"A Weighty Consideration On A Sultry Summer's Day"

Remember Aaron Brown?

You don’t?

My point exactly. 

Thank you, and have a wonderful day.

What?  Explain myself?  Aw, come on.  It’s too nice.  I want to go outside.  Which, as I previously explained, means it’s summer and I do not want to work that hard.  And by not wanting to work that hard I mean I do not want to work at all. 

By the way, when I say, “I want to go outside”, I do not necessarily “want to go outside.”  I am referring instead to the liberating experience of “going outside”, though I would actually be as happy and perhaps happier remaining, coolly and comfortably inside.  Not working at all. 

But, hey I started this.  So pretend it’s another season and I shall try and keep it short, so, if you wish, you can go outside, whether it is literally outside or metaphorically outside, meaning inside, frolicking in that liberating “outside” experience.

Okay, back, hopefully temporarily, to work.

Aaron Brown was, for a short duration, the host of a prime time cable news commentary show on CNN.  Aaron Brown was sensible, reasonable and determinedly balanced.  His ratings stunk up the place.  Goodbye, Aaron Brown.

That’s my point.  Or at least the lead-up to my point.

Venn Diagram Number One:  (partially truncated)

Sensible, reasonable and determinedly balanced people do not succeed hosting cable news commentary shows.

Aaron Brown was a sensible, reasonable and determinedly balanced person.

Fired.

Partisan Alert:  MSNBC commentators?  They indeed sound sensible, reasonable and determinedly balanced.  But if they missed the possibility that, having felt economically damaged by a Democratic president, some voters chose to vote not irrationally for a Republican president, despite his hideous liabilities, perhaps those MSNBC commentators were wielding their vaunted sensible, determinedly balanced reasoning abilities unequally.

And – lurching towards my point – if you – and yes, I – accepted MSNBC’s cable news commentary shows hosts’ rationales as the truth, how sensible, reasonable and determinedly balanced would we ourselves consequently emerge?

That’s what I’m talking about on a day when I should be lolling in the magnificent summer sunshine.

Venn Diagram Number Two:

Cable news commentary shows promote an unbalanced political perspective.

We get all our information from cable news commentary shows.

We have an unbalanced political perspective.

What makes our political perspective unbalanced?

Answer:

See:  Venn Diagram Number One.

Bigger Picture.

Venn Diagram Number Three:

For profitability reasons (and self-preservation), every cable news commentary host reflects opinions on the outer edges of the ideological spectrum.

A proverbial Martian watches only cable news commentary shows.

The proverbial Martian believes every American holds opinions on the outer edges of the ideological spectrum.

That proverbial Martian would be sadly mistaken.

But they’d never know it from watching cable news commentary shows.

And neither would we.

Okay, that’s it.

Now, go make a sand castle.