Bob Schieffer gets schooled by a guest

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I love it when one of the media villagers gets schooled by one of their guests.

On CBS’s Face The Nation, host Bob Schieffer asked Theodore Roosevelt biographer Edmund Morris about what Roosevelt would think of the Tea Party movement. What happened next was something rarely, if ever, heard on a Sunday morning news show that caught all viewers by surprise: a censor bleeping. H/t Crooks and Liars (video link):

Earlier in the show, Schieffer probed Theodore Roosevelt biographer Morris about what Roosevelt would think of the Tea Party movement. Morris bristled at the idea of attempting to do the impossible and predict what a dead President would think of current events. However, that did not stop Schieffer from trying again with this exchange:

Schieffer: What would Teddy Roosevelt think of today’s politics, Edmund?

Morris: You keep asking these presentist questions Bob. As the immortal Marisa Tomei said in My Cousin Vinny, ‘that’s a bullshit question!’ because you cannot pluck people out of the past and expect them to comment on what’s happening today.

Not only was the expletive jarring, but so was hearing the erudite author change the tone of his voice in an attempt to mimic Tomei’s movie accent.

Morris may have difficulty contorting his mouth to sound like the Brooklynite Mona Lisa Vito, but the point of his response is apt. Why does the media keep seeking to legitimize the tea partiers as a political movement by looking for historical validation? Here's one of the country's leading authorities on Teddy Roosevelt, who faced his own set of political issues and faced them soundly, establishing himself as one of the greatest American presidents, and you want to know what he'd think about a bunch of yokels who don't even realize they're doing the bidding of corporate forces like Dick Armey's FreedomWorks?

I can't tell you how many times I have wanted to see a guest call bullshit on some of the stupid questions asked by the media villagers and Beltway bloviators. The politically correct way to do this of course, to avoid the censor, is to say "I reject the faulty premise of your question." But let's hope this is the beginning of push-back against the self-important pompous asses of the media village.