643 WHO CARES ABOUT COMPETENCE! Outlook tried to discuss a real issue. This led to a basic mistake: THURSDAY, MAY 26, 2011

Beer Hall Ed throws himself down the stairs: For unknown reasons, Big Ed Schultz has been aggressively playing the fool in the past several months.

Unlike others, we’ve told you about it. In the past few days, his months of peculiar, offensive goose-stepping gave way to an ugly slur.

(To read all about it, click here.)

Last night, Schultz appeared on TV just long enough to announce that he’d be away for a while. This profoundly unattractive incident raises a set of concerns.

First question: Schultz has been playing storm trooper for months, stomping around and repeating memes from the dumbest back rooms of the Bush White House. Why did so few progressive “intellectual leaders” speak up about this strange conduct?

Second question: Why do so many “progressive” men seem to have so many misogynist slurs sloshing around in their heads?

Having asked those questions, let’s make a few observations:

Ed Schultz isn’t the first. Keith Olbermann engaged in open misogyny for years—and liberals kept their pretty traps shut. For years, we wondered if we were the only ones who were struck by this incessant behavior. (It wasn’t fun complaining about his conduct in the face of massive silence.)

Eventually, we got our answer: A bunch of liberal “intellectual leaders” had found his conduct repellent too—but they had refused to say so in public! See THE DAILY HOWLER, 1/28/11. Hint: Careerist “liberal leaders” may not be tremendous good people.

Ed Schultz isn’t the first. Chris Matthews engaged in ugly misogyny for the better part of a decade. In January 2008, a miracle occurred: The liberal world began to notice; incredibly, many liberals even began to complain! (After all those years, we have no idea why that suddenly happened.) In response, Rachel Maddow ran out and vouched for Matthews, big-time. One week later, she signed her first contract at The One True Liberal Channel.

(See THE DAILY HOWLER, 1/21/08; scroll down to “STARR REPORT.” Also, see THE DAILY HOWLER, 1/15/08.)

Today, Maddow is paid $2 million per year, if Newsweek knows its stuff. To us, this event raised the first warning flag about this self-impressed child. We do hope her money spends good.

Even now, careful careerists have little to say about this problem—and the liberal masses seem stunningly clueless. In this twelve-topic post, Steve Benen managed to slip in a tiny statement about what Schultz did. (Be sure to read all the way to the end!) That said, we strongly recommend the comments from Benen’s readers, most of which deal with Schultz. As we’ve long said—there seems to be virtually no sexual politics within the progressive world.

We liberals like to prance about, informing the world of our vast moral greatness. It’s one of our dumbest political stances.

That said, our greatness isn’t vast. In the case of our leaders, less so.

Final strange inescapable point: The culture at MSNBC has been weirdly misogynistic ever since the time of its founding as a vehicle to hunt down the Clintons, then Gore. Fox is a garden of gender sanity compared to The One True Channel. (So is CNN.)