This is why Sunday shows are seen as increasingly irrelevant. We have actual serious issues to wrestle with, but Dancin' Dave views his role as one where he spews a lot of right wing talking points and false equivalencies.
In the span of two minutes, he managed to say that the Boehner lawsuit is just a fundraising opportunity that 'both sides' are using and bolster Rick Santorum's claim that the middle class and poor are suffering because of Democrats. The icing on the cake was Dave calling today's economy the 'Obama economy.' This follows his earlier question about whether the immigration crisis at the border was Obama's Katrina moment. Yes, he actually asked that, because you know, 'some prominent Democrats' say so. (Shoot me now.)
Enough. There was a time where these shows were actually an opportunity for the press to critically question politicians and try to get past the obvious political ploys. Today, they're just another opportunity to reinforce false equivalencies and Luntz-crafted talking points thanks to non-journalists like Gregory.
Gregory could have asked Santorum why, if he's so concerned about the poor and middle class, he supports continuing policies that give more to the wealthy at the expense of those he's so concerned about.
Gregory could have pointed out that the economic policies Obama supports are stalled in a Congress more concerned with re-election than governing.
Instead he just nodded and bobbled and let them all go on with their nonsense, while repeating the very same nonsense.
Will NBC ever grow up and realize how useless Meet the Press has become over the past few years?
Transcript below, via NBC News:
DAVID GREGORY:
Let me get into, just as the president wants some action with this with Congress, we've got the specter of Congress suing the president. Talk of impeachment that Boehner struck down. But this is now becoming a huge fundraising opportunity on both sides, Kim Strassel. To what end are we seeing all of this?
KIM STRASSEL:
Look, I think there's been a lot of talk about whether or not John Boehner didn't do this to gin up his base this fall. But I think that that's actually unfair. If you look at the suit that they're putting together, there's actually been a lot of attention and focus on doing it in a very legally-specific way because there's a huge belief among Republicans that in fact the president has been exceeding his authority.
So they're going to do this in a very narrow way. They're going to look at this particular question of the employer mandate and the fact that the law very clearly said it had to go into effect at a certain time and the president has unilaterally changed that. So there's a lot of substance behind this.
(OVERTALK)
DAVID GREGORY:
If a Republican president were taking these steps on the Affordable Care Act, Democrats would be crying foul?
FMR. GOV. JENNIFER GRANHOLM:
Oh, except for George Bush took these very steps when he passed Medicare Part D and took some time to implement pieces of it. Nobody raised it by then. This case is complete hogwash. I mean it is as Akhil Amar--
DAVID GREGORY:
That's a legal term, right?
FMR. GOV. JENNIFER GRANHOLM:
Well, right. Akhil Amar was a legal scholar at Yale.
(OVERTALK)
FMR. GOV. JENNIFER GRANHOLM:
It's the legal equivalence of birtherism. It's not going to fly. But the reality is, does anybody see the irony in the fact that John Boehner's House voted last year 264-161 to actually delay the very provision that he's suing to have the president enforce right now? There is a bit of irony in this.
DAVID GREGORY:
Rick, can you answer for me kind of where you see this year in Republican presidential politics? I ask this as a piece of that debate. The party on immigration. The party debating itself over foreign policy. National security policy. And then these kinds of grassroots issues on healthcare and the like.
FMR. SEN RICK SANTORUM:
As I've talked about it across the country, we're a very divided party right now. And I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. We're having really good debates within the party about our position on national security, our position on immigration, a whole lot of other things.
What we need, though, is a positive vision. One of the reasons I wrote blue collar conservatives just recently, was to provide a positive way forward for the conservative movement, because right now we're arguing about a lot of things that are not, in my opinion, core to where the American public's concerns are. And the American public's concern is that middle income Americans, lower income Americans, aren't rising. Aren't seeing the opportunities. And that's what we have to focus on.
DAVID GREGORY:
The Obama economy. One of the issues too is the president's leadership. And for the table here, with about a minute left, this question of Iran and its nuclear weapons. Even if there is a deal, Kim, there's going to be a tough sell to Congress to say, "Okay, we think we've got a deal with Iran. We should ease up on the sanctions." It doesn't seem like either party is very willing to let the president get that deal.
