Friday, March 28, 2008

Lamenting the Loss of Tucker...

On St. Patrick's Day, MSNBC launched its new program Race to the White House hosted by David Gregory. To say I haven't been impressed would be an understatement.

After watching the "face-paced" Race to Boredom, I really miss Tucker's show. I started to lament the loss when I heard the news his show would be canceled, but my loss is now complete with the new show. While Tucker's show was not great, though few of MSNBC's shows are, but at least it provided the station with some ideological diversity and, hence, credibility. While I knew how Tucker's libertarian beliefs would filter every topic, decreasing the need for actually watching the show unless you cared about how his guests would answer, and while I grew tired of his essentialism, reducing every controversy to the same awkward view of liberty, the new show is not an improvement- it is just the same thing that is on MSNBC all day long, with the same guests too.

Sacha Zimmerman at The New Republic has a very good summary of the new show:
Instead of the "Tucker" show's use of analysts of every political stripe from every publication, think tank, or cause in Washington, "Race for the White House" relies on a stable of MSNBC regulars to regurgitate the opinions they have been expressing all day on other MSNBC shows. It's a misuse of Gregory's talents as well, which are better-suited to hard-hitting interviews than the crushing personality overload of "Race for the White House." (Plus there's this incredibly bizarre and somehow terrifying shot of the White House that is always hovering behind Gregory and drenched in Kool-Aid red; it's like the Amityville White House.) Punditry: 1. Good discussion: 0.


So we have Fox and MSNBC: their differences? Other than Morning Joe, their styles are the same, it is the political seating that is different.

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