NBC’s Chuck Todd has been on a road trip in an RV just like regular folks use on their road trips to Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone, which makes him a true man of the people in touch with the heart of real America, taking the pulse of the nation as only a celebrity journalist based out of Washington D.C. can do.
I imagine his jaunt through what I’m sure he calls the Heartland when he’s not calling it that god awful place where you can’t get a decent brioche is making him feel like Charles Kuralt.
Isn’t it amazing? Most of us spend our whole lives trying to figure out what makes people tick and die still scratching our heads over the question but celebrity journalists like Todd just need one quick swing through a handful of towns in a handful of states where, relatively, very few Americans live to get themselves on camera nodding sagaciously as a handful of people their producers have designated “regular folks” parrot what TV has taught them celebrity journalists like Todd want to hear and they can tell us everything we need to know about the human condition.
I guess that’s why they get the big bucks.
Of course it helps if all you think matters about the human condition is how people vote in national elections and you’re only interested in what makes regular folks tick because their votes will decide who your neighbors back in D.C. are going to be and what parties you’re going to be invited to and who’ll be picking up the tab at lunch and how much you’ll be able to charge as your speakers’ fees and what unpaid internships your kids will be able to get that will launch them on their own Washington Insider or Wall Street careers while regular folks’ kids spend their summers working at fast food restaurants and big box stores just to pay next semester’s tuition at state colleges where they’re pursuing degrees they hope will land them jobs that will pay them enough they can cover their monthly student loan payments.
If you’re a fan of the Sunday bobblehead shows and think something like actual news is actually discussed on those shows, you’ll be happy to know that some good will come out of this trip. The next time Todd has someone like Paul Ryan or Lindsey Graham on Meet the Press, he’ll be able to say with authority, “I was just talking to some regular Americans and they told me pretty much that what needs to be done to save America is what you just said needs to be done.”
Ha! Nailed it.
Posted by: Kathleen | Friday, October 24, 2014 at 10:07 AM
Somebody on his itinerary lay in a supply of caltrops and place them carefully as he goes by. Then he might have to stop and listen to "Real Americans" other than the ones his producers designate as such.
Posted by: Linkmeister | Friday, October 24, 2014 at 02:08 PM