Here They Come: Chung, Nachman, Donahue, Buchanan

"Hey, I'm back," Donahue says with a certain demented look – you wouldn't want this guy anywhere near the knives in your kitchen.

Free speech for Donahue, that is. As those who remember his old syndicated talk program know, free speech meant Donahue speech.

It was bad enough that Donahue invented toilet-Springer TV, with his "lesbian nuns who like to roller skate" programs.

Donahue's idea of free speech on such programs usually meant three liberals with one, inarticulate conservative trying to explain why the Catholic Church might not see roller-skating lesbian nuns as a good thing.

Who cares about free speech when you are as left-wing as Phil? Phil Donahue is so far left he makes Alan Colmes look like a rational moderate.

Yet the Donahue dinosaur was resurrected as a result of the success of Fox News Channel.

Since January of this year, Fox has trampled titan CNN and new fish MSNBC in ratings.

Neither has figured out a clear strategy to beat Fox, which appeals to Republican-leaning viewers in America's heartland.

Certainly the success of Fox News has added more diversity and fresh debate to MSNBC and CNN.

MSNBC this week will be launching Jerry Nachman's new program. Jerry is a solid citizen and his program should be a success. He likes to break taboos.

He did that this weekend with a test run of his program. He had his friend, a New York priest, on the show. Jerry had the priest bless his program and set. Pretty amazing stuff for network TV circa 2002.

MSNBC is bringing Bill Press and Pat Buchanan back on the air this week. The program should be superb, if for no other reason than Buchanan's voice should be part of the national debate.

And CNN has dramatically improved its standing with the likes of Paula Zahn and Connie Chung. Neither is conservative, but both have a reputation for being fair.

Chung sometimes rankles conservatives – and that can be a good thing. She often asks hard questions that also annoy liberals, which is why I like her. She is one of the few "journalists" actually populating the news programs on the cable shows.

But CNN, which has tried to enhance its credibility by bringing in respected journalists like Brown, Zahn and Chung, also has taken steps that completely undermine its standing.

For example, the network has James Carville and Paul Begala on its premier debate program, "Crossfire." Both men are nothing more than political hatchet men. No journalism background. No pretense of fairness.

Somehow it's OK for major news networks to hire former Democratic operatives and make them "journalists." ABC News recently made George Stephanopoulos, Bill Clinton's one-time mouthpiece, its top man on "This Week."

But imagine the cries of derision and hysterics from the liberal media if a Republican, such as Karl Rove, was given the anchor of a major news program.

So, Fox has improved the standing of conservative-leaning folks in the media and forced the media cartel to open up a bit. Still, the left dominates and continues to write the rules.

Here's what they're saying about Chung's show -- in the SF Chronic, no less:

CNN's Chung just dead weight
TIM GOODMAN
Monday, July 15, 2002
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle.

URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/07/15/DD51629.DTL

Pasadena -- Getting spun is just part of the program of sitting down here listening to networks talk about themselves. What are they going to say -- we're lousy across the board? No. Even if they are lousy across the board, they will find a few positive numbers and try to stick them on your face with glue and paper.

That's fine by most critics here. Bring it on. We expect it. Lots of practice has honed our ability to cut through it. So when CNN veered away from what it had a distinct right to brag about -- that it does good journalism, that it has a better news gathering machine than any other network and a verifiable commitment to news that goes beyond cheap studio talk -- it was almost insulting.

Do executives there really think we're dumb enough to believe Connie Chung is doing important journalism for the channel? Apparently. As a reminder, they passed out a flier of her "exclusives" and previous guests and topics.

The list read partly like sleaze, partly like ego puffery based on nothing of substance, and partly like cheap spin meant to remind us at the very last second to Vote Connie.

Too bad this session came a couple of hours after a riotously funny, brilliantly delivered bit from Comedy Central's Jon Stewart, who was a guest on Chung's first show, a rocky start by all accounts except Chung's. It included her apparently serious question about whether Stewart, who "anchors" Comedy Central's "Daily Show", which spoofs network news, had ever been asked to anchor CBS's "Evening News" or ABC's "World News Tonight."

Stewart gave a hilarious, non-verbal Tex Avery cartoon imitation of how he felt -- all bug-eyed, head-shaking, lip-shivering, tongue-hanging out, heart- beating-out-of-chest incredulousness.

Point: Chung is out of her mind.

Back in the CNN session, we found Teya Ryan -- the network's executive vice president and general manager -- continuing her bulldog-fierce support of Chung and blindly dismissing the idea that a tabloid sensibility reeks on most topics Chung covers. Pedophilia? Missing children? Drunk airline pilots? Enron employees posing nude? Nah. It's the news of the day. It chose us.

For his part, Walter Isaacson, Chairman and CEO of the CNN News Group said, "Man, that's a cool show."

OK, stop. We can buy into the argument Isaacson makes about being second to the glossy, opinionated Fox News -- "Emphasizing straight and decent journalism is not the easiest path to popularity," he said. CNN will be No. 1 on terms that don't erase its credibility. It won't sell out, etc.

All great stuff and a fine motto. But getting Chung was an ill-advised bit of desperation meant to keep up with the Joneses, something CNN seems panicked about. Chung's show is bad. We know that. The CNN execs claim not to. Hell, even Jon Stewart knows that.

So it was a little insulting for people who had otherwise made sensible and admirable claims about CNN's lofty journalistic goals to, all of a sudden, clump Chung in the same group. This is a woman who would pull her car over on the way to the Pulitzer party to cover a carnival sideshow.

And how weird was it that CNN announced it was picking up Stewart's "Daily Show" and repackaging it as "The Daily Show: Global Edition," and sending it to 161 million homes in 200 countries?

"The Daily Show" is, after all, a spoof of the news.

Asked whether CNN should be concerned that people in other countries just might take his show, um, seriously, Stewart said, "That's an excellent question and one that I should answer -- not the head of CNN."

And, asked whether he thought CNN didn't get the joke (because, obviously Chung sure hadn't), Stewart said, "I can't speak for them -- oh, what the hell,

let me speak for them: They don't get it. They think it's cute. They don't understand that we're actually angry at them."

Uproarious laughter is a good thing, and we got a lot of it there. Maybe -- and this isn't a joke -- CNN should have just hired Stewart instead of Chung. At least "The Daily Show" hasn't done overkill on the Elizabeth Smart story.

In TV news of a different kind, HBO -- about the only network that doesn't really need to spin critics -- didn't have a lot to announce. The channel said there won't be any make-up episodes of "Sex and the City" -- just eight this season, period. David Chase, creator of "The Sopranos," said he would definitely not be involved with the series past five seasons (the fourth season premieres Sept. 15) and the cast agreed with him.

And yes, there were clips of the coming season (edited so as not to give away plot developments). They looked -- how to say this without creating undue excitement based on just a few minutes? -- really, really great.

Buchanan should be part of the debate because we need at least one person who realizes that there is no such thing as a war on an abstract noun.

The War on Terror, like the War on Poverty and the War on Drugs, and unlike the War Against Germany or Japan, is not meant to be won. It is a meaningless, open-ended declaration against various enemies du jour, which will eventually encompass domestic gun owners. It is a mere ploy to justify the further rape of the taxpayer.

Since, as the government says, the members of al-Qaida are responsible for the 9/11 attacks, they should be hunted down and shot, and their corpses displayed on TV surrounded by a ring of cheering Marines. But that is not the government's object. Otherwise it would send in forces to close with and kill these men. Instead, it designated the Taliban as the "real" enemy, hired the Northern Alliance and Pakistan as proxies, and dropped laser-guided bombs on metal sheds. For all we know, the men who may have conceived and financed the attack remain at large. Tragically in fact, it appears that those primarily responsible for the planning and execution of an operation which required no more than several thousand dollars in flight training and the purchase of some box cutters and airline tickets killed themselves in the execution of their perverse, evil plot.

Don't buy into the government's "War." They are just trying to distract you from their own crimes.

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