Must See Avoid TV
by matt at 7:04 am on March 22nd, 2004 in Entertainment 
“Good morning, what can I tell you?”
As many of you know, I’m originally from Pittsburgh, Pa. Iron City, Steel City, City of Champions, even…god forbid, Knowledge City. While Pittsburgh has been the butt of almost as many jokes as Cleveland, I remain a proud Pittsburgher, and very little could ever change that.
Dennis Miller is also from Pittsburgh, in fact he is one of the most famous exports we have. I confess to having been a Miller fan since his days as the anchor of SNL’s Weekend Update, and to a lesser extent his show on HBO. But like several other previously sane members of the media, Miller lost it in the aftermath of 9-11. He fell victim to the affliction of: “I’m so scared, Dear Leader please protect me. I promise to only say nice things about you from now on.”
His last HBO special was so embarrassingly bad that I couldn’t even wade through it all. His new show on CNBC takes it to the next level down.
I must say that I watched the first few shows in the interest of science, and the results were quite unsurprising. Besides Miller’s actual chimpanzee sidekick, other monkey guests included hack blogger Mickey Kaus, hack political consultant Kellyanne Conway, and hack Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The show is so bad that the producers had to start paying people to sit in the studio audience and laugh when the sign lights up.
If you have read this site for any amount of time, you will know the name Eric Alterman. I link to his blog, and have recommended his last two books: The Book on Bush and What Liberal Media. He is a thoughtful and determined journalist who is not prone to hysteria nor shrill attacks.
Last week, Alterman posted on his blog that he would be appearing on Miller’s show, and I considered watching until I realized that Alterman would no doubt recap it the following day, and there was no sense doubling Miller’s audience by watching.
Here is a link to Alterman’s segment. I strongly recommend watching it as it is about as perfect an example as exists of what it is like to argue with the right. I won’t offer my own recap as words can’t really do Miller’s abject disrespect proper justice. I will say that this is one of the sorriest pieces of journalism since Jayson Blair was still working for The New York Times. Miller’s open contempt and explicit refusal to even ask Alterman questions actually makes Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Joe Scarborough look like reasonable journalists.
Miller should lose his show over this. There are plenty of entertaining administration cheerleaders out there who could fill his slot, and do it with the class that is so obviously currently missing.
“That’s the news and I am outta here.”
***Update from Eric Alterman: This just in:� Dennis Miller called my cell to apologize and to say that he was in the wrong and he is sorry.� I accepted his apology.
adam wrote:
That’s out of control. You really weren’t kidding. “That’s great. come back anytime.”
Posted 22 Mar 2004 at 7:00 am ¶
sam wrote:
if you notice, alterman turns and leaves the stage without so much as a nod to that asshole miller, who tries to clap him on the back in some sort of show of TV solidarity. What a load of crap. What has happened to Dennis Miller? Not that I care. He was a flash-in-the-plan TV journalist at best, whose arguments always fell just short of pertinent.
I would have like to see Alterman –who did the right thing in just solidering along in the face of Miller’s embarrassing petulance– stop for a second after the THIRD time Miller offered some inane, disrespectful pout– and say, “Hey Dennis, what the fuck’s your fucking problem?”
Why have Alterman on the show in the first place? Not that anyone watches, as matt said. but really, what an embarassment. Miller should be damned to hell, and forced to rewatch clips of himself acting opposite Sandra Bullock, which is actually his best work.
Posted 22 Mar 2004 at 7:26 am ¶
sam wrote:
You all should read some of the flag-waving tripe that some of our nations more well-written fascists have graffittied on Alterman’s blog. How many times can I hear (mock whiny voice) “You liberal’s are so angry! You liberals need to stop hating america! You liberals need to lighten up!” before I actually go ahead and exercise my NRA-declared right to bear arms and blow somebody’s fucking head off, thereby fulfilling the Angry Liberal prophecy. Who’s perpetuating antipathy and discord in this country anyway?
“Hey Eric: You liberals are sooooo angry!! Dennis Miller made you look like the America hating sap you are.”
Damn right I’m angry. Ka-Boom!
Posted 22 Mar 2004 at 7:35 am ¶
matt wrote:
the end is my favorite part. it’s like miller thought the whole thing was good TV and was thanking his guest for being a sport. the problem is that alterman’s a serious guy, and that shit isn’t going to fly.
If alterman got up when I would have (about a minute in), this would probably have been a big story and miller’s ratings would have gone up. thank god that didn’t happen.
my guess is that miller had never heard of alterman, so when his booking people set it up he read the background info and got pissed. this was the end result of that.
nice The Net reset, but Miller’s high point was in Disclosure where he played the backstabbing “friend” of michael douglas. Apt.
Posted 22 Mar 2004 at 7:39 am ¶
madden wrote:
Maybe I’m stating the obvious here, but doesn’t Miller seem over his head as a full-time pundit? Even if he can’t even form the beginnings of a cohesive counter-argument, you’d think he’d mix in one of those arcane culture references that makes him appear to be well informed.
Instead, all he can manage is a first-grade “no I’m not, you are” impression. I haven’t seen anyone in Hollywood fall this far since Kathleen Turner went from playing femme fatales to playing Matthew Perry’s dad on Friends
Posted 22 Mar 2004 at 7:45 pm ¶
matt wrote:
way over his head. it’s the difference between hbo specials once a year or a weekly puff interview versus the rigors of a prime time talk show five times per week.
the alterman interview was just the latest. in the parlance de miller, i haven’t seen a dive that ugly since greg louganis cracked his head open doing a triple lindy.
Posted 22 Mar 2004 at 7:56 pm ¶
ian wrote:
I can’t even believe there was a time when I thought Dennis Miller was cool and funny. That seems like so long ago now. Truly sad.
Posted 26 Mar 2004 at 12:14 am ¶