Those Political Talk Show Pundits
Published May 16, 2005
Grandmother would marry John Gibson should he ask her.
Next: Wolf Blitzer. Blitzer is host on the formerly vaunted CNN cable network, particularly his Sunday talk show titled "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer". Grandmother always watches this show and she must grudgingly grant Mr. Blitzer a fairly interesting show with penetrating commentary.
Grandmother will always remember Blitzer when he was the on-site CNN representative during the first Gulf War. At that time, the early nineties, CNN was the only cable news network in town.
CNN is notorious for its liberal bent and alas, some of it carries over to Wolf. Grandmother thinks he really does try to be fair and balanced considering his home base. He usually has pretty good guest as well.
Grandmother would marry Wolf Blitzer should he ask her.
Next: Greta Van Sustern. Greta hosts the Fox show "The Greta Van Sustern show".
Okay, Kaitlyn, allow Grandmother to say right now that many of the blogosphere consider Greta to be fluff and obsessed with the current true crime of national interest: the Scott Peterson case.
Which she is, Kaitlyn. But Grandmother has an unusual, perhaps unhealthy, interest in true crime. Thus the endless shows with Scott Peterson segments do not offend Grandmother.
I think Greta does possibly the best job of controlling her guests in terms of insuring one does not monopolize or one does not get heard at all. Every political talk show host could learn something from Greta. She always does a great job of interjecting pertinent questions and she has that uniquely feminine ability to shut up the motormouths without offending them.
Now on to the worst of the current political talk show hosts in this day of our Lord. We shall go from the best of the worst down to the very worst of the worst.
Sean Hannity: It pains Grandmother to put Hannity into this category, Kaitlyn Mae, but I cannot abide by Sean's constant badgering of guests with a single talking point shouted over and over until my ears are shredded.
Hannity is, Kaitlyn, a fine young man and I do not doubt his sincerity, ever, not even for a moment. And I suppose Sean thinks his brutal badgering of guests reflects upon him as a no-nonsense sort of pundit. Uh-uh, Kaitlyn. Too often Grandmother has to flick the channel so bad does he grate on her nerves.
The best thing I can say about Sean Hannity, co-host of the Fox show "Hannity and Colmes", is that Sean is waaaaay better than Colmes.
- Those Political Talk Show Pundits
- Published: May 16, 2005
- Type: Opinion
- Section: Politics
- Filed Under: Books: Politics and Affairs, Video: Television
- Writer: Patfish
- Patfish's BC Writer page
- Patfish's personal site
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Comments
I agree with ERic. From where I stand, politicaly, MAthews is way right.
If he is indeed a visable and biased representative of the left in America, than I feel feel awfully depressed about America's prospects for the future.
PErsonally I think Mathews is an idiot as are most pundits on TV. They arn't hired for thier intelligence or their objective journalism, they are hired because they are entertaining and intriguing.
Anyone who watches fox news has given up on watching objective journalism anyway. They are simply tuning in to have someone re-confirm what they already beleive. its lame.
Chris Matthews spent his formative years as a speechwriter for President Carter and was a senior aide to Tip O'Neill. Just sayin', you know?
Do you think its possible that he wrote lefty speeches without neccesarily without believing much of what he wrote?
I mean, if I were hired by GWB to write speeches I would take the gig despite my hatred of the man. It's a career opportunity.
Perhaps its unlikely? I dont know...
In the imperfect world of punditry, Chris Matthews is the least imperfect. I say that because he doesn't let guests evade questions by answering something else. I find it frustrating when a question is asked and a guest is allowed to evade the issue and talk about something else -- thinking that no one will notice. It's his show and Matthews controls it.
I agree -- it's that quality and his passion for pure politics that keeps me watching.






Brit Hume has liberals at his table?
I love Matthews. If he has a liberal bias, he hides it really well.
I'm switching this over the politics section as that seems most appropriate for the subject matter.