That was not the cast on Thursday night's show, as the Tea Party Conservative Dana Loesh (pronounced "Lash"), was hopelessly unprepared against her Liberal counterparts CNN regulars Paul Begala and David Gergen in a talk about the possible shutdown of the Federal Government.
Indeed, Loesh was so terrible, she's started an Internet discussion, mostly unfavorable toward her.
But an aside, Dana's a blogger, radio show host, and mother of two, who somehow became a taking ahead for the St. Louis Tea Party Movement, and describes herself as a "jesus-freak" and a former "potty mouth." In detail:
I enjoy Photoshop, photography, and music. I have tattoos and used to have multiple piercings. I am a recovering potty-mouth. My prior language caused kittens and fairies to spontaneously combust. I don't say dirty words anymore UNLESS I'm yelling at my kids. I want my kids to be able to read the things I wrote about them someday without expressing concern that yes, I did kiss them with that mouth.
The problem was that Dana did not have enough detail to match the policy wonk that is Begala. Where he talked about the vote on the Omnibus Budget Bill in December of last year, and how Democrats took massive cuts in spending in an effort to reach an agreement with Republicans. Indeed, on December 17th, 2010, New American reported this:
Yesterday night, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reluctantly pulled the 1,900 page $1.1 trillion omnibus bill laden with earmarks that would have funded the federal government through September 2011 from the Senate floor. Aware that the bill would face tremendous opposition and delays, Reid instead announced that he would work with Republican leaders on a smaller, short-term budget to avoid what would have become a government shutdown.
That was repeated by Bagala, but to listen to Loesh, it was as if there was no such vote. Dana kept insisting this is an issue of "reducing spending," and seemed to not know about the vote of last December. Where Begala would give examples of how Republicans were being unreasonable, thus giving the intelligent listener some view of how we got to this point on the brink of shutdown, Dana would either smirk or laugh out loud, in a vain attempt to mask the obvious fact that she was ill-prepared for this national television platform.
To have someone like Loesh on because she's a pretty face is sexist. It's an affront to women ,both conservative and liberal, who do follow these issues and can speak calmly and intelligently about them.
Twitter Tweets Not On Dana Loesh Kind
To get a good understanding of how her 'performance' went, examining Twitter Tweets directed at her and at Anderson Cooper gives a good look. Here's an example:
prollyjolly KING PAUL!
.@DLoesch is acting like a CHILD. I hope @ac360 & @andersoncooper, for the sake of their program, choose not to have her on in the future.
4 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply
ToThrive To Thrive
@DLoesch is an awful human being.
1 hour ago Favorite Retweet Reply
@DLoesch You cannot deny the 54B$ to oil subsidy deserves to be cut by changing the subject onAC360. Tea Party is corporate sellout!
1 hour ago Favorite Retweet Reply
Learn to act like a professional @DLoesch Maybe people will actually listen to you.
1 hour ago Favorite Retweet Reply
Kinderman Kinderman
Watched reruns of @dloesch on CNN and then lookin at twitter..I think she looked uninformed on #CNN don't know what u all are talkin about.
1 hour ago Favorite Retweet Reply
And this post seemed to sum up the frustration many had in watching Loesh look painfully unprepared on CNN:
I just saw this Dana loesch on CNN, the woman is completely nuts, she has not clue what she is talking about, She made a statement that AARP is cutting out folks from getting medicare advantage from the medicare program which is an out right lie,, many folks do not take medicare advantage like us because in the opinons of hospitals and doctors they have a problem with those programs like taking too long to pay the bills and such,,
and one must have medicare a and b to be eligible to get any of the other plans under medicare,, the lady is plumb full of misinformation,, she has no clue what she is talking about,,
Today,we have caught the republicans and tea baggers is so many lies it is unbeleiveable, one republica dude today pushing fo natrual gas claims that natural gas is at its lowest ever price, that is a lie,, as well, any one that used any sort of natural gas espeically now knows that, and alot of folks in my area, rural area use propane to heat the orchards last night and might today, knows the prices, the more the tea baggers and republicans talks the more they are caught in nothing but their own lies,
--- An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind Gandhi --
Dana Loesh is supposed to appear on CNN in the morning - Friday morning. Given the short time period between tonight and then, it's hard to see how Loesh will be any better prepared for CNN Morning.
CNN can do better.