Later On

Greenwald has a good column—as usual—and (also as usual) I detected no narcissism, but I did detect a quite obvious stench of stupidity issuing from David Gregory in this exchange included in the column:

. . . White House adviser David Axelrod was on Meet the Press this weekend and tried — with total futility — to explain to David Gregory the concept of holding someone accountable, which is ostensibly the crux of Gregory’s job.  Leave aside the obvious question of whether the White House is actually doing any of the things Axelrod claims they’re doing concerning BP; observe Gregory’s complete inability even to understand the concept of arms-length, verification-based accountability (h/t Stuart Zechman):

MR. GREGORY: You were quoted this week saying this isn’t a very sympathetic figure, Tony Hayward.

MR. AXELROD: Yes.

MR. GREGORY: Does the president trust this guy?

MR. AXELROD: Well, look, it’s not a matter of who — we, we — it’s not a matter of trust. We have to verify what they’re doing, we have to stay on them, and we have from the beginning. That’s why we want this escrow account. I’m not here to, to make judgments about any individual’s character, but we do know that they have pecuniary interests that may be in conflict with, with the interests of, of our interests, and we…

MR. GREGORY: But, but let –but…

MR. AXELROD: …need to make sure that the interests of people in the Gulf are protected. That is what our job is.

MR. GREGORY: But this is a straightforward question. If you are in partnership with somebody — and make no mistake, the government is in partnership with BP to get this problem solved — does the, does the president of the United States trust the man on the other end who is leading this operation?

MR. AXELROD: Our, our mission here is to hold them accountable in, in every appropriate way, and that is what we’re going to do. I, I’m not — I don’t consider them a, a, a partner, I don’t consider them — they’re not social friends, they’re not — I’m not looking to make judgments about their soul. I just want to make sure that they do what they’re required to do.

MR. GREGORY: Do you trust them to get the job done? Yes, no or maybe?

MR. AXELROD: We’re going to make sure they get the job done.

MR. GREGORY: But it doesn’t sound like there’s a lot of faith there at the moment.

MR. AXELROD: Well, our job is to hold them accountable, David, and that’s what we’re going to do.

Axelrod is explaining exactly what the media is supposed to do concerning political officials if they are going to fulfill the function they like to pretend they have, and Gregory is simply incapable even of understanding what’s being explained.  It’s as though it’s a completely foreign concept that he’s never encountered or thought about before.  As Zechman put it in an email to me: . . .

Doesn’t it strike you that Gregory is an amazingly stupid person? Nice hair, of course, but still…