Retoric

A Rare Victory for Cable News.

How Hilarious this is, the frustration of a reporter that is trying to pierce through the rhetoric of a trained Politician. Followed by a rapturous applause of the people burdened with the consequences of a lame duck congress in the background. If a free media was devoted to challenging the words of our leaders in Washington rather then just choosing a side and singing 'rah rah rah' all the way through an election cycle (or a continuous 'boooo...' depending on the news organization and the party in power). Then we would get the best of both worlds much more often, a greater level of accountability and a fantastically entertaining news industry.

This past week, Maria Bartiromo of CNBC's "The Street" Interviewed Senator Cardin (D-MD) about the impending fiscal cliff by challenging such bloviating and over-ripened statements such as "Balanced approach" and "Lack of Leadership" by aggressively pointing out a lack of proposing or even condoning revenue in any form other then raising the rates on the wealthy of our country, getting him to openly nixing revenue raising ideas such as cutting charitable contributions and mortgage interest. Alas, what can words say that YouTube can't. Here is the clip from last Thursday;

There is also a more complete recording of the interview available here; although it is of much lower quality brought to you by people who know how to use a webcam to record but can't figure out how to run a coax feed into their PC, but I digress.

The best part about this news cast is that, despite it being a grilling of a Democratic Senator, these same questions could have been given to a Republican member of the house with almost the same impact. "You have once again rejected Boehnor's plan for raising taxes on the extremely wealthy, and you know that we need to shrink the deficit, so what ideas are you bringing to the table? Social Security reform? OK, so in 10 years when people who fall outside your grandfather period start retiring we'll save, what, $50 Billion a year?  $100 Billion? We need some deficit relief now Congressman, what is your plan?"

It was said best in the video, people are just frustrated, and have lost any real respect for the role of Congress. Perhaps it takes the stench that comes from our capital getting so grotesque for reporters to begin putting down their campaign yard signs and begin to act a little bit more like journalists. Thank you, Maria.