Larry-O The TV Screenwriter Tries Political Fiction ‘Rewrite’ On His Show

The caustically obnoxious, incessantly boastful, and unfailingly myopic Lawrence O’Donnell must have felt that liberal bug prick his triumphalist ego with misplaced hubris as he slouched toward a self-indulgent yawning segment of ‘backstage drama’ involving the Clinton-Obama get-together per Robert Gibb’s ‘TRUE WEST WING STORIES’. Watching the rambling, back-slapping gabby Gibby powder-puff interview wind down I thought, considering my own prediction that this must be another Larry-O vehicle to boast yet again, “Is it possible, having dropped the hint-hint ‘West Wing’ reference O’Donnell will actually NOT assault the viewers with another self-serving reference to his TV screenplay for the fictional political show?” No such luck.

(“As *I*! PREDICTED,” INTONED Larry-O earlier about a most predictable tax deal outcome … think Keith doing Larry-O’s wingnut Fox alter ego, Bill-O the Clown, with the pitch-perfect pompous voice of vain and incompetent faux news anchor, Ted Baxter.)

Right at the end, Larry-O got his plug in: “HAHAHA … WELL, YOU KNOW, IN THE ‘WEST WING’ WRITERS ROOM THERE WERE PLENTY OF WRITERS WHO WERE MORE TALENTED THAN *I*! WAS (NOT!) WHO WOULD COME UP WITH IDEAS LIKE THAT, AND *I*!’D BE THE FIRST ONE TO SAY, ‘NO-O-O IT CAN’T HAPPEN, WE CAN’T DO IT, AND *I*! WOULD HAVE BEEN WRONG YET AGAIN (NOT!)” … Pass the Barf Bag.

The Ted Baxter moments kept on coming:

LARRY-O (channeling Ted Baxter with Keith doing the voice-over): “STEN-NEE, WERE YOU SURPRI-I-I-ISED BY THE OVERWHELMING! NUMBER OF DEMOCRATIC VOTES IN THE SENATE ...?”

Steny Hoyer: “I was surprised at the number of votes (in the Senate), but not that it passed pretty handily …”

LARRY-O (channeling Ted Baxter) IMPERIOUSLY INTERRUPTUS: “NOTHING! SURPRISING ABOUT IT FOR *ME*! *I*! SAID A WEEK AGO THAT *I*! THOUGHT IT WOULD MOOVE THROUGH THIS WAY!”

But the most comical segment (for those still watching) was Larry-O the TV Screenwriter trying to get his guests to admit President Obama had ‘hoodwinked’ Republicans based on a widely touted (in Idiot Punditocracy circles) Charles Krauthammer column whose dubious claims and unverified numbers made for predictable Beltway consensus: The President’s ‘brilliant’ triangulation prospects for his 2012 reelection confirmed, he rolled willing Republicans, slammed angry progressives, as only wingnuts and Teabaggers — and Charles Krauthammer — smelled a rat.

Unfortunately for Larry-O, his guests didn’t exactly buy into the premise.

Bob Greenstein said, paraphrasing, ‘it all depends on how the economy performs, and whether the President can hold the line’ against Republicans. It sounded so much like the progressives' argument all along that Larry-O X’d the segment! Then John Fund of the Wall Street Journal declared victory for conservatives: “This agreement is a major philosophical shift for liberals; they’re not acknowledging it, they won’t acknowledge it, but it happened.” Seeing as things weren’t going so well for his POV, Larry-O declared unilateral victory for the President and Krauthammer’s premise; moving right along …

On last night’s program, O’Donnell quoted Ghandi, of all people: “There is nothing that wastes the body like worry.” Ya think, Larry-O? It’s easy to speculate from one’s comfortable ivory tower that politics is the ‘worry’ wasting the body. But no one can actually survive on politics. For most Americans not of such privileged station, surviving day-to-day, finding a job, feeding their families, and keeping a roof over their heads is the genuine ‘worry’. Not surprisingly, O'Donnell omitted the second clause of that Ghandi quote: “…and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.”

O’Donnell inadvertently stumbled upon the RADICAL RIGHT Jim DeMint Republican position: Starve the beast of government with unsustainable deficits, and for all those middle class Americans treading water, seniors dependent on Social Security and Medicare, Medicaid transplant patients in Arizona (a precursor of things to come nationwide as more states make massive cuts in Medicaid) denied life-saving transplants, the unemployed — well, they’ll just have to fend for themselves and have FAITH THAT GOD WILL DELIVER. This is a song about when God, the "joker", doesn't deliver. As Brazil pulls itself out of the misery hole of poverty (halved by President Lula), it seems that Arianna Huffington's Third World America is sliding backward toward Brazil.

This isn’t a knock on Ghandi. He was one of the great figures of the 20th century. I studied him in college. Ghandi preached asceticism and advocated for Indian independence from the British Empire (what the Teabaggers refer to as a "tyrannical government") through satyagraha, nonviolent civil disobedience, noncooperation, and economic boycotts. As with our Civil Rights movement, Ghandi’s civil disobedience may have tactical applications for oppressed Americans, e.g., refusing to “cooperate” with bank foreclosure orders — but it is hardly a sustainable model short of all-out revolution. The Last Word is the President and the Democratic Party are still, symbolically at least, on the people’s side.