Sunday, August 3, 2008

The Chuck on Meet The Press
Somebody get Judy Woodruff a Mimosa STAT!



This morning's Meet The Press was pretty standard fare for all of us political junkies who are adrift in these Horse Latitudes of the election season; no Veep pick, conventions are off in the distance, the candidates are about a hair's breadth from T.P.-ing each other's house, etc.

So you try to pull together a group to talk about something until the Olympics get here. The Chuck worked with what he had. Mike Murphy let loose the most unfortunate of Freudian slips replacing Chappaquiddick for Chappaqua. The Chuck hit him with a rock while he swung in the wind by saying, "You Republicans are programmed (unitelligible)." We believe we heard The Chuck say, "You Republicans are programmed with that story as children to make you fear getting in cars with Senators and/or strangers."

But somewhere in all this snooziness Judy Woodruff was not buying what The Chuck was selling. We here at the Viva Chuck Todd offices challenge anyone out there to review the broadcast and let us know if Woodruff looked at The Chuck more than two times. We believe that lady doesn't like The Chuck. She tried to undermine The Chuck's historical argument of citing the 1988 general election where Lloyd Bentsen outclassed Dukakis and Dan Quayle kept asking Bush Sr. if he could go pee-pee. Illustrating that a VP choice can seriously affect perception if gravitas or experience levels are seriously out-of-whack. Woodruff debated that point by saying even though Bentsen "cleaned Dan Quayle's clock" it made no difference. She also referenced Spiro Agnew as another bad choice that didn't effect the general election. She almost had us until she torpedoed her own argument by referencing LBJ bringing in Texas for JFK. The Chuck piled on by referencing Al Gore bringing Tennessee for Clinton.

We believe The Chuck was making the argument in the context of 2008, where the Vice Presidency has been elevated to a much more powerful and high profile office where the candidates are now more than appendages and funeral goers. Obama is, well, Obama so that needs a whole new vetting matrix and McCain needs to cast for understudies like a Broadway producer in 1996 who has a show with George Burns headlining.

With that said, the Viva Judy Woodruff domain is now for sale if anyone wants it.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought Andrea Mitchell was also trying to put the smack down on The Chuck as well. She was totally dismissive of Chuck's analysis of the effect of falling gas prices on the race...Personally, I think she shouldn't be so quick to doubt Chuck about this.

Americans are addicted to oil. When prices fall back down to $3.50 we probably will be rejoicing about how "cheap" it is...And the whole drilling, looking for alternative sources of energy debate won't seem as crucial. Time will tell...but unfortunately in this case, I think Chuck is probably correct, as usual, with his analysis on this one.

Anonymous said...

Alright, I understand this a a Chuck Todd fansite and all...but let's be truthful here. Chuck's performance on MTP was weak. He did not bring his A game. He rambled and was inarticulate. It's OK, everyone has bad days. But you only get so many bad days on national TV before you end up doing the weather in Akron. And doing the weather in a swing state is still doing the weather.

That being said, I think it is your duty as a fansite to hold your guy accountable. Come on VCT, speak truth to power!

I personally take offense to you lashing out at poor Judy Woodruff to vent your missplaced dissapointment and shame in Chuck's performance.

Besides, Judy Woodruff is hot. Beneath that smart lime green suit lies the passionate heart of a voracious cougar. You know she's a dirty girl. You can see the fear in Chuck's eyes. He can't handle a woman like that.

That being said, I think the market potential for Viva Judy Woodruff is tremendous. I've got $19.95 burning a hole in my PayPal account just waiting for nude pictures of Judy.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Kerryaki. I thought Chuck's performance was great, as were his analogies and analysis.

I think the fact Chuck has fans is a bit disconcerting to some of the established reporters. It's got to be a little frustrating to very experienced folks like Andrea and Judy that someone like Chuck (relatively young and new to the NBC job) is getting so much attention, comments for MTP, a fansite, etc.

I love Andrea and Judy to death, but it did seem sort of odd to me.

Anonymous said...

Chuck did a great job! He is very insightful and knows when to back down or knows when to not come on too strong. chuck is so much smarter than we give him credit for....

Anonymous said...

I'm not seeing it. Andrea seemed respectful of The Chuck, and Judy Woodruff's points were pretty much on target. It was just a typical talking heads discussion, except when Chuck is one of the heads, it's usually not even fair to the other panelists.

I agree with the previous post that The Chuck seemed just a bit off. But still, we're talking about Chuck Todd - who even on an off day still does a helluva job.