Home / General / I’d just as soon hear Al Jolson opine about the debates

I’d just as soon hear Al Jolson opine about the debates

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I have to admit it–I like Ken Burns’s Baseball. Sure, you could get to the 7th tape without being told that St. Louis even has a team. Yeah, it’s pervaded by Whig history and PBS middlebrow nostalgia until it ends with a dreary rant about what’swrongwithmodernsports. Yes, I think there was a 20-minute segment about Carl Furillo’s hangnail problem. But it collects lots of great footage, even some of the interviews are good, and maybe there’s at least a little bit of nostalgic middlebrow in most of us.

But Baseball is also nearly ruined by the ultimate nadir of PBS middlebrowdom: Doris Kearns Goodwin. Is there a more vacuous, cliched commentator who gets more airtime? Well, OK, Cokie Roberts even had her own goddamned show, but you can see what I’m driving at. Somerby reports on her latest atrocity, opining on the debates she barely watched on Imus. She indulges in the favorite technique of the elite media hack, attributing their complacence and obsession with trivial inanities to some mythical “real American”:

But up in Boston, Goodwin’s friends were flummoxed by that Gallup result. Good Dems, they all thought Bush had won—on style. And they were also pretty sure that Kerry didn’t jibe with “Joe Six-pack.” Maybe it was just the wine, but they couldn’t figure it out. Why in the world would Kerry have won? They thought that Bush had spoken “naturally,” and that Kerry had spoken “too fast.”

But then, maybe Goodwin’s wine-lovin’ friends don’t connect with “Joe Six-pack” themselves! For ourselves, we thought Bush’s style was horrendous, especially his inappropriate laughter and inappropriate joking when he was asked two separate questions about ballooning health care costs. Of course, Goodwin’s buddies, gulping their wine, may not have huge concerns in that area. Is there any chance that they have good health care, and don’t give a sh*t if “Joe Six-pack” doesn’t? Maybe that’s why it failed to offend when a sitting president, asked to discuss this problem, offered inappropriate banter and cackle. No, they weren’t offended by this; somehow, they were mainly impressed to see that Bush was speaking “more naturally.” Who knows? Maybe cackling about Joe Six-pack’s problems comes “naturally” to these cable Dems too!

Here’s my question: does Goodwin have any market? Outside of the narrow cadre of people who invite her on, does anybody–left, right, or center–give a rat’s ass what she thinks about anything?

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