Wolf Blitzer can’t get enough cheesy grits

A tortured breakfast metaphor signifies what's wrong with cable news, not with Mitt Romney's campaign

Topics: Media Criticism, TV, Television, Wolf Blitzer, Chris Matthews, ,

Wolf Blitzer can't get enough cheesy gritsWolf Blitzer and Chris Matthews (Credit: iStockphoto/NRedmond)

Cable news pundits might have the largest gap of anyone in the world between “think they’re funny” and “actually funny.”

Usually it’s easy enough to roll your eyes when Lawrence O’Donnell — as he did last night on MSNBC — grabs onto a “three-way” reference to describe the Republican campaign, and then makes the joke again and again and again (hey, three times!), like a very naughty child who is very pleased with himself.

But then there’s a meme like “cheesy grits” — the new breakfast of choice for Mitt Romney when he’s in the South. The race to air the awkward Romney clip the most times is still ongoing, as is the battle to make the most tortured metaphorical connection between cheesy grits and the former Massachusetts governor’s failure to connect with Southern voters.

More embarrassing is the fact that each pundit who attempts the metaphor seems to think that he or she is super-clever and the first one with the idea — proving that even the people who produce news 24 hours a day aren’t watching this stuff.

Here are some of our favorite cheesy discussions of cheesy grits from coverage of the Alabama and Mississippi primaries. And yes, there are doozies from Wolf Blitzer and Chris Matthews.

Jamal Simmons: Poor guy, only the second time he’s had catfish ever and cheesy grits and a biscuit — it’s almost as if we’re watching Mitt Romney on safari in his own country. (Australia Broadcasting Company)

*

Jan Crawford: Now as any Southerner will tell you, Romney didn’t quite get it right on the grits. It’s cheese grits, not cheesy grits. But grits and gravy like Gingrich said? Listen, I grew up in Alabama. you put butter on grits. Gravy goes on biscuits. But despite this gravy issue, people here seem to be cutting Gingrich a lot of slack, Erica and Charlie. They think he is smart, he’s visionary, and they like that he can take on President Obama. (CBS)

*

Mary Matalin: Quit trying. Quit trying. I like the cheesy grits. Just do what you do well, which is be kind of a sort of a bad candidate, but a good leader, and just stay on message. That’s it. (CNN)

*
John McCain: I think it’s very possible that Mitt Romney may win both Alabama and Mississippi tonight, putting to rest that myth that he can’t — that he can’t succeed in Southern states. By the way, I’m sure it’s because he’s grown to like grits… (CNN)

*
John King: All these guys are with us all night long. We’re going to make cheesy grits late tonight. (CNN)

*
Ashleigh Banfield: I was just going to say, the cheesy grits.

(laughter)

Dana Bash: Yes, exactly. (CNN)

*

Suzanne Malveaux: Wolf, do you eat grits?

Wolf Blitzer: No. I have –

Malveaux: There’s been a lot of talk.

Blitzer: I’ll be honest, I have tasted them over the years, but I can’t say I’m a major grit eater.

Malveaux: There’s a lot of talk about cheesy grits and catfish, and this is coming from Mitt Romney.

Blitzer: I’m sure it’s delicious.

Malveaux: It is delicious. I grew up on grits.

Blitzer: Yes. (CNN)

*

Terri Sewell: He can’t even get the fact we have cheese grits, not cheesy grits. So, I agree with you that he is pandering to what he thinks Alabama voters are about, Mitt Romney, and not to what we actually are concerned about.

Al Sharpton: She is authentic. She’s there in Birmingham, still has on her very nice necklace and her nice attire. She didn’t come home with a bowl of grits tonight playing with me.

David Corn: She is a great reporter, though.

Erin McPike: I had grits and a biscuit for breakfast this morning. I tell you I did.

Corn: Bring some back.

McPike: Cheese grits and a breakfast. (MSNBC)

*

Chris Matthews: What about all this “y’all” crap of his? Is it going to work?

Former U.S. Sen. Trent Lott: Well…

Matthews: Does it work if you go down there and pander?

Lott: Well, you know, look, eating a little catfish and some grits, whether you call them cheesy grits or whatever…

Matthews: But it is cheese grits, not cheesy grits, right?

Lott: Well, they may have had it on the menu, “cheesy grits.” It may have had a little extra portion. I don’t know. But ordinarily, you say cheese grits, yes.

Matthews: What’s that place, Mama’s — or what’s that place in New Orleans we eat?

Former U.S. Sen. John Breaux: Mother’s.

Matthews: Mother’s, yes.

Breaux: They don’t serve cheesy grits at Mother’s.

Matthews: And then there’s Po Boys down there.

Breaux: And they’re great.

Lott: And you know, if he’d go in there and eat a Po Boy and eat it at Mother’s, he’d be a better candidate. (MSNBC)

*

Eric Bolling: Cheesy? It’s cheese grits. Cheese grits, governor. By the way, add a lot of pepper. Greg, cheesy grits?

Greg Gutfeld: I think it was a stripper I met in (the) Alamo.

Kimberly Guilfoyle: Oh my gosh. (Fox News)

Continue Reading Close

David Daley is the executive editor of Salon.

Next Article

Featured Slide Shows

What To Read Awards: Top 10 Books of 2012 slide show

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 10
  • 10. "The Guardians" by Sarah Manguso: "Though Sarah Manguso’s 'The Guardians' is specifically about losing a dear friend to suicide, she pries open her intelligent heart to describe our strange, sad modern lives. I think about the small resonating moments of Manguso’s narrative every day." -- M. Rebekah Otto, The Rumpus

  • 9. "Beautiful Ruins" by Jess Walter: "'Beautiful Ruins' leads my list because it's set on the coast of Italy in 1962 and Richard Burton makes an entirely convincing cameo appearance. What more could you want?" -- Maureen Corrigan, NPR's "Fresh Air"

  • 8. "Arcadia" by Lauren Groff: "'Arcadia' captures our painful nostalgia for an idyllic past we never really had." -- Ron Charles, Washington Post

  • 7. "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn: "When a young wife disappears on the morning of her fifth wedding anniversary, her husband becomes the automatic suspect in this compulsively readable thriller, which is as rich with sardonic humor and social satire as it is unexpected plot twists." -- Marjorie Kehe, Christian Science Monitor

  • 6. "How Should a Person Be" by Sheila Heti: "There was a reason this book was so talked about, and it’s because Heti has tapped into something great." -- Jason Diamond, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

  • 4. TIE "NW" by Zadie Smith and "Far From the Tree" by Andrew Solomon: "Zadie Smith’s 'NW' is going to enter the canon for the sheer audacity of the book’s project." -- Roxane Gay, New York Times "'Far From the Tree' by Andrew Solomon is, to my mind, a life-changing book, one that's capable of overturning long-standing ideas of identity, family and love." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 3. "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" by Ben Fountain: "'Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk' says a lot about where we are today," says Marjorie Kehe of the Christian Science Monitor. "Pretty much the whole point of that novel," adds Time's Lev Grossman.

  • 2. "Bring Up the Bodies" by Hilary Mantel: "Even more accomplished than the preceding novel in this sequence, 'Wolf Hall,' Mantel's new installment in the fictionalized life of Thomas Cromwell -- master secretary and chief fixer to Henry VIII -- is a high-wire act, a feat of novelistic derring-do." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 1. "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" by Katherine Boo: "Like the most remarkable literary nonfiction, it reads with the bite of a novel and opens up a corner of the world that most of us know absolutely nothing about. It stuck with me all year." -- Eric Banks, president of the National Book Critics Circle

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 10

More Related Stories

Comments

40 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username ( profile | log out )

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>