You Can Call Him Al

About this time last month I reported that Al Sharpton was substituting for Cenk Uygur on the nameless 6:00 PM Eastern one-hour time slot on MSNBC. What I didn't know at the time was that, while Sharpton was hosting temporarily, Uygur was permanently absent. MSNBC let him go.

Uygur had been under fire for his barbs against President Obama for being too willing to compromise with an increasingly inflexible Republican establishment in Washington. Reports have circulated that MSNBC president Phil Griffin told Uygur to tone down such attacks, Uygur refused, and Griffin fired him to appease the Democratic party leadership. MSNBC insists that they merely wanted to move Uygur to another time slot, and that Uygur left rather than accept another assignment. Whatever the reason, Uygur is gone, and Sharpton has since been made the permanent on-air host for the still-unnamed show that is sandwiched between Chris Matthews's "Hardball" at 5 PM Eastern and the repeat of "Hardball" at 7 PM Eastern.

I have two thoughts about this. First of all, Sharpton was apparently seen as a reliable host because he's close to the Obama White House and can be counted not to say anything negative about the President - even when the administration is wrong. It's something of an abdication of journalistic integrity when you have an on-camera host who looks at politics in such an absolutist fashion - that Obama should always be defended, even when he's not living up to the promise of the 2008 presidential campaign.

Secondly, Al Sharpton isn't really a journalist or a commentator; he's an ordained minister and a civil rights activist. He is opinionated, and that's a good thing to be when you're a political commentator, but he doesn't have the kind of journalistic or political background that someone like Matthews has, or even the political and media background that Lawrence O'Donnell has, except for maybe his radio show. It's not just Sharpton as a commentary show host I have a problem with. Guest hosts for other MSNBC shows have included other well-known liberals with no professional media background. Rachel Maddow was once substituted by . . . Howard Dean? The doctor and former Vermont governor? But Dean was merely a fill-in host. Sharpton is now the permanent host of the 6 PM Eastern hour, and his early-prime perch suggests that he has the background of a Tom Brokaw or a Max Robinson. He doesn't.

Don't get me wrong. I like the guy. I like him a lot more than I did in the late eighties and early nineties, and few people miss the Al Sharpton of that period - or his wardrobe. But why compromise the MSNBC brand with a fellow who will speak no ill of his favorite public officeholders? He's like Cameron Crowe was in the seventies when he wrote for Rolling Stone, writing positive, critique-free pieces on rock stars and never acknowledging that rock stars were human and sometimes made a bad record. (Some of them never made a good one.) If Sharpton allows that Obama can screw up periodically (and the President is going through a very long screw-up period right now) he does both himself and the President a favor via tough standards and tough love.

Full disclosure requires me to state that my friend and fellow Drew University alumnus, MSNBC contributor Karen Hunter, is professionally associated with Reverend Sharpton. (She helped him write his book "Al On America.") So I say all of this knowing that she won't be in much agreement with my comments. But wait - Karen Hunter is a journalist and a Pulitzer Prize winner. If MSNBC wanted a new host for the 6 PM Eastern hour, Karen Hunter, with her media experience, would have been a perfect choice! After all the sociologists and political operatives who have been MSNBC contributors and have played the role of MSNBC host from time to time, why not give a newsperson on this news channel a commentary show on the news?

All right, so if it's going to be Sharpton hosting the show between first and repeat runs of "Hardball," could MSNBC at least give his show a name? "The Al Show?" "Sharpton Tonight?" Any name would be better than a lack of a name.