Which political commentators ramble smugly while you scream at the television set?

all of them grrr

the problem with active liars is that they cannily exploit their opponents' unwillingess to say, straight away and blunt, "[x]'s argument is so flimsy all he can do is lie" (because next step = collapse of civilised debate?)

perhaps they should just laugh heartily and say "do not feed the troll"

start a website: DINESH LIE-WATCH

nitsuh, you live in chicago, you do not have a 'flatmate'

good point!! NABISCO LIE-WATCH!!

All of them. Left, right, doesn't matter. At best they have the charisma of a crock-pot, but more often than not they're transparently full of shit, barfing out answers are so rehearsed, so pat, so...so...UNDIALECTICAL!

Josh stop questioning the existence of my two-dimensional wife.

They don't have flats in Chicago? Why not?

cz yer all so sharp!!

Anyway thankfully no one will let Ann Coulter on anything these days, due to her horrifying case of political Tourette's: she is such a trainwreck that she only hurts her own causes. (But she, even in print, causes D'Souza levels of rage in me.)

I love Mike Kinsley with all my heart but his so poorly-spoken that I get angry with him: I yell at the television "stop saying umm" and "spit it out, Mike!"

On the other hand, among people I thoroughly disagree with I am for some reason always quite happy to listen to Pat Buchanan or Tucker Carlson; I assume I'm not alone on Buchanan given his McLaughlin Group slot (in which realm I like Eleanor Clift quite a bit).

And McLaughlin: I want to have dinner with him: I want him to say "N*TSUH! Pass the ROLLS! THE ECONOMY: recovering or DOOMED? You are WRONG, it will take SEVEN MONTHS" etc.

hunter thompson noted the "pat buchanan is ok for this lefty to drink with" thing back in the mid-70s: course half the nixon mob were teetotal

hunter thompson = lefty? sorry, you know what i mean (??)

The weatherman.

Well Buchanan has dropped back from his far-right nationalism insofar as he realizes there are no jobs in it: these days he does this quite Momusesque thing where he just says what he says and doesn't expect anyone to agree and takes some delight in smiling and defending a proposition that baffles others. The thing is that in order to do this he's had to advance far more interesting and less-predictable propositions, some of which are quite persuasive (and this is exactly what we want from our televised talking-heads, right? interesting unpredictable views?). He is for instance the only person I've ever seen on television to explicitly argue that the U.S. is basically under the thumb of Israeli policy and that we should quit that -- which, even if you disagree with it, is a useful proposition to at least advance.

I think Buchanan is tolerable because he doesn't come across as smug. And it's easy to ignore his arguments because they're just extensions of his very conservative Christian beliefs, which most of us pretty much dismiss right off the bat.

Now when Bill O'Reily or Chris Matthews starts attacking one of their "guests" for flawed logic with flawed logic of their own, that is when you must calmly turn off the TV and go read The Economist or something.

for a short while i was watching cnn in the mornings and had to stop because of william bennett's political analyses. he's such a smug asshole and, let alone merely bending the truth, he'll flat-out lie if it serves his argument.

NB I don't really count Bill O'Reilly here as he's in no way propped up as a roving-analyst talking head type, but I've yelled at that head for hours and hours: I know I should just not watch anything he's related to but I get filled with this loathing and I get all righteous and I get angered by the useless poorly- spoken "liberals" he brings in as straw men for his programs ... Thankfully I assume his credibility will take a hit due to this new Fox show, which I can only assume is called "Pandering" -- their ads go "hard-hitting commentary from Bill O'Reilly, incisive investigative reports from Geraldo Rivera, and look, we found three cute women with short skirts and angle-y glasses."

Yeah, that's the other thing, bnw: Buchanan knows everyone writes him off so he just says "oh, yeah, here's what I think" and you can either write-off as usual or think "well actually Buchanan might have a point there!" It's pretty brilliant of him, I think.

why are the left — liberal AND radical — such bad stylists as speakers or writers? (i have a theory naturally but i want to see what others say... ) (yes i know there are a few exceptions — and sorry chomsky is TOTALLY NOT ONE OF THEM)

(haha i originally wrote "why are the left bad such speakers/writers?")

Metafilter linked this a couple days ago: The end of fairness: Right-wing commentators have a virtual monopoly when it comes to talk radio programming.

Coming soon: liberal talking head Phil Donahue. More harm then good?

I love Tucker Carlson. He's the dreamiest conservative ever!

sinker: this is a relatively recent phenom, no? I mean look back at I.F. Stone (who springs to mind immediately) as well as a cavlacade of others, especially those older liberal voices who addressed themselves to the new-left generation. Also Isaac Deutscher & many others. Then the agitational dynamism of the newer voices that came...

And good god were the old semi-radical union tops real speakers.. John Lewis for example.

What happened, somewhere along the way, is I think that the right managed to claim both the moral AND scientific high-ground at once (while before it maybe ever had one or the other but never both). And the left mainly has accomidated to the point of coming off very stupid.

Well Mark I used to suppose it was because of the rhetorical spreads of left/right in the US. Conservatives essentially appeal to this collective-unconsious sense of value and tradition -- i.e. the same basic "traditional values," the same officially-understood version of the past that's been drummed into citizens to the point where it seems almost intuitive -- whereas the liberal approach has over the past few decades been, overall, ostensibly thinkier, i.e. "careful and rational consideration of the facts suggests this is the safest course of action" or more often "if you let go of your irrational belief that things have to be this way you'll see that such-and-such is only fair." This would give conservatives a rhetorical edge, insofar as they appeal to something you already "understand," deep-down, and can appeal to it in vague affirmative terms -- whereas liberal arguments would require analytical explication of various issues, in a nation that very much clings to the idea of hard-won common-sense wisdom as opposed to intellectualized thinking. This is a big part of how Republicans took up the populist mantle during the second half of the last century: the left got thinky and abstracted and dropped that Old Left New Deal vision that had a very basic non-analytical resonance with the public.

When I was younger I thought this and I also thought liberals were quite clearly right for having logical fact-based reasoning as opposed to vague and sort of pandering appeals. It took me a few years to understand that politics is in the end about communication, and it is both effective and admirable to communicate simply and coherently and in a way that resonates with people non- intellectually. I think Democrats realize that now, and yet they've realized it in the wrong way: they've taken up the "vague pandering" part and yet are still neglecting to frame the progressive vision in a coherent and inspiring manner. (Or a constructive as opposed to a critical manner.)

Anyway: is the above hypothesis true? I think it's a factor, still. I think another large factor is that fact-based analytical academia is, yes, generally left-leaning. (I like to think of this as "learning makes you understand liberal arguments" as opposed to the conservative "evil forces have taken over academe," but eh.) This makes them something of a training ground for (a) conservatives who are forced to learn to argue effectively, and (b) liberals who get hyper-involved in asocial analytical approaches to issues, and thus make their points in a highly academic manner that has no resonance with the public (even though those points could very well be made in terms as intuitive as those of conservatives). Both parties have basically fallen squarely into these roles and thus made them self- fulfilling.

sterling: yes, i think totally post-68 => some of the new lefters were very eloquent too (bernadine dohrn was a great writer)

I like baseball. And Burger King.

I sometimes turn on my TV for the express purpose of screaming at the first thing that comes on. Why wait?

I miss all of them on TV but once in awhile a Bill O'Reilly column sneaks into the local newspaper and I get really mad. He's so utterly clearly obviously WRONG about everything, why would anyone publish that? And Michelle Malkin most of the time because all she does is go on about how much she hates everyone (especially liberals). (By the way I am not liberal.) Once in awhile she'll say something less hateful but still quite useless.

i have a photo of tucker carlson in my wank file.

Good stylists for the left...how about Gore Vidal? Or Chris Hitchens? I agree, Chomsky is a pretty dry, dull writer. It's no accident that all his bestsellers are just transcripts of his interviews, where he's slightly more readable.

I have frequently wanted to punch Gore Vidal in the stomach.

Surely even HE must get tired of the overbearing patrician schtick that's his stock-in-trade: how many times can someone telegraph a contemptuous "well, of course" with every cynical turn of thought before it becomes totally arse?

I mostly hate them all.

Ann Coulter is the absolute nadir, though, it has to be said again. I wish she would have been born in the age of the Brontes instead. That way her family would have rightfully locked her up in the attic for being a madwoman.

I can't say I was ever a fan of political talk shows, radio or TV...from the sound of it, a good thing these days!

James Carville, dude! This is what the left needs: southerners, and people who aren't afraid to sling the righteous rhetoric of emotion rather than rationality.

Uh, as nit...uh, Nabisco said above. And I agree, the left can just as rightfully make these kind of arguments. They just don't because they get too hung up on the fact that, yeah, they're right, that they forget that they still have to sell it.

What really gets to me about the O'Reilly Factor is how often when Bill just goes completely overboard at one of his "guests" and they just fold and can't even come back with a decent response even though there *clearly* is one. And it's not just because Bill shouts over them - a lot of them are just *weak*. I'm beginning to wonder if the producers deliberately choose opponents O'Reilly can destroy easily.

The most glaring example of this I can think of is when O'Reilly was blasting off at some gay culture festival (Homopalooza or something like that) and he got some "gay spokesperson" on who ended up coming close to agreeing that gays were immoral and dirty and would rape your children given half a chance.

But Fox News generally can just eat a dick.

Also, is there a factory which produces stunning blonde republican-leaning female prosecutors? If any of them were remotely as cool as Ainsley (sp?) Hayes from the West Wing I could tolerate it, but they all seem overly fond of trying to combine "overbearing" and "simpering" into a new and doubly deadly form of conversational interaction.

Australia shows the O'Reilly show? Rupert Murdoch, agent of the monoculture!

I'm beginning to wonder if the producers deliberately choose opponents O'Reilly can destroy easily.

Stop wondering: it's confirmably true. I think I gave up when Bill Clinton was moving to Harlem -- he had on a black separatist in a dashiki complaining about Harlem's gentrification, whom he repeatedly asked about "the black community." "The black community" was generally glad to have Clinton there: it looked as if they literally pulled this fucker off of a streetcorner for the sole purpose of embarrassing black people in front of middle-aged Iowan homeowners who have never actually met any.

"Australia shows the O'Reilly show? Rupert Murdoch, agent of the monoculture!"

The joys of cable, actually. Although in this case, said cable network is FOXtel.

"Stop wondering: it's confirmably true."

The only guest I've ever seen really shake O'Reilly is that guy from 'Politically Incorrect' - Bill Maher, I think? I've never seen the show, so I'm not sure if he's a twat or not.

Anyway, he was sort of complimenting O'Reilly and agreeing with him to begin with (complaining about the left I think, which always puts a smile on old Bill's face), and then he turned around and accused Bill of being a deceptive hypocrite over his anti-Hollywood-stars-in-aid-campaigns campaign using arguments that Bill had just unthinkingly agreed with. Bill was left stumped. It was a beautiful moment.

And now Maher's show is getting canceled!

Maher's show is getting cancelled because he started viewing it as his own version of the McLaughlin Group without any of the wit or thought. The last few times I tried to watch it, Bill was such an insufferable cunt that I began seriously praying for divine retribution in the form of lightning bolts smashing through the studio ceiling and sizzling the fucker to a crisp while the studio audience dances and applauds.

oh, my, dan!

i still have never seen one of these shows. only read about them. i am old fashioned and read the newspaper...to find out about tv.

I dislike all of them.

Ann Coultergeist is especially barking mad.

Sean Hannity is barking mad too.

O'Reilly is most funny when he tells his guest that he/she has the last word. As the guest begins, O'Reilly pretends to look down at his notes and/or rifle through them la-di-da and then BANG! He interrupts the guest and rambles disapprovingly. The guest attempts to get something in edgewise and then oops too late time for commercial.

"I say New York's population is greater than California's. Tell me where I'm wrong."

Yes, Maher is very much a clod, the leading exploiter of the public tendency to find jokey-libertarian "straight talk" more captivating than actual politics: there is no better evidence of this than his easy spectrum-slide from comedy to political comedy to "politics."

"just because it's funny doesn't make it true"

Perhaps I dreampt this but I seem to recall O'Reilly having Howard Zinn as a guest late last year. Billy Dilly let Zinn get a full statement out and from then on he pretty much didn't address him (mayhaps in fear of humiliation).

(I am probably putting spin on this because I really really like Zinn.)