Who Wants To Be A Political Pundit?
Ezra Klein passes along this helpful tool for stardom in the world of political pundity:
See, now you’re ready to do that hit on CNN/MSNBC/Fox! Next step, media stardom.
Ezra Klein passes along this helpful tool for stardom in the world of political pundity:
See, now you’re ready to do that hit on CNN/MSNBC/Fox! Next step, media stardom.
Shit, given the vast sums of money a lot of these nincompoops earn (e.g., Limbaugh, Beck, Matthews, Olbermann, etc.) I want to be a political pundit. Well, to clarify, I want to be a political pundit earning those sorts of dollars. Sigh.
That aside, I believe to be complete that table needs a third row, entitled “Pundit has no clue,” for which the two columns left to right should read “…doing the right thing” and “…taking a major political risk”.
Also, too: pundits get to be wrong over and over and over and it doesn’t matter. There are never consequences to being demonstrably wrong time and again.
The primary skill required appears to be a total lack of shame.
So who are the best pundits out there?
@J-Dub: Mataconis and Joyner, of course!
The absolute worst shows are the Sunday Morning line-ups – one from each side, softball questions, predictable answers.
Something like, “Today, Bob Schieffer will be talking to Ed Gillespie, senior Romney Advisor and Valerie Jarrett senior advisor to President Obama.” There is nothing to be gained from that show. The only reason to watch Sunday Morning news/opinion shows is in hope that one of the guests screws up and says something like:
“The president smokes opium before watching the ESPN game of the night” or
“Governor Romney actually loves Equestrian Dressage more than Monday Night Football.”
While the chart is good for some laughs, I think it misses at least one point: the charge that a politician is “forcing a radical agenda” has become a talking point on the right against Democrats who are often in fact backing quite popular proposals, such as raising taxes on the rich. In short, the chart assumes that the talking points necessarily have some relationship with the actual facts of where public opinion lies. That isn’t always the case.