NBC: Obama HQ. Fox: Reagan Democrat Central. Strange As It Might Seem, That's Good News For Hillary Clinton. Ask Her New "Ally," Bill O'Reilly!

They must have been grinding their teeth at NBC tonight--and I can only imagine what they are thinking on MSNBC! Because right there, on "NBC Nightly News," was the great satan of liberal imagining, Bill O'Reilly. Liberals are surely getting the vapors just at the thought of O'Reilly on sacred liberal air, but it could get worse, if O'Reilly helps Hillary Rodham Clinton win the White House.

Now of course, Brian Williams & Co. didn't want to have O'Reilly on their air, but they had to, because O'Reilly scored an interview with Clinton, and they can't help but cover her. (See screen grab above; that's the telltale Fox News icon next to Hillary in her pink suit.)

So NBC's Andrea Mitchell practically spat out these words tonight, introducing footage from "The Factor": "during an interview with Bill O'Reilly on Fox." She couldn't even bring herself to say the proper name, which is "Fox News Channel."

That's OK, O'Reilly and Fox chieftain Roger Ailes will get over it, and they will even recover, quickly, from the pounding that O'Reilly and Fox undoubtedly got later in the evening from the usual-suspect MSNBC hitmen, including Keith Olbermann and Dan Abrams.

But here's the bottom line: Hillary Clinton didn't go on "The O'Reilly Factor" tonight because she likes O'Reilly. As Mitchell observed, "Clinton is courting O'Reilly's viewers, even though he has been one of her harshest critics." Why? Because, Mitchell conceded, Clinton is "eager to court white blue collar workers."

And that's the point: Reagan Democrats, the swing voters in every election, are happy enough with Fox. A lot of them watch Fox News, where yes, O'Reilly has been quite critical of the Clintons.

But even if "Deer Hunter Democrats" don't necessarily watch FNC--or any cable newser--ordinary Americans still know that nobody on FNC, certainly never O'Reilly, will ever condescend to them. It's simply not in the DNA of Fox to think in those patronizing terms. FNC never attributes ordinary folks' religious faith, for example, or love of guns, to pathological-loser "bitterness."

In that sense, FNC really is the voice of those whom Richard Nixon dubbed "the silent majority." And Nixon, of course, beat the liberals in two consecutive presidential elections, 1968 and 1972.

And so the deliciousness of the news on Wednesday night doubles and redoubles. O'Reilly routinely refers to NBC News (and its subset, MSNBC), as "Obama headquarters." And, of course, the O-man is correct: MSNBC is so eager to help Obama that it's routine for NBC and MSNBC to treat Obama's rival, Hillary, as little better than... gasp! ... a Republican.

At the same time, FNC has been fearless in covering Obama. Which is to say, covering Obama and all his views, all his background, and all his associates, including the dreadful Jeremiah Wright and other horribles, too, such as sleazeball Tony Rezko and homegrown terrorist Bill Ayers.

And the Clinton people have noticed that FNC is willing to tell the truth about Obama. That's why Clinton was willing to go on O'Reilly. When O'Reilly asked her about the Wright issue, Hillary was a little reluctant to engage. "I’m going to leave it up to the voters to decide," she said. But then, when O’Reilly pressed her, saying, :But what do you think as an American--you're an American," Hillary came out with it. "I would not have stayed in that church," she said. "I think it’s offensive and outrageous." Pow! And that's how Hillary might yet win the Democratic nomination, by positioning herself as a moderate centrist, while Obama is a radical leftist. And if that's what Hillary wants to do, Fox will be an ally, because Fox never lets "fair and balance" degenerate into moral equivalence. If you don't like America, chances are, FNC won't like you.

So what could O'Reilly do except let her make her case? O'Reilly doesn't seem to have changed, but if he has to choose between Obama and Hillary, well, as an American patriot who expects his president to be a patriot--even if he doesn't agree with her--then, well, surely O'Reilly will prefer Hillary.

Indeed, it might seem slightly strange that Fox is, in effect, helping Clinton, but that's only because Clinton has chosen to identify with ordinary voters, while Obama has left himself drift off to the multiculturalist left fringe of non-flag-saluters.

Fox is what it is, and if Hillary moves Fox's way, well, Fox can't complain, or even criticize. Some on the right might question Hillary's sincerity, but what matters to most voters is that their leaders at least say the right thing before they elected. And Hillary is doing just that now, and finding FNC to be a most excellent megaphone for reaching those swing Reagan Democrats, the folks who determine the winner of just about every national election.

In the meantime, NBC will continue to be Obama HQ, being the sandbox for the limousine liberal left, which, of course, now despises the Clintons. As if to prove this point, Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert chose to introduce a new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll on the Wednesday night broadcast. When Russert got to the question of which candidate "identifies with your values," Russert noted that Obama had gone from 50 "yes" and 39 percent "no" to 45 "yes" and 46 "no." Now folks, that's a HUGE shift, from a net positive of 11 points for Obama on the "share values" question to a net negative of one point. Or to put it another way, that's a shift of 12 points--nearly one voter in eight. In a closely fought contest, such a shift is a potential game-changer, but all Russert would admit to was, "that’s a drop since last month." Yes, that's a drop all right, just as, say, the stock market dropped in 1929.

But wait, there's more! Even as Russert was minimizing the downside for Obama, he was minimizing the upside for Clinton.

As the NBC man put it, on the same "share values" question, Clinton went from yes/no 43:52, to yes/no 46:46. Now that, again, is a huge shift, from minus nine to dead even—which is to say a net shift of nine points. But how did Russert characterize this change? He said, blandly, "She's gone up just a bit."

No, actually, Hillary has gone up a LOT, just as Obama has gone down a LOT. NBC and MSNBC won't let themselves say it, because they don't want to hurt Obama's momentum, but Fox will.

So does that make Fox biased? Only if you think that a news channel should stay neutral on basic questions of American patriotism. And on those questions, Fox is unabashed. I have seen Ailes quoted saying, in effect, "We are an American network. We will never distance ourselves from America."

And that's the key to Fox. If you are pro-American, then Fox is more likely than not to be be pro-you, at least until persuaded otherwise.

No wonder Hillary likes Fox, and no wonder Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffewent on FNC after Hilary's Pennsylvania victory and praised FNC for being "fair and balanced."

Look, I have no doubt that FNC will have plenty of critics tomorrow morning, just as it did last week and last year. But watching Hillary Clinton tonight on NBC, The Cable Gamer--OK sometimes I am The Broadcast Gamer--concluded that if the Democrats are smart, they can co-opt a huge chunk of the FNC audience.

So now the question is whether or not Olbermann and his Noisy Minority can scare people away from this Silent Majority strategy. My guess is, "no." As much as any Democrat doesn't want Olbermann attacking him or her--and come to think of it, too late in her case, because KO has been savaging her for months now--the Democrats ultimately want to win elections. And that means going where the voters are. Which is to say, Fox.

PS: Michelle Obama is a pill. Asked tonight, about the Wright business, on the same Andrea Mitchell "Nightly News" segment, for an interview to appear on "The Today Show" Thursday, Mrs, Obama managed to pack three gaffes into one answer to Meredith Vieira: "You know what I think Meredith? We gotta move forward. You know, this conversation doesn’t help my kids. You know it doesn’t help kids out there who are looking for us to make decisions and choices about how we’re going to better fund education."

Wow. Now let's unpack that, three ways:

First, Michelle dismisses the question out of hand--"we gotta move forward." As Bill Clinton said a decade ago, when he was caught with his pants down, "let's move on." Or, now, "let's move forward." Just ignore the issue.

Second, "This conversation doesn't help my kids." Oh, OK, let's talk about your kids, not anybody else's kids. Shouldn't the voters get to decide what's an important issue, not her?

Third, she said that the voters are "looking to us" to make decisions. "Us"? Who is "us"? Since when did "us" get elected? Do the voters really want to go back to Bill Clinton's 1992 line, "Buy one, get one free"? Especially with Mrs. Obama, who waited until she was in her mid-40s to be "proud" of the country that, among other things, made her rich? (We "know" that ordinary proles in Pennsylvania cling to their Gods and guns because they are "bitter" over losing their jobs, so what's her excuse? That she got too rich too soon via University of Chicago earmarks?)

Also, interestingly, Mrs. Obama defined improving education as "better fund" for education, and nothing more--it's as if all the lessons learned over the last 40 years have been lost on her. And of course, those lessons--that there's a difference between simply spending money and actually getting results--have been lost on her. In her liberal-left world, those lessons have not been learned. That's why they are left-liberals!

Folks, this Cable Gamer will take off her detachment for a moment. I can deal with Fox helping Hillary winning the Democratic nomination, even the presidency itself. Compared to her Democratic rivals, Hillary is starting to look positively triangulated, and that's a good way to win.

But we must stop the Obamas from getting anywhere near the Oval Office. NBC might not agree, but I hope and pray that the American people agree on the need to stop them, with John McCain, or even Hillary.

Hey Anderson Cooper! Did Anything Happen on Monday? You Know About the Presidential Election Or Anything?

On Monday, April 28, most people in the news biz--certainly everyone in The Cable Game--thought that the big story of the day was Jeremiah Wright taking his antic act to the National Press Club.

But apparently, Anderson Cooper had another engagement.

Yes, Wright was the big news for most Americans, and certainly all politics junkies--and doesn't CNN have, at least in its mind, "the best political team on television"?

That's one view. But if you live in New York City, in the high style of La Anderson, then perhaps you see things differently. In his case, the big event of Monday was the chance to hang with Diane Von Furstenberg, Anna Wintour, and Andre Leon Talley at a big bash thrown by the Parsons School of Design at the Grand Hyatt in Manhattan.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

A highlight of the benefit is a fashion show featuring the best of the graduating student collections, including the Designers of the Year in womenswear, menswear, and childrenswear. “The fashion show is an opportunity for the students to put their talents on display for some of the most influential people in the fashion design industry,” said Parsons Dean Tim Marshall. “It gives students a platform to promote their creative visions while showcasing the unparalleled design education that Parsons offers.”

Sounds fab to me! Right AC?

Personally, The Cable Gamer doesn't really blame Cooper. I, too, would probably prefer to spend time with Diane, Anna, and Andre--as well as such venerated stars as Oscar de la Renta, and such new stars as Narciso Rodriguez--than the likes of Reverend Wright, and the decidedly scruffy and out-of-shape DC press corps. But still, even I understand that the news comes first.

So how come Anderson doesn't understand that, even after CNN pays him $7 million a year?

Memo to Jeff Immelt: Listen to Jack Flack, If You Won't Listen to Me--Sell NBC!

Jack Flack is blunt in his "rescue memo" to General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt, in Conde Nast Portfolio. It is time for Immelt to de-conglomerate GE. As Flack explains, "The Street has decided to you are too big and complicated for either management or industrial analysts to understand, and that you’ve got businesses with completely different fundamentals that cannot be properly valued within the hull of the aircraft carrier."

And then Flack gets specific, item by item, including this advice on what to do with NBCU:

Sell NBC Universal to an entertainment player. Stop assuming you can get NBC back to its glory days, and get the deal done before the Olympics if you can. I know owning a network, not to mention having the Squawk Box guys on staff, is nice. But the longer you hang onto a show biz operation that is so different from your other sectors, the more it will be perceived as an irrational vanity holding.

The Cable Gamer admits to having a soft spot for pseudonymous bloggers, who need their privacy in order to make full use of what they know. Nobody has to listen to us, of course, unless we in the Blogger Underground have something important to say, based on our insight and experience. And "Jack Flack" is a case in point: He/She obviously knows his/her stuff, in a way that usually comes to one who has worked inside the belly of the beast, and not just reported on it from the outside.

And how do I know that JF is so smart? Because Jack agrees with me! It's quite possible that JF saw the grim truth about GE's over-conglomeration before I did, of course, but coming from our differing duck blind-vantage points, we see the same reality in our crosshairs.

Because I know what I am talking about in my little sliver of the mediaverse. TCG doesn't pretend to know much about corporate high finance, but she does know from branding and message, and it's been obvious for a long time that GE, which is basically an engineering company, had no idea what it's doing with NBC, going back to the days when former GE exec Bob Wright, whose picture belongs in the dictionary next to "irrational vanity holding," managed to persuade his then-boss Jack Welch to buy NBC so that he, Wright, could have some fun on the other coast--if you know what I mean!

Since then, in the best tradition of say, The Vietnam War, in which Uncle Sam dug himself deeper in a vainglorious foreign expedition that did not serve American interests, so GE continues to deepen its commitment to being a media player; just as Richard Nixon extended the war into Cambodia and Laos, so GE expanded from NBC to the misbegotten MSNBC. And then added on Universal, creating the ugly abbreviations NBC-Uni, or NBC-U. And all the while, of course, while top cat Immelt was doing whatever he is doing at GE HQ in Fairfield, CT, the lefty liberal media mice were eating up revenues and corporate good will at their various rodent homes, in Secaucus, Fort Lee, and at The Rock.

And ugly is, as ugly does.

Jeff, listen to Jack. Sell NBCUgh. You will have less glamor, but more money. And believe me, that's what the shareholders want.

Welcome to The Mediadome--Somebody's Going To Get Hurt

How did Sen. Barack Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright get so antagonistic? It's as if they're in a cage match now, and only one can come out alive.

One explanation for their mutual hostility now is that they were trying to communicate in a media-drenched environment, in which sincerity is subsumed in spin, nuance is nudged aside by noise, and relationships are wrecked on hard surface of realpolitik.

Wright's cross-country antics--quite likely to continue, the traveling preacher-showman suggests, well past Election Day 2008--have hurt the Obama campaign badly; Hillary Rodham Clinton supporters, down for so long, are starting to look up for the first time in months. Meanwhile, Obama, who once praised Wright to the skies, now practically rolls his eyes when Wright's name comes up. Today in North Carolina, Obama said of his former pastor, "He does not speak for me, he does not speak for the campaign." OK, fair enough.

But then the Illinois Senator added, "And he may make statements in the future that don't reflect my values or concerns." OK, that's a wrap, in terms of that relationship!

So what happened? The basic outlines of the story are clear enough: Obama joined Trinity United Church of Christ in the 80s, when he was getting going in Chicago, when he needed both a spiritual foundation and a political base--TUCC was just the ticket for an out-of-towner eager to make his way through the thicket of South Side politics.
And then, when Obama decided to go national, well, Wright and his views--which Obama must have known about, in great detail--were a liability. And so the Reverend was expendable. Such cool political calculation happens all the time in politics, of course, and Wright, who is 66 years old, must have seen it before.

But there was one difference: Obama's separation from Wright occurred under the full glare of the media, especially the cable news networks, who really drive these kinds of stories, because of their near-infinite capacity to capture every "see" and every "saw" in a see-saw, every "tit" and every "tat," in an up-and-down, back-and-forth media volley. Not just the words, of course, but the sounds and images.

So when Obama announced his candidacy for the presidency on February 10, 2007, Wright was nowhere to be seen. And even at that time, when Obama was just a long-shot, the Cable Gamer still remembers Obama advisers whispering that Wright, who had given Obama the title of his campaign book, The Audacity of Hope, was a little too "fiery" for the cool persona that Obama was trying to project to America. And indeed Wright was.

But the difference, of course, was that such internal campaign strategizing inevitably spilled out into the public. Nothing stays secret, for long, in this transparent society. And again, while blogs, feverishly updated round-the-clock by their proprietors, might move faster, and provide more detail, than any other media, including the wire services, it's the cablers that set the tone, during the day, for the nightly news broadcasts, and the next day's newspapers.

For a while, of course, Obama tried to have it both ways. Traveling through Iowa the day after he announced, Obama told the AP, "If your name is Barack Hussein Obama, you can expect it, some of that. I think the majority of voters know that I’m a member of the United Church of Christ, and that I take my faith seriously." Interesting that Obama would bring up his own middle name, but then immediately invoke Wright's Christian church as a defense against any accusation that he was too foreign, or even too Muslim, to get elected.

OK, now let's fast forward a year, to March 15, 2008, when the Wright stuff erupted. (What took the Clinton oppo people so long to find all these tapes? That's a secret that remains to be unraveled!) As we all know, Obama defended Wright as best he could all through mid-March, including his liberal-pleasing speech in Philadelphia on March 18. But by the end of the month, the pressure on Obama to put some distance between himself and Wright was growing too intense.

And so the distancing began--and it all began in public. Obama went on "The View"--a regular source of material for Cable Gamers--on March 28 and said, "Had the reverend not retired and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying there at the church." Tough words for anyone to hear, but if you were Wright--who has an ego, that's for damn sure--how would you like to hear them said about you on national TV?

And the spin was even worse. In The Chicago Sun-Times, one of Wright's hometown papers, the headline must have been jarring to the preacher: "Obama: Wright repented, so he stayed."

Now in his angry mind, of course, Wright hasn't repented for anything--he repeatedly insisted at the National Press Club today that all his now-notorious comments were either "misquoted" or "taken out of context." (Perhaps you can tell me how "No, no, no! Not God bless America, God damn America!" can be misconstrued, but that's another issue.)

But the point is, the modern media, including the cable news networks and such crucial new components such as YouTube, make it virtually impossible for private figures to have private conversations that stay private for very long.

No doubt there has been lots of back-channel communications between the Obama campaign and Wright, but without a doubt, it hasn't done much good, because the external public communication, through TV and the like, matters a lot more. Whatever honeyed words Wright might be hearing from staffers--or maybe Obama himself--are overwhelmed by the vinegar of televised distancing, which Wright obviously regards as dissing.

No secrets, no privacy, and not much opportunity to say things that aren't heard on TV at the same time. Is this a good way to run politics?

It's hard to say. On the one hand, transparency is good. On the other hand, sometimes you can't get anything done in the glare of publicity, with many strange cooks spoiling the broth.

And these new media dynamics are visible in government, too; even in such sensitive areas as war and national security, it seems that major players can't wait to go on TV to tell and sell their stories.

In the apocalyptic 1985 movie "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome," Tina Turner (pictured above) warns, "Remember where you are. This is Thunderdome, and death is listening."

Things aren't that bad today, although the Obamans must be feeling Mel Gibson-ish by now.

But for sure, today, the whole world is listening. Welcome to the Mediadome. As the man said in the film, "Dyin' time is here."

The Paradox of "MSDNC": When the Topic Du Jour At "The Place For Politics" Is "The Wright Stuff," It's Obama Getting Stuffed--Or Maybe Snuffed.

MSNBC has sought to brand itself as "The Place for Politics." OK fair enough; it's reasonable for a cable news network to aspire to "own" one particular category of news, such as elections--especially in an election year. Of course, MSNBC will face competition, from CNN and FNC.

So MSNBC and its guiding figure, Dan Abrams, hatched a plan for gaining market share: MSNBC would not only be the most liberal of the three cable news networks, but also the partisanly Democratic of the three cablers. It was a decent enough idea for brand differentiation, if not exactly quality journalism--MSNBC's ratings have improved, even as it devoted whole nights to nothing but Republican-bashing.

MSNBC's conscious policy shift opened the way for the likes of Keith Olbermann to full vent his spleen every night, and it forced Joe Scarborough and Chris Matthewsto move way to the left to survive in the new environment. And as for Tucker Carlson, who was once a Republican, before becoming just a jerk, he had no constituency whatsoever; he was recently replaced in his time slot by David Gregory, who, as we learned from his time as a White House reporter, is always ready to stick it to George W. Bush.

It was Investor's Business Daily, I think, that first labeled the net "MSDNC"--that's "DNC" as in "Democratic National Committee."

So is all this good news for the Democrats? I mean it should be, right? But not quite. And here's the catch: When the news is bad for Democrats, or at least some Democrats, "MSDNC" might as well be MSNBC--when the news is bad, more news is worse news.

Today, for example, MSNBC has been running virtually nothing but Jeremiah Wright news, and, in the absence of new news, the channel settled for rehashing the old news, hour after hour after hour. This morning, there was plenty of commentary leading up to Wright's speech, on "Morning Joe." And then, after Wright's speech, everybody on MSNBC has been talking about little else--MSNBC seems to be keeping Jonathan Darman, Jonathan Capehart, and Joe Watkins on a short leash, so that every hour or so they can be trotted out for a rehash. Darman, of Newsweek, Capehart, of The Washington Post, and Watkins, a "Republican Strategist" who is also a preacher, are actually pretty good on the air. They have all three honestly said that the Wright matter is a huge negative for Barack Obama; indeed, the reality that Wright is clobbering Obama's campaign is by now so obvious that we will have to wait till "Countdown" tonight to see Olbermann and his trained seals--Richard Wolffe, Dana Milbank, and Rachel Maddow--for some dutiful pro-Obama horn-honking.

But in the meantime, all day today, MSNBC's saturation coverage is saturation-bombing the Obama campaign. Although to be sure, MSNBC's p.c.-ness still shines through.

Two examples:

First, during the 1 o'clock hour, Andrea Mitchell interviewed former Sen. Bill Bradley , an Obama supporter. Mitchell asked Bradley all the obvious questions that would naturally emerge in the wake of Wright's appearance at the Press Club; for his part, Bradley, spinning hard, did his best to deflect the questions away from Wright and back toward Hillary Clinton. Bradley's gameplan was two fold: first, to say that Obama was "new politics" and that thus the American people should not bother with concerns about what sort of person Obama is, and what sort of people he hangs out with--it's worth remembering that Obama has called Wright a "mentor" and "like a family member"; and second, to do a little "old politics" on Clinton. So twice Bradley brought up the issue of the donors to the Clinton Library + Foundation. Now that's a juicy mystery that should get solved sometime. But on this day, Bradley's shifting of the subject was also a fairly hamhanded attempt to move the discussion away from an obvious Obama negative and toward a hoped-for Clinton negative, even as Bradley touted Obama as the man to usher in those "new politics." But for her part, Mitchell didn't choose to call Bradley on his evasion of the question--is that part of the "new politics"? And yet at the end, despite Bradley's obfuscating, Mitchell closed by praising Bradley for being such a tireless worker for improved race relations in the US. OK, great, but the rest of us would trust you more, Bill, if you answered legit questions!

Second, during Contessa Brewer's hour, following Mitchell, Brewer spoke with Athena Jones, who is the MSNBC reporter traveling with the Obama campaign, which at the time was in Wilmington, NC. Brewer asked Jones as to the reaction of the Obama campaign to all the Wright news, and Jones answered that the press corps had not been able to speak to Obama since Sunday afternoon.

(That, of course, is a bad sign, when the candidate is kept hidden away from the people assigned to cover him. But once again, that's the nature of 24/7 cable news, for better or for worse--the press is always around, the "beast" always needs to be fed,, and if Obama is "bored" by the campaign against Hillary, well, it's even more of a challenge--although as Capehart pointed out on the air today, it's yet another bad sign about Obama and/or his campaign that such a comment would leak out.)

Back to the Brewer-Jones colloquy. Trying to glean some info as to the condition of the Obama campaign, Brewer asked whether the crowds were "diverse."

Now here's where things get amusing. Because, of course, in the land of political correctness, there's nothing more important than being "diverse." Now in normal liberal usage, "diversity" means having plenty of p.c. minorities around--typically, "people of color." So when Jones answered Brewer, to the effect that oh yes, the crowds for Obama were "very diverse," well, what did that mean? Did that mean that the crowds were diverse in the p.c. sense, which is to say a lot of blacks (there aren't, after all, many Hispanics or Asians in Eastern NC)? If that's the case, then that's not a good sign for Obama, because while he might be able to win the Democratic nomination with the leftermost fringe of the Democratic Party, he will need a lot of white voters to win the general election--and at least a few to win NC. And of course, for the rest of us, "diverse" has an additional meaning, the meaning that you find in a dictionary--difference. Were there different kinds of people in the Obama crowd? Blacks and whites together? That's the key question. But since Brewer never pressed Jones on her usage of "diversity"--perhaps because, like many white liberals, she is paralyzed to use the "d" word in any way that bespeaks negativity or skepticism--we viewers never got a good straight answer to the key question: whether the auguries for Obama from the North Carolina campaign trail today were good, or bad.

So that's MSNBC for you: It's the place, all right, for politics--the place for p.c. politics. As yet as we have seen, paradoxically, such flood-the-zone coverage is not helping Obama, the man most hardcore Democrats support. Because of the network's p.c. slant, the coverage is not providing useful information, despite the profusion of information.

See It Now

That's the e-mail alert that I got from Fox News a few minutes ago, above, alerting me to Jeremiah Wright's appearance at the National Press Club. Last night I speculated that the cable nets would cover Wright live. And, indeed, they are--I love the cable game! And I see that CNN and MSNBC are running Wright, too.

Wright is offering a ringing defense of black liberation theology. Just heard him refer to "sick systems"--I think that he means America; God wants "a radical change in the social order." And said that he's been seeking big change for 36 years, which, of course, covers the entire time that Barack Obama has been a member of his church. And on, and on, about crack, Iraq, etc.

You're for "liberation and transformation," right? Sure you are. Unless, of course, you pathetic prole, you're bitterly clinging to your God and your gun!

The Obama campaign must be going nuts, while Hillary Clinton must be cheering. And oh yes, John McCain.

And we're all watching it at the speed of live.

UPDATE: In the Q+A, Wright is defending Farrakhan, and even dumping on Obama. He is destroying Obama's campaign, right here, right now. And he is loving it--I guarantee he will do this again, and again, and again.

In the wrap-up, FNC's Megyn Kelly just called him "incendiary," and while that's accurate, that's almost an understatement. And Bill Hemmer made a good point: Wright doesn't care about Obama.

Reverend Wright and the Frenzy of Renown

So what's going through Jeremiah Wright's fevered brain? What led him to go on Bill Moyers' show on Friday, there to damn Barack Obama with faint praise--and loud publicity?

And what inspires Wright to speak before the The National Press Club in Washington DC on Monday? It won't be just Cable Gamers on hand tomorrow--although they will lead the coverage; I wouldn't be surprised if one or more of the cablers goes live tomorrow. And let's face it: What reporter in that media-node city won't want to go see Wright, to see what he'll say next?

Doesn't Wright understand that he is hurting Barack Obama? As liberal Democratic pundit Susan Estrich wrote today, with friends like Wright, who needs enemies?

The Cable Gamer predicted all of this nearly two weeks ago--Wright would seek to demolish Obama, to vindicate Wright's own black-nationalist/Afrocentric worldview. As I wrote on April 14, "If Obama loses, then Wright is 'right' about America." And that's happening.

But in addition, there's another dynamic at work here: the hunger for fame. If love is a drug, then so, too, is name ID, the hunger to get a "fix" of fame, to see one's mug on TV--no matter what the long-term cost to oneself or to one's putative friends.

Wright was a reasonably well known preacher in Chicago these past few decades, but 99% of Americans had never heard of him until six weeks ago. Now, anyone who is the least bit paying attention has seen the video, on cable or YouTube--which has become a kind of auxiliary most valuable player in The Cable Game. Wright is famous. The system, one might say, works. And there's every reason to think that Wright will continue to "work the system" for as long as Obama is in the public eye--that is, until the November 4 election, or even longer, in the event that Obama wins the White House.

Obama's election is increasingly unlikely, of course, thanks in large part to Wright and his non-stop gusher of angry words. But that same word-gusher makes it a cinch that Wright is on his way to being "elected" as a major go-to person for the media, a guide to African- American opinion in the 21st century. Because it's worth noting that Wright clearly has a base among the Farrakhan crowd, plus those who simply like a little bit of white-people-bashing rhetoric on Sunday morning, or any day, for that matter.

Two decades ago, an academic at the University of--where else?--Southern California sought to explain this system. Leo Braudy wrote a brilliant book with a useful and evocative title: The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History. Braudy chronicled all the ways that the quest for fame had formed--and deformed--people across history. It was a fascinating book; one can only wish that Braudy would update it to include the the rise of reality television, as well as real-people contest shows such as "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" and "American Idol."

And so where does it all lead? One grim answer came from a 2005 comic book series called 7 Days to Fame which imagined that fame-crazed people would agree to kill themselves, live, on the air, at the end of a week-long immersion in cinema verite.

So far, at least, American culture hasn't gone that far. Nobody has killed himself or herself (see pic above, from 7 Dayscomic) on the air, yet.

But the Obama people must be getting pretty desperate to put the kibosh on "The Jeremiah Wright Show." Which reminds me: Anyone remember the 1976 movie "Network"? Especially how it ended?

So watch your back, Rev. Wright!

Because the Obamans know that your rant-and-rave show is threatening to kill their presidential show. And death, even death in the "ratings," is something that politicos very much want to avoid. So we might soon soon see how much the Obama people want to win this election.

Now Suppose Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity Had Said What Keith Olbermann Said

The Huffington Post's Rachel Sklar is once again The Cable Gamer's favorite liberal brunette media pundit. She writes a tough piece here on Keith Olbermann, who used distinctly sexist and misogynist language against Hillary Clinton.

The Cable Gamer doesn't count herself as much of a feminist, in the media-p.c. sense of the world, but any woman this side of O should be outraged at the threat of violence against women (and come to think of it, O was a volunteer, while HRC didn't ask for Olbermann to threaten her).

In fact, as Sklar points out in her piece, there's been a lot of nasty sexism directed at Hillary.

But of course, Olbermann was in his own category--suggesting physical violence. KO apologized, not that I think he means it.

Still, one is left to wonder: What would have happened if some prominent conservative had said exactly what Olbermann said?

The Cable Gamer's Prediction About Reverend Wright Seeking to Sabotage Barack Obama's Campaign Getting Noticed

On "Fox News Watch" last night, panelist Jim Pinkerton was nice enough to take note of my April 14 prediction that Reverend Jeremiah Wright would seek to sabotage Barack Obama's presidential campaign. As Pinkerton put it:

There's another story, of course, which all of us in the cable news world are going to have to look forward to. I saw it on a blog called The Cable Game where it made the point that Reverend Wright, Jeremiah Wright, has an enormous stake in Obama losing. He's been saying for half a century that white people are terrible. And now, if Obama wins the election, then obviously America is not so bad. If Obama loses he says "see I told you."

Needless to say, Mark Finkelstein and Tim Graham of Newsbusters got the whole story--including a shocking admission, from Pinkerton's fellow panelist, Jane Hall, a nice as well as honest liberal, that Obama's connection to Wright is much worse than Michael Dukakis's connection to Willie Horton back in the 1988 presidential campaign.

And so too, of course, as he always does, in re: anything Fox-related, did Johnny Dollar.

Mark Shanahan, We Hardly Knew Ye--Was That Because You Were Already Gone, If You Know What I Mean?

TCG got more curious about Mark Shanahan, who knifed Fox and shielded some top Democrat (see previous posting, below).

And so I went clicking around. It turns out that he's a gossip columnist for The Boston Globe--who knew?

And I soon found this hott item from the always plugged-in website Jossip, which in turn credited The Boston Herald:

Sources say the buzz-cut Names columnist [Shanahan] was woozy and bleary-eyed, with a drink in hand, at the recent Radio and Television Correspondents dinner in Washington, D.C., and that his behavior was “totally inappropriate” at the gathering of heavy hitters...“He was like a fish out of water. He was wobbling, his eyes were glazed over,” said Someone Who Was There.

I guess, after a night like that, if you're Shanahan, you remember what you want to remember.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished -- And Mark Shanahan Still Manages to Show His Liberal Bias

The Cable Gamer will admit that she had never heard of The Boston Globe's Mark Shanahan. Yes, I try to follow the cable news biz as closely as I can, and yes, Shanahan writes about TV and entertainment and whatnot, but he had never crossed into my radar screen.

I guess the p.r. folks at Fox cast a wider net when it comes to inviting people to their gala dinners, and so they invited Shanahan--and now they know better.

Why? Because Shanahan knows how to put a knife--or in his case, it's probably more like a hair pin--in the back of those who are nice to him. In this case, the victim was Fox News. Shanahan wrote a remarkably bitchy, self-pitying first-person account of his being invited to the Radio-Television Correspondents Association dinner in DC last Saturday night in which he demonstrated that even bitchiness can be unfair and unbalanced.

Here's the proof. Shanahan and his editors, playing up the victim, headlines his story "Stranded in Fox's lair"--as if he is some poor little lost lamb, surrounded by slobbering carnivores. In fact, he was invited, and he accepted Fox News' hospitality--a mistake that they surely won't make twice.

Read the piece for yourselves, Cable Gamers, and decide for yourselves whether or not Shanahan was simply looking for every opportunity to make Fox News look bad--although, in fact, he makes himself look bad. Not only does he look ungrateful for the invitation, but he can't even spell Alisyn Camerota's name correctly.

TCG wasn't there at the dinner, but something tells me that Shanahan was a pill at the dinner table. And so little wonder he was not invited to whatever after-parties the Fox types were going to. But let Shanahan tell it:

As the room emptied, I roamed around, running into Maine Senator Olympia Snowe, "NewsHour" anchor Jim Lehrer, and "Hardball" host Chris Matthews. Bored, I texted my friends at Fox. "Where's the party?" No answer. "Doing anything fun?" Silence. Hmm. I'd been dropped. I headed to the hotel bar to catch the highlights of the Red Sox game, and on the way passed conservative talk-show host Laura Ingraham fixing her lipstick.

Note that Shanahan is both a one-man sob sister act, but he is always willing to name names, snarking not only at Ingraham, above, but also other big Fox cheeses, including Chris Wallace , Geraldo Rivera, and Shepard Smith.

But now note where Shanahan suddenly falls silent:

Then I bumped into a well-known political operative from Massachusetts, who was enjoying a drink with an attractive young woman. "Is this your wife?" I asked. No, he replied. We swapped stories for a while longer, and then I left. I had to get up early and he was busy Spitzering.

Now, let me ask the blogospheric jury: If you're writing a gossipy piece about a bigfoot dinner, wouldn't you want to name the name of the "well-known political operative from Massachusetts, who was enjoying a drink with an attractive young woman"? If you can dish on Fox, why can't you dish on this political operative?

And the answer of course is that the likes of The Boston Globe regard Fox News as conservative and thus the enemy (never mind that Wallace, Rivera, and Smith are notoriously neutral, maybe even slightly liberal).

Whereas any "well-known political operative from Massachusetts" is surely a Democrat, and so the Globe can't name him--that would be an assault on "privacy," to which liberals have a constitutional right, but not, of course, conservatives.

Bitchiness is bad--OK, I take that back, it's not all bad, actually it's kinda fun sometimes. But biased bitchiness is bad.

If you're going to be a bitch, be an equal opportunity bitch.

Credit Where Credit Is Due--Dan Abrams Calls It Fairly. (Now We'll See What Keith Olbermann Does To Him!)

I normally think of MSNBC's evening lineup as a bunch of cheerleaders for Barack Obama's presidential campaign. So I was pleasantly surprised to see a genuinely fair segment just now by Dan Abrams just now. The subject was Rev. Jeremiah Wright's recent interview with Bill Moyers.

In essence Wright defended himself, with Moyers nodding in sympathetic approval. Wright said that he had been treated unfairly by the media, etc. And when asked about Obama's partial distancing of himself from Wright's inflammatory sermons, Wright said, "he's a politician, he does what he has to do."

In so saying, of course, Wright "threw Obama under the bus," as Abrams put it. But of course, as Abrams further observed, if Wright had wanted to help Obama's presidential prospects, he wouldn't have agreed to the interview at all.

And so it looks like Wright isn't looking to do Obama any good. Right?

You read it here first, Cable Gamers! On April 14, to be exact, I said that Wright had a vested interest in seeing Obama lose, since a defeat for Obama would be a vindication of Wright's worldview--that the white majority in America is racist. On the other hand, as I wrote two weeks ago:

If Obama won, if he were to get elected by all the people of America, it would undercut the whole world view that Wright has built up over his many angry decades here on this earth. By contrast, if Obama does lose, well then, everything that Wright preaches will be vindicated, at least in the minds of Wright and his fan base.

To put it more plainly, If Obama were to win, the Wright was wrong about America. If Obama loses, then Wright is "right" about America.

Abrams was joined by Joe Watkins, a black Republican political operative-turned-preacher, to whom Abrams gave a generous amount of time to, as Watkins denounced Wright and suggested that Wright's reappearance would be damaging to Obama. Also on the panel was Kevin Madden, the former press secretary for Mitt Romney who seems nice enough, and is definitely handsome enough, for a great career in The Cable Game.

Finally, fourth and definitely least, also on air was Lawrence O'Donnell, who is increasingly crazy. O'Donnell has been temperamental for a long time, but now he seems to be just mental. Alone among the four talking heads, he stoutly affirmed that Wright had said nothing negative about Obama, as if calling him "a politician" with a kind of dismissal was not, well, a diss. It was a nutty argument, obviously not true, but O'Donnell clung to it. O'Donnell should stick to fiction,since he's having a harder and harder time with reality.

But meanwhile, it'll be interesting to see what Keith Olbermann, the chief ideologue and propagandist at MSNBC, does in reaction to Abram's apostasy.

UPDATE: I am watching the MSNBC rerun of Olbermann's show tonight, Thursday, which tells me that Abrams might indeed get some grief for his even-handed treatment of the latest Wright eruption. First up on his show which was taped before Abrams', Olbermann had on one of his favorite lackeys, Dana Milbank, who opined that the Wright interview was no big deal. And then he put up a graphic entitled "Clinton's 'Electability' Myth." (Remember, on Olbermann's far-lefty world, Hillary Clinton is a great satan, exceeded only in her satanitude by the entire Republican Party and all conservatives.) Next up, another Olbermann lackey, Rachel Maddow, started pounding away on Fox News. Which, of course, Olbermann loved. So she'll be back tomorrow.

The Beginning of a Beautiful Liberal Friendship? TalkingPointsMemo.com Attacks Fox News, And Google Advertises on TalkingPointsMemo.com.

Things are changing fast and furious in the blogosphere, and Google, of course, is a big part of anything that goes on the Net these days. But here's a question: Is Google, once thought of as everyone's helpful impartial cyber handy man, now using its enormous wealth to become more helpful to liberals than conservatives?

Here's a leading liberal indicator: TalkingPointsMemo.com, (TPM) a prominent liberal blog, is not only gaining prominence and momentum in the liberal media constellation, but is increasingly a pretty slick TV channel, too. And oh yes, it's gaining Google as a sponsor.

Here's a blog posting for Wednesday signed by TPM chief Josh Marshall, trashing a top Democrat in Hillary Clinton's campaign:

Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe fluffs Fox News so hard they've made him into the new network promo ...

And under that little squib, we see this Fox News Channel spot, courtesy of YouTube.

Now some of you may not know that "fluff" as a verb--returning to Marshall's post-- has a very specific meaning in the adult-entertainment industry (which has migrated, like much of porn, into the popular culture--viz. Traci Lords, and now Jenna Jameson, repositioning themselves as mainsteam entertainers).

Not to put too fine a point on "fluff," TPM is accusing McAuliffe of, figuratively, of course, getting down on his knees and giving Fox News oral sex--fellatio, to be precise. (I suppose some could find homophobia in Marshall's choice of words, but of course if liberals are homophobic, well, that's OK.)

Why this fury against a stalwart Democrat? All because McAuliffe, a leading hClinton supporter, praised, in passing, Fox News' coverage of the Pennsylvania primary. The Obama campaign must be pleased that Marshall is uh, carrying a load for them.

But OK, TPM has a right to what it writes. Free country, free speech.

But of course, somebody still has to pay the blogger bills, so that TPM can continue to be free. I don't doubt that TPM gets a lot of George Soros-type money, in direct contributions, even if I don't know for sure.

But I do know for sure that the liberal billionaires who own Google are helping TPM, because I can see their ad right on the TPM site--and you can, too, either by clicking, or by looking at the screen-grab above. Note in particular--in addition to the anti-Fox News link, the anti-Karl Rove article, and even the hit piece on Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, at the top of the ad box, the words "Advertise Liberally." Har har.

One might ask: Is this really the company that Google wants to keep?

To be sure, the Google Public Policy Blog seems innocuous enough now, although every great liberal oak started out as a little liberal acorn. Perhaps someone will take the time to do a little digging into the ideological coloring of these twelve "Google Policy Fellows."

But interestingly, while Google is "advertising liberally" on a liberal site such as TPM, I didn't see anything like this on such conservative sites as National Review Online, or Hot Air, or The American Spectator. Could it be, do you suppose, that Google is leaning left? Subsidizing liberals, but not conservatives?

Indeed, maybe Google should be a little more cautious in its politics. The search giant might remember what happened to Microsoft's Bill Gates. He was no conservative, but when the Left came after him, in the anti-MSFT antitrust case of the 90s, Gates' liberalism did him no good. The Clinton Administration permanently flattened the upward trajectory of his company, as any Windows user knows. And now co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, plus CEO Eric Schmidt seem determined to make the same lurch to the Left. Watch out, boys. TPM might be your friend, because you have put the site on your payroll, but the Left is not your friend.

Facebook and the News Corporation: "External Convergence"

So Marcus Brauchli is
out as editor of The Wall Street Journal. The Cable Gamer doesn't usually venture opinions very far away from cable news, so I wouldn't be inclined to say anything about such a news item, although it is always interesting to see what happens as newspapers, TV, and the Net are all rapidly converging.

And of course, this Gamer always likes to keep up with the way stories play out, and I was especially curious as to how the Journal itself would cover the news of a top executive's departure. For what it's worth, I thought that the story--jointly written by Jessica E. Vascellaro, Merissa Marr, and Sam Schechner--was excellent. In good Journal style, it told the story, not shrinking from detail, such as Rupert Murdoch's shake 'em up speech in January to employees assembled at a Marriott Hotel across the street from WSJ HQ. And the authors also didn't shrink from pondering the larger implications, "the culture clash" that hastened Brauchli's departure, the "dramatic changes" ahead for the venerable broadsheet.

But here's what really piqued by interest: On the same web page as the Journal's Brauchli story was an ad for Facebook, the social network. (See screen grab above, and it's probably still on the WSJ site, although, of course, Net-based ads are always subject to change, faster than you can say "algorithm.") Now nothing wrong with Facebook, of course, but it is a rival to Myspace; Murdoch's News Corporation shocked the new-media world three years ago when it purchased Myspace.

One theory, I am sure, behind that purchase was that Murdoch would identify synergies between the old-media properties of NWS and this new media. Imagine, for example, being able to watch Fox TV content while surfing around on Myspace. For reasons TCG doesn't quite understand, that particular synergy never happened.

Instead, NWS teamed up with NBC to create Hulu, as a place to watch video. Hulu is an extremely cool example of what might be called "external synergy"--that is, two companies (NWS and NBC) jointly pooling some of their operation. More on that below.

Meanwhile, there's no need to worry about Myspace; it has signed a deal with three of the top four music publishers to compete with, say, iTunes.

But in the meantime, what's interesting to see--in the screen grab above--that Facebook is advertising on the WSJ site, which is, of course, owned by Murdoch's News Corporation, which also owns Myspace. In other words, Myspace's owner is also doing deals with Facebook.

The Cable Gamer doesn't know what all this means, but it is interesting to see companies wheeling and dealing like this. We think of Convergence as the aforementioned union of print, TV, and the Net, but there's another kind of convergence, too, the aforementioned "external convergence," which is the jumbling of all these different companies, and all their different functions. And so this instance, of Facebook getting together with News Corp., is a perfect example.

The Greatest Political Show on Earth--Maybe Anywhere in the Galaxy!--Continues!

MSNBC's Chris Matthews: "Another victory for cable television tonight! The battle goes on, no resolution, Hillary Clinton beats the spread." -- From Mike Allen in The Politico's "Playbook" this morning.

Google Joins The Cable Game, and the Media Game Overall, in a Big Googley Way!

Google is just a search engine, right? Wrong! Google is really a media company, and should be judged as such.

Search engines give you what you want, whereas media companies give you their opinion, even if, of course, they try to be sly about it. That's a big distinction. And if Google has tried to avoid being called a media company, preferring to fly below the radar of media criticism, but that won't be possible for much longer.

That's the opinion of many, including veteran industry observer Tom Foremski back in 2007 (and as noted, at the time, by The Cable Game!).

And it's also been said by a friend-turned critic, John Battelle, who has been making this argument--Google = Media--for years. Battelle, a co-founder of Wired way back when, is also something of an expert on Google, since in 2005 he published a friendly insider-y history of Google, The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture.

That was just three years ago, but it seems like a lot longer. Since then, Battelle has switched from being a fan of Google to being a critic. Of course, it must be noted that Battelle has an economic interest in such criticism--he's the president of Federated Media, a blog-advertising syndicator that competes with Google's Adsense.

But for those of us who are simply fans of the news, it's fun to see Google getting into The Cable Game in such a big way.

If you take a look at the screen-grab above, for example, you will see that Google has enlisted the services of National Journal correspondent Jim Barnes, to dope out today's Pennsylvania Democratic primary, complete with some cool Google Maps features.

Hmmm. Sounds like Google is moving into the news biz to me! And a great match, because NJ is a cool publication for DC insiders, it's incredibly expensive, like $1000 a year; it's hard for me to imagine that such a business model has much of a future in a world-wide-webbed environment.

In addition, Google The Media Company has signed a content-providing deal with the Associated Press, and seems to have some sort of quiet understanding going with The New York Times, too, to favor NYT content in Google search results.

(TCG presumes that the persistent rumors that Google will simply buy the Times, with the Google equivalent of petty cash, have a substantial basis in fact. Such a purchase would finalize Google's bigfoot arrival into the media elite, sort of the way that Rupert Murdoch's purchase of The Wall Street Journal symbolized KRM's permanent ensconcement in the Establishment, even if, of course, the Establishment isn't all happy about his presence!)

And back to the screen grab, we see not only the Barnes piece on Pennsylvania, but also a button for the Google Channel on YouTube. How long will it take for Google to set up 10 channels, or 100? It will be a media company then, huh?

So come to think of it, that's an issue for conservatives to think about: Google is 1000 times smarter and savvier than most other media companies, but it is also commonly thought of as liberal, even left on political issues. Google did, after all, make a corporate home for Al Gore.

And so what will happen if Google takes over and/or turbocharges the MSM? What will the American media be like then?

More to the point, what will American politics be like in a Googled Era?

Hmmm. Yes, indeed, that's a prospect that makes you go hmmm.

"Does the Times have it out for Fox News?"

That's the headlineat FTVLive.com today, and it raises some excellent points about what seems certain to be an intensifying rivalry. Here's some of what FTV had to say:

There is no doubt that the Liberal New York Times and the Conservative Fox News have never been bed buddies. But, it seems like lately the Times has gone out of their way to snub Fox News and to prop up both CNN and MSNBC.

I report, you decide. FTV continues, after citing examples of the Times' negative coverage of Fox, asks, "So, why has the Times really been giving FNC the brush off as of late?"

And the answer comes back:

If you ask FTVLive, it seems to have started ever since Rupert Murdoch purchased the Wall Street Journal. When he bought the WSJ, he told the Times he was gunning for them. It seems that the Times has been snubbing FNC ever since.

And then FTV gets downright personal, and juicy:

Also, it seems like Times television editor Steve Reddicliffe is still bitter about losing his gig at News Corp (Fox Parent Company) owned TV Guide.

Ooh! Dish! The Cable Gamer did not know about Mr. Reddicliffe and his grudge. FTV continues:

The now 50 something Reddicliffe was fired from his editor in chief post at News Corp's TV Guide in 2002 after circulation fell nearly 40% during his tenure there. It's been more than three years since he took the Times job in 2004 but insiders say he's still bitter about losing the TV Guide gig which paid close to $750K (about five times more than he's making now).

It appears that Reddicliffe hasn't easily swallowed the two long years he spent on the beach and has continued to carry out his vendetta against News Corp properties like Fox News.

The Cable Gamer doesn't disagree with this analysis, but I would add a few points here:

First, the Times never liked Fox News, any more than it ever liked Rupert Murdoch or Roger Ailes, let alone Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity.

Second, if ideology explains much of the Times' hostility, jealousy explains the rest. The Times is in deep trouble, while Murdoch's News Corporation, which owns both Fox News and The Wall Street Journal is flourishing, while NYTCo is floundering, as the chart above, comparing stock performances over the last five years, makes clear--that's NWS in red, and NYT in blue.

Third, the Times' corporate and editorial hostility is only going to get worse, if Murdoch's plan to buy Newsday goes through, thus upping his reach into the Times' audience on Long Island.

OK, so that's the Cable Game for you. But one piece of free advice to Pinch Sulzberger--when the newspaper empire that you inherited is going under, mostly because you let your liberal ideology get in the way of a clear-eyed view of the technological future, is this really a good time to go around picking new ideological fights?

UPDATE: Radar, the ultra-cool gossip site, took note of this posting on Wednesday, April 23. This Gamer's got game! Hey Maer Roshan! I have been a fan of yours since your New York mag days!

Chris Matthews Running for the Senate? Who Him? Who Said That? He Did! But Never Mind!

MSNBC's Chris Matthews has a credibility gap about the size of the Susquehanna River.

He gives an interview to The Philadelphia Inquirer in which he is asked by Inky TV critic Jonathan Storm, "Are you really going to run for the Senate against Arlen Specter in 2010?" A reasonable enough question, considering that Matthews had let it be known for a long time that he was seriously interested in running, as Mark Finkelstein of Newsbusters carefully documented.

Instead, Matthews responded to Storm with a "Who Me?" tirade:

Where do you get that from? I am still honoring the commitment I made in 1987 to cover politics, not engage in it. Since boyhood, I've had a reverence for the Senate. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Advise and Consent, I loved those movies. But I've got a commitment to journalism that's serious, and I cover politics, and I committed myself in 1987 not to engage in it again.

You see, Matthews has made a lifetime commitment to the august principles and strict rules of The Church of Murrow, and nothing can tempt him away. NOT!

Matthews inky spin aside, what really happened is that Matthews' attempt to introduce himself to Democratic primary voters, in the pages of The New York Times Magazine, went over like a led zeppelin.

You could even say that Matthews was Stoned out of the race.

Cable Gamers know that if you are someone such as Matthews, you can make it, sort of, in cable news, thanks to a strong personality and a vivid, albeit grating--not to mention groping, as Matthews showed us on "Ellen" awhile back--persona. But the personality that gets a few hundred thousand viewers is not the same type of personality that gets you a majority of the vote in Pennsylvania.

But in the meantime, Matthews' viewers might think to themselves: "If Matthews would lie about his own politics, then how do we know that he is telling truth about anybody else's politics?"

Can CNBC reporters do math? Sure, but not if helps Republicans! Is anyone at GE paying attention?

The Cable Gamer has always kinda liked CNBC's Trish Regan, in part because she is a proud member of the brunette-and-proud-of-it brigade, in contrast to the much larger blonde battalion.

But the Cable Gamer still insists that brunettes be able to do math. I mean, part of the reason to stay a brunette is to avoid the stereotype of the dumb blonde, right? (I realize that most men like the idea of a dumb blonde, but if women are going to get anywhere in this world, it will because of their brains, not, er, other parts.

So let's consider the way that Natalie Morales (another proud brunette, btw, although she does have highlights, but we are on to another point now!) intro'd Regan's piece about how "big jumps in some areas...are hitting small businesses hard."

OK fair enough. Let's see about those "big jumps." (I have the segment on TiVo, but I couldn't it on the NBC archives, it looks to me like there's a gap between a story being in the "most recent" queue and being filed away in the archives--or maybe NBC is already embarrassed by this story and has decided to memory-hole it!)

Regan reported from Rudy's Spaghetti and Pizza House, out in Closter, NJ. Nothing wrong with a little shoe-leather, getting out beyond Manhattan, but the value of a reporting trip is ultimately to do good reporting. So let's look at some of the data points that Regan used.

For example, during her segment, she sat with one of the owners, who told her that a 50 lb bag of flour had jumped from $11.75 last year to $30.50 this year. That's an increase of 259 percent. Which is quite a big jump, of course, although it's worth noting that the overall increase in food prices, in the last year, according to the USDA, is a mere 4.6 percent. So while it might be true, as Regan said in her report, that “prices [are] up across the board," it's also true that overall, they aren't up by that much.

Instead, Regan chose to lead the witness, as it were, asking, "Have you ever seen this kind of increase, year over year, in prices?" And the answer came back, "No. This is something that's completely new." Well, in fact, inflation was much much higher in the 70s than today, so if the owners of Rudy's--who seemed to be in their 50s--they either haven't been in the pizza business very long, or they have bad memories, or they are simply telling Regan what she wants to hear.

But in fact, when Regan rattled off some price-specifics, she got caught in some contradictions: She said, "tomatoes up almost 18 percent, milk over 23 percent, and flour almost 35 percent." Now stop right there for a little reality-checking! Which is it? Is flour up 259 percent, as the pizza man told her, or is it up 35 percent as she just told us?

But wait, there's more! Regan said, "Here at Rudy’s profits are off 221 percent this year." Now again, how, mathematically, is that possible? If I make $10 one year, and zero dollars the next year, my profits are down 100 percent, of course, but they can't go lower. 100 is the limit. But of course, "221 percent" sounds more dramatic, even if it's sort of nonsensical. Regan did say that Rudy's had lost $28,000, which is certainly unfortunate, if not quite cataclysmic. Even in the best of economic times, businesses, large as well as small, oftentimes lose money.

But OK, what's the impact on consumers: If we are facing, as Morales and Regan tell us, "hard times...soaring prices," how does that translate to the consumer.

Here's Regan: The price of pizza will be "soaring," from $1.95 a slice all the way up to... $2.10. Mama mia--a whopping seven percent increase! Are we really seeing here, as Regan tells us, "a struggle for survival for small business"? Or is Regan getting a little carried away, trying to inject drama and alarmism into her story?

If flour is going up 259 percent--unless, of course it's only going up 35 percent--then why is the price of a slice only going up 7 percent? And is Rudy's making money, or not? If Regan can't get her facts straight, one is reluctant to trust her conclusions.

Now Trish would seem to be a smart woman. Her Wikipedia entry tells us that she graduated from Columbia University, an Ivy League school, and then worked on Wall Street, at Goldman Sachs no less.

So why all her carelessness about numbers, and broad overstatement in her story framing and in her conclusion? Could it be that Regan is not so interested in financial precision as she is in political polemics? Could it be that NBC is trying to trash-talk the economy, as a way of hurting the Republicans and helping the Democrats?

Might that political agenda explain why Morales' intro to the segment would tell viewers that they are about to discover "just how tough times are getting"? Got that, folks! Don't be bitter and cling to God and guns, NBC might as well be saying, vote for our candidate, Barack Obama!

Is such systematic bias a possibility at sister networks to MSNBC? Indeed, the need for anti-Bush apocalypticism might help explain why Regan's numbers are all over the place--becuase the real goal is to keep up with Keith Olbermann, who never let facts or fairness get in the way of his anti-GOP diatribing.

And now Regan is getting with the Olbermann program--in fact, maybe she wants to be on the Olbermann program. If so, this piece, full of non sequiturs as it might be, is nonetheless a great audition reel for MSNBC.

But one wonders, yet again: Is this really what General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt wants to see in his corporate subsidiaries? Do GE and its shareholders really want to see NBC and CNBC traduced by the Left, just like MSNBC? Is that good for a media business--to be full of anti-Republican hitmen, and hitwomen? After all, George Soros and his fellow travelers can afford to put various lefty personalities on their payroll if their political rantings cost them their jobs, but Soros & Co. can't afford to make GE shareholders whole.

And one last note to Trish: Don't get your hopes up--Yes, Olbermann is very cool, and if you were hanging with him he could take you to new heights of sociopolitical cache, but unfortunately for your brunette ambitions, he likes blondes.

UPDATE: Nice mention of TCG in Inside Cable News, always a must-read for Cable Gamers.

The Pentagon Seeks To Influence Opinion. Duh. Meanwhile, CNN Bashes Bush. Double Duh.

I just watched CNN's Rick Sanchez tease his coverage of the David Barstow reports today, concerning the Pentagon's efforts to influence the news media, especially military analysts. Sanchez raised a conspiratorial eyebrow, and told the viewers that the NYT story was "huge."

Well, The Cable Gamer is a slow reader, and so it took me a while to finish he piece. And yes, the article is huge, all right, if Barstow's work is measured by its length--some 7700 words--or the prominence it got in the Times: front page, above the fold (the photo above is taken from the NYT website).

But the article looks pretty small if it's measured by actual news content. I admit to being somewhat mystified by why the Times gave it such prominence, because all the piece said was the Defense Department is trying hard to influence coverage, and perceptions of the war--no accusations of governmental illegality, for example. Well, isn't that what the government is supposed to do? Try to win the war within the law? And of course every war, these days, has a strong media component. As Winston Churchill said of World War Two, victory for the good guys must be encased in a bodyguard of lies.

If the Times doesn't like the Iraq war, the paper is free to try to change the voters' minds about the war (and don't worry, the Times has been hard at work on that mission for a long time now). But in the meantime, George W. Bush, having been re-elected by the votes in 2004, on a finish-the-job platform, ought to be allowed to fight the war as he sees fit.

CNN: Every "Sensible" Person Knows That We Need More Gun Control

CNN's Fredericka Whitfield, reporting on the spate of shootings in Chicago, said, in the course of her report, that these shootings underscored the need for "more sensible gun control laws."

Well, obviously something bad is happening in Chicago-all these people, 31 in all, getting shot, with six dead. But how does one automatically conclude that we need gun control. The CNN clip showed Chicago Police Chief Jody Weiss complaining about AK-47s in the hands of criminals.

Well, gee, since when are AK-47s legal? Answer: they're not--not legal under current law.

So c'mon Fredericka: Don't tell us that we need "more sensible" gun control laws when we already have plenty of gun control laws--or if you insist on saying it, then at least admit that what you're saying is biased opinion, not unbiased news.

This is CNN--Lecturing The Catholic Church

Should the Roman Catholic Church get lectures from Muslims about living peacefully in this world? Of course, sez CNN.

On Sunday, The Cable Gamer decided to watch some of the other networks, to see how they covered the Pope's visit. In particular, I was interested in Soledad O'Brien, who was, uh, reassigned from "American Morning" awhile back and given various assignments, including the religion beat.

Reporting from Yankee Stadium, where Pope Benedict XVI held an outdoor mass for 60,000, O'Brien seemed distinctly unimpressed. She intro'd two guests, Jim Martin, a Jesuit, and Sayid Hassan al-Qazwini; O'Brien asked Martin a bland question about whether or not the Pope had opened up an in interfaith dialogue; Martin not surprisingly, said "yes."

Then O'Brien turned to Qazwini, immediately launching into questions about whether or not the Pope had been too mean to Muslims, alluding to past Papal speeches. Qazwini took the opportunity that O'Brien handed to him, agreeing, of course, that the Pope had been at fault. But then, affecting the sort of condescension to religious Christians that would make Barack Obama proud, Qazwini added that hopefully, the Pope would do better. And that, of course, is what O'Brien wanted to hear, and so he gave him plenty more airtime.

Now The Cable Gamer has read in the past O'Brien is a solid Catholic--and she had a buncha kids to prove it--as well as a determined brunette. The Cable Gamer still admires Soledad for her sticking up for her brunetteness, but when it comes to issues of faith, it appears that her bosses have gotten to her--the CNN equivalent of the Greenhouse Effect, aka liberal bias--and so for all intents and purposes, so she is just another cookie-cutter CNN liberal.

Fox Rules on Sunday: The Sound, and Power, of Silence

Hey Cable Gamers, if you weren't in front of your TV this morning, you missed something great: Pope Benedict XVI's mass at Ground Zero in New York City. It was a great moment; a reminder as to why TV is so powerful--because it really is "news at the speed of live," as Shepard Smith puts it. For Christians, of course, to see the Vicar of Christ connecting the sad events of 9-11 with the Eternal of our Almighty God, but for news hounds, and for the merely curious, it was a fascinating moment, in which we are all connected, everywhere. Usually such moments are tragedies and accidents and disasters, such as, say, JFK's assassination or the Challenger disaster or, of course, 9-11. This was just the opposite: a sweet moment of ceremony and consecration--news reports even said that the Pope would pray for the souls of the 9-11 hijackers (what do I think of that? well, let's put it he's a better Christian than I).

Many national and local news outlets carried the Holy Father's Mass live, but Fox stood out for a couple of reasons. First, Shep's commentary, while informed, was unobtrusive. He mostly deferred to genuine experts, namely Msgr. Jim Lisante, and Fr. Jonathan Morris, and, over in Yankee Stadium, religion correspondent Lauren Green. And so, for example, when they would refer to the Archbishop of New York, they called him Edward Cardinal Egan, which is the right way to say a Cardinal's name, with the title in between the given name and the surname. By contrast, most MSMers are happy just to "Cardinal Edward Egan"--because they don't care. In other words, there was none of the usual nattering and yammering that characterizes TV people who don't really know anything, pretending that they do, just to fill the time.

And then, when the Pope rode down the ramp into "The Pit," all four of them fell silent, and just watched, as the Popemobile drive down. And then, in a brilliant touch--hats off to some Fox producer somewhere, Fox played some sacred music, from an off-camera recording. The instrument used sounded like a cello, or maybe a bass viola, to this untrained ear, and the musical selection itself was either a stylized Pachelbel's Canon or something very close. Think about that, folks: Fox didn't have useless chatter, and it didn't just have silence; FNC actually produced the segment, in the same way that an artist would. And the result was a work of art--I hope it ends up on YouTube, because it was a bit of genius, as well as reverence.

Was Fox showing favoritism to Catholics, or to Christians as a whole? I don't think so, and, in fact, Shep made the comment that Fox is not out to play favorites of any kind, it's just that FNC was determined to capture not only the news as it happened, but also the gravity of the news. Which they did. And none of the other networks did.

Then, when the Pope said his prayer for the victims, Fox offered just respectful silence. In the professional, often cynical language of TV, such time is known as "dead air." But of course, there was nothing dead about this 81-year-old man--he glows with the Holy Spirit, just like his predecessor, John Paul The Great.

And then Fox added another touch: as the pope said his words, FNC provided the text on screen. After all, let's face it: the Pope is , and he speaks with a pretty heavy German accent. So he can be hard to understand. Worth listening too, always, of course, but hard to understand. So why not chyron his words, so that everyone can watch and read along? Clicking around quickly during this part of the ceremony, it looked to me as if Fox was the only net doing this.

Fox added lots of other nice touches, too: The little icon for this morning was a Papal symbol. And I also noticed that from time to time, FNC would put some sort of stained glass background, behind the images of the Pope on screen. It was a work of art, in terms of a pleasing composition to the eye.

To sum up: Earlier today, the Pope traveled to The Pit, and there, in the depths of one of the great horrible moments of modern history, he brought a message of love and forgiveness and salvation. It was like a story out of the Bible itself. And while a lucky few were there in person, all the rest of us were lucky, too, if we got to see it live. And of course, it's never to late to be saved.

Something to think about on a Sunday.

Each of us has to make such decisions for herself or himself--and the Cable Game is not about preaching religion; I will leave that to experts. Instead, TCG tries to look at cable news, as it's presented. And on this particular Sunday morning, Fox won easily, because someone at Fox HQ really thought through a strategy for presenting the news in a way that will stick with many of us for the rest of our lives.

(The photo, above, btw, is taken from the Foxnews.com website--it's a bit different than the channel, but it's great source for fair & balanced news when you're not online. The only thing I would say is that there needs to be video on the site--Fox shouldn't be bashful, it should put on every minute of the coverage this morning.)

CNN: The Most BUSTED Name In News

Innocent until proven guilty and all that, but still one has to ask: What was CNN's Richard Quest doing cruising around Central Park that got him arrested at 3:40 am on Friday morning?

The cops say that he had crystal meth in his pocket. How did it get there? And what, in any case, was Quest doing in Central Park, two hours and 40 minutes after the park's curfew?

Just what sort of investigative journalism was ramblin' Richard seeking to score?

UPDATE: The Cable Gamer was way behind on this story, in its full juicy detail. The New York Post reports a considerably different version of that story. It turns out, according to the NYP, that Quest didn't have meth in his pocket. He had something else in his pocket--or maybe out of his pocket, if you get my drift and I think you do.

The Cable Gamer is easily shocked, and it would cause her palpitations to actually try to describe the case as the Post, described it, so I will just cut-and-paste and let you decide:

CNN personality Richard Quest was busted in Central Park early yesterday with with some drugs in his pocket, a rope around his neck that was tied to his genitals, and a sex toy in his boot, law-enforcement sources said.

Now go figure. The truth will eventually come out, one supposes, because the cops presumably photographed all this, whatever it is.

But Noel Sheppard, of the invaluable media-critic site Newsbusters , noted the relative silence about this story, all day Saturday, and a great point: what would have happened if this had been, say, a Fox News reporter?

Mau Mau-ing the MSM: Bringing ABC News To Heel --Watch Out, John McCain!

The New York Times's Jacques Steinberg reports today that George Stephanopoulos "sounded somewhat taken aback" by the storm of criticism that has descended on Stephanopoulos and his fellow ABC-er, Charles Gibson. What did GS and CG do wrong? What caused them to get a headline, in Steinberg's Timesstory, that read, "Who Lost the Debate? Moderators, Many Say." Well, of course, they asked Barack Obama too many hard questions at Wednesday's presidential debate in Philadelphia. You know, questions to Obama about his background, his various comments, and his associations.

One might think that questions about all aspects of a would-be president's life are perfectly legit. After all, plenty of presidential hopefuls have seen their hopes dashed when various sordid--or merely unfortunate--facts came to light. Everybody agreed, for example, that former Georgia Senator Richard Russell (D-GA), was a good guy personally, and well qualified, intellectually and tempermentally, to be president, but by the 60s, his segregationist past in Southern Democratic politics disqualified him from national office--that is, his background, his various comments, and his associations. And think of others who were smart enough, but who got bounced from their ambitions--or even their incumbent position--because of personal foibles: George Romney, Tom Eagleton, and Gary Hart, to name just three.

But of course, all those guys were white, and none of them had the MSM in love with them, the way that everybody in the MSM loves Obama. And so, for example, The Washington Post's TV critic, Tom Shales--who I suspect has more of a crush on Obama than most, if you get my drift--described Stephanopoulos and Gibson's performance as "shoddy and despicable." Indeed, Jim Romenesko's media gossip site is brimming with anti-ABC opinion pieces similar to Shales' poisoned-penning.

Ouch! Nobody in the media wants pain like that, especially when the MSM mau-mau-ers clearly have the angry support of the lefty blogosphere. So you can bet your bottom Nielsen that Stephanopoulos and Gibson both have mental notes to self: "Avoid such pain in the future, be nice to Obama. And to further help recovery, make a point of being mean to George W. Bush or, better yet, John McCain."

OK, so that explains why the MSM will be brought further into pro-Obama orthodoxy. Liberal reporters and their liberal readers will reach a harmonic convergence of Obamatry.

But there is one catch: Just because liberals can all agree on the greatness of Obama--and the awfulness of reporters, or Democratic presidential rivals, who cause their hero any heartburn--that doesn't mean that the country as a whole shares their Obamaphilia. Indeed, it doesn't even seem that most Democrats are swept off their feet by Obama. The screen grab above, from the agenda-setting liberal blog TalkingPointsMemo.com this afternoon, shows two items: first, the news* that lefty journalists wrote a nasty letter to ABC; and second, that Obama's lead among Democrats nationally, according to Gallup, is shrinking. Which is to say, most Americans aren't drinking the Obama Koolaid.

But of course, the MSNBC crew, in particular, seems to be Jonestown-like in its thirst for Obama-aid. Keith Olbermann, Dan Abrams, Chris Matthews, David Gregory, can do what they like, of course. But they should remember that everybody at Jonestown ended up dead.

But in the meantime, expect ABC News to try to make it up to Obama and the liberals. If I were Bush or McCain, I wouldn't agree to any interviews with ABC, because they will be bruisers, alternating with beanballs.

*Strictly speaking "news" is supposed to be surprising. It's not news that liberals love Obama, but a liberal blog such as TPM is happy to pile on ABC, and then pile on some more.

Fox News: The Place for Politics

I will admit, that if your political obsession is making sure that Barack Obama beats Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary, then MSNBC is the cable news channel for you. Because that's about all the liberal-moving-left anchors and contributors on MSNBC talk about these days.

But there are other political stories, you know. For example, there's a whole 'nother party out there, called the Republican Party. And if you happen to be interested in the GOP, for any reason, then there's no point in watching MSNBC--unless, of course, you just want to see Republicans bashed all day.

Meanwhile, Business Week's Ron Grover pulled together an intriguing story, under the headline: "VP Hopefuls Out-Fox Each Other/Would-be McCain running mates angle for the Fox Effect at this year's Radio and Television Correspondents Assn. dinner." Grover noted the presence of four possible running mates for John McCain--Mitt Romney (who had the honor of actually sitting with FNC chief Roger Ailes), Mike Huckabee, Joe Lieberman, and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford--at the Radio-Television Correspondents Association dinner in DC last night.

"G.E.’s Shortfall Calls Credibility Into Question"

That's the headline in The New York Times today. The Cable Gamer has been predicting since last year that GE was destined to spin off NBC-Universal, probably after the 2008 elections, and now we see the "big mo" for a larger GE breakup is growing. Here are the key grafs:

Once-isolated calls for at least a partial breakup of the conglomerate have become a chorus, with NBC Universal, appliances and GE Money, the consumer finance unit, emerging as prime candidates for a sale or spinoff. Unloading these divisions would return billions to shareholders, advocates say, while allowing G.E. to focus on its booming infrastructure business, which sells big-iron items like locomotives, jet engines and power turbines.

“There’s a point in time when you say this is a big old monster, and parts could be better off on their own,” said Scott Lawson, a portfolio manager at Westwood Capital Management, which owns G.E. shares. “A breakup is looking more viable.”

Interestingly, the piece was co-authored by Nelson D. Schwartz, the Times reporter who had the original GE breakup story nearly a year ago. It's happening, folks.

As the company flies apart, The Cable Gamer wonders if Jeff Immelt will fight to keep custody of Keith Olbermann, and maybe Dan Abrams, too--both MSNBCers were notable tonight for their shameless/relentless shilling of Barack Obama tonight.

Is Jeff Immelt Cheering for Keith Olbemann While His Company Burns?

So Jack Welch, the General Electric corporate legend--one business survey dubbed him "CEO of the century"--has much to be proud of. But one topic that he seems touchy about is the current condition of his corporate alma mater, GE, and the status of GE's farflung holders under the inept leadership of his handpicked successor, Jeff Immelt. But hey, I just report (OK, TV Newser reports); you decide whether or not Jack is defensive about GE.

In fact, GE is in the middle of a lot of controversy these days, not only because its stock price is down, but because as a global conglomerate, it seems to have its fingers in some pies that it shouldn't. Bill O'Reilly has been raising some important new issues, such as whether or not GE is facilitating Iran. That's a strong charge by O'Reilly, worthy of inquiry, both journalistic and governmental.

Now here's where it gets particularly interesting for Cable Gamers: Because Keith Olbermann--who hosts, of course, a show on MSNBC, which is a subsidiary of NBC, which is, in turn a subsidiary of GE--is accusing O'Reilly of targeting GE because of O'Reilly's antipathy toward Olbermann (which, of course, is completely mutual). In other words, because O'Reilly doesn't like Olbermann--and once again, it's important to bear in mind that it's Olbermann who started the feud; he routinely calls O'Reilly "the worst person in the world"--that's why O'Reilly is going after GE, parent to MSNBC.

Now the Cable Gamer doesn't know if Olbermann's allegation is true or not, even in part. But in any case, either the substance of the allegations is true, or it's not true. Is GE playing footsie with the evil regime in Iran? Let's find out! And if it is true that GE is helping, even indirectly, Iran's goal of going nuclear, then GE's action must be investigated, and the activity must be put to a stop.

But in the meantime, it's interesting that Olbermann is getting so enmeshed in corporate politics, in addition, of course, to his usual Republican-bashing politics (and more recently, his Hillary Clinton-bashing politics, as the left-wing KO does everything possible to help his man, Barack Obama, win the Democratic nomination, on the way to winning, Olbermann hopes, the White House).

Olbermann assures his viewers that he is acting--acting out is more like it--with the full acquiescence of the GE top brass. Now that's interesting. The Cable Gamer had always assumed that Immelt and the other GE chieftains were too busy worrying about manufacturing and finance to worry about what's on a dinky subunit such as MSNBC. But maybe that's wrong. Maybe even Immelt himself is cheering Olbermann on. Maybe GE wants Obama to win. Such a Democratic victory might be bad for business overall, but it might be good for GE, in particular, since Immelt is determined, as a matter of corporate grand strategy, to take his company in a politically correct "green" direction. Maybe President Obama and his environmental guru, Al Gore, would mandate that everyone buy GE solar panels. That would be good for GE's bottom line.

Although, of course, some would say that if Obama and the Greens are bad for business overall, they will be bad for GE, too. Maybe Immelt doesn't see it that way. Or maybe Immelt plans to leave GE soon enough--perhaps for a job in the Obama administration or some big environmental/conservation group or maybe some global government group or philanthropy?--and because of that planned exit-strategy, he worries more about his standing in "enlightened society" than he worries about GE shareholders. Immelt may have been a disaster as CEO, but he's made hundreds of millions of dollars in salary and bonuses over the years--he has enough money that he can afford to be a liberal!

So for all The Cable Gamer now knows, maybe Immelt is watching Olbermann every night, hooting and hollering as KO sticks it to Bush and the GOP. That's a little counter-intuitive to most people's understanding of big business, but in fact, lots of corporate big shots--Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, George Soros--are not only left-wing, but way left-wing. And maybe Immelt is in that camp--it would certainly explain why Olbermann feels so emboldened to Bush-bash and to Obama-boost.

But there's a catch. Immelt may be good for Olbermann, protecting Olbermann, but as the evidence shows, Immelt is not good for GE. As the chart above demonstrates, GE has underperformed the Dow just in the last year--note the steep plummet in the last week that totally tanked GE stock, to just 32 and change, well less than half of what was as recently as 2001. (Note to Jeff: spend less time on "Countdown," and spend more time counting your corporate beans!)

And so GE is in trouble--maybe terminal trouble for its life as a super-conglomerate. The Cable Gamer can say, "I told you so."

Loyal readers might remember--or might need to be reminded-that TCG first broached this possibility nearly a year ago--on July 24, 2007. Under the headline, "Bye bye NBC-U? And you know what that means, MSNBC and CNBC," I pointed to an earlier New York Times story, in which Jeffrey T. Sprague, a Citigroup analyst, suggested that breaking up General Electric would be a good way to unleash shareholder value currently buried in GE's over-conglomeration and underperformance.

It's one thing if your conglomerate is run by a genius such as Welch, it's another thing if your conglomerate is run by Immelt. Immelt is plenty smart, of course, but one needs to be REALLY smart to beat the market, which consists of lots of smart people, as Welch did for 20 years, 1981-2001. And Immelt is obviously not equal to that task. Adjusted for stock splits, GE stock went up about 3000 percent under Welch, triple the overall market. By contrast, GE stock is down 20 percent during Immelt's six-and-a-half-year tenure, during which GE has significantly under-performed the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

In other words, Immelt is watching MSNBC, when he should be watching his company--and his own back.

A Thought Experiment: Suppose Someone At Fox Had Said What Jack Cafferty Said

Suppose that, say, Bill O'Reilly had said that Chinese products were "junk." And suppose that Sean Hannity had said that the Chinese were "goons"--without really bothering to specify whether he was talking about the whole of the Chinese people, or just the government.

I think it's safe to say that there would have been enormous furore--liberal MSMers and press watchdoggers would have cluck-cluck-clucked about the racism and venom of Fox News, of conservatives, etc.

But of course, nobody at Fox said anything like that. Those quotes come from CNN's curmudgeon commentator, Jack Cafferty.

So it's no big deal. You see, it's not the words that matter most, it's who says the words, and where. If a "racist" says something bad, well, that's more proof that the person is really, really bad. But if a "good" person--or someone who works for a "good" network--says something bad, well, it's just not so bad. Interestingly, Cafferty was something of a conservative years ago. And he probably still is, deep down; it's just that he knows that if he wants to keep working at CNN, he has to play to CNN's Bush-bashing liberalism. And Cafferty has been willing to do to that. And wisely so, because otherwise he wouldn't be working at CNN.

And thus while O'Reilly and Hannity probably would've been fired, the MSM doesn't worry about Cafferty, because he's at CNN. Got that?

Obama Doesn't Need to Worry About His Enemies--He Needs to Worry About His "Friends"

Does Rev. Jeremiah Wright want Barack Obama to lose the presidency? The Cable Gamer knows it sounds crazy, but please hear me out. And then remember that you heard it here first!

As if Obama didn't have enough problems--a new ARG poll shows him dropping 20 points in Pennsylvania in the wake of his "bitter" comments"--his other big source of trouble, , has opened up a new front, by attacking the Fox News Channel.

The Chicago Sun-Times and ABC News reports that at a funeral eulogy he delivered on Saturday, Wright "pillor[ied] some of his critics, including Fox News commentators Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity."

Praising the memory of the late R. Eugene Pincham, a retired judge, Wright recalled that Pincham had reached out to all sorts of people, including the notorious Louis Farrakhan. It's bad enough for Wright to wade into this territory, reminding everyone that Obama has frequently traveled in the same circles as his fellow South Sider, the notorious hater and anti-Semite, Farrakhan. But then Wright went further:

"Fox News can't understand that. O'Reilly will never get that. Sean Hannity's stupid fantasy will keep him forever stuck on stupid when it comes to comprehending how you can love a brother who does not believe what you believe."

Needless to say, Wright's remarks received a standing ovation in the packed church.

Now something tells me that O'Reilly and Hannity will both respond to this attack, starting today, on their respective radio shows, and then tonight, on their respective FNC TV programs. Indeed, something tells me that Wright made the day of both Foxmen--they will get more ears and eyes as a result of being thrust back into the middle of a raging controversy. Tune in tonight!

So why would Wright do this? Why make Obama's political path even more difficult by throwing out more rhetorical bombs? Remember back when Obama was supposed to be "post-racial," sort of like Oprah Winfrey? Those days are gone, forever--Obama is just another angry black activist with a chip on his shoulder.

One possible answer, of course, is that Wright just can't help himself. He is simply so full of rage, that it blows out of him all the time, like the geyser Old Faithful. (And OK, if the promise of an explosion from Wright helps fill pews, and increase speaking fees, and maybe sell some tapes and books, well, that's fine, too.)

But The Cable Gamer has another explanation: Maybe Wright is actively sabotaging the Obama campaign. Why would Wright seek to hurt Obama, his parishioner? The man he married? The man whose children he baptised? Why thwart the best chance that an African American has ever had to win the White House? Here's why. If Obama won, if he were to get elected by all the people of America, it would undercut the whole world view that Wright has built up over his many angry decades here on this earth. By contrast, if Obama does lose, well then, everything that Wright preaches will be vindicated, at least in the minds of Wright and his fan base.

To put it more plainly, If Obama were to win, the Wright was wrong about America. If Obama loses, then Wright is "right" about America.

So of course Wright wants Obama to lose. Whether it's conscious or unconscious--or a little bit of both--Wright's optimality path is plain to see. Sorry, Barack! When theory confronts reality, theory must win, as far as the theorist is concerned.

It's as simple as that. Count on Wright to keep talking/venting, all the way through Election Day, if Obama is the nominee. To make sure that his own twisted worldview is vindicated, Wright will twist the knife in the back of Obama. And of course, the press will be following Wright's every move, for as long as Obama is front and center--Wright will love that, since it will give him a chance to endlessly expound, his own Farrakhan-esque views. No doubt he will attack Fox, happily escalating his war of words with O'Reilly and Hannity, and adding new enemies as he gets the chance.

You watch Wright try to destroy Obama, in this indirect but effective way. And please remember, as this drama unfolds, that you first read the preview here at The Cable Game.

Meanwhile, of course, for cable news, especially

TV Week's Top Ten List

TV Week's Michele Greppi offers her take on the ten most powerful people in TV news. Many of the names--Tim Russert, Roger Ailes, Jon Klein--are familiar to Cable Gamers, while others, most notably, Amy Poehler of "Saturday Night Live"--best known for her dead-on portrayal of Hillary Clinton--are new (and well deserved in the view of TCG) entrants onto the list.

But in the spirit of fair & balanced, we should note a different view from the always well-reasoned blogInside Cable News critiques the TV Week list, calling it "a disservice to its readers... more of a beauty contest version of power, sort of a 'What’s hot/What’s not.'" ICN argues, for example, that Ailes has more raw power than anyone else in the industry, in the sense of getting things done. By contrast, say, Steve Capus of NBC News, rated #1 by Greppi, has to share authority with Jeff Zucker, the overall chief of NBCU. In addition, ICN dismisses the power of Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann.

These are all interesting points, leading one to a discussion of the proper definition of "power"--a whole huge topic.

But for her part, The Cable Gamer thinks that visibility is its own kind of power. I am not sure that I would recognize Steve Capus if I saw him on the street. But I would sure know Olbermann and O'Reilly. And Poehler and Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert. As they say in TV, people look before they listen. And for better or for worse, people look to stars for edification, amusement, even inspiration. And that's power, baby.

Megyn Kelly--OK, She's a Blonde. Nobody's Perfect!

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz has a pleasant profile of rising FNC star Megyn Kelley this morning.

Kurtz correctly notes her good chemistry with Bill Hemmer, but he also includes a revealing quote from Brit Hume, who first brought her in to Fox News: "She seemed to get what we've talked about with 'fair and balanced news' . . . She came in believing there was a left bias in the news. That's not common."

Not common, that's for sure. But at a time when the MSM are falling all over themselves to explain away Barack Obama's snobbery, it's nice to see someone sticking up for the idea that there can be two points of view on a political issue.

Who says the MSM is Liberal? The RTNDA!

The always must-read TV Newser reports on the upcoming lineup for the Radio & TV News Directors Association convention upcoming in Las Vegas. And, of course, it tilts left, as signified by the prominent roles for ABC's Sam Donaldson and MSNBC's Dan Abrams. But TVN raises a slight editorial eyebrow at the choice of Tim Robbins to be the keynote speaker on Monday morning.

Good for TVN for catching this, but please allow The Cable Gamer to go further: WHAT IN THE WORLD WAS THE RTNDA THINKING???

Yes, that Tim Robbins, the Tim Robbins, who epitomizes trendy lefty Hollywood. The Cable Gamer is always startled when liberal Main Stream Media types descend into obtuse self-parody--perpetually under fire for being too far to the left, they then bring in a certified lefty to speak to them. Go figure: here, here, here, and here.

The Cable Game, Like Everything Else, Is Becoming The Net Game

The Masters Golf Tournament, just won by Trevor Immelman, has long been a TV classic, a network staple. But check out
the website. (That's a screen-grab above.) Masters.org is a feast of video and information; one really could absorb much of the tournament, just from the Internet, without ever turning on a TV.

In the words of prophesy of Harrison Hoffman, writing for the cool website Webware.com:

Over time, I think that it is safe to assume that we will see complete coverage of the tournament online, since it has been steadily adding streams since the service debuted. Rounding out the online offering is a nice slide-out, customizable leaderboard, with live stats.

I really have to applaud The Masters on this Web offering. This sort of online content is very unexpected from an organization like Augusta National, which is notorious for the control that it demands over live TV broadcasts of the tournament.

And it's toward full online utility that's where the rest of television is headed, too, according the AP's Ryan Nakashima, author of an insightful piece about the new TV-net synthesis. Describing the way that CBS rolled out a new sitcom, "Big Bang Theory," Nakashima explains:

The show, about two geeky physicists and their beautiful female neighbor, got 90,000 views on CBS.com and other Web sites over a week, followed by a better-than-expected 9.5 million for the Sept. 24 on-air premiere.

"The thought was purely to try to find new eyeballs in a medium that generally appeals to younger demographics, and then drive them to put butts in seats to watch on their beautiful plasma-screen TV when the series takes off," said Quincy Smith, president of CBS Interactive. "It was fairly radical, and we're happy with how it came out."

As an aside, one wonders what would have happened if only CBS had been as radical in reinventing its "Evening News" show with Katie Couric. Oh well.

Nakashima continues:

Looking to tap new revenue through online ads, attract new viewers and keep loyal fans, broadcast networks are making bigger, riskier bets on Internet delivery of their shows. The challenge is to grow viewership online without cannibalizing traditional ratings and DVD sales while making more money on programming seen on the Web.

The cable networks have been getting better about putting their video online, and I have further noticed, for example, that Fox News content is turning up on Hulu.com. So it's all Converging together.

For Hillary, Victory is Just a Shot Away.

Why I love The Cable Game, reason #9,299,865. An endless procession of idiotic images, presented, as Rod Serling might say in that clinically detached way of his, for my consideration--and yours, too.

Can you imagine, as an aside, what would've happened if Barack Obama had been photographed doing the same thing? Or John McCain?

Thanks CNN, for helping me see beyond my own troubles--through a glass darkly.

Speaking of not seeing things clearly, note the hopeful expression on Clinton's face. What is she thinking? You know--that look of coquetteish expectation. Maybe she just has a thing for chubby men. After all, she fell for Bill Clinton, and then Webb Hubbell.

And one last question: Who are those guys? In particular, the chubby George Hamilton type on the left, who looks like he is sizing up the junior Senator from New York for something. I am not sure what. Maybe that. Or maybe he just wants to sell her a new pair of size 14 stretch pants.

Welcome to the Cable Game, "Saturday Night Live"!

Did you see the skewering of Barack Obama, John McCain, and, most cuttingly of all, Hillary Rodham Clinton on "SNL" last night? The screen grab above is the divinely funny Amy Poehler, as "Sen. Clinton" questioning "Gen. Petraeus" at the Capitol Hill hearings last week. "I have opposed the Iraq war all my life" Poehler-as-Clinton says, capturing, yet again, Hillary's insufferable self-righteousness, even as she lies through her teeth.

The same Rachel Sklar, of The Huffington Post--whom I always adore for her brunette pluckiness and astuteness, even as I criticize for her Arianna-fied p.c.--puts it well today: "It's official: SNL loves politics, and loves being a player in the game."

That's The Cable Game, of course. And who doesn't? Why should "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" get all the action?

My only concern is that Poehler, in particular, has so nailed her HRC impression that "SNL" will risk suffering a moral hazard--Lorne Michaels & Co. now have an obvious incentive to see Clinton win, so that they can continue to mock her for four or even eight years to come.

It's Obvious! The Best Way to End Racism is to Talk About Racism--Why Didn't I Think Of That? Does That Make Me A Racist?

The Cable Gamer is still a fan of the ever-brunette Rachel Sklar, but I will admit that I am getting a little tired of her increasingly p.c. tone over at Huffington Post. Here's her headline today: "Finally! MSNBC's Three-Hour Conversation About Race in America."

Please, spare me. We've been having "conversations" about race every 15 minutes for the past 50 years. I don't mean to sound like Ann Coulter here, but it's obvious that such "conversations" have little to do with ending racism and everything to do with wallowing in racism, or racialism. Shame on Brian Williams, among others, for being part of such foolishness.

PS: Note to General Electric shareholders: This is what they're doing with your money.

Bill O'Reilly to win an Emmy? Can't have that!

Here's something for every right-minded--OK, left-minded--Main Stream Media type to get good 'n' outraged over--Bill O'Reilly, of the Fox News Channel, might actuallywin an Emmy award.

The horror! And Barry Nolan--never heard of him till just now, but of course, now that he is doing something that the MSM approves of, he is destined for much fame--is leading the charge; Nolan declares himself to be "appalled, just appalled."

The truth, of course, is that O'Reilly won many awards as a newsman in Boston. But of course, FNC is beyond the pale. Watch for this anti-O'Reilly protest to gain steam. Further reminding millions of Americans, of course, why they can't wait for the MSM to disappear completely.

"GE profit shortfall underscores credit crisis" Hey Jeff Immelt! Get control of your own insane clown posse!

That's the headline atop Patrice Hill's sage and knowing piece in The Washington Times today.

But the headline could just as easily have been, "GE profit shortfall shows that conglomerate has its fingers in too many pies." As Hill observes in her story:

Some analysts said the pothole GE hit was caused not only by credit difficulties but the conglomerate's far-flung businesses on nearly every continent, spanning such industries as entertainment, health care, consumer goods and industrial manufacturing.

"That diversity looks rather like a recipe for mediocrity as declining financial earnings offset infrastructure successes," said Rob Cox, analyst at Breakingviews.com.

"Immelt's ability to maintain GE's model is compromised," he said.

Note the key words--"far-flung businesses...spanning such industries as entertainment, health care..."

And that's been The Cable Gamer's point for some time now: mergers and acquisitions--including GE's purchase of NBC in 1985 and NBC's merger with Universal in 2003-- decrease shareholder value.

Repeat: decrease shareholder value. This empirical fact has been documented and demonstrated for some time, although egomaniacal CEO's keep ignoring the lesson, as they pursue glory and glitz in less-green pastures. (And yes, I am specifically thinking of you, Bob Wright--you will be remembered as the man who talked Jack Welch into the NBC deal, and Jeff Immelt into the Uni deal, all because... well we know why, right, Bob?

The practical problems of preserving shareholder value while managing a conglomerate are obvious: the CEO can't be a jack of all sectors. It's hard enough to be good at managing one sector, let alone five or ten.

What are the chances, for example, that Immelt has any idea what Keith Olbermann, for example, is saying on MSNBC, a third-rate network, many rungs down the corporate ladder? The Cable Gamer will give Immelt the benefit of the doubt on this topic, figuring that Immelt is too busy working on GE profit centers to know that Olbermann is routinely defaming George W. Bush and Republicans and conservatives--which is to say, roughly half the country--on his show. So Immelt probably doesn't know, for example, that Olbermann said on Thursday night that Bush delivered "a flaming sack of speech" earlier that day. (Get it? That KO is so clever!)

But the point is, Jeff, people are paying attention, and they are increasingly holding top corporate leadership accountable for the misbehavior of subordinates. Remember, back in 1997, when Michael Eisner at Disney was held accountable for the lunatic ravings of the hip-hop band "Insane Clown Posse"? As well he should have. If Eisner and Disney want to keep their good name, they had to yank the ICP album from the stores--eating the cost of 100,000 recalled CDs of something called "The Great Milenko." Which Disney did. Disney's Hollywood Records subsidiary dropped "ICP" soon thereafter.

That's a lesson for conglomerates--the kneebone isn't just connected to the thighbone; it's more accurate to say that the footbone is connected to the headbone. The CEO can't hide when an underling does something boneheaded; instead, the CEO has to take responsibility, and be held accountable.

And that's the story of Immelt and Olbermann. It will eventually dawn on Immelt that Olbermann isn't a footbone, he is making more like a tailbone. And more to the point, wherever Olbermann is in the anatomy of GE, he and his mean-spirited lefty hit men are costing shareholders real money.

"Fox Biz Ekes Out Another Web Win Over CNBC"

If the topic du jour is why GE stock is plummeting, one other place to look for a partial explanation is Jeff Bercovici's
blog posting today, revealing how FoxBusiness.com is beating out CNBC.com for web hits. The Cable Gamer realizes that Fox Business News has, shall we say, underperformed, but nobody thinks that Roger Ailes can be so easily beaten--so stay tuned, Cable Gamers.

Indeed, the data that Jeff has uncovered suggests that FBN is already more of a force than most media pundits have reckoned.

Karma Bites GE. General Electric shareholders pay the price of Matthews, Olbermann, Abrams, Shuster, et al.

"GLOOMY" -- that was the big headline atop The Drudge Report this afternoon, underneath an even bigger General Electric logo. Drudge links to Bloomberg's Rachel Layne, who writes this afternoon that GE stock declined by 13 percent today, "wiping out $47 billion in market value." Ouch!

GE stock is worth about half of what it was worth six-and-a-half years ago, when Jeff Immelt took over as CEO from the legendary Jack Welch.

There are lots of reasons why GE is in trouble, but The Cable Gamer firmly believes that a big factor is the bad karma that has come to GE through its NBC subsidiary, specifically, NBC's subsidiary, MSNBC. As Cable Gamers all know, MSNBC has become a lefty playpen for the likes of Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Dan Abrams, and David Shuster. These folks seems to think it's their duty and right to bash Republicans and conservatives every night, although Olbermann and Matthews have gone further--they bash Hillary Clinton every night, too.

The Cable Game has been asking, for a long time, why it is that Immelt--who is presumably trying to run a respectable and profitable corporation--is willing to tolerate such obnoxious jerks within his corporate empire. And I guess that the answer is that Immelt cynically thought that Jeff Zucker could deliver big profits. Well, he can't. And more to the point, they have poisoned the company with their lefty venom.

So, Jeff Immelt, now you know that Karma Bites you, too.

Hey Huffington Post! Lighten Up!!

The Cable Gamer has always liked The Huffington Post's Rachel Sklar, in part because she's a brunette, and proud of it, but also because she seems sort of nice and fair-minded.

However, I worry that she is being pulled by the power of her trendy left employer, THP,into taking ever more dogmatic and humorless positions. And that's a shame, because what makes a writer entertaining is a sense of freshness and lightness, as opposed to mere dogmatism and predictability. That's the story, of course, of "HuffPo"--when it started three years ago, it was full of all sorts of heterodox material. Now it is just an organ for certain points of view.

Indeed, it has settled into being just The Obama- Loving/ Hillary-Hating/ Bush-BashingPost, which seems to make its audience happy. (Its audience, of course, is defined as all the people who also blog for it, mostly unemployed Hollywood scriptwriters who watch too much C-SPAN and so think that they are political experts.)

And I am afraid that Rachel is falling into this left-wing rut. A case in point is this headline of Sklar's, "Ouch! The Daily Show's Eviscerating 'Documentary' About Fox News" which appears on THP today.

The Cable Gamer watched the two segments, starring John Oliver, who I count as yet another Jon Stewart sidekick who ought to have his own show. And while yes, the segments that Sklar sites make fun of Fox, the segments also make fun of Oliver himself(take a look at the screen grab above if you don't believe me; that's Oliver himself, painted green, being wheeled into Fox News' headquarters), and, further, make fun of all the bullying blowhards on TV.

Making fun of everything is the "TDS" way. In this particular instance, "TDS" made fun of Fox, but earlier in the same show, as I noted this morning, Stewart made fun of CNN.

Indeed, the great value of "TDS" is that it offers a humorous take on the news--indeed it adds value to the news, by offering fresh perspectives on what people already know. It's a shame that Rachel and her employer are so blinkered that they can't see that.

The Cable Game in 2008--The Eye of Jon Stewart

Last night, Jon Stewart had a lot of funny stuff on his show--but of course, he always does funny stuff. After all, this laugh-till-you-cry world is a great source of material!

But one segment got The Cable Gamer thinking about the changes in the news that Stewart represents, and suggests a future course of action for all of not-ready-for-primetime--heck, not even ready for TV--wannabes out here in Blogland.

The particular segment that got me thinking was Stewart mocking the way that CNN covered the Olympic torch in San Francisco; specifically, anchor Wolf Blitzer, operating from the high-tech "Situation Room," narrating helicopter shots of the "action." (See screen grab above, taken from "TDS" website.)

Blitzer, who is capable of serious journalism, treated the movement of the torch, as Olympians and cops dodged protestors, as something akin to the way that aerial cameras followed O.J. Simpson's famous "white Bronco" race to the Mexican border back in 1994.

Of course, that was a ridiculous event--albeit a ridiculous event sitting atop a terrible tragedy. And the same with the Olympic torch controversy--the torch, of course, is being protested as it wends it way through London, Paris, San Francisco, and much of the rest of the world, on its way to the Beijing Olympics this summer.

(As an aside, we might ask, what were they THINKING when they planned the torch route? For better and for worse, China is a major player on the world stage now, arguably second only to the USA in its ability to generate friends and enemies, to stoke controversy, about issues ranging from trade and economics to human rights and pollution. And so then to send the torch through some of the media-heated cities of the world--yikes! Don't they known that San Franciscans will protest ANYTHING? Well, they know now!)

In our media-ted world, it's simply a fact that some things will catch the media's eye and will then be ballooned into pseudo-significance all out of proportion to their true significance. And that reality, of course, only encourages user-media-friendly "street theater." And cable news, of course, is the eagle-est part of the media eye--the first to swoop down with "breaking news," even if it's not really news. For all the discussion about the impact of the Internet, it's still true that when there's breaking news, people still turn to TV. Indeed, TV ratifies other kinds of news: If it's REALLY important, it's on TV. You read about something in a newspaper, or online, and then you turn on the TV to see if it's really real.

Now, of course, the news-judgment of cable news channels is open to criticism. Cable news tends to over-report events with good visuals, such as torch-riots, car chases, and hostage situations. But at the same time, it's not possible for cable news to over-report some events, such as 9-11, or the Iraq war, or a presidential debate--or, indeed, any kind of breaking news, from a court proceeding to a sports event. That's what TV does so well: It matches the suspense of the moment through the simple expedient of covering that moment live.

Enter Stewart, into The Cable Game. He has his own comic eye, bolstered, of course, by a great staff of writers and video editors--a reminder that much of what makes "TDS" so good is the technical virtuosity of the show when it expertly juxtaposes lies, non sequiturs, and other public idiocies for the benefit of viewers. And so when Stewart makes fun of Blitzer's breathless treatment of the torch controversy, it's not just Stewart, it's a whole team, trying to make Blitzer seem ridiculous, while still keeping a basic kindness and sense of fair play.

And here's the point: by late night, there's no reason not to start making fun of the news, or at least the news-coverage. By 11 pm ET, when "TDS" runs, everybody "knows" what the news is. If they are at all interested, they learned of the big news from TV, or their Yahoo account, or their Blackberry, or their car radio, or from friends, neighbors, and countrymen.

So why not, by 11 pm, start making fun of it? Others have tried, too, such as FNC's "Half Hour Comedy Hour," which I count as an honorable failure. And oh yes, there's "Red Eye." And let's not forget "Larry King Live," which is its own kind of parody.

But there's more to be done here. The Cable Gamer loves Jon Stewart, but I will go one step further: somebody should start "Daily Show"-ing "The Daily Show." Satire is the sincerest form of flattery--I think somebody said that.

Stay tuned!

"Matthews is a Nut"

That's Jeff Bercovici's right-to-the-point summation of The New York Times Magazine profile of Chris Matthews.

Bercovici, one of TCG's favorite bloggers, describes the profile, by Mark Leibovich, as "jaw-dropping." Bercovici observes that Matthews is "the only TV news host insane enough to tell a potential guest that she should come on the show 'because you're beautiful...and because you're black.'"

That's pretty good, on the nuttiness score, but there's much more in the Times profile. Where to begin? How 'bout the beginning:

Whenever Chris Matthews says something he likes, which happens a lot, he repeats it often and at volumes suggesting a speaker who feels insufficiently listened to at times. “Tim Russert finally reeled the big marlin into the boat tonight,” Matthews yelled — nine times, on and off the air, after a Democratic debate that Russert moderated with Brian Williams in late February at Cleveland State University. Matthews believed that Russert (the fisherman) had finally succeeded in getting Hillary Clinton (the marlin) to admit that she was wrong to vote in favor of the Iraq war resolution in 2002. “We’ve been trolling for that marlin for what, a year now?” Matthews said to Russert.

Or maybe one could single out Matthews' pathological namedropping and status conscious-ing. Or his wish to run for the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania in 2010 against Arlen Specter.

Once again, The Cable Gamer has to ask: What is going on at MSNBC? Jeff, do you have any answers? And in this case, I don't Jeff Bercovici (although I am always interested in his take). Instead, I mean Jeff Zucker, and Jeff Immelt.

John Gibson, the Premier Truth-Teller About Keith Olbermann!

Keith Olbermann--well, we know about him. And one reason that we know about Olbermann is that his critics are keeping close tabs on him. As Harry Truman once said about an opponent, "If he keeps lying about my record, I am going to have to start telling the truth about his!"

Two important truth-tellers about Olbermann are Olbermann Watch, one of the great single-purpose blogs in existence, and the fearless John Gibson, the FNC veteran, who uses much of his Fox radio show to rebut Olbermann.

For example, just yesterday, Gibson took Olbermann to task for a stunning series of slimy errors and insinuatations about George W. Bush. On his MSNBC show, "Countdown," Olbermann mocked the President for getting teary-eyed at a Medal of Honor award ceremony for Michael Monsoor, a Navy SEAL who died in Iraq saving the lives of three of his buddies. Olbermann mocked the President for his "theatrically" trembling lower lip--in other words, Olbermann accused Bush of faking his emotion. Now one might ask: How does Olbermann know that Bush is faking?

And then, lest anyone get the idea that perhaps Olbermann has some sort of superior level of judgment, KO referred to the award as the "Medal of Freedom." Well, it's the "Medal of Honor," which goes to the military. The Medal of Freedom is a different award altogether, for civilians. In other words, if Olbermann can't get the name right, why should we have any confidence in anything else he says?

Of course, Olbermann's fans don't care--they love him, not because he is accurate, but because he delivers the maximum amount of Bush- and Republican-bashing heard anywhere this side of Air America.

Gibson had more good stuff--it's worth a listen on the Olbermann Watch, a site that's invaluable as a resource for Olbermann material. Even better, of course, is to tune into Gibson's radio show, live, to hear it is it happens.

Aided by OW, John is emerging as the premier truth-teller about KO. That's a dirty job, that's for sure, but somebody has to do it.

Larry, We Hardly Knew Ye (Actually, that's not true--we knew ye all too well.)

The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that Katie Couric is likely to ankle her anchor gig at "CBS Evening News" soon--way before her contract ends in 2011. Soon, as in, after the November election. Katie has been a big dud, of course, as an nightly news anchor. (Although, of course, the nightly news broadcasts are themselves a long-term fizzle in the age of 24/7 news.)

But what's also of more immediate interest to Cable Gamers is the article's blithe presumption that Couric would replace Larry King in his long-running CNN show. And the answer, of course, is that Couric probably can--after all, CNN prexy Jon Klein is an ex-CBS-er; he and Couric are social friends. As the Journal's Rebecca Dana explains:

Mr. King's talk-show slot at CNN might be a better fit than evening-newscast anchor for Ms. Couric, who is 51. She made her reputation as a skilled interviewer when she was an anchor at the "Today" show on General Electric Co.'s NBC network.

And then the WSJ adds a little dish:

CBS Chief Executive Les Moonves lured Ms. Couric to CBS with promises that the staid "CBS Evening News," once anchored by Walter Cronkite, would be remade in a format more suited to her skills. He vowed to dedicate more money to the broadcast and to build up its Web presence. People close to Ms. Couric complain that the network didn't follow through on all those promises.

Such blunt talk from "people close to" Couric suggests that she is pretty far along on her plan for moving to CNN, such that she feels that she can burn her remaining bridges with CBS.

Of course, yet to be heard from is The King himself--Larry King. What does he think about being pushed aside like this?

Cable Gamers want to know!

And one more thing on Olbermann

How does Keith Olbermann's ultimate boss, NBC prexy Jeff Zucker, feel about Olbermann targeting Bill O'Reilly's family?

How would Zucker feel about O'Reilly going after his kids?

To ask the question is to answer it.

Yet one more thing on KO

And what does Jeff Zucker's boss, GE chief Jeff Immelt, think about Keith Olbermann's harassment tactics?

I seriously question whether Immelt has any idea that Olbermann is harassing O'Reilly, and I seriously doubt if Immelt thinks that it's a good idea.

Which is why The Cable Gamer stands by her prediction of more than a year ago--after the 2008 election, GE and NBC, including MSNBC, are going to part company.

Olbermann Escalates To a New Low

Just when I thought that I had the Keith Olbermann show figured out, he changes the formula--for the worse. Much worse. It's a free country, and the Cable Game, in particular, is at its most fun when various Gamers fight and fight hard--but they should always fight clean. And now, in the Cable Gamer's opinion, Olbermann is fighting dirty. He is bringing innocent bystanders--the families of his opponents--into the mix.

Here's the classic KO formula: Olbermann puts on the same three guests--Dana Milbank, Rachel Maddow, and Richard Wolffe. He tells them that George W. Bush is terrible president and a terrible human being, and they, of course, agree. Repeat the process every night, re-run a few times, and there you have "Countdown."

Oh wait--I forgot! There's plenty of Fox News-bashing, too. You know, Bill O'Reilly or Rupert Murdoch is "The Worst Person in the World"--every night. Or maybe just the second worst.

OK, KO. That's fair enough. You're a left-liberal with a nasty personal streak, happy to do the same show every night. And you have proven that you can find a few hundred thousand people across the country who share your nasty and repetitive predilections.

We're all adults, we can take it.

But oh wait. Now KO has gone beyond that, he is attacking children, too. Last night on his show, Olbermann went beyond zinging O'Reilly, and went after O'Reilly's family. Here's the transcript--from, of course, KO's "WPITW" segment:

"But our winner, back by popular demand, a Bill O doubleheader. Bonus Bill O. Firstly, criticizing the pregnant transgender guy. 'Can you imagine a poor kid getting born into that family going, hey, who are you today?' Kind of like life at home for Bill's kids."

Note the bold, above. Olbermann has sent his goons--oops, I mean, MSNBC producers--out to O'Reilly's house in the past, and now, once again, he is inserting himself into O'Reilly's homelife.

Will Olbermann's actions encourage other kids to pick on O'Reilly's kids in school? Or will it get worse--will Olbermann's raising O'Reilly's family's profile, encourage, maybe, stalkers and kidnapers? The Cable Gamer hesitates to even bring up such horrible topics, for fear of pointing the evil eye at anyone, but Olbermann has already done it. The Cable Gamer doesn't know where O'Reilly lives, and doesn't care. But Olbermann does, and there might be some sicko out there who might get a bad idea, like the demented-criminal Robert DeNiro character in the 1983 Martin Scorsese movie, "The King of Comedy."

Once again, The Cable Gamer doubts that Olbermann cares about any of this, but the rest of us should.

So where's the outrage? Where are the bigfoot media watchdogs ? Where's Howard Kurtz? How 'bout the self-declared watchdogs of journalistic ethics, such as The Poynter Institute? And the various Annenberg and Pew Centers scattered around the country? And all the capital "J" Journalism Schools around the country--shouldn't Olbermann be criticized?

Or to put it another way, can you imagine what would happen if O'Reilly went after Olbermann's kids?

Fair is fair. Let's argue and even have some fun arguing. But let's leave children out of it. That's The Cable Gamer's view, and I bet that the overwhelming number of Americans agree with me. Now we'll see if the liberal-leaning Journalistic Establishment agrees, too.

Let's see if they hold Olbermann accountable, before he does it again, before the problem gets even worse.

Obama and the Madrassah, continued

Last year Fox News, The Washington Times, and other media outlets took a lot of heat for reporting that Barack Obama had attended a Muslim school in Indonesia, and so perforce had been a practicing Muslim. The Obama campaign and its allies in the MSM struck back, hard, denying everything, even as they conceded that yes, he had a Muslim father and a Muslim stepfather, had been registered as a Muslim student, and so on.

Which is to say, loud bluster is not the same thing as effective rebuttal. So now here comes more evidence--from Aaron Klein, writing in WorldNetDaily, under the headline: "Obama was 'quite religious in Islam'/Contemporaries, records dispute campaign claim that he was never 'practicing Muslim'"

WND reports, you decide!

The New York Post, Just Asking

Sunday's "Page Six" inThe New York Post had a couple of tantalizing blind items. One is about an ill-behaved rapper, and the other is about an ill-behaved TV executive. Here's the second of those two items:

WHAT top cable news executive is repeatedly cheating on his wife with younger women? He even recently made a play for one of his on-air babes.

Who could it be? The Cable Gamer doesn't know, of course. Full stop. End of discussion.

(But say, that Jonathan Wald of CNBC--he's a handsome devil, isn't he?)