{"id":16991,"date":"2021-12-13T06:00:02","date_gmt":"2021-12-13T11:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=16991"},"modified":"2021-12-12T22:53:24","modified_gmt":"2021-12-13T03:53:24","slug":"a-council-of-pygmies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2021\/12\/13\/a-council-of-pygmies\/","title":{"rendered":"A Council of Pygmies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today I watched a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=UQLZCJqeolg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">clip from a recent episode of Meet the Press<\/a>.\u00a0 It must be at least fifteen years since the last time I watched that show and apparently, I hadn\u2019t waited long enough.\u00a0 The show had been degrading for decades when I gave up on it sometime early in the Obama era but I wasn\u2019t prepared for what the 2021 edition had become.\u00a0 I believe Vox Day may have coined the term \u201cmidwit.\u201d\u00a0 If not then at least it\u2019s one of his favorite descriptive insults.\u00a0 Well, Chuck Todd and his panel probably aspire to one day reaching the towering heights of the mid-witted.\u00a0 Currently they\u2019re about halfway up that slope.<\/p>\n<p>The clip I watched was a discussion, if that term could be used for the bed-wetting panic that was on display, over whether Bison Man was preparing to storm the studio at NBC and put the whole panel to the sword.\u00a0 I remember when Meet the Press used to consist of the most senior NBC journalists and guests from the leadership of both parties and senior administration officials.\u00a0 Todd was surrounded by nobodies who wouldn\u2019t be able to get their parking tickets validated in Mid-Town Manhattan never mind get access to Capitol Hill.\u00a0 He might as well have been surrounded by those animated yellow characters called the minions or maybe brightly colored parrots that can recite short snatches of obscene poetry.\u00a0 The nonsense they were spouting was not quite as intelligible or amusing as those alternatives but equally ridiculous.<\/p>\n<p>Chuckie and the munchkins were describing how the current Republicans in Congress are in the hands of insurrectionists who are preparing to undermine all future elections by being mean.\u00a0 Worst of all they intend to prevent voter fraud.\u00a0 Egad!\u00a0 And what they found most upsetting is that tens of millions of Americans inalterably believe that the 2020 election was won by voter fraud.\u00a0 And these poor deluded fools believe this even though Chuck Todd has assured them (himself!) that this is not true.\u00a0 Heavens to Betsy!\u00a0 One of the geniuses on the show assured Chuck that he had brought to bear every piece of proof and assurance of accuracy that he could but this particular New York City fireman that he confronted wouldn\u2019t believe him.\u00a0 Shocking!\u00a0 I wondered to myself if during this debate had the fireman mentioned that these same journalists trying to convince him about election honesty were also the ones who had assured him that Russian collusion was responsible for the 2016 election outcome?\u00a0 Ah well.<\/p>\n<p>I have to confess that I had to fast forward through some of the show because one of the kids, Kimberly Atkins, was just so annoyingly dull-witted that it exceeded my patience to listen to her rant.\u00a0 She somehow got back to the Civil War and I just didn\u2019t think I would be able to live long enough to get back to even the 20<sup>th<\/sup> century in time.\u00a0 So let me just get to my takeaways from watching this charade.<\/p>\n<p>The first point is that Meet the Press is no longer watchable by grownups.\u00a0 The level of debate is about on level with what you might here at the Mean Girl\u2019s Table during the 10<sup>th<\/sup> grade lunch period.\u00a0 There is no usable information unless you are engaged in the study of some obscure aspect of abnormal psychology.\u00a0 To describe the point of view as hyper-partisan is to miss the point.\u00a0 These people are in no way different from what you\u2019d see watching Joe Scarborough and his sock puppets.\u00a0 It\u2019s the same act.<\/p>\n<p>The second takeaway is that they are very, very worried.\u00a0 I guess it\u2019s because no one is listening to them anymore, except in the echo chamber and the majority of the country want Dementia Joe to disappear and take the Cackler, Drunk Aunty Pelosi and Crying Chuck Schumer with him.\u00a0 This is existential terror.\u00a0 They need someone to do something about this.\u00a0 The army or the FBI or Dr. Fauci has to do something to make all those tens of millions of Americans believe Chuck Todd and his minions when he tells them that the 2020 election was 100% honest and Joe Biden is the greatest president in history and the economy is just wonderful and there is no such thing as inflation or supply chain.<\/p>\n<p>Now back in the 1990\u2019s Tim Russert hosted the show and of course he was a lefty but he tried to maintain the appearance of even-handedness.\u00a0 And he was a relatively intelligent man.\u00a0 I have to assume if he were brought back to life and he was trapped as a guest on the current show he\u2019d run screaming for the exit in under ten minutes.\u00a0 Chuck Todd is an odious partisan hack with the appearance and personality of a rat.\u00a0 I don\u2019t imagine I\u2019ll have a reason to watch even snippets of that show again for the remaining decades of my life on earth.\u00a0 But if for some reason I must watch it I\u2019ll make sure I\u2019m under some powerful opiate to prevent me from trying to do myself in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today I watched a clip from a recent episode of Meet the Press.\u00a0 It must be at least fifteen years since the last time I<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3459,139,3460],"class_list":["post-16991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","tag-chuck-todd","tag-fake-news","tag-meet-the-press"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Council of Pygmies - Orion&#039;s Cold Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2021\/12\/13\/a-council-of-pygmies\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" 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