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.

Dan Drezner notes that “We’re coming up on the five-year anniversary of Jon Stewart’s verbal skewering of Crossfire in particular and the whole genre of left-right cable gabfests in general.  Stewart said these kind of shows were ‘hurting America’ because of their general blather and failure to ask politicians good, sharp questions.”

Dan poses the Reaganesque question, Are you better off than you were five years ago?

Stewart’s appearance on Crossfire generated quite the navel-gazing among the commentariat, and played no small role in the eventual disappearance of Crossfire, The Capitol Gang, Hannity & Colmes, and shows of that ilk.

So, five years later, I have a half-assed blog question to ask — did Jon Stewart hurt America by driving these shows off the air?

If you’re expecting a lengthy defense of the Crossfire format right now, well, you’re going to be disappointed.  My point rather, is to question what replaced these kinds of shows on the cable newsverse.  Instead of Hannity & Colmes, you now have…. Hannity.  Is this really an improvement?

An interesting question, indeed.  As bad as those shows with people of the left and right yelling at each other were for the national discourse, they were arguably better than Glenn Beck or Keith Olbermann on their own. Speaking for myself, I had more-or-less stopped watching said shows before Stewart’s rant, relying instead on the blogs and other online venues for my political debate.  The only TV debate I catch, and that only occasionally, is the roundtable discussion on “This Week,” which I TiVo and watch time permitting.

Did the disappearance of the Crossfire-style shows hurt America? No. Then again, I don’t think the shows themselves were “hurting America,” either. They were simply a reflection of the fact that our political discourse had gotten increasingly polarized and canned — trends which, by the way, have continued since said shows went off the air.

Contra-Tucker Carlson, I actually believe shows like Stewart’s “Daily Show” and Stephen Colbert’s “Colbert Report” do a better job of illuminating issues than the screamfests did.  But that’s a rather low bar.  I much prefer the old “Firing Line” or “Dick Cavett” formats or, especially, the old “Firing Line Debate” programs. But, alas, that’s not where our political culture is at the moment.

Keith Olbermann is going after Glenn Beck now, requesting Daily Kos readers and viewers of his own show to “Find everything you can about Glenn Beck,  Stu Burguiere [Beck's radio producer], and Roger Ailes.”  Apparently, Olbermann found this “necessary after this in order to prove various cliches about goose and gander, and to remind everybody to walk softly and carry a big popsicle, and most particularly to save this nation from the Oligarhy of The Stupid.”

Somehow, this reminds me of Mad’s long-running “Spy vs. Spy” series.

Mike Rappaport “hates” David Brooks and finds him “a despicable character.”  Why?  He lets John Hinderaker explain:

Brooks . . . knows where his bread is buttered. He makes his living as a “conservative” who can reliably be counted on to sell out conservatives and Republicans at every opportunity.

In this instance, Hinderaker is reacting to Brooks’ characterization of Sarah Palin’s “death panel” hyperbole as “crazy.”

What’s the evidence that Brooks thinks Palin’s straw man is actually solid argumentation?  He doesn’t say. Presumably, Hinderaker (and apparently Rappaport) think it’s something that all good conservatives believe and that, since Brooks represents himself as a conservative, he must believe it, too, but be lying about it.  (That neither Hinderaker or Rappaport think Brooks is really a conservative, let alone a good one, is immaterial, apparently, in their psychoanalysis.)

I see much the same venom from the other side of the aisle toward David Broder.  Even though Broder doesn’t even pretend to be a progressive activist, “Broderism” is a slur word to denounce columnists who take the stance that conservatives sometimes have good points.

It’s as if True Believers presume that everyone else is like them.  It’s fine to be a True Believer on the other side but 90 percent friends are heretics who must be burned at the stake.  It’s simply inconceivable that someone who is generally conservative, as Brooks is, might simply have a different cultural background and not share some of the assumptions of the dominant Social Conservative wing of the movement.  Nor, apparently, does it occur to people for whom Inside the Beltway and elite are slurs that there actually is such as thing as Inside the Beltway elite thinking.

Hinderaker’s assessment is particularly bizarre, too, in its misapprehension of the punditry game — particularly coming from one who plays it so well.  Brooks and Broder are at a decided disadvantage precisely because of their moderation.  While “Crossfire” was canceled some time back, the style it pioneered is the predominant one in the industry.  Charlie Rose-style or Jim Lehrer-style conversation is a fringe relegated to public television; the money is in being the next Glenn Beck or Keith Olbermann.

While their agenda is different from mine, I’ve generally seen the Center for American Progress as a thoughtful, center-left institution. They employ talented, decent folks like Steve Clemons and Steve Coll (now their president and CEO). Think Progress, the blog of their “Action Fund,” has generally followed suit, despite most of its authors being quite young and thus not having had their enthusiasm tempered much by wisdom.

But, of late, Think Progress has been writing at the Media Matters level of hackishness. Take, for example, assistant editor Satyam Khanna’s piece “McCain Refuses To Condemn Ingraham’s Attacks On His Daughter,” which is currently making the rounds at memeorandum.

Khanna repeatedly uses the phrase “hate radio” to describe rather benign talk shows, including Laura Ingraham’s. Unless her style has changed drastically since last I listened, she’s much more polite than anything one is likely to find on, say, Air America.  Indeed, despite the occasional sophomoric insult, such as seen in the Meghan McCain flap, Ingraham is much tamer than Keith Olbermann, Jon Stewart, or Stephen Colbert.

The piece continues, charging, “in the past, McCain has courted the extreme right of the GOP, granting an interview to Ingraham as late as October 2008. Throughout the presidential election, McCain, long considered too liberal by the extreme right, frequently appeared on hate radio shows, and he has a history of defending the bigoted remarks of right wingers.”

What is it that makes Ingraham part of the “extreme right?”  The other “hate radio shows” linked include Hugh Hewitt’s and Bill Bennett’s.  What makes them hateful?  We’re not exactly talking about Michael Savage here, much less David Duke.

It seems “hate radio” is a favorite Think Progress buzzword;  Google returns 5,770 results on their site.  Apparently, any Republican-leaning talk show qualifies.

Which “bigoted remarks of right wingers” did McCain defend?  The link takes us to McCain’s condemning remarks made by John Hagee but noting that “I will say that he said that his words were taken out of context, he defends his position. I hope that maybe you’d give him a chance to respond. He says he has never been anti-Catholic, but I repudiate the words that create that impression.”

As to why McCain didn’t weigh in on Ingraham’s jibes at his daughter?  Who knows?  Maybe he figures Meghan’s doing just fine on her own?  Or, maybe, since she’s no longer his little girl but rather someone casting herself as a political pundit, he figures it would undermine her if he weighed in?

The Senate easily invoked cloture yesterday, ending a threatened filibuster of a major overhaul of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. The revised bill is expected to pass today.

This may be the most important bill we pass this year,” said Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), an architect of the bill crafted over four months of negotiations between congressional leaders and the White House.

The bill would require that the secret FISA court approve procedures for intercepting foreign nationals’ e-mails and telephone calls. Spying on U.S. citizens, including those overseas, would require individual warrants from the same court.

It also would establish the FISA law, and the secret court it created, as the final legal authority on government spying. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), the party’s presumptive presidential nominee, have cited the exclusivity provision as the main reason they supported the bill. They said it is a rejection of President Bush’s stance that his wartime powers gave him authority to approve the defunct warrantless wiretapping program.

So far, so good. The sticking point, though, is that the bill would give retroactive immunity from civil suits to telecommunications companies that complied with Bush Administration requests to assist in electronic surveillance absent FISA warrants. As FDL’s Ian Welsh notes, “Obama and McCain were both absent, as was Clinton.” The only others not voting were Robert Byrd and Teddy Kennedy, both of whom are recovering from serious medical conditions. One presumes the others were off campaigning or fundraising — and wanting to escape and on the record vote.

This didn’t prevent Obama and Clinton from being criticized. Carrie Budoff Brown, reporting for The Politico:

Disappointed over his position on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the online activists feel jilted and betrayed and have taken to questioning his progressive credentials. One prominent blogger, Atrios, has even given him the moniker “Wanker of the Day.”

“He broke faith,” said Matt Stoller, a political consultant and blogger at OpenLeft.com. “Obama pledged to filibuster, and he is part of that old politics, in this case, that he said he wasn’t. It will spur us to challenge him.”

The FISA debate marks the presumptive Democratic nominee’s first serious break from the liberal Netroots in the general election. He is still their candidate, but the FISA issue has reignited skepticism among major bloggers, who had largely pushed aside doubts about Obama when Edwards, their favored candidate, ended his bid in February.

Welsh says “This is a sad day, especially for those of us who believed Obama when he said he would support a filibuster against retroactive immunity.” More importantly, he correctly notes that yesterday’s was “the real vote” and that voting against the final bill, while it might fool “the rubes,” is meaningless.

Greg Sargent presents Obama’s explanation for why he reneged on his promise to “support a filibuster of an earlier version of the bill,” namely that, “My view on FISA has always been that the issue of the phone companies per se is not one that overrides the security interests of the American people.” That’s a statement that will play well with most Americans, I think, even if it upsets the netroots.

And, indeed, Obama has correctly gauged that the latter is of peripheral consequence.

Still, the disillusionment goes only so far. The liberal blogosphere’s most recognizable name, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, founder of Daily Kos, said Monday on MSNBC’s “Countdown With Keith Olbermann”: “Let’s be honest, it is either Obama or John McCain. So we really don’t have much of a choice.” At stake for Obama in the FISA vote is the intensity of support for Obama, Moulitsas said.

“I don’t want to hear him talk about leadership. I don’t want to hear him talk about defending the Constitution. I want to see him do it,” he said. “If he does, it will increase the intensity and level of support he gets from base Democrats. If he doesn’t, we may worry he is just another one of these spineless Democrats who are more afraid of controversy in doing the right thing than they are in actually doing the right thing.”

The intensity of outrage over telecom immunity continues to puzzle me. The core issue is finding a balance between 4th Amendment freedoms and the collection of intelligence necessary to prevent terrorist attacks. Ultimately, that means finding a way to get swift but real judicial oversight, preferably by people with a serious understanding of intelligence collection, to guard against executive zeal. The ability to retroactively sue phone companies, who complied with what they either thought were legitimate requests from the government to help go after the bad guys or simply feared alienating their regulatory overlords, has always struck me as a tertiary issue.

Jay Rosen argues, persuasively, that the only way out of the “media bias” trap is for journalists to stop pretending to be neutral and simply endeavor to be fair.

Professional journalists do not improve the situation when they double down on their neutrality and present objectivity as a truth claim about their own work. It is this kind of claim that compels people to furnish—furiously—more chapter and verse in the very bad and very long book of media bias. Which in turns causes Hoyt to return lines like, “Bias is a tricky thing to measure, because we all bring our biases to the task.”

The only exit from this system is for people in the press to start recognizing: there is a politics to what they do. They have to get that part right. They have to be more transparent about it. But this recognition is circuit-frying for the press we inherited from the Watergate era, and the long arc of professionalization before that. For it means that political argument isn’t really “separate” from news at all, even though the priesthood wants it to be, and still preaches that.

He cites Josh Marshall and others in the blogosphere as examples of being able to square this circle. When biases are stated up front but reporting and analysis is pursued with integrity, it can stand on its own merits. Further, it can generate something much better than the standard “get a quote from both sides” nonsense that passes as “objectivity” in the mainstream press.

Unfortunately, he also cites “Keith Olbermann anchoring political coverage for MSNBC while also engaging in ’special commentaries’ that denounce Bush for world class denial and criticize Hillary Clinton for fratricide.” Does anyone outside the hard left take Olbermann seriously as a journalist? Sure, he’s a talented broadcaster and he can dish it out to those on the left, like Clinton, who earn his ire. But agenda trumps fairness every time.

I’m not sure, incidentally, that there’s a crisis afoot. Even under the current Illusion of Objectivity model, the reporting is fair most of the time. I have my clock radio wake me to NPR every morning even though they’ve clearly got a progressive social agenda on a handful of issues. Even the dreaded NYT produces superb reportage on a day in, day out basis with only the occasional lulu thrown in.

But, ultimately, Rosen’s ideal type is better than the current one. The thing that makes the best bloggers better than the best reporters is that the former operate in a low trust environment while the latter operate under the mantle of automatic respectability. That forces the blogs to lay out the facts, link to sources, and anticipate the responses of those who will disagree. Terrific reporters for major outlets, by contrast, often trip up because they begin from the premise “Trust me, I work for ___________.”

At 12:20 Eastern yesterday, I got a CNN Breaking News alert that read, in its entirety, “Britain’s Prince Harry has been serving on the front line in Afghanistan, CNN confirms.” I found it mildly interesting, in that his superiors had previously decided the security risk in sending him to Iraq was too high, but didn’t have anything significant to say about the matter and had plenty of other work to do.

The Independent’s Terry Judd, though, adds a twist: “Prince’s cover in Afghanistan blown by Drudge Report.”

An American website, the Drudge Report, broke a news blackout yesterday by revealing that Prince Harry has been serving in Afghanistan for more than two months.

To the fury of the Ministry of Defence and condemnation from the head of the British Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, the website announced a “world exclusive” and proclaimed: “They’re calling him ‘Harry the Hero!”.

The article brought to an end an agreement with the media that the Prince’s deployment to Helmand be kept quiet in the interests of his safety and that of the soldiers with him.

The decision to send Prince Harry, 23, to Afghanistan under a cloak of secrecy came after the furore that followed the revelation of his proposed deployment to Iraq. Much to the Prince’s frustration, General Dannatt announced in May last year that it would be too risky, fearing the Prince and his comrades in the Household Cavalry would become top priority targets for insurgents.

Immediately, officers decided the only way the third-in-line to the throne could continue to do his duty without creating an additional security risk was to send him secretly, calling on the media to co-operate in a news blackout. By July, editors of key newspapers and broadcasting organisations were sounded out to see if such assistance would be forthcoming. Without dissent, all agreed that it was the only sensible and safe solution. In December, days before Cornet Wales – as the Prince is known in The Blues and Royals – deployed to Helmand, editors met MoD officials and signed an understanding setting out the terms of the news blackout. While not a legally binding document, it was a statement of faith from the British press.

It is thought the source for the Drudge Report article was a story printed last month in an Australian women’s magazine, New Idea. The Drudge Report is most famous for breaking the Monica Lewinsky scandal after Newsweek decided not to publish the story.

At 3.30pm yesterday the MoD received a call, confirming fears that a foreign news organisation would break the silence. A decision was taken to make a formal statement confirming the Prince had been in Afghanistan. “I am very disappointed that foreign websites have decided to run this story without consulting us. This is in stark contrast to the highly responsible attitude that the whole of the UK print and broadcast media, along with a small number of overseas outlets, who have entered into an understanding with us over the coverage of Prince Harry on operations,” General Dannatt said. “The editors took the commendable attitude to restrain their coverage. I would like to thank them for that.”

Presumably, Matt Drudge was not a signatory to said agreement and had no duty to abide by it. And, contrary to what John Aravosis, Logan Murphy, and Keith Olbermann are saying, it’s not as if he was revealing secret troop movements; the existence of British patrols in Helmand province was well known.

Still, one longs for the old days when gentlemen’s agreements like this were honored for their own sake. Indeed, it’s somewhat surprising that the news blackout on this story was as successful as it has been. Allowing Harry to do his duty outside the spotlight and without creating a high profile target for the Taliban is a noble gesture and far outweighs whatever “public right to know” that would have justified breaking the embargo.

That, of course, is over. The decision has naturally been made to cut his tour short.

A formal decision will be announced within the next hour to confirm the 23-year-old officer’s war has come to an end.

Harry is still out on operations in the Helmand desert with his troop of Household Cavalry – where he is considered safe for the time being. But top brass have accepted Taliban fighters will now be doing their all to find him. And Harry has agreed that he will leave the war torn country within the next 72-hours for a flight home to the UK. But the precise extraction plan will be kept a closely guarded secret to protect his safety.

The news comes after Taliban fanatics were feared to be hunting down Harry after he secretly fought in the Afghan badlands for ten weeks.

The young lieutenant killed up to 30 of the enemy on his frontline tour by directing at least THREE air strikes.

One suspects that his services as a forward air controller can be easily replaced. His especial value was the symbolism of having a prince in harm’s way. To some extent, it could be argued, the publicity value is heightened now that the secret’s out of the bag and that’s not entirely a bad thing as NATO is scrambling to support the Afghanistan mission. But one would have preferred that he be permitted to finish his tour as just another lieutenant.

Photo credit: The Guardian/John Stillwell/PA

UPDATE: Alex Massie passes on word that several British bloggers, and even celeb gossip site Popbitch, had knowledge of Harry’s whereabouts and sat on the story despite the sacrifice of traffic (and presumably, ad revenue) that this entailed. Good for them.

MSNBC’s David Shuster has been suspended for his on-air musing, “Chelsea is sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?”

I saw the news yesterday evening and didn’t find it particularly interesting but apparently I’m alone, in that it’s getting the mega treatment at Memeorandum.

Howie Kurtz, the media critics’ media critic, gets page C1 for the story.

In case there was any doubt, using a prostitution metaphor for the daughter of a presidential candidate is not a good career move.

MSNBC suspended correspondent David Shuster yesterday for an undetermined period for making a disparaging on-air remark about Chelsea Clinton. Meanwhile, officials in her mother’s campaign raised the possibility of punishing the news channel by boycotting future debates.

While filling in as a host Thursday, Shuster was discussing the 27-year-old’s role in Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign with two guests when he asked: “Doesn’t it seem as if Chelsea is sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?”

Howard Wolfson, the campaign’s communications director, called Shuster’s remark “disgusting,” “beneath contempt” and “the kind of thing that should never be said on a national news network.” Wolfson appeared to suggest that Clinton is reconsidering an agreement this week to participate in an MSNBC debate Feb. 26 in Cleveland, saying: “I at this point can’t envision doing another debate on that network.”

Shuster, who plays a prominent role in MSNBC’s political coverage, told viewers last night that his words were “inappropriate. . . . I apologize to the Clinton family, the Clinton campaign, and all of you who were justifiably offended. . . . I am particularly sorry that my language diminished the regard and respect she has earned from all of us and the respect her parents have earned in how they raised her.”

[...]

Wolfson noted that MSNBC’s Chris Matthews expressed regret last month for suggesting that Hillary Clinton’s political success can be traced to sympathy stemming from her husband’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. “At some point you have to question whether there is a pattern at this particular network,” Wolfson said.

I’m no fan of Shuster. Indeed, he’s a total and utter hack and MSNBC should be ashamed they can’t find a more serious journalist to put on their air.

But these remarks aren’t worthy of tut-tutting, let alone firing. Ace, who shares my view of Shuster but more colorfully, gets it right: “It’s a common expression now. We know it doesn’t literally mean ‘turning out as a whore.’” Quite so.

Shuster’s analysis is rather silly — it’s pretty common for adult children of candidates to be trotted around during the campaign — but his word choice is completely unobjectionable unless one’s campaign is imploding and desperate to make political hay. TPM’s Greg Sargent seems to agree that this is precisely what’s happening.

And, frankly, Matthews was exactly right in his remarks. Hillary Clinton got a huge bounce in public sympathy after the Lewinsky affair, without which her successful Senate bid and multi-million dollar book deal simply wouldn’t have happened.

Digby, though, feels the Clintons are right to be offended.

My suspicion is that the bigger questions about all this have been lost on the MSNBC crew as they circle their wagons and get more and more defensive. They’ve sublimated their own discomfort(shame?)with this discussion by making it into a political/journalistic turf battle, when in fact, it’s something much more psychological/sociological.

Matthews is somewhat deranged on this subject, because he sees the entire political system through some sort of gender prism, so he’s a special case, but the other offenders could be caught up in this out of a sort of collegian loyalty which has morphed into outright hostility toward people who are “making” them feel uncomfortable with their own behavior. It snowballs to the point where nobody knows what’s true anymore.

The defensiveness doesn’t surprise me. Journalists think it’s their role to criticize politicians but don’t think it’s fair game for the politicians to fire back.

Maybe she’s right that, “it behooves all of us to be skeptical of news organizations that behave like adolescents, no matter where your political allegiances lie.” Certainly, you wouldn’t have caught Walter Cronkite or David Brinkley or John Chancellor or any of the biggies from a generation ago using this kind of language. (Although, come to think of it, there was an open mic incident late in Brinkley’s career.)

But the business has changed. These channels are on 24/7/365, trotting about people to fill the time with what amounts to idle speculation. It’s only natural that they’re going to say some really stupid things or even phrase some smart observations in inappropriate ways. That’s even more likely when there are three of them competing for a rather limited set of eyeballs. Rather than go Walter Cronkite on us, they’re trying to be hip and fresh with yahoos like Shuster.

UPDATE: Olbermann Watch wonders why Keith Olbermann felt the need to apologize for his MSNBC roster-mate’s using the phrase “pimp out” in relation to the Clintons but not his own use of “pimping General David Petraeus.” Cox has a very special video remix.

Keith Olbermann has named Mary Katharine Ham the “Worst Person in the World” for expressing the view on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” that Bill Clinton has to be a bit stunned by the backlash over his negative campaigning on behalf of his wife because he was used to soft treatment from the press.

I think he’s sort of a victim of the — or not a victim, but he’s getting used to the 24-hour news cycle. When he was president, he was not subjected to quite as much scrutiny, and I think he got a lot of passes, and now he’s mad he’s not getting them anymore.

Olbermann gets positively apoplectic over this, making fun of Ham’s youth and pointing out that Clinton got the 24-hour news cycle in all its force during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and was, after all, impeached:

AllahPundit contends, “Nowhere did MK suggest that Clinton had gotten a pass about Monica, only that he’d gotten passes otherwise” but given the context of the “24-hour news cycle,” Olbermann’s interpretation isn’t unreasonable.

The so-called “CNN Effect” was in full swing by the time Clinton took office. Ham has a point though, that “the quick and constant fact-checking of the Internet” and the fact that “his mis-statements and blow-ups are routinely recorded and picked apart” are new advents. Matt Drudge made his name by scooping Newsweek on its own story with the Lewinsky affair but, for the most part, the pack mentality of the Big Media was all there was during Clinton’s time in office; the blogosphere kicked up the 24/7 scrutiny several notches.

Olbermann would be on much firmer ground here if he weren’t so over the top. While I’d argue that Clinton often benefited from a press corps that was sympathetic to his ideas and won over by his charm, it’s hard to make the case that he wasn’t subject to plenty of press scrutiny. But, surely, that’s not an argument worth blowing a gasket over.

While I realize that “Worst Person in the World” is one of Olbermann’s shticks and that it’s meant to be hyperbole, it’s really a bizarre title to bestow for expressing an opinion on such a minor issue.

MSNBC is looking to capitalize on the success of Keith Olbermann’s leftist rants by hiring more people like him, including Rosie O’Donnell, Jacques Steinberg reports in today’s NYT.

Riding a ratings wave from “Countdown With Keith Olbermann,” a program that takes strong issue with the Bush administration, MSNBC is increasingly seeking to showcase its nighttime lineup as a welcome haven for viewers of a similar mind.

Lest there be any doubt that the cable channel believes there is ratings gold in shows that criticize the administration with the same vigor with which Fox News’s hosts often champion it, two NBC executives acknowledged yesterday that they were talking to Rosie O’Donnell about a prime-time show on MSNBC.

During the nine months she spent on “The View” before departing abruptly last spring, Ms. O’Donnell raised viewership notably. She did so while lamenting the unabated casualties of the Iraq war and advocating the right to gay marriage, among other positions.

Under one option, Ms. O’Donnell would take the 9 p.m. slot each weeknight on MSNBC, pitting her against “Larry King Live” on CNN and “Hannity & Colmes” on Fox News.

But even without Ms. O’Donnell, MSNBC already presents a three-hour block of nighttime talk — Chris Matthews’s “Hardball” at 7, Mr. Olbermann at 8, and “Live With Dan Abrams” at 9 — in which the White House takes a regular beating. The one early-evening program on MSNBC that is often most sympathetic to the administration, “Tucker” with Tucker Carlson at 6 p.m., is in real danger of being canceled, said one NBC executive, who, like those who spoke of Ms. O’Donnell, would do so only on condition of anonymity.

Having a prime-time lineup that tilts ever more demonstrably to the left could be risky for General Electric, MSNBC’s parent company, which is subject to legislation and regulation far afield of the cable landscape. Officials at MSNBC emphasize that they never set out to create a liberal version of Fox News. “It happened naturally,” Phil Griffin, a senior vice president of NBC News who is the executive in charge of MSNBC, said Friday, referring specifically to the channel’s passion and point of view from 7 to 10 p.m. “There isn’t a dogma we’re putting through. There is a ‘Go for it.’”

One problem that the cable news networks, aside from Fox, have had is a lack of brand identification. NBC has two venues, CNBC and MSNBC, that were supposed to capitalize on the investment NBC was already making in news coverage but have instead been a hodgepodge of talk and business programming, mostly using unproven celebrities as hosts. It probably makes sense to concentrate their energy on being a place where die-hard lefties can go to have their views reinforced than to be all over the map.

But, as Steinberg notes, there’s a danger in being openly ideological. Indeed, it’s rather late to be cashing in on anti-Bush ferver, since Bush will be out of office on way or the other on January 20, 2009. Will there still be a market for liberal rants if, say, Hillary Clinton is elected president?

Jeralyn Merritt thinks it’s a “huge mistake,” regardless.

MSNBC needs to stop playing catch-up and start being innovative. Surely there’s someone with a modicum of journalistic credentials and a less antagonizing personality than Rosie. If they are committed to going the comedienne-day time talk route, I’d rather see them move Ellen DeGeneres into prime time. At least she’s funny.

They’ve tried various gimmicks, though, such as the afternoon blogger coverage, with limited success. The problem with news reporting is that it’s almost entirely events driven and people pick their venues based on the personalities of the hosts. It’s smart business, then, to hire people who are proven commodities on television and who can keep an audience.

The question with O’Donnell, though, is whether her appeal to angry housewives will translate into the evening news hours. There’s not a lot of competition in “The View’s” time slot but at least three competing news programs at any given period in prime time.

As I’ve written numerous times at OTB Sports, NBC and ESPN have combined to ruin late night NFL telecasts. ESPN, which now has Monday Night Football, is the worst of the lot, treating every game as a preseason exhibition, constantly chattering about whatever random thought comes to mind, moving away from live game action so that their sideline gal can interview whatever C-list celebrity happens to pass by, and so forth. NBC has at least been showing the games, they’ve just decided to annoy hard core football fans with the insipid Faith Hill intro and the inclusion of Keith Olbermann, the former sports guy who’s now the most shrill leftist commentator on television, in its studio coverage.

Last night, though, NBC made its bid to surpass ESPN by “going Green.” Their logo was green. They turned the lights out in their studios and held flashlights up to their faces. They sent Matt Laeur off to the Arctic for some reason. All in the name of highlighting the need to save energy.

I’m all in favor of turning off lights you’re not using, building more energy efficient machines, and that sort of thing. But, as Bryan Preston notes, people tune in to football games to get away from this sort of nonsense. We don’t want an After School Special.

The reaction seems to be nearly universal, with all the blog coverage thus far going against NBC on this one.

• Sean Hackbarth notes that NBC “didn’t turn off the bright lighted Toyota sign.”

• Jimmie figures that powering down the studio set during the three hours when the game is on and the cameras aren’t on the studio set is mere common sense, rather than any grand gesture.

• Ed Driscoll and Sister Toldjah see this as part of a long line of political decisions by NBC.

The Donkey Hokey Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

(AFP/Jewel Samad)

The Winners:

First: floyd – no No NO!!…IT’S TAIL! You pin the TAIL on the donkey!

Second: John Burgess – George Soros (in helmet) injects a little ‘Go Juice’ into the Democratic race for the Presidential Nomination.

Third: Wyatt Earp – Lady Godiva has really let herself go

Honorable Mention:

Rachel Edith – Rudy becomes a horse of a different color as he prepares to speak to the next group.

John425 – Keith Olbermann goes undercover as horse’s ass to get the real “thrust” of things.

Roger – “I wish I knew how to quit you!”

The Best Triumph Impression Award

G.A. Phillips – Another liberal being tackled and arrested at a protest for acting like a jackass.

Rodney’s Bottom of The Barrel

‘Nation Velour’ was not nearly as popular as ‘National Velvet.’

DRUDGEBREAKING: Larry craig incognito caught sneaking into Enumclaw Zoo farm. Developing…

Cheney: “Why do I always have to be the ass end.”

Brokeback Mounting

The Monday Contest is trying to cut things off short.

Paula Zahn will be leaving CNN when her contract expires next week. She will be replaced by Campbell Brown.

The estimated 558,000 viewers her program has been drawing, on average, each weeknight this year, according to Nielsen Media Research, represents less than a quarter of the nearly 2.3 million who watch “The O’Reilly Factor” with Bill O’Reilly on Fox News. Ms. Zahn’s program also draws about 100,000 fewer viewers a night than “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” on MSNBC.

[...]

“We worked so hard to maintain a high quality of objective reporting on the air,” she said of her show, which recently featured a series of special reports about intolerance, including racial bias. “Yet what has become clear when you look at the landscape, particularly in the 8 o’clock hour, it seems pretty obvious the audience is drawn to opinion-driven shows. That is not what I do.”

It’s been quite some time since I watched any of the television talk shows not involving sports; I can simply get better content more efficiently online. Still, this strikes me as an odd move by CNN.

Zahn’s show was up against the signature programs of the competition. Why not simply counter-program with another pundit driven show (or put on a low budget show, conceding the time slot) and move Zahn to a different time?

Keith Olbermann’s most recent Special Comment was indeed quite special.

Watch the video:

He has accused the Democratic leadership of “betrayal” for caving in on the Iraq supplemental.

The Democratic leadership has, in sum, claimed a compromise with the Administration, in which the only things truly compromised, are the trust of the voters, the ethics of the Democrats, and the lives of our brave, and doomed, friends, and family, in Iraq.

He also invokes history:

Their “Neville Chamberlain moment” before the Second World War. All that’s missing is the landing at the airport, with the blinkered leader waving a piece of paper which he naively thought would guarantee “peace in our time,” but which his opponent would ignore with deceit.

When compromise with the elected president constitutes “betrayal,” there’s something terribly wrong. Olbermann is being widely cheered in the left blogosphere, though.

Olbermann believes this controversy will have a major impact on the Democratic nomination and force a strong anti-war candidate to the forefront. Presumably, that means Barack Obama, since Chris Dodd and Dennis Kucinich would appear to be non-factors. At any rate, the internecine warfare will be interesting to watch.

Full transcript below the fold.

A Special Comment about the Democrats’ deal with President Bush to continue financing this unspeakable war in Iraq—and to do so on his terms:

This is, in fact, a comment about… betrayal.

Few men or women elected in our history—whether executive or legislative, state or national—have been sent into office with a mandate more obvious, nor instructions more clear:

Get us out of Iraq.

Yet after six months of preparation and execution—half a year gathering the strands of public support; translating into action, the collective will of the nearly 70 percent of Americans who reject this War of Lies, the Democrats have managed only this:

* The Democratic leadership has surrendered to a president—if not the worst president, then easily the most selfish, in our history—who happily blackmails his own people, and uses his own military personnel as hostages to his asinine demand, that the Democrats “give the troops their money”;
* The Democratic leadership has agreed to finance the deaths of Americans in a war that has only reduced the security of Americans;
* The Democratic leadership has given Mr. Bush all that he wanted, with the only caveat being, not merely meaningless symbolism about benchmarks for the Iraqi government, but optional meaningless symbolism about benchmarks for the Iraqi government.
* The Democratic leadership has, in sum, claimed a compromise with the Administration, in which the only things truly compromised, are the trust of the voters, the ethics of the Democrats, and the lives of our brave, and doomed, friends, and family, in Iraq.

You, the men and women elected with the simplest of directions—Stop The War—have traded your strength, your bargaining position, and the uniform support of those who elected you… for a handful of magic beans.
You may trot out every political cliché from the soft-soap, inside-the-beltway dictionary of boilerplate sound bites, about how this is the “beginning of the end” of Mr. Bush’s “carte blanche” in Iraq, about how this is a “first step.”
Well, Senator Reid, the only end at its beginning… is our collective hope that you and your colleagues would do what is right, what is essential, what you were each elected and re-elected to do.
Because this “first step”… is a step right off a cliff.

And this President!
How shameful it would be to watch an adult… hold his breath, and threaten to continue to do so, until he turned blue.
But how horrifying it is… to watch a President hold his breath and threaten to continue to do so, until innocent and patriotic Americans in harm’s way, are bled white.
You lead this country, sir?
You claim to defend it?
And yet when faced with the prospect of someone calling you on your stubbornness—your stubbornness which has cost 3,431 Americans their lives and thousands more their limbs—you, Mr. Bush, imply that if the Democrats don’t give you the money and give it to you entirely on your terms, the troops in Iraq will be stranded, or forced to serve longer, or have to throw bullets at the enemy with their bare hands.
How transcendentally, how historically, pathetic.
Any other president from any other moment in the panorama of our history would have, at the outset of this tawdry game of political chicken, declared that no matter what the other political side did, he would insure personally—first, last and always—that the troops would not suffer.
A President, Mr. Bush, uses the carte blanche he has already, not to manipulate an overlap of arriving and departing Brigades into a ‘second surge,’ but to say in unequivocal terms that if it takes every last dime of the monies already allocated, if it takes reneging on government contracts with Halliburton, he will make sure the troops are safe—even if the only safety to be found, is in getting them the hell out of there.
Well, any true President would have done that, Sir.
You instead, used our troops as political pawns, then blamed the Democrats when you did so.

Not that these Democrats, who had this country’s support and sympathy up until 48 hours ago, have not since earned all the blame they can carry home.

“We seem to be very near the bleak choice between war and shame,” Winston Churchill wrote to Lord Moyne in the days after the British signed the Munich accords with Germany in 1938. “My feeling is that we shall choose shame, and then have war thrown in, a little later…”

That’s what this is for the Democrats, isn’t it?

Their “Neville Chamberlain moment” before the Second World War.
All that’s missing is the landing at the airport, with the blinkered leader waving a piece of paper which he naively thought would guarantee “peace in our time,” but which his opponent would ignore with deceit.
The Democrats have merely streamlined the process.
Their piece of paper already says Mr. Bush can ignore it, with impugnity.

And where are the Democratic presidential hopefuls this evening?
See they not, that to which the Senate and House leadership has blinded itself?

Judging these candidates based on how they voted on the original Iraq authorization, or waiting for apologies for those votes, is ancient history now.

The Democratic nomination is likely to be decided… tomorrow.
The talk of practical politics, the buying into of the President’s dishonest construction “fund-the-troops-or-they-will-be-in-jeopardy,” the promise of tougher action in September, is falling not on deaf ears, but rather falling on Americans who already told you what to do, and now perceive your ears as closed to practical politics.
Those who seek the Democratic nomination need to—for their own political futures and, with a thousand times more solemnity and importance, for the individual futures of our troops—denounce this betrayal, vote against it, and, if need be, unseat Majority Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi if they continue down this path of guilty, fatal acquiescence to the tragically misguided will of a monomaniacal president.

For, ultimately, at this hour, the entire government has failed us.

* Mr. Reid, Mr. Hoyer, and the other Democrats… have failed us.
They negotiated away that which they did not own, but had only been entrusted by us to protect: our collective will as the citizens of this country, that this brazen War of Lies be ended as rapidly and safely as possible.
* Mr. Bush and his government… have failed us.
They have behaved venomously and without dignity—of course.
That is all at which Mr. Bush is gifted.
We are the ones providing any element of surprise or shock here.

With the exception of Senator Dodd and Senator Edwards, the Democratic presidential candidates have (so far at least) failed us.

They must now speak, and make plain how they view what has been given away to Mr. Bush, and what is yet to be given away tomorrow, and in the thousand tomorrows to come.

Because for the next fourteen months, the Democratic nominating process—indeed the whole of our political discourse until further notice—has, with the stroke of a cursed pen, become about one thing, and one thing alone.
The electorate figured this out, six months ago.
The President and the Republicans have not—doubtless will not.
The Democrats will figure it out, during the Memorial Day recess, when they go home and many of those who elected them will politely suggest they stay there—and permanently.
Because, on the subject of Iraq…
The people have been ahead of the media….
Ahead of the government…
Ahead of the politicians…
For the last year, or two years, or maybe three.

Our politics… is now about the answer to one briefly-worded question.
Mr. Bush has failed.
Mr. Warner has failed.
Mr. Reid has failed.
So.
Who among us will stop this war—this War of Lies?
To he or she, fall the figurative keys to the nation.
To all the others—presidents and majority leaders and candidates and rank-and-file Congressmen and Senators of either party—there is only blame… for this shameful, and bi-partisan, betrayal.