If one was larping as a ineffective and slightly dim liberal asshole, this would be a terrific OP.
I agree with this. He’s got the opposite problem that Chris Matthews had. Matthews was a tenacious interviewer but obnoxious when it came to analysis and panel discussions. Those should probably not be duties assigned to the same person.
Gads, yes. Matthews talked over people, and was just generally a cranky dude. I don’t miss him.
Getting back to the OP, part of the problem, I suspect, is that mainstream news interview shows, like Meet the Press, want to feature guests from across the political spectrum, and that includes GOP politicians and office-holders.
But, we’re in an environment where many of those politicians don’t want to face tough or challenging questions, and a show or host that regularly challenges them on their rote talking points during an interview is a show that may increasingly struggle to get top GOP members to appear.
FWIW, I listen to CBS’s Face the Nation often on Sunday mornings; the Chicago newsradio station carries an audio feed of it. That show’s host, Margaret Brennan, does seem willing to challenge guests (even Republican guests) who won’t directly answer her questions, or just want to parrot their talking points again and again.
Russert was terrific. Tenacious, but civil. He did it right. He got me watching MTP, and it took David Gregory and a few years of Chuck Todd to drive me away.
He had about as much tenacity and follow through as General McClellan. He was a major league pitcher with just one pitch: a slow ball down the middle of the strike zone.
That was how he handled the job and I did not respect him for it.
Subliminally, he also looked way too much like “Chachi”… and let’s face it: Nobody likes Scott Baio.
So then… Charles Not In Charge?
Here’s the entire bit that pissed me off yesterday, about the condescending, scolding, hilariously defensive tone Todd took in dismissing the (totally legitimate) criticism he has richly earned over the years. I take the criticism as a compliment, my purple Irish ass.
I like the juxtaposition of these two items in the linked article:
Last Wednesday, the “Happy Days” star announced he was moving his family out of California due to the state’s increasing homeless problem that “brings down property value” and called the state “just not a safe place anymore.”
Baio, who purchased his Woodland Hills home for $1.85 million in 2010, listed the home last month for $3.85 million, according to Realtor.com.
He could have asked $3.9 million if California wasn’t such a desolate wasteland of homeless and needles.
Seems an odd pitting. Basically pitting the guy because you don’t like him and he got fired???
Probably should have pitted him years ago, not now.
Celebrating the guy getting fired.
You do you, I’ll do me.
Not sure that’s the purpose of the pit. But you keep doing you.
He resigned to spend more time with his Möbius strip so he could finally figure out how to both-sides it.
golf clap
Suggest a forum for me to have opened such a thread in which it wouldn’t have gotten closed. Maybe Politics and Elections?
Oh, yeah. I did open it up in P&E where it got closed immediately, and I got told to open it up in the Pit.
But I appreciate your well-thought-out empathetic advice. Very helpful.
Way too ranty.
You really should be taking this up with @What_Exit, who instructed me that I should open it up here.
Ha! Do you remember how, as soon as Me Too became a thing, he just up and retired? Yeah, I’m sure that would have gotten ugly real fast.
I concur with this. I liked Chuck.
And Tim Russert, as nice a guy as I’m sure he was, had a face that I just wanted to punch. I can’t exactly say why.
Maybe he had other thrills running up his leg.