Charlie Rose

JohnGelles  09/23/2011 08:01 AM Report

Rose and Lehrer are NOT self-selected questioners and commentators on the issues of the day. REMant, Lazer and Gelles are.

There is a huge difference in the results of the selection process. Rose and Lehrer may not be the best at their exalted tasks. But they competed with others and certainly are not the worst.

Rem, Laz and Gel, avoided competition and probably are, therefore, among the worst in all the audience, in terms of competence and excellence, for taking up space in the archives of the CR Show.

Or, are they?

They did not compete. But they did decide. They decided to inflict their words on the space. REMant, in particular, decided to compete for first comment at the bottom of the list we read in reverse time order.

So he is not only first nearly all the time, but he is also the worst -- because his intention is to beat the rest in being first NOT not in being the best.

Or is he?

Well, anyway, Rose and Lehrer are paid in money. R, L and G are paid in ego-points. These are worth no cash at all. They are obviously worth the opportunity cost of typing and sharing with themselves their own thoughts.

The number of people in the gross audience for the show who actually read any particular commentator may be less than 10. My wish is that, for R, the number is less than 2.

As for Tension City, the book will be read by many people even if not by me. I remember Lehrer from before he was picked by his fellow Texan (Robert Strauss, maybe -- if memory serves ??) to move on to the evening PBS national news up from the local news in Dallas. He was a Marine when he served, and he had a pleasant voice.

His partner in Dallas, Lee Cullum, was a dark haired beauty who was a local celebrity if not a PBS national celebrity. She had by far the more prominent voice. But she did not have the fame of Lehrer, who had written a movie or a book that gained him much attention.

All trivia aside, Rose, Lehrer and I would all be dead but for the heart surgeons who saved our lives. Have we done our duty to our times? Have we ever had a thought or said out loud something wise enough to share with other people.

Have those two ever understood what they were telling this great nation on TV? If you ask them they will say yes. If make them repeat it in any detail -- well I leave it to you to know if they'd be right.

Rose and Oprah do sell books. Lehrer writes them. Non-celebrities may read them.

In the end it seems, not even winning presidential debaters and contenders make much difference. We have all turned great victories over right and left wing maniacs into the dust of defeat by our own ignorance of what to do and how to do it to root the four freedoms in the soil of a better earth as time moves forward and the future becomes the past.

This somewhat confused posting was first sent to the wrong page of this archive. I would delete there if I could. It has error enough here to be deleted, as well. But it does react to these two buddies whom we have watched for years while our culture went off the tracks -- and we became failures in democracy for no good reason at all.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  09/16/2011 05:40 PM Report

Haven't they already done their 10,000 hours by these debates?

At this level they should be on auto-pilot not "Tension City".

Loved the Al Gore charge--a precious moment in time.

Can we test Bill Clinton's emotional IQ and compare and contrast?

Robert McNamara nailed it--answer the question you wish they asked NOT the question they ask.

Charlie, you looked very happy.

REMant  09/16/2011 11:32 AM Report

I see nothing wrong with Dukasis' answer, nor do I think anything "personal" about it, except to goad him. If Shaw meant to ask only whether he could sympathize with victims, he should have asked that. In any case, I really doubt he lost the election over it, but more likely the philosophy, itself, which trying to look like a tank commander only served to underscore, while the country thought it was still on the right course, and Bush Sr, despite coming from a similar background, looked to continue. Nor do I think Mondale lost because of Reagan's retort, but because he pledged to increase taxes, was identified with the feckless-appearing Carter admin, and chose a woman for his running mate. In other words they both came across as pansies in a country not yet converted to political correctness. Obama came in, like all presidents of the opposing party, ready to fight the last war, which he found an excuse to do regardless of the circumstance, rather like Bush Jr invading Iraq. He probably does still feel that way, and while no one can really argue that we need some of the things being advocated, he's made a mess of the job and given the impression of kowtowing as much to his party base, as the GOP to its.