You may have heard that Ann Coulter has been banned "for life" from NBC, although another news exec quickly stepped up to deny that assertion. Considering the life-span of NBC news execs, the statement probably meant "for as long as I work here..."

Why would a network ban a best-selling author? Its a good question, because people tune in to see Ann Coulter (I know I do...), and that means ratings. Its the same reason Bill Maher keeps showing up on the Tonight Show--he's always a good quote.

Is it because Coulter offends their liberal political views? Possibly but I doubt it. All sorts of conservatives get on the morning talk shows.

No, I think the reason is more basic--Ann Coulter makes her hosts look stupid.

SMITH: You don't think as an African-American, that he was at some greater risk?

COULTER: No, I do not. Because every presidential assassin -- or attempted presidential assassin in the history of the nation has either been a liberal, a communist, an anarchist, someone on the left, or there were two who had no politics whatsoever unless you count John Hinckley, who is certifiably insane. So, you know, we have-

SMITH: Which goes back -- which goes back to -- to your basic point that everything that's wrong with America is the left's fault.

COULTER: No, I have -- I wouldn't have mentioned that all these presidential assassins were anarchists, communists, liberals, they were some form of, you know, basically Obama's base, other than the fact that everyone keeps talking about Obama being at some unique risk. Well, I'm sorry, Sean Hannity's at greater risk. Rush Limbaugh's at greater risk. I promise you George Bush is at greater risk. He has been physically attacked two weeks ago. There's a book fantasizing about George Bush's assassination. There's a movie -- a documentary fantasizing about George Bush's assassination. And there are more hits on going Google for Obama and assassination than Bush and assassination. So maybe we can stop talking about the threat of right-wing violence in a country that is teeming with left-wing violence. At the Democratic National Convention-

SMITH: Take a breath. Take a breath. Take a breath. Take a breath.

Smith, who frankly I've never, ever watched, which surprises me a little, started out the conversation by pulling on audience heartstrings, claiming deep friendship with murdered talkshow host Alan Berg. Berg was machine gunned by White Supremacists in Denver in 1984. The implication he was making is that "right-wing nuts" are gunning for Barack Obama.

Let's do as Smith asks and take a breath--does he have any knowledge, any evidence at all of a White Supremacist plot against Obama? No, of course not--this "journalist" is engaged in nationally broadcast bar-talk, although I have no first hand knowledge of how much alcohol he may or may not have consumed prior to the interview.

What a "journalist" like Harry Smith is supposed to do with a conservative diva like Ann Coulter is what Couric did to Sarah Palin--embarrass them in front of the country. However, since Peter Jennings died, no network anchor bimbos have the intellectual horsepower to hang with Ms. Coulter, and they invariably end up embarrassing themselves rather that the conservative harpy.

The left is an anti-intellectual movement, but with the ironic twist that they believe they are completely rational. That arrogance has led them to try on several occasions to debate conservatives. I recall the Sean Hannity debate with Salt Lake mayor Ross Anderson. The conventional wisdom (from the liberal-left), was that Anderson, a lawyer, would wipe the floor with former construction worker Sean Hannity. The depth of embarrassment at Anderson's dismal performance was as bad as the aftermath of a BYU victory over the University of Utah in their annual football game.

There is of course, no admission of such defeats, except the reluctance to debate, to go on Fox News or otherwise confront the conservative ideological challenge with anything more than ridicule and vulgar pejoratives.

Finally, it might be wise to address the liberal-left equivocation between White Supremacists and conservatives.

Racism has always been and still is a Democrat kind of thing, which has always been less about ideology and more about the political culture of class and race warfare. Do White Supremicists really believe in free markets and smaller government? I don't think so.

They seem to have far more in common with Illnois' black caucus that insist that a black man's Senate seat is forever more a black man's Senate seat, or with Harry "pick a white woman" Reid, than with George W. Bush (who actually has and had major administration figures of color...)

Ann Althouse notes that the shoes are too big.

Again, no follow-up from Gregory. Is Cosby suggesting that the government — like the Jesuits — should make their boys go out into the community and give service? A public-service draft? Could Gregory give some critical push-back?

Or was Gregory patronizing black people? Not only was he sparing his black guests any challenging questioning, he also abysmally failed to see the libertarian interests of black people as those guests went on about following black kids home from school to check on whether their parents are decent and forcing young black men into service. If those proposals had been made in a way that seemed to extend beyond the "black community" with its "deepest problems," would the light bulb in Gregory's brain turn on? What exactly are you talking about doing? How would you respond to those who would argue that this is an unacceptable — perhaps even an unconstitutional — burden on individual liberty?

I had my problems with Tim Russert's blind spots, but I couldn't fault his journalistic ethics--he would ask, for the most part, hard questions, and then harder questions. That was good for his guests because if they could survive Russert, they had advanced a solid case for their side.

The new generation of journalists, exemplified by David Gregory, are preening metrosexuals, more concerned about their hair than their responsibilities. Gregory's antics while he was in the White House press corp, were disgusting and depraved. He should have been fired on the spot, but NBC likes it when its "reporters" create news instead of recounting it.

Now he in a position even less suited to his game-show host persona. I watched part of the interview and switched channels because of how pathetically cloying it was.

Everybody knows what the problems are in the black community--no one really needs Poussaint and Cosby to spell it out for us. I don't doubt their sincerity at all--Cosby has taken a lot of hits for telling it like it is, but being used by white liberals isn't going to move the marker.

Hannity minus Colmes is a cable juggernaut, pulling more viewers than all of his competitors combined.

9 PM - P2+ (25-54) (35-64)
Hannity–2,835,000 viewers (703,000) (1,155,000)
Larry King Live—934,000 viewers (319,000) (468,000)
Rachel Maddow Show –1,341,000 viewers (441,000) (723,000)
Saving GM: Inside Crisis– 293,000 viewers (167,000) (183,000)
Lou Dobbs- 597,000 viewers (247,000) (339,000)

Actually, Colmes may do fine on his own. My old blog--UNCoRRELATED, started out as a Hannity & Colmes experiment, but it became clear that my partner and I (Greg Prince) were just pissing off each other's core audiences.

The bottom line is that for any kind of opinion show, the opinions have to be bold and compelling, and that necessarily negates the kind of deference to differing opinions that one might find in mixed company. Inevitably the assertions about "those people" begin to grate. I note that the "other" mixed blog--"The Moderate Voice" is pretty much a left-wing enterprise these days.

I caught a few minutes of O'Reilly this evening where he had a "Democrat spokesperson" on to defend the notion of amnesty for illegal aliens. I consider that the subject is discussed in terms way too simplistic to be useful, but the real barrier to discussion was Ms. Menendez' characterization to anyone who challenged her point of view as "right-wing extremists".

Yeah--let's have lunch. Not.

The Hannity show has the potential to be a lot better show that it has been, because it becomes a lot safer to discuss the issues without the instant polarization that Colmes represents.

I can't say I watch it regularly, since it comes on in the wee hours, but I enjoy watching Red Eye with Greg Gutfield on the Fox News channel.

Not everyone does.

"Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld" on the Fox News Channel must be boycotted or taken off the air. Its sexist, misogynist, homophobic, racist, speciesist and self-hating host must be maimed, lynched and/or killed.

If not, someone might be offended. And that cannot happen - especially now that President Obama is poised to make everything really great.

In an era of extreme political correctness, when almost everyone is offended by almost everything, and with self-appointed advocacy groups organized to find offense on behalf of almost everyone - offensively, without the majority in the group's consent - it's nice to know that there's a place to go where everyone can be offended almost all of the time.

I personally think Gutfield lives for hate mail. You can just see the tingle go up his leg. Its an odd show, reflecting a kind of hip conservatism that enrages liberals who insist on characterizing all conservatives as inbred chicken pluckers. Gutfield is witty, irreverent, but eminently likable--you basic liberal nightmare. Nobody can really complain about the format being derivative, because as near as I can tell, there is no format--just some regularly occurring events, an eclectic mix of guests and perspectives and lots of mockery.

I think you have to work pretty hard to be outraged by it, but for some people that just comes so much easier than for others.

I'm reading Lloyd Grove's interview with Katie Couric on the Daily Beast and the overwhelming impression I'm getting is that these people remind me of the Dungeon and Dragons geeks I knew growing up--oblivious to the world around them as they discuss game arcania with a gravity that was both amusing and pathetic.

The occasion of the interview is apparently a one percent increase in Couric's ratings

For the first time evah, CNN has dropped into third place among cable news networks, falling behind MSNBC.

Through Wednesday, Fox was averaging 2.73 million prime-time viewers in March. MSNBC had 1.16 million and CNN had 1.14 million. The March ratings period ends Friday, and it's doubtful CNN will be able to overcome MSNBC.

"The fact that one network may have eked out a slight edge in one small slice of the overall business really doesn't say much of anything," Jon Klein, CNN U.S. president, said on Friday. "It's more clear than ever, given the way that our competitors have positioned themselves, that CNN has positioned itself as the real news network."

Relying on news, rather than opinion, leaves CNN more susceptible to higher ratings peaks during big stories and lower valleys in routine times. Yet it's hard to consider the present — new president, economic turmoil and two wars — a slow news period.

CNN's ratings news "is very significant," said Frank Sesno, a former CNN Washington bureau chief and now a professor at George Washington University. "This is a big problem."

More significant is what CNN's ratings problems mean coupled with the daily drumbeat of layoffs in the newspaper industry, he said. With people more interested in hearing things through an ideological prism as a form of entertainment, it diminishes the value of independent voices giving straight news.

"It's getting harder to do real journalism on television," Sesno said. "This is `man the ideological barricades.'"

Two different takes on the nature of the problem, and I think they are both right.

CNN's perception of itself as a "straight news network" is a large part of the problem.

There is no such thing as "straight news" and frankly there never has been. Walter Cronkite let slip the reality of the business several years ago while be interviewed when he mentioned that he missed "shaping the news". That was a huge admission because it correctly represented the modus operandi of new bias--selective reporting. Outside of their opinion and commentary show, all the news networks provide "straight news", but what have they decided to report in "straightforward fashion"?

Whatever they hell they want.

Therein lies the real problem for CNN--what they have decided to report or not report is dragging down the network. The claim that we are in a slow news period when the Obama administration and its cronies on the Hill are spending trillions of dollars of taxpayer money to create machine politics at a national level, just crushes their credibility. They are looking for middle ground where none exists--either you love this (in which case you are Keith Olbermann's kind of pansy...), or you hate it and you are watching Fox News.

The polarization of this country has reached a tipping point.

That's Harlan Howard's description of country music. Clint Black plays in this clip from the farewell episode of The Larry Sanders Show. I love that show. It's all on YouTube and when I'm alone I watch it on my laptop in bed. Start this clip at 3:40. For afficionados the incidental action during the song is just exquisite:

How big of a crisis is the Obama administration for this country?

Well if you use the measure of Fox News ratings--a bigger crisis than the invasion of Iraq.

Fox’s programs have drawn record numbers of viewers this year. Through last week, Fox averaged 1.2 million viewers at any given time this year, up from one million viewers through the same time last year. Previously, the channel peaked in 2003, the year the Iraq war started, with nearly 1.1 million viewers.

The Obama administration seems to be doing their best to drive Fox's audience numbers, by actively attacking the news channel and attempting to isolate them.

The White House has limited administration members’ appearances on the network in recent weeks. In mid-September, when the White House booked Mr. Obama on a round robin of Sunday morning talk shows, it skipped Fox and called it an “ideological outlet,” leading the “Fox News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace to appear on Bill O’Reilly’s prime-time show and call the administration “the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with in my 30 years in Washington.”

Ms. Dunn called that remark juvenile and stressed that administration officials would still talk to Fox, and that Mr. Obama was likely to be interviewed on the network in the future. But, she added, “we’re not going to legitimize them as a news organization.”

Actually, if Dan Rather's standard of speaking "truth to power" is the measure of journalistic legitimacy and integrity, then Fox appears to have done a great job of legitimizing itself. Obama on the other hand, validates the perception of his administration as a collection of preening narcissists by its jejune snit over Fox's perfectly normal coverage.

Yes--perfectly normal, because the problem lies not with Fox, but rather with all the other news organizations who've adopted the role of American Pravdas.

I'm frankly mystified by the administration's concern with Fox. From my perspective, their hold on the media is unprecedented. CNN has abandoned its pretense of even-handedness to embrace the MSNBC dynamic of Democrat party organ. They should be deliriously happy they get so much positive coverage. If George W. Bush was in Obama's position, screwing up the country this badly, Katey Couric would be burning him in effigy on the nightly news.

The irony here is Fox's ratings are largely the result of the lack of diversity in media coverage. There simply is no middle ground anymore. The administration and its media allies have created the George Bush world they criticized so relentlessly--you are either with us, or against us.

Since Americans who believe in the traditional values of freedom and self-reliance can't be with the socialist-fascists, then we find ourselves having to making common cause with Fox News...

CNN falls to fourth place, behind even its joke-of-a-sister-network Headline News. What do they conclude lies behind their lackluster performance?

The results demonstrate once more the apparent preference of viewers for opinion-oriented shows from the news networks in prime time.

CNN has steered opinion hosts like Nancy Grace to HLN, while maintaining more news-oriented shows on CNN itself. When news events are not being intensely followed, CNN executives acknowledge, viewers seem to be looking for partisan views more than objective coverage.

More cellar-dwelling for these bozos.

One of the best ways to test a premise, is to look at its extremes.

If terrorists were to blow up the White House tomorrow, you can bet your hiney that everyone in the country would be tuning into CNN and the other cable news shows, no matter what the time of day. The concept of "prime time" would be suspended. What does that tell you?

Americans will watch news, so if they aren't watching news programs its because there is no actual news being reported, and in large measure, this is the fault of the state media, whose job, as Chris Matthews tells it, is to "support" the Obama administration.

I am still a little amazed at how stories that would have been on the front page during the Bush administration, are of little or no interest today.

If your job is to suppress the news, then you can't complain when people don't watch your news show.

I caught a few moments of 'V' (a remake of a television mini-series by the same name) while my DVR caught the rest. Apparently I wasn't the only one to catch the allusion to President Messiah.

Imagine this. At a time of political turmoil, a charismatic, telegenic new leader arrives virtually out of nowhere. He offers a message of hope and reconciliation based on compromise and promises to marshal technology for a better future that will include universal health care.

The news media swoons in admiration -- one simpering anchorman even shouts at a reporter who asks a tough question: "Why don't you show some respect?!" The public is likewise smitten, except for a few nut cases who circulate batty rumors on the Internet about the leader's origins and intentions. The leader, undismayed, offers assurances that are soothing, if also just a tiny bit condescending: "Embracing change is never easy."

So, does that sound like anyone you know? Oh, wait -- did I mention the leader is secretly a totalitarian space lizard who's come here to eat us?

Welcome to ABC's "V," the most fascinating and bound to be the most controversial new show of the fall television season. Nominally a rousing sci-fi space opera about alien invaders bent on the conquest (and digestion) of all humanity, it's also a barbed commentary on Obamamania that will infuriate the president's supporters and delight his detractors.

One day after the Fort Hood massacre, my local TV station, KSL, is telling us nothing to see here, move on:

Reaction from Utah's Muslim community to Thursday's deadly shootings at Fort Hood is one of sadness and regret that the gunman is of their faith. Their leaders are anxious for people of other faiths to understand what he did has nothing to do with Islam. (emphasis added)

Many devout Muslims are horrified about the Fort Hood massacre, but the idea that violence has "nothing to do with Islam" is fiction. Just in 2009, the world has endured at least 1673 incidents of terrorism, honor killings, and religious executions - all in the name of Islam.

7,869 deaths and 15,394 injuries. This year.

Ignoring Iraq and Afghanistan still leaves 4,046 murders in 36 countries. The level of violence associated with Islam dwarfs that associated with the world's other leading religions. Despite KSL's report, there are many adherents who do find violence an acceptable expression of Islam. To state or imply otherwise is misleading.

I've actually never watched Lou Dobbs since he became controversial. I would catch him occasionally on CNN when he was discharging his anchor duties in the early days of the network, but aside from a periperhal awareness that he was an a staunch opponent of open borders immigration policy, he just didn't come up on my radar.

You gotta hand it to him though--he wasn't just an irritant, but irritating to the right people.

This just in.

Kathy Griffin won’t be allowed back on CNN’s New Year’s Eve show after two consecutive years of profanity-laced jokes, AOL.com’s PopEater blog reported Tuesday, citing executives at the news network.

A year after ringing in 2009 by trading barbs with a heckler on live television the comedian one-upped herself with a series of adult-themed jokes while standing next to straight-laced anchor Anderson Cooper.

“She was a total embarrassment to the network that calls themselves 'The Most Trusted Name in News.' Even Anderson thinks it's time to say goodbye to Kathy,” a CNN insider told PopEater.

Makes me wonder if anyone at CNN bothered to watch one of Kathy Griffin's shows. Griffin isn't doing anything out of the ordinary (for her), so it pretty clear that if anyone should be embarrassed, its the morons at CNN.

When NBC announced its brilliant plan to move Jay Leno to 10:00PM (and preempt local news in many markets), the brass were patting each other on the back. Thinking of all the money they would save by putting a 'cheap' talk show into a prime-time slot had them rubbing their hands with glee. Furthermore, they get to keep both Leno and Conan---genius! Shear genius!

Of course, nobody bothered to ask the audiences.

After a couple of nights of big ratings, Leno sank beneath the waves to join Conan's Tonight Show underwater. Serial philanderer Dave Letterman surged into first place...

Give Leno his due--he's no prima donna. He in fact jokes about impending cancellation on his show. NBC has been doing its best imitation of Janet Napolitano---no, no, no--the system worked!.

"As we have said all along, Jay’s show has performed exactly as we anticipated on the network," the network said in a statement. "It has, however, presented some issues for our affiliates. Both Jay and the show are committed to working closely with them to find ways to improve the performance."

I guess I find it amazing that TV execs--getting paid the big bucks, are so utterly clueless about the television market. Along with my own commentary, I read dozens of other blogs who were equally dubious about the entire scheme.

No one watched the Tonight Show because it was a great show. They watched it because it was the last vestige of appointment television--a benign habit for late-night loungers. As long as NBC kept main-lining the junk at 11:30, the habit persisted, but the recent shakeup served as involuntary rehab, as viewers shaken out of their somnambulism, grabbed the remote and found Everybody Loves Raymond reruns.

New habits.

What are the chances that NBC can put Humpty-dumpty back together again? Virtually nil in my opinion.

I'm not in London but I'll post this clip because:

• When I see this face on a Guardian columnist, I recoil a little, so I'd never before read or watched anything by Charlie Brooker, hence I was curious to see the clip via Hot Air.
• 

•  The clip has some nice shots of my part of London.
•  It's struck a chord in the US, tho British in sensibility.

Click to enlarge-->

In the most desirable TV demographic of 25-54, which Keith will soon outgrow himself, "Countdown" lost 44% of its audience from the beginning of President Obama's term until this year. It could have been worse -- say, 45%.

Olbermann averaged 268,000 viewers last month in that sector. That's just several thousand sets of those eyes more than Campbell Brown over on CNN. According to one count, Keith even finished in that time slow behind Nancy Grace. Nancy Grace!

I don't quite understand why Nancy Grace merits nearly universal disrespect--she seems to do quite well considering she's on HLN.

I don't think Keith Olbermann is the real story here. The real story is that every left-wing talk show host on cable is seeing their rating crater, while every conservative talk-show host is seeing corresponding, massive gains. O'Reilly had a big audience before Obama got elected. Its fifty percent bigger now on average. In fact, you can't find a show on Fox that isn't bringing in the viewers, and here's the rub--there is an absolute universe of difference between the shows. Greta Van Susteren is no Fox babe, not particularly conservative, not shrill or bombastic. In fact she couldn't be more different than O'Reilly or Hannity, but she pulls in great numbers every night. I like her--she's unpretentious, intelligent and thoughtful--everything you were told you'd never find on Fox. Hannity is all passion, O'Reilly the avenger, Glenn Beck? I can't say really. He's a funny, crying guy who comes off a little maniacal at times.

Its hard to tell with the blogs, since actual unique readers are devilishly difficult to calculate accurately and sites like the Daily Kos are structured to take advantage of weaknesses in the system to create the appearance of a much larger readership. On the other hand, The Huffington Post is claiming to be growing, and I think I believe them.

The Huffpo has undergone a rather startling transformation, and I suspect its a realistic appraisal of what appeals to the left in this country--porn. Huffpo still has political postings, but increasingly its looking like Rupert Murdoch's newspaper 'The Sun'. I'm most familiar with the Canadian version, which is tamer than the British, but essentially they are the same in spirit--boobs, sports and gossip and a little news around the edges.

MSNBC might want to consider this dynamic more carefully. Maybe they can make money as a cross between Spike TV and CNN. Olbermann might want to consider providing some 'Manswers' as a feature--invite MSNBC babes (are there MSNBC babes?) to crush beer cans with their breasts. Highlight the latest ridiculous way to die, do a remote at the Adult Entertainment Expo. In between you go still characterize Scott Brown as, well, John Edwards.

Porn is a lousy business right now, but that doesn't change the fact that its precisely what a lot of people want to watch. MSNBC wouldn't charge for the porn, just like they don't charge the ten people that watch the network, but they would attract viewers and more importantly--viewers in the 'right' demographic. The advertising possibilities are interesting--if they're careful.

Nothing to do but wait for Keith to become cable's new pornmeister...

On his first day back to work on the Tonight Show, Jay Leno stomped rival David Letterman with an audience 45% bigger than Late Night.

I'm not at all surprised. The lovely bunny and I were discussing it last night and its really a simple equation--we like Jay Leno, we don't like David Letterman.

Ironically, I gather that insight from Oprah, who we DVR'd because Jerry Seinfeld was a guest. He introduced the Tom Pappas, the host of "The Marriage Ref", as a guy who was impossible to dislike. I'd have to agree--there is just something genial about the Seinfelds, Pappas and Lenos of the world--guy you don't mind dropping in for a visit.

Who knew that being unobjectionable could be the ticket to success? Oh, and being funny too.

Since switching my satellite television provider last year, I don't get MSNBC news in my channel lineup--not that I ever watched them. In fact, I only know that because I was looking for it during the Olympics so I could catch some hockey.

Nevertheless, I still hear about MSNBC regularly for the most ironic reason--MSNBC has become the news.

The conservative interest probably revolves around the Conanic philosophy of what is best in life--to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and to hear the lamentations of the women.

Not that Keith Olbermann is a woman, but he does exhibit a certain 'bitchiness' which gets worse as his world crumbles around him.

My interest in this slow-motion car crash revolves around the group dynamics. Here's an interesting development.

For those who might be interested – and you have every reason not to be – I am no longer with MSNBC. Three months short of my current contract I sent the following to the boss, Phil Griffin: “Phil, Just wanted to give you the heads up that my situation with MSNBC has become so unrewarding for me that I’ve decided to move on. — Craig”

Craig Crawford was a mainstay at MSNBC, and while decidedly left-wing in his perspectives, apparently not sufficiently orthodox to earn the trust and confidence of his paranoid, hard-left colleagues.

i simply could not any longer endure being a cartoon player for lefty games, just gotta move on to higher ground even if there’s no oxygen

My guess is that the only two things keeping MSNBC intact at this point--NBC's need for a foothold in the cablenews business and the absence of anyone in the cable news business willing to undertake the thankless task of cleaning up the mess and enduring the long climb back into some sort of competitive position.

..or just as likely--no one has a clue on how attract an audience.

So the ship is sinking, careers are going into the toilet, people's worldviews are being challenged in ways not seen since Jehovah's Witnesses saw the calendar tick over to 1915 without witnessing the Second Coming.

This my friends, is how evil--real, horrifying, how-is-this-even-possible evil, begins. It begins with fear of the unknown, develops into paranoia and becomes extreme to the point that everyone is under suspicion and the only way to avoid becoming a target is to demonstrate unflinching loyalty. In this dynamic, that loyalty inevitably gets tested by the demand to sacrifice members of the group. The paranoia spreads, the loyalty tests become more extreme and pretty soon you're calling out lists of people to be shot.

Craig Crawford, his views (whatever they are) notwithstanding, is a man who valued his freedom more than he feared the unknown. Ultimately it is people with this same quality that make it possible to sustain a free society.

Crawford himself will still have to face many challenges--financial, professional and personal, but in the end, the character that allowed him to escape the destructive spiral of MSNBC, will allow him to create a good place for himself.

Good luck man.

Nothing underscores the nature of the media's subculture than the burbling speculation about Larry King's successor on his eponymous CNN show.

Every month brings another story about how Larry's ratings have reached 'new lows', and in fact he's lost 44% of his audience over last year, routinely getting doubled by Sean Hannity and beaten up by the manly Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. Yet, poor ratings have done little to mitigate the enthusiasm of the media community for wondering who will assume 'the throne'.

Apparently the rumors can now be put to rest. Sorry Katie, but no soft-landing for you in Larry's chair. Piers Morgan, the Simon Cowell clone judge on America's Got Talent, has signed a lucrative deal to take over for Larry.

The liberal love affair with British lefties continues. Apparently qualified American lefties are in short supply. But wait, shouldn't Morgan have some journalistic credentials for the job? I mean, other than being British of a 'certain class', what does Morgan bring to the table?

Well, he used to be the editor of the far-left Daily Mirror--until he was forced to resign, Dan Rather-like after his paper committed a fraud on the British people by publishing staged pictures of British troops humiliating Iraqi prisoners.

Within the space of a few months the war in Iraq has claimed some formidable journalistic scalps. In January it was the chairman and director general of the BBC - skewered by the verdict of Lord Hutton. Last night they were joined in enforced retirement by the editor of the Daily Mirror, Piers Morgan. Mr Morgan had edited a rumbustuously anti-war paper - uneven in tone, but often laudable in ambition. Last night his newspaper career was in tatters after admitting that he had been hoaxed by whoever it was who sold him graphic pictures of Iraqi prisoners apparently being humiliated by British troops.

Well, that explains why he's been doing second-rate Simon Cowell imitations, but sheds no light on why CNN feels that a disgraced former publisher should be the face of CNN. The dissolution continues for CNN.

Retired anti-semite Helen Thomas, left her front row seat open when finally not even the liberal press could give her cover anymore, thus triggering a bidding war for her prime parking space in the White House press room.

Sounds like something you'd fight over if you lived in a concentration camp, doesn't it?

Well, apparently the Associated Press get's Helen's seat, and Fox gets AP's seat, which was also on the front row.

Liberal groups had lobbied for NPR's placement in the front row over Fox, which one petition called a "right-wing propaganda outlet."

Well, yes--isn't that how the White House has been characterizing Fox News? Not a "real" news organization? So how does the bete noir of all right-thinking liberals pull down such a prestigious seating arrangement?

Well, ultimately they have the viewers, and like it or not, the White House sometimes has to direct its rhetoric at the benighted masses.

Now its just going to be that much more obvious when Robert Gibbs ignores Major Garrett.