Andrew Golis

Ezra makes an essential point about the discussion that followed March Leibovich’s fascination and wonderfully excruciating profile of Chris Matthews:

Liebovich spends so much time channeling the dizzying verbosity of Matthews and trying to translate his explosively kinetic personality to the page that he missed what Matthews, and so many of his colleagues, are actually trying to do: Take political thought and information, speed it up, whittle it down, and sell it for a profit. That, fundamentally, is what they do, whether through the dry cynicism of Keith Olbermann, the machine gun commentary of Matthews, the suspicious “gotcha” machine run by Tim Russert, or the self-conscious gravitas of Wolf Blitzer. Their personas are means to an end, and if they fail to achieve that end, they’ll be ripped from the air.

This is a point that should be made over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.  Cable news is big business.  Like, huge.  Even Olbmermann admits that he’s only able to do his more edgy, left leaning show because it makes the big wigs happy.  So let’s not get too romantic or philosophical about it.  It’s all about the cash.

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