A Well-Rounded Panel, Bill Mahre-Style

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So we’ve got three months of HBO for free from DirecTV, the worst company in America (ask me why; I’ll be happy to tell you), as a result of my bargaining with them over a promise made to me that DirecTV, the worst company in America, decided not to keep. So I’m flipping thru channels recently and came across Real Time with Bill Mahre (is that the name of it? I don’t care.). I don’t particularly find his brand of snarky humor funny, and the fact that he comes from the far-left fringe gives me more than enough reason to keep hitting the “channel up” button. But I paused for a few minutes to survey his panel, and found it to be…well, interesting, maybe? Besides far lefty Mahre, there were

* Keith Olbermann (not sure if his lips have healed yet after puckering up so often for Obama);
* A reporter for the New York Times (credibility on par with the Weekly World News these days);
* Bernie Sanders, the “independent” Senator from Vermont who’s only “independent” because if he ran as a “Socialist”–which he is–then even folks from the far-lefty Green Mountain State might upchuck in their Ben & Jerry’s; and
* A lady of whom I’ve never heard (last name “Washington”) described as an “activist” whose function on the show seemed to be to serve as the “Amen Corner” for just about everything Socialist Bernie had to say

Bernie blathered on and on unstoppably (even Olbermann seemed to have a hard time getting a word in edgewise–thank goodness for small favors), hitting the tired mantras of contemporary ultra-liberalism (“the wealth disparity between rich and poor in this country is blah blah blah ad nauseum”). Mahre and Olbermann be-bopped around with witty opinions on Glenn Beck (dismissed as this era’s “Father Coughlin” by the astute Olbermann, missing entirely the sort-of-important fact that philosophically, he and the good father have far more in common than do Coughlin and Beck). Why does Fox News give this man a forum, they wondered (sheesh, I dunno…hmmm…maybe because HBO puts on five people from the far left fringe, and since MSNBEmbarrassmentC lets Matthews fully express his man-crush on the Prez, there would seem to be a need for a modicum of balance…”fair and balanced”, what a concept!).

Now let me be clear: it’s Bill’s show, and he can have anybody on it he pleases. It’s America, and if he wants to do regular obeisance to Mao Tse Tung, that’s his prerogative. But nothing approaching a reasoned and fair discussion of the subject at hand is going to take place when the participants on the panel range from the far left to the kook-fringe left.

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