You will not see this kind of intensity, precision, concern, focus, and analysis on any news channel today. You will not go to bed at the end of your day with all you need to know–Cronkite’s ambient words: “And that’s the way it is.” Your trust pill for the night. It was Walter Cronkite’s signoff that nourished trust across the land.

His focus was the news. Personality came later in life, a by-product of his discipline and passion, for calling it what it was. He almost single-handedly ended the War in Vietnam doing and asking what reporters can’t or won’t do today. Now we have personalities above the news that focus on branding, staging, optics, one-upmanship, self-promotion and selling mugs and t-shirts.

Here is what the news looks like today. It’s a crime scene. All we did to this screen shot was dress-up MSNBC’s own taping by adding some yellow to their walled off news scene to make it more authentic. It also promotes their “crime”–trying to get everyone to argue and cause further division.

The cable news shows mirror the evening news. Copy-cats. Rehash of the news we know already. No fresh analysis. No insights. News written hours before. No humor. All brought to you by big pharma and new pills for ills you didn’t know you have. No pills for improving news have yet been invented. No updates except occasionally on “60 Minutes”. And don’t forget the Search for the Hero of the Week.

Essentially all news shows are:

1. Format challenged.
2. Lap up Trump’s tweets and complain that he makes them cover them and thereby he determines what they cover and what the agenda should be.
3. The press elevates his actions to a “Trumpian” level, Zeus from Mar-a-Largo.
4. Guest say the same thing over and over again, acting like they are original.
5. Personality driven.
6. Weak bench.

I am not a news junkie the way I used to be. I watch about 15 hours of cable news and some network news a week. I watch some FOX, little CNN, a little News Hour, “60 minutes,” and MSNBC when the “A” team is on in the mid-to-late afternoon, except for the giggling baby-sitter Nicole Wallace, and Steve Kornacki, the utility infielder who is wardrobe challenged with gestures like a junior-high school basketball coach whose team has not practiced much. Nicole is in New York pretending to be in Washington with enough usual suspects–usually six or eight–from the New York Times and Washington Post to praise their reporting and thank them, oh so much for their time and insight—a repeat of what everyone else says. And to remind us constantly that she worked for one of the most media-manipulating administrations in memory, and one that lied big-time when she was involved in communications for George W. Bush. (Remember: When Clinton lied, nobody died!)

Except for the roving John Heilemann’s with his perceptive analysis and the acerbic Steve Schmidt who is in political rehab after years as John McCain’s political strategist, there is not a dime’s worth of difference between them, as George Wallace used to say.

(I have some claim to this criticism. I am a twice-published critic of drug abuse education films, over 200 of them, with the help of then New York Times Film Critic Judith Crist, actor Peter Fonda, the inimitable William Buckley, founder of National Review, who famously said about these films, “I wouldn’t show them to my doooog.” And Mama Case Elliot of the “Mamas and Pappas” rounded out the celebrity quotient of this review team that resulted in “banning” 90 percent of the most popular films in schools and military bootcamps. I’ve never produced a news show, but I have made commercials, documentaries, and conducted more than two dozen week-long national and regional communications workshops around the country for the first White House Drug Abuse Office established under President Nixon while he was preoccupied with other matters.)

The Most Floundering Network. MSNBC has not found its rudder. Only the High Priestess of Cliche and Contrived News Rachael Maddow ranks in the tope 5 according to Nielsen Ratings, which fluctuate from week to week. Chuck Todd is Exhibit A for The Peter Principle, rising to one’s level of incompetence. When he was political director, there was none better at poll analysis until he started calling surveys polls. He is the promoter-in-chief of arguing. He regularly uses the word argue and its variations 10 to 15 times in his opening segment. He has this new Chris Clilizza head back, eye-roll heavenward, over-articulation, hands up signaling an almost touchdown. It’s not read my lips, it’s read my body language. He has no original guests and repetition is his comfort zone. Katy Tur gives him a run for the use of the word argue. Instigating division and argument is their disquieting habit. Ali Velshi is the exception to the rut: he usually has something interesting to say. He is Canadian, of course.

Here is our take on how we see the networks competing with each other at the expense of the viewer. What do we get right? Where are we off? Which one is your favorite, or your default channel?

The Rule of Law is another one of America’s quaint notions perpetuating the idea that we are different than other countries. We chant that no one is above the law. Not so. If you are rich or in power in America and you get caught breaking a law, you can stay above the law for the most part. If you are not rich, the punishment rarely fits the breaking of the law. Those who are not caught are one of “us.” Those who are caught are one of “them.”

Let’s take a regular experience most of us have—exceeding the speed limit when we drive. Why do we do that? Because we are in a hurry, we like to drive fast and we get away with it. Also, we are good at cat ‘n mouse games on the road. Cops park in the same spot a lot of the time, so there is nothing complicated in slowing down when those bridges, sideroads, dips in the road appear. If we do get caught, many of us can talk our way out of breaking the law thereby making us above the law. If we are speeding at 20 miles over the speed limit, all the fine talking will result in a fine. No big deal unless you are driving in another country where your fine can be 10 percent of your income. In the US it takes multiple times before you lose our license. There are plenty of websites that tell you how to avoid getting stopped, some even where and when cops are liking to be out looking to ticket someone.

John Adams was the first this to put this comfort blanket in writing when he wrote the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780. And it has been repeated ever since, especially in times like these with so many elected officials under some kind of scrutiny. The expression is not part of our Constitution, so it is more of a moral aspiration than a law.

There is a reason there are three levels of truth in our judicial system: 1) the truth; 2) the whole truth; 3) nothing but the truth. If law abiding relied only on the first level we would be in a heap of a lot more trouble than we are. But the oath pretty much sews it up.

The Constitution provides for Presidents who are caught breaking the law while in office—impeachment. But presidents, most notably George W. Bush perfected the “art” of a presidential signing statement, a way to have it both ways. Obama used it extensively. The president gets points for signing a bill, but in a statement that is not part of the legislative process, he can spell out what he will or will not do. In other words, he tells us how his administration will be above the law.

As I see it, we are a nation of law-makers, loophole seekers, smooth talkers and amendment crafters to existing laws.

How do you see it?