Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Bimbo Politics 101: Ask a Stupid Question and Get Handed Your Backside

Having just spend an entire two days dealing with the intellectually-challenged of Italian, French and Spanish societies, I punish myself further by catching up on this week's episodes of Now with Alex, that paragon of political programs designed to convey to the stranger just how dumbed-down American political commentary has become.

Trust me, if Congressmen now have the verbal capacity of high school freshman, Alex Wagner would have trouble competing with a fifth grader.

On Monday's show, the opening salvoes were, of course, all about Cory Booker. Her first question to Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post was an adolescent whine about why a Democrat isn't allowed to disagree with the President. (I was actually expecting her to end with, "It's just not fair," but she didn't).

Maybe she didn't because Capehart painstakingly explained to her that it's perfectly within anyone's remit as a Democrat and private citizen to disagree with the President, but Cory Booker was functioning as and acknowledged himself to be an Obama campaign surrogate, meaning that he was campaigning on   behalf of  the President, spreading the President's campaign message for him. Instead, Booker went off-message and totally ripped what, until then, had been a successful campaign strategy.

Not very bright.

And - zut alors! - Joan Walsh and I appear to be in agreement. She actually voices what so many other pundits used as an unspoken centrepiece around which they constructed an elaborate dance: that this moment on Sunday on Meet the Press was more about Booker's ego and ambitions than it ever was about him being an Obama surrogate.

Once again, Wagner's panel is miles smarter than she will ever be.


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