Two important interviews

Two extremely annoying interviews.

You won't even be able to stand it.

Sometimes we just have to ignore the unfortunate sources and accept poor interviewers to get the information that's useful.

First, I had Chris Wallace all wrong. But that was because of his weeks-long paeans to his father who died. Chris intended to swing in on his father's coattails. As if it were news, Chris ran biographical video obituaries one after another for weeks on end. I formed an image of Chris growing up in a household of Washington luminaries in continuous stream visiting his father. But that is wrong.

Mike Wallace is his biologic father but he did not grow up with him. Bill Leonard, CBS News president had much greater influence on him. And Chris really did earn his chops the hard way. He did not just slip in on Mike Wallace's coattails.

But all that doesn't make him any less annoying. He is confrontational, antagonistic, and he tries to corner his interlocutor. He has points that he wants made. He wants to talk about specific aspects of specific topics and he keeps steering his interviewee back into his area of interest, and not to the greater interest of the public. He is registered Democrat (for practical reasons in Washington) and it shows.

I cannot stand a moment of him. I skip past whenever he's talking to hear the person he's talking to exclusively and because of that I miss a very great deal. Too bad. I miss nice things too, like "are you reading upside down?" He catches Kudlow reading his (Chris') notes upside down.

Chris comes prepared with a chart with bogus statistics but I missed that too. I read it in comments. Apparently the numbers are exaggerated. Chris ignores China as state run command economy and not a free market system so denies tariffs can work. Everyone knows tariffs are bad. Everyone knows protectionism is bad. But that's what we have now and sometime you actually do fight fire with fire.

[Odd. Do we ever fight wind with wind, earth with earth, water with water?]

"How long is Trump willing to wage this trade war with China?"

     "Well, Chris, I imagine 3 months two weeks and four days. How am I supposed to know, you idiot?"

Does there exist a more punchable face?

Remember those pantyhose dolls? A dimple is created by pulling a thread through the stuffing and a puffy soft old person's face is created with deep creases. Glasses are placed on the face. That's what Chris Wallace's face looks like.

Second, British government propagandist interviewer for BBC, Andrew Marr does exactly what Chris Wallace does. He has his government points to drive and he drives them. He's trying to corner Farage into admitting his inconsistency by insisting he flipped his position. Farage keeps telling him, "that was then and this is now, thing happened between then and now" but Marr doesn't get out of Farage what he needs so he keeps hammering at the same line of questioning.

This interview is important because there is a seismic shift happening that's shaking up the established parties. The upcoming election is for European parliament, not British parliament, and Farage's upstart Brexit party is doing unsettlingly well.

Wallace despises Trump. But he does not despise Kudlow. Wallace is actually less confrontational than usual here with Kudlow. While Marr truly despises Farage because Farage directly threatens Marr's position as gatekeeper for government approved received wisdom.

Then, the shared speech impediment on top of everything else. If this were my chums imitating British then it'd be hilarious. Alas. It's all real.