Anyone else find Rachel Maddow's focus on GOP debate criteria

[alcibiades_mystery]

To be boring and a little obsessive. None of this shit will matter in even 2 months.

It's tedious.

[akbacchus_BC]

1. She is a host and no different from Anderson or Lennon!

I wish they would not focus so much on Donald Trump but they are giving him more airspace, which I find distasteful.

[TeamPooka]

19. TV is about moving pictures with sound that keep people's attention. Trump does that very well.

Like Howard Stern, like him or hate him he attracts an audience.
That's all a TV show cares about, audience.

[left on green only]

2. Is Her Focus On The GOP Debate Criteria Or Is It On Fouks News?

Of course I'm not saying that she has a axe to grind at Fouks.

[alcibiades_mystery]

5. Yeah it's a legitimate critique of Fox News

But it goes on and on every show. It's silly.

[akbacchus_BC]

6. Well, When VP Biden says he will run, it will be a different

reporting, I assume! I cannot wait for him to announce that he is running for the Presidency.

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. Good luck with that

[akbacchus_BC]

16. Well, am hoping VP Biden will run but if he decides

not to for family reasons, that is understandable!

[TeamPooka]

20. DU is so camped up right now there's no room for Biden at the inn. Maybe out back in the stable....

[kcjohn1]

11. I don't think so

You can't have unlimited candidates up there. Having 17 candidates for debate is way to much. I think 10 is also pushing it.

No perfect cut off methodology but polls seem to make sense. They way Rachel is going on and on about this you would its the greatest injustice to the 7 who missed out. Does anyone really think these 7 were going anywhere with candidacy?

[alcibiades_mystery]

15. I think there's something odd about outsourcing the criteria from

the Party and/or some other debate-oriented entity to a network, and then giving that network free rein to develop what appear to be rather ad hoc criteria. It's hinky, but ultimately of little consequence.

That said, I agree with your second point that her arm-flapping about it is now bordering on ridiculous. It's a narrative she's chosen to go with, and it is silly at best, utterly tedious at worst.

[jberryhill]

14. Who cares. Those are the only two things she takes about.

[99th_Monkey]

3. Yes. obsessive was exactly the word that came to my mind,

before I poked through your OP to the message,

I think Rachael likes her job a LOT, and saw what happened to ED
when he started actually reporting on how Bernie's candidacy is
quickly becoming seriously problematic for Hillary & 3rd Way Dems.

Also, this is a total two-fer for Rachael and MSNBC to be able to
'expose' how badly FOX has meddled in the GOP's Primary process.

That said, I also find it damn annoying, to the point where I turn it
off or change channels and come back to see if her next segment is
anything worthwhile.

[emsimon33]

25. I just turned it off as I had finished cutting veggies for dinner

[msongs]

4. not much new to say about dems. gotta fill that hour nt

[Retrograde]

12. Well, there is a lot going on in the rest of the world

Britain and France flinging insults at each other about immigrants in Calais, blocking of Channel ports, economic problems in the Eurozone, the whole MessO'Potamia (as Jon Stewart used to call it), continued drought in the US West...

It's getting so I can get through Rachel and Lawrence in less than 15 minutes these days.

[TeamPooka]

21. Cable news nets don't care about other countries until we bomb them. nt

[emsimon33]

24. One show after another on MSNBC any more covers mostly the same topics

I think that is why their ratings are dropping. Ed was the only one in the evening lineup that had a different perspective consistently. Now Chuck, the puppet idiot, Todd. Oh, please.

[jberryhill]

7. But Fox is having a GOP debate!

Have you heard?

There's going to be a debate. On Fox! Of the GOP candidates.

But there are a lot of them.

Here's a chart. See all of their faces? Let's add some colors to the chart, and, oh, let's remove some faces.

Now these faces, which are the GOP candidates, can't all fit on one stage for a debate.

And this is a problem because Fox is going to have a GOP candidate debate of ten candidates.

You see, if there are 17 candidates, and only 10 will be in the debate, then that means 7 won't be in the debate.

You see how that works? If you have 17 and you take away 10, and put those ten on a stage, then you have 7 left over.

Here to explain why 17 minus 10 is 7, is Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye. They'll. be live here with us, when we come back.

[alcibiades_mystery]

10. "A media outlet is deciding who gets to run for President!!!!"

Yeah, no shit, Rachel.

I think her weird excitement over it is weird.

[jberryhill]

13. But that's not all

Rick Santorum is really upset by this.

And tomorrow Huckabee might say something about how upset Santorum is, and then Trump will say something dreadful about Huckabee. OMG what will it be!

Oh, and here are the polls Fox used and here's how everything would be different if they used different polls and if Roger Ailes didn't miss one because he was having a boil on his ass lanced.

[COLGATE4]

32. ^^ THIS ^^

[kcjohn1]

9. Trump or GOP

Not even discussing issues unless it's crazy GOP position on social issues. It's like there is no Dem primary and we are just waiting on GOP to select their candidate.

One of the interesting thing Trump said was that he bought candidates like Hillary before and he knows how the game is played and called put all the politicians fundraising from the rich. Very interesting and true take but very little play in the corporate media

They tell us all the time how much each candidates raise like a game but rarely will you here them state how this is legalized bribery and how politicians are slaves to their donors.

[moondust]

17. She's a political scientist.

Rhodes Scholarship, Doctorate from Oxford in politics. As such she probably enjoys digging into anything new/weird/absurd in politics.

[left on green only]

18. ^^^^^^^^ This ^^^^^^

[emsimon33]

22. Yes, I felt the same

I understand why Fox (which I loathe) did what they did: They wanted a greater margin between the last two potential stage standers. As far as I could tell, she wasted a lot of time on nothing! Why not focus on TPP or some other really important issue!

[Blue_In_AK]

23. I can't even watch these shows anymore.

I've ceased to be amused by the Republican "candidates."

[madamesilverspurs]

26. Well, I generally learn something from watching her show,

even if it's something I didn't want to know. And at my age, still learning is a good thing!

[chillfactor]

27. personally...

I enjoyed her program and that segment....

[alcibiades_mystery]

33. Watch again tonight

You'll get to see it again.

And again.

And again.

[longship]

28. Or, it's important. I trust Rachel.

An ideological news network, which has been operating as a partisan outlet has control of one of the two major political parties in the USA.

What is tedious is what FoxNews is doing and how they are trying to game a national election.

Rachel has it right. And she's the only one speaking out about it.

If you find it tedious, don't watch it. But caution, consider what one would think if MSNBC gamed Democratic debates like Fox has done.

Your concern is noted. And discarded.

[Stardust]

29. She is definitely concerned about Faux' methods of choosing who will stay but maybe it IS

important. I smell Koch money behind Faux' decision-making process. I can't prove it, of course, but it's extremely disconcerting how Faux picked and chose the polls they used. They obviously cherry-picked the candidates, and I'm sure there was some nefarious reason behind it. I think Rachel is concerned that some power is manipulating the stage to showcase only their chosen ones and the obvious throw-aways who are there just for show.

On another note, not all viewers watch several programs all night. Most probably just tune in for one show; time is precious, and most folks don't have a lot of spare time. So, the producers program their shows to cater to those who is are there to catch the one show they have time for. CNN is notorious for running the same news stories all day, over and over. Faux, too. That's what you get with several 24/7 news programs. Repitition is bound to happen.

[malaise]

30. The Comcast producers have taken over

It's sad to watch but hardly unexpected.

[Betty Karlson]

31. No, it's a valid point.

We are seeing the primary process of one party and its dynamics being hijacked by a television network.

That's not tedious, that's potentially undermining democracy as we know it. - Because it will solidify the make-belief news's hold over one party and its ideology, and no popular disagreement can influence that process.

It also solidiufies the role that big bucks are starting to play on that side of the spectre. It's bad enough that we have a choice between neo-conservatives and neo-liberals in most elections, but when we verge into a situation where the choice is between neo-liberals and top-down controlled neo-fascists who don't care about their constituancies at all...

[Tom Rinaldo]

34. The stuff she decides to cover extensively always matters but she often over covers it just the same

I try not to miss her show. I like her a lot and respect her enormously, but often I feel like I'm being treated like a child when she keeps saying the same thing over and over in slightly different ways. I know it isn't really her intent, but it feels like she doesn't trust that me, the viewer, will be able to grasp the point she is making if she doesn't keep hammering it into my dense skull. I do wish she would stop doing that.

[Gothmog]

35. No-Rachel provided some great information last night

Rachel actually made me feel a little sorry for Rick Perry because the RNC and Fox are screwing Perry