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It’s a special Saturday edition of the Ricochet Podcast, and it’s special not only because of the day (April Fool’s Day!), but because we get to welcome back our regulate host, TV’s Rob Long. We cover the all the news of the past six months, Peter’s quest to buy a new TV, what it’s like to take over a network TV show in mid-season, take some questions from the chat room and from the Member Feed (thanks V The K), and just have some fun. Hey, it’s Saturday.
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Music from this week’s podcast: Reunited by Peaches and Herb
The all new opening sequence for the Ricochet Podcast was composed and produced by James Lileks.
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Precious, @EJHill.
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The worst White House ever, including the Clinton White House?
The Clinton White House immediately began breaking laws and committing ethics violations, starting with making up false charges against the Travel Office and getting them all fired, ruining their careers, and installing their own cronies. It went downhill from there.
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you just have a poor memory.
I’ll add to that, in my memory every incoming Republican Administratuon is described as ‘faltering’ ‘trying to regain footing’ , ‘backpedaling ‘ ‘ in disarray’ ‘chaotic’ and all the rest, I could have predicted these headlines before Christmas. Remember adding arsenic to the water? Uncle Cheney was really running the place ? Etc
In my small town in the lower Midwest, Pence’s rule is pretty normal–one of those basic pieces of marriage advice, like having a “date night” to keep your marriage healthy. I was baffled the first time I heard it. It seemed paranoid to me. At the time, I responded “My husband is a professor, so he spends his days with 20-year-olds, and if I felt that I constantly had to worry about that, I’d be a wreck.” That was 20 years ago. Since then, I’ve come to see this rule as completely reasonable. It’s not about paranoia or lack of control. It’s not about the man having to restrain his masculine sexual aggression or other women being inherently provocative. Rather, it’s an acknowledgement that in most marriages, husband and wife are generally pulled in opposite directions by daily life and have very separate social circles. Home life might be a pretty small slice of time or be stressful because of small children or other factors. That’s why date night is considered such an important practice. The Pence Rule says, “lead me not into temptation”: physical temptation but also the temptation of a close emotional relationship outside of but similar to marriage. My young adult children and their friends frequently struggle with this when they start a new relationship and have to deal with their boyfriend/girlfriend’s “best friend” from way back, who is an opposite sex best friend.
Good to have you back, Rob.
Humility can lead anyone to the conclusion that it is often better to avoid temptation than to trust in resistance. We are emotional beings with impulses that sometimes overcome our honestly held principles. No person lives perfectly according to one’s own rules of good behavior. The good try.
I loved the podcast. Welcome back Rob! I agree that the Trump administration suffers from bad staff. Hoping for improvement.
Did they really say that? Seriously?
In the Jesuits, we were told – specifically – not to close the door and be alone with a woman. It wasn’t a defense against the temptations of the flesh. It was a defense against scandal and gossip.
In other words, it’s to say to critics: I’m not worried about my behavior; I’m worried about yours.
@roblong Just wanted to assure us that our three kids, ages 27, 25 & 22 all watched with us most, if not all the seasons Cheers and know all the characters quite well and many of the jokes from the jokes are recurring jokes in our family.
Enjoyed having the band back together again, (except for the awkward diversion through Russian Czarist history) it was entertaining and a fun listen.
You guys really nailed the Russia stuff. Thank you.
I loved the marriage counselor story.
I liked Rob more before he came back.
Great podcast, so good to hear the three of you together again. You have had very good substitutes in Rob’s absence, but the mix of you three is unique.
One quibble though: I don’t believe that there is a person alive whom academics or the media will listen to regardless of manners or way of speaking. That time has passed. The “resistors” are too far gone now. My kindest interpretation is that they are still in post-election grief. The denial stage is ceding to the anger stage, but we have not hit the bargaining stage yet.
But my preferred view is that we are seeing the full frontal blossoming of the indoctrination we have tolerated for years in education from K to university. In the liberating Obama years, that became more strident and blatant.
Victor Davis Hanson makes the point that in the last thirty years, regardless of Republican administrations, the left continues to grow stronger precisely because they dominate the influential institutions such as education and the media.
An aside: I loathe the idea “our own kind.” but, you’re right, there is a lot of that operating all over.
I Confess!
Regarding Pence’s proclamation, I think some women consider it an extension of the old boys club mentality. In years past, a couple of men might share a round of golf and a drink afterwards, casually injecting business matters into the mix, while women were excluded. Nowadays women expect to be included in these quasi-social arrangements, and often are. (We’ve come a long way, baby!) I think there’s a concern that placing limits on innocent interactions with women will leave them out in the cold again. I have no reason to think this is VP Pence’s intention, but I do believe it explains why some women are offended by his remarks.
Ah, how quickly we all forget. I was going to say Rob’s point seemed more that Trump’s team wasn’t skilled at administrating, but when reminded that administrating included “arranging for innocent people to be driven out” I think your point is well taken.
This is a fair observation, but like all things it is shaped by ones own experiences.
For example, my own understanding of this controversy is from reading Mollie Hemingway in the Federalist, people at National Review, etc. They may have been unintentionally cherrypicking tweets because they were shocked by those focusing on Pence’s religion and consciously or unconsciously passed over those voicing different concerns.
As for the old boys club and “years past”, that likely varies when one entered the workforce and the industry. My wife is fairly senior in a non US multinational and we entered the workforce in the early 90s. Over her career at US firms and this one she has known at least one woman who took a week of starter golf clinic to fit in but she herself never felt the need. That said, I have no doubts there are women in Hilton Head today taking a similar course.
A major observation my wife shares with younger women, however, is that above a certain level in pay/responsibility there is a reason many high level women are single, or childless, or have a stay at home spouse, or a husband making enough they can relatively easily afford good nannies. To rise requires “more”. These requirements are often not friendly to child raising, although objectively they don’t care if you have children. The flexibility to work later if need be, go to impromptu dinners, and travel in short order is crucial to rising up and requires real support if there are kids involved. Being “one of the boys” means both having the willingness to do those things and having that support if kids are involved.
Chris, maybe a “golf outing” was a poorly chosen example. They are certainly avoidable. I agree personal experience matters. In the 80’s and 90’s I worked for a multinational company and travelled around the world. Often I was the only HQ representative meeting with local employees, partners and customers. Often a local employee would pick me up at the airport or we’d meet at the hotel before driving to meetings with customers or business partners. This quasi-social time was the most convenient way to prepare for meetings. Likewise, I shared many long flights with colleagues on business trips. Sharing a ride to and from airports, and meeting for breakfast or dinner to discuss business was commonplace. The gyrations we would have had to employ to avoid being alone with an opposite-sex colleague would have put a strain on an otherwise convenient and mostly pleasant side-effect of the awful drudgery of business travel.
I see Robs long absence has done nothing to temper his Trump derangement syndrome. Funny how Trump seems to bring out Robs emotions like no other, “second raters” was uttered…how many times? Made me giggle anyhow, welcome back to Rob.
I know nothing of Pence’s background before Congress, but I share your country hopping past and wholeheartedly agree that no-one in our orbit could have had Pence’s rules. But that was just us and what we did – I knew plenty of people at the head office who had zero interest in traveling much less heading on extended overseas trips and their work choices reflected that. Pence’s professional choices probably were shaped by his beliefs – he probably didn’t travel much in the US either but things seem to have worked out. More germane, I think, is @Sabardance’s point about the unique challenges of being a powerful person in government.
Yay Rob! Balance is restored. I love this podcast and you guys are the best. BTW, I loved Cheers as well and I have often forced my kids to watch clips on youtube. We especially like “Why can’t Mormons send flowers?” which is particularly hilarious to us Mormons.
Also, it seems to me like Pence could assuage the fears of female staff quite a bit if he just put in place the same rule for going out to dinner one-on-one with anyone, whether female or male. If he needs to talk business, he can do it at work. If he wants to socialize with coworkers, he can do it as a group.
While Peter was praising Rob for having so many books in his home, I was fully expecting Rob to wait a beat before telling Peter that he must have been in the wrong house
I know I’m late to the fair here but this is a story from 15 years ago not that they don’t still observe it but he didn’t make any kind of “proclamation ”
He should simply say I am a Republican I always have a target on my back for every little punk who dreams of being Woodward and Bernstein and making his bones by bringing down a big Republican
OMG! Like, for sure!
Chaucer?! Ha! Terence and Plautus…Aristophanes….
The cop show point is dead on. Tatort is the standard here.
Robinson: It is sanity. We have not had a TV since 2011. Why buy something that only displays images and doesn’t have 1,000 other capabilities?
“The penny dropped”- thanks Rob! That’s the first time I’ve heard the phrase in English.
Great to have Rob back.
Men generally arent a threat to level sexual harassment charges against another man.