PLANET OF THE PRESS CORPS! The editors have an astounding idea: “Let’s explain this to the voters!”

FRIDAY, AUGUST 5, 2011

One of the worst segments ever: On Tuesday, out in Beverly Hills, the elders brought the brilliant child forward, letting the press corps gape at her answers. Later, when she spoke to a home-town reporter, she explained how her own channel’s work differs from that at Fox:

BARNEY (8/3/11): One of the people behind [MSNBC’s] success is East Bay native Rachel Maddow, whose evening ratings are up 23 percent over a three-month period ending in June. Her reward? A brand-new contract extension that will keep her at MSNBC for, um, well, she doesn't want to talk about it.

"It's for a few years. That's all I'm saying," she said when approached after the news conference.

[...]

Maddow, who grew up in Castro Valley, bristles at the often-uttered assertion that MSNBC is simply the political and ideological polar opposite of Fox News.

"I think that's a caricature of us ... but I don't think it's a fair caricature," she said, claiming that MSNBC brings more "nuance" to its presentation and is "more unpredictable."

To enjoy the “nuance” Maddow brings to her work, we’ll suggest you watch her Wednesday and Thursday reports about the now-settled FAA dispute. The Wednesday report is especially instructive. To watch that full segment, click here.

This “report” was more than eleven minutes long. Indeed, Maddow’s opening monologue lasted more than seven minutes all by itself. But go ahead—watch the whole thing! Were you ever told, in any real way, what this dispute was about? Don’t get us wrong! As Maddow goes on and on and on, you do get handed the bumper stickers you should repeat about this dispute; repeatedly, you learn that you’re supposed to say that the Republicans were “trying to break the backs of American unions” through their “union-busting demands”—in their “union-stripping” behavior.

Granted, you learned what phrases you should repeat. But did Maddow ever try to explain what this dispute was about?

In fact, Maddow’s presentations in the past two nights have been examples of pure propaganda. There wasn’t an ounce of “nuance” to them—though she did engage in the ludicrous, screeching, hey-look-at-me conduct which is her stock in trade. (Catch her screeching review of the last Super Bowl in the first two minutes of Wednesday’s segment. And people, don’t be afraid to adore her! That’s what this shit’s all about!) For ourselves, we wouldn’t say the GOP was “trying to break the backs of American unions” in this latest dispute. But we wouldn’t have any idea what to say from watching Maddow’s worthless report. It was nothing but propaganda and bumper-stickers, delivered with no hint of nuance.

In our view, MSNBC is more like Fox every day—though as with Fox, the channel’s ditto-head viewers insist there is no comparison. But for a truly gruesome segment, we recommend the performance by Matthews, Fineman and Walsh from Wednesday evening’s Hardball. We’d have to say it’s one of the worst cable segments we’ve ever seen.

To watch this god-awful segment, click here. But first, a bit of background:

As everyone knows, Obama has taken a beating among liberals in the wake of the debt limit deal. Fairly plainly, the Wednesday evening Hardball segment was an attempt to counteract that reaction, which may not coordinate well with this channel’s business model.

When Cenk Uygur recently left this channel, he claimed that the channel’s management strategy pretty much involved propping Obama. We can’t tell you if Uygur was right about his own interactions with network suits. But it’s hard to watch this Foxified Hardball segment without recalling the things Uygur said.

Rather plainly, this segment was designed to restore viewer sympathy for embattled Obama. This was done by jacking up the viewer’s loathing for those who would oppose him, especially by playing every possible race card, then moving on to secession.

As they started, Matthews and Fineman returned to Inaugural Day 2009. Everyone was out on the mall—everyone but the secessionists!

FINEMAN (8/3/11): I was out there on the Mall when Obama was, the president was inaugurated. You thought that perhaps all of America was out there. There were 1.5 million people there.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

FINEMAN: But it wasn’t all of America. It was Barack Obama’s America. And the people on the right, the conservatives, the corporate leaders for the most part, decided from day one that that crowd that they saw on the Mall, and that president that they saw taking the oath, was not their president.

MATTHEWS: It was like the secessionists. You know, the way you said that, the way you phrased it because of your history sense, was almost like even as he was being inaugurated, the voices of secession were uniting in the South and planning to bring this guy down. Right? And to divide.

FINEMAN: Well, that’s my view of it.

It’s hard to get more clownish than that, even if you’re on Fox. But as these long-standing hustlers went on and on, so did their rank propaganda. The boys pushed every racial hot button, trying to bring viewers back to the fold. Heroically, Fineman returned to the secession theme a bit later on. (Enjoy a good laugh when Matthews refers to “the racial part of this,” saying “I hate to say it.”)

Matthews and Fineman played all their cards, in the most ludicrous manner. And then, there was the code of silence engaged in by Joan Walsh. The problem began when Matthews made the following oddball comment:

MATTHEWS: You know, my executive producer here, runs this show, basically, has said for a while now that the Republicans cannot stand the idea of a Democrat being president.

WALSH: Well—

MATTHEWS: And I was thinking back, Howard, that goes back to Eisenhower. When did they first lay claim to the United States presidency?

That goes back to Eisenhower? We have no real idea what that meant. But a few minutes later, Walsh returned to this framework. When she did, she told you the truth—or at least, as much of the truth as this channel allows:

WALSH: The only thing I guess I would add—and to go back your brilliant executive producer, because all your staff is brilliant, is he’s right, that this also goes back to Bill Clinton because, you know, Bill Clinton had his problems, had his problems, but the effort to delegitimize him, to say he was involved with running drugs, to say he was involved with murder, with poor Vince Foster, that was coming from Jerry Falwell, that was coming from the Arkansas Project—

MATTHEWS: Yes.

WALSH: —that was even coming from Congress, it was similar. It wasn’t the same, but it was similar. There was a real dehumanization of this man as our leader. He just wasn’t fit, and he could be accused of literally anything, anything—

MATTHEWS: It’s funny that—

WALSH: —and it tore the country apart.

MATTHEWS: Yes. It’s funny, you guys, the worst thing the left can say about somebody is not that they’re not American. They usually accept the fact the other side is American. They just call them idiots. Anyway–I’m serious! That seems to be the worst you can say about a right- winger. The worst thing you can say about a left-winger is, “He’s not one of us.”

WALSH: Right.

The worst thing you can say about a left-winger is, “He’s not one of us!” Surely, Matthews should know about that! You see, that is precisely what Matthews said about Al Gore in the fall of 2001, on the Imus program, at a time when Matthews was still in the employ of Jack Welch. (“He doesn't look like one of us,” Matthews disgracefully said. “He doesn't seem very American, even.”)

We’ll assume Walsh knows that Matthews said that, but she surely knows something else. She surely knows that the Clinton-hating conduct she describes was also “coming from” Hardball during those horrible years. No one chased Bill Clinton around any more than Matthews did, during the years when Jack Welch was making him wealthy; in March 1999, he transferred this ugly, disgraceful pursuit over to Candidate Gore. Fineman was Matthews’ right-hand man in the twenty months of repulsive Gore-trashing. There was nothing these two didn’t say and do. George Bush ended up in the White House.

Joan Walsh understands these facts. She just won’t tell them to you.

Matthews and Fineman are horrible people. In 1999 and 2000, they played a very active role in changing world history. As of today, they’re also quislings; they now play the fool for the other side. And Walsh is now along for the ride. She wouldn’t tell you the truth about these matters if her country’s life was at stake—which, of course, it is.

This is nothing like Fox, Darling Rachel would say. On Hardball, you get so much nuance!

We strongly suggest you watch that segment. It’s one of the worst cable segments we’ve ever seen. The reaction to the Joe Walsh tape is especially pathetic. (File under: Never explain. Propagandize.)

A nation simply can’t function this way. If you doubt that, take a good look around!