Over the weekend, MSNBC host, Contessa Brewer, ran a segment on the subject of arming teachers in public schools. Her guests were former Air America talk show host Mike Malloy and a right wing talker I’ve never heard of, Steve Malzberg.
Jamie Holly at the CrooksandLiarsblog has recorded the video and you can watch it in here. She has, of course, a little idol worship of Malloy going on, taking his insults as actual talking points. As a matter of fact, Malloy doesn’t even get a point out other than that he is a bitter old leftist who lives to insult anyone who doesn’t think as he does.
The segment starts out pretty well, with an clip of a Repub pol from Wisconsin before the two talkers come on. Malloy starts in with the insults in his hello to Brewer, which in case you never heard him before he was deservedly dumped off Air America, is his only forte. Malzberg gets to speak to the topic first, and comes in with decent ideas, but then gets laughed at for suggesting that terrorists might try and pull off a Beslan here in America.
Malloy comes in with the usual platitudes about how “he is a hunter” and is all for “responsible gun ownership”. But then gets off the subject and decides to critque Malzberg’s pronunciation of “Kalashnikov” instead of saying anything substantive.
And that is where it all goes downhill. Malzberg falls for the insult and the bickering starts. Then someone in the studio where Malzberg is at makes a noise and Brewer gets in on the action.
I know that the MSM folks like to get the weakest right-wing proponents they can find and set them right up in front of the country to look foolish, but I just wish that there was a way we could get someone who knows the ploy and can fight the urge to fall for the bait.
Watch the video.
Malzberg was actually on my local talk station yesterday after work, filling in for the normal host.
He played the audio from that clip, and did his commentary and rebuttal on-air.
He said MSNBC had been “trying and trying” to get him on the air, and that he had finally agreed. I wish he wouldn’t have; listening to that argument gave me a headache.
I wound up listening to a CD the rest of the way home.