"This Isn't Dignified, Congressman."

Cong. Duncan Hunter seems like a perfectly nice man--except, of course, when he's angry. And that might be a little too often.

A decorated Vietnam combat veteran, a Congressman for nearly three decades, Hunter is a strong proponent of our national defense, and a fierce proponent of homeland security. So that's all to the good.

Having said all that, though, Hunter is NOT going to be the next President of the United States, nor is he even going to be the Republican nominee. The expert data-crunchers and chart-keepers at RealClearPolitics.com,for example, no longer bother to tally his percentage in their running polling tallies.

So as his campaign fades away, who does Hunter choose to get mad at? The Republican primary voters who don't support him? No! He gets mad at the media! Sometimes that's OK: The media, including the cable newsers, deserve their lumps--why do you think I started this blog?

But there's a lot to be said for accuracy, too. And an accurate account of recent events on the campaign hustings holds that Hunter simply did not click with the voters. That's just the way it goes. Shooting the messenger might seem satisfying for Hunter, but it doesn't reflect the true state of play in presidential politics: Plenty of other candidates, including another hawkish Republican war hero, Sen. John McCain, have played well on the media.

So in the interest of keeping the record straight, The Cable Gamer will give the last wordto National Review Online's Jim Geraghty, who wrote a sharp piece entitled, "Duncan Hunter Plays the Chickenhawk Card on 'Corporate Media Executives.'"

Geraghty's article is worth posting in full:

XM POTUS08 just played audio of Duncan Hunter's press conference from earlier today, and it didn't sound pretty. He sounded angry and bitter over being left out of this weekend's debates, and appeared to argue that he should have been included because of his military service, and/or his son's.

He lashed out at "corporate media executives" who work "ten stories above Central Park in New York City" for excluding him from the debate. He asked how many of them had worn the uniform, how they served their country, or how many had children serving in the military today.

Yes, Congressman, play the "chickenhawk" card. Because that always works.

Duncan Hunter hasn't hit 3 percent in any recent New Hampshire poll. If he's ever hit three percent nationally, I haven't seen it. ABC News, as well as Fox, had every right to start establishing a minimum threshold to participate in a televised debate. (Otherwise, we might as well bring in Alan Keyes and John Cox.)

UPDATE: Leon Wolf has some wise words for Congressman Hunter.

This video of Hunter walking onto the set of a live broadcast MSNBC's "Morning Joe" earlier today is a little disturbing, as he repeats, "I got a delegate in Wyoming!"

Running for president can make a man do some strange things, but one of the things that was most appealing about Hunter was that he seemed like such a grownup about all of this. This isn't dignified, Congressman.

What's up with Lou Dobbs?

Inquiring Cable Gamers would truly like to know what's up with Lou Dobbs. This Cable Gamer has always admired Dobbs, because he has picked up on important populist issues, in the same way as, say, Mike Huckabee or John Edwards. I am not saying that any of those three are right on all the issues, but I am saying that they have voices that should be heard. (But of course, I don't have to work with Dobbs--if I did, I might have a different opinion, from what I hear!)

So last Friday, when I read this item, from TV Newser, detailing how Dobbs and CNN prexy Jon Klein had the proverbial "frank discussion" over whether or not Dobbs was getting enough airtime at CNN's coverage of the Iowa caucus--I wasn't surprised. But at the same time, I didn't think that the TVN story was a big deal, insofar as everyone in the news biz has a healthy-sized ego.

But then, today, I read this front-page article on Dobbs' possible presidential ambitions, in Monday's Wall Street Journal, and I think maybe Dobbs really going to run for the White House. Maybe with Mike Bloomberg? I mean, if we live in a world where such obvious presidential frontrunners as Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani can be toppled, seemingly, by the likes of Huckabee and Barack Obama, then just about anything is possible. And the same thought must be running through Dobbs' mind. And perhaps Dobbs' ambitions, however free-floating, are causing Klein reach for the Prilosec.

Indeed, surely Dobbs' ambitions are a cause of friction inside CNN. First of all, there are laws about campaigning, especially presidential campaigning. Is it an "in kind" contribution? A corporate contribution? What about the FCC? A lot of no-no's for the CNN lawyers.

Moreover, it's to believe that the Clinton News Network--or it, by now, the Obama News Network?--would cotton to the idea of someone such as Dobbs actually running on his own.

Watch this space. Things are moving.

Fox News: Friend or Foe? Richard Viguerie's Far-Out Answer.

I am not sure how many Cable Gamers know much about Richard Viguerie; he is a longtime conservative activist, going all the way back to the early 60s. And he's been extremely controversial for much of that time--to the point where one could fairly question his judgment, at least.

Indeed, critics, including many on the right, have questioned just about everything about him, from his ethics to his political judgment--Vigurie routinely savaged, for example, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. In the mordant headline of DC blogger James Joyner, "Viguerie Conservatives Meet in Phone Booth."

But of course, on the Net, everyone can hear you scream. And in fact, Vigueries's m.o. seems to be attack anyone and everyone--especially on the conservative side. Some say he is just a rigidly principled conservative. Others say he is just a cantankerous contrarian. And others say that he picks fights to generate direct-mail millions. In any case, now it's Fox News in Viguerie's crosshairs. But in the spirit of TCG-reports-you-decide, I have reprinted Viguerie's entire e-blast below.

But first, before we get too weepy about Viguerie's latest cause, Ron Paul, here's something that every conservative should know: Paul opposes a fence on our Southern border.

Yup. The hottest issue in GOP primaries has been securing the US-Mexican border, and Paul is against it. But don't take my word for it--here's Paul's wacky interview with ABC's John Stossel; I am sorry folks, but by any reasonable reckoning, Paul's opposition to the wall stamps him as an eccentric. He is entitled to hold his opinion, of course, but he has zero chance of getting the Republican nomination:

John Stossel: You want a 700-mile fence between our border and Mexico?

Ron Paul: Not really. There was an immigration bill that had a fence (requirement) in it, but it was to attack amnesty. I don't like amnesty. So I voted for that bill, but I didn't like the fence. I don't think the fence can solve a problem. I find it rather offensive.

What should we do?

Get rid of the subsidies. (If) you subsidize illegal immigration, you get more of it.

Get rid of welfare?

All the welfare benefits.

Sure. Don't build a wall. Abolish the government instead. Good practical political thinking, Ron! The government's too big, of course, but we shouldn't hold the immediate necessary goal of border security hostage to the utopian goal of getting rid of Washington DC.

So to repeat: Paul has zero chance of being the GOP nominee this year, or of being on the Republican ticket. Of course, the DC buzz holds that Paul will run as a Libertarian third-party ticket later this year. It's a free country, of course, but that's just one more reason to keep him out of a Republican debate.

Meanwhile, here's Crazy Viguerie, flogging the folks, one more time:

From: Richard Viguerie [mailto:RAV@conservativesbetrayed.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2008 6:44 PM
To: XXX
Subject: Has the Fox News Channel Joined the Enemy?

From: Richard A. Viguerie

Subject: Who said this about liberal media bias? (Ouch)

And what you can do about it right now!


Dear Fellow Conservative:

Guess who made this poignant observation in 2003 about the liberal bias of the mainstream media:

“Bias has to do with the elimination of points of view, not presenting a point of view.”

Answer: The quotation comes from none other than Roger Ailes, the brilliant political operative and businessman who is president of the Fox News Channel.

Well said, Roger. However, that’s exactly what Fox News is doing now, by barring Ron Paul from your January 6 New Hampshire presidential debate.

Click here for the full text of my protest statement to Roger Ailes and Fox News. Whether or not you are supporting Ron Paul, barring him is inexcusable, and I explain why.

Now do something about this!

Go to www.KeepRonIn.com and sign the petition to Fox News. Let’s keep Ron Paul in all the debates! Let’s have a robust airing of all viewpoints in all presidential debates and forums!

Since the Fox News Channel debate is Sunday evening, every second counts. Please take action right now!

As the names on the petition come in, every few hours we’ll forward them to Roger Ailes, Rupert Murdoch, and the other top executives at Fox. They need to hear from you.

No matter whom you may support, this is an issue of basic fairness. Our political discourse will not suffer because a different viewpoint than held by the Republican establishment is expressed, but our nation will be damaged if reasonable viewpoints are silenced.

After you sign our petition, ask your family and friends to do the same.

In addition to signing the petition, consider writing or calling the Fox News Channel, including your favorite personalities on the network:

1-888-369-4762, extension 4

or (212) 301-3000

yourcomments@foxnews.com

Thanks for your fast actions to rectify this injustice.

Your fellow conservative,

Richard A. Viguerie

ConservativesBetrayed.com

9625 Surveyor Court, Suite 400

Manassas, Virginia 20110

Jeff Bercovici on the Fox News/Ron Paul Flap

Portfolio's Jeff Bercovici is a Cable Game fave. In a new post, he makes a string of acute points about presidential debates, especially the Fox News vs. Ron Paul debate-about-debates.

First, he reminds us that the media are players in the presidential debates--not just neutral participants, but players. Of course, the media are inherently in the mix--it's the Marshall McLuhan version of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, "the act of observing a thing, changes that thing.''

As Bercovici writes, "The network news operations prefer to pretend they're observers, not participants. In keeping with this fiction, they typically open debates to all comers, or gin up neutral-sounding criteria for inclusion, like those ABC established for its own upcoming debate, to ensure also-rans stay on the sidelines."

OK, so the media are part of the mix--the medium might not be the message, but it is the messenger.

Second, Jeff makes clear that even the "neutral" debates are tilted toward the frontrunners. Of course they are: If you watch a Democratic debate, you want to watch Hillary Rodham Clinton vs. Barack Obama vs. John Edwards, because you know that there's a 99% likelihood that one of that trio is going to be the Democratic nominee. Here's Jeff again:

More often than not, however, "open" debates still focus on a few front-runners, leaving the second-tier candidates desperate to get a word in. The frustration of being consistently ignored even led Democrat Chris Dodd to post a "Talk-o-Meter" on his website, tracking how many minutes each candidate was allowed to speak.

Fox may be restricting debate to the candidates it considers legitimate, but at least it's doing so in a relatively transparent fashion, rather than using the lesser candidates as silent props to suggest, falsely, that everyone has an equal voice.

And so, Jeff concludes,

Fox may be restricting debate to the candidates it considers legitimate, but at least it's doing so in a relatively transparent fashion, rather than using the lesser candidates as silent props to suggest, falsely, that everyone has an equal voice.

And, hey, not for nothing, Fox's decision means we'll get to hear more in-depth answers from the candidates who actually stand a reasonable chance of moving into the White House a year from now. Shouldn't those of us who like to complain about the debates offering nothing but sound bites be grateful for that?

Indeed!

Separated at Birth? Bilawal Bhutto and Keith Olbermann

Jeff Bercovici reports, you decide.

Anderson Cooper Outs Himself--As a Christian Basher.

Most Americans probably don't know who Kathy Griffin is--even after she co-hosted the New Year's Eve show with CNN's Anderson Cooper.

Here's who Griffin is: She is a reality TV star ("My Life on the D-List") and a Christian-basher. Hey, that latter comment is my opinion, but read what she said here, and here, and you decide.

But The Cable Gamer doesn't think that there are two ways of interpreting these words, which she said upon winning an Emmy:

"A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus. Suck it, Jesus. This award is my God now."

Haw, haw. Not only do I think that that's offensive and tasteless, but I also think this: Griffin was being fake-courageous, going for a cheap and vulgar joke at an easy target, because Christians are mostly gentle and, as a rule, law-abiding. And free speech, as Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. once observed, means freedom for the speech that we hate. If Griffin had really wanted to be brave, she could have made a joke about Allah. In which case, of course, she'd probably be dead by now--or deeply in seclusion.

But OK, this blog is about The Cable Game, not about sacrilegious Hollywoodites.

And so back to CNN. We might ask: Why did CNN put Griffin on the air? One wonders if CNN execs even knew, or cared, about Griffin's Christian-bashing words. Once again, we can be darn sure that if Griffin had slurred some more politically group, such as blacks, that CNN would have banned her for life. But once again, it was "only" Christians, so who cares? Nobody at CNN, that's for sure.

And revealingly, not many in the liberal-leaning media seem to have noticed. For example, Rachel Sklar, writing for The Huffington Post, went on and on about how funny and delightful Griffin was, in tandem with Cooper.

Indeed, Sklar was so overcome with enthusiasm that she wrote the following review of the evening's programming--see if you can spot the howler:

CNN had the much-ballyhooed Anderson Cooper (when is he ever not ballyhooed?) paired with Kathy Griffin, which was a surprisingly good match (Anderson played straight man..."

Oops. Excu-u-u-u-se ME, Anderson!

But don't worry, Rachel, all is forgiven here at The Cable Game. However, if you get the cold shoulder from La Anderson at the next GLAAD dinner, well, don't be surprised.

And one last question: Where's Jon Klein and CNN management? Some enterprising reporter might inquire as to whether or not CNN top dogs approve of Griffin--of course, the answer is that they must have.

So nothing has changed at CNN from the bad old days of its arrogance. I mean, we all knew that ex-CNN chief Ted Turner was a bigtime Christian basher, but the legendarily unstable "The Mouth of the South" is long gone from the CNN scene. And yet this incident--what was CNN thinking?--reveals that the same Christian-sliming mentality is flourishing at the Time-Warner Center.

UPDATE: On Tuesday night's edition of "AC 360," a completely unabashed--and obviously quite pleased with himself--Cooper was yucking it up, replaying tapes of himself and Griffin, reliving all of last night's "humor." So it's obvious that AC is either unaware of the pain he is causing, or just doesn't care.

The Cable Game and the Presidential Debates

So Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter have been excluded from the next New Hampshire Republican presidential debate, scheduled for January 6. As Fox explained it, "The network said it had limited space in its studio — a souped-up bus — and that it invited candidates who had received double-digit support in recent polls."

The Paul campaign is furious. But Fox has a mobile studio in New Hampshire, and there's just not room. Although, Paul, at least, has been invited to the next Fox News debate, in South Carolina on January 10. The point is, there are reasons--often times technical, nothing to do with a conspiracy--to do everything.

And as we can see from these data provided by the invaluable RealClearPolitics.com,Paul is not a genuine contender in the Republican nomination. By now, if we're interested, we all know what the candidates will say in their timed-for-sound-bite answers to questions. What would be much more interesting would be to see the various candidates, in both parties, paired off against each other, mano a mano, like the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858--say, Mitt Romney vs. Mike Huckabee, or Hillary Clinton vs. John Edwards. With a little creativity, everyone could debate everyone, and then we'd actually see how these candidates, think What would also be cool, TCG thinks, would be to have a Democrat debate a Republican, even as they continue on in their respective primaries.

But back to Paul. The Texas Congressman has a history of being a minor player in presidential campaigns-- back in 1988, he ran as the Libertarian Party candidate for president, receiving a grand total of .5% of the vote. So why should someone with such an obvious record of being a non-factor in either the Republican nomination race, or the race for the White House, get to be automatically included in all the debates.

Indeed, a look back at that year, 1988, reminds us as to why it's a good idea to exercise judgment in screening for the debates--I did not know that KKK-er David Duke "ran" as a Democrat that year; since I don't remember him at all, that tells me that the Democratic Party, in its wisdom, kept Duke out of its forums. And back then, various sponsoring outfits, such as, say, The League of Women Voters--a major player in the presidential debates in the 70s and the 80s--did their part, as well, to keep Duke out.

Since then, as we know, the media have pretty much taken over the presidential-debate sponsoring gig. And they have made plenty of controversial choices. Remember the debates that The Des Moines Register held in December? The paper excluded Dennis Kucinich out of the Democratic debate, and included Alan Keyes in the Republican debate. The Register had its reasons; and while critics said that the paper was trying to help the Democrats (by excluding the goofy Kucinich) and hurt the Republicans (by including the goofy Keyes), the point is that that's freedom. Nobody makes anybody participate in these debates, and nobody makes anybody watch.

The Paul campaign, in particular, should understand this: They are libertarians--you know, let the free market, and private-sector players, decide. There's nothing in the Constitution that says you have a right to be on TV.

In fact, Wikipedia lists seven more GOP hopefuls, all formally filed with the Federal Election Commission. And that list doesn't include John Cox, who raised a ruckuslast spring when he was excluded from the GOP debates. Indeed, The Cable Gamer can think of several more presidential hopefuls, on top of all those, floating around out there.

Should they all have their free speech rights? Of course.

Should they all be guaranteed TV time? Of course not.

TCG predicts that this debate-fight will come up again and again. In each instance, there will be more demand for TV airtime than there will be a supply of TV airtime. And yet because we have to elect somebody this year, we need some sort of orderly process. What if Ron Paul decides to run again as a Libertarian candidate, as he probably will? What if Mike Bloomberg gets in the race? What about, say, Ralph Nader? And what of all the other mavericks, malcontents, and misfits who might wish to throw their hats--or whatevers--in the ring?

So to repeat: there will need to be a process for deciding who gets on, and who doesn't. The Cable Gamer thinks that, in the true spirit of Ron Paul's libertarianism, the market, and all the players in the market, should make the decision.