It’s almost as if this is actually an important story or something. And they stayed with it for a full hour! Chuck Todd must have taken his Ritalin. Or else an intern was pouring hot wax on his balls for the duration to help him focus—and, naturally, the wax was roughly the same price as last year at this time, because if not it would have assuredly been the subject of a 20-minute segment on Biden’s failure to unclog the crucially important scalding-ball-wax supply chain. (Yeah, Chuck, I see you.)

But let’s put our picayune differences aside, shall we, Chuck? This was some good, bracing, vitally important journalism. It was so good, in fact, it made me wonder why we’re not seeing more of it.

While ABC’s This Week didn’t devote its entire program to the Republican threat to democracy, its coverage was similarly robust. And Jan. 6 committee vice-chair Liz Cheney pointed out that not only does the committee have proof that Trump was in his private dining room watching TV during the unpleasantness, he could have easily walked just a few feet away and ended it.

From Rep. Cheney’s interview with This Week:

CHENEY: “The committee has firsthand testimony now that he was sitting in the dining room next to the Oval Office watching the attack on television as the assault on the Capitol occurred.

“We know, as you know well, that the briefing room at the White House is just a mere few steps from the Oval Office. The president could have at any moment, walked those very few steps into the briefing room, gone on live television, and told his supporters who were assaulting the Capitol to stop.

“He could have told them to stand down. He could have told them to go home — and he failed to do so. It’s hard to imagine a more significant and more serious dereliction of duty than that.”

It’s no surprise that Grampa Rage Diapers was watching teevee during one of the most shameful chapters in our nation’s history. I mean, what else would he be doing? The path from his television to the toilet probably looked like an Oregon Trail wagon wheel rut by the end of his first (and, with Quetzalcoatl’s help, only) stint in the White House. But now that the committee has the receipts, it’s going to be increasingly difficult for Republicans to defend his behavior on that fateful day. It will, that is, if the media keeps the heat on.

Naturally, the anniversary of the bumblefuck putsch provides journalists a perfect news peg for revisiting Jan. 6 and the still-precarious position our nation finds itself in today. But what will they do between now and Nov. 2022? And Nov. 2024? Will they strive to place the news in proper perspective going forward?

Will they indulge Republicans’ attempts to paint Joe Biden as an ineffectual leader who somehow couldn’t solve the entire global supply chain crisis with a wave of his hand? Or will they keep their eye on the septic ballsack that is Donald Trump?

Time will tell—but all kidding aside, these are smart people. They need to ask themselves the same question Republican legislators asked themselves over the course of the past year: What’s more important—my short-term career goals or the long-term viability of Western democracy?

In 2021, the vast majority of Republicans failed that simple test, and so now the media is one of our few remaining bulwarks against tyranny. Meet the Press and This Week did a great job today, but it won’t mean shit if they can’t maintain that focus. Every GOP legislator needs to be challenged on Trump’s Big Lie every time they appear on the air. If they’re going to play games with the legitimacy of the November 2020 election, they need to back up their bullshit. Full stop.

I doubt Chuck Todd read past the part about his intern scalding his gonads—either because it was way beyond the pale or far too close to the truth—but I implore him and the rest of the inside-the-beltway media: we’re counting on you. Do your jobs like you did Sunday or we won’t have a free press or a country to go back to after this is all over.

UPDATE: Here’s the full program, in case you missed it. (via jamess):

It made comedian Sarah Silverman say, “THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT,” and prompted author Stephen King to shout “Pulitzer Prize!!!” (on Twitter, that is). What is it? The viral letter that launched four hilarious Trump-trolling books. Get them all, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.