Ah, another day, another twist.
Chris Christie Endorses Donald Trump and Calls Marco Rubio ‘Desperate’
Maggie Haberman
New York TimesUpdated, 1:54 p.m. | Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey endorsed Donald J. Trump on Friday, a major turn in a wild race and one that gives the New York businessman a significant boost as he heads into the pivotal “Super Tuesday” contests.
Mr. Christie was a candidate for president himself until he came in sixth place in New Hampshire’s primary. Seeing his political career facing an abrupt conclusion after his failed presidential campaign, he expressed his anger Friday at Senator Marco Rubio, whom he was said to be upset with, blaming the “super PAC” backing the Florida senator for halting his momentum in New Hampshire with a string of slash-and-burn ads….
And once again, no pundits saw it coming. Like every other day in this long-running terrible, horrific Reality Show.
Listening to the NPR feed yesterday morning, I couldn’t help but be reminded of watching the “news” on TeeVee lately: all pundits and politics all the time. We are in the second year of wall-to-wall coverage of that horrific hybrid of Infotainment and Reality Television: “Who Wants To Be President?” starring Donald Trump.
It was the standard “we have a reporter, a democrat and a republican” with various titles that made them seem impressive. Like, say, “political consultant.”
OK: I once told the sitting state senator in a district north of me how to win his race while at a famous, now ended Christmas party at a local newspaperman’s house. He had a particularly sticky Gordian Knot to untie and I gave him some advice that reportedly he credited with winning that election. My point is NOT how amazing my advice was.
My point is this: so I’m a political consultant, too. It’s a title, kind of like “Contributing Editor,” (which I’ve held multiple times) which generally means nothing, except that the publisher or editor likes you. But it impresses the rubes.
Speaking of rubes, the NPR show was polling its prodigious, protean pundits. D-list pundits, but pundits nonetheless.
Point is this: having just admitted that NOTHING they’d predicted had come to pass in the prior annum, and that this race had confounded all predictions, they proceeded to analyze and predict the next “inevitable” turn this twisted bonsai tree of a soap opera has turned into!!!*
[* The soap opera having succeeded entirely in trivializing and entertainifying the American PRESIDENCY.]
So my question is … WHY?
Why are we paying these punditti, when their “expertise” has proven useless and their “sage” conversation has only served to sheild the various channels from having to report any real news?
Oh, wait.
But like “Trickle Down” economics and Creation Theory, demonstrable track records regarding “events” and the wrongness of predicting same are meaningless to our Media Mavens, just as ratings are entirely meaningless to those who keep “Morning Joe” on the air, evidently as some kind of corporate lobbying outreach to Conservatives.
Oy vey.
But sooner or later, were they truly wise — and not merely reliable talky wonky robots who will sound sage at the drop of a hat into a ring — you’d think that they’d realize that this just isn’t their game, this predicting business and get down to doing some other kind of journalistic work, like, say , journalism. I mean, if you drill water wells for a living and you hit a hundred or so dry holes in a row, you have to admit that you lack the requisite results to continue in the endeavor.
Great googly moogly.
Precocious pundits punning
But this is the America of who you know and not what you know, and competence really isn’t an issue, nor has it been since perhaps the Vietnam War. Massive incompetence on a wholesale level produces as many good results through sheer dumb luck as competence in a focused manner does.
Hi ho.
As I’ve pointed out before, the thing that changes the world — make that Changes The WORLD — is always the Factor X that is unique, that has never been seen before.
All the airline security experts and all the airline management, and all the pilots’ associations in the world had a handle on it … until the first Skyjacker, “D.B. Cooper“, demanded a ransom and a parachute and vanished into the mists of history. And the world changed. As did the conversation.
And so it goes.
My point is that all the yakking in the world can only be about what we already know, but what is important is what we DON’T and CAN’T know.
Thus do the pundits reinforce the gradualist notion of history and reality and are wrong at a rate that would even make a weatherman blush. Still, weather forecasting is getting better and better, while punditry has generally been this “Magic 8 Ball” hazy.
Still, having just admitted that they’d been totally wrong in their predictions, the pundits of the public airwaves proceed to pontificate, propound and prognosticate with nary a whiff of the pallor they OUGHT to be evincing. I know if I’d been that wrong that often, I’d sure be ashen faced. Heck, I’d probably be looking for an online source for quality but thrift-budgeted sackcloth.
Onward, as Mort Sahl used to say. Or still does.
Here is the latest twist which no pundit seems to have noted.
In their fear of the maverick … er, rogue, er … wild card Donald Trump, Republicans are openly calling on their leadership to take COLLECTIVE action to protect the COLLECTIVE of the party from a potentially disastrous Head of the Marquee Trump as Nominee.
I keed you not.
They don’t use those words, quite, but the statement is precise.The “Establishment Republicans,” e.g. the “old boys network” or the “party bosses” of the party of the rugged mavericky rogue individualist “I talk to chairs” Elephantine Megalomania are scared witless of a Billionaire who doesn’t need their money and is happy to tell them to drop dead — to their faces.
Whatever. You GOPs created the conditions for his Ascendancy; he’s YOUR original sin, not mine. But gee, all these Ayn Rand Rugged Individualists, these Atlases, these John Wayne Self-Made-Bullies are screeching that collective action must be taken to stop the Barbie-Hairian at Their Gates?
Ah, schadenfreude, you wicked, secret delight, you.
Ah, schadenfreude.
And now. Chris Christie would rather destroy Rubio than stop Trump?
So much for solidarity.
Courage.
his vorpal sword 