TUESDAY, MARCH 12, 2024It depends on who you ask: Did President Biden have memory problems when he met with Robert Hur?The transcript of their interviews has been released, but it runs 250 pages. As we perused a few initial reports, we were struck by differences between the Washi … | Continue reading

TUESDAY, MARCH 12, 2024But what were the main things she said? Senator Britt misled the world. Three days later, she refused to relent!With substantial regularity, this is the way our broken national discourse currently works. In the case of Senator Britt, here's the way the whol … | Continue reading

MONDAY, MARCH 11, 2024Information Age warfare comes home: Saturday morning, at 7 o'clock, C-Span's Washington Journal invited viewers to call in with their Top News Story of The Week.A furious flurry of phone calls followed. At 7:26 a.m., this exchange occurred:MODERATOR (3/9/24) … | Continue reading

MONDAY, MARCH 11, 2024...some in the prison camps: "Now we're engaged in a great civil war," President Lincoln once said.In one colloquial sense of the term, the war in question was something less than "civil." The leading authority on the matter offers this report on its immedia … | Continue reading

SUNDAY, MARCH 10, 2024...more than they love life itself: Our mainstream journalists love the "snub" more than they love life itself.This thought came to mind as we scanned this trio of offerings in today's New York Times:Snubbed!By Brooks BarnesEvery year since the Academy Award … | Continue reading

SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 2024...they said he should pee in a cup: No serious person forms an opinion about a State of the Union address until The Five have had a chance to check in.Yesterday, at 5 o'clock sharp, the Fox News panel began a lengthy of President Biden's address. As usual, … | Continue reading

FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 2024...in our blue tribe's corporate pundits? How much confidence should you have in the judgment and / or in the performance of our blue tribe's corporate "cable news" stars?We just watched the first segment of Deadline: White House. Our answer to your question … | Continue reading

FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 2024A remarkable pundit moment: After last evening's (delightfully) pugnacious address, is there any way President Biden could lose?In our view, yes—there actually is. In our view, this year's challenge won't be over until it's actually over.In our view, last nig … | Continue reading

THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2024Why not take The Scarborough Challenge? Tonight is the start of The Year That Was. It's the start of a campaign year which will presumably send President Biden or Candidate Trump to the White House.In large part, the outcome will likely turn on President Bi … | Continue reading

THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2024But also, Watters and Gutfeld: On one major cultural point, the two cable channels agree.There must never be heard a discouraging word! Tribal viewers must never be exposed to any hint of nuance or complexity.It's stunning to see the level of dumbness which … | Continue reading

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2024Also, what's up with Trump voters? Presumably, it starts tomorrow night, with the State of the Union address.Can Candidate Biden turn it around? In this recent post, Kevin Drum outlines one reason to think that he can. Kevin cites numbers from a recent You … | Continue reading

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2024Maddow pleases the tribe: We're so old that we can remember when the Supreme Court's Colorado ballot decision was a very big thing.Checking our calendar, we see that we're referring to this past Monday night, and also to yesterday morning. In this morning' … | Continue reading

TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 2024Morning Joe flogged four meaningless clips: Citizens, can we talk?Donald J. Trump has been making lunatic statements ever since he and Melania descended the escalator in June of 2015.Strike that! At that time, he'd already been making crazy statements for so … | Continue reading

TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 2024...by the Court's (unsurprising) decision: Yesterday morning, at 10 a.m., a new arrival on the front became the topic of general conversation.That new arrival was the Supreme Court's decision in the Colorado ballot removal case. Dual headlines included, the … | Continue reading

MONDAY, MARCH 4, 2024We arrive on the scene a bit late: Yesterday afternoon, as the Celtics pulled away from the Warriors, we switched over to the C-Span book event which appeared beneath this byline:Anne Applebaum and Ezra Klein on the Future of DemocracyThe month-old discussion … | Continue reading

MONDAY, MARCH 4, 2024At MSNBC, we viewers are now "beloved:" Last Friday, Ainsley Earhardt was helping tease the 7 o'clock hour of the long-running morning program, Fox & Friends.Earhardt's co-hosts had started the tease. At 7:02, she ended the tease with this:EARHARDT (3/1/24): … | Continue reading

SUNDAY, MARCH 3, 2024Do polls at this point really matter? Do polls at this point really matter?By that, we mean general election polls—nationwide surveys of the type we cited in yesterday's report.We ask for an obvious reason. In yesterday's report, we cited the new poll by the … | Continue reading

SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 2024Then, up jumped the New York Times: In Wednesday morning's report, we ran through some recent results from some recent "swing state" polls.Those surveys were conducted by Emerson College / The Hill. As we noted, the gloomy results were being happily bruited … | Continue reading

FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2024We badly need new language: We thought we'd go ahead and offer a footnote to this morning's report.In that report, we discussed the latest silly statements, and the latest silly topic selection, by the press corps' silliest boy.Also, we touched on the ridicul … | Continue reading

FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2024Then too, there's our own tribe's culture: Last evening, American journalism's silliest boy made one of his silliest statements.In fairness, everyone can make a mistake. Last night, at 8:46 p.m., the silliest child offered this:WATTERS (2/28/24): No "DEI Thur … | Continue reading

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 2024Did she get this other point right? Yesterday morning, a surprising disagreement broke out on Fox & Friends.It happened early in the 7 a.m. hour; we happened to be watching at the time. At Mediaite, Colby Hall reported the spat—but he omitted one part o … | Continue reading

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 2024Last night, blue tribunes confessed: Can denizens of our own blue tribe come to see ourselves more clearly?At this site, it has long seemed to us that we badly need to do that. Might we come to see ourselves more clearly through the auspices of classic … | Continue reading

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2024A State of the Union alert: Yesterday, if only in passing, we mentioned reports that President Biden is planning to go to war with the practice known as shrinkflation. The latest report to that effect appeared yesterday, on the front page of the New Yo … | Continue reading

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2024Blue tribe viewers were not: Oof! A new assortment of swing state polls was bruited on cable last night.Correction! The polling results were bruited on red tribe cable. Blue tribe cable stayed silent concerning these scary results.The data came from po … | Continue reading

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2024Could that new survey be accurate?  As with any such survey, it might be "right," but it could always be "wrong."That said, the survey was described as "shocking" by Mediaite's Isaac Schorr. We can easily see why he would have said that.Headline included … | Continue reading

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2024What about our own? Can we modern-day, tribal humans possibly learn to see ourselves more clearly? Can we learn to see ourselves more clearly through the auspices of the western world's earliest war poem? Can those of us in our own blue tribe take advant … | Continue reading

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2024...attracting some mainstream attention: We're happy to see the Fox News Channel star Jesse Watters attracting some mainstream attention.In January 2022, Watters first became a primetime host at the Fox News Channel. He'd started as Bill O'Reilly's silly, … | Continue reading