Can I dance with you, David Gregory?

Karol Collymore

I was a little bummed when David Gregory was chosen over my fellow Panamanian, Gwen Ifill as moderator of Meet the Press. NBC seemed to be taking grand steps towards diversifying the TV news landscape and I was hoping they'd take a huge leap over the network competition by picking her. Alas, it was not to be. Rachel Maddow was a great way to hit it out of the diversity park and I hope other networks will continue to add women and people of color to their prominent shows.

I have never had specific feelings about Mr. Gregory until I saw this a few months ago:

I laughed until I cried. I can't believe this man is a better dancer than Al Roker! When I would see him on TV afterwards, I would smile and feel like we had a little secret. "I know you can dance!" I would yell at the TV, then giggle like a school girl. Then yesterday on Gawker, I caught another moment of soul from Mr. Gregory:

Anyone who will dance alone in front of Mary J. Blige is solid in my book. So I'll keep watching Meet the Press in hopes I catch him dancing again. I'm a sucker for a good booty shake.

  • Logan Gilles (unverified)
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    Hilarious, who would've known?

  • janek51 (unverified)
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    Oh, Karol, Mary J Blige is one thing, amen, but how about as backup dancer for Karl Rove? This is mawkish (my new word for the day)! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdvHwtRdg_I

  • backbeat (unverified)
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    Glad you are so open-minded. Guess you weren't paying attention when Gregory was in the White House press corpse in the run up to the illegal, immoral invasion of Iraq. What a tool he was and continues to be. A sickening display of pseudo-journalism. David Gregory sucks and so do the rest of these creeps who are in no way journalists.

  • backbeat (unverified)
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    Hilarious, who would've known?

    Those of us who have been paying attention have been mocking him for years. Where have you all been? jeebus

  • backbeat (unverified)
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    I'd be happy to introduce you to white boys who have both rhythm AND a conscience. My almost-draft-age-sons, for example. These wonderful kids have a way of focusing the mind....Gregory's actions as a "reporter" in that drumbeat to war are unacceptable. My kids and yours will pay the price of the millions of innocent people that were killed thanks to complicit "journalists" such as Gregory.

  • LT (unverified)
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    As a devoted Washington Week viewer, I'm glad Gwen is staying where she is.

  • Karol Collymore (unverified)
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    Backbeat, just having a little fun, take it easy. Should I play some more music for all of us to dance to? Plus your almost draft age children are too young for me; I like them over drinking age.

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    Gwen Ifill's a Panamanian? Who knew?

    As for Gregory, it was the Rove Dance that has him in dutch with the lefties. I think we can make no judgments until we see Chuck Todd shake his money maker. Only then will we know if NBC has made the right call.

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    I watch shows like MTP for the news and to see how the guests respond under pressure. I think Gwen is more appealing and would have done a better job and am sorry she didn't get it. NBC's loss as far as I am concerned.

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    Those darn "the lefties." They're just Bush-haters.

    But as I remember it, while Gregory had occasional moments of journalistic integrity, he's been faulted (along with much of the White House press) for being more or less stenographic for the Bush administration. Gregory danced with Rove in the spring of 2007, but Media Matters has 91 pages of search listings for David Gregory before December 8, 2006.

    Jamison Foser, October 2006

    Yet rather than pointing any of this out, the media tell us things like "no one questions whether this president has been tough on terror," as NBC's David Gregory recently said. Bull. Many people question whether Bush has been tough on terror. Many people -- those who aren't employed by news organizations, at least -- increasingly understand that oversimplifying complex issues and speaking as though your audience consists entirely of third-graders and morons doesn't constitute "toughness." If the CIA analysts are correct, even Osama bin Laden apparently thinks Bush hasn't been tough on terror.

    August 2006

    Interviewing Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman on Meet the Press, David Gregory allowed Mehlman's false claims to go unchallenged, and Gregory himself suggested that if Sen. Joseph Lieberman won re-election, it could "expose the Democratic Party as divided and weak." Hardly the worst of the worst so far as what passes for journalists go, but not exactly an exemplar of the finest of the craft.
  • edison (unverified)
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    Colbert best described Gregory: "Let's review the rules. Here's how it works. The president makes decisions, he's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know-fiction."

  • anon (unverified)
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    Gregory was an aweful choice for MTP. Poor Tim Russert must be rolling around in his grave.

  • Scott in Damascus (unverified)
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    Gregory shakin' his groove thang to Hilary Duff:

    http://crooksandliars.com/node/14929

    Scary (and not in a good way).

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    Scott in Damascus, That couldn't be better. I need to have a dance party and invite him.

  • genop (unverified)
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    Clearly they could not afford to keep Brokaw. He and Russert know the art of the follow up question. Something Larry King will never grasp. Maybe in time Gregory will improve, but Maddow or Ifill would have been vastly superior from the get go. Hearing Gregory lob soft balls will not get me out of bed early Sun. morn. the way Tim and Tom once did, not even if Gregory starts his show ala Ellen.

  • Miles (unverified)
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    Russert knows the art of the follow up question.

    I've never understood the love for Russert. His death was sad and untimely, of course, but I never found him to be a very aggressive interviewer. I grew incredibly frustrated watching Russert ask a question, get a talking point, ask a follow-up question, get a talking point, and then abrubtly shift gears to another topic altogether. His questions were pointed -- at least by the weak standards of modern journalism -- but he rarely demanded an answer. He seemed more content just asking the question and then letting his guests off the hook. It made Russert look good (and kept his guests coming back) but I'm not sure it added much to our democracy. And if you're not adding to the public debate, what good is a weekend talk show?

    I'll also never forget when (now disgraced) Frank Raines, then head of the Clinton budget office, verbally knocked Russert around. It was 1997 or 1998 and Russert was parroting the conventional wisdom at the time that Social Security was headed very quickly for insolvency, and government either needed to "raise taxes, reduce benefits, or raise the retirement age" in order to save it. He went after Raines by asking him which of the three options the Clinton Administration would pursue, asked him again, and asked him again. After the third time, Raines looked at Russert and said (with obvious disdain) something to the effect of: "The role of those in government is not to respond to simplistic talking points, it is to find the appropriate and responsible balance between all competing policy options."

    My description isn't doing it justice, but I've never seen Russert so rattled.

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