Hey, if that “Chuckie” look a like wants to be in punditry, he needs to learn how to take it.
Reading the complete quote was punishing.

It’s like when John Davidson, Jr. took over his dad’s seat on the Hollywood Squares – his dad being famous mostly for a few cameo spots on Love, American Style back in the 70′s and his long tenure on…Hollywood Squares.

Nepotism allows the entertainment industry (which unfortunately includes TV news) to explore how many degrees of separation from actual talent and intelligence they can get away with foisting off on the viewing public.

Candy Canes? So this is Junior High Class President he’s running for?
Well, hell, why not? After all, so many of them do their jobs as if it IS all a Junior High popularity contest. I guess he does know his target population, even as he doesn’t know who they are. When he finds them (hint–they’re the ones with the TV crews and the perfect hair) he’s good to go!

Position position musta been tailored: “Much younger potato headed fat dumbfuck sought, preferably with healthier heart. Preexisting gene pool preferred.”

Doesn’t Rose Douthat have an OK speaking voice?

Thought “Russ”‘ best shot stuck to his leg and dried on. Guess not.

It lives and prospers.

Jesus:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV_OzLjmDRQ

“”Candy Canes? So this is Junior High Class President he’s running for?”"

Yup. “Be sweet! Vote for Lukey!”

Jeebus. Those TV “news” fuckers quit trying years ago.

I guess it’s official now: we’re living in an age (the Stanley Fish age?) where anyone can be an expert on anything without actual qualifications.

“You’re on American Idol? Wow, you must be a musician!”

“You’re from Alaska? Wow, you must be a meteorologist!”

“Your Dad was on teevee? Wow, you must be a political analyst!”

“Your Dad was Billy Graham? Wow, you must be God!”

And another thing…

The fucker’s been on the teevee for about a year and he’s running for a spot on the RTCA board?! (whatever the fuck RTCA stands for?)

He’s got a thinner resume than the Doughy Pantload, and that’s saying something.

I actually have to mute the TV when his “analysis” comes on because his remarks are so stupid and out-of-touch that I want to throw something at him. I mean, I’m a nobody living in Colorado and I know more about what’s going on in Congress than he does.

Au contraire! IIRC, Little Luke “the guy with the candy canes” Russert’s Nepotism Vitae also includes a stint while still in college as a co-host for a radio call in sports show (WTF?) with daddy pal and political gargoyle James Carville (extra WTF???).

He’s totally earned his chops, man. Earned his chops.

Shake the hand,
That shook the hand,
Of P.T. Barnum,
And Charlie Chan…

Sometimes my Old Guy decision to only use the television for watching DVD’s and TCM actually seems wise.

More information that we probably don’t need, but I do love teh Google:

http://artsites.ucsc.edu/GDead/AGDL/usblues.html#shake

Thanks, JDM. After listening to that, I have now decided to move to a log cabin in the upper reaches of Ontario. So, rich spoiled nepotist know-nothing heir, bitches about spending and there will be nothing left for him, then in the next line says…”if you are a communist, get involved, if you are a fascist, get involved..”. He makes Palin sound like Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Hey Luke. Fuck you and the gas-bag father you rode in on.

Fine choice. Me, no teebee 1983-1987. Then kids, teebee for VCR/DVDs only. No teebee since 2006. Durn movies play good enuf on the computers. Teebee is profoundly bad: Marie Winn, TV: The Plug-In Drug

http://mariewinn.com/plugin.htm

I don’t even have teh cables because I don’t need a hundred channels of shit to watch the one or two channels I really want. I mainly watch sports on my TV.

This Luke kid, man. How the gene pool has thinned out.

AG, it was as dry as the Murray River Basin before.

Judas Priest. That daughter of Rick Santorum’s, you know, the one in the picture that was clutching her doll and starting to cry, she could do a better job than this tieless cheesesteak. I don’t think that anyone is doing this kid a real favor by handing him rope repeatedly.

Holy God, how long did you “TV Bad” people have to wait to see “Planet Earth” on DVD? How did you even find out about “Life in Cold Blood”? No one *makes* you watch Luke Russert just because you own a TV, you know. You’re allowed to turn it off after Michio Kaku is done explaining time, or Neil DeGrasse Tyson is through telling you about eclipses, and both before *and* after Mike DeGruy is scheduled to show you sharks in Palau. I support your intellectual choices, but seriously, no one forces TV owners to watch crap, though it’s admittedly trickier to find non-crap if you don’t have at least basic cable, but that’s what PBS is for.

Yep, I got rid of my computer because there was just too much porn and gossip (thanks, Leo*) on it.

Some might argue that television shows *are* an art form-that writing, lighting, direction, pacing, and acting, things so important to feature movies can be just as accomplished on the small screen. For my money, a good TV story boils down to revealing something about the human condition: “MASH” did that in its early years, “Mary Tyler Moore” did it for working professional women. More recently, “Six Feet Under” made me think like no other show ever has. And “Rescue Me” examines tragedy in a way that makes me laugh ’till I cry.

Granted, there’s plenty of crap on the tube. But face it, there’s just plenty of crap in life. Make your choices and live with ‘em.

Just don’t judge me ’cause I like what the idiot box adds to my life.

*Leo McGarry (John Spencer, RIP) on “The West Wing” calling computers a more efficient delivery system for porn and gossip.

Just watched JDM3′s linked You Tube of Pumpkin Boy’s deep thinking. At 2:25 a red car enters the parking lot in the window behind him. That was interesting.

Pssst…YouTube is like TV for those with shorter attention spans and less need for good writing.

Television is a medium and it’s inherently neither good nor bad. The uses that it’s put to can be another story. Family, friends, work, books, hobbies, or just walking my brains-free dog to the top of the hill and turning him loose to be a dog while I sit and try to not-think, are more than enough fill the days. That doesn’t make me any more worthy than a person who watches re-runs of “Night Court” on channel 164. It’s certain that I’m missing something by not watching shows of the caliber you mentioned. It’s also certain that I’d be missing something else if I devoted the time to them.

Um, yeah, that. Why get so pissed off because I don’t watch television? It’s a choice I make. I don’t watch most movies, either. This is the same shit I got for saying I didn’t want kids. People accused me of thinking they were bad because they wanted them. I’m not passing judgment on anyone else. Sheesh.

Can we now start calling Luke (a.k.a. The Littlest Russ) the George W. Bush of punditry? He has all the gravitas, speaking skills, research skills, and air of undeserved privilege that comes with that special brand of rich-kid nepotism. (Also see Kristol, William. Also.)

(And since I work in the PBS TV show making department, I can sincerely declare that anyone who doesn’t watch edumacational TV is worse that a zillion Hitlers cubed plus 2 Stalins.)

Luke is clearly a kid who’s been put in a position for which he’s not prepared. I don’t watch him because it’d make me retch. Maybe someday he’ll be capable of performing some kind of useful work. Maybe not. Some kids surprise you.

But it sounds like some folks criticizing the doughy offspring thought his father was better. Oy vey. Pumpkinhead was a vacuous twit himself, and I never understood why anyone took him seriously. He was just that fat kid from the wrong school who got into the party because he brought some beer and then thought he was one of the cool ones, so they mocked him and let him stay to make another beer run. In that context, Little Luke isn’t doing much worse than his daddy.

Hmm. I think they want Li’L Luke kept around, since he makes their lame asses look good, and they can pee on him to make themselves look good.

Otherwise, there’s no good explanation for having that sort of incompetence front and center on the teebee (unless we’re talking FauxSnooze, and then, it’s a job requirement).

I’m not pissed off, I’m defensive. In many ways I suspect it’s the opposite of what people get for not wanting kids (believe me, I get that too), and more akin to the response people get for being vegetarian. We’re advised by People Who Know What’s Good For Us that we should want kids because it’s natural, we should eat vegetarian because it’s healthier, and we watch too much TV, lazy couch potatoes, etc etc.

So my attempts to point out, whenever it comes up, that TV is not all crap (and really, I *am* sincerely baffled at how people can choose not to watch David Attenborough series, okay, *that’s* me being judgmental) are defensive more than anything, and no, really, I’m not wasting my life by watching so much of it, which I generally do while reading stuff anyway.

People who watch a lot of TV are kind of used to being judged by people who don’t watch any. You have to admit there’s been something of a moral superiority precedent there, and I’m surely responding more to that than to anything you guys are saying.

Here at Tbogg, though, it’s mostly just gentle teasing, at least on my part, in response to what I see as gentle pokes from you people with better things to do with your lives. I might even be envious, since you guys are all manifestly smarter and more broadly knowledgeable than me and there’s probably a correlation with the fact that you guys all seem to get out and meet people and do stuff that improves your brains, while I sit in my home and have migraines and talk to my cats, and TV and books and the interwebs are as close as I get to seeing the rest of the world.

Of course Dennis is right, that he’d be missing other worthwhile stuff if he spent a lot of time watching even really cool TV, and some people just don’t find it that interesting. But honest, it’s not all crap. I’ve never seen a game show or a reality show in my life, and haven’t seen a soap opera since I was fourteen (though I admit to a fixation on Futurama, Newsradio, and Sports Night on the sitcom front). The world is full of cool stuff, and that includes TV.

Also, Mike and Michio and Neil are totally hot. Smart being sexy and all. I just wanted to point that out.

What dsidhe said. Thanks.

I like TV. I’m a fool for Goren and Eames and I admit that I stay up to watch Cold Case because Kathryn Morris is heartbreakingly lovely, and somehow I’ve become attached to Criminal Minds re-runs at 2am when I wake up out of a sound sleep and cannot manage to go back to dreamland.

And right this minute I discover I have three copies of ‘MI5′ by Christopher Andrew – one ILL, one regular library and one I bought for my very own. This is excessive, and I admit it. It’s the kind of thing that happens when you live alone – like discovering that you have a pint of oysters and haven’t done anything toward turning them into food.

This is how bad I am about TV – it actually made me go ahead & register at FDL.

There are some really great shows on TV and some mind-boggling stupid ones. Wife & I got first season of Breaking Bad on DVD and loved it – watched it all in about a week including Netflix mailing time. Good acting, writing & directing are even more evident on TV than in cinema. If you haven’t seen Breaking Bad, I recommend it.

Breaking Bad, Farscape, some pieces of lots of shows can be quite good drama. As said above, the good shows examine the human condition.

Of course, the anti-TV comments aren’t like the comments “hippies” leave over at Kunstler’s place – the ones who long for Peak Oil so we all die without SUVs while they laugh and eat Ben & Jerry’s under whale blubber oil lamps. Kinda glad Edroso doesn’t link to him much anymore.

EDIT seemed to wipe out my line breaks…

nepotism goood for young Jedi.
Luke, may the farce bewitch you!
– Jonah “Yoda” Goldberg

Dang! A big boob but no more boobies.

Son of Russ, Grandson of Big Russ, Great Grandson of Big Fucking Russ

I read “Puss.” But then I didn’t have my glasses on. (Good thing his name isn’t Rus.)

Don’t laugh. Peter Gammons is supposedly retiring. Next thing you know, Little Russ will show up on ESPN regularly(despite it being owned by a rival network).

Let’s face it, Luke is the Liz Cheney of MSNBC.

Since Futurama, Newsradio, and Sports Night are practically my favorite shows ever, can I suggest you add Better Off Ted to your list? It’s quirky and funny and full of wonderful actors.

I’ll hunt it down, and thanks for the suggestion. I need something while we wait out the Futurama negotiations…

Who does/doesn’t watch TV and why/why not?

Who the fuck cares?

The post is about a blithering fucktwit on the teevee. Announcing to the world that you don’t watch the fuckin’ teevee is an announcement to the fuckin’ world that despite your lack of experience/knowledge with/of the little Pumkin-headed motherfucker, you’re gonna announce to the world that you don’t watch the teevee, which is just being an off-topic jagoff jumping into a conversation saying “hey, look at me!”

In the words of the great Barney Fife: “Pipe down Otis!”

Has this thread turned into a referendum on TV? Come on. Almost everyone I know has a must-see program, or six, and I don’t watch TV regularly simply because it cuts into my World of Warcraft and City of Heroes time too much, which hardly puts me into a position of being the arbiter of hipness.

Jeez. Just link to the Onion and move on.