Sorry MSNBC, But It’s Time For Andrea Mitchell To Go

It gives me no personal pleasure to say it, but neither does it cause me sadness or loss. I have no particular personal feelings about Andrea Mitchell one way or the other, but following a career that has lasted longer than half of the earth has been alive, she’s finally passed her shelf life. Time for pasture, maybe a nice clover field in honor of her long decades of faithful service.

It’s been becoming more and more obvious over the past six months or so. Mitchell has a weekday  program from 9-10 am PDT. And she’s occasionally starting to stutter a word or two, or repeat herself unintentionally. As a result a question that should take 14 seconds takes more than 45, and makes only questionable sense.

When talking to a guest, she’ll start out with what you believe is going to be a question, but instead it rambles off into the woods, and Mitchell finally finishes speaking with asking an actual question, leaving the guests looking at Mitchell and each other, dying for guidance. Earlier this week, she scored a seat at an administration briefing, and her question was so long and tortured that you could see Admiral John Kirby literally struggling to follow her rhetorical contortions.

The final nail in the coffin should have been today. Alex Witt covers the 10a-1p PDT time slot. It was announced that Iran had launched a major drone strike against Israel. This caught MSNBC off guard, since you don’t want a weekend pre-taped summary  The Reverend Al Sharpton covering breaking news, and Jonathan Capehart doesn’t have the on air chops yet. So they sent up a flare, and veteran Yasmin Vossoughian shot in to cover the next two hours, her usual rock solid self.

And then Yasmin handed off to who else?, Andrea Mitchell? I was surprised, I thought for sure she’d still be plugged into the charger on a Saturday. But there she was, and it really didn’t go well. She broke the cardinal rule of the breaking news reporter, Never lose track of the story!

It wasa split scene shot, 2/3 of the screen was Richard Engel, one of the ballsiest reporters on the planet, along with that woman from Sky News. The upper right 4rd was Colonel Jack Jacobs, a MSNBC military analyst, and the lower right was a map of the region. And then everything went to hell in a handbasket.

Engel and Jacobs were staring at the cameras glassy eyed as Mitchell launched into a story about as long and exciting as the road from Cairo to Damascus. When suddenly the night sky over Engel’s shoulder lit up with tracer and missile contrails. Engel jumped, looked over his shoulder, and then turned back to the camera with an urgent look on his face. More streaks of light behind him, and Engel is nearly hysterical. Hell, even Jacobs could see what was happening, and looking at the main screen. And Mitchell babbled on like a brook.

Engel was losing his shit, he’s hopping up and fown like a kid who has to go to the bathroom, opening his mouth as if to interrupt her, but never quite daring. It reached the point where he started waving his hands, which he clearly thought were out of shot in circles, motioning, Hurry up! Hurry up! He’s got Emmy material going on behind him, and he can’t get a word in.

When she finally wound down, she segued with And now here’s MXNBC correstpondant Richard Engel: Thank you Andera! If you look over my shoulder you’ll see the outlines of the ancient walled city of Jerusalem. And above my shoulder you’ll see the tracer and missile contrails showing heavy air activity. This has been going on, with increasing intensity for the last 5-10 minutes now. Right now it’s a lull, but it’s highly likely it will ick up again shortly.

Mitchell then started to interrupt Engel with a question he was obviously already about to answer. But Engel had clearly had enough of this sehf serving bullshit. He smiled, held up a hand in a stop sign, the put his hands together like a child saying their bedtime prayers and said, Yes Andrea, as I was saying, these are not drones, they’re coming from the wron g direction. Behind me are Israeli military bases, and the country of Jordan which has agreed to use their air defenses to stop incoming missiles over their airspace. This is defensive fire, and the flashes you see are likely Iranian drones being knocked out of the sky. 

Like basketball referees in a championship who keep blowing the whistle to call falls to draw attention to themselves, Mitchell forgot the simple fact that the story was Richard Engel and what was going on behind him, and not her and her totally irrelevant reminiscences. Why do I care? Because it’s my job to report the news of the day to y’all, and MSNBC is my go to sight for news. And when I’m getting ready to write, I want the news intelligently and concisely, not waste 15 minutes on a rambling trip down memory lane about the time she and her husband went to the wailing wall.

I’m not saying that they should strap her into a chair and turn on reruns of Jerry Springer to pay her back, there are still things she can do. Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of the House Emeritus. Fine, Mitchell can be the National News Correspondent Emeritus for NBC News. There are still plenty of things to use her on, like the arrival of the President on a foreign state visit. The arrival of a foreign leader to the White House for a state visit. The coverage of an official state dinner. The death of a monarch. She can prattle away to her hearts content while the viewers tune her out and watch what’s going on on the screen instead. Everybody wins.

I have simple solution to my Andrea Mitchell dilemma. If I’m up, I watch CNN until 10 am when she signs off, then tune in for Chris Jansing. But if they’re going to continue to call her in for Breaking News, then they’re doing their viewers a disservice. She just doesn’t have the moxie anymore to roll with those kind of second-vy-second punches.

I thank you for the privilege of your time.