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Go Home Cokie Monster

THE PLANK MAY 4, 2009

Cokie Monster

BY AUTHOR INFO NEEDED

I don't listen to Cokie Roberts's weekly NPR commentaries, and Jack Shafer provides abundant evidence that I'm wise not to. Shafer's takedown did, however, remind me of a historic low point in television journalism that took place during the 2000 election.

In the final, and arguably decisive, presidential debate, George W. Bush had tried to muddy the waters by claiming vaguely that he supported a "patient's bill of rights," and Al Gore had tried to clarify them by pointing out that Bush opposed the bipartisan Dingell-Norwood bill. On ABC's "This Week," Roberts and co-clown Sam Donaldson offered this trenchant analysis:

DONALDSON:
Well, you talk about the message. I mean, remember during the last
debate, Gore kept talking about 'the Dingell/Norwood bill, the
Dingell/Norwood bill.' And we thought, as a public service, we'd just
show you who Dingell and Norwood are. Let us tell you about them.
Representatives of Dingell and Norwood introduced the Patients' Bill of
Rights favored by Gore and the House of Representatives. John Dingell,
from Michigan, is the longest-serving Democrat in the House. His
father, who was a House member before him, was a sponsor of Social
Security in the '30s, and pioneered the idea of national health
insurance back in 1943. Charlie Norwood from Georgia, a Republican, is
a dentist. He served in Vietnam and was first elected to the House in
1994 as part of the Republican revolution. So that's who Dingell and
Norwood are. Now I'll tell you...

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: But the important...

ROBERTS: Yeah, but...

DONALDSON: But there's a guy named Greg Ganske who's also on the bill. It's actually the Dingell/Norwood/Ganske bill.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But the import--the important point...

DONALDSON: But I don't have time to start telling you about him.

ROBERTS: He's from Iowa.

STEPHANOPOULOS:
The important point there is that George Bush didn't answer the
question about the Dingell/Norwood bill, which is a Patients' Bill of
Rights that allows people to--the right to sue.

ROBERTS: Actually, I don't think that is the important point there.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Why not?

ROBERTS: Because that's not
what comes across when you're watching the debate. What comes across
when you're watching the debate is this guy from Washington doing
Washington-speak.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But it's...

ROBERTS:
And you know, it's having an effect not just at the presidential level,
but at the congressional level as well. Because the Republicans did a
very smart thing, which is that they voted for their version of a
Patients' Bill of Rights, and they voted for their version of
prescription drug coverage. So they get to go out and tout all these
issues, and then the Democrats are left saying, 'But you didn't do
Dingell and Norwood.'

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, then
they--but what gets lost there--wait a second, what gets lost there is
that George Bush did oppose a Patients' Bill of Rights in the state of
Texas. And he did--and he's not for the Dingell/Norwood bill.

ROBERTS: It was lost, because Al Gore didn't say it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Yeah, well, he did say it, actually, in the course of the debate.

DONALDSON: This is very cerebral.

Jon Cohn said what needed to be said at the time, though perhaps with fewer strong adjectives than I would have offered.

--Christopher Orr

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23 comments

I am so glad you brought this up again, Chris, for whenever I hear Bushies saying that Bush is an honest man the first thing I cite to counter this was his blatant lie that he supported a patient's bill of rights when he in fact vetoed it. (I''d love for a Bushie to explain how one supports something by vetoing it.) What was infuriating in that Gore/Bush debate was Gore failing to deliver the knockout blow on this.

- kevincollins

May 4, 2009 at 11:41am

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Shafer is dead on about Cokie. Usually her segment starts up when I'm in the shower and unable to turn off the radio. She's absolutely brutal, she's crude conventional wisdom personified.

I think her worst came last year when she said Obama's upcoming campaign break in Hawaii was a bad idea because Hawaii was so "exotic" that real hard-workin' folks couldn't relate, and maybe he should go to Myrtle Beach instead because, basically, it was more American. I dropped the soap on that one.

- WoodyBombay

May 4, 2009 at 11:54am

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I have always found almost all of Cokie Roberts' comments - whose father btw, was southern congressional honcho Haley Boggs - to be fatuous insider gossip. If her father wasn't a powerful person, I do believe that this ridiculous person would have not polluted tv political commentary for all these years. When she and George Will would team up, I always wanted to pull an Elvis and shoot the damn television set.

- thejauntyboulevardier

May 4, 2009 at 11:57am

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I have always found almost all of Cokie Roberts' comments - whose father btw, was southern congressional honcho Haley Boggs - to be fatuous insider gossip. If her father wasn't a powerful person, I do believe that this ridiculous person would have not polluted tv political commentary for all these years. When she and George Will would team up, I always wanted to pull an Elvis and shoot the damn television set.

- thejauntyboulevardier

May 4, 2009 at 11:58am

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I can't recall ever hearing Cokie Roberts' commentary on NPR, although I'm sure I have.  But it can't be any worse than "Senior News Analyst" Daniel Snore^H^H^H^H^H Schorr.

And those of you in the DC area may be familiar with the WAMU's "Senior Commentator" Fred Fiske.  

NPR really should stay away from commentary.  

- ratnerstar

May 4, 2009 at 12:57pm

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Ah, Myrtle Beach, my wife's home town.  I visit there often (in-laws live there).  She has an affectionate name for MB: "that hell hole".  I concur.  If it weren't for my in-laws I'd never go there again. If that is "real America" then Lord help us.

You can be sure Ms. Roberts doesn't even know exactly where MB is much less vacation there.

- tnmats

May 4, 2009 at 1:05pm

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Cookie, I beg to disagree, I don't think it had much to do with her father as with her smart looking attractiveness. I have had a number of female students who have looked more intelligent than they are, but still took them more seriously than they deserved. This tendency of mine was finally broken when I had one student who looked like she could be in mensa but had the brains of a beauty pageant contestant.

- blackton

May 4, 2009 at 1:26pm

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The man post reminds me of what I have always disliked about Roberts.

- basman

May 4, 2009 at 1:27pm

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tnmats,

We don't even claim Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. The Atlantic Ocean or Ohio can have it.

- mpatrickhendri

May 4, 2009 at 1:31pm

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yes, Ratner, after I read Shafer's piece all I could think was "DO SCHORR NEXT!"

these are the reasons I no longer give money to NPR.

- perkowitz

May 4, 2009 at 1:57pm

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DONALDSON: So then I've got this toenail half hanging off--

ROBERTS: That's gotta hurt.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I'm not following how this pertains to Souter's--

DONALDSON: Shut up, Donny. You're out of your element.

ROBERTS [laughs]: Good one, "Walter"!

DONALDSON: Thanks, "Dude"!

ROBERTS: Ha!

DONALDSON: So anyway, there I am limping around...

ROBERTS: Kind of like Dan Quayle used to do!

DONALDSON: Except with more cheese.

ROBERTS: More cheese! Exactly! [pulls out small glass pipe and lighter from inside purse, lights pipe, inhales deeply]

STEPHANOPOULOS: Are--are you smoking...CRACK? On MY SET?

[DONALDSON stands, crosses over to Stephanopoulos, punches him in the face, sending him sprawling.]

DONALDSON: Shut the fuck up, you little twerp. That's meth. Don't you know the fucking difference?

ROBERTS [after exhaling] Yeah, fucking little twerp. That's what he is. [coughs] Whoa, this is--this shit's intense.

DONALDSON: You bet it is, bitch. And deadly. There's enough cyanide in that rock you just smoked to wipe out Al Qaeda.

ROBERTS begins twitching, falls to floor in violent seizures, finally stopping, dead.

STEPHANOPOULOS [climbing back up into his chair] Wh...what happened? One minute we're talking, then...[see Roberts]...what happened to HER??

[DONALDSON has pulled a .357 Magnum out of his jacket.]

DONALDSON: Let's see: one bullet for him, one for me.

[DONALDSON shoots STEPHANOPOULOS in the forehead, then turns the gun on himself, puts barrel in his mouth, and blows his brains out.]

Both men lay dead on floor near Roberts.

-- Fade to Black --

[wild applause!]

[Stephanopoulos, Donaldson, and Roberts come out from behind curtain, hold hands, bow as the studio audience continues to applaud loudly.]

ANNOUNCER: And thanks for joining us again for another episode of "Die, Media, Die!" Come back next week when Rush Limbaugh pretends to wade nude through the Everglades to prove that climage change is a hoax.

"Die, Media, Die" was brought to you by FIAT, the Car Company for the Next American Century...

- williamyard

May 4, 2009 at 2:05pm

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We can use the Cokie-haters here and on Slate as the core of a vigilante group that takes a segment of "DIE, MEDIA DIE" to a new site every week.  How about someone shooting David Gregory now that he's shown himself incapable of a good interview. And his voice is annoying. We could have a new scene every hour - shot-gun sytle - on Inside Edition and get two or three of the small-brained Medias Hypocriticalas for the price of one.

- CAMtwo

May 4, 2009 at 3:21pm

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I think it's more than a bit mean-spirited to toss Daniel Schorr in the same pail with Cokie Roberts.  Schorr is over 90 and can look back on a career in journalism going back to WW2.  His slowness of thought at times (and it's only been perceptible for a year or so) is a matter of age, not of wit in the true sense.  Roberts in contrast never had an original thought in her life and would probably die of embarrassment if she suddenly found herself in company with one.  She deploys the imperious southern hyper-femininity of Blanche in "The Golden Girls" that hides a deep insecurity.

- ironyroad

May 4, 2009 at 3:41pm

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Good idea, CAM!

I tell ya, a "Die, Media, Die!" on cable is a fortune waiting to be made. Can you imagine the ratings? Only a Dick Cheney Dunk Tank for Charity on pay-per-view is bigger, IMHO. (NPR, are you listening? Talk the ex-VEEP into getting wet for a grand a pop and your pledge drives are history.)

And then there's the global catharsis of watching overpaid talking heads gurgle and droop into eternity, for which we're in Nobel Peace Prize territory, at least.

- williamyard

May 4, 2009 at 3:41pm

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woody, that's just spooky. Not only does Cokie's NPR segment always seem to come on when I'm in the shower and can't reach the radio, but I also literally dropped the soap on that memorable "Hawaii is so exotic" thing.

Taking the kids to Hawaii may sound exotic if your idea of vacation involves spending time with the half-dozen ambassadors, congressmen and -women, legislators, and senators you're related to in the Hamptons, but for normal Americans, Hawaii is a perfectly normal vacation spot. It's no Branson, and maybe you can't fly there every year, but it absolutely is a place normal American families go on vacation. Unlike, say, Martha's Vineyard or Baton Rouge. And you know what else is also not "exotic"? Taking your kids to see their elderly grandmother the summer before she dies. You don't get more down-to-earth than that.

(It must be said that Cokie's daughter Rebecca is actually one of the better young journalists at work on radio these days. Which I attribute to Cokie's husband Steve, who's also a superior presence on the air when he speaks on NPR.)

- rhubarbs

May 4, 2009 at 3:59pm

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irony- I'm sure Daniel Schorr is a great person and all, and that he's profoundly, profoundly boring only by virtue of his advanced age and not inherent mental limitation.  But the end result is the same.  And it's not like he has some sort of inalienable right to be on the radio.  

- ratnerstar

May 4, 2009 at 4:05pm

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That's true, ratty, and it's a fair point -- he should know when it's time to step down.  Only, I think it's worth emphasizing Dan's not the same kind of creature as Cokie.  It's not jackhammer vacuity we're dealing with there.

- ironyroad

May 4, 2009 at 4:20pm

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Woody: "I dropped the soap on that one."  Damn man, gotta be careful when you say stuff like that ...

Googling down memory lane, let's not forget this precious Crowley post on the topic of Hawaii vacations:

blogs.tnr.com/.../154264.aspx

Blackie: don't know about looks.  Cokie Roberts has, to me, the appearance of a permanently frazzled frump who's heard that her house is to be repossessed and her 17 cats have been taken into the local humane society.  And makes as much sense.  But then, I am not a big fan of 'Gorgeous' George S. so I guess I am somewhat biased.

- icarusr

May 4, 2009 at 5:03pm

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Cokie Roberts would not be where she is if her father had not been House Majority Leader Hale Boggs. As a journalist, she is a disgrace, who, as a previous poster noted, does nothing but peddle second-hand gossip. When I hear her segments on NPR, I turn the radio off. She is a disgrace, and also a bit of a sniggering jackass.

- cbtharring

May 4, 2009 at 5:54pm

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irony-  I didn't know Schorr was that old.  I now feel bad for some of the mean things I have said about him (granted, alone in the car, but still).  

- boneill

May 4, 2009 at 6:04pm

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Geez, I've never found Roberts that bad.  

williamyard, you are cementing your image with me as Internet Nabokov.  

- gwolfjr

May 4, 2009 at 9:13pm

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Rhubarbs, much to my chagrin, tomorrow in the shower I will probably think of you.

I'm going to go with the "'Rhubarbs' is Padma Lakshmi's TNR posting identity" gambit. That's it, right? Right??? Hey, why do I feel queasy? Is this flop sweat?

- WoodyBombay

May 4, 2009 at 9:48pm

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bone -- I should think so!  I'm 106 myself, come August, and I hope you haven't been dissing me in private.

My age accounts for my taste in music, incidentally.

- ironyroad

May 4, 2009 at 11:54pm

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