Saturday, July 18, 2009
Thinking about when TV news changed for me. Wasn't the era of Will Ferrell's "Anchorman." Murray was still writing Ted Baxter's copy on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The change was Linda Ellerbee on NBC News Overnight in 1982. after Cronkite left CBS Evening News. Ellerbee's expressions & body language telegraphed her feelings about what she was reporting. You knew she had opinions, & you could guess what they probably were. You weren't sure how liberal she was, but it was evident she didn't like what was happening in Washington. Ellerbee was barely suppressing her inner Molly Ivins. Rachel Maddow owes Linda Ellerbee.
I not so sure Maddow got as much the better of Pat Buchanan as she's credited for doing the other night. True, Buchanan is one of those bigoted, belligerent Irish-American males who won't shut up even after he's been knocked to the bar room floor in a disgusting puddle of beer & cigarette ashes. He's no more "working class" than Maddow, just because he learned to talk the talk from the kids who kicked his lace curtain preppy ass. But when Buchanan grew to six feet he kept acting like a 5'4" underdog, & that's a definition for bully.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
I not so sure Maddow got as much the better of Pat Buchanan as she's credited for doing the other night. True, Buchanan is one of those bigoted, belligerent Irish-American males who won't shut up even after he's been knocked to the bar room floor in a disgusting puddle of beer & cigarette ashes. He's no more "working class" than Maddow, just because he learned to talk the talk from the kids who kicked his lace curtain preppy ass. But when Buchanan grew to six feet he kept acting like a 5'4" underdog, & that's a definition for bully.
Labels: TV
