todd-al domination

In Defense of Chuck Todd

The world’s greatest political analyst, Chuck Todd, is being raked over the coals today for the question he posed to President Obama at last night’s prime-time snooze-fest. With the second question of the night, Chuck rose and, goatee glistening in the floodlights, queried, “Why haven’t you asked for something specific that the public should be sacrificing to participate in this economic recovery?” Now, at first glance, this question is indeed less than stellar. After all, isn’t everyone sacrificing already? Duh, right?

There must be an explanation here. Nobody as keen, informed, and goateed as Chuck Todd could falter so badly at such a big moment. Did he get carried away by his love for participatory democracy, accepting a subpar submission from the Internet against his own better thinking? Probably not. That would imply that Chuck could override his own infallible reasoning, which is illogical. More likely is that everyone simply misunderstood what Chuck was saying. Look again: “Why haven’t you asked for something specific that the public should be sacrificing to participate in this economic recovery?” Aha. Sure, if you think about Americans sacrificing with their wallets, the question makes little sense, because we’re doing that all the time. But we haven’t been sacrificing, in the ritualistic, tribal sense, with animals and virgins, to temperamental gods. And with the economy in such a dire state, no remedy, however unlikely, should be taken off the table. It would be worth a shot, right? Well done, Chuck. We apologize on behalf of the entire Internet for failing to grasp your brilliance.

In Defense of Chuck Todd