The absence of Morning Joe brings the presence of morning bliss? Or, a call to feminists to help me understand why Mika drives me nuts.
So, I arose this morning still aglow from my brush with being an influential member of the body politic. For those of you who haven't heard, I was polled by Quinnipiac and did what I could to help Dems generally and Obama in particular. You can see the details of that experience in my prior diary, which was my first.
So, as is my habit, I flip on the Morning Joe, thinking maybe there'll be a segment on me getting polled and my strikingly insightful comments. But guess what's there? Women's soccer.... the Olympics, I surmise. So I watch a little bit, and I realize how much happier I am not be hearing Squinty-eyed Joe, Smarmy Willie, Pat "I am not a racist, I just like 'regular folk'" Buchanan, and Tiki Barber, whom I can't make fun of because he was the greatest New York football Giant for a few years.
And I notice that the sun is shining more brightly and the birds are chirping more sweetly and I'm just happier and more at ease all because I'm not listening to those substance-free numbnuts prattle on about nothing. I wonder why I watch them in the first place. It must be Keith's carryover credibility, I think.
But why then does Morning Joe piss me off so? And I realize the answer.... It's Mika. YES, IT'S MIKA!
She seems to be playing two roles on that show: 1) Obama supporter, and 2) Giggling hottie. The problem is that she does the latter much better than the former. How many times do I have watch her back down when Joe gets in her face about some alleged Obama gaffe, which is not a gaffe? How many times do I have to hear her fail to respond to an aggressive pro-McCain statement with one of those lyrical "Eww Kaaaayyy's" that says, "you're moving beyond the bounds of polite discourse, but I can't go there with you because to do so would violate my sorority girl sensibilities"? How many times do I have to see her just giggle coquettishly when those would-be manly-men pick on her for her silly little points of view?
Are there any women out there who want this well-educated, daughter of a National Security Advisor and a sculptor, 40+ year-old woman, to just step up and use her brain? By repeatedly submitting to sexist format of the show, doesn't she do more harm to the women's movement than if she would just not be on the show? Don't we want her to be more like Rachel and less like the Fox bimbos? Doesn't it just drive you nuts when she sheepishly allows herself to be dismissively laughed off by those idiots?
Yes, she ripped up the Paris Hilton item, and that was cool. But that was over a year ago. Since then, she's been vacuous, and I'm sorry to say, weak.
At the risk of being accused of being either a) sexist myself, or b) bitter in a Freudian way because I had an uncaring mother, I ask you, man and woman alike, isn't Mika a huge disappointment? And doesn't the show's format, and Mika's complicity in it, play into McCain's theme that Obama and his supporters are empty celebrity types? I mean, doesn't she let Scarborough, that idiot, and Buchanan, that bigot, come off as meat-and-potatoes while Mika acts like water-cress and arrugula?