Gimme a Break
Before I start this, I want to say that there are some really great folks to follow on twitter. William Beutler is great, Jay Rosen is invaluable, Roger Ebert is amusing, and there are lots of others who are really worth reading.
And then you have Chuck Todd…
Apparently some blogger, somewhere, harshed on Chuck’s Sunday morning buzz and this was the result. Who or what upset Chuck is beyond me, because he never directly addresses anyone. He apparently has decided that the best use of twitter is undirected and untargeted outbursts of random nonsense. Was it something I said (and I seriously doubt Todd even knows I exist)? Who knows? Was it Atrios? Again, who knows- because Chuck never tells us. It could be something anyone said- all we know it is some meanie blogger or some member of the “twitterverse.” In essence, he is defending himself from charges he won’t disclose.
At any rate, on to his whinge. He is mad at something someone wrote somewhere about the media coverage of the Asian trip, brushing off the criticism as just partisan bile from bloggers who aren’t capable of critical thinking. Of course, it wasn’t just bloggers, it was established journalists who were pointing out the failure of the media. James Fallows has had a multiple part series going (part 1, part 2, and part 3) in which he offered up the following assessment:
It’s not just me. Two colleagues with different perspectives—from each other’s, and sometimes from my own—marvel at how badly the mainstream American press distorted the picture of what happened during Barack Obama’s just-ended tour of Asia.***I wasn’t in touch with Howard French or Tish Durkin (to say nothing of Amb. Jon Huntsman) before we all expressed the same amazed and negative reaction at the way our colleagues had missed the main point of what just happened in America’s relations with a very important part of the world. We’re all familiar with one “crisis of the press,” the business collapse. This is a different kind of crisis, though it makes the business crisis worse: the distortion of reality by compressing every complex issue into the narrative of the DC-based “horse race.” As you can tell, this really bothers me.
That wasn’t a potty-mouthed blogger.
valdivia
but but C Todd know better than James Fallows who lived in China for 3 years what this trip meant because he is part of the WH Press Corps! Did it even occur to these idiots to interview those who know anything about China about the trip? No, so therein lies their utter fail.
You Don't Say
If you’re a journalist and James Fallows is criticizing your work, you need to take it seriously.
asiangrrlMN
I’m disappointed in what a princess Todd has turned out to be. So sad.
valdivia
also love the way he states we do NOT know how the trip went but he spent the last week saying Obama was humiliated and the country is going to lose the battle of the World because of it. what an idiot.
jwb
@valdivia: The funniest part is that he thinks of himself as a ref.
asiangrrlMN
And, when the only thing I heard about Obama’s trip was the damned bow he made in Japan, I knew that the mainstream media was worth than useless—like I didn’t before. They really are in their own little bubble.
brent
Aside from the truly remarkable thin-skinnedness of journalists like Todd, one sincerely wonders what makes them think twitter is a reasonable format to defend complex ideas and to do “nuance.” I’ll admit that I find the whole twitter platform to be basically pointless anyway but whatever its value, it does not lend itself well to having the sort of conversation that Todd seems to want to have here. And its not like he doesn’t have the resources or any other platform to make his case.
Jim
Thin-skinned and completely vacuous. I can’t quite put my finger on why Todd is worse than Russert, maybe it’s just that Russert was so self-satisfied he never quite would have melted down to this point.
Even as Russert and eventually Broder and Cokie pass from the scene, the damage they have done will remain. They have infected the generation after with that unique brand of smug and paranoid insularity that makes 75% of establishment political reporting and commentary worse than useless.
dmsilev
Chuck Todd’s picture belongs in the dictionary next to the entry for ‘Peter Principle’. He was actually useful and intelligent in his old position, and then he got promoted…
-dms
Jim
@You Don’t Say:
I imagine CTodd’s response would be something along the lines of “What network is he on?”
Max
@Jim:
Because Russert was a die-hard Bills fan, which meant that he was a good person underneath the Inside the Beltway hard candy coating.
JGabriel
Chuck Todd:
Hey, wait, if you change “folks” to “liberals” and “the press” to “Conservatives”, that sounds just like Erick Erickson at Redstate! For instance:
Is Chuck Todd secretly a RedStater?
.
Sentient Puddle
The 140 character cap was put in for a reason, Chuck. If you want to write a blog post, write it on your blog. I could barely read the damn thing…
valdivia
I also think that the problem with him is that in the election his skills with numbers and electoral college math, the really wonky stuff he knows, made him ignore the usual idiocy from the Village. Once he was disconnected from the data and had to opinionate based on Village conventions he was lost.
Brachiator
Damn, this is good stuff (that I would have totally missed without this here blog site).
Fallows points out again that the problem with the mainstream press ain’t that it’s liberal (or even conservative), but that it is so relentlessly shallow. Instead of moving over and letting journalists who have knowledge of China contribute, the media machine (White House Press Corps, news anchors, the usual suspect pundits) has to have media pole position.
And we poor viewers are neither informed nor even entertained, ending up dazed and confused.
Jason Bylinowski
Somebody remind me, why do we use twitter again? Reading a post from the bottom up is fun (no, not frustrating AT ALL) and all but I remember when we had these things called blogs. Maybe they weren’t as cool as twitter, but you could write as long as you want and they had other features besides simple character input.
DougJ
When an unserious hippie like James Fallows criticizes the media, that’s whining that should be ignored. When a journalistic giant like Glenn Beck criticizes the media…
monkeyboy
Crooks and Liaars: Why Chuck Todd is an idiot
quotes John Cole.
JK
Chuck Todd should never have been made a White House reporter because he’s absolutely fucking clueless. The only thing he could do semi competently was analyze polling data.
Danny Schechter put it best when he wrote The More You Watch, The Less You Know.
To paraphrase Charles Dickens, the MSM is an ass. If Dickens were alive today, I suspect he’d reach that conclusion.
At least, there’s The Nation, The Progressive, Mother Jones, Amy Goodman, Laura Flanders, Glenn Greenwald, Dan Froomkin, and a handful of others who continue to do good journalism.
Marc
Funny thing is, Chuck Todd’s twittertantrum actually has more nuance than most of the WH press coverage of the Asia trip. If they had just said “it’s too soon to tell” instead of explaining how Obama’s bow has made us a colony of Imperial Nippon, would anybody be criticizing them?
I miss the Chuck Todd who, seemingly alone in the national media, was capable of counting delegates and reading primary rules. dmsilev beat me to the Peter Principle, so I’ll just second him on that.
Punchy
“twitterverse”? Really? BTW, what’s the past tense of “tweet”? Is it twit? twat?
bemused
If I didn’t know that was Todd, I’d almost swear it was Sarah Palin whining & justifying. He doesn’t stand out in this defensive non-self examination. The pundit crowd is full of Toddists.
r€nato
I’m really pleased to have my instincts validated by Fallows; I’m averse to the idea of being some random guy who is certain he knows it all from his comfy chair.
It seems a LOT like these tools like Chuck Todd have this need to turn everything into a horse race. It’s an easier narrative for lazy journalists to follow. Doesn’t require much thinking, either. Just drop all the players in pre-determined boxes, write the story you had decided to write before you covered the assignment, and get done in time to make Sally Quinn’s cocktail party where you can trade clever bon-mots about those dirty fucking bloggers with Joe Klein.
Max
Didn’t they announce a couple months ago that Chuckles was getting a weekend show?
Maybe he is working on his talking points 140 characters at a time.
Seebach
How funny. Chuck thinks he’s a ref, when he’s actually another player on the field. Funny how he can’t see that.
JenJen
The file name of the graphic containing the Chuck Toddler tweets wins the internet.
Blahblah
I have given up on television news. I first cancelled cable television and Internet, and put up an antenna. Got a smart phone for net. But I still can’t PBS’s News Hour, so lately I’ve just pulled the plug on my big screen TV. Saves me about $5/mo in electrcity to pull the plug vs leaving it plugged in but turned off. I plug it in for Nature and American Experience once in a while. Or I watch a movie.
TV and cable news are now such blatant propaganda exercises that there is no point paying attention any longer. Listening to the beltwayis like reading Maoist propaganda: so far from reality it has become a parody of itself.
superking
The one that gets me is that he claims people are “blaming the refs.” I know there is this now significant tradition of calling the media “the refs”—it started with Eric Alterman’s book “What liberal media?” where he introduced (or at least expounded) the idea of republicans “working the refs” by constantly complaining about liberal bias.
The thing is that Alterman wasn’t arguing that the press are actually refs. He was just saying that if you abuse someone enough, they will eventually treat you nicely to avoid being abused.
But here we have Chuck Todd taking one analogy and turning it into another. In Chuck Todd’s world, he really is a ref and nothing is his fault, because, as he thinks, he is calling the game perfectly.
The problem with his view, of course, is that in real games sometimes it is the player’s fault, sometimes it is the coach’s fault, but sometimes it is actually, truly, objectively the ref’s fault for making bad calls. You can’t get away with shitty umpiring by just mouthing, “But I’m the umpire!!”
Fucking morans.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
First of all, the basics. Chuck Todd is a mediocre media hack. Whether he likes it or not, that is the truth. Which doesn’t make him the devil, but it does just make him an ordinary member of a pretty useless and discredited class of people.
After that, he’s just being a defensive whiner who can’t stand up for his work or his profession worth a damn. Because he has no ground to stand on. No body of work, no courageous stand, no principled ground. Nothing. So he whines WATB shit.
Fuck him. Very much.
J in WA
What a whiny little crybaby he is, that Chuck Todd. To use his own words, “my favorite part is how 1 or 2 bloggers gets collectively used to attack all of the blogosphere.”
“Journalists” like him are the reason I stopped watching broadcast news.
licensed to kill time
Todd’s having a Twitterfit.
r€nato
That’s some pretty sad shit there, that whining by Chuck Todd. Christ.
I don’t like to whine, even when I have a damned good reason for it. One would think that the WH correspondent for NBC would have a thicker skin than that. If bloggers are so insignificant, why does Toddster treat them like their opinions/writings have any importance or impact?
Brachiator
@Jim:
Don’t worry. There is a new generation of vacuous twits waiting in the wings to take their place.
JenJen
If Chuck Toddler is a ref, then he’s a bad ref, right? The worst kind of ref. It’s like putting the owner of the team on the field and dressing him up in stripes, and then throwing a tantrum the second a fan calls bullshit on your costume.
Or something. He (and by “he” I mean “all of ‘em”) infurtiates me.
Demo Woman
@Blahblah: I have an antenna and enjoy movies and a few network shows. I definitely agree with you on the cost savings and I haven’t missed the cable 24/7 propaganda channels. I have to admit that at 5 o’clock am on a Sunday when every channel is an infomercial, it’s tempting to return to cable.
Eric U.
he’s probably talking about Media Matters. I suspect MM is getting just enough respectability that he can’t attack them directly.
MikeJ
I still can’t believe Todd allowed Hu Jintao’s handball.
matt
I like this in part 3, from Fallows’s unnamed WH source:
mistersnrub
Chuck Todd is the Dick Bavetta of the Washington Press Corps. Who’s Tim Donaghy? Tapper?
YellowJournalism
Whoa. Somebody needs his diaper changed.
Mister Papercut
Halloween’s over, Chuck, you can take off the Pissy Little Diva costume.
Shawn in ShowMe
Just thought I’d inject this tidbit describing to the shrinking appetite for Village tripe:
Sunday TV yada-yada show ratings really tighten
That’s a difference of only 50,000; they sell more hot dogs than that at one NFL game.
As if those two shows weren’t close enough, George Stephanopoulos was, figuratively speaking, just a nose ahead of CBS’ “Face the Nation,” which clocked in at 2.46 million.
Nielsen reported no difference between the ABC and CBS shows’ reach among the coveted 25 to 54 demographic—both netted 830,000 each, versus NBC’s 910,000.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@Blahblah:
Amazing how those two soup cans tied together with kitchen twine are handling your Internet connection so well!
Corner Stone
@Blahblah: When I hear people say things like this I immediately understand that they can’t have kids.
Corner Stone
@Corner Stone: Edited to add – I mean they must not have children in the place they are living right now.
Wile E. Quixote
@superking
Really? Is that how it works? Hell, we need to start shitting on conservatives and continue to do so for the next 30 or 40 years. Perhaps then they’ll behave decently, and if they don’t, well we’ll at least have had the satisfaction of treating them like shit.
Corner Stone
@Jim:
But even worse than that, IMO, is that they have proven a business model. Accept the corporate spin, sell out for it while you have 5 minutes on TV, and make a fucking fortune.
It’s not so much that they are imbeciles, but rather that they have made so much damn money by adopting a successful career path.
This demonstrates to a couple generations (all of whom are probably scared to death about income and future jobs) that there is a path to success.
valdivia
to continue on the ref idea. Reporting the news is not abut being a ref, how idiotic is that. Refs enforce rules in a game where the rules are set, the news should have no rules except reporting facts, and if that is the rule they are supposed to be enforcing as newspeople they are an utter failure, instead they promote lies and impose their own views about how this is Very Important for the next 12 hours. How pathetic.
Shawn in ShowMe
Nah, it doesn’t work with people who actually like to fight.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
That is standard Washington Press Corpse reaction to any criticism of their sterling work. To them, it excuses everything they do.
I have every bit as much edumacation as Chuckles and am pretty fucking smart. Modest too. Partisanship doesn’t really enter into it, critical thinking does. When Chuckles and the rest of his ilk dismiss the cogent analysis of somebody like Atrios, well, it’s telling.
Calling me a shrill, partisan dumbfuck does little to convince me that paying for “news” when it’s produced by these stenographers.
It is why they fail. And will continue to fail.
HoneyBearKelly
I saw that it was all about some comment somebody made on his Facebook page.
In order to find out I’d have to friend him and I’m not friending assholes today.
Mike in NC
Chuck Todd is to journalism what Sarah Palin is to politics: a vapid, clueless narcissist sucking all the oxygen from the room.
Comrade Jake
The really lame thing has to be the back-and-forth Todd has on this with Ambinder. Ambinder calls him a mensch for trying to win the argument. I mean, Jesus fucking Christ these guys are wankers.
Balloon boy
how many in the msm speak chinese, or know much about chinese?
r€nato
@HoneyBearKelly:
you’ve got to be shitting me. Really? This is over a post on FB?
Fuckin’ fuck me. Wow. 15 year old girls obsess over who’s their friend on FB and who isn’t and who said something mean about them on FB.
Then they grow out of that. What’s Chucky’s excuse?
georgia pig
Chuck Todd is Sarah Palin with a goatee, everything is about him and his celebrity media friends and their petty concerns. Taibbi nails the essence of Palinism in in his latest column, and this is really no different, i.e., social climbing and the attendant babble is more important that any substance, because these assholes don’t stand for anything but their own careers. Twitter is a perfect medium for twits, no?
GregB
It only took Chuck Todd about one year to go from zero to dildo.
He deserves a medal for distinguisehd Broderism.
-G
Polish the Guillotines
@Marc:
Hey, let’s coin a term for the BJ Lex: “twantrum.”
Also, Fallows on Forum. Good interview, and an antidote to Todd.
Ash Can
Probably the saddest thing about this is that if Todd were to be put back into a data-analysis position (where he obviously belongs), he’s already tarnished his reputation with this incompetent hack/candy-ass whiner routine. Fewer people would be listening to him or taking him seriously, no matter how insightful and accurate his analysis would be.
shoutingattherain
@Polish the Guillotines:
Or perhaps “Having a Twitfit”.
Martin
That’s why Chuck Todd is so hard to take – he was really quite good at putting the numbers in context during the primaries – probably 2nd only to Nate. I want that guy back.
AB
The media aren’t refs, they’re players too…
BFR
@Ash Can:
I totally disagree. He is to data analysis what Vanna White is to english lit. Reading poll results over the air and fitting them into idiotic horse race narratives is NOT analysis.
JGabriel
valdivia:
Was Todd really that skillful with the numbers? By the time I noticed him, I was already reading Nate Silver, whose numbers seemed much more accurate — later reflected in Todd’s reporting, which, as far as the stats went, seemed to merely parrot Nate in the last few months.
.
Comrade Jake
The sad reality is that parroting Nate Silver put Todd way out in front of the majority of reporters covering the election last year.
I found the response from the “insider” Fallows talked to pretty much spot on: the WH press corps views everything in terms of the “horse race”. They are incapable of covering things any other way. When things don’t easily fit into the horse race narrative for them, we get piles of stupid as a result.
valdivia
@JGabriel:
he is no Nate of course but, in the context of village coverage he was one of the only ones who pretty much said both in the primaries and in the general that the state polls were predicting Obama was going to win, no bs.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
Who or what upset Chuck is beyond me, because he never directly addresses anyone.
It’s because anyone on Twitter can include or direct a message at you even if you aren’t their follower(or they follow you). It’s mind boggling to think how many people probably say mean(and often times correct) things about Chuckie or Snufalofogus.
sloan
@dmsilev:
Couldn’t agree more. I thought he was a decent political analyst last year and it was odd that he was promoted to WH correspondent. His reporting has been underwhelming. Now he’s just playing games.
As for his twittering, if it takes you 9 tweets to express a thought then Twitter isn’t for you. And the last tweet: “they are accusing me of whining” is his 9th tweet in 9 minutes whining that he’s not a whiner. Maybe he needs his own blog. (First Read doesn’t count.)
georgia pig
@JGabriel: I was never that impressed with Todd’s statistical analyses, they were pretty much Russert’s whiteboard sessions gussied up with a little fake geekiness. Nate Silver is a pro with a deep understanding of statistical methods. Todd is an amateur poser who made it to the main cocktail weenie circuit by virtue of Russert’s untimely death.
kay
I think the coverage of the China trip was bad enough to get attention.
It got my attention, and I know next to nothing about China, and my foreign policy knowledge is probably (sadly) representative of a majority in the US. I know what I read in the newspaper, so not much.
It stuck out, it sucked so bad.
I’m not a sophisticated consumer, and it hit me in the first 30 minutes. That’s why they’re so defensive. Don’t expect an apology though. As we have learned, when they screw up, they double down on denial.
I am really pleased that it’s become an issue, if only a minor one, though. That’s good news.
Mike E
@GregB:
Zero to dildo in just one year. WIN
Polish the Guillotines
@shoutingattherain: This, too.
valdivia
@kay:
agree the defensiveness proves, once again, that they are surprised people who know and understand are not buying their bs.
ford powers
@chucktodd is a chad. you should follow @shitmydadsays – classic funny.
Tom Q
I’ll echo all those who think it’s sad what Todd has evolved to, and The Peter Principle analogy has occurred to me, as well.
But I draw the line at “he was never any damn good/he was just reading the printouts”. Forget the fact that he was first on the air to explain just how unlikely it was Hillary could ever catch up in delegates after the run of primaries in the Chesapreake etc., or that he kept to his story despite massive pressure from the Clinton camp to hedge. Flash to election night. Every other new station gave McCain all of Nebraska’s electoral votes on the spot. Todd, within minutes, was saying the state was gone but the Omaha district was very much in doubt—and it of course ultimately went to Barack. Flog Todd for his vapid commentary; lament his complete immersion in Village wisdom. But don’t question his numbers bona fides.
valdivia
@Tom Q:
this.
kay
@valdivia:
valdivia, I’m easy to snow on foreign policy. I don’t know jack. I read it like an assignment. Reluctantly.
If they disappointed me, if I heard it as unserious horse race bullshit, and I did, immediately, they’re in real trouble. I’m the average audience.
WereBear
@Seebach:
News in a nutshell.
You Don't Say
@ford powers: Thanks. Very funny.
georgia pig
@Tom Q: Dude, that’s one low fucking bar. If those are Todd’s claims to fame, he is a lightweight. On the other hand, seeing as the rest of the cable commentariat is mathematically illiterate, I guess you could feel that Todd is a genius.
kay
@valdivia:
That last Fallows piece is amazing. I think it’s hysterical they studied Reagan’s speech to China/Chinese, but knew Obama couldn’t recite a poem, as Reagan did.
Because THE SCREECHING FROM THE PRESS WOULD BE UNBEARABLE.
Poetry! NOT MANLY or PRESIDENTIAL and VERY ELITIST. They’d have gone insane with anger.
I’m to the point where I think Obama should ignore them completely. What’s the difference?
valdivia
@kay:
yes I thought that was funny too. But also—it notes that this crew preps before doing anything, and most people seem to assume they do nothing. just one more instance.
Jinx
@brent:
I think it’s fair to say that all known life forms are born with an innate understanding that the word “nuance” is never to be used in Twitter postings. Well, at least I thought so up until now…
Chuck’s just another, albeit a glorious, example of the peter principle. He’s truly risen to the level of his incompetence and there he petulantly remains.
licensed to kill time
From the Fallows piece(part 4):
That last line could have been John Cole, only he would have said “punched the Chinese leaders in the neck”.
Jim
@kay:
Chris Matthews would have had a complete on-air breakdown.
I mean, a bigger one than he has every day.
MBSS
john cole.
please, be my guest, continue to hound chuckie todd and davie brooks until they have public breakdowns.
broder is also not exempt. friedman. boy, i could go on for a while…
valdivia
I love that in his new piece (#4) Fallows calls out both Todd and Matthews. And the WaPo. He is invaluable.
Col. Klink
Bow Gate was it for me. I simply cannot watch teevee news after that. Turn the machine off. As an aside though, could you imagine the disasterous state our country would be in if it hadn’t been for the internets? David Broder and Fred Hiatt would get to determine the President. If our democracy lives another 100 years, the internets will have been its savior.
Senyordave
I assume that Chuck and others will be moving out of the US since they msut be so humilated after Obama’s bow.
Chuck Butcher
Even if you give them the “refs” title, treating the difference between a 3yd and gain and a 40 yd gain as a matter of opinion would seem a strange way to ref a game. Given that, it’s a bit difficult to not see how they aren’t players on the field.
Kathy in St. Louis
Amazing how a guy whose job it seems to be to critique every move in politics is so thin-skinned when he is being critiqued himself. Sigh. Go figure.
slag
If I had a clue as to what Chuck was twitting about, I might actually be sympathetic. If people aren’t being specific or constructive with their criticisms, they may be part of the problem. Just like Chuck.
DJMurphy
Chucktard’s twittering [sic?] is about as good as his reporting.
Martin
I love this summarized reaction from Obama regarding bowgate:
Not just you, pal.
And go Fallows, go! I desperately want to see him and Moyers do an hour on this soon. Too bad he probably can’t put Huntsman on next to Fallows.
Jinx
@Jim:
I began to suspect that he was out of his comfort zone in the WH pressers when he started asking “clubby” pointless questions but his unexpected response to Jeremy Scahill’s essentially coming down to where he works and well… you know the rest was very revealing.
Chuck was so out of his league that he thought he could pull his patented move on Scahill and return to his happy place where he really doesn’t have to finish what he starts. the “patented move” is basically this: Chuck (upon his encountering a speaker and/or issue that requires even a passing understanding of anything, i.e. at every instance of his professional life) slowly leans/pushes back in his chair with a furrowed brow and trades insidery looks with his villager peers while he carefully maintains a facial expression that could become a dismissive frown just as easily as it could a look of reasoned contemplation/trial acceptance for a topic or guest all the while uttering a drawn out, “Weeeeell…noooow….I” for as long as it takes for someone else on the panel to opine thus telling Chuck what’s acceptable to think and providing cover for his inability or unwillingness to figure a damn thing out for himself. (I know, it’s a long patented move, but it’s all the man’s got so let him have it.)
What Scahill said to Todd was fair and he had his facts straight. I am sure he didn’t know how Todd would react to the J-school review but I’m not sure if he ever expected Chuck to essentially pull his patented move when asked to defend his own words. There were no villagers to leap to his defense, no cues on how he should react (and how bizarre that he seemed to need them). What we saw was the essence of the patented move, without the villager assist and it was frankly painful. Chuck did the puff up, started looking around for help and in the end, revealed as essentially a fraud, resorted to petty sniping unable to defend his own words. How insecure or fearful of publicly making a mistake must a person be to be unable to so much as stand by his own previously stated opinion when asked?
It was a weird moment but for me it brought together a bunch of stray observations I’d had of Todd’s sudden assumption of an air of bitter all-knowing condescension to anything that came out of everyone’s mouth, the way he leaned away seemingly too bored to comment during panels with established villagers but his eyes had the look of a kid who desperately wants to avoid being called on in class. I figured he’d get over it but he’s clearly terrified of going against village wisdom or going first on any issues. He’s not trying to learn about the issues, it’s the game he thinks is important. Quelle domage. He chose poorly.
That Todd is essentially having what looks like an alcohol fueled nervous breakdown in 140 character bursts would seem evidence of his need for some time off.
kay
@valdivia:
That’s sort of what I was getting to, valdavia. They’re doing their homework, they’re working really hard, and they have a long term plan that I endorse.
I don’t really ask more than that, and they can’t “do” more than that, despite all the advice from all sides.
At some point I have to let it go. They can’t control the universe.
Fallows is wonderful. Thanks for bringing him to may attention last week.
valdivia
@kay:
yes totally agree. we are both on the same page. :-)
I wish more people thought about that before going off.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Man, 9 twats because the totally irrelevant and unserious peons of the blogosphere/twitterverse (WTF?!) were mean to him.
I hope the maid buys extra soft t.p. because that’s some serious butthurt.
Violet
Chuck Todd – Twitter failure. He doesn’t even know how to use the medium.
Said it before, he’s a low rent David Gregory. That is in no way a compliment.
ellie
Thanks for the Atlantic links! That was really great reading. I have bookmarked Fallows for the future. As for Chuck Todd and the rest of the MSM, I have no use for them. They are just awful.
QT
@Violet:
I thought I was the only one who’ve noticed he sounds more and more like David Gregory …
Balloon boy
in the age of specialization, isn’t ironic that the general practitioners (WH Press corps) are trying to pass themselves off as chinese experts? does any of them have any experience living outside of the US?
what a bunch of jokers.
pseudonymous in nc
Because it always deserves repeating: Chuck Todd embodies the Peter Principle.
A decent wonkish race handicapper gets promoted to NBC’s Voice of the Village and immediately gives up everything he was good at. As a result, he finds himself parroting the other Village high elders in order to keep doing his job.
pseudonymous in nc
Or, as one commenter at Swampland noted: “[Chuck Todd] analyzing politics is like an ant analyzing a picnic.”
slag
@pseudonymous in nc: The entire concept of the Peter Principle is pretentious nonsense.
fraught
CT was lousy at analyzing polls during the election. He just seemed more likable than John King. CT studied music in his attempt to earn a college degree and ended up as a parasitic cyst on Tim Russert’s nether parts. If Russert hadn’t died he’d still be wiping Tim’s grease board with his forehead and trying out goofy facial hair looks in his magnified angle mirror in the privacy of his very non executive bathroom.
We’re seeing the snotty side that every Eve reveals when her Margo isn’t around. Expect more as John Cole turns up the heat on this frog who doesn’t know enough to jump out of the boiling water.
pseudonymous in nc
You’ve clearly never worked under managers who were promoted because there was no other place to put them.
dSquib
Todd just has no business being on TV commenting unless it’s ESPN.
The reflexive dismissal of any criticism of media coverage of Obama’s Asia trip from the “blogosphere” as biased may be rooted in a genuine and general belief built up around the MSM that they are the last stalwarts of real journalism against the rising tide of partisan opinion filters presented as news, or to paraphrase the stated fears of, ironically, Barack Obama, that without a strong and unbiased news corp all we have is people shouting at each other engendering only confusion and antipathy. I don’t doubt that Todd and co believe this is the role they have been cast in. Of course Todd in this instance seems to have ignored that the people criticising the MSM’s coverage of the trip are not all hailing it as some unbridled success, but that the coverage was lacking all substance, and interested only in tally taking, and quite bogus tally taking at that.
Consider that not always does one’s political persuasion simply predetermine one’s take on a challenge facing someone who nominally represents that ideology, but that one’s reasons for believing what one believes and regarding a particular undertaking by one’s political representative as a success, are one and the same. I believe in foreign policy driven by diplomacy, so when this is practiced, I’m going to offer a positive take on it. That does not make me “partisan”. Also consider that being able to predict a response to an event, such as the mini-election, from each party, does not automatically render each reaction as equally false or true, or as Chuck Todd seems think all of them must be true, because truth is relative except when the two major parties agree, then it must be absolutely true. All we heard in the run up was “well of course, the Republicans will call this a referendum on Obama, the Democrats will dismiss it as local politics”. Somehow the MSM feels that they are not obliged in these instances to investigate the validity of either claim, such as reading exit poll data. No. For whatever reason the MSM has mistaken balance and equivalence for objectivity. All parties must be equally sane. If there is a far right, kneejerk faction in the Republican party, there must perforce be a far left kneejerk faction in the Democratic party. If Bush made continuous gaffes while abroad representing America, Obama must surely be about to do the same, so we must keep our eyes peeled. And on and on. Whatever.
ksmiami
Blah Blah
Me too. I have not watched TV or the news in like forever and i am not alone in my generational cohort. Also Fallows rules!
mardam
what nuance? Chuck Todd wouldn’t know nuance if it bit him in the ass. Seriously, can anyone identify for me the “nuance” he was trying to inject into the narrative?
Fallows faults WH press corps on China | Obama Biden White House
[...] Fallows responds to NBC’s Chuck Todd, who’s been tweeting lately about the “backseat driving” of bloggers critical of China [...]
Fallows faults W.H. press corps on China | Obama Biden White House
[...] ‘horse race.’” And Fallows responds to NBC’s Chuck Todd, who’s been tweeting lately about the “backseat driving” of bloggers critical of China [...]