Eh.... honestly? This feels like more of the same Cohen schtick.

Put on a weird outfit/ makeup and a funny accent and interview people giving them just enough rope.

Maybe it'll be good when it comes out, but I tried to watch it and got bored halfway through.

hehe I think I've given you enough rope...

It's not freedom of speech, chingy my boy...it's giving us "just enough rope to hang ourselves"

Oh sure, say what you'd like wherever you'd like. But, if you trip up once...or even if you're just being accused of tripping up. Every key you've ever pressed, every recording you've ever left, will be fair game.

I would expect him to get in gear in the coming debates.
>> ^NetRunner:

I'm gonna wait until after election day before saying it worked, but I agree, that's the most reasonable explanation for why Obama seemed so unwilling to go on the attack in the debate.
I'm hoping we hear him sound a lot more like this in the next one.
>> ^KnivesOut:
The President gave Mitt Jagger Romney enough rope to hang himself on, knowing that Romney's mouth is his own worst enemy, and it worked.
Obama's Approval Rating Soars to its Highest Point in Three Years

I'm gonna wait until after election day before saying it worked, but I agree, that's the most reasonable explanation for why Obama seemed so unwilling to go on the attack in the debate.

I'm hoping we hear him sound a lot more like this in the next one.
>> ^KnivesOut:

The President gave Mitt Jagger Romney enough rope to hang himself on, knowing that Romney's mouth is his own worst enemy, and it worked.
Obama's Approval Rating Soars to its Highest Point in Three Years

The President gave Mitt Jagger Romney enough rope to hang himself on, knowing that Romney's mouth is his own worst enemy, and it worked.

Obama's Approval Rating Soars to its Highest Point in Three Years

That was a horrendous interview all around, it...went...nowhere... Cenk is getting overtly irate at a Fat Cat Republican Congressmen who says that he read the 2011 Social Security release. Then Cenk has a large problem of "centering" himself, allowing himself to give the man who is talking enough rope to hang himself on it. He almost had him after the first part, but he got SO angry and overzealous in his pushing of the conversation that the conversation drowned in the ramblings of two pride filled men who couldn't stand to allow conversation to be heard or really go anywhere--with some sort of pint or reason.

Cenk needed to get this idiots ideas, all of them, onto the plate before pressing. When I say pressing I don't mean yelling. Cenk needed to allow this Congressmen to bring in his own "proof of fact" (with various sources for them to look at and then take him out strategically if he used them and the source is incorrect, biased, or useless--tell the public why this is so), so that when he said that the surplus was a short fall they could napalm him later for it. Of course a lot of these idiots read a few lines of facts before they go into an interview and try to use them--the fact that Cenk pressed him and he said nothing except to mumble his correctness and sit and smile, just smile when you may have erred--but you can NEVER be wrong. That lets us know that that may have been the case here. You can EASILY look on factcheck.org and quickly find out that Cenk was right, but there was a short fall too. That number was of course still large, but was clearly defined by MANY that it indeed was most likely the result of a terrible economy and recession.

BTW, when Republicans say we NEED to cut Social Security, if you're really listening they're actually saying we wish to liquidate Social Security (slowly though, so you don't rebel all at once). I would assume anyway. After all, if we wished to really solve the problem we could SLOW DOWN life for ourselves. Work only 6 hours a day and only 4 days in a week. We get One month off in the summer, the nation splitting that break into groups the size of thirds or fourths of all of us. The Federal system could limit certain types of inflation and interest (and maybe one-day we could almost entirely kill off interest, but probably not rich men need their golden swimming pools). We could start to shape the way we pay people (as I assume most of you want your grocery store as much as your doctors and so forth). To move so much money from a business to help to pay people between a certain age range. Teenagers may have to take the bullet of the lowest wages, but it may secure their futures in the process. Then we could talk about re-managing the entirety of the Federal Budget and maybe one day we could get away from spending for a war machine that HAS NO WARS. BUT, this is crazy talk.

Instead... Are FICA and SS minimums will go up, thus we make even less, and our taxes will as well--unless you're rich. Your life will stay about the same and your affect upon the middle and lower classes will show your indifference to their demise or situation--unfortunately this seems to be something you learn by going through, what you know nothing of--it is the power and the price to having true empathy. Houses will tend to cost as much as a top scale middle-American could pay for one in half their lifetime. Gas will cost more, as hybrids get more efficient--until you never by it again they will try to make sure you ALWAYS pay the same amount. You work 8 hours a day but overtime is nearly mandatory everyday, somedays can get up to 10 hours, if you're a blue collar it might even go around 12. Then they want you to retire at 72. Medicare and Medicaid barely get you along, you HAVE TO buy a "jacket" plan now (such as AARP), this says nothing of dental or other medical concerns.

Or we stay a lot like it is now. I hope not, because I always hope for a brighter future.

I'll be blunt the Republicans are taking us FAR from that idea and Cenk doesn't help here. His audience must eventually try to grab every ear it can IF it, if we, are to be successful. Otherwise, a revolution may be coming--not now, but someday off in the future--maybe in my lifetime. I'm 35 and paid into SS.

/oops longer than I meant, hopefully not too much dystopia or utopia -- things in reach, for worse or better...

I feel sorry for the crews having to clean all the windows after. Pretty amazing. I hope the crews have "enough rope". +0

Matthews drives me nuts when he does this; he'll ask a tough question, give his guest "enough rope" as it were, and then interrupt them before they can hang themselves with it.

If he wants them to look bad, he'd do much better to let them talk and show that they can't answer the question. This just makes him look like a bully.

>> ^Aniatario:
My god Maddow is a patient woman.


Sometimes you just have to give 'em enough rope to — uh...I can't in good conscience finish that expression.

I just love his approach. He's good at giving them just enough rope to hang themselves without giving the game away.

They're generally pretty strict on what kind of media they allow into their conventions, no doubt his 'nice kid' appearance and agreeable nature helps out there.

>> ^rougy:
So why is Palin off limits?

Class? This is politics.


She did more damage to herself with this thing than any rival or counter-pundit could have hoped to do on his own. It's not about class per se; it's about showing the body politic that this bullshit doesn't need opposition to bring it down: all it needs is enough rope, and it'll kill itself just fine.

wellllllll...part of me wants to give him enough rope to hang himself with. Or maybe he'll just disappear...or maybe he'll throw a chair

This whole interview (from the great, sadly now ended, interview show 'Enough Rope') was brilliant, and showed how a person could have a complete turnaround and become a force for good in the world after doing so much wrong.

You know Tim grows more and more on me... The first few times I saw him on various comedy shows I thought he played and sang well but didn't think his stuff was particularly funny.

But then I hear ones like this and they're both funny (not necessarily laugh out loud, but amusing) and thought provoking in a sense...

Plus, I watched him interviewed on a talk show we used to have here called Enough Rope, and he came across as intelligent, self effacing, and able to take on board criticism (there's a whole thing about a particularly offensive song of his which he has changed the words of in part because he didn't realize just how offensive it could be)