Friday, May 18, 2012

Only One Party’s to Blame? Don’t Tell the Sunday Shows

Greg Sargent wrote on Monday for the Washington Post, Only one party’s to blame? Don’t tell the Sunday shows.

"Last month, Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein published an Op ed and a book making the extremely controversial argument that both parties aren’t equally to blame for what ails Washington. They argued that the GOP — by allowing extremists to roam free and by wielding the filibuster to achieve government dysfunction as a political end in itself — were demonstrably more culpable for creating what is approaching a crisis of governance.

It turns out neither man has been invited on to the Sunday shows even once to discuss this thesis. As Bob Somerby and Kevin Drum note, these are among the most quoted people in Washington — yet suddenly this latest topic is too hot for the talkers, or not deemed relevant at all. I ran this thesis by Ornstein himself, and he confirmed that the book’s publicity people had tried to get the authors booked on the Sunday shows, with no success."

I haven't seen them on anything yet, but it would seem ripe for Jon Stewart (on vacation this week), Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes or even Bill Maher. I would think Bill Moyers would be all over this.

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