Maybe the "Saturday Night Live" character immortalized by the late Chris Farley -- Matt Foley, motivational speaker -- is not the dominant influence to liberal bombthrower Ed Schultz.
Given Schultz's tendency to open wide and insert feet, perhaps comedian Norm Crosby and his signature shtich of inventive malapropisms is Schultz's actual guiding spirit.
One of my favorite Schultz gaffes came on April 16, back when liberals were atwitter about Texas Gov. Rick Perry's alleged secessionist tendencies (click here for audio) --
I am somewhat steady focused on rebuilding the middle class. I'm a health-care guy, I'm a middle-class union guy, I believe in all that,I don't think we got a chance to rebuild the country unless we focus on middle-class issues and small business and I'm very consistent on all of that and I'm willing to talk about those issues. But when I hear people saying that they're going to not pay their taxes and they're going to succeed from the Union and there's going to be a revolution ...
Two weeks later, on April 27, Schultz again confused "secede" with "succeed" (here for audio; all the clips in this post are from Schultz's radio show) --
And of course the flu, and let's not forget Rick Perry who now thinks it's good to get federal money to fight the swine flu -- after wanting to succeed from the Union a couple of weeks ago.
On April 17, Schultz had this to say while complaining about federal bailouts for large banks while smaller ones go without (here for audio) --
Does it mean anything to you that they're getting an opportunity to get your tax dollars so they can increase their portfolio and be more thrivant?
Hmm, sounds a bit Colbertesque to these ears ...
The following week, on April 22, Schultz ran into trouble with "expedite," using instead "expediate," an alleged word I wasn't able to find in the dictionary (audio) --
The guy who's doing the interviews is not the guy who could fix this, to expediate the process for the good of the country. It's the guy who's not talking and that is, the former president of the United States, George W. Bush.
On May 4, Schultz demonstrated -- four times in under a minute -- that the word "subsidiaries" is beyond his capacity as a professional talker to pronounce (audio) --
In January the Government Accountability Office issued a report that found that 83 of the one hundred largest publicly traded US corporations reported subsideraries -- subsideraries -- in countries listed as tax havens or financial privacy jurisdictions. Now if you've got a hundred companies that are the largest publicly traded US corporations and they have subsideraries, 83 of those one hundred major corporations have got subsideraries that are sitting offshore and not paying their fair share when they make a profit ...
Two months earlier, Schultz said this about widespread ignorance in understanding "finance" (audio) --
Lots of things happening at this hour. This is the first true test, I think, for the Obama administration to show the American people that they're going to duke it out with lobbyists. No pun intended, not the guy that's behind bars. I'm talking about a real fisticuffs with the lobbyists who are trying to pull the shirttails of these Democrats who are getting weak-kneed all of a sudden. Now I don't know where you stand on this, but I'm in the fast lane of compassion and understanding because there's a lot of people in this country that don't understand finance.
Along with financial concepts as "thrift" and "subsidiary."
Fast forward to May 14 and Schultz stumbles over "cahoots" while talking about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's allegations of CIA deceit (audio) --
This is just too good! She takes it up a notch! She gets right back in their face! She said the CIA was in cohorts with the White House and they were just nothing but puppets!
Who knows, maybe the cohorts in cahoots were cavorting. Does happen, especially with puppets.
Here's Schultz on June 22, opining on upheaval in Iran following its dubious presidential election (audio) --
Basically this is grassroots revolution time. The clerks now are said to split. We're going to try to get Renchard, Richard Engel with us here a little bit later on the program here at NBC.
I'll venture a guess that Schultz meant "clerics" and not "clerks".
Finally, Schultz said this on July 7 while talking about GOP chairman Michael Steele's remarks after Sarah Palin announced she'll be stepping down as governor of Alaska (audio) --
His quote is, "I'm very excited about the opportunity to have Sarah freed up now to engage across the country to help, you know, reorient the party and grow it," Steele said during an interview on Fox News. "She said she now wants to be able to contribute in a different way. I absolutely welcome it. So Sarah, come on in. The water's nice."
It's very shallow too, I might add.
Shallow indeed, Mr. Schultz.
