finally, someone who understands me

Too bad his name is “Elvis“—not that there’s anything wrong with that. Also, he’s a “mere” commenter at Kevin Drum’s site, Political Animal. Elvis has the smartest, truest (not only ’cause it reflects mine) take on how the political talk show game is “rigged.” First, Elvis’s post, then the backstory [e.a.]:

[H]ack-controlled media outlets are rigged to make the host win, and if that isn’t clearly evident in real time, the rest they take care of in post-[production].

That’s why those guys avoid a debate in any venue they do not control. [More to come about this. See the footnote for a preview. *** --ed.]
Lastly, don’t forget that the hacksters are entertainers, and that’s what their primary audience craves. If they wanted to become more well-informed, they’d watch the NewHour with Jim Lehrer or FrontLine. Instead, they watch O’Reilly, who is little more than a superficially credible reincarnation of Morton Downey Jr.

Can you hear me exulting? That’s what I’ve been saying all along, dude. I wish some folks would hear me and get with the goddamn program and learn how to give as good as they get instead of just throwing up their hands and saying, “I give up.”

[I'm no fan of Katrina vanden Heuvel's politics, but I am a great admirer of her spirit and spunk and her willingness to get out there in the ring at every opportunity on the Sunday-morning shows. If you know your stuff and you know how to debate, no one can bulldoze you. But you have to know your stuff. And know their stuff---i.e., you have to know how to debate.]
That’s what started this whole ruckus: Matt Yglesias advising against going up against “hacks” on TV and Drum wrote about it and got a lot of responses (which is where “Elvis” enters the building).

Yglesias wrote:

As I well recall from my appearances on the Hugh Hewitt showing, appearing on hack-controlled media outlets is not an effective method of persuading the audience. The rules are rigged….Television is especially tricky for providing the illusion of unmediated reality while, in fact, allowing a thousand different kinds of mediation. Thinking that you can beat television professionals whose job is to make you look bad on a television network that they control is just hubris. Nobody’s that smart. Nobody’s that clever. Nobody beats the producers.

Drum admired:

Boy, is that right. Unless you’re a seasoned pro yourself, you’re not going to outduel guys like Hewitt or Bill O’Reilly. You’re just not. And if the next day all your friends give you high fives and tell you that you kicked ass, they’re just being good friends. Believe me: you didn’t.

Luckily for me, whatever kind of ego I have, it’s not the kind that wants to appear on TV shows jousting with people determined to prove I’m an idiot. So I’m not tempted. And let’s face it: the kind of folks who listen to Hewitt and O’Reilly and their ilk aren’t going to be swayed by even the most silken-tongued liberal in the world. So what’s the point?

And then some of his readers let Drum have it:

So, liberals can’t compete in the marketplace of ideas, almost never win arguments, and choose to blame it on the hosts of public affairs shows? Awesome. No wonder they don’t show up on Sunday shows: They’re probably afraid that mean conservatives will be there to refute their liberal fantasyland.

Posted by: American Hawk on March 16, 2007 at 12:21 PM | 

And that’s where “Elvis” came in, and where we started.

———–***

This is certainly true of Keith Olbermann, who only interviews “friendlies” … except when they cancel on him at the last minute.

It is not true of Glenn Beck, who invites people who disagree with him and then wears them down. He too is an entertainer. Indeed, he’s a self-professed “rodeo clown.”

What is most objectionable about Olbermann is that he’s, as Olbermann Watch’s Robert Cox says,

a political hack posing as a journalist and abusing the trust implied in the NBC brand to get out a political message.

Read the whole interview. It’s interesting.

I also find Olbermann repellent. His sneering is … creepy. He’s Basil Fawlty with a following of hundreds of thousands. I was wrong about him, though. I thought he wouldn’t last. So did Robert Cox, who, with his pals who hated on Olbermann at Olbermann Watch, shut down their site in disgust after Olbermann was signed by NBC to an incredibly rich deal.

The site is back up.

In reviewing the intentional misinformation, misrepresentations, vitriol and other negatives being written on numerous anti-OlbermannWatch blogs and by anti-OlbermannWatch bloggers we were astounded but frankly not surprised. By the time lunch rolled around we were beginning to have second thoughts. Clearly, if the OlbyLoons were THAT excited about our decision to close Olbermann Watch we must have been doing something right. There were whispers among the staff that maybe, just maybe, we had been a bit too hasty.