Maddow Staffers Act Out Moby Dick On-Screen to Make a Point About Republicans or Something
Sometimes in cable news, to get a point across, you might use a prop or two, a visual aid to help crystallize what it is you’re actually saying. On Tuesday night, Rachel Maddow decided to go all-out with what looks like a high school production of Moby Dick right in her studio, with her staffers on a giant fake whaling ship, and with one of them holding a fake harpoon.
And yes, they actually had a whale prop.
Oh, and there were also sound effects.
So what was the point of all this? Well, as Maddow saw it, John Boehner is the captain of the Republican whaling ship who wants to cut the rope (avoid hitting the debt ceiling) but he has a “whack-a-doo crew” (tea partiers) who are so sure of the success of their mission that they’re actually willing to be dragged to the bottom of the ocean by the harpooned whale (defaulting).
Maddow showed example after example of Republican members of Congress downplaying the effects of a potential default on the nation’s debt, and tied it all back to the whaling analogy.
“If you stay tied to the harpoon rope while the harpooned whale is diving to the bottom of the sea, you will die at the bottom of the sea. Republican members of Congress are not convinced. The harpoon is set, the ropes are tied on, and it turns out next week the whale is diving, and it’s really deep water. The Republicans increasingly have decided not just that they don’t want to cut that rope, but that they don’t need to.”
And so ends this week’s installment of Maddowpiece Theatre.
Watch the full segment below, via MSNBC:
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[photo via screengrab]
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