June 28, 2012

You know, back in 1983, there was this show called Manimal on NBC. It was so bad that I swore I would never miss a single episode, because I was sure it would be cancelled before Christmas. And it was.

I feel a similar temporal urgency about MSNBC's latest offering for their 3 pm timeslot, "The Cycle." It's clearly a show with training wheels for up and coming possible anchor talent, and it has all the markings of a summer replacement series. Remember back in 1977 when Starland Vocal Band (Afternoon Delight) had their own summer TV variety show? Neither do any of the anchors for "The Cycle." They weren't born yet.

Given a brand new show with a relatively inexperienced and young cast, there are bound to be clumsy moments. But S.E. Cupp's revelation today that the well-researched months long investigation of Fast and Furious by Fortune Magazine had been debunked, was something special.

Touré: Who did the debunking?

S.E. Cupp: Oh, you can read about it at Townhall.

Touré: Ooooooooh.

I love how he just about fell out of his chair on that. And you can tell that as she's saying it, depending on a right wing opinion blog for her argument, she knows she's just climbed way out on a limb. Way out.

But full disclosure: I am a liberal blogger. I am all for treating blogs that do any amount of serious fact-based reporting (such as Crooks and Liars) as serious news sources, except when, like my own smaller blog, they have no pretense of doing any reporting. At my blog, Blue Gal, I do not investigate using primary sources or report on anything, I merely comment as a partisan on my opinion of events. S.E. Cupp just threw a Townhall blog post in the air as somehow debunking a six-month fact infused investigation of the real story behind a right wing witch hunt from a real reporter at a real magazine. I would be just as appalled if Crystal Ball had held up my own photoshop of Andrew Breitbart in heaven as some sort of proof of a political and theological point. There is no "there" there, Ms. Cupp. And you opened your mouth before you realized that you were at the big people's table.

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