That's true, and I would have liked to see the interviewer interject to ask him about that - whether he wishes he had, or thought he should have interjected to call him out in that moment.

The bit where he engages in it himself doesn't shock me, in the context of what is going on, because he's clearly trying to ingratiate himself to Trump by "bro'ing it up" with him in what he thought was the privacy of the bus.

It'd be one thing if he issued the usual notapology along the lines of "sorry if anyone was offended", but he seems to have pretty comprehensively and publicly owned his personal failure in this moment.

Ah, you're one of these people - I wouldn't have bothered if I knew.

Possibly, but that's something that's always easier to rationalize on a post-hoc basis.

I'll try and be generous to him. It takes some amount of guts to own it and say you just didn't have the strength of character to change the conversation, or confront Trump about what he was saying.

Some of it has been, sure. Which is primarily what complicates my thoughts about it. But if you pay close attention to everything that has leaked out, a lot of it hasn't risen anywhere near that level - we just tend not to notice, because it just confirms narratives we already had about what a childish dumbass he is.

Which means they are weak!

Yep, but that concept is extremely broken - that any branch of government should be afraid of "making enemies" in the intelligence community, and having themselves buried in targeted, anonymous leaks.

He's not wrong that there's something concerning about the sheer scale of continuous, anonymous leaks from the intelligence community, that seem to be precision-aimed at undermining a democratically-elected leader. My own feelings on it are labyrinthine and complicated.

I don't think that's being particularly generous to him. He's clearly a guy who likes to do "fluffy" comedy bits, not political satire, and I think that's been pretty obvious from the start. And there isn't even necessarily anything wrong with that, even if I personally find it dull.

“Kimberly is a valued member of the Fox News primetime lineup, AND IS UNDER LONG-TERM CONTRACT WITH THE NETWORK.”

The thing I don't get about the argument that ABC cancelled the show because of it's political bent, is that it then begs the question of why ABC ever greenlit the show in the first place, if true.

You're describing modern Republicans, not modern "small c" conservatives. Much like I'd hope any "classical" liberal would chafe at the idea that Democrats represent their political philosophy, even if they aren't nearly as overtly repugnant as your average GOP politicians these days.

But, like, what if they kept SECRETS from one another instead? So many SECRETS.

I'd love to know what series of events happened at NBC, that would cause them to announce the cancellation of a show, then quickly go back on that and renew it.

There are areas of the world where Christians are absolutely the most oppressed, just like there are vast swaths of the world where Islam is incredibly powerful, but I doubt that's what troglodytes like Mike Pence are referring to when they say "Christians are the most oppressed".

Karl Urban always seemed excited about wanting to come back to the role - including when asked about a theoretical Netflix series ages ago. I'd love to see him back in the helmet, because his grimacing snarl was perfect.

So what I'm reading, is that this fearless liberal firebrand got to stand right next to a person who he thinks wants the economically disadvantaged to go fuck themselves, and all he managed to come up with was to take a picture he'll get to laugh with the liberal blogs and twitterati about afterward. All in a social…

He's a retired talk show host engaging in a harmless pastime that brings him joy. Leave him be.