MSNBC is having its wall to wall broadcast leading up to the election. Weekends with Alex Witt had a taped interview with Tom Brokaw. The upshot of the interview is that Brokaw thinks:
1. The Country has a deep ideological division.
2. The Tea Party is the driving force behind this division.
3. The Tea Party played by the rules. And you have to play by the rules if you want to change things.
Tom Brokaw has been elevated to the level of icon after having been on the nightly news for years and writing his book, "The Greatest Generation", and now, sage and slot filler for august opinion source [crank with a pocket square and a scratchy voice who knows everything]. Somebody should remind Brokaw he did this back when news had to be news, rather than spin and soft propaganda that is the new NBC with a backdrop of hard propaganda of FoxnotNews with either the present cowed press or bought news.
Brokaw took a swipe at the internet saying that he thought bloggers of "special interests" have skewed the landscape as it pertains to the news. It didn't come off as an indictment of the Tea Party or the corporatist right. One gets the sense it's a shot over the bow to the fact checkers and diggers and REAL journalists and diligent citizen reporters found here and all over the net that have tried to clean the windshield of the financial industrial information bureau, or as Sarah Palin calls it: "The Lamestream Media".
In another snippet from the interview, Brokaw squints and says "WE" have to reexamine our values and our lifestyles [one assumes during the span of his lifetime] when we were accustomed to vast entitlements, we bought more than we could afford, and expected a certain lifestyle. He adds that younger people won't have a bottomless basket of consumer goods or even know whether they'll have jobs........
Of course Brokaw is hawking his new book, while he sits talking to Alex Witt and she goes all giddy about some photograph and Tom explains how his fly fishing buddies would smack him down if he ever got too full of himself.......hey!! fly fishing guys!! commence smack downs, like 15 years ago! The absolute entitlement and gall comes dripping off of Brokaw as the camera pans to his gnarled Solomon-like hands, clasped together as he spews his prepackaged wisdom. They do a lot of panning to his hands.
Brokaw spits that people will judge President Obama on the job he has done, since people bought homes and now they are worth half of what they paid for them. But of course all that endless basket of consumer goods and people becoming accustomed to having jobs and consuming and the "Great Recession" didn't happen on Obama's watch. But this is Brokaw's narrative, this is how he fills possible dead air for MSNBC. He has been elevated to Gandalf status to opine on things he obviously has to know about, because he is Tom Fucking Brokaw, special correspondent.
Tom Brokaw has forgotten what playing by the rules is. He doesn't see he is part of the problem, he is the poster boy for the problem. "Mr. let me rub my hands together in a contemplative manner" has become a symbol of what is not the greatest generation, but the obscene benefactor of the hard work and principles that he wrote about, but doesn't practice himself. And as his younger career peers bask in his literary glow, Brokaw is bringing them along to distort the news and fabricate stories and points of view that don't exist until swelled heads like his utter them on the cable byproduct of years of broadcasting excellence from which Brokaw benefited and now profits.
Tom Brokaw: Crank
Tom Brokaw: Tea Party Apologist
Tom Brokaw: Entitled White Rich Guy Past His Expiration Date
Tom Brokaw: Fraud
Found one segment on Alex Witt's FB page:
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