Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Pat Buchanan: The "Statler & Waldorf" of Political Punditry(Vibe.com)



Poor David Shuster. The man is having his livelihood carelessly toyed with by a political campaign seemingly more interested in scoring cheap political points than getting their candidate's message out to the masses. With entire news cycles bombarding our collective consciousness with State of the Union snubs, Obama's Ronald Reagan fan-club, Kindergarten era presidential aspirations, Crying on cue, campaign shake-ups, and a Tony Rezko non-scandal being promoted from a campaign headquarters made completely out of glass - forgive me for not being able to tell when the outrage is live or when its Memorex. Even though I completely agree with the point that David Shuster was making, how unseemly it seems for the Clinton campaign to shamelessly send Chelsea out there to woo super-delegates - his remarks that she was being "pimped out" were both wrong and reprehensible, absolutely deserving of a suspension. That being said, the guy apologized, twice, and doesn't have a history of insensitivity to speak of - but the Clinton campaign's eagerness to keep this story alive is either just an example of them "working the refs" so to speak, or making David Shuster a scapegoat for Chris Matthews' history of making clearly sexist remarks about the New York Senator.

But what is lost in Shuster-gate, Chris Matthews' lockeroom talk, and Hillary Clinton supporters the world over feeling as if MSNBC as a whole has some sort of hidden agenda against their respective candidate - is that Barack Obama has it the worst of all since he has the Statler & Waldolf of political punditry constantly attacking him. You remember Statler & Waldolf don't you? The two old and ornery bastards on "The Muppet Show", hating on everything with reckless abandon from the comfort of their balcony seats - this is the image that immediately comes to mind every time Pat Buchanan criticizes Obama ad nauseum. I'm fully aware that Buchanan is an old school conservative, so waiting for him to shower the junior Senator from Illinois with obscene amounts of praise would be a moot point - but his rhetoric is filled with so many Clinton talking points, you'd think that the decrepit fuck worked for the campaign. During Super-Tuesday, before any of the exit polling started coming in - Buchanan was saying that Obama was the "black candidate" and that if he couldn't get over 20 percent of the white vote he was finished. When Obama outperformed Pat's hamfisted expectations of the white vote, he didn't do the journalistically responsible thing and admit his mistakes - he just shifted his venom to another talking point about Obama garnering too much of the black vote was problematic, or something utterly nonsensical like that. The funny thing is, when all else fails and the facts completely abandon his piss poor, agenda driven arguments - he plays dime-store psychic and stuff like "The Republican Attack machine will tear Obama apart!!" comes oozing out the sides of his mouth.

Pat, you are the Jim Kelly of political pundits so just shut the fuck up already - we all know that Hillary Clinton would be an easier general election candidate for people who share your political affiliation. At least now I know that the hand up your ass, making your mouth move that is - happens to be controlled by the RNC.

1 comment:

Alyson said...

THANKS FOR THE COMMENT!! AND I WAS AN 80'S KID... I LOVED TROY!! OK, TOTALLY WITH YOU ON DAVID SHUSTER. I DIDN'T EVEN THINK THE "PIMPED OUT" COMMENT WAS THAT BAD, ESPECIALLY SINCE IT'S TRUE. I'D LOVE TO SEE OBAMA'S CUTE KIDS CALLING THE SUPERDELEGATES NOW... WONDER WHO'D IN THAT BATTLE BETWEEN CANDIDATES KIDS??

MY BET'S ON OBAMA. BIG TIME.

AND I CANNOT STAND PAT BUCHANAN. WHAT IS HIS DEAL WITH OBAMA?? HE'S AN ASS. :-)