There are some guests who simply refuse to go on the air with other particular people or with anyone at all. Likewise, there are some people who no one else wants to appear with. It's rarely discussed, because the bookers who mediate these ego wars are bound by contract—and their own interests—to keep quiet. And hosts rarely mention the snubs on-air, since they want guests to come back. But snubbing happens all the time, and conversations with bookers, producers, and guests reveal that some divas are especially notorious.
This part stood out for me:
The biggest offenders are usually the ones whose egos are too big to accommodate any company: Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Alexander Haig, and others who figure they have better uses for their time than debating some flack on the air. "They would only go on if they could do the show alone," says a former producer for Crossfire. "Brzezinski won't debase his cable currency by being a two-box," explained a current booker, referring to the practice of displaying guests on a split screen. Another booker cited Brzezinski's refusal to go on with Pat Buchanan—"probably because he thinks he's an anti-Semite." (An assistant to Brzezinski says: "It isn't true that he will only appear alone. He has appeared many, many times with other guests." Maybe so. But bookers say he doesn't do so willingly.)
Here's a piece of advice to TV bookers -- surprise these mooseheads with another guest just before they're going to go on.
Why? Because, in my experience, when mooseheads at the Kissinger-Brzezinski level are alllowed to pontificate at will, they are unbelievably boring and rote. On the other hand, they are at their best precisely when they are challenged by someone. Maybe they get riled up at having their authority questioned, or maybe they want to smack down the young whippersnapper tring to unseat the Pundit King. All I know is, when they are poked and prodded, the analytical sharpness that got them to their exalted position comes out, and then the fun starts.
I've seen this in person -- but Josh Marshall David Kurtz captures an example of this on video. Zbigniew Brzezinski doesn't like it when he's challenged on the Middle East -- watch what happens:
Oh, and it makes for good TV -- though in this case it has the added frisson of Mika Brzezinski's uncomfortable body language.
Brzezinski is right about Scarborough. That boy is an airhead. As far as Buchanan is concerned, he's only slightly more of an anti-semite than Nixon or Billy Graham. Perhaps he's more of a Nazi apologist. I wouldn't sit on the same panel with him either. He's a dottering old fool who should wake up and die right and do us all a favor.
"Israeli-occupied territory."
-- Pat Buchanan, describing Washington, DC, when discussing Jewish influence in US government, St Louis Post Dispatch, October 20, 1990
"[Despite Hitler's anti-Semitic and genocidal tendencies, he was] an individual of great courage.... Hitler's success was not based on his extraordinary gifts alone. His genius was an intuitive sense of the mushiness, the character flaws, the weakness masquerading as morality that was in the hearts of the statesmen who stood in his path."
-- Pat Buchanan, in a 1977 column, The Guardian, January 14, 1992
"Diesel engines do not emit enough carbon monoxide to kill anybody."
-- Pat Buchanan, expressing his revisionist views, challenging the fact that diesel exhaust was used to gas thousands of Jews at Treblinka, and discussing "group fantasies of martyrdom" in The New Republic, October 22, 1990
"It's running down 70-year-old camp guards."
-- Pat Buchanan, in The New York Times, discussing his attempts at closing down the US Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations (which was in charge of prosecuting Nazi war criminals) April 21, 1987
[...] BRZEZINSKI WORRIES about debasing his “cable currency”? Nice to see he’s got his priorities straight. Plus, from the comments: “If only he’d [...]
Dan --
ZB blew Scarborough out of the water. JS knows nothing about what happened at Camp David II and ZB basically has the expert story down pat. This was not a good video to illustrate you point that he's a giant pulsating ego, which I am sure is true. Best, Mike
the clip highlights your point of having there to break these folks out of their habit of speaking from the mountaintop.
scarborough was right but did not have the gravitas to compete with uncle Z. now if Dennis Ross had come out of the crowd to directly rebut Z's comment on how Sharon was the one who destroyed the peace settlement and not Arafat, that would have been fine TV. because Ambassador Ross was there and has pointed the fickle finger of blame directly at Arafat and the boys.
Scarborough may be an airhead, but Brzensinki is an naive idiot of the worse sort. Short of sending our own troops in, there isn't a damn thing we can do about the Israel/Palestinian issue. Until the Palestinians, and Hamas specifically, want peace or are dead, there will be none. Ever. The notion that anyone can negotiate a solution is dangerously naive.
As part of the Golden Carter years, Zbigniew Brzezinski is considered by many to be the worst advisor in recent U.S. history. His stunningly superficial recognition of his own failures makes him painful to watch.
But I'm sure he's terror in the faculty lounge, if anyone cares.
"Another booker cited Brzezinski’s refusal to go on with Pat Buchanan—”probably because he thinks he’s an anti-Semite.”"
I am not sure if Buchanan thinks Brzezinski is an anti-semite or if Brzezinski thinks Buchanan is an anti-semite, but it doesn't make any difference. They both are.
Dennis Ross isn't the only one who blames Arafat. So does one William Jefferson Clinton. Now, I will concede that Slick's reputation for veracity is somewhat...shaky. But I think it is fair to say that he was counting on an Izzy/Pali deal to get him the Nobel Peace Prize, a choice plum that I'll wager he badly wanted, and he blames Arafat for snatching it right out of his hands.
"Another booker cited Brzezinski’s refusal to go on with Pat Buchanan—”probably because he thinks he’s an anti-Semite.” "
More likely Buchanan isn't antisemitic enough for Brzezinski. I would call Brzezinski a Nazi but that would be unfair. The Nazis killed 90% of Poland's Jews, and Brzezinski has never forgiven them for letting the other 10% get away.
Zbigniew Brzezinski was correcting Scarborough for rehashing that cherished right-wing myth about Ehud Barak's "generous offer" to Arafat at Camp David in 2000. Anyone who has looked at that historic conference knows that the Israeli offer was hedged with conditions to include "settlement blocs" and "security zones" that amputated 20% of the West Bank. Arafat had already agreed (at Oslo in 1993) to accept a mere 22% of the pre-1948 Palestine Mandate for the new Palestinian state; it was Israel that kept demanding more. I don't think the US media picked up on this at the time but the facts are certainly out there for everyone to see. Brzezinski was being no more than truthful about Scarborough's level of knowledge with regard to what he was pontificating.
Daniel W. Drezner is professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
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