I have made no secret of my Sunday morning habit of pressure-testing my cerebral arteries by indulging in a bit of Meet the Press. I didn't understand the appeal of political talk shows when I was younger, and apparently this is because yelling at senators is an adult vice, like whiskey and cigars, the taste for which must be acquired over time.
Meet the Press is the senior show on the chatter circuit, having been on the air as long as there's been air to be on and sporting the slogan "If it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press," and it serves as a reliable bellwether of what political matters are currently considered important by people who dwell east of the Hudson and south of Harlem.
Thing is, the pack of hippies, SWPLs, Social Justice Warriors, and wannabe-Europeans who have taken over 30 Rock like SDS protestors did the dean's office at Berkley have steadily run the old gray mare into the ground. We have reached the point that this most venerable property in the political talking head circuit has slipped to third place in the ratings and was preempted yesterday by a Limey soccer game, and likely will be in future weeks by the Monaco Grand Prix and the French Open.
Really, though, that fulfills the apparent current mission of Meet the Press quite nicely. Because the only things that'll make a Manhattanite feel more European (and therefore better) than being lied to about government healthcare plans by a political appointee are cheering for Manchester City F.C., watching Frogs play tennis on dirt, and being snubbed by Bernie Ecclestone.
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18 comments:
Damn.... that sums it up.
French Open? Rafael Nadal owns that one. Monkeyboy, I call him.
Nobody cheers for City. COYS!
Is THAT still on?
gfa
PS - well and succinctly said!
I had a hard time reading that post title without doing it in Bill-Cliff Huxtable-Cosby's imitation of Julia Child: "Fiiirst, we take the tuuuurkey..."
Seriously. Probably not intended, but you got a good laugh out of me this morning.
I hate being ignorant, so what's a SWPL? inquiring minds, etc, etc.....full agreement otherwise.
Is Berlin even worth taking anymore?
It might be "several whiskey-drinking pole-dancing ladies "?
JohninMd: ... so what's a SWPL?
Pretty sure it's a reference to these sorts of things and/or (in this context) the people who like 'em.
Somewhat embarrassingly, I had to google Mr. Ecclestone. (I prefer SCCA Showroom Stock classes anyway--or Solo II.)
JohninMd: SWPL most likely refers to <a href="http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/> stuff like this </a> and/or, in this context, people who like it.
Don't know whether I should be embarrassed that I had to Google Bernie Ecclestone. Probably not; I'm unabashedly biased in favor of autocross and SCCA Showroom Stock classes.
Too many people in this country pine for the old country.
Course I was a mutt over there as well so I have little regard for any euro trash sentiments.
I would admit watching Meet the Press these days would probably cause me to pop a cork, so I tend to stay away from that.
With the failure of "Bobo" to catch on, it's looking like "SWPL" (pronounced like "swipple") is poised to be the new "Yuppie".
So we should stir our martinis with a SWPL stick.
MTP has been sent packing by Wimbledon and the US Open for years now. It is only the soccer that is new, and frankly I would rather watch soccer thsn MTP.
Kishnevi
How embarrassed am I? I used to shoot with SWPL ...
We had a war to rid ourselves of the European stink a couple centuries ago.
I fear it will take a more extreme measure this time.
(and it will start with riots to "austerity" measures taken on this side of the pond when China calls in its chips)
Perhaps it's just me, but does anyone else find it funny that one of these Manhattanites will pay $1700 and change for the privilege of being snubbed by Bernie, and that they have to jet to Texas to do so in this country?
National politics has become celebrity gossip for educated people.
Then we take Berliiiinnnnn!
I remember reading somewhere - don't remember where, precisely, though I do remember reading it - that Marie Antoinette complained quite strongly about the bizarre and increasingly meaningless rules of etiquette she and her class were required to follow, which changed annually and served as a sort of shibboleth to recognize those who were "in" versus those who were "out."
I gather her concern for the poor of France was genuine and that she's also not the source of the line "Q'uils mangent de la brioche." She turns out to be more dialed-in than she's made out to be. But I digress.
Our chattering class increasingly resembles the Bourbons and those of their strata; expensive and irrelevant, obsessed with trifles, with style over substance (tweet to save Ukraine?), and the degree of their tone-deafness and out-of-touchness is accelerating geometrically.
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