Another Week in Political Paradise

Let me start by saying, I actually like Peggy Noonan. But a point of clarification. I don't necessarily like all of her opinions, or even half, but she is, like Maureen Dowd, usually pretty readable. That both are attractive Irish women, I'm sure is just a coincidence.

I don't know Dowd, but I first met Peggy Noonan in 1990 when I interviewed her for her book on her time as a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, "What I Saw at the Revolution." As you might expect, it was well written but a little fulsome in the hero worship department. Probably I remember most that she was quite flirty, which is always a plus for a hormonal interviewer.

But this week in her Wall Street Journal column, she talked about the Fox News sit-down between Kamala Harris and anchor Bret Baier.

Noonan in her discussion of the event called Baier one of the best journalists in American TV, or some such. Peg, darlin', really? Even after the Daily Beast revealed Bret's reactions on election night in 2020...

On Thursday, the Daily Beast reported that Baier and now-former host Tucker Carlson engaged in a conversation on November 4, 2020, about potentially delaying Fox News’ call of the election. Both men complained that they were receiving blowback from their Trump-supporting viewers over the network’s controversial early projection that then-candidate Joe Biden would win the state of Arizona, putting him on the brink of capturing the White House.

“We need to do something to reassure our core audience,” Carlson wrote Baier in the wake of the Arizona call, according to The Beast. “They’re our whole business model.”

Baier replied that he had been “pushing for answers.” He then added, according to The Beast, “I have pressed them to slow. And I think they will slow walk Nevada.”

Days later, the network was, in fact, last to call the presidency for Biden.

Plus, he claimed the next day that they ran the wrong clip when Harris talked about Trump threatening the use of the military on political opponents. Trust me, at the network level, even at Fox, you don't cue up the "wrong" clip for a big interview.

Not really what you want from one of the "best" newsmen in America.

Here's something you also don't want and that is a discussion of Arnold Palmer's, uh, driver. Yes, our very stable genius managed to work into one of his rally rants a comment on the famed golfer's manhood. I'll be honest with you, I really didn't need that to add to the legendary Palmer's resume. But it would seem to me that given the eyewitness testimony of Stormy Daniels, that isn't a topic the Trumpster ought to dwell on.

I just found out though, there is a reportedly refreshing summer drink named for Arnie, really.

Country Club Arnold Palmer

• 4 oz Country Time Lemonade, double strength
• 4 oz brewed iced tea
• Pour the lemonade into a highball glass filled with chipped ice. Pour the iced tea slowly over the back of a spoon into the glass. Garnish with a lemon wedge and straw. Stir before drinking.

My understanding is that it's best served with cocktail wienies.

But all of these digressions pale in the light of the biggest supposed Harris lie pointed out by the former President. He is convinced, now are you sitting down? He is convinced she didn't really work at McDonald's in college. And to illustrate this issue that is sure to sink her campaign, we have this...

To anyone new to this country trying to figure out our political decision-making practices, I simply want to apologize. It didn't used to be this way. My colleague Jim Moore wrote a great piece this week about lies and misrepresentations in our recent history. I have told him before that I can't sign on to his problems with the Warren Report, but he also touches on something that is afflicting our broadcast business and has since the 80's.

That is when Noonan's favorite President removed the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" from the broadcast universe. I worked in the business both before and after this change and never found it a hindrance to doing fair and balanced interviews. If you talked about abortion, both sides had their say. If it was guns or the economy, you made room for the opposition. That way, like it or not, viewers or listeners heard both arguments.

Now, the press, in general, has retreated to their respective corners like a pair of tired boxers and spew their version of everything, true or not. And viewers have as well.

Limbaugh begat Fox, which begat MSNBC, and on and on like Old Testament genealogy. Add in a lot of money, cue the Musk factor, and you have a recipe for the kind of lies I talked about last week, only turbocharged. Look, I really admire the work of SpaceX and am firmly behind our progress on electric cars, but Elon is now paying people to vote for Trump like some old Tammany Hall politician offering free beer for votes.

And of course, the lying has begun with early voting with Marjorie Taylor Greene, a shoe-in for the Triple Crown next year, and Elon reviving the Dominion voting machine nonsense.

So we get half of the country simply not believing anything the other side says, even when journalists are trying to get it right. The "60 Minutes" interview with Kamala Harris is one example. Having been in television and radio for 54 years, I know you offer clips of an upcoming big story on your other news programs to generate interest. You also don't give away everything because you want eyeballs glued to the main broadcast. It's a teaser.

CBS offered a longer and shorter version of Harris' answer to a question about the Middle East. The longer one aired on "Face the Nation" on Sunday, and the shorter one on "60 Minutes" on Monday.

The conservative punditocracy went nuts. They accused the network of editing the interview to show a shorter, more concise answer. How did they know there was a longer one? Because CBS aired it!!! How do you complain that something is being hidden when it was hidden right there on TV.

And of course, no one mentioned that Trump bailed on an interview on the program. But no matter, the complaining continues on and off the air. Hannity or Joy Reid, pick your poison. And now, of course, it has moved online.

I get emails from some of these wingnut sources like "The Daily Wire" founded by a conservative yakker named Ben Shapiro, who first made his name as a kid, literally, publishing a syndicated column at 17 after listening to far too much Limbaugh. Because, I don't know about you, but when I need cogent political analysis, I turn to a high school junior.

Then there is the "Daily Caller" founded by the man you hire when you want your company to be sued for 3/4 of a billion dollars, Tucker Carlson. Here's a recent headline in an email to me...

Foreign Socialist Party Reportedly Planned To Send Army Of Activists To Campaign For Harris

Sounds pretty ominous until you find the headline is not talking about China or Russia but members of Britain's Labour Party who were coming over to lend support to the Vice President.

So, what did we learn this week, kids? Well, Bret Baier is Edward R. Murrow incarnate, Arnie was wielding a real Big Bertha, CBS is guilty of practicing broadcasting in broad daylight, Trump doesn't look good in an apron either, and our British cousins are being held prisoner by some Trotskyite maniacs.

But I'll bet Peggy Noonan is still a flirt.