Sunday, January 28, 2007

Hey Fox, Hire Some Liberals!

The media embargo against war opponents continues. As Matthew Yglesias says, "no jobs for the left, no accountability for the right." But I can see help coming from an unexpected direction--FOX.

Fox has been running through a series of awful right-wing commentary segments since the elections in 2006. First, there was Greg Gutfeld and his semi-snarky friends. Gutfeld is a former Maxim editor who just oozes slime (no surprise there!) and his New York friends were condescendingly conscious of their own superiority. I bet that didn't play too well with all my Fox-watching relatives because Gutfeld was off after three or four segments. Dennis Miller is giving comic commentary now, but his schtick is dragging too.

Now, Fox has a new segment (or one I've just caught for the first time) called the Beltway Boys with Fred Barnes and Mort Kondracke, guys who were so fossilized from their decades as talking heads that their jaws seemed to creak as they talked. Talk about deathly dull. Even worse, they were using their segment to plug Joe Biden's presidential campaign.

If Fox wants to introduce something new and controversial, they should put one of the big liberal bloggers like Greenwald, Yglesias, Jane Hamsher, or even Arianna Huffington on one of their segments. That kind of move would infuse badly needed energy, boost their ratings, and upgrade their advertisers. They should try it.

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