Joe Goes Corny Pop

On Wednesday I returned to not just the Number One cable-news show, not just the Number One show in all of cable TV, but latterly the top show in all primetime TV, the ratings phenomenon "Tucker Carlson Tonight".

Tucker and I started with Joe Biden playing "Despacito" on his cellphone to an Hispanic audience and then mulled more generally the desperate relationship between politicians and pop stars over recent decades:

The incident Steyn called 'the gold standard' of pandering was a 1998 encounter between Gore and grunge artist Courtney Love in which the Tennessee Democrat claimed to be a 'big fan' of hers.

To her credit, Courtney, the founder and lead singer of Hole, was having none of it. "Yeah, right," she sneered. "Name a song."

As any campaign consultant can tell you, the Politician's First Rule of Holes is: When you're in one, stop digging. Al Gore introduced us to a Second Rule: When you're with one, stop pretending to dig her.

Alas, ersatz hipness has become the order of the day. I pine for the good old days when pop stars were iconoclastic enough not to go along with it. Click below to watch:

You can see the full hour of "Tucker Carlson Tonight" here. I congratulate Tucker on achieving his spectacular ratings success - none of which has anything to do with me, as I've mostly been off the air and far away these last six months.

If you prefer me in non-visual formats, please tune in tomorrow, Friday, for the weekend edition of The Mark Steyn Show - or catch up, if you've yet to hear it, with my latest Tale for Our Time, The Prisoner of Windsor.

The Mark Steyn Show and Tales for Our Time are made with the support of members of The Mark Steyn Club. You can find more details about our Club here - and we also have a great gift membership.