And the most popular guest for Meet the Press is....
Newt Gingrich!
Um, not to put too fine a point on it, but...why?
Yesterday was Gingrich's fifth appearance on "MTP" just this year. In fact, Newt Gingrich, despite not having held any position in government for over a decade, was the single most frequent guest on "Meet the Press" in 2009 of any political figure in the United States. Literally.
From March to December, Gingrich appeared on "MTP," on average, every other month. No one else in American politics was on the show this often.[..]
Keep in mind, "Meet the Press" didn't have the actual Speaker of the House on at all this year. It also featured zero appearances from all of the other living former House Speakers (Hastert, Wright, Foley) combined.
There's just no reasonable explanation for this. Gingrich was forced from office in disgrace -- by his own caucus -- 11 years ago. What's more, he's kind of a nut -- we're talking about a former office holder who speculated, just last week, about hidden messages from God in snowstorms.
Again and again, the media just proves that informing their viewers is the furthest thing from their collective minds.
I'm guessing John McCain
what a couple of tools.....
all it takes is all of us
I was thinking it would be McCain. But I was also thinking it would be more than 5 appearances. I agree Gingrich has no business being the most frequent guest (or a guest at all) but 5 isn't really that many appearances. McCain at least still holds office. Why in hell is a failed speaker of the house considered such a high value guest? Maybe he isn't. Maybe he's the fall back guy if someone else cancels.
The major networks give the flat earth society equivalent coverage and respect as those who believe the world appears round.
http://publicoption.democratz.org
http://drugbenefit.democratz.org
-Fox and other neocons think he has a slight chance. After all, his past sins were forgiven when he converted to Catholicism, and now his soul is shining white (so I learned in Sunday school). Therefore, he is perfectly suited to be another Faith-based President.
Gingrich has about as much chance of being elected Prez as Cheney. I really think most people dislike him.
Wow, I would have guessed it would be one of the holy trinity, either Lieberman, Graham or McCain. Since if you have seen one of them you have seen all three, I bet if you added all their appearances together they would win.
Newt probably has a lot of time on his hands these days and is available at a moment's notice. They treat him as though he is some wise sage with helpful advice for everyone but to me he is just another egotistical wind bag speaking words no one needs to hear.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
having this tool on so often lends credibility when none is there.
all it takes is all of us
Meet the Past.
... after watching the conventional wisdom dispensed therein, it should be called, "Me, Depressed."
Meet the F*ckers.
Meek the Press
Farce the Nation
This Weak with George Stephanopoulos
...another overrated media buffoon.
as far as I can tell. And by his own hand!
No longer credible, not even close.
Is that he is a second-choice backup when MTP's first choice for the week falls through for some reason. He shows up, isn't at a loss for words and is probably all too eager to get face time.
He probably lives in the green room just waiting for someone to cancel.
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
Cause he has nothing else to do and no where else to be.
He can talk about how much he enjoys leading the same team that ran George Bush's Pentagon.
(and Presidents) can always find sycophants, yes-men or yes-women eager to agree to whatever they say, often before they can even say it. All that comes with the job.
Nothing new here.
oh right, i used to watch that show
LOL
I guess I must be uncool because I don't keep up with TV.
Just as the GOP renders itself to the dust bin of political power so does the M$M by this kind of BS.
UGH!
Off button for news-o-tainment.
I have faith in the smarter people seeking information from non-M$M sources. The BS put out by the M$M is nothing short of shameful.
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
Meet The Depressed
M$M is all about market share and that means entertainment, folks. The corporations that own our airwaves (including cable & satellite) have no intention of serving the public good. NONE. It's profit; pure and simple. If you want information, look elsewhere. The American news media has long ago been eviscerated. If it weren't for this series of tubes (not dump trucks) we would all be huddled in the far corner of a darkened prison cell.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f99PcP0aFNE
has people huddled in a far corner of their darkened prison cell at home.
We're lucky for profit commercial interests haven't totally swallowed and consumed the internet yet to regurgitate and spit out in some hideous new manifestation of Corporate vision.
Which if things go the way they usually go will most likely happen within 20 years.
... when we make the mistake of wiring chips to the human brain, and instead of information, you get predigested conservative talking points downloaded into your cerebral cortex.
Our only hope is that they use Windows, and the whole thing goes BSOD.
Humans will devolve, which is good perhaps, since our global environment is crashing. Maybe the limbic system will cope with drought and rising seas...
"Again and again, the media just proves that informing their viewers is the furthest thing from their collective minds."
That's the essence of it, and the MSM needs to be beaten over the head with their BS. They need to be mocked and shamed and ridiculed, or they'll never change, and they'll destroy our country.
It requires work to get information from the internet. People are lazy and overwhelmed, which is how the MSM wants to keep it.
Tim Russert was Wink Martindale.
Newt is Paul Lynde.
"I mean Romney is the most conservative on illegal immigration and I don't think Ronald Reagan could get elected in California today."
Ann "Clipped" Coulter
Paul Lynde also known as the gay square.
At least "Tic-Tac-Dough" and "The Hollywood Squares" were mildly entertaining. Newt Gingrich? Not so much.
nt
"If combat means living in a ditch, females have biological
problems staying in a ditch for thirty days because they
get infections and they don't have upper body strength. I
mean, some do, but they're relatively rare. On the other hand,
men are basically little piglets, you drop them in the ditch,
they roll around in it, doesn't matter, you know. These things
are very real. On the other hand, if combat means being on an
Aegis-class cruiser managing the computer controls for twelve
ships and their rockets, a female may be again dramatically
better than a male who gets very, very frustrated sitting in
a chair all the time because males are biologically driven to
go out and hunt giraffes."
Newt Gingrich
"Trust no one, Mr. Mulder." - Well-Manicured Man
Imagine that, another chickenshit chickenhawk republican that seems to know oh so much about military trenches. probably picked it up through osmosis, being a military child and all that moving around.
Think of him like an old tool you kind to hate let go - the aging villagers still like to get that trusty old catapult out whenever there's an opportunity to send their excrement aloft.
Newt and the boyz remember. Obama is doing a damn good job carrying out their vision.
Which is spending more on this military machine than all the rest of the planet combined, fighting and preparing to fight what the National Security Doctrine calls “multiple overlapping wars” to control resources in distant lands in the interest of “free trade and free markets.”
I bet Newt is proud of him!
... by "catapult the propaganda".
Got it.
Well put, Sir!
"Trust no one, Mr. Mulder." - Well-Manicured Man
David Gregory.
Does anyone know what the rating have been like since "Dances with Rove" took over?
Darn, lost the bet.
Oh, that's right, he's a pet of MSNBC...that "liberal" network with Mica, Joe and Tweety.
get Al on there.
http://inlinethumb30.webshots.com/2973/213410...
Are you willing to start paying for it?
End of Free TV in Sight?
Me...I hope the whole industry dies an immensely painful death.
... will bail wholesale into the internet. We're like cockroaches.
Worked like a charm. (Big Mistake)
My thought back in the early 90's was if we can prevent any form of Television whatsoever from getting into the Web we'll be set. A truly "Corporate Free" communication, learning, and creative environment.
Oh what a Dreamer
like Sesame Street and Fantasy Island.
"I mean Romney is the most conservative on illegal immigration and I don't think Ronald Reagan could get elected in California today."
Ann "Clipped" Coulter
Rupert "the Ultimate Asshole" Murdoch.
He says "good programming is expensive". Of course it is when you're a 4th rate cheap shit network.
I'd prefer pay TV and free internet, but I live in a fantasy world. I'll just do without either. I heard that people used to be able to do that.
Rupert is just using football as a lever to squeeze more dollars out of the cable providers.
I personally couldn't care less if Fox Network disappeared. I couldn't care less if all sports disappeared. They priced themselves out of my demographic long ago, and they were happy about it. They were and are content to charge high rollers big dollars for tickets and licensing fees to sit in the frigid cold, while regular people could only watch at home and the teams and leagues sucked up the advertising dollars. Fine, knock your socks off...now I'm gone and won't be coming back and your business model, like so many bad business models created in the '80s and '90s is imploding.
Sucks to be YOU. Sports were priced to appeal to the masses, but noooo....you fuckers had to make it "upscale" so you could charge all kinds of ridiculous prices 'cause the gravy train was gonna run on forever.
Oh welllll.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
invent a box that allows him to get free TV. LOL one guy getting free TV.
MTP is totally useless to me as most of the Village spin known as cable is. I only watch it when a key liberal or progressive comes on which is rarely.
Is it the 21st century yet?
MTP and FTN were important shows to watch, because you got to see important people you never saw anywhere else.
Now, I'm shocked to NOT hear some gang of C Street or K street assholes drove on set in a tiny clown car.
me-oww!
a tiny clown chauffeured limousine.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
Maybe a Shiny Town car as a tiny clown car can't carry all their money.
:)
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
is the poster child of failed govt, the GOP's main rebut to health care reform. Newt is govt failure personified.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Juvenal
LOL Newts favorite topic
I thought Newt's favorite topic was trading in the old wife for a younger model.
I made at Steve's blog. Gingrich was once near the fringe of politics. Now he appears to be about as moderate a Republican as you can find. Who else can they get to represent the right's point of view who isn't a tedious bore or an outright nutcase. Who do they have that can articulate the party's policies when their only policy is inarticulate rage?
Hasa Diga Eebowai
cloaking the candidate in vague-emotionally arousing rhetoric ("change", "hope", etc.) so that each voter can project virtually any aspiration onto the man. Or woman.
Someone who can "reunite America."
But Newt is a tedious bore and an outright nutcase. IMO
I can't think of one name from that side that isn't so it might just be me setting the bar too high.
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
2002 CNN poll found that 59% of Americans believed that the prophecies in the Book of Revelations would come true?
Newt was the guy who built the fundie coalition that made conservative majorities possible. He was their point man and organizer. When they got rid of Newt they threw the lion tamer out of the tent but kept the lions. Oops!
Hasa Diga Eebowai
Cirque Du Insane?
:)
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
like it.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
He's better entertainment than a real Speaker ever could be.
That's what TV is, a knock-off, at least one-off, of reality. I don't find it at all amiss, much less shocking, that a veritable clown, someone who wasn't really a functioning Speaker of the House even when he really held the position, but just played a Speaker on TV, is now getting more TV time than the real Speaker. He's always been a TV act, so of course, he does get more TV time, but also, he fully deserves more TV time. And TV news shows fully deserve this clown, and do not deserve to be a forum where a Speaker cares to do any speaking.
Given the place the Constitution gives the legislature, and the House in particular, the Speaker, given her role in controlling the agenda in the House, is inherently the most important and powerful single person in our democratic republic. There really wouldn't be any need, if we still were functionally a democratic republic, for the Speaker to speak anywhere but officially, in the House, for her to be heard loud and clear by everyone in this country who was at all interested in how their business, the people's business, was being transacted by our representatives in the people's House.
Of course the reality we live in now, the state that our politics has devolved into, do mean that what is said in the House stays in the House, because the legislature has become a dog wagged by the presidential tail, and the president in turn can only get the dog wagging by scaring the hell out of the American people. So, yes, MTP is a better megaphone for scaring the hell out of the American people, so, yes, a Speaker who wanted to get and use power in the only form still possible, by shaping the particular terror of the day, would be better served by getting more air time on infotainment like MTP than from her day job as actual Speaker. Unfortunately, such power is not value-free, not symmetrical, or available to serve every agenda equally well. It can only be made to serve agendas that can be advanced by scaring the hell out of the American people.
The problem isn't that the Speaker can't get any air time on MTP. The problem is that, having supplanted reality, MTP is the only game in town. The problem is that the buck really stops only on MTP. We're not going to change that by having anyone appear more or less often on MTP. We're only going to change that by getting people appearing more or less often on the floor of the House, and having that forum get the attention it deserves. A good start on achieving that would be for the House to start taking up its responsibility to govern this country. If anything important were happening there, I suspect people would be more interested in that than in MTP.
they wouldn't have to worry about ratings if the reported reliable news instead of having the same tired old experts on.
I think the reason he's on so frequently is because all the "usual Republicans" (those holding elected office) simply take their marching orders and talking points from the party leadership. Gingrich is outside the lockstep Republican cadre, and so his viewpoint is considered more refreshing than just hearing the usual things from the elected Republican dones.
i believe mayor bloomberg was on this guest panel with newt. Bloomberg said something I appreciated that neither (r) or (d) have the answers keeping government smaller/efficient taxation. Bloomberg pointed this out and newt had nothing to say. the notion that republicans can walk away from the big government/big spending during the bush yrs. is ridiculous. now their chant is we are "conservative" more linguistic propaganda. government is broken/corrupt.
your the ones that crazy.
institutionalized.
" Gingrich was forced from office in disgrace -- by his own caucus -- 11 years ago. What's more, he's kind of a nut -- we're talking about a former office holder who speculated, just last week, about hidden messages from God in snowstorms."
God does not hide his messages when the image of his only son appearsopenly on the face of a freshly fried corn tortilla. Republicans should ponder the meaning of that.
"I mean Romney is the most conservative on illegal immigration and I don't think Ronald Reagan could get elected in California today."
Ann "Clipped" Coulter
Meet the Grinch.
Lame show, lame host, lame guests.
Newt, former congressman and speaker, guilty of ethics violations and paid $300,000 in fines; womanizer; abandons dying wife to marry another; has an affair with another and marries for the third time. Has appointed himself as spokesman, analyst and representative of the GOP -- and since they are bereft of leadership, they accept him, disgraces and all.
John McCain has been on so many times in the last year, someone should tell MTP he did not win the presidency. By what authority is he the last word on the Republican party?
David Gregory is a horrible host, asking softball questions of republicans so as not to put them on a spot, and pursuing Democrats as if he were the Grand Inquisitor.
He's one of the top candidates for the GOP nomination in 2012.
The people of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage." J.K. Galbraith
Wife cheaters could only win with idiot Reslugs.
Meet the Press went to hell ever since Gregory took over and invited his Reslug buddies on to flat out lie and never are called out on it. I won't watch anymore.
MTP has become totally irrelevant. Needs some grownups to administer to it.
Is it really that hard to figure out out why Newt, Cheney & Cheney, McInsane and what passes for leadership in the republican party get unlimited access to the public airwaves?
These media hacks, just like the republicans and much of their base cannot bear the thought of a black man in the White House so they are doing everything they can to assist the republicans in trying to undermine the President.
End of story.
Some of those who call themselves journalist and what they do journalism give unlimited access to the public air waves and print media to has beens like Newt Gingrich, Dick and Liz Cheney and to John McCain, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Joe Lieberman and the rest of the poor excuses for human beings in the republican leadership do so because they are no better than HACKs.
These excuses for journalist don't hide the fact that their main goal is the undermine the President and try to discredit him. Dick and Liz, Newt, Rudy, Mitt and even old Fred Thompson are give free air time anytime because that is the agreement.
Every day we see the faces of very same bloated republicans who have obstructed the President since day one on network and cable TV where they are allowed to say any outrageous thing they choose. No fact checking. No followup questions. Im willing to bet that these tv gasbags have received pre-selected allowable questions from the bloaters.
What passes for journalist on CBC, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, (except for KO, RM, and ES), CNBC and by FOX are trying their best to undermine President Obama.
And knowing the relationship between family values practioner karl Rove and the truely clueless host of MTP would you expect anything better?
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