[Tom] Friedman seems to be arguing here that [Chris] Matthews is simply paid to spout opinions, and that whether they are wise or stupid is not relevant to the discussion. I am now very confused. If your job is to spout opinions, isn’t the spouting of wise opinions a pretty good measure of whether or not you’re doing your job well? In our culture, the spouting of stupid opinions generally used to be left to people on barstools, just as the spouting of crazy opinions generally used to be left to the man in the park who thought he was Napoleon. One opinion is not as good as another.
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Television’s job is to attract an audience, and what attracts and audience isn’t necessarily the rightness or wrongness of the opinions spouted, but the flamboyance of those opinions. Chris Matthews is a TV star. He draws a consistent audience that can be sold to advertisers. If he were right all the time and no one watched, he’d be out of business. Just because he’s wrong doesn’t make him bad television. He’s part of the freak show, right along with Paris Hilton and people eating bugs on Fear Factor.