What Are The Gobshites Saying These Days?

Being our semi-regular weekly survey of the state of Our National Dialogue which, as you know, is what Bert Kaempfaefert would have come up with had he composed "Strangulated Hernias In The Night."

One week to go. Only six more days until my man Chuck Todd ascends to The Big Chair -- which, alas, is still fastened to the aft deck of a rusting hulk at the bottom of the Sea Of Banality -- and, yesterday, the gang at NBC, and in particular Mrs. Greenspan, were busy assuring us that, not only is my man Chuck "a political junkie," but that he is a dog with a bone in his teeth (Woof!), and a super nice guy. They made sure that they had two sources on that last one, including my man Chuck's wife. Let me be clear. My man Chuck is my man Chuck because, in a particular role, he is very, very good. If you want to know who's leading in the polls in the Second Congressional District in Kansas, my man Chuck is your man, too. However, starting next Sunday, my man Chuck is becoming the caretaker of what network news has for an Overlook Hotel. Nevertheless, Mrs. Greenspan was beside herself, which is two for dinner, I guess.

MITCHELL: Welcome back. For the tenth anniversary of Meet the Press, John F. Kennedy wrote, "I know of no other radio or television program which has become such a firm and widely respected institution in American life." Well, there's no one better suited to uphold and build on that legacy than my friend, Chuck Todd.

John Kennedy has been dead for 51 freaking years. If you shot four million volts through Thomas Jefferson, he'd say the same thing about the Philadelphia Aurora. A lot has gone on in this country since 1963, and most of what has occurred has had the beneficial side effect of rendering Meet The Press at best low comedy for white guys and, at worst, an anachronism the influence of which has far exceeded its value.

MITCHELL: Chuck Todd defines being a White House correspondent.

What a terrible thing to say about anyone.

GUTHRIE: The first time he was on with Tim Russert, that was a dream come true for him.

TIM RUSSERT: What is a blog?

CHUCK TODD: Well, blog, so the actual term itself, by the way, is short for web log. And you know, you drop the W and you get the blog.

Actually, a "blog" is the place where obstreperous yahoos keep reminding the country that, according to what Dick Cheney's aides said under oath at the Scooter Libby trial, when they wanted to catapult the Undead's bullshit into low-earth orbit, Tim Russert's MTP was their preferred launching pad. Good luck, Chuck. You're still my man. Make sure they take all the axes out of the studio before the snow falls.

And my man Chuck is taking the job right in the middle of another pants-wetting frenzy among our Washington political elite. Smoking guns! Mushroom clouds! We need will! Strategy! Incinerated brown people of many lands! There was a positive state fair of warhawkery with The Clinton Guy Shocked By Blowjobs, with old pal Martha Raddatz sitting in for The Clinton Guy. We had a brief recap of the week's apocalypism, featuring British Prime Minister David Cameron, who makes Tony Blair look like William Pitt. There was a piece from Brian Ross about the burgeoning terrorist capital of Minneapolis. It hit all the boogedy-boogedy G spots, including rap music.

ROSS: And surprisingly, ISIS also uses rap music appeals to foreign fighters, despite its otherwise rigid rejection of all things Western.

Crossover appeal! And Ross was not alone in warning us about hip-hop jihadis.

COHEN, FORMER COUNTERTERRORISM COORDINATOR, HOMELAND SECURITY DEPARTMENT: Well, I think that the -- the piece really illustrates one of the reasons why we're so concerned about ISIS and the other extremist organizations operating in Syria. They are very sophisticated in their use of social media. They have Westernized their message. They're specifically seeking to either recruit or inspire Westerners, and in particular, people in the US.

RADDATZ: That rap music was incredible.

COHEN: It's -- they -- they have Americanized their message.

Look, I have no illusions about the barbarians over there. But this is starting to sound like Saddam's balsa-wood escadrille that was going to come over and drop anthrax bombs on the Little League World Series. You close your eyes and listen and, very soon, you get the image of people running around in circles, looking for a goat to sacrifice, reading the signs left by flocks of birds, and pleading with the sun god to enfold us in his arms. Rap music? Honky, please. Can everyone just settle the fk down?

Ah, but the House Cup this week goes to Senator John McCain (R-BoomBoom), who appeared on CBS, with Major Garrett sitting in for onetime Jagiellonian kielbasa reviewer Bob Schieffer, and who gave us a vivid demonstration of exactly the caliber of the bullet that the country and the world dodged in 2008, and he did so without a single mention of his running mate, which is something of an accomplishment. First, he talked to Major about what we should be doing in the Ukraine.

GARRETT: Right, but what to do next, what to do now, Senator McCain?

MCCAIN: What to do now is impose strong sanctions. Do you know that we would not even give intelligence information or weapons to Ukraine? Give them the weapons they need. Give them the wherewithal they need. Give them the ability to fight. They will fight. And as far as Vladimir Putin is concerned, put strong sanctions. If you're looking at it from Vladimir Putin's viewpoint, Major, he has done pretty well with minimum of penalty. And as long as the Europeans are dependent on his energy supplies, they are not going to do much.

GARRETT: Senator, I have talked to people at the White House who say the last thing that region needs is more weapons, that is making the situation worse. You disagree. Why do you believe the introduction of U.S. weapons would make a difference on the ground in Eastern Ukraine?

MCCAIN: For God's sake, can't we help these people defend themselves? This is not an incursion. This is an invasion.

Guns, dammit. Give them guns. There aren't enough of our weapons floating around that part of the world any more because ISIS stole them all from the Iraqi army. Then, remarkably, the conversation turned to the Ebola outbreak in Africa. Good job, Major.

GARRETT: Should the United States send military medical assets like the USS Comfort or USS Mercy to treat some of those afflicted by this virus? And should the United States be more directly involved in trying to contain this outbreak?

MCCAIN: I would like to see -- obviously, all of us would like to see the United States more involved. We have hospital ships because they can move from one place to another. If there is a role where they can play where we can provide additional medical help, I think all the world would support it. And some experts are now saying that this is a very, incredibly dangerous situation that we are facing. So we should marshal up all the assets that we have to do what we can, but it is a very complicated and difficult situation, obviously.

And there you have it. We should drop weapons and special-forces soldiers into the Ukraine, and into a mess in Iraq and Syria that is largely of our own making, and we should do it yesterday because, for god's sake, can't we help these people? But an outbreak of a deadly disease that is slaughtering thousands all over West Africa? We must proceed slowly because it is "a very, incredibly dangerous situation" that is also complicated and difficult.

Good lord, what a maroon.

And, yes, I too noticed that, on Labor Day weekend, with income equality on the rise, and with wages stagnant for decades, and the rate of unemployment officially normalized somewhere in the teens, and with all the roads full of holes and the bridges falling down, on the shows that a dead president once thought were highly influential, on which ISIS and Ukraine and Kirsten Gillibrand's book and the nine-year old with the UZI and the fundamental greatness of my man Chuck Todd were all considered worthy of discussion, there was not a single mention of an American worker because, I guess, rap music. Shazam.

Charles P. Pierce

Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has three children.