A few minutes ago I turned on MSNBC in preparation for President Obama's Libya address, and there I was, face to face with a young and pathologically idealistic progressive explaining to Cenk Uygur that our budget woes could be ameliorated by U.S. corporations returning their offshore profits to the continent and then paying their proper 35 percent in income tax.
Just like that.
But here's the best part: It was so naive -- pitiably so -- even the customarily naive and wildly idealistic Mr. Uygur informed the lad that he might, just might, have a spot of trouble getting U.S. corporations to agree to his ingenious plan.
Don't get me wrong. It's refreshing (if at times embarrassing) to see such young people express a belief in higher idealistic goals. But somehow they fail to see the yawning chasm that separates them from those goals. Their objectives are either sloppily or meticulously laid, yet rarely is mention made of how we achieve those objectives. It's as though the "ideal" materialized is but a mere inconvenience of planning, something to be done once once profundity and outrage are exhausted.
This, further, is my essential problem with MSNBC as a programming voice of contemporary progressivism. It batters us mercilessly with this problem and that or this and that blissful objective, yet rarely -- never? -- do its hosts and guests delineate a detailed, step-by-step roadmap to achieving solutions. The result, too often, is merely 24/7 lip-flapping.
I was no Olberman fan, but he left a hole in the MSNBC line-up the size of the Grand Canyon. It's still hard to believe that a nitwit like Cenk Uygur managed to land a TV show. Wasn't he broadcasting on YouTube from his basement a couple of years ago?
Posted by: nepat | March 28, 2011 at 08:11 PM
Indeed.
Posted by: Alli | March 28, 2011 at 11:05 PM
Let us hope his descent back to the basement is as swift as (and far more deserved than) his ascent out of it.
Posted by: janicket | March 29, 2011 at 02:05 AM
24/7 lip flapping is correct, and Cenk, in particular, revels in it. His specialty seems to be unending faux outrage. Solutions are not his/MSNBC's forte.
Posted by: majii | March 29, 2011 at 09:38 AM