Cable News Time - Part Two

Back for part two. First up, the 8PM hour with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Fox's Bill O'Reilly. As usual, I'll be ignoring CNN, because, well, they're no fun. I still go to CNN whenever anything big is happening internationally, but if you're looking for political bickering and general ridiculousness, they don't bring much to the table.

If you've never seen Bill O'Reilly, here's what you need to know. If you just watch Bill on his own, he seems like your typical arrogant, disingenuous, pompous jerk. But if you put him in context with his Fox colleagues, he actually comes off as pretty reasonable. This is because Bill's world revolves solely around Bill, he is 100% narcissism. This trait actually helps him here, because he winds up being less married to the Republican talking points than the other Fox guys.

Keith's a little harder to get a read on. Sometimes he's really on target, like last week's hour long special comment about health care. Other times, I have no idea what he's getting at. He's an enigma wrapped in a riddle encased in a ridiculously large cranium.

uh oh, I may lose you here, I'm about to enter the no spin zone.

Bill's mad at Europe and Russia. He thinks the Obama administration should be more honest with the American people about this and tell us how much Europe and Russia suck. I guess Bill thinks the Bush foreign policy strategy just didn't have enough time to work, just give it ten or twenty more years, the world will come around if we just keep insulting them.

Oh! Oh! Dick Morris is on with Bill. Sorry Keith, I'm not going anywhere until Dick leaves. Dick starts off by agreeing with Bill about Europe and Russia, then a quick shot at Hillary Clinton (he can't help himself), but he's on to talk about health care. Dick's father is 99 years old, and Dick states, as absolute fact, that his dad would be dead already under "Obamacare". Bill says this is only true if the government completely takes over health care (that's fair and balanced for ya). This whole conversation was almost surreal because this whole new political strategy of just making something up and calling it the truth, instead of at least trying to work with the actual truth, seems to be attributable to Dick Morris, and now he's using it. It was like watching Van Gogh paint, only if it was a painting of a giant turd and, instead of Van Gogh, it was actually a troll without a conscience.

They've been talking about killing old people and punishing doctors for treating sick people for a few minutes now. Dick's whole life is some sort of acid trip. I'm surprised Fox hasn't given him his own show yet. Bill and Dick agree that, whatever form "Obamacare" takes, the government will be deciding who lives and who dies(as opposed to now, when the health insurance companies decide. I know I may be the one millionth person to make that point, but it's still a good one). Time for a commercial, but next, Bill's going to tell us why Rush Limbaugh isn't a racist. It's like he's writing the jokes for me.

Keith is talking to Howard Fineman about health care. Guests, by the way, are one of the most interesting features of Keith's show. I can't remember the last time he had someone on who disagreed with him. He has this sort of rotating group of about 10 guests who come on and tell him how right he is. Tomorrow night, Keith's hard hitting interview with a mirror!

Bill has audio of Rush Limbaugh denying he ever said anything offensive about slavery. OK, it seems clear the Fox talking point will be that Rush has never said anything racist in his glorious life. They know people tape his radio show, right?

Keith is plugging his effort to get people to donate to the national association of free clinics. Good for him. This is a good cause, if anyone is reading this, you can donate at freeclinics.us.

Bill is in the middle of his second segment defending Rush. He's got two lawyers on arguing over whether or not Rush should sue over not being allowed to buy an NFL team. Curiously, neither one of them is saying that this is a ridiculous idea, they both agree he'll obviously win, but one of them doesn't think it would be worth the bad publicity, since he doesn't really need the money.

Next, Bill has Hannah Giles. She pretended to be a hooker in some ACORN offices and her friend, while pretending to be a pimp, secretly video taped it (that's called multi-tasking). Interestingly, Bill only has her on. Bill never misses an opportunity to have a very young, attractive woman on the show, it's sort of one of his things.

Keith has some really good town hall footage of crazy people yelling at Lindsey Graham for not being conservative enough because he's willing to talk to Democrats on some issues. So they basically want him to do nothing until the Republicans are the majority again. The Senator tried defending his pro-life voting record, which prompted some woman to yell "god does not compromise". I know I saw that in the bible somewhere, I just can't remember where.

Bill has Dennis Miller on. What happened to Dennis? He used to be smart and funny, I loved his HBO show. It's like someone stole his brain. Dennis is defending Rush too, other people who own teams have said insensitive things. This is true, but how many of them made a career of it?

Keith is doing his worst person's in the world thing. Some nights, this is the best 3 minutes on TV. One of my favorite parts, he does genuinely funny impressions of people, tonight's worst person is Glenn Beck, Keith does a solid Beck impression. It must have been hard for Keith to pick just one reason to make Beck the worst person, so many to choose from.

Keith spends his last segment with the Monty Python guys. Yawn. Sometimes I think Keith has a show for the same reason I have a blog, just to entertain himself.


Back to Bill, he's showing a video which the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee posted a link to. In the video, an actor playing Hitler is yelling quite a bit in German, and the subtitles are suggesting that Hitler is a big fan of universal health care and Nancy Pelosi, but he's disappointed in the President, who he thought was with him. Bill and his guest explain that this is a clip from a 2004 movie with Hitler in his bunker, and people have been adding whatever subtitles they want to make it funny and posting it on youtube. Bill calmly suggests that it may have been a "mistake" for the RCCC to embrace this video. Five minutes later, Bill was rambling about Halloween candy and was clearly more bothered by candy corn than he was by the Hitler video. It's hard to make fun of Bill sometimes, he takes care of so much of it himself.

Bill always ends the show with a word of the day. I think the word of the day everyday should be smug.

9PM is Sean Hannity and Rachel Maddow. Rachel isn't there today, was isn't so bad because Rachel is actually pretty reasonable, bright and generally likable. I don't always agree with her, but I don't really have anything bad to say about her.

Then there's Hannity. Here's a good drinking game to play with the Hannity show. Take a drink every time Sean says something that is true. By the end of the show, you'll be buzzed, but still functional for the rest of the night. This is important, DO NOT take a drink every time Sean says something that is not true, this may sound like more fun at 9PM, but you'll be in a coma by 9:30.

Hannity picks up where Bill left off, defending Rush. He's got two guests. One of them is Steven A. Smith. I did this twice and I got a double dose of Steven A., I'm psyched. I'm also hoping Steven punches Hannity by the end of the segment.

The other guest is an African-Amercian guy who agrees that people shouldn't call Rush a racist. This is a key Republican strategy since Obama got elected. "Hey, look, this guy's black too, and he agrees with us, checkmate!"

Hannity denies that Rush has ever engaged in race baiting, the look on Steven A.'s face after that one was priceless. Steven A. just learned an important lesson, if you think you're going to come on the Hannity show and win an argument with facts, think again.

Quick fun editing note: Seven paragraphs in my notes on the Hannity show started with "Hannity is very angry..."

Sean's got Mitt Romney on now to talk about health care. This whole thing was a debacle, I'll make two points. First, if anyone wanted Mitt Romney's health care plan (or his economic plan, or any of his plans), they would have voted for him when he ran for President. Instead, he finished third in a craptastic Republican primary field. It's quiet time for him now. Second, if you look up "empty suit" in a dictionary, you'll find a picture of Mitt Romney. He's like Reagan without the charisma, and if you take the charisma away from Reagan, there ain't much else to work with, ya know?

Also, Mitt doesn't think the President should take any time to think about how to handle Afghanistan. I know Republicans aren't used to the President thinking before he does stuff, but that's actually how it usually works.

Sean is talking about Chuck Schumer, Chuck thinks insurance companies should be subject to anti-trust laws (they've been exempt since 1945, I'm not sure I knew that, but it explains a lot). This is best idea I've heard in quite a while, of course, Hannity hates it and he's got Michelle Malkin on to talk about why. Michelle is as crazy and unlikable as anyone you'll see on TV, including the bad guys on fictional shows.

A little back story here, Monday, the health insurance industry put out a "report" which basically threatened to raise everyone's premiums if health care reform gets passed. Michelle and Hannity think Chuck's idea is "Chicago-style" retaliation for this industry funded report that, surprisingly, made the case against any kind of reform

Michelle just said something is "clear to most sane Americans", I guess she knows one. Anyway, the great great great great American panel is next. That's what Hannity called it.

Time for Hannity's panel, and back to defending Rush. Ohhhhh, now i get it, this whole Rush thing is about Barack Obama. I'll let you figure out how. Also, Rush's only crime is giving "conservative commentary". Kudos to Hannity for admitting racism now falls under his definition of "conservative commentary"(the first step is admitting you have a problem).

Hannity wonders aloud why there's a double standard regarding what people are allowed to say about race. In response, Juan Williams just pointed out that black people have a slightly different history in America then white people do, Hannity's not buying it (seriously).

More nonsense with Hannity, I'm getting a little punchy, I don't think I've ever just watched him for an hour straight before. The panel, by the way, are all people who agree with Hannity. This is actually unusual, he usually has one token liberal to yell at.

Hannity's last segment is with Donald Trump's daughter, and I couldn't be less interested. Sean also enjoys any excuse he can find to invite pretty ladies onto the show.

So that's it, I'm done. What did we learn kids?

Well, as usual, we didn't learn much. I learned that Fox is much better at staying on message from show to show than MSNBC is, which is a pretty good reflection of the respective parties they represent. I learned that watching TV and typing about it at the same time is actually easier than I thought it would be. But, more than anything else, I learned that, at some point, someone at Fox figured out that while the truth may sometimes be stranger than fiction, it's rarely more entertaining.