Has it really been 3 years?  Let’s see…. 1,473 fund raisers…. yep, 3 years!

Greg Gutfeld is like the puppy who gets stuck in the exhaust of your RV and delays your vacation; cute but annoying.  Actually, he’s the real reason I watch The Five.  It’s not for the good looking women.  Really.  I swear.  His libertarian take is more workable in my opinion than that of Eric Bolling, who is new to that faith and a little over-eager; I’m a conservative not a libertarian but I like a lot of libertarian instincts.  I liked Eric’s commentary better before his libertarian epiphany  but still value his free market and business insights.  Some of the best byplay is between Greg and Bob Beckel; Greg knows Bob will always rise to the “liberals always…” line and Bob knows he knows and knows he must always respond nonetheless.  Greg is a master of the Frau Blucher offense.

Kimberly Giulfoyle is ever the stunning and staunch conservative; along with lovely Andrea Tantaros they are the reliable traditional conservatives of the group.  Dana Perino, while cute as a bug, is so typical of what is wrong with establishment Republicans and so oblivious of her inbred Beltway isolation that her inclusion is important if only provide contrast to the other reliably conservative ladies, just as Bob Beckel is there to provide the perspective for the traditional Democrats for traditional conservative viewers.

Juan Williams, an infrequent co-host, is a familiar FNC personality.  While perhaps a true believer like Beckel, Juan tends to raise Democrat talking points and straw man arguments too slickly and often (with a sly little grin that always makes me wonder…) for me to accept that he really believes what he is saying.  I often get the feeling this is a paycheck for him, and the character he is paid to play knows he has to take this side and he argues the side he is paid to argue.  Since Juan is justifiably proud of his son Raffi, a staunch conservative, you know Juan is exposed to the intellectual content of conservative thought and thus is more aware than most leftists that the facile and false arguments he routinely attributes to conservatives are untrue.  That he continues to claim conservatives believe these tropes would appear to be theater.

I think Beckel, on the other hand, has his patterns worn deeply into his brain through decades of partisan warfare and I think he can’t see over the top of the trenches he’s dug over the years.  He’s a good man, and a moral man, and an honest man (all on The Five are honest, don’t get me wrong), but he has always believed the bromides he has had his candidates run on (Republicans do not care for working people, they hate minorities, etc.) and even though he works every day with people who demonstrate that these are false, these false core beliefs are a part of the woof and warp of his understanding of the world and, like Javert, to accept that he is wrong at such a basic level would lead to his destruction.  I think Bob believes that the people he works with are actually the rare exceptions among conservatives, which allows him to maintain his rigid misperceptions of evil conservatives.

Or maybe I just like Beckel because with my being butt ugly, too, and having 28 years of sobriety I figure we have a lot in common.

Anyway, a great ensemble cast, always interesting, always worth watching (just more worth watching when Greg. Bob and Andrea are all there, no offense, Dana and Juan!).  Set your DVRs or, as I do, blow off your boss or clients (it’s on at 2 PM where I live most of the year, 3 PM the rest of the year because we Arizonans are ANARCHISTS!)