Talk Is Cheap

Rush who?

A quote on Twitter a few months ago from comedian and podcaster Dana Gould made me ponder a how ephemeral a career in talk radio is.  Gould was talking specifically about Rush Limbaugh, about a year after the radio commentator's death.

"[I'm] thinking about Rush Limbaugh and how, now that he’s dead, you never, ever hear about him," Gould wrote.  "No one mentions anything he did. Because what he did had no value. It contributed nothing worthwhile to the culture. Nothing of lasting value. He just made anger. Every day. Rising, blooming and fading like a fart. Then he died and was instantly replaced by a fleet of little replicas, farting fake fury five days a week. Creating nothing of interest or artistic value to anyone. Seriously, what an awful way to make a living."

Of course, talk radio hosts like that are a dime a dozen.  Limbaugh was hardly the first right-wing talk radio host on the American waves, in fact.  Many others had come and gone before Limbaugh went into national syndication in 1988.  The most obvious example is Father Charles Coughlin, the Detroit-area priest with his nationally aired radio show in which he espoused pro-fascist, anti-Semitic views in the 1930s.  No one remembers him today, as well they should not.  Ditto Walter Winchell, the broadcaster from the 1940s and 1950s, who equated civil rights with communism and urged Americans not to get the polio vaccine.  Even if people don't talk about Limbaugh now, many remember him, but their memories will fade, and eventually a generation with no direct memory of him at all will come along.

And when I talk about talk radio hosts being easily forgotten and disposable, I'm not just talking about conservatives.  Liberal talk-radio hosts are just as forgettable.  Gould's remarks made me think of Ed Schultz as an example.

From 2005 to 2014, Schultz was a leading progressive voice on talk radio, a reputation which he parlayed into a television program on MSNBC for six years beginning in 2009.  Long-time readers of this blog will recall that I watched him religiously and hung on almost every word he said.  When Schultz was fired from MSNBC in 2015, I continued listening to him on his podcast.  Then in January 2016, just before Schultz was to start a new news commentary program on another TV network, he mocked Martin O'Malley - my 2016 Democratic presidential candidate - and said that nobody had tuned into the most recent Democratic presidential debate to hear O'Malley.  Realizing he called me a nobody, I stopped listening to him.  And I decided not to tune in to his new show on this other network.

This other network was RT America, the U.S. arm of Russia Today, the Russian national television channel.  Available mostly through the Internet, it aired commentary aimed at skewering the establishments of both major parties . . . and Schultz ended up not just complimenting Putin, a man he once ridiculed, but he also consistently praised Trump.  His commentary on Hillary Clinton became more vicious than it had even been on MSNBC, though it might interest you to know that, when he was a guest on MSNBC prior to getting his own show on the channel, he consistently defended Hillary.  Ed was for her before she was against her.

Schultz died in 2018, and even though I was sad to hear the news, I had moved on from his shtick long before.  At least Limbaugh was consistent and had a core ideology.  Schultz, who had actually started out as a conservative Republican, didn't seem to have any rock-solid beliefs.  He simply adjusted his views to the moment.  Yes, he genuinely abandoned his conservative views when he realized they were bunk, but as a leftist, he veered between establishmentarian and populist opinions based on what his audience and his employers wanted him to say and do. A different set of commentators took over the old time slots he'd once had on MSNBC, And life went on and everyone moved on.   

Truth be told, Schultz was not the sort of commentator known for deep political thought.  With legal abortion on the line now, it might do well to remember this incoherent explanation from Schultz of his views on abortion:  "Now, as far as abortion is concerned, in my heart I'm a Christian. I'm against it. But we're livin' in a country where the majority rule and I'm not, as a talk show host, overturning Roe v. Wade."

I'm left asking how many talk show hosts ever overturned any Supreme Court decision.

Here today, gone tomorrow.  An icon in life, a trivia question in death.  That's the way it is in the talk-radio business.  And that goes or TV talk show hosts also; someday, we'll forget about the current crop of TV talk-show hosts on cable news after they're gone.  And even though he's still alive, does anyone really talk about Chris Matthews anymore?

Working Man

A staunch conservative, a prairie progressive, a pro-détente RT America anchorman - Ed Schultz was all of these.

The former MSNBC commentator, who died at 64 of undisclosed causes a few days ago, shifted political positions but never wavered from his working-class base.  He appealed to liberals of all stripes as a progressive talk show host on MSNBC, but he aimed his commentary especially at the working class, and he focused on the labor movement at a time when most liberals would not (and still will not) address labor's concerns.  He always strove to relate to Joe Sixpack, originally as a right-leaning talk-radio host who bashed the elites and then becoming a liberal as he saw how supply-side economics was wreaking havoc on the economy and on the American worker.  He carried that spirit to MSNBC when he joined the network in 2009, and he valiantly kept it up for six years before MSNBC fired him.

MSNBC never really cared all that much about reaching working-class folks, though, and Schultz must have known that; toward the end of his run there, he was doing things to keep his job like defending Beyoncé's stage act ("Feminism is anything women want it to be") - hardly a concern to iron workers who listen to (as well as work with) heavy metal. Former MSNBC host Krystal Ball recently came right out and said that the cable channel dropped him because the working class he was catering to didn't fit its desired demographic.  Coincidentally, she also noted, he was let go right after Donald Trump declared his presidential candidacy and went after the same people Schultz pursued.

"I find it really ironic that they took this incredibly pro-working-class voice off the air right before the Trump era when obviously you had a lot of working-class voters who didn't feel like they had a home in the Democratic Party any more," Ball said.  "To me, there was a correlation there between MSNBC not really understanding his audience and not really wanting to court his audience and moving him off the air and then what happened in the Trump era."  Schultz's dismissal from MSNBC turned out to represent another step by the Democratic Party and Democratic media toward Whiggish irrelevance.

Schultz ended his career under humiliating circumstances - as a news personality for RT America, the U.S. channel of Russia Today, a state-supported Russian network.  This led Schultz to downplay Russian influence in the 2016 election (Hillary Clinton, whom he once stood up for, wasn't entirely blameless for her loss, but Ed was convinced that Putin, a man he had once criticized and dismissed as a dictator, was completely blameless for it).  Here's how he analyzed the choice of former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as Trump's first Secretary of State:

"Why is [Tillerson's] business relationships and successes with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the business world and in the energy industry, why is that a negative on Capitol Hill?  Isn’t that a positive thing that he knows Putin?"

Tillerson turned out to be an okay guy, but that's beside the point.  Schultz went from Putin critic to Putin cheerleader without skipping a beat.  Was it worth compromising his integrity to stay on something resembling the TV airwaves (RT America doesn't get much distribution on cable television, but it is available online)?       

Perhaps it was.  Schultz was the only person on TV speaking for American labor and the American worker in any capacity, what with Fox going for a conservative white-collar audience and MSNBC and CNN pursuing bourgeois liberal audiences who look down their noses at proletarian types.  I may have stopped listening to him when he belittled Martin O'Malley (and to this day I have no idea why he, of all people, had to be so nasty toward the former Maryland governor), and I may not have the type of job that requires me to take a shower after work (a common Schultz phrase), but I still agreed with virtually everything else he stood for.  I'm only sorry he met his end while shilling for the Kremlin.  RIP. :-(

MSNBC Switch

It suddenly occurred to MSNBC producers and schedule planners that calling Lawrence O'Donnell's show "The Last Word" and giving Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz additional words in the time slots that follow seemed kind of silly, so starting this week, Schultz and O'Donnell have switched time slots.  Lawrence O'Donnell has returned to the 10 PM Eastern slot he started out in, and Ed Schultz is now in the 8 PM Eastern time slot O'Donnell has vacated.  This allows Schultz, a populist with working-calls appeal, to be on for five weeknights a week, with the more polished, buttoned-down O'Donnell on for four weeknights a week, in recognition of the fact the MSNBC begins its laughable weekend documentaries Friday nights at 10 PM Eastern.

This makes sense for MSNBC's viewers, who will be more able to tune into Ed Schultz at an earlier hour.  And by putting him on earlier, MSNBC has acknowledged that his meat-and-potatoes-message rings strongly with a wider audience in this new Occupy Wall Street age.  And O'Donnell, whose commentary has gotten more passionate but has remained as polished as he is, is a strong closer for all of MSNBC's commentators.  But MSNBC's ongoing game of musical chairs with its hosts suggests that, while they're aware of what their mission is, they seem less sure on how to convey it . . . or on who should be conveying it.

Cable News News

Remember when the Cable News Network was the most trusted name in news? The best source of unbiased reporting in commercial television? Well, CNN is still a reliable news source, but no one cares thanks to the more partisan successes of MSNBC and especially Fox. In response to its low ratings, the once-vaunted cable news channel has re-arranged the deck chairs on its sinking ship, with more of an emphasis on reporting than on commentary. It's not the CNN is tone-deaf to the trends that favor punditry. It's that they obviously haven't done punditry well enough to compete with the partisan news channels.

Gone is Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced former new York governor. His old partner Kathleen Parker left a while ago, because Spitzer was seen to better as a solo act. But, apparently, not much better, as viewers still found the show boring. Thus, it's been canceled. If I were Chuck Todd at MSNBC, I'd be worried. His show, "The Daily Rundown," started out with a female co-host - Savannah Guthrie - but now features just Chuck Todd, along with a panel of pundits who join him at the end. And the show has only gotten more ridiculous.

For now, at least, Anderson Cooper's "AC360" will air at 8 PM Eastern on CNN and repeat at its current time slot, 10 PM Eastern. Spake Gloria Vanderbilt's son, "I'm looking forward to the new time slot and am (and am?) excited to share AC360 with a new audience at 8 P.M., while still connecting with my regular viewers at 10 P.M."

He's kidding, right?

In the fall, CNN is starting a news program to be hosted by former CNBC personality Erin Burnett at 7 P.M. Eastern, with John King's show moved up to 6 P.M. Eastern. None of these folks are partisan pundits - which is what CNN wants to make clear.

Over at MSNBC, things seems to have settled down for the moment. Ed Schultz is settling into his 10 P.M. Eastern slot comfortably, and after a hiatus, he brought back "PsychoTalk," a segment of outrageous statements made by (mostly) Republican politicians. In between the time Schultz dropped his segment under pressure from MSNBC bosses and the time he brought it back, he had a segment called "The TakEDown," which was really "PsychoTalk" with a different name.

Cenk Ugyur has done a pretty decent job in the 6 P.M. Eastern hour, but there's a reason his air time doesn't have a name; it isn't really a show. It's just a block of time Uygur - or anyone who happens to be available (Al Sharpton has been substituting for Ugyur recently) - fills between the original and repeat airings of Chris Matthews's show.

Keith Olbermann's new show on Current TV? I haven't had much time for that, though commenting on that will require a separate blog entry.

One Step Forward, One Step Back

Kathy Hochul's victory in the special election for House of Representatives in New York's 26th Congressional District Tuesday could do for Democrats what Scott Brown's victory in the 2010 Massachusetts special U.S. Senate election did for Republicans - galvanize the party and reverse their electoral fortunes. Hochul was elected due to the fears of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's plan to turn Medicare into a worthless voucher system, a plan endorsed by all but four house Republicans. Ryan (R-WI) accused Democrats of scare tactics by making his plan seem catastrophic, but for people who have been working for thirty-five years and are now just below the age threshold for qualifying for Medicare, it is scary. People between 50 and 64 start to get sick more often, they're in greater danger of getting laid off these days, and their medical insurance becomes more expensive. Maybe Ryan's plan won't affect Americans 65 or older, but the ones coming up behind them are in danger of being left behind.

PBS's David Chalian doesn't see a clear advantage for the Democrats, though. Yes, they have a better shot at taking back the House in 2012 despite GOP-friendly redistricting, but he thinks the new advantage given to the Democrats in the Medicare debate may be temporary. After all, they still have to come up with solutions to reduce the debt and fix the economy - two issues the Republicans are still very much able to exploit.

While the progressive movement gained an advantage, they lost a spokesman, at least for a week. After right-wing blonde talk radio host Laura Ingraham bashed President Obama for traveling to Europe while devastating tornadoes blew through Missouri and Oklahoma - even though the President's official trip was scheduled before anyone could have predicted the weather in those two states and he could not just drop everything and return home - Ed Schultz called her a slut on his radio show. Schultz apologized with great regret and empathy - just before starting a one-week suspension from his MSNBC show. Ingraham - no stranger to shooting the wounded - said that she was unaware that Schultz has a radio show, and that it must be an Internet show. A nasty comment, to be sure, as was her commentary about Obama, but thanks to Schultz's hot-headed, misogynistic rhetoric, she's getting away with it even as Schultz pays.

So am I going to apologize to Ingraham for calling her someone who shoots the wounded? Hell, no! Right-wingers have been saying that about liberals for decades, and so it's time to counterattack. I won't call her a slut - I'm sure her personal life is beyond reproach - but I will attack her for her attacks.

In other news, Florida governor Rick Scott has a 29 percent approval rating. Good. That's as may be, though, Florida Democrats won't likely be giving Alex Sink another shot at the office. Democrats, like Laura Ingraham, shoot the wounded - their own.

Republicans Make Me Sick

The worst of the storm affecting the country hasn't come to pass in the Northeast yet, so I'm still here as of this writing (obviously). And while I am, I'd like to pick apart the Republicans who are working tirelessly to end health care reform.

While Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell pushes for a repeal vote in that chamber, a federal judge in Pensacola, Florida has decided that the health care law as passed by Congress - not just the individual mandate, but the entire legislation (including the part that bars denal of coverage for pre-existing conditions) - is a violation of the interstate commerce clause in the Constitution. Then-Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum - one of the prosecutors in the impeachment and trial of President Bill Clinton - filed suit against the new health care law last year and saw to it that it was tried in Florida's most right-wing city. Two judges in the federal court system have upheld the law, but two others - including the Pensacola judge, Roger Vinson - have ruled against it, and so now it is being appealed by both sides.

Does the law stand a chance of staying on the books? It now depends on the Supreme Court. Which is my way of answering, "No."

I'm giving up on the idea that this country can make any meaningful strides toward progressive reform. It's not that Americans don't care; it's that the right is too daunting an enemy to fight. They have the courts on their side (especially the highest court in the land), and they're bankrolled by wealthy business leaders who like the status quo - a status quo in which workers and middle-class Americans keep getting held back or keep being forced to run in place. Their support for the status quo isn't a conservative position; it's a reactionary position.

I could suggest that when the Supreme Court does hear this case, the justices will strike down only part of the law (the mandate, say), but of course that's not a plausible scenario. If you disagree, go to last year's Citizens United decision, which struck down campaign finance laws dating back to the presidency of Roosevelt - Theodore Roosevelt - and opened the floodgates for corporate campaign money with no realistic chance of closing them. Citizens United was suing on a free speech question of a smaller scope - the proposed broadcasting of an anti-Hillary Clinton film that could be called a "documercial." In any event, this country is ruled by people who would stand to lose a lot of power and influence if the health care law is allowed to kick in. If the law gets kicked out, the losers will by the fifty million Americans who can't get health insurance otherwise. And don't expect Barack Obama to do something about it in Washington. He's only the President down there.

I'm hoping Ed Schultz comments on this revolting development sometime the week. I only hope that, when he does, I'll have the cable and/or electrical service to see it. In the meantime, I saw his show last night and he's lost little if any of his fire due to the change of format and time slot. And - telephone and text message surveys are back! "Psycho Talk" is gone, but at least there's the daily survey.

Senator Schultz?

One last thought for today. . ..

MSNBC continues to promote Ed Schultz and his show, showing a promo clip with a fiery Schultz passionately standing up for the plight of the American worker. But with the new, more corporatized MSNBC showing more disregard for such an issue - not good for business - how long can Schultz last as a commentator? Keith Olbermann announced the arrival of his fellow German-American liberal to MSNBC with great fanfare on his own show, with Schultz at his side, back in April 2009, and it looked like Ed would be around for a long time. Now, with "Countdown" down and out for the count, some folks are wondering if "The Ed Show" will survive long enough to mark its second anniversary.

While Schultz still has a radio show, his future at MSNBC suddenly seems uncertain. And if his MSNBC show were to go down, his radio show could just as easily follow. I think Big Eddie should seriously consider running for the U.S. Senate from North Dakota, where he has lived and worked during his broadcasting career. The suggestion had been made before by liberals who wanted him to run in 2010 to replace Byron Dorgan, the retiring Democratic senator in that state. Schultz declined, and North Dakotans elected its first Republican senator (John Hoeven) since 1980. Another Republican may be elected to the other seat, which noted budget nerd Kent Conrad, another Democrat, is vacating after 2012. North Dakota is becoming more Republican these days, and the Democrats lack appealing candidates for office there. Schultz would make a perfect candidate for Conrad's Senate seat; Schultz knows the state, he knows its people, and he has a huge following in and out of the state that he could count on for help to win the election.

Ed Schultz should seriously consider this second opportunity. With his broadcasting presence already being whittled away at, it could be another door opening in place of one that may be closing. And we need Ed Schultz to speak in some capacity for those who have seen one door close and another door slam in their faces.

Under New Management

The effects of MSNBC's redone lineup at the beginning of the Comcast era are already being felt, especially in the ratings. With Keith Olbermann gone, MSNBC's ratings have tumbled, and Lawrence O'Donnell has lost much of the audience that tuned in to Watch "Countdown" at 8 PM Eastern. He was only ahead of Kathleen Parker and Eliot Spitzer by 50,000 viewers this past Wednesday in the 25-54 age range, according to one estimate, and his overall viewership declined over the first three days of the week.

Ed Schultz keeps fighting the good fight for the working man at 10 PM Eastern, but his later time slot and his cut to four nights a week instead of five has to be a detriment to the brand equity he'd built up in the previous two years. Schultz now confirms that his "Psycho Talk" segment is gone per orders from his new bosses at Comcast. He figures that the new bosses - so far, not the same as the old bosses - are smarter than he is, and that this decision is in the best interest of the show. Which brings up the obvious question: If the new management honchos at NBC/Universal are acting in Ed Schultz's interest, why did they reschedule him to a later hour with one fewer weekday?

No one at MSNBC is even acknowledging Olbermann's departure. Rachel Maddow professed ignorance of the situation as it was starting to unfold when she appeared on Bill Maher's HBO show last week. Even the PBS NewsHour - which does media stories and covered Olbermann's recent suspension - didn't bring it up. Right-wingers, smelling blood, are burying MSNBC in scorn and ridicule, throwing dirt on a body that is merely ill rather than dead. (I researched online news and commentary on the MSNBC shakeup for this post. Most of it is smarmy right-wing nose thumbing, with very little objective analysis available.) When Chris Matthews earlier this week blasted Michele Bachmann for insisting that the Founding Fathers eradicated slavery, conservative bloggers and Glenn Beck bashed Matthews, insisting that the clause that made a slave three-fifths of a person was done to prevent the slave states from being overrepresented in the House of Representatives with non-citizens at the expense of the free states. This compromise clause, they charged, was designed to allow slavery to die out in the South by encouraging emancipation for more congressional representation.

I doubt they would have counterattacked this viciously if Matthews and MSNBC were in a stronger position. And besides, the conservative argument is bogus. If 60 percent of all slaves were counted for representation in the House to encourage emancipation and a 100 percent count of blacks, why was an even balance of free and slave states kept between 1820 and 1850 to keep one side from outvoting the other in the Senate? Why was slavery allowed to expand into the territories in the 1850s? Matthews likely would have defended himself yesterday on his "Hardball" show by asking these questions. But his attention was shifted to the unrest in Egypt instead.

Meanwhile, Fox News - the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of American television - is so far ahead in the ratings, it's left CNN and MSNBC fighting each other for a very distant and very irrelevant second place. Here's an example of Fox's dominance as reported by the Kansas City Star: This past Wednesday's edition of "The O'Reilly Factor" drew 3.24 million total viewers, with 910,000 viewers in the 25-54 age range - "nearly," the Star reports, "as many total viewers as MSNBC."

So what does this all mean for liberals? A lot, most of it bad. With fewer progressive voices available in broadcasting and the far right becoming louder and more ubiquitous, some MSNBC viewers are just giving up. "MSNBC doesn't have me as its devoted fan anymore," said one friend of mine. "I watch 'Hardball' online and alternate from Lawrence O'Donnell to 'Parker/Spitzer.' I was never a big fan of Rachel Maddow. Olbermann was the one for me. Now that he is has left MSNBC, so have I."

Me? I will continue to watch Chris Matthews - largely for the entertainment value - and I will especially continue to watch Ed Schultz as he battles against the morons and, in his time slot, Greta Van Susteren. Because even a watered-down, tamed, reined-in Ed Schultz is preferable to a Greta Van Susteren at the height of her broadcasting prowess. We need Matthews and Schultz - and Cenk Uygur and Rachel Maddow - more than ever.

Lawrence O'Donnell? Larry, I love you, but you ought to be writing a column for the Atlantic, not commenting on television.

Cenk In the Armor

MSNBC is making changes faster than I can keep up with them. They revamped their entire evening schedule literally less than an hour after Keith Olbermann joined the ranks of the unemployed, not only rescheduling Lawrence O'Donnell's televised op-ed magazine but Ed Schultz's show as well. Some MSNBC viewers learned about it later than others, and I'm afraid I'm among those who were not entirely in the loop.

O'Donnell is permanently replacing Olbermann in the 8 PM Eastern slot, although everyone knows that nothing at MSNBC is really very permanent. Ed Schultz - who celebrates his fifty-seventh birthday today, by the way - now broadcasts at 10 PM Eastern, but his show has some blatantly obvious changes. Gone are the call-in and text message polls, the "Psycho Talk" segment that rivaled Olbermann's "Worst Persons" segment for accuracy and hilarity, and the "Rapid Fire Response" segment. I'll miss the last one the least; Schultz would have two commentators on, a liberal and a conservative, and they would respond to three separate topics in the span of five minutes. Sometimes Schultz couldn't get to all three topics; other times he would only have two, and he wouldn't even get to both. Besides, "Rapid Fire Response" sounded too violent, and Schultz was calling it "Rapid Response" in the last two weeks of his show's 6 PM Eastern slot in the aftermath of the Giffords shooting (though the accompanying graphic still used the word "fire" in it).

Ed Schultz recently insisted that his bosses have not told him to tone down his rhetoric. After seeing Ed last night, it's obvious that no one needed to tell him. After Olbermann, folks on MSNBC are going to have to watch what they say . . . very carefully.

And by the way . . . if Ed Schultz is on at 10 PM on weeknights, doesn't that mean he isn't on at 10 PM on Fridays, the time MSNBC begins its useless weekend crime documentaries?

In the meantime, Cenk Uygur, a Turkish-American commentator who, like Reince Preibus, also has a spellchecker-unfriendly name, is taking over Ed Schultz's old time slot. It's not called the "The Cenk Uygur Show" or "The Early Word With Cenk Uygur;" it's just filler for Uygur to occupy for the time being. But Uygur is as sharp and as biting as Schultz is, so I wouldn't be surprised if the 40-year-old "Young Turk" is on his way to bigger and better things.

And so MSNBC is once again re-arranging its chairs even as Fox News maintains a consistent talk show lineup that continues to outperform MSNBC in the ratings. With Olbermann (who also celebrates a birthday today, his fifty-second) gone, the ratings gap will likely continue to be a problem. And while Comcast denies that its takeover of NBC/Universal was a factor in Olbermann's departure, many liberals opposed to the takeover aren't so sure about that.

I was actually lackadaisical toward the Comcast takeover, because I didn't see any difference between that company and General Electric pertaining to NBC/Universal. But Al Franken, the Democratic junior senator from Minnesota, obviously had misgivings about the whole deal, and he said as much. If Olbermann's departure wasn't a result of it, it certainly was an unfortunate coincidence.

In the meantime, Cenk Uygur looks like a star to watch. Lawrence O'Donnell, alas, looks more and more like someone who does his best work behind the camera (as "The West Wing" proved), not in front of it.

More Politics As Usual

Some quick observations of what passes for political discourse in America these days. . . .

President Obama has started targeting House Republican leader John Boehner in his campaign speeches for the Democrats, now that it's finally become apparent that he can't just ignore Republicans in Washington the way they're ignored in Chicago. Some have criticized Obama for personalizing the midterm elections by trying to make Boehner that bad guy when you have folks in the House like Mike Pence of Indiana and Michele Bachmann of Minnesota who are beyond bad. But Boehner would be Speaker of the House if the Republicans were to take control, and he'd have more power than Pence or Bachmann, so what's Obama supposed to do - bash the underlings in the House Republican caucus and ignore the naysayer at the top? Obama's new strategy may not reverse Democratic losses, but it could stem them.

Meanwhile, in the U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania, Joe Sestak is learning how many voters are turned off by the liberal views he espouses, as polls show him consistently behind Republican Senate nominee Pat Toomey. Although Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell, a Democrat, likes and respects Toomey, he know s that the "fruit loops" (to borrow one of his own phrases) in the Republican party will control the agenda if they take back the Senate, and as reasonable as Toomey is, a Senator Toomey wouldn't be effective in a Republican caucus guided by loonies. Rendell hopes to make this clear in his efforts to help Sestak, and he believes Sestak can win if a) enough voters realize the threat to their economic interests a Republican Senate would bear and b) turnout in the Philadelphia area is up tremendously. Voters in the central and northern parts of the state just aren't interested in Sestak's agenda.

Meanwhile, Ed Schultz is helping Republican David Vitter in his bid to win a second term as a U.S. Senator from Louisiana. How is the progressive Schultz doing this? Well, you see, every time Schultz announces on his show his intention to bring up the subject of Vitter's disgusting sex scandals, his idea is to address it in the Rapid Fire Response segment of his show, where he asks a liberal pundit and a conservative pundit for their opinions on the subjects. Twice he's meant to ask his panel about Vitter; twice he ran out of time before he had the chance because discussion on his other chosen topics for that segment ran too long. As much as I would like to hear right-wing pundits like Heidi Harris or John Feehery defend David Vitter in that segment, it's obvious that Schultz has to devote a longer, more detailed account of Vitter's crimes elsewhere in the show, even if this means no conservative commentary in Vitter's defense. Because sometimes, as Edward R. Murrow once said, there is no other side of the story. And no one can excuse Vitter for his sins. Note to Ed Schultz: Get Charlie Melancon back on your show immediately.