Chuck Todd: Proud Stenographer

When it comes to cable news reporters, MSNBC's Chuck Todd is no better or worse than any of his colleagues, by which I mean he is perfectly adequate at his job -- which is to regurgitate whatever establishment Washington tells him. Still, I'll give him some credit for agreeing to allow Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com the opportunity to make him look like a complete and utter fool in an interview in which his defense for dismissing calls for an investigation into Bush-era torture practices as divisive and "very dangerous" amounted to this: don't blame me, I just repeat what I'm told (and pass it off as my own "objective analysis)!

My favorite part of the interview -- and there were several to choose from -- may have been this exchange, where Todd contradicts himself in the span of a minute in seeking to defend the unitary executive:

Todd: Look at the US attorney thing. What did we find out during this whole US attorney scandal? There was no doubt the White House, the previous White House was trying to play politics with US attorney selections. That has been proven. Except what did we also find out - it was perfectly legal. . . .

[snip]

Greenwald: Chuck. First of all, the question of whether or not crimes were committed in the US attorneys case is still a pending matter before several federal courts.

Todd: And I believe it should be investigated--

Hi-larious stuff. Do listen to the whole thing (or read the transcript) for perhaps the clearest example yet of everything that is wrong with the establishment stenographers who pass themselves off as "journalists" here in the imperial capital.