After 25 years on air, 60,000 interviews, Larry King signs off in what is an end of an era. I had the opportunity to be a guest on his show a handful of times this part year and King was always polite and gracious to guests, and often amused when they would fire up into crosstalk. His straightforward approach made him appealing to a wide range of guests, many of whom normally would eschew interviews in such a format.

Piers Morgan takes the time slot beginning after the first of the year.

When Associate Justice Clarence Thomas was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1991, his Senate confirmation turned out to be what he described to as a “high tech lynching.” This was chiefly because accusations of sexual harassment by a co-worker, Anita Hill, were “leaked” to the press, then given a position of prominence in the hearings. With this, the white, liberal onslaught against a black conservative began in earnest.

Following the tortuous hearings, the Senate rejected Hill’s accusations and confirmed Thomas 52-48.

End of story, right? Wrong. Although Thomas became an Associate Justice, the mainstream media has continued to remind people of Hill’s accusations again and again (in a not-so-subtle attempt to discredit Thomas and his conservatism altogether).

As a matter of fact, on October 24, 2010, a full nineteen years since Thomas was confirmed, Lillian McEwen, a woman who describes herself as one of his past girlfriends, appeared on CNN’s Larry King to revisit Hill’s accusations.

When King brought up Hill’s accusations, McEwen would not denounce them. But she did tell King that when she was in a relationship with Thomas, he was a “raving alcoholic” whose worldview was framed by pornography.

While King and McEwen interacted on air, I couldn’t help but notice that he never once asked her if someone could verify her claims. In other words, he didn’t seem to care that her claims might prove as vacuous as Hill’s had nineteen years ago. Rather, he treasured the opportunity to ask leading questions that succeeded in securing what every liberal the world over wanted to see: newspaper headlines highlighting a drinking problem and a porn addiction Thomas allegedly had in years gone by. (more…)

I’ve spent much of the last two weeks on the road with the Tea Party Express anchoring the webcasting of the tour for Liberty.com.

Nice thing is, I haven’t had time to watch much TV—everything I’ve seen lately in the news has come from the web. It’s quite refreshing.

It’s also refreshing to see Americans come out with passion and homemade signs because they want to and because they are motivated to see their country return to Constitutional principles. Amazing stuff. As the activist old media searches these crowds for people they think are wackos and extremists, I see nothing but great Americans who love their country. If they are extreme, I am extreme and our Founders were extreme.

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The last-place cable news network, CNN, is the channel Wolf Blizter regularly calls “the place for politics.” It also operates a website with the motto, “all politics, all the time.” So you would expect the outlet to offer only the best and most credible analysis of the political headlines.

Last night, on the final primary election night across the country, it should be no surprise to any right thinking person that CNN opened the intellectual sluices and turned loose their political heavyweights to discuss the state of American politics. Presenting Larry King and Bill Maher.

As the political sands were shifting beneath their feet and with infomercial-like dialogue, Larry King and Bill Maher delivered what can only be described as the television version of throwing in the towel to FOX and MSNBC’s election night coverage.  The closest I can come to comparison is the now legendary dialogue between the “chef of the future” Ralph Kramden and the “chef of the past” Ed Norton in a classic Honeymooners episode: (more…)

Please Larry King, retire already and take Al Sharpton with you. Blind leading the blind (that’s a Christian reference, by the way) as King and Sharpton discussed Barack Obama’s religion last night.

Of course, they mentioned that Obama “cleared things up” in his interview with Brian Williams on NBC, but the Cold Hearted Social Engineer in the White House did anything but clear things up. Williams never asked him for answers and Obama never gave them. That interview goes down in history as one of the most vague and innocuous ever. Nothin’ asked, nothin’ said and nothin’ learned. Watch the part about religion and you will know exactly what I mean. It’s about 2:30 in and you will agree. Nothin’ said.

But, my point here is not about Obama’s religion (he did have a Christian cross covered with a black sheet during a speech at Georgetown University) but about why Al Sharpton is still the source the media goes to when searching for answers about anything.

Anybody remember Tawana Brawley? (more…)

From CNN:

Los Angeles, California (CNN) — Embattled radio talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger announced Tuesday she will not renew her contract that is up at the end of the year, telling CNN’s “Larry King Live” she wants to “regain my First Amendment rights.”

Schlessinger, 63, has been under fire for using the n-word repeatedly during an on-air conversation with a caller last week.

In announcing her decision “not to do radio anymore” after being in the business for more than 30 years, Schlessinger said, “I want to be able to say what’s on my mind and in my heart and what I think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry or some special-interest group deciding this is a time to silence a voice of dissent.”

National furor erupted when Schlessinger used the n-word 11 times in five minutes during a call August 10 with an African-American caller who was seeking advice on how to deal with racist comments from her white husband’s friends and relatives. The conversation evolved into a discussion on whether it’s appropriate to ever use the word, with Schlessinger arguing it’s used on HBO and by black comedians.

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There’s a lot of buzz on the Internet about what has been called the JournoList. This was a private e-mail list maintained by Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein of about 400 journalists, bloggers, and academics who may have colluded in aiding the election of Mr. Obama. Mr. Breitbart is the king of the alternative media and created his “Big” sites to report what was being unreported by the mainstream media. Big Journalism and Big Government are two Breitbart sites that have uncovered scoops that took weeks for the mainstream media to report. The Acorn scandal would never have come to light without this exposure. On May 10, Brad Thor posted on Big Government the capture of Taliban leader Mullah Omar in Pakistan, yet to date we haven’t heard a ripple in the mainstream media.

Mr. Breitbart offered a $100,000 reward for anyone who could provide the complete Journolist e-mail sessions and while no one has claimed that reward yet, Tucker Carlson, the editor of the DailyCaller.com, has released copies of some of the e-mail correspondence. These have been reported on the “Big” sites and Fox News. What they reveal is very disturbing to those who still naively believe that the Fourth Estate is incorruptible. Uncovered is an egregious conspiracy to slant the news for an ideological motive rather than journalistic integrity.

The mostly white, liberal, leftist group correspondence suggested ways to cover the 2008 presidential campaign that would benefit Mr. Obama and vilify the McCain/Palin team. Of course, this media bias is not news to anyone on the right, but for the first time there is concrete proof that Mr. Obama was the choice of the mainstream media, which aided and abetted his campaign. (more…)

Who should replace Larry King? Wow, the question of the decade right there!

The excitement is mounting in CNN Land these days as we ponder who should replace the legendary broadcaster who many say actually left his show years ago.

My first thoughts are either Joy Behar (she could just move across the hall from Headline News) or Michael Moore. It seems like they are on the show almost as often as Larry himself, so it would make the transition for the sensitive viewers much easier. They may not even know there has been a change.

Ahhhh, but before we put Larry to pasture I think of the great moments in Larry King history.

The night he called Andre Agassi “Pancho Gonzales.” Andre was sitting right there next to Larry and Pancho had actually been dead for more than ten years at the time. I was watching the interview live, the look on Andre’s face was priceless. (more…)

Despite all of the attention the former vice-president’s been getting for his role in the National Enquirer’s Al Gore Sex Attack scandal, Gore–or his spokespeople–have made only a couple of statements to the press. Taken together, the two statements prompt more questions about Gore’s behavior than they answer.

A few days after the National Enquirer broke its initial Al Gore Sex Attack story, the former VP, speaking through friends, seemed to have only a slight recollection of the sleazy events that allegedly took place in his Portland luxury hotel room.

According to a source friendly with the Gores, Al Gore confirmed he received a therapeutic massage in his hotel room that night, and likely from the therapist making the accusation. But, the source said, Gore remembers getting a massage without incident and the therapist leaving on good terms.

In fact, New York magazine headlined their June 25 account of the above information with  Al Gore Recalls a Pleasant, Uneventful Massage. (more…)

Appearing on Larry King Live last evening to honor the retiring host, former vice president Al Gore spoke publicly for the first time since the National Enquirer reported he was investigated for soliciting sex from a masseuse in a Portland, Oregon hotel.

It was all a misunderstanding. I was indeed staying at the Hotel Lucia that night.  Checking my e-mail on the lobby computer, I found an anonymous message, with attachments, claiming prominent climatologists I’d been working with had been fudging numbers.

Visibly disturbed, I printed the material and started for my suite to study it in private when the night manager asked if he could help.  In jest, I replied, yes, find someone skilled in massaging climate data and send that person to my room.

Later, someone knocked on my door.  It was the masseuse.  She told me she had never massaged data before, but she thought shiatsu and a light touch on the keyboard would do the trick.  When I explained the mix-up, she laughed.  We talked a bit, and she left.  End of story.

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And so it ends, not with a bang but a Tweet: Larry King, a fixture at CNN since God Almighty was a pup, has announced he’s ending his show in the fall. According to Variety:

Here’s what he said at the start of Tuesday night’s show:

Before I start the show tonight, I want to share some personal news with you. 25 years ago, I sat across this table from New York Governor Mario Cuomo for the first broadcast of “Larry King Live.”

Now, decades later, I talked to the guys here at CNN and I told them I would like to end “Larry King Live,” the nightly show, this fall and CNN has graciously accepted, giving me more time for my wife and I to get to the kids’ little league games.

I’ll still be a part of the CNN family, hosting several Larry King specials on major national and international subjects.

I’m incredibly proud that we recently made the Guinness Book of World Records for having the longest running show with the same host in the same time slot. With this chapter closing I’m looking forward to the future and what my next chapter will bring, but for now it’s time to hang up my nightly suspenders.

Over at Mediaite, they’ve got a nice wrapup of King’s announcement: (more…)

The mythical figure of the war correspondent has a special place in the history of American journalism. The images are indelibly etched in memory: Edward R. Murrow broadcasting live while Nazi planes showered London with bombs; Ernie Pyle telling the personal stories of life in the trenches and ultimately paying for those stories with his life; and in today’s war with the jihadists, Michael Yon’s amazing reports from Afghanistan. This kind of fearless reporting made for journalist-heroes: courageous men and women that all Americans could admire.

Contrast Murrow, Pyle, et al with the cowards populating today’s mainstream media outlets. Everyone in the media today – whether new or old – is a war correspondent, in fact if not in name. The war is here, around the globe and most of all within our borders, courtesy of bullies and thugs who have spent the better part of thirteen centuries killing non-believers and trying to force a backward, hateful ideology cloaked in the robes of religion upon the world. Yet, though this war includes not only body counts, but ultimately threatens the existence of the free press itself, the mainstream media meekly cowers as the foundations of free speech and a free society are worn away by Islamic gangsters. (more…)

Castro’s Stalinist regime just released pictures of 16-year-old Elian Gonzalez, resplendent in the uniform of a Communist Party youth. The timing of the photo release may coincide with the tenth anniversary of Elian’s shanghaiing from the U.S.

The magnitude and methodology of  the snow-job Fidel Castro, with the aid of his ever-faithful  MSM and Democrat allies, pulled on the American public (69, per cent of whom  fell for it and  embraced Castro’s position on the kidnapping) is partly explained here.

Thanks to MSM-Castroite collusion most  people forget  (or missed) the crucial legal and ethical details of this circus/tragedy– which were mostly established during the first week after Elian’s rescue at sea, after his heroic mother’s drowning. The “son-belongs-with-his-father” crowd, for instance, “missed” (with the help of the MSM) that Elian’s father was initially delighted that his motherless son was in the U.S. and in the loving arms of his uncles and cousins.

The evidence—frantically buried by the mainstream media—was overwhelming.  Mauricio Vincent, a reporter for Madrid newspaper El Pais, wrote that during that first week he’d visited Elian’s home town of Cardenas and talked with Elian’s father, Juan Miguel, along with other family members and friends. All confirmed that Juan Miguel had always longed for his son Elian to flee to the United States. Shortly after Elian’s rescue, his father had even applied for a U.S. visa!

In phone call after phone call from Elian’s Cuban family to Elian’s Miami family, the Cuban Gonzalez family always made themselves very clear:  “Please take care of Elian. His father’s on the way….even if he has to row over in a washtub.” (more…)

Wasilla, Alaska (UIP)— Shocking news last night as former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin announced that she is following in the footsteps of the noble senator from Pennsylvania, Arlen Specter, and is switching parties to become a Democrat.

This news comes just five days after Palin appeared as the keynote speaker at a Tea Party rally in Searchlight, Nev., where she appeared in her former guise as an angry white female and told the crowd of at least a dozen or so people that she was tired of government intrusion into her life and that she was going to do everything she could to “send Harry Reid back to Searchlight where he would be lucky to be elected as part-time street sweeper.”

Sometime since then, Palin said, she had an epiphany and realized “the weather of Nevada must’ve unfrozen my cold, steely Alaskan heart,” and that she had awakened from her icy slumber of neocon-ism.  “What the hell was I thinking?” She also resigned as a Fox News contributor, effective immediately.

Reaction was swift from the Democrats across the nation. (more…)

Try to control your astonishment, but the news is not good for CNN, the Least-Watched Name in News.  From TV Newser:

CNN hit new low viewership totals during prime time Friday night (8-11pm) in both Total Viewers and A25-54 viewers.

Sure, the opening of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver had something to do it.  But even so –

Up against NBC’s Olympic Opening Ceremony coverage, CNN averaged just 85,000 A25-54 viewers during Campbell Brown (8p), Larry King (9p) and Anderson Cooper (10p). An average that low has not been seen since May, 23, 2001. And the Total Viewer average of 382,000 was the lowest since Dec. 23, 2005.

The other guys must have taken a hit, too — right? (more…)