I was motivated to look up the word "crazy" in the OED. One of the meanings — going back to 1927 — is: "slang (orig. U.S.). (a) Of music, esp. jazz: unrestrained, wild; exciting. (b) Hence as a term of approbation: excellent, admirable, satisfying. Cf. cool adj. 8b."
1935 Hot News Apr. 13/1 Where musicians are concerned..if I say a man is crazy you may be sure that I think he is very, very good.I guess I'd accept the Mediaite headline if I thought it was mean in the sense of "unrestrained, wild; exciting." But I do find that sort of present-day political excitement quite boring.
1953 Time 14 Sept. 68/3 The latest Tin Pan Alley argot, where ‘cool’ means good, ‘crazy’ means wonderful.
1959 Punch 14 Oct. 319 The swing-cats sway, the hipsters tap their feet As Victor pounds his low-down crazy beat.
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I wonder who the audience for these things might be?
That's why I almost always rely on some blogger's synopsis of the news rather than going directly to the source. The hype bores me. I come away feeling my time has been wasted.
How long has the internet slugfest been going on... 15 years or so?
I have mostly tuned out. While I continue to vaguely support Prez Trump, I won't spend my day standing up for him on the web.
I've got better things to do with my time. Grandkids to play with. Last week, I played a Baldwin grand piano. Next week, I get to play a Steinway grand.
I agree political commentary has become the Circus Maximus for today's public. It seems tailored to enthrall the same people who will watch all the daytime court dramas like "Peoples Court." Minus the neat masks it is as ritualized as any Kabuki theater.
Oh, my. Me neither. I can't watch speeches or debates for that matter. I "watch" on Twitter. The reactions are the fun part..
If something interesting happened, I might watch a fragment of it later.
How long has the internet slugfest been going on... 15 years or so?
But for some reason the media slugfests vs the president's administration took a breather from about 2009-2016. Can't figure out why.
Not gonna watch. It's like World Wide Wrestling.
Same with the annual State of the Union shows. Haven't watched one in years. Give me the highlights only please.
PS: It is especially disconcerting to invite an honored guest to sit in the gallery to make a point.
I agree with Althouse and especially with Tim above - I've relied on blogs that analyze news for years now, exclusively. It's more interesting and engaging, and honest (i.e., opinions are forthright rather than obscured), and usually funnier and more spontaneous. It's more like the way people actually think and talk, I'd say.
People arguing back and forth, interrupting each other, talking over each other, getting all pissed off, I have zero interest in watching that ... the thought "I wonder what else I could do with my time right now" always enters my mind. Bye!
So one has the law and ths other is a bag of wind,
I like to get some of my early morning news with the Althousian filter on. More interesting, informative, and fun.
"anxious roiling" - nice!
Nobody should accept harassment and abuse like Chris Cuomo suffered from that woman in the interview. He should have walked out.
Nobody should accept harassment and abuse like being made to listen to CNN. I cut it off after 15 seconds.
What will they say if the judge overturns Flynn's guilty plea and dismisses the charges?
That's why Mueller asked for no prison, seeking a rubber stamp to process the process crime.
Looks like US District Judge Emmet Sullivan has said, "Not so fast".
Documents due today. Among other things they will have to explain the 7-month gap between the Flynn interview and the Form 302.
Oh, and explain the texts and statements alluding to the Form 302 months before it's final submission.
I watched for a few minutes - I liked that she kept calling him Christopher.
Wonder if Mr. Kellyanne Conway slipped Fredo some talking points.
Is there a news show on TV? That would be news!
Every week its the same headlines:
X and Y have crazy battle over [insert current topic} on {insert TV Show]
Or
Z says racist/crazy/sexist/insulting thin on [insert TV Show}. Repubs/Dems are outraged!
ZZZZZ.
What's the over/under on when Kelly files the divorce papers?
The combined audience for CNN/MSNBC/FoxNews is, what, about 8-10 million people maximum, and those are the same people pretty much every night. This is why I don't much worry about the insanity.
Yes but the audience for the nets is equally crazy
I watched it live; I kept waiting/hoping for a commercial break. I did not want to watch, but I felt that I had to watch, because the longer it went on, the more I thought that something newsworthy was going to blow up on live television.
As for Cuomo, he is one of the biggest blowhards in all of cable news. He seems to think that it was his job to argue with his guest. He made almost no attempt to interview her with really well-crafted questions. Journalists should not invite guests to argue with them. Either ask the best and hardest questions you can think of and deal with the answers, or don’t invite them onto your airwaves if you cannot accept the answers.
As for Kellyanne Conway, the word that I have for her is “harpy.” What a bitch. If George Conway’s life is spent arguing with Kellyanne, I pity him. Even more than Cuomo wanted to argue with her, she wanted to diminish and avoid the point of his questioning.
Kellyanne reminded me of the great line from Churchill (alas, most likely an old joke that had circulated for decades before and not a Churchill original), when a hostile female at a party was questioning his judgment. She said that if Winston was her husband that she would put poison in his tea. “Madam,” Churchill is reputed to have replied, “if I were your husband, I would drink it!”
Tucker Carlson often gets into it with guests, but he's quite good at it most of the time. That is to say, it's not just shouting, he tries to pin them down with relevant questions ("If Trump paying hush money to a woman is a felony, then why has Congress itself maintained a slush fund for paying hush money with no apparent consequences?").
I watched a lot of it, until I had to bail out of sheer annoyance. Talking over and past each other, saying nothing. They're generally amiable to each other, but they're bad TV. Chris has a thing where he won't let people get away with spin or fudging, which he executes by interrupting them and talking over them constantly. All Conway does is aggressively spin, so all he does is interrupt and talk over her, which she returns in spades. Useless and irritating. I can't imagine anybody enjoyed that last night, or found it enlightening.
"I watched for a few minutes - I liked that she kept calling him Christopher."
She does that all the time. It typically comes across as a professional endearment between them.
Matalin/Carville was a better act than Conway/Conway.
Brian-Stelter-republican Chuck is never evergoing to forgive Kellyanne for playing a key role in dismantling Hillary.
I especially enjoyed Chuck faking disapproval of Cuomo in a small way so that he could, he believes, create just enough of a false veneer of even-handedness to allow him to do what he really wanted to do: call a conservative woman who is successful at fighting against LLR Chucks beloved dems the B**** word.
Similar, very similar in fact, to the weird sick enjoyment Chuck experiences when he attacks conservative republican politicians with distinguished military service records. Chuck really hates that.
If you happen to be a lying hack Stolen Valor dem piece of crap however, LLR Chuck is johnny on the spot in terms of defending you.
Unexpectedly.
The combined audience for CNN/MSNBC/FoxNews is, what, about 8-10 million people maximum, and those are the same people pretty much every night. This is why I don't much worry about the insanity.
The numbers for the CNN show are a little more than a million, and since it's CNN probably one-fifth of that number actually watch. In other words it's a fart in the night, signifying nothing.
"a conservative woman who is successful at fighting "
She's not successful at fighting though. She's extremely skilled at asserting a particular party line and thinking on her feet. I admire her abilities, but they're not effective at anything particularly. She's not winning any "fights". She's like Trump's roaming press secretary. She says a lot of stuff, and it all just rolls off, because it is almost all crap.
"I watched it live; I kept waiting/hoping for a commercial break. I did not want to watch, but I felt that I had to watch, because the longer it went on, the more I thought that something newsworthy was going to blow up on live television."
Would that be some sort of mark of specialness for you, that you were watching live when it happened, like you'd be remarkable, like one of those people who saw Lee Harvey Oswald get shot to death on live TV — not the repeated film — but live!?
Am I the only viewer that noticed that the discussion between them was looped 3 times.
There was not 39 minutes of crazy.
There were 13 minutes played thrice.
Ha.
The 39 minutes of crazy at the link are now a mere 10 minutes.
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