On Wednesday night, MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell and Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin lost their minds on Twitter over Sen. Ted Cruz saying the second Donald Trump impeachment proceedings are “full of sound and fury,” like in “Shakespeare.”
While Mitchell and others thought they were delivering an intelligent blow to Cruz’s remarks by pointing out the phrase should be actually attributed to William Faulkner, it turns out the two might need to brush up on their literature. Sparknotes or Cliffnotes is a good place to start.
Never before has our media class been more uniformly filled with the output of a handful of elite universities, and yet pic.twitter.com/KeNxotdX8u
— Adam Gurri (@adamgurri) February 11, 2021
The phrase “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” is in Act V, Scene Five of Shakespeare’s famous “Macbeth.” So much for owning those common folk conservatives!
“@SenTedCruz says #ImpeachmentTrial is like Shakespeare full of sound and fury signifying nothing. No, that’s Faulkner,” Mitchell wrote.
“and it says volumes about his lack of soul. That’s Any Thinking Person,” Rubin responded.
“I clearly studied too much American literature and not enough Macbeth,” Mitchell then wrote hours later, “My apologies to Sen. Cruz.”
“The Sound and The Fury” is indeed a 1929 acclaimed novel by William Faulkner, yet the author derived the title from Macbeth (first published in 1623).
“Faulkner wrote the book ‘The Sound and the Fury.’ But the phrase comes from Shakespeare’s Macbeth: ‘It is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ The whole passage is beautiful,” responded New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. <
While those on the left reacted to Mitchell’s laughable lack of awareness, Cruz comedically chimed in.
“Methinks she doth protest too much. One would think NBC would know the Bard. Andrea, take a look at Macbeth act 5, scene 5: ‘[Life] struts & frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound & fury, Signifying nothing.’”
“Touche,” Mitchell responded, recognizing her blunder that became a spectacle across the political aisle.
The fiasco trended near the top on Twitter Wednesday night, swiftly becoming an issue those on the right and left could agree on.
“Um, he was right. The quote originated in Macbeth,” tweeted Fox News political analyst, Brit Hume.
“Imagine thinking you are dunking on Cruz here by showing your complete ignorance of a little old play ‘Macbeth,'” Federalist Senior Editor Mollie Hemingway said.
Imagine thinking you are dunking on Cruz here by showing your complete ignorance of a little old play "Macbeth." https://t.co/k88eYrFRXt
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) February 11, 2021
