Glenn Beck has a plan.  Actually, the Plan.  Which he reveals on his website.

Today, I have stopped looking for a leader to show us the way out because I have come to realize that the only one who can truly save our country…is us. To change America’s course we need to change ourselves, our expectations and our willingness to accept the unacceptable. When we refuse to allow our children to receive a trophy for participation, we are on the road to restoring the meaning of merit in our Republic. When we insist that no one is too big to fail, we will be able to learn from our mistakes, and when we demand that we are self-reliant, we will ensure that others can rely on us, not the government.

[...]

- Education is key, and not just for our children. To that end, we will be conducting a series of conventions. These will be full-day experiences where you will be immersed in learning about topics ranging from self-reliance, community organizing, the economy and how to be a political force in your own neighborhood and country. The first one will be in Orlando at UCF Arena on March 27th. You will also be able to vote to have a convention in your region by clicking here.

- I have begun meeting with some of the best minds in the country that believe in limited government, maximum freedom and the values of our Founders. I am developing a 100 year plan. I know that the bipartisan corruption in Washington that has brought us to this brink and it will not be defeated easily. It will require unconventional thinking and a radical plan to restore our nation to the maximum freedoms we were supposed to have been protecting, using only the battlefield of ideas.

- All of the above will culminate in The Plan, a book that will provide specific policies, principles and, most importantly, action steps that each of us can take to play a role in this Refounding.

- On August 28, 2010, I ask you, your family and neighbors to join me at the feet of Abraham Lincoln on the National Mall for the unveiling of The Plan and the birthday of a new national movement to restore our great country.

The Soviets and Chinese Communists were famous for Five Year Plans that Americans used to make fun of.  Beck, apparently, figures that their flaw wasn’t the hubris of planning the next five years but stopping 95 years short.

Apparently, the plan has yet to be hatched.  It’s intriguing to announce a 100 year plan but tell people they’ll need to wait nine months and a week to get the details.

If nothing else, Beck has intrigued NYT correspondent Brian Seltzer and a few bloggers. Seltzer reports that Beck “emphasized that while candidates may align themselves with the values and principles that he espouses, he would not take the next step to endorse them.”

Mr. Beck is not the only media firebrand trying to mobilize Americans disaffected with a Democratic-controlled government. The radio host Laura Ingraham is inviting candidates to sign a 10-point pledge on her Web site. Sean Hannity, on his afternoon radio show and prime-time Fox News program, is promoting “Conservative Victory 2010,” his name for the map on his site that will spell out questions for candidates. And the former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who has a show on Fox News, has steered viewers to his Web site, where they can contribute money to his political action committee in support of conservative candidates.

Pundits have used their media stages to encourage political action before, but people like Mr. Beck and Mr. Hannity are taking on outsize roles now, political experts and conservative commentators say. One reason, they say, is the weakened state of the Republican Party.

Beck’s strangeness aside, the idea of reshaping the American political system from the bottom up is interesting.  But while I rather like the idea of pressuring the Republican Party to get back to its small government roots — even by challenging it with a libertarian oriented third party — there’s precious little evidence that there’s anything close to majority support for that as a style of governance.   Like it or not, the Republicans became a Big Government party in recent years because that’s what the people have demanded.

I still see enthusiastic small government types calling for dismantling the Department of Education and other bits of leftover rhetoric from Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign.  But I doubt that even twenty percent of Americans are in favor of such a move.

The two parties and their constituent interest groups have done a superb job of poisoning the well.  Republicans have virtually ensured that we’ll never have anything short of a massive defense budget and we’ll never have the sort of confiscatory tax brackets for high earners that they have in Europe and we had here as recently as John Kennedy’s administration.  And Democrats have made it a virtual certainty that we’ll not only not cut back on the social safety net but that it will incrementally increase and periodically boom.   The “compromise” solution is massive deficit spending.

While we occasionally get Ross Perot types calling attention to the unsustainability of that approach, the excitement quickly fades.  While all of us can find big chunks of the budget we’d pare, there’s not enough overlap to get anywhere close to majority support — let alone the sixty votes necessary to get much of anything through the Senate.  And those who would face cuts to their subsidies care more and are better organized than those who want the cuts.

Dave Schuler likes to point out that things which are unsustainable will not be sustained.  But the nature of the American political system guarantees we won’t do anything until an absolute crisis forces us to.

For the second time in a week, Fox News has been caught using old video to give the false impression of larger-than-actual turnout at appearances of politicos they supported.  Sufficiently embarrassed at having been caught, Fox executives are promising “serious disciplinary action” for those responsible.

While the incidents add fuel to the fire that Fox is a Republican shill outlet rather than real news — and there’s growing truth to that charge — the real story here is that Fox has joined the larger trend in broadcast journalist of becoming a hype machine.

I was a big fan of Fox News when I first came across it a decade or so ago.  Mostly, I just watched Brit Hume’s nightly “Special Report” newscast, although I did occasionally watch some of the talking heads.  At the time, I found it a refreshing alternative to the networks and CNN, all of which had a significant leftward bias but pretended otherwise.  Fox — or, again, at least the Hume show of that time — had a slight rightward bias but it seemed genuinely interested in being “Fair and Balanced” and more-or-less living up to its “We Report, You Decide” mantra.

Somewhere along the way, it became both more partisan and more shrill.  Everything was Breaking News and hype.

The thing is, it’s not just Fox.

As I’ve mentioned perhaps too many times, I’ve long since drifted away from watching television news on a regular basis, finding the Internet a much more efficient and less aggravating means of getting information.   But I catch news shows from time-to-time, usually while traveling or because someone else has the television on.   And everything from “Good Morning America” to the nightly network news promos to local news radio is in the same hype mode.  It’s all crisis this, emergency that, and tragedy the other.

It’s like Jerry Springer is suddenly in charge of all news programming.

Still, Fox is in a special category because it is perceived as the conservative network.   Too many of these episodes and it will simply be dismissed as hackery by all but the most die-hard Republicans.

There are already a goodly number of conservative-leaning outlets such as Drudge, WorldNetDaily, and CNS that even unabashed Republicans are embarrassed to cite as sources for their arguments.

Fox isn’t there yet.  It would be a shame if it crossed into that territory, however, as there’s no road back.

CNN has dropped to fourth place in the cable news business it invented. And Fox continues to rise while under fire from the administration.

CNN, which invented the cable news network more than two decades ago, will hit a new competitive low with its prime-time programs in October, finishing fourth – and last – among the cable news networks with the audience that all the networks rely on for their advertising. The official monthly numbers will be finalized at 4 p.m. Monday and will include results from Friday. CNN executives conceded that will not change the competitive standing for the month. CNN will still be last in prime time.

That means CNN’s programs were behind not only Fox News and MSNBC, but even its own sister network HLN (formerly Headline News.) Three of its four shows between 7 and 11 p.m. finished fourth and last among the cable news networks. That was the first time CNN had finished that poorly with its prime-time shows.

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.

Individually, the CNN shows were beaten resoundingly by all the Fox News programs, but also lost to all of the MSNBC programs, including a repeat of Keith Olbermann’s 8 p.m. edition of “Countdown,” which beat the 10 p.m. hour of CNN’s signature prime-time program, “Anderson Cooper 360.” Again that was a first. Mr. Cooper had 211,000 viewers to 223,000 for Mr. Olbermann’s repeat. That meant Mr. Cooper finished fourth and last in the 10 p.m. hour because, besides being well behind the leader, Greta Van Susteren, who had 538,000 viewers, he was also beaten by a repeat of Nancy Grace’s 8 p.m. show on HLN, which averaged 222,000.

[...]

CNN executives emphasized that the network continues to draw more viewers than all its competitors except Fox News when all hours of the day are counted. CNN released a statement Monday saying, “CNN’s ratings are always going to be more dependent on the news environment, much more so than opinion-based programming especially in prime time.”

Now, of course, none of this answers the question as to whether Fox is a news network or a partisan outlet.  (In my opinion — granted, as someone who has all but stopped watching television news in recent years — it’s both.)  But it does show what the people want to see.

I personally find most of the cable news hosts insipid, if not grating.  (The exceptions, ironically, are the faux anchors Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, who manage to be smart and charming even while being partisan.)  But it’s human nature to prefer routine.  So, people who are in the mood for public affairs chat during prime time will naturally gravitate to their favorite news personality on at that hour and make that appointment viewing.

Indeed, the preference for host-based, periodic program over “whatever’s happening now” goes beyond news.  ESPN’s most popular programs are “Pardon the Interruption” and its lead-in “Around the Horn.”  Viewers — certainly, this viewer — are annoyed when “PTI” is pre-empted for some live sporting event such as the Little League World series or, say, women’s golf.   And the music channels all moved from showing videos of popular songs to more routine, familiar programming.

This is even more understandable in the Internet age.  People who are interested in news — whether about public affairs, sports, or the weather — can get it when they want it, how they want it.  There’s no longer much point in waiting for the 6:30 or 11:00 news.   Even shows like “SportsCenter,” which were a godsend 20 years ago, are now boring blather since it’s an hour talking about things viewers knew about hours earlier.  Indeed, it’s gotten so bad that they chopped off the last five minutes of “PTI” and hide it somewhere during the ensuing “SportsCenter” episode, forcing people to either miss the end of the show or watch a show they otherwise wouldn’t.  (Or, in my case, TiVo “PTI” for 90 minutes and fast-forward though both the commercials and non-”PTI” segments of “SportsCenter.”)

Postscript:  In terms of sheer business, it’s conceivable that CNN is making a good decision here.  They’ve essentially divided their network into two components, so  CNN and HLN both contribute to the bottom line.  The question is whether the amount of money spent on retaining name brand hosts 1) pays for itself in higher ratings and 2) offsets the cost of covering the news.

Topping Memeorandum is Mike Allen’s wild speculation for Politico about a presidential run by Roger Ailes.

Friends and associates are encouraging Fox News chief Roger Ailes to jump into the political arena for real by running for president in 2012, top sources tell POLITICO.

“Ailes knows how to frame an issue better than anybody, and that’s what we need now,” says one Ailes friend who is encouraging the Fox founder, chairman and CEO to seek the Republican nomination to run against President Barack Obama.

Ailes, 69, has an aggessive, winning personality that made Fox News a huge success — and a huge target for liberal critics.

Frank Luntz, the well-known Republican pollster, said Ailes could be a force if he makes the run. “I have known Roger Ailes for 29 years,” says Luntz. “No one knows how to win better than Roger.”

Talk of an Ailes run, which informed sources said is based on more than mere speculation, could escalate the White House war with Fox war in wildly unpredictable – and fun – ways.

This is a befuddling idea.

To be sure, Ailes is a smart guy with good strategic sense and a command of Republican ideas. Presumably, he wouldn’t have trouble raising money.  And, until such time as he actually declared, he could get a lot of free air time on the most popular news network on the planet.

But he’s not exactly presidential material.  While one could make the argument that “media mogul” is better preparation for president than “community organizer,” he’s never sought elective office or held comparable positions of responsibility.  In modern times, no person has ever been elected to the presidency — or to my recollection nominated by one of the major parties — without having been vice president, governor, senator, or  a famous general.

I can’t see Ailes breaking that mold.  And he’ll carry the baggage of every silly thing that Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity has ever said with him on the campaign trail.

UPDATE:  Ailes has already dashed this one, citing an obvious point that I neglected to mention:

Fox News President and CEO Roger Ailes is laughing off the entreaties of some friends and associates and will not run for president in 2012, an aide said Friday.

Ailes replied when asked about the possibility, according to the aide: “This country needs fair and balanced news more now than ever before, so I’m going to decline a run for the presidency. Besides, I can’t take the pay cut.”

Can’t say I blame him.

Correction: The original version said no person had been elected president without holding major office. As two commenters rightly point out, Abraham Lincoln (who ran for senator and lost) did just that.  The circumstances were, of course, rather more unusual in 1860 than 2008.  Relying on more than my memory, I quickly discovered that James Madison had not been more than a member of the House prior to his election.  They seem to be the only exceptions.

A series of scandals uncovered by conservative outlets and ignored by the mainstream press are starting to raise some uncomfortable questions.

The right-wing media’s single-minded focus on a handful of targets over the past months and its success in pushing those stories into the mainstream have underscored the sharp divide between traditional news organizations and the bloggers and talk show hosts aggressively pursuing an ideological agenda on-line and on TV and radio.

From birthers to tea parties to town halls and ACORN, the scandal-plagued anti-poverty group — not to mention President Obama’s speech last week to school children and the background of former White House aide Van Jones — issues initially dismissed or missed entirely by the national media have burst, if only fleetingly, onto the national agenda after relentless coverage on Fox News, talk radio and in the blogosphere.

“If it wasn’t for Fox or talk radio, we’d be done as a republic,” Glenn Beck declared Tuesday morning on “Fox & Friends.” Beck, who’s aggressively pushed the Van Jones and ACORN stories, told the morning show hosts that he plans to devote his hour-long, top-rated 5 p.m. show to new undercover tapes of ACORN employees.

Last week, Big Government, a site run by conservative Andrew Breitbart, showed videos of undercover stings in three ACORN offices, where journalists posing as pimps and prostitutes were instructed by employees on how to skirt legal restrictions on housing. The tapes got big play on The Drudge Report—where Breitbart has worked—and right-leaning news outlets and commentary shows. But only after the Senate voted to cut off federal funding to ACORN on Monday did the story get more attention in the mainstream media.

ABC “World News” anchor Charles Gibson seemed caught off guard by the ACORN tapes on Tuesday when he told Chicago radio hosts Don Wade and Roma that he hadn’t heard of them, in a clip flagged by prominent conservative blogger Michelle Malkin. Gibson added that “maybe this is just one you leave to the cables.”

Gibson’s executive producer, Jon Banner, echoes that sentiment: “There’s a tremendous amount of – for lack of a better word – ‘noise’ out there. We’re not in the business of noise.”

And he’s got a point. Heck, I saw a lot of these stories percolating on the blogs and Twitter and didn’t get around to blogging about them until they were pretty developed — if at all.  And I’ve long since stopped trying to cover every major story here, going back to focusing just on topics on which I have something to say.

The problem with Banner’s argument, though, is threefold. First, even in the context of a show that gets 22 minutes to cover all the major news of the day, there’s plenty of fluff.  Usually, a good third of the show is filled with fluffy human interest stories. Second, as Jeffrey Lord notes in a tangentially related piece, there’s a pretty long history of the mainstream media gatekeepers keeping a lid on stories harmful to Democrats while running with rumors harmful to Republicans. (Although, to be fair, there are surely examples of the reverse happening.) Third — and most importantly, perhaps — is that the networks are still operating as if they’re the only game in town.  Given that there is now a reasonably mature alternative media percolating these stories to rather large, if self-selecting, audiences, the judgment as to what constitutes “news” has been democratized.  It’s simply unwise for large media outlets that claim to deliver “all the news that’s fit to print” to ignore big political stories when millions of people are talking about them.

Related to the third, because there are alternative media for the left and right, it’s now incumbent on the mainstream press to investigate the big stories that percolate in those venues to ensure that they’re shared outside of self-selected cliques and to present the story in proper context, not just the cherry picked facts touted by the partisans.  Is there more to Van Jones than youthful sympathy with Communists and having put his weight behind the Truther movement?  Is ACORN corrupt at its core or is it merely mismanaged, with a shoddy business model that invites corruption?  Are the Tea Party protesters racist yahoos marching to the tune of Glenn Beck and Freedom Works, a diverse grass roots movement, or what?  The partisan media generally lack both the resources and incentives to report these things.

Update (Alex Knapp):The Daily Show took a look at this last night, and it was both funny and took the media to task on the story:

Update 2 (Alex Knapp): For the record, it appears that at least one of the ACORN workers “caught” in this video was just playing along because she thought it was funny:

ACORN employee Tresa Kaelke is shown meeting with them, telling them that she once was an escort and got away with killing her husband.

But Kaelke insisted Tuesday she made up her story for shock value.

“They were clearly playing with me,” she said “I decided to shock them as much as they were shocking me.”

[...]

Since she claimed on the video to have killed her husband, two San Bernardino police homicide detectives interviewed her at the office Tuesday.

Police said they have been in contact with Kaelke’s former husbands and the homicide claims do not appear accurate.

Heh, yeah. I would say that talking with someone is generally a good indication that they weren’t murdered.

And of course, as always, there’s some question over whether the videos were themselves selectively edited to make ACORN look bad:

San Bernardino resident Jim Miller, who lives near ACORN’s office and is also featured in the video giving business advice, said he thought the “whole thing was a preposterous production.”

He said he continued talking just to learn more.

Miller, a retired businessman, said he couldn’t believe the people wanted to propose such a “ludicrous enterprise,” but continued talking to them and asking questions to see where it would lead.

In the video, the filmmakers claim they would bring underage prostitutes from overseas

Amy Schur, ACORN’s head organizer in California, said the video is selectively edited. Kaelke repeatedly said ACORN couldn’t help the fake pimp and prostitute, but that does not appear on the video, Schur said.

I have to admit, if I saw two people dressed up in ludicrous costumes asking outrageous questions, I might play along for the fun of it, too, at least just to see where it was going.

Update 3 (Alex Knapp): Whew! After reading a few other stories, it looks like Tresa Kaelke is something of a nutjob. Additionally, and just for clarification, I’m not saying that the ACORN workers in these videos are all playing along or anything like that. Just that they have a side of the story, too. I’m generally inclined towards the more conventional interpretation of the videos (as noted in the Stewart clip above.)

Danny Glover reports on President Obama’s total restructuring of the White House message machine in a piece ominously titled “The Cost of Controlling The Press.”

Barack Obama’s White House is spending more than $80,000 a week to staff its old and new media offices. Add the price of speechwriters and the White House communications tab reaches nearly $100,000 a week, or nearly $5 million a year-and that is for salaries alone.

[...]

Although other staffers undoubtedly did work on the White House website and other Internet projects, Bush’s dedicated new media team appears to have consisted of two people-a specialty media director who earned $84,000 a year and a website assistant who earned $34,000. By contrast, Obama has the 11 employees in the Office of Public Engagement and another nine aides with titles such as new media director, new media creative director, deputy director of video and e-mail content/design lead. Those nine earn nearly $700,000 a year combined.

One has to read well into the piece, however, to understand that this is mostly a reshuffle of existing resources:

Overall, Obama is spending about 12 percent more for his communications operation than Bush-$4.97 million compared with $4.44 million.

So, while the White House spending nearly $5 million in taxpayer dollars for propaganda  seems outrageous on its face, it’s essentially par for the course. Presumably, the increase is a combination of cost-of-living adjustments and a reallocation of staff from other areas to communications. After all, Congress controls presidential spending on staff.

More troubling: Glover notes that the new communications team has managed to bypass the already Obama-friendly press on numerous occasions, including staged “town hall” meetings with preselected guests and even disinviting the press entirely from mundane events like photo-ops with championship sports teams, preferring to produce their own videos for release on the Web.

I don’t like it.  But, again, it’s a natural evolution of the system.  Ronald Reagan’s team was legendary for limiting access to the president and ensuring that their preferred sound byte was pretty much all the press had to report in a given day.  Bill Clinton famously bypassed the more difficult talk shows during the 1992 campaign, instead going on talk radio and late night comedy shows.  George W. Bush and his team gave more time to Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and other friendly outlets.   Obama is taking that to the next level using social media techniques that PR firms have been advocating for their clients for years.

Again, this is probably not healthy.  The press is an important check on our politicians and, to the extent the politicians can bypass the press to get their message out, we lose that check.  It’s especially problematic at times, like the present, when the White House and Capitol Hill are controlled by the same party.

It’s quite possible, however, that the press will grow tired of being manipulated in this way and go out and do some actual reporting.  Hanging around the press room for scraps isn’t really journalism, after all.

Rep. Lamar Smith (TX) had an interview yesterday on the number one rated cable news network, Fox News, in which he made the astonishing claim that “liberal media bias” is the biggest threat facing America today:

SMITH: Let me just say — this is going to sound radical, I don’t mean for it to be radical — but to me, the greatest threat to America is not necessarily a recession or even another terrorist attack. The greatest threat to America is a liberal media bias.

I find myself relieved that terrorism and economic recession are not, in fact, anything I need to worry about.

One of those shows I used to watch but haven’t in years, Fox News’ Beltway Boys, which starred Fred Barnes and Mort Kondracke, has been canceled, Paul Bedard reports, with network execs believing it had “run its course.”

Theirs was a fun mix of the week’s politics, a peppy version of some of the other Saturday media political reviews. They talked about “hot stories,” the week’s big events, and sized up personalities in the “Ups and Downs” segment.

While it’s now off the air, those in the know say that Barnes and Kondracke remain hot properties within the Fox family and will stay on to discuss political issues during special broadcasts and Bret Baier’s nightly Special Report.

My guess is that Fox is desperately trying to attract a younger demographic.  Kondracke turned 70 Tuesday and Barnes graduated high school in 1960, putting him in his late 60s.   I wonder whether there’s a long-term future for these sort of shows.  I grew up on them but the ability to quickly find what I want on the Internet has long since destroyed my patience for sitting through 30 minutes of chit-chat interspersed with commercials.

Friday, noting that President Obama was costing the television networks millions by constantly demanding prime time for news conferences, I mused, “given the availability of a half dozen cable news channels, I’m not sure why the networks don’t just go with original programming.”   Someone must be reading because Fox will be running “Lie to Me” instead.

Now there’s an opportunity for some clever marketing!

“The Fox Broadcasting Company will not air the Presidential News Conference,” Fox said in a statement. “Fox’s sister networks, Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Network, will air the press conference in its entirety. Fox will be alerting viewers with an onscreen graphic at the top of the 8:00 PM (ET) hour that the press conference is available on Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Network.”

That strikes me as quite reasonable.  As James Hibberd notes,

Fox carried the president’s two other post-inauguration news events, and even moved TV’s most popular show, American Idol, to make room for Obama’s most recent telecast. The network has rejected presidential requests for primetime coverage from previous administrations of both parties in the past.

Obama’s request falls inconveniently in the middle of sweeps, though his choice of time periods has improved. Aside from Fox, the other major broadcasters have low-rated programming in the hour, so the press conference shouldn’t prove too disruptive, and might even give 9 p.m. shows on NBC, ABC and CBS a better lead-in. Fox won 8 p.m. with Lie to Me last week, and the show might see a bump Wednesday since competitors will not air their usual entertainment programming.

According to one report, the nonpartisan research group Center for Media and Public Affairs found that evening newscasts have covered Obama more than both Pres. George W. Bush and Bill Clinton during the first 50 days of their first terms — combined. The study also found the media’s coverage of Obama was generally positive.

This is a political speech, aimed at taking advantage of the silly “100 days” meme and spinning it to the administration’s best advantage.  There’s no reason the networks — or the public — have to go along.   Something like 90 percent of Americans have cable or satellite now, so they have a plethora of news channels available to them.  As noted, Fox has two channels which will air the event.  For the unfortunate few who have to rely on over-the-air reception, there’s always PBS.  Or the radio.

I’m amused by Nico Pitney’s headline, “Shepard Smith Uncensored: “We Are America, We Do Not F**king Torture!” (VIDEO).”  Mostly because it censors Shepard Smith.

But the Left’s sudden embrace of Smith is interesting, too. It may have begun with this recent Esquire profile.

He has always managed to be a part of Fox and apart from it at the same time, and in 2008 he distinguished himself by treating Republicans as aggressively as Fox News normally treats Democrats — by seeming fed up with Republicans, and maybe with the strictures of Fox News itself. Now, in 2009, people are asking what’s up with Shep Smith as a way of asking what’s up with Fox — as way of asking how Fox is going to cover the news as it goes back to its oppositional role in the age of Obama.

“There has to be news at a place called Fox News,” he says, and he’s not the only one. It’s the mantra of the network, the fallback equation that — until the recent entrance of Glenn Beck, anyway — has enabled its employees to distinguish between the programming that takes place between nine in the morning and eight at night, which is called News, and the programming that takes over thereafter, which is called Opinion. “I think we do a pretty good job of labeling it for the viewer,” Shep says. “But we are under intense scrutiny because of our opinion shows. Are there people who want the news done a certain way? You bet there are, and some are in this building. But they don’t affect what I do. The inner pressure and outer pressure that everyone thinks exists doesn’t. When I hear people say that Fox News is right wing, I know that’s not true, because I’m the one doing the news. It’s my show, and there’s no place for opinion on my show. It’s uninteresting to me. I don’t care what Sean Hannity thinks and I don’t care what Alan Colmes thinks and I guarantee they don’t care what I think and they don’t know, either. You know what’s interesting to me? What’s interesting to me is that the thing people want to know about is the part on which I spend absolutely no time.”

My exposure to Smith was in the promos that came on during Brit Hume’s “Special Report,” which aired immediately prior to his show.  His bombastic style always struck me as clownish and I could therefore never take him seriously as a newsman.  Further, he came across as a huckster, so I always presumed that he’d deliver a Drudge-esque slant on the news.

So says E.D. Kain:

Fox News is simply not conservative.  The fact of the matter is, I find NPR and even News Hour more conservative than Fox – but in a different sense, I suppose, than the standard boiler plate conservatism that has so infested American politics.  What I mean to say is that the conservatism of Fox News tends to be wrapped up in loud, divisive, trashy television that is cheap and ugly and reactionary and essentially all things distasteful that conservatives should look at with scorn and antipathy.  The measured, reserved, thoughtful and culturally sensible tone of NPR is far more conservative.  I’d rather my kids listen to it than watch Glenn Beck.  I’d rather they listen to Fresh Air than Rush Limbaugh.  Why have conservatives let go of the high culture war?  Why have they conceded defeat there – in the arts, in literature, in music – trading it instead for trash television and cheap rhetoric?

Now, I’d disagree with the counter-premise that the Left is somehow more highbrow.  I don’t know that MSNBC is any less histrionic than FOX or that lefty talk radio is sweetness and light — or even that every show on FOX is lowbrow (”Special Report” was worth watching in Brit Hume’s day, as was “Fox News Sunday”).  And comparing mainstream NPR programming with unabashedly partisan shows is rather unfair.  But much of what passes for conservative commentary has certainly strayed from the path of William F. Buckley, Jr.

The particular case of Glenn Beck is interesting.  I watched a couple episodes of his Headline News show before growing bored and haven’t seen his Fox show, aside from a handful of clips on the blogs and other television shows.   From what I gather, he comes across as a raving lunatic who’s afraid of his own shadow.

The reason this fascinates me is that, perhaps three or four years ago, I was a regular listener to his talk radio show, which was on in the afternoons when I was making the 45-minute commute from my then-job to my then-home.  He was a bit more emotional than the typical show host, which I ascribed to his personal story of recovery from a series of poor personal choices, but seemed like a genuinely decent fellow trying to make sense of the world.  This was well after the shock of the 9/11 attacks, so the subsequent stylistic change is not part of the “everything” that changed on that fateful day.   So, I’m honestly flummoxed as to where the current incarnation of Beck came from.

Meanwhile, the leading lights of liberal commentary, comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, are taking the approach pioneered by Rush Limbaugh of making fun of the other side in a way that’s genuinely entertaining.   They don’t come across as afraid of or hating conservatives but as simply bemused by their opponents. [To clarify, I'm not arguing that Stewart and Colbert are Limbaugh imitators; they're not.  But Limbaugh was a pioneer in combining political commentary and humor in a way to attract a mass audience on a weekdaily basis.]

Regardless, I’d have to agree that I’d much rather spend an afternoon with your average NPR host — or, goodness, Stewart or Colbert — than most of the ranting loons passing themselves off as the voice of conservatism these days.

Via Memeorandum, I see that MRC is hammering ABC on a story that I somehow missed:

Media Research Center MRC President L. Brent Bozell, III has written a letter to ABC News President David Westin calling on him to publicly address and resolve what appears to be a clear violation of journalistic ethics by ABC’s Chief Washington Correspondent George Stephanopoulos. Last week a Politico story broke the news that Stephanopoulos has participated in daily phone strategy sessions with now White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel throughout his tenure at ABC.

Mr. Bozell on Thursday issued a statement demanding an explanation, and calling for Stephanopoulos to recuse himself from reporting on an Obama Administration whose plans and messaging he spends every morning helping to craft. Stephanopoulos has remained silent.

I was always dubious of ABC’s giving such a position to Stephanopoulos, who came to “journalism” immediately from being a senior operative at the Clinton White House.  Still, in the only venue where I’ve seen him operate — the Sunday morning “This Week” program — he does a solid job, playing the moderator’s role with fairness.  Further, it has been the norm for a quarter century or more for “objective journalists” to go on TV roundtable shows and put on their opinionated talking head hat.   Brit Hume, recently retired from the same role at Fox News, did that quite well.

But there’s a difference between simply being opinionated and actually taking part in the policial process. If [Bozell's characterization of] the Politico story is true, then Stephanopoulos should certainly step down from his managerial and reporting assignments.  There’s no reason he can’t keep hosting “This Week,” though, so long as he makes it clear when appropriate that he has a dual role.

UPDATE:  A friend of mine who’s a former Democratic Senate staffer objects, correctly I think, to Bozell’s characterization of the daily phone call.  Looking at the original Politico piece, I see why it didn’t make my radar screen previously.  The feature, titled “Power, politics, gossip on daily call,” is about “Washington’s longest-running conversation — a street-corner bull session between four old friends who suddenly find themselves standing once more at the busiest intersection of politics and media in Washington.” Even Mary Matalin, a Republican operative from way back, sees nothing sinister here:

Mary Matalin, who as Carville’s wife has overheard probably thousands of the group’s calls, describes the conversation as more profane, more sports-centric versions of a knitting club. “They talk like they are girls,” she said. “The conversations start in the middle and they end in the middle, and if they talk at night, they’ll start in the morning with no break in the flow.” “To me, the first purpose is friendship,” said Matalin, “and the second purpose is information-sharing.”

Here’s how Politico editor-in-chief John Harris, the feature’s author, describes it:

Everyone likes to deride the “conventional wisdom.” In fairness, though, the wisdom is not yet conventional at the moment it is hatched. And in any given news cycle, it is quite likely that Washington’s prevailing political and media interpretation — at least on the Democratic side — is being hatched on these calls. The process happens not by design but as the byproduct of pre-dawn badinage — a smart-set take on the world that gets amplified by the prominent platforms all of them hold and by the dozens of later calls and lunches and rants that they will carry on with others throughout the day.

In that sense, the morning calls — no single one of which usually lasts more than a few minutes — among this gang of four is the headwaters of at least one major tributary of Washington politics.

Really, it’s not a bad thing that ABC’s chief Washington correspondent is plugged into an active political network.

Post title changed from “Stephanoupolos Advises Obama – Conflict of Interest?” for the sake of accuracy.

As everyone knows by now, Bill Kristol’s last NYT column appeared yesterday. Aside from the italicized footer “This is William Kristol’s last column,” it was unremarkable.  Which, most observers on the Left and Right seem to agree, was something it had in common with most of Kristol’s NYT columns and largely explains why the one year experiment was not continued.

There are some dissenters, with Noel Sheppard and Ace contending that Kristol was fired for having the temerity to criticize the NYT.  The latter points out that, while Kristol is being criticized for factual errors, “barely a Paul Krugman column goes by without a large error — and some of these are even noted by the Times’ Ombudsman.”   Then again, “no worse than Krugman” is hardly a banner one wants to fight under.

More interesting than Kristol’s departure — no worries, he still keeps his gig as editor of The Weekly Standard and as a permanent fixture on Fox News, so he’ll be able to feed his family — is the speculation on who might replace him as the NYT House Conservative.

Radley Balko writes,  “You know what would be great? If the Times could find a genuine advocate of limited government (or at least a bona-fide civil libertarian) to take Kristol’s place.”   The links provide subtle endorsements of Jacob Sullum, David Boaz, Dave Kopel, Gene Healy, and Nat Hentoff.

Kevin Drum suggests, “It shouldn’t be a “liberal’s conservative,” it should be a genuine, dedicated, smart, reality-grounded, conservative’s conservative — someone who will drive liberals crazy. Who best fits that bill?”

Glenn Reynolds suggests Ann Althouse.

Michael Tomasky offers some interesting musings ranging from David Frum to Chris Caldwell to Ross Douthat to Reihan Salam to Tyler Cowen to Kathleen Parker.    In another post, he suggests Peggy Noonan, Karl Rove, and Christopher Buckley.  His bottom line strikes me as inarguable:

A bad idea would be another neocon who’s name is well-known but whom events have discredited as a thinker. That would be the lazy and obvious thing to do (just like hiring Kristol was the lazy and obvious thing to do). I think the Times should have a second conservative (after David Brooks), but the editors should put more effort into the selection this time.

One intrepid commenter even nominates yours truly. Twice. While I appreciate the consideration, I’m rather sure I won’t be on the list of finalists.

Patrick Ruffini nominates Rush Limbaugh, prompting Daniel Larison to note that he’s “not a writer by trade or by training.”

If the problem with many of Kristol’s columns was the feeling that he was phoning it in, what are the odds that a radio host whose public persona is built to a large extent on mocking establishment media outlets would take the job more seriously? Were it offered to him, his audience would probably accuse him of “selling out” if he took such a position. He has no incentive to do it, and the last thing conservatives need at the moment is to have Limbaugh take an even more prominent place as one of their major spokesmen. There are no doubt many mainstream conservative syndicated columnists who should be considered, as these are people who already write columns professionally, have a well-established readership and frankly have better instincts for what most other mainstream conservatives want to read than various heterodox alternatives do. If the NYT’s goal was to expand its circulation and increase traffic on its site, while also regularly providing a conservative perspective on its op-ed page, it would look at columnists already familiar and acceptable to the broader conservative movement. If the goal is to find a more “safe” conservative writer who will not antagonize regular subscribers and readers, their options are very limited these days.

I think that’s right.  Matt Yglesias is also onto something when he writes,

The goal in finding a conservative writer should be to find a writer who’s not a liberal but who liberals enjoy reading. That doesn’t need to be columns that make liberals feel good about themselves (e.g., conservatives writing about how brain-dead the GOP is, etc.) but it needs to be columns that liberals find not maddening but challenging. When I read Tyler Cowen’s skeptical notes on the stimulus, for example, I don’t become infuriated, I become better-informed about the issue. At his best, this is what David Brooks contributes on that page—he’s raised issues about public choice and so forth that liberals tend to neglect but that are genuinely important.

That’s the standard you should be reaching for, though, people who can take on strong liberal arguments and raise strong doubts about them.

That’s why I read Yglesias, Drum, Tomasky, Ezra Klein, and others.  It’s a good standard, I think, for judging opinion journalists.

I would also add to the criteria that it be someone with a track record in blogging or other rapid-response commentary, as that’s the wave of the future for punditry.  And, frankly, it would be good if it were someone who hasn’t already been a TV talking head for years.  Why not someone who has some ideas that will actually surprise people?

Larison would be an excellent choice as would Douthat, Salam, or Cowen.  There are probably a dozen others who meet the standards outlined above.

UPDATE: Orin Kerr offers a plan that’s simultaneously devious and efficient:

If I were at the Times, I would hire five columnists instead of one — paying them very little, because hey, they’re getting terrific exposure — and promise them that their columns would be posted on the Times website and then considered for inclusion in the paper version. I would then pick the best column written that week for inclusion in the paper version. Over time, a great columnist might emerge from the pack. And even if no great columnist emerges, at least you would avoid the problem of columnists who have the gig and are just coasting.

That would actually work.

Correction:  The original misattributed Radley Balko’s quote to Kevin Drum.  I’ve fixed it above.

With the polls now closed in California, FOX News has officially called the election for Barack Obama as of 11 Eastern, trailing OTB by more than two hours.

Juan Williams is choking up at the significance of a black man being elected president. It is indeed quite incredible.

Bill Kristol notes, too, that Obama will do it getting more votes than any president ever and with the highest percentage of the vote than any non-incumbent since Dwight Eisenhower.

Fox News just had a graphic up saying that 2/3 of white Evangelicals in West Virginia went for John McCain.   Thanks for the insight, guys.