Bloviation takes a hit

Bloviation takes a major hit.

I can't say that I'll miss Dylan Ratigan, but my not saying says very little, since I find myself following less and less of cable news anyway. Fox news isn't, of course, and watching CNN feels almost sadistic to me. So that leaves MSNBC, my regular viewing of which is down to "Hardball."

Before Martin Bashir went crazy after only a week or two of hosting his own program, I tried to make time for his slot, which, as I understand it, will soon be Ratigan's imminently available one. I tremble at the thought of whom MSNBC's president, Phil Griffin, has in mind for Bashir's old one. Michael Moore? Katrina vanden Heuvel? Son of Schultz?

It's not that I would necessarily or even fundamentally disagree with such folks; it's just that my unsentimentality system cannot tolerate that much radiant virtue for an entire hour.

But back to Mr. Ratigan, with whom I also rarely violently disagreed. The man, however, had no sense of perspective or proportion. He had seen the light--make that lights, all of them--and by God he wanted solutions now; not merely the answers to the problems, mind you, for those, he already had. No, he demanded solutions in terms of resolutions and results--now. Obama's healthcare remedy? Not good enough. So he condemned it. Dodd-Frank? Not good enough. So he condemned it. Campaign finance reform? OK I'll give him that, since there is no such thing.

In demanding it all, instantly, he had doomed himself (along with his faithful followers) to perpetual disappointment and, or so it seemed at times, despair. And that--as they say on Ratigan's bete noire, Wall Street--don't feed the bulldog. We take steps, sometimes little steps, and too often steps backwards; but enough little steps forward can, over the years, cover a lot of territory.

Geez. I'm preaching. But certainly no more than Ratigan did--and I didn't do it for an hour.

Comments

[Susan Zoon]

Funny... I'm watching a lot less of cable news myself.
Several years ago I attempted to start a boycott of cable news by asking people to commit to dropping the level of cable programing that contained the cable news networks and just retain the most basic level of cable they could get from their servers. NO TAKERS!
I figured the best way to take them down was to starve them into irrelevance.

Anyway, I just began to boycott them myself. Left or right, they are killing honest political discourse in this country. I'm just weary of being harangued.

[Robert Lipscomb]

I limit myself to the first 30 minutes of Lawrence O-Donnel who at least shuts up while his guest speak. I also find he has a pretty good insight about the legislative process.