The Press Box - The Impeachment Mess, the Critics Come for Buttigieg, and Top 10 Lists | The Press Box

Episode Date: December 6, 2019

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker discuss how Trump considers impeachment something of a foregone conclusion (03:00), the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week (24:30), the beginning of the attacks on Pete Buttigieg (27:30), year-end and decade-end top-10 lists (36:00), and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. Throughout the month of December, the Ringer staff will be releasing their year and reviews covering the best and worst of 2019 in sports, TV, movies, music, and more. This week, we're getting started with Shays Serrano and Rob Harvilla on the best albums of the year, and Allison Herman and Chris Ryan break down the best TV shows. We'll have tons more in the coming weeks, so make sure to check it out on the ringer.com. David? During this week's impeachment hearings, Stanford professor Pamela Carlin said the following.

The Constitution says there can be no titles of nobility. So while the president can name his son baron, he cannot make him a baron. Okay. That's a really bad joke. Republicans took offense. What I want to know is, is there anything

lamer that we could possibly make into a controversy? Wait, they were mad because the joke referenced the president's son full stop?

Yeah, we brought the sun into it. How dare you bring? First of all, it's not really making fun of the sun. It's just like referencing his name to make a really bad joke. I take more offense to the joke. I mean, if you're going to...

It's worth, think Stanford law professors should bring better material to the Yeah, I mean, if you're, okay, listen, I guess there should be some bar to, like, making a joke that at all references the president's son. So, yeah, if you're going to come with it, you got to, you got to come a little bit stronger. Save it for like a, like a right to barren arms joker. Looks like he needs a barren hug or something. That's not even that good.

Baron a grudge. That would be a good one. Oh, a barren wasteland. Oh, that's it. discourse in 2019, a barren wasteland. There you go. I'm going with that. And the segment right here.

We are the Beer Barron of Media Podcast. This is the press box, a part of the Ringer podcast network. Hello media consumers. You've got Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker here. Lots and lots to get to today, including the beginning of the attacks on Pete Buttigieg. Finally. We'll also talk about the avalanche of year end and decade end top 10 lists. Your listener mail plus the overworked Twitter joke of the.

the week. But David, let's begin with the latest from impeachment, which according to CNN, Trump now considers something of a foregone conclusion. Jeremy Diamond, Pamela Brown, and Caitlin Collins report that Trump in the White House now accept that he will be impeached by the House of Representatives and are mapping out a strategy for their trial in the Senate. Trump tweeted on Thursday, if you're going to impeach me, do it fast. Do it now. So we can have a fair trial in the Senate and so that our country can get back to business. By fair trial, CNN says Trump means, quote, digging in on the president's unsubstantiated claims of corruption,

leveled at former vice president Joe Biden. So a couple things there. Number one is, I'm not sure we've ever had a president in American history, come out and say, if you're going to impeach me, just do it and get it over with. Which sounds very much like the movie thing, you know, being held at gunpoint by the villain.

That's number one. Number two, and this is built into our system, so I guess we accepted at some level, but let me just review with you quickly what we're doing here. Trump made unsubstantiated claims, which is the nice way to put it,

lies is the other way to put it, about Joe Biden and Ukraine. He got into trouble by trying to push Ukraine to push that theory for him. Okay? He is going to get impeached for that. And then in the Senate trial, he's going to push that theory again. So do you follow me here?

Yeah. Do bad thing, get impeached. And then in the Senate trial, do bad thing again. I mean, implicitly or explicitly. The Trump defense, for a lot of what he's been accused of, dinged for, you know, all varying levels of misbehavior throughout his presidency has been that like he's not smart enough to know better or to know the difference between right and wrong or to have, you know, to avoid whatever pitfall was sitting right in front of him.

So in some ways, this is sort of like the perfect endpoint of that or the perfect distillation of that whole problem that like the thing that he's too dumb to realize is a conspiracy theory is both going to be what gets him into trouble and and and against and he he's going to persist into having that be his defense right i think that's right but how that just takes us into this bizarre loop of unsubstantiated claims i mean like i said the whole process began because trump was trying to push this crock against what he perceived as one of his strongest opponents in the 2020 race. And now he's going to push the crock again in the Senate.

It'll be interesting to see how the senators, the Republican senators, react to that because in Congress, I mean, obviously it's a totally different playing field. But even in Congress, it seems like they're much more interested in attacking the structure of the inquiry, right? arguing with the refs as opposed to actually defending, you know, the conspiracy theory about the Biden's that this whole thing is based on, although, you know, some of them have certainly gone and waited into that territory in their questioning, congressman, that is. So, I mean, and one would assume that the Senate would be even more loathe to really, you know, sully themselves with that kind of nonsense.

However, if that's the entire Trump defense and every Republican senator has already in one way or another sort of sign themselves over to him, I'm not sure that they'll be able to avoid it. Yeah. What defense do we think at this point, Lindsay Graham is lowed to employ? I mean, is there anything Lindsey Graham wouldn't do? Is there anything the last months, years of his defense of the president makes you think he wouldn't go? I mean, I again, I'd be surprised. We think of the Senate as this august body and apart from the house and all that stuff, but there's no evidence that these people are going to do anything else.

Now, maybe, you're right, maybe they sort of dig in on procedural grounds. maybe they dig in on well it is a quid pro it's clearly almost a quid pro quo but it's not quite a quid pro quo so I'm going to you know we're not going to remove the president but I would be shocked if it's not mostly Biden at this point if it's not just muddy the waters as much as humanly possible the president had a right to do this because he was legitimately concerned

about corruption and to completely go down that street that'd be my bet yeah I mean, as ridiculous as this all is, I can't, I couldn't help but think over the past few days. I mean, sort of returned to my original thought when this whole mess first floated up to the top that Biden's electability argument in the face of this attack, which he knew was coming, just seems so misbegotten. But, you know, I guess there's a, I guess there's a way to look at it that if, I mean, that if he, even if Biden is rendered unelectable by this, at least. you know, in in, in, in, in, in, in, in, if it's gonna, if it's gonna, if it's gonna, I mean, if it's gonna, I mean, nothing ever goes in a logical fashion. So don't, so don't, you know, mark this down as a, as a, as a lead pipe lock or whatever. But like, but like, but it does sort of seem like even as unfair as it is, um, I feel like we'll have, you know, we'll have a better grasp on Biden's electability at the end of this process. And, um, maybe he will have sucked all of that just like, Trump wacky action out of the room and opened up the, opened up the field for someone else to march forward.

You know, who knows? I'm really, I'm still, I still don't know what I think about Biden's electability, as it pertains to Ukraine. I think, I felt when Trump was at the beginning of this scandal and was still pushing, able to sort of push that theory, you know, into the Fox News media ecosystem, and I guess he's still doing it now. But I felt it felt more like, an existential crisis for Biden then, especially as he was kind of ducking questions about Hunter

and not really, you know, leveling at all with what he thought about the fact that Hunter Biden was in this job to begin with, which was sort of ridiculous, even if obviously nothing, nothing, you know, nothing came out of that. But now I feel the focus has been so much on Trump's impeachment that it may have actually gone away from Biden a little bit. And again, maybe it all comes back when it's in the Senate, but I don't know how this plays out for him. I don't have a good sense. I think there's also the sort of trap that he can find himself in that he's going to get positive attention.

I think we discussed it in the last episode when he was confronted by the guy at his rally and he about, you know, sending his son over to the Ukraine and all that kind of stuff. And Biden called him a liar and, you know, I mean, kind of stood up to him in this really sort of like, you know, well, emotive way, I'll say. I mean, it seemed a little bit... He challenged him to a push-up contest. Yes, yes. You know, I don't know if that was a sort of like

if he had that response prepared or if that was a pure spur of the moment thing. But, you know, I think that the campaign, Biden in particular, will look at that, the reaction of that as a net positive. And I hope that they don't get kind of misled into thinking that this is a winning, that bringing it up just so he can shoot

it down or letting it, letting the argument persist just so he can have a series of these moments is going to end up being a positive at the end. It's not. I mean, as long as this conversation continues, as we saw with Hillary four years ago, I mean, this is the sort of thing that really affects voter turnout. I feel that every candidate, we talked about this with Beto months and months ago, but every candidate is just trying to go viral now. Like the heart of every candidate is like, how can I have this moment? It's like a really nice 35 second Twitter clip. And with Biden, it was challenging the guy to a push-up contest and to an IQ contest or an IQ test, which would have been fun.

I was hoping we could do that right now, like Mariupovich style. You know, let's get the number two pencil out and break the seal on the test and just take it right here. You know, let's do it right here with Biden and the guy in the audience. legal scholar Jonathan Turley David who has been a talking head for our entire lives we have been reading uncolorful quotes from Jonathan Turley for decades and decades he was called by the Republicans to testify in front of the House

Judiciary Committee on Wednesday called what had happened so far an abbreviated period of an investigation said that Congress had assembled a facially incomplete and inadequate record in order to impeach a president Let's listen to a little bit of Turley testimony before the House. Allow me to be candid in my closing remarks because we have limited time.

We are living in the very period described by Alexander Hamilton, a period of agitated passions. I get it. You're mad. The president's mad. My Republican friends are mad. My Democratic friends are mad. My wife is mad.

My kids are mad. Even my dog seems mad. And Luna's a golden doodle and they don't get mad. So we're all mad. Where is that taken us? Will a slipshot impeachment make us less mad? Will it only invite an invitation for the madness to follow every future administration? That is why this is wrong.

How great was that pause for last? after the golden tootel line. You just hear like a chair being moved in the back of the in the back of the committee room there. That was fantastic. Charlie Savage points out in his piece in the New York Times that while Turley is making this case that there's not enough evidence that essentially that Congress hasn't uncovered, you know,

testimony, for instance, from AIDS in the White House who directly heard Trump talk about his thinking. as it involved Ukraine. Mr. Turley only made a passing reference in his written statement to the problem that has bedeviled impeachment investigator, Savage writes, the White House has directed top aides to Mr. Trump not to cooperate with the House,

while asserting they are immune from being subpoenaed to testify about their discussions with the president. Even though Democrats have been winning in court, Savage goes on to note, Republicans can probably tie things up until after the 2020 election. So translated, Turley is up there saying, look, Democrats haven't gotten all this evidence.

Why are they rushing to this slip shot impeachment? There's all this stuff to find out. Savage is pointing out, well, yeah, because Trump is telling all his aides not to testify to the House and is going to try to run out the clock in court so that if they're ever compelled, it'll be way after the 2020 elections. So again, you sort of get into this weird conundrum of impeachment where the Democrats are accused of moving too quickly, but they're moving quickly because they have to move quickly.

There's no choice here because, again, he's not going to help them in any way. And they're not going to be able to get, you know, John Bolton and others Doug McGahn and others without a court order. And that court order may take forever. So, again, it just seems like a weird and impossible position we find ourselves in. Yeah, I mean, again, it's a, again, it's a, kind of a continuation of the congressional Republican misdirection where they, you know,

where the process is moving along way too fast without Republican input until it gets to a, you know, a point where it might continue and they say, well, come on, we've been doing this for long enough already, you know, just let the, let the country get back together, let the country heal, let's move on. You know, I'm not sure that there's many Republicans in Congress that would, that actually would, would sign on to his, is to his argument, Turley's argument, that what we need is a much longer and broader investigation into Trump and what he did. But you're right that if, you know, if push comes to shove, they could tie them up, you know, they could just bog things down for us and run out the clock. I mean, I just couldn't help but, I mean, you know, Jonathan Turley is, you know, think of him what you will, I guess.

he's a really smart guy and has been, you know, in a lot of ways a very influential voice, I mean, it's undeniable over the past couple of decades. But I couldn't help but watch his testimony and not just, I mean, it was just like viscerally weak sauce if I can like pull a lot of different ideas

to get a couple of our ideas together at once. He's, you know, I mean, there's that sort of legal, there's a sort of, moment that we've all encountered where like Scolia will write a dissent that someone immediately posts on Twitter is like 180 degrees from a previous

opinion that he wrote, right? I mean, and we're all just like, okay, well, I admire the intellectual gymnastics, but if it's in descent, you know, whatever. You know, I mean, he's he's more partisan than he is doctrinaire. This is a thing that we've kind of come to accept in the modern era. Um,

but, you know, I kind of wish that that Turley would have least had the pride or self-assurance to do a couple of more mental gymnastics if he was so determined to contradict himself. And he did, by the way, he was very contradictory to, you know, his own statements during the Clinton impeachment trial. I sure was. But, but I mean, but all that aside, you know, I mean, like, I don't demand intellectual rigor, but come on, give us some, give us some flourish, give us some art. And I'm not talking about Laberdoodle jokes.

I was listening to his testimony in a cab in New York. city and I get into the cab and it's on he's just beginning and I'm kind of like wow this cabby has somehow selected the thing I need to listen to today and this is going to be very handy and after about four minutes of that I was like can we get WFAN on in here is Brian Lerer on can we can we get something else I mean it was just whizcerally weak sauce is is perfect to describe it a couple more notes to for you, David, quickly. Rudy Giuliani went to Ukraine

to film a Martin Scorsese-like passion project. Rudy has always been a person who what the movie industry calls a personal filmmaker. Kenneth Vogel and Benjamin Novak report in the New York Times that Giuliani is meeting with a discredited Ukrainian prosecutor, Yuri Lutsenko,

who spread some of the lies about Joe and Hunter Biden's dealings in Ukraine. The documentary series is airing on OAN where it's hosted by Chanel Rion. Ryan, Brian Stelter notes, previously promoted the Seth Rich conspiracy theory, I'm quoting here, and generated controversy for drawing politically incendiary cartoons, including at least one about George Soros playing off an anti-Semitic trope.

There's also a great picture going around of Giuliani and a Ukrainian MP on Twitter holding up a document. I hope you've seen that. We also found out from the House Intel Committee this week that Giuliani called the White House several times. and also some figure identified by the number minus one before Trump forced out Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch earlier this year. So, congrats to Rudy on his documentary series. He is,

I mean, I don't, whenever we think about impeachment and Trump more broadly, I'm always kind of like, who, how are we, what historian is going to sort of put this, into some kind of palatable form in 10 years?

Or what movie are we going to watch, right? Is there going to be, you know, is somebody going to try to do that Dick Cheney movie treatment to this and get the comedy and the weirdness? But who's going to capture Giuliani? And what that dude has turned into from the butt dialing to now the fishing mission in Ukraine, the weird Twitter content, the interviews,

the yelling at Chris Cuomo. do you have a nominee for who's going to be able to help us understand what a bizarre trajectory he's been on? As an actor? You know, Tom Wolf type novelist? I mean, I'd take anything. Yeah, I have no idea. I mean, it's going to be, I mean, it's going to take a writer of, you know,

significant ability. Or I guess it could just be, you know, I mean, this could be a pulp novel. I mean, it's both, you know, an incredibly unbelievable story that you would have to, you know, hash out in over a thousand, over a thousand pages or it's just, this is straight up, you know, rise and fall tale. It's really weird. I'm not sure.

I found myself wondering whether he was going to Ukraine to curry favor with the president of the United States and Trump, I mean. be after his kind of apparently much discouraged or his his bad performance previously where he said he had dirt on Trump or whatever and which made Trump very upset

and told him to get off Fox News you know I didn't know if he was doing this because Fox you know I mean because this is the sort of thing that Trump would see as a positive he's fighting he's working with OAN all these various things that Trump likes. Or if this is just actually some sort of passion project, if he thinks this is actually going to help his case to go down this path.

I mean, I'm not, it's, this is a page right out of the playbook of the kind of alt-right social media scallywags of the last election cycle or, you know, if everything goes wrong, just turn on the cameras. I'm not going to like name it, put it, you know, give any of them the credit by name. But, you know, we've all seen this move before. it's sort of crazy to see Giuliani pursuing this himself. But it just, I mean, listen, Julianne, as you said, I mean, the narrative arc is intense.

But I don't think even the, I don't think even the most, I mean, I don't think anyone thought that this is the direction it would go. I don't know that this is the biggest deal in the world, but come on. I mean, he's under federal investigation or, you know, there's a giant federal investigation surrounding him. He's presumably under investigation and he's in Ukraine filming a documentary series. I mean, that's just like those words are just, they're crazy coming out of my mouth. Yeah, everything he's done since the 2016 election feels like it has been done so that Rudy Giuliani will be in the news. That just Rudy Giuliani will have a reason to exist.

Because I don't know, I don't know that you can put it all together in any simpler way than that. Like it's like he didn't get the cabinet job he wanted. He didn't get, you know, some kind of great Trump appointment that would actually put him, you know, in a position to do something, which he certainly could have given the way he supported Trump during the election. So he has created these kind of weird, extra legal, irregular kind of channels for him to just do stuff. investigate the Ukraine, be on a documentary series, apparently presumably answer every phone call and text he gets from reporters, despite the fact, as you say, that, you know, he is apparently in some kind of legal jeopardy

or at least potential legal jeopardy. That is just, it's wild. And just, I mean, it bears mention that, you know, and this is, again, part of the narrative arc that you described, but it bears mentioned that, like, if Rudy Giuliani had sat out the past four years, he would, his cue rating, whatever you want to rate his, you know, the country's love for him, that would have been

much higher if he had just stayed home and done an occasional episode of Meet the Press, you know, in vague, in mild defense of the president. The fact that he keeps pursuing this stuff, I mean, I guess this is the story, right? I mean, I guess this is part of the personality sketch that you're talking about. It's just, it's unbelievable. All right, David, time for the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Send your nominees to at the press box pod. Where they're always gratefully received, we're going to talk about Pete Buttigieg in a minute, but the almost three years that Buttigieg spent consulting at McKinsey and Company has become

the great mystery box of the Democratic primaries. It was an overworked Twitter joke to cite another candidate's potentially troubling business career and write, McKinsey is becoming the bane of Buttigieg's existence. thanks to our pal Derek Burke David a tweet from the Weather Channel India Not sure I knew that existed Quote a team led by Chinese researchers Has spotted a monster black hole with a mass

70 times greater than the sun As you can imagine that was an invitation for bits A few of my favorites Will it absorb my student loan debt And also damn that's where my album launch party Was going to be thanks for ruining the surprise thanks to Jake Christy for sending that along

and speaking of the Democratic nomination and speaking of Ukraine on November 30th Joe Biden announced the start of his no malarkey tour got the catchphrase painted on his bus along with the additional catchphrase

the malarkey stops here in case we didn't get the malarkey part of it lots of good gags about Biden's sepia tone language was 23 scudu unavailable. More malarkey, more rigamarole, more referring to money as clams. That's my guy. And finally, uh-oh, another Joe Biden plagiarism scandal. He stole this no malarkey slogan from

the campaign of William Howard Taft. Thanks to DRN 3030. If you made jokes about Biden's antiquated language, see? Congrats. You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week. Before we hit the notebook dump, David, let's pause for a quick break. Family and friends love receiving gift cards for the holidays, and what better way to gift them what they really want than with happy cards. Happy cards make giving personal gift cards easy and stress-free. When you give happy cards, your lucky loved one can use them at any of the brands displayed on the card. For your mom, wife, sister, or best girlfriend, check out Happy Her, which includes Macy's Bedbath and Beyond Sephora and more. For picky teenagers, check out a happy teen, which includes Barnes & Noble Regal Cinemas, Dave & Busters, and American Eagle.

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Macy's Panera, Bedbeth and Beyond, Sephora, Barnes & Noble, Buffalo Wild Wings, Regal Cinemas, Underarmored, Davenbusters, and more all season long. Enjoy free shipping on all happy cards orders by visiting giftcards.com slash happy or pick one up today at your local grocery store. Have a happy holiday season with happy cards. All right, David, time for the notebook dump. And we got to talk about Pete Buttigieg because he's leading in the polls in Iowa, which means he is now coming under

very belated attack. Remember how during that last debate, we all expected Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to kind of unload on him. And it seemed like they didn't because they were, I think, the thinking was, I read this a couple of places, that maybe they thought Buda judge was just going to go away. Maybe that was going to be one of those weird month-long boomlets that then he disappears. Well, it hasn't. So now, Buddha Judge has aired a campaign commercial attacking Sanders and Warren's a proposal for free public college, suggesting the policy was wrong because it would pay for the education of the very rich. Sanders responded in an interview with Chris Hayes, naming Buttigieg, something he had refrained it from doing to the most part, I guess, at that point.

Warren has also began directly addressing Buttigieg, asking him to open his private fundraisers to the press and reveal the clients that he consulted for during his time at McKinsey, which is 2007 to 2010. To this point, Buddha judges maintain that he hasn't been able to make that information public because of an NDA he signed. His campaign maintains they have asked to be released from the NDA, but McKenzie has not. agreed. Where do you come down on the whole McKinsey thing? Is this something that it's just the one sort of unknown part about Buttigieg's biography and that's why we're so fixated on it or is there something more to it, do you think? Um, I mean, both I guess. I think that I don't know. I mean, listen, there could certainly be something damning there. Um, and I think, you know, in a world where there's always some sort of national obsession that involves investigation,

be it the, you know, Trump's tax records or Obama's birth certificate or whatever else, it makes sense that people are interested in it. And it makes sense in a very general way that people are interested in it. I'm not sure exactly what the way forward is if indeed he's not going to be released from that. but and I and I and I personally I mean I highly doubt there's anything damning there it does it seems sort of like I don't even I don't even know how to describe it even if there were something damning there I find it hard to imagine that most of the people who are who are you know kind of raising alarms about about this dark period in

his life I find it hard to imagine that they would be so I I I I I think it's easier to be vocal about a three-year gap in somebody's work history than it is about some consulting work, even if the client was problematic. Does that make sense? I don't, I'm not, I don't, I just wish that everybody, I wish that anybody who's like, you know, upset about this. Actually, you can actually think it through. I mean, it would be, it would certainly be one thing if he were like the lead proponent for, I don't know, like Saudi Arabia's political expansion into the United States or something. But like, You know, if he's just doing consulting work for, you know, less than reputable companies, which is most consulting work, I don't think it's that big of a deal. It's a job. He's, you know, relatively young. It's a, it's, you know, it's a thing that I think we would all be, we would all be willing to forgive him for.

It's just unfortunate that it's coming out, you know, that it's being posed as this great mystery. I think. I mean, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there's something there. But this is them kind of the, we talked about it before. this is the Pete Buttigieg moment and it's going to be the Pete Buttigieg take down moment.

We are, you know, less than about a week exactly removed from Michael Harriet's piece in the root titled Pete Buttigieg is a lying MF, which which then had a follow up in which Pete Buttigieg called the author on the phone.

The most Buttigieggy response imaginable. Sure. I want to call you so that we can talk about this. And I think you see it all over cable news and everything else. It's like the increased focus on Buttigieg as a legitimate candidate, as opposed to the sort of, you know, just kind of semi-humorous candidate up to a certain point.

Yeah. Or kind of interesting candidate that will give a bunch of interviews but not really win anything. Now we're into, oh, he may win Iowa. He may win Iowa and New Hampshire. I mean, I think in another cycle, Pete Buttigieg would have been Andrew Yang, but some combination of the world that we live in now and the literal existence. of Andrew Yang on the debate stage sort of has helped legitimize

a judge in a way that he might not have been legitimized before. And that's not to say he's an illegitimate candidate. I just mean in terms of like, you know, whatever perception of electability is. Kamala Harris and some of those people would love to trade places with him. Yeah, of course. He's managed to do what they couldn't do,

which is make himself a real player in this race, you know. For sure. I think he's surprising both of us. I mean, there's so there was a Times editorial piece about the McKinsey business, which noted that part of it, the reason it's important is because Buttigieg has such a small resume

compared to a lot of these people. So if it's like three-ish years at McKinsey, the Times points out, that's like 20% of his post-college career. So, you know, again, maybe it's nothing, but we're trying to understand all these people. And that is not an insignificant part of Buttigieg's life,

even if it amounts to nothing. The other part that you and I are kind of dancing around here is just the whole McKinsey thing, right? Remember when Chelsea Clinton went to McKinsey back in the day? Yeah. And that's just kind of seen as a place where liberals go to sell out and make money. And it has that unique, you know, sort of stigma within the world that you and I live in. I mean, that's part of this, right? Is that, you know, it's like it brings up all the things that lefties hate about Pete Buttigieg.

McKinsey sort of symbolizes them. Like, look, this dude went there and consulted for three years, you know, instead of doing something else. And I think to take that a step further, it also sort of, that has a material effect on sort of his origin story, right? Or his, or his, his background narrative. That he can't talk about that could be viewed as a, as a convenient defense against, you know, the sort of admission that he's more.

of a institutional moderate Democrat than he would paint himself as, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's true. It's, I mean, that's, we've talked about that tension, right? Between I'm this guy, I'm this mayor in Indiana versus I went to elite colleges and went and was at this consulting firm that so many other people have been at. Yeah, I just, I think the McKinsey thing is, it just has so much more traction again in our world, Twitter world.

I just, I do, do quote unquote regular people even know what that is? Does that like you say, well, he was a consultant? Does that, does that like trigger some alarms in the broader voting populace? I kind of think not, right? Everybody's like, what's that? I mean, obviously, you know, having a clear picture of somebody's resume and being able to know the details of it, being afforded the details of it is a positive thing. that said, I'm not sure that most of the voters out there know what have any concept of what Joe Biden did for the eight years of the Obama presidency. And that was right out there in front of it.

I mean, I'm not sure that three years in somebody's like early work life is that significant in the grand scheme of things. But, you know. But we should find out. I mean, I will say there is an absolute journalistic imperative to find out what the hell. Yeah, for sure. Because it doesn't have to be bad. We just want to know if we're considering electing. these men and women president of the United States. We want to know everything about them.

There's almost nothing that's not important to know or at least interesting to know. David, I want to talk to you about year-end top ten lists. I feel we have hit a content sweet spot because it's not only the end of the year, it's the end of the decade. So we're seeing this flurry of top ten lists about every thing. We're seeing top 10 movies of the year. We're seeing top 10 movies of the decade. We're seeing top movies for every year of the decade. I flipped over to the New York Times website today and saw, you know, top 10 moment. What do we call it? When they do their top 10 in art, what do they call it? It's not like, it's not like top 10 moments in art. I don't know how you even do that. They're top 10 dance list. Oh, yeah. I think I've said, this on the pod before, but I used to be obsessed with top 10 lists. Like I was using my dial up connection. I know you were too, like when Roger Ebert had his top 10 movies of the year in December,

and I'd be like, oh man, I got to get on this. And I could never figure out how he'd seen all those movies that weren't opening for two weeks, because I was stupid. I don't understand it. I was so obsessed. Two things to me have happened to top 10 lists. Number one is blogging and then social media removed the authority. or at least the exclusivity of the critic

because everybody could make a top 10 list and it turns out it's not that hard to make. But I think the second thing that's happened lately and again, here I am sitting in the psychologist chair for journalists, which why not? Is that when I read these on Twitter,

there's just absolute avalanche of people telling me what their best movies for every year of the decade were. I feel we've stopped. arguing about movies. I don't see a lot of engagement like that's the best movie the year. That's a truly great movie.

No, that's not a great movie. And people are just using a top 10 list to express themselves as a form of digital expression more than anything. What do you think of that? Sure.

I mean, it's a way that people can sort of like self-identify or to, you know, you can, I mean, it's not, it's not, straightforwardly a clicky thing.

But there is, you know, a lot of that kind of signaling, I guess, to use a, you know, on a term I don't like to use a lot going on. I have parasite number one on my list. What does that say about me? What does that say about my taste and my willingness to seek out movies like this, right? There's a ton of that. Is there not in a lot of the stuff? Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, that's what it's, I mean, there's also this.

element of it to me, we're like, I mean, we're, there, there is this necessity to do these things. It's the end of the year, but we're living in an age where like time matters less and less, right? I mean, I feel like every three months, there's an article about how just, you know, we lose track of time in the modern age, right? I mean, there's like hours run into days, run into days, run into weeks, run into months. And, you know, I mean, maybe this is a little bit ephemeral, but like, the only reason why we care about the end of the year is because, I mean, the year list is because it's the end of the year because, you know, eventually the Oscars will be approaching and we do rank things by a year. But I don't, I don't know. I mean, it just seems like that you're right. The barrier of entry is so low and in a good way, right? But you see so many of these lists that where people are just like, here's my top 10 movies. By the way, I didn't see these five. You know, so like, you know, just, but it's weird. It's just like a race to see all this. good movies and then you put them in some arbitrary order. You know, when somebody, it's much more interesting.

I mean, if everyone's going to do it, I wish there are more people thinking outside the box a little bit or just like dissenting loudly from just any of the movies that are on every single list. Yeah, remember when Elvis Mitchell put the original Pirates of the Caribbean number one? Yeah. On his New York Times list. And that was just like this moment. Again, that was when those kinds of things mattered.

and Elvis Mitchell was such a just fascinating critic to have a job at the New York Times and like I remember that was just like whoa and I was by the way really really wrong but it was really interesting it was good I remember finally when

I think was it Armand White put Sahara that Matthew McConaughey Steve Zahn movie Sahara on his top 10 list and I like Oh my gosh I think we were I think that we were living together at the time but I remember like going I had seen the movie I think but I like I went back to rewatch it specifically because I wanted to see if it was actually good.

Yeah, I mean, come on. Please, dissent more. We need more, we need more, like, wacky top 10 lists. Everybody that does an earnest one should also just do like a, you know, the top 10 list I would make if this wasn't really my job. I understand the human need to display your erudition to earn a merit badge by putting that up and saying, like, I've seen all these movies. I made time because I'm a interesting and culturally sophisticated human. I have personally never felt the urge or the need.

Well, let me let me let me say it slightly differently. I've never felt that anyone on earth would care what I think the top 10 movies of the year are or the top movies of the decade. I just, I just don't possess. I don't possess that idea. Even, even people inside my house, I don't think. I just have never thought like, you know, I want to share this because I don't think anybody would care what I think. I've seen a lot of movies. By the way, I'd say the same thing about sportscasters.

Brian Curtis's top 10 sportscast of all time. I've never thought. I've never had the urge to make that list. I never have because I don't I don't think that I have any special knowledge or that ranking those things in order. And I guess that brings me to another point about top 10 list is I think as a journalistic society, we're sort of listed out at this point, you know, and I do not absolve us at the ringer because we love to indulge to, but James Bond movies ranked, Spider-Man movies ranked, cute Star Wars, childlike beings ranked.

We rank everything now. Everything is power rankings. And I guess there's nothing wrong with that. Some of those lists are fun, and I've certainly loved some of the ones that we've done. but when you when you see the entire world in power rankings and you do them the comic ones all the time, there's almost no room to do a top 10 list at the end of the year. It's true. Because it feels like everything has been served up to us in that form.

Yeah, it certainly does water it down. But, you know, I think that there's, I mean, as someone who doesn't get to engage in, especially like movie culture, but pop culture in general as much as I once did. This is the time of year where, you know, I also don't have as much time off in the holidays as I once did. But, you know, it's nice to take what little time off I have and just kind of hit the highlights. Just find the people I find the people I like and let them tell me what to watch. Yeah. So that Libby Hill made this point on Indy Wire and I think it does hold true.

There is so much TV right now. The one value of these lists to me rather than actually ranking the thing is just reminding us of all the stuff we haven't seen. Right. Same with movies. I said Paraside a minute ago. I have not seen Parasot. I would love to see that movie.

And when I see these lists, it reminds me like, oh, I got to go see that. You know? So I think, I think if you make it, if there's a defense of top 10 lists at this point in history, it's that there's so much stuff out there that we need these things to kind of just direct our lives and remind us of all the stuff, especially dads like you and me. that we're missing. Yeah, that's definitely true. I mean, and listen, I mean,

I mean, some of these lists may feel a little bit like, you know, the NFL draft were like just no matter how we were ranking them a month ago, miraculously, like there's three quarterbacks in the top five again every year. And it's sort of like, you know, it's just sort of this, this magical, this magical, you know, regression where like every single reviewer has seven or eight of the top ten movies every single year. if there were only that many good movies, exactly that number of perfect movies made,

you know, over the span of 12 months. But, yeah, I mean, I value that very much. I mean, at some point, I need to know what everybody agrees on because those are the things that I probably need to, you know, hit if I've missed them to keep my brain at least somewhat culturally relevant and functional.

Speaking of movies, segue, we talked last week about the reviews for Martin Scorsese's The Irish, and this whole frame that people love to employ, which is the old guy still has it. And you and I turned it over to Twitter and said, remind us of some of the old guys and gals who have still had it at various points in history.

I got a bunch of nominees. Woody Allen, who has been officially canceled or semi-officially canceled. Remember the Woody Allen comebacks with Matchpoint? Oh, yeah. And I feel the Woody Allen come back stretched all the way to like Mighty Aphrodite. I mean, Woody Allen has been like having the old guy still got it since the 90s at least. Bob Dylan has been in like a 30 year long.

The old guy still has it frame. Somebody told me Tanya Tucker, which I did not know about, but I'm delighted if she's being thought of that way. Everybody led to see him, wasn't the CMTs it was about a month ago or something like that? They had a whole bunch of just like female legends of country music perform. there was an entire there was like an entire night of she still has it it was fantastic stuff

Dolly Parton is one that every time her name is she performs yeah how did we forget her last time Carmelo Anthony is kind of currently enjoying an old guy still has it just got a contract guarantee for the rest of the year every old golfer from Jack

necklace to Tom Watson has a moment any wrestler someone tweeted at us and was disappointed you didn't bring that up. Just any wrestler is great. Marissa Tomey and Spider-Man Homecoming. I'm not a movie I haven't seen, but sure, great. And the weirdest one this week anyway is from Michael Avanotti.

Remember him? He tweeted, not tweeted at us, but tweeted, Joe Biden still has some gas in the tank. So according to Michael Avinati, Joe Biden has still got it. Don't write off Joe Biden. Elsewhere in listener, mail, listener Josh Coim sends this along. guys, I feel like we need to reflect on people constantly making the same, quote, saw insert trending name trending and thought they died. It's getting out of control. Man, Josh Coyne, you were speaking directly to me.

I actually had a note about this in our in future show list because I get on Twitter. I see like Vin Scully trending because Vin Scully turned 92 the other day. and every the absolute control plus v tweet is oh my god don't do this to me guys you know i'm i was so scared but it turns out it was only vin scully's birthday insert denzil washington tapping his chest gif yeah so what you're so you're saying we just shouldn't make that if if you are if you see somebody trending jump to the conclusion that they've died and then realize that they are not in fact dead you are not a lot of allowed to tweet about it.

Just do it privately. It's kind of like your top 10 movie list. Just hash it all out and then happy birthday, Vince Gully. Oh my gosh. The world doesn't need to know that you thought that whoever, like Joe Pesci was dead. Yeah. And if you're a journalist, just go ahead and say, happy 90 second, Vince Gully, here's the piece I wrote about him 10 years ago.

Just pivot, pivot right to your own content. Just go back to doing what you do all the time anyway. finally Ray Villa or Via sent us a tweet from the Texas Department of Transportation. Why did he send this to us? Because it sounded like the Texas Department of Transportation was trying to get into the press box's pun hall of fame. The department was passing along an anodyne drive safely message on Thanksgiving. And David, I want you to listen to how they did it. This is an actual tweet. planning on getting basted this Thanksgiving,

you butter not get behind the wheel. It would just be gravy if y'all pecan pay attention on the roads, or pican pay attention on the roads to pronounce in the way they definitely don't in Texas. So everyone corn get home safe for those holiday feasts. Wow. Just wow. Somebody in the Texas Department of Transportation, spend some time on that. I hope there were a lot of people involved.

I hope they were all very excited about that. When Trump talks about the swamp, this is exactly what he's talking about. Make it stop. All right. Time for David Chutemaker. Guess is a strain pun headline. All right.

We, on Tuesday, we covered a story about the home of a whiskey baron, which was headlined Whiskey Estay Stay. Oh, man. As usual, our listeners were way better than we were. Andrew Whitlock

said the story should have been the house that Jack built. Paul Bransky says in distill of the night. I don't actually know what that means, but that's really funny. I know what it means. I don't know how it relates to that story, but it's really funny. Juan Vargas and Mark Whedon say whiskey a go home, which might have been better. Oh yeah. That's way better.

Elijah Wolfson says one more for the home and Michael Izzo with a great, perfect, minimalist, Scotch and Sofa. Scotch and Sofa. Oh, wow. That is unbelievable. Michael, get your resume freshened up, man. You've got a career in this business.

David, this week's pun headline comes from David Eldred and Josh Pereira. Josh Pereira, excuse me. It's from the Washington Post. They did a piece on why European luxury sedans are becoming a relic of the pass and electric SUVs are on the rise as a resident of Orange County I can absolutely attest to this being true

because there is not a single wealthy person who is driving a European luxury sedan at this point when they could be driving an electric SUV it's all electric SUVs so the The brands hurt by this is your BMW, your Mercedes, your Audi, right? But maybe think BMW.

Oh, yeah, I was going right to Audi. What was the Washington Post strain pun headline? Wait, just that BMWs are out and electric cars are in? Mm-hmm. Um, uh, BMW. Um, uh, is there a particular, Beamer. Nickname.

Okay. On the right track? Beamer. Jim Beamer. Beamer me up. That's funny. Drop the... Is it...

No. Beamer. It's like something on the way out, or is it just like a... Is it just going general bemer puns here? Well, we're going general bemer, and what if it interacts with a... very annoying. Okay Beamer. Okay Beamer.

Yeah, I knew it as soon as you said annoying. That was it. Okay, Beamer. And pretty good, right? That's a good headline. The Boomer is the European luxury sedan of the past. I like it, Washington Post. Okay.

That's amazing. That's amazing. Okay. Great, good job, post. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Research by Chris Almeida. Production Magic by Jim Conno.

We're back Tuesday with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you, Brian. Avoid the headache of holiday shopping with happy cards. When you give happy cards, your loved one can use them at any of the brands displayed on the card. Like the happy her card, which includes Macy's, Sephora, and Moore, or the Happy Holidays card, which includes Ulta and Red Lobster, with cards for Cheesecake Factory, Macy's, Panera Bread, Ulta, Bedbeth, and Beyond, Sephora, Barnes & Noble, and more. Happy Cards has something for everyone. Enjoy free shipping on all happy cards at giftcards.com

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