Some of you will remember this post from March 31 of this year: CNN Video: Bernard-Henri Lévy Validates Hillary Clinton on Libya. In short order after I posted it, came the email notification that BHL was now following me on Twitter. (Yes, that one was a gasp.) At that time, I was camping out at CNN almost exclusively, and Eliot Spitzer, who frequently had BHL as a guest, still had his show there. Since he lost his show, I have made a slow but steady migration to MSNBC where I have seen Spitzer once at least, and where, during the day, and increasingly in prime time we get to see the brilliant, beautiful Karen Finney on various panels. I keep encouraging the prime time folks to bring her on and tweet thank you tweets when they (Rachel, Ed, and, more often, Lawrence) have her. The truth is that I wish they would give her one of the two hours they devote to Chris Matthews
So, when I turned on morning TV today, it was tuned to MSNBC and "Morning Joe," not hosted by Joe this morning (so he is off the hook perhaps) but rather by Willie Geist. Imagine my shock, and awe to see this! (This is where the sigh/gasp occurred.)
I am flabbergasted! They do not know who he is! They bring on as a guest the guy who wrote the article about him in New York Magazine! Heavens-to-Betsy! They could have gotten the man himself! He gladly would have hopped the pond at his own expense to make the appearance.
Of course this further argues for Karen to have her own show since she would never have done anything that stupid. (I mean she would never do anything stupid at all!) First of all, she knows who BHL is - I don't have to ask her. I know she knows. Second, if she did not know how to contact him (he probably follows her on twitter and Facebook too), she would know how to find out. Third, she would never have used a secondary source when she could have the primary live.
At the end of "Morning Joe" they always ask the question: "What did we learn today?" The guest co-host this morning, former PA Governor Ed Rendell, did not say that he found out who BHL is, because, like Spitzer, he probably knows the man personally. Neither did Geist make this admission, but the fact that BHL was not a guest today betrays that ignorance. Pitiful!
In conclusion: While it may ruffle some feathers, (I see you there fuming, MW, but we did the right thing and avoided a massacre), BHL rightly places the historical credit for the NATO action in Libya on Sarkozy and HRC. As the year ends, I do not want to see the credit for the Libyan action shifted to Obama. Upon declaring the No-Fly-Zone he began his address with the words. "I didn't want to do this" while a tiny, determined HRC stood right beside him.
No, that will not fly with me or anyone who knows the facts about February and March 2011. This issue of New York Magazine will stand as the accurate record. I am thankful that Wallace-Wells did the research and wrote the article which I plan to acquire and preserve, but I wish MSNBC were a little smarter.
**RANT OVER**
