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BROKAW'S NEW LOW! How empty is modern press corps culture?
Tom Brokaw put Cox on the air:

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2004

snip-
BROKAW’S NEW LOW: We’ll likely have more to say about the NBC post-debate coverage. But let’s quickly note a new low for Tom Brokaw—his inclusion of Ana Marie Cox in his brief post-debate session.

How vacuous has your “press corps” become? Last Thursday, Cox appeared with Glenn Reynolds on CNBC’S Kudlow & Cramer. The pair of “bloggers” were asked to preview the evening’s Bush-Kerry debate. Quite sensibly, Reynolds said that Kerry “absolutely” had to get across the idea “that he can be trusted to defend the country and to smite its enemies.” And then, Jim Cramer made a mistake. He asked Cox for a comment:

CRAMER (9/30/04): Are we back with Ana now? Will be able to get it across?
COX: You know, I only heard a little bit of Glenn's response. It sounded like it was really smart. And I was going to talk about drinking games. So I'm not sure if—but I think it's relevant. I think that one of the things I noticed today is there are about twenty different drinking games going around the Internet about tonight's debates. And to me, what that says is that even, like, college students have really internalized already all of the talking-points that both John Kerry and George Bush have. And it's almost like the debate itself is incidental. I mean, John Kerry will probably do what he's going to do. But it just seems like unless someone, like, is able to, like, break the rules of the debate and actually confront the other person, we're just going to get two side-by-side speeches. Of course, John Kerry's going to do fine. Of course W’s going to do fine. The AP’s already literally written their story on tonight’s debate.

It’s hard to get much dumber than that. But when Kudlow posed a follow-up question, Cox was up to the challenge:
KUDLOW (continuing directly): But, Ana, you know, I'm interested in your social point. I think it's a good one, about the drinking parties, and associated with that is a certain boredom with the debate. Is it your view that this election is over; that folks have actually decided?
COX: It's not over yet, but I guess you need to drink in order to get through it. I know it helps me; in fact, I've been drinking up to the debate.

In other words, it isn’t like Brokaw and his team didn’t know what they were getting. But so what? Increasingly, your discourse is broken, a joke on a joke. Given a mere half-hour to review this debate, Brokaw threw Cox on his net’s once-precious air.