there ANY reason?
I haven’t thought so for a decade or two. Even political types who need to keep track of opposition narratives can find other sources.
I’m coming to agree with this POV, particularly the last sentence. I’ve been weaning myself off them, not watching them at all some weeks. Those are the Sundays when I have a better frame of mind.
The lack of accountability is most bothersome. Oh, the same political losers and pundits who have been wrong on policy and predictions over and over making the conservative argument? Being proved fucking right is the only thing that can make you persona non grata- makes the other immoral losers uncomfortable. Yet they all smile at each other, as if everyone at the pundit table is equally credible, and the ones who have been made to disappear are inferior, somehow.
It’s a particularly upsetting form of performance art.
The only two I watch are Al Jazera and GPS with Fareed Zakaria on Sundays. Everything else is a waste of time and indigestion.