The
main items on the menu, the New York
Times reports, are GOP blowhards like Lindsey Graham, John McCain and Mitch
McConnell—-162 appearances since 2010, outnumbering by far all Senate Democrats
in the talking-points derby.
Since
so few are listening, so what? So this: Just as national newspapers like the Times and Washington Post would set the political news agenda in the last
century, the Sunday talk shows have a wide ripple effect by providing “news” leads
for other journalists.
In
addition, “guests with strong points of view can give viewers a false sense of
proportion to certain sides of policy debates,” notes the Times, pointing out that McCain’s “advocacy for military
intervention in Syria and criticism of the administration’s policies there
might create a sense that there is a robust policy debate over the matter in
Washington when there really is not.”
Distortion
goes far beyond false equivalency on issues, echoing the kind of meanness
generated by the endless 2011 Republican primary debates that still infects the
political atmosphere.
The
only argument for such weekly political preening can be made for the rare
occasions when robotic guests slip off script, as Darrell Issa did last week in
labeling the White House Press Secretary a “paid liar,” prompting GOP pressure
on Issa to cool it.
Much
more significant was Joe Biden’s remark on “Meet the Press” last May that he
was “comfortable with” gay marriage that eventually led to the President’s
shift on the issue. Did Biden slip or was he sending his boss a message?
Until
memoirs are written, we won’t know, but the Sunday talk shows won’t go away,
and we can only hope producers widen their choices of guests. Sen. Al Franken,
for example, was a professional talker before his election but has never been
booked. The republic won’t be endangered if he’s invited on to express his “liberal”
opinions.
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